JOE decided to chart the progress of a couple, Yvonne Bermingham and Jonathan Sheehy who have set themselves the target of losing weight as part of the Weight Watchers challenge. Here is their first diary entry.
Name: Yvonne Bermingham
Age: 33
Start weight: 18stone
Target weight: 16 stone.
The reason I have decided to take part in this JOE.ie Weight Watchers challenge is that I feel I am the heaviest I have ever been. I’m 6ft tall so I can get away with hiding my weight a lot but lately I find it’s getting harder and harder.
I am also doing this because my weight loss is monitored every week so I can’t lie to myself. In addition, I am doing this challenge with my fiancée so I feel it will be a lot easier with the two of us doing it so that we can support each other. In the past I have tried different fad diets and shakes and I manage to lose some weight but find it very hard to stick to the strictest of diets, I feel with this it will allow me to change my lifestyle for good not just for a few weeks .
I started off the challenge this week and it was my first time at a Weight Watchers meeting and thankfully it wasn’t as daunting as I had expected it to be. We were greeted by Marie who headed the meeting and I found her very helpful throughout and the first thing she did was to bring me over to the dreaded scales, where I weighed in at 18 stone.
The next step was getting our programme info packs and we were told our personal daily ProPoints which for me is 46 ProPoints. Every day I’ll write down the ProPoints I’ve used after I eat and I have a book to keep a log of it all. It may take me a while to get used to all this tracking!
After everyone had their weigh in, Marie started the meeting. This week’s meeting was about how to not get carried away over the Bank Holiday weekend and how we get less active at the weekend. You are also given 49 weekly ProPoints to use, this way if you want to have a few glasses of wine or a beer or if you fancy a meal out you can.
I think this will motivate me to stick to my daily ProPoints. I think I’ll find it challenging for the first few weeks however I’m hoping it will get easier after that and it will become part of my lifestyle. I may cut out sugar in my tea and cereals, I will also be cutting out fizzy drinks, and will have try to eat less potatoes and more veg. I’ll let you know how I get on next week and hopefully I’ll be a pound or maybe two lighter.
Name: Jonathan Sheehy
Age: 30
Start weight: 18 stone 5 pounds
Target weight:17 stone
The reason I wanted to do this challenge is that I am sick of trying to lose weight and lie to myself by saying that I’ll do more tomorrow so with JOE.ie I have to write a blog and my progress will be seen by others. It’s going to be tough with other people watching my progress but it will make me more determined to succeed and get my weight under control.
Today was my first time at a Weight Watchers meeting. Marie officially weighed me in at 18 stone and 6 pounds and told me my healthy long term goal would be 12 stone 6 pounds. She advised me for my current weight, height, age and gender my daily ProPoints allowance is 54.
After the weigh-in Marie started the meeting asking people how they were getting on and explained that this time of year brings temptation with Halloween around the corner and how we could lose our way with sweet things over the Bank Holiday. She explained that Monday was just a normal day and not an extra day of the weekend.
After the meeting was over she spent time with me to go through the ProPoints plan. As I mentioned, I have 54 daily ProPoints and 49 ProPoints for any time, like the weekend. Maire went through the Weight Watchers book which has recipes and meal suggestions with guidelines of how many ProPoints are in what. I looked through it and said to myself that I’ll have to change my diet completely so I’ll switch to drinking low fat milk, eat fruit (which I never eat) and stop putting butter on my spuds.
It’s going to be really different but can’t wait for the challenge.
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