I’m A Loser! March 6th

If you’re just tuning in, yours truly finally bit the bullet and joined a weight loss program called Noom in December. If you’re not familiar with Noom (and probably you’re healthy and in great shape so you’ve never heard of it) it’s a subscription-based app for tracking a person’s food intake and exercise habits. The company’s schtick is that they are known for their emphasis on behavioral change and mental wellness. In a nutshell, you log your food, understand your behavior through quick daily tutorials and Q&A sessions, and learn to change your habits to crush your goals.

I won’t dare bore you with my newfound love of cucumbers because I’ve always adored them, but I guess I temporarily forgot that they contain so much water and are practically calorie free. But the best part is that they fill me up so much that I can crunch my way to happiness with a few kirbys a day instead of reaching for the overprocessed junk drawer of crispy addictive dream killers. I’m not going to tell you that this program is magic. It’s not. It is a huge commitment to health and better habits, but I find myself excited to make good choices every day. And I look forward to weighing myself each morning to track my progress– something I’ve either dreaded or avoided altogether for the past few years since the scale has not been friendly in quite some time. (My favorite scale joke? You step on and the scale says, “Come back when you’re alone!” Yep, still funny.)

I’ve been looking at food differently– and I don’t mean winking at the vanilla frosted sheet cakes or quietly hitting on the Cool Ranch Doritos on aisle two in the grocery store. (Cause that would be wrong!) I mean that I make different choices now because I know that the calories I’m allotted have to last me the whole day. So if I eat a bacon, egg, and cheese croissant for breakfast (which I am allowed to do but not encouraged to do) I will have to make do with just a few hundred calories for the rest of the day. Or if I have cookies for lunch, that will quickly dilute any sensible dinner strategy I had planned. So I’m very motivated to space out the food, fill up on as much veggies as I can, and keep my blood sugar steady all day.

The most amazing thing that’s happened so far is that I’ve kicked sugar! I still love chocolate, cake, cookies, brownies, ice cream, pudding, biscuits, pastries, and candy, but now I can avoid those foods and not crave them. This took weeks of reduction to the point of avoidance, but ta-da!! Sugar no longer controls me. I don’t miss the high from all the sweets and I certainly don’t miss the crash when the feeling used to wear off.

Anyone who’s ever dieted, fasted, joined a cleanse or been on a program knows that when you’re watching every celery stalk and calorie, the funniest memes ever start to populate your feed. Apparently a lot of them have to deal with Jesus too. Know what I mean?

So through this (projected) eight-month journey, I will be competing with myself to hit my goal weight sooner than the app has predicted. I’m not going to describe in detail each meal I have or stand on a soap box to say this program is for everyone. What I will do is share some of my experiences and hopefully motivate just one of you to start doing whatever it is you’ve been putting off.

So it is with enormous pride that I can announce that at the end of month one, I’ve already hit a double-digit loss! My expansion into the foodieverse has proven a nice contraction on the scale. And my success is all thanks to Noom. (And my sorority sister Debbie who was the catalyst and inspo for my start. Deb lost 130 pounds on Noom and now weights 130 pounds! Wooohooooo!! She is amazing.)