I'm no longer afraid

.... of the scale. I used to hide the dreaded scale under my bed to make sure I never saw it. I started gaining weight in 6th grade when I moved from my beloved private school to a public school. In my mother's defense, I chose to move after grade five because I wanted to follow my older sister and be with her wherever she was. You see, at that time in this town there was only one private school and it went up to grade six. I may have been able to prevent all this extra weight had I stayed in that private school for one more year. It's too late to think about what 'could' have happened. Over the years, I got depressed, gained more weight, got married, lost weight, got divorced, gained weight... etc. Bottomline is, I'm overweight and I've been ignoring it for years. 

43 days ago my colleague and baking-friend Gwen and I decided to stop abusing ourselves. Since we're both food-lovers we decided to share our struggles and food cravings. She started following Atkins and I joined Weightwatchers . By God it's probably the best thing that has ever happened to me. I lost 9 lb since I started even though I got sick and stopped exercising for five days. Gwen on the other hand lost 16 lb because she's following Atkins. I'm cool with that.

The reason Weightwatchers works for me is because I have an obsession with numbers and calculators. The idea of putting in numbers and watching them add up everyday was just too appealing. I have an account (I pay something like 16$ a month I think.. who cares) and I have to confess to my PC every morning how much food I ate. I have to measure every single drop of anything that goes into my big fat mouth. It's so much fun. I can build recipes and measure exercise and swap exercise for extra food points. Then every Monday I have to confess my weight. I'd probably join Weightwatchers even if I were skinny just to play with those numbers. At the moment, I'm allowed 38 points a day (food allowance). Fruit and veg are 0 points. A tiny slice of nutella cheesecake is 20 points. I used to make that damn recipe and eat a large piece with a cup of coffee in the afternoon when I had guests without thinking twice. Little did I know that it was equal to a full day's allowance in calories. I learn new things everyday!