I'm In

That was what went through my head the other day when I read this blog post.

As I think I've mentioned before, I'd really like to lose a few pounds. I don't think I'm overweight or anything, but it would be nice to slim down just a bit. Especially when I've seen the number on the scale (not to mention my pant size) go up a little bit each year since I got married three years ago.

It is a trajectory I'd like to curb.

I've tried to do the Weight Watchers thing on my own a few times. I have all the materials - the books, pamphlets, and "Point Counter" slidey things. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the system, WW awards every type of food a point value, and then gives each person a certain number of points allowed for each day. My magic number is 21. Each time I ate something, I looked up the point value in a very book, wrote it down, and kept a running count of the day's points.

And without fail I got pretty bogged down in the details. It really is an obnoxious and tedious process, but I didn't feel like forking over the cash to sign up and (even worse) go to weekly weight loss sessions at a WW location.

And then I read that I can join Weight Watchers online! And they have a nifty website that keeps tabs on food for me. It is excellent - I can type in the brand of spray-on balsamic dressing I use, and it immediately pulls it up, along with the point value. And it just so happens that one has a point value of 0 - score! And meals that I often eat? Well, for breakfast I often eat Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal (with milk) along with coffee and a little sugar. I can save that to my little website as a "meal" and pull it up quickly whenever I eat it. Foods that I eat often? Easily find-able. Ahh... wonderful.

May from Good Girl Lit even goes so far as to call it a "Girl Video Game." I don't know that I would go that far, but I am pretty impressed.

Granted, I'll still have to watch what I eat and record it each day. But now that I've invested $65 for 3 months I'm going to get my money's worth, dang it. And now that I'm armed with meal suggestions, easy point tracking, and the motivation to exercise (more points, baby!), I'm excited to see what happens.