Let me just begin my post sharing how grateful I am for my Saturday Morning Weight Watchers (WW) Meeting. I am part of a supportive and caring community and that makes all the difference. I am blown away by the generosity of the group.  We trust each other to share our ups and downs as we all follow our own paths to get to goal (or to stay at goal).  Plus, I get to do this all with my sister, who I love more than I can say. It’s strange to write this, but if I didn’t have to lose weight, I would be missing all this quality time with her and my WW friends. So, maybe needing to lose weight is a blessing:

I lost weight again this week and bit by bit I am getting closer to my goal every week.  After the meeting, my sister and I went to Trader Joe’s and then I bought myself a cool new pair of Adidas sneakers (truth is my sister encouraged me to do it). I’ve been telling her for weeks that I want them. Hey, I’m all for a little retail therapy once in a while (a topic of discussion at my WW meeting :D):

I keep thinking about the ups and downs of a weight loss process. For me, recently, it’s been more “ups” than “downs.” Why? Is it this blog, refocusing me to reflect on my feelings? Maybe. Is it because I’m feeling better? Possible. Is it because I see the scale moving down? It could be.

Then I think about whether this time (you see, I’ve lost a lot of weight in the past) is different. I think it definitely is.  I think the difference is that I’m totally opening up my heart to the process of what it takes to get to goal. Opening up your heart means letting others in, and not being afraid to be vulnerable.  What I’ve learned from last time to this is time is that I know that I will never totally beat this. I will always have to be mindful about healthy living. That said, I now believe that can learn how to live in a way that I can be successful.

Anyway, thank you thank you for reading. My wish for you is that you take some time to reflect on your journey, then find someone to share your thoughts. Be unabashedly vulnerable because that is real empowerment and ownership – that is how you really go beyond the scale.