[pics from my health and fitness journey Instagram: @themarygrahameats]
I’ve shared before about my weight loss journey. I’ve been doing Weight Watchers since June 1, 2012, but not consistently. I do it in spurts for 3-4 months at a time and then stop tracking my food for a while. Somewhere in my head there’s this idea that I can’t maintain my weight loss, that I don’t have the skills and control to do it without my handy Weight Watchers app.
So I take a break to test myself. And I gain a pound or two, but I don’t go crazy, I remember what I learned and I feel less anxiety about my weight loss. I know that sounds weird, but it’s true.
At the beginning of July, I started back again on Weight Watchers committing to get to my goal weight of 155 before I stopped again. I’ve got about nine more pounds to go as of Saturday. I’m leaning toward another goal once I get to 155, but we’ll see what happens with that when I get there. One of my downfalls is planning too far ahead and setting myself up for failure. Small goals help me be successful.
One thing that has made the difference on this last go-around with Weight Watchers is Instagram. I had randomly been following some inspiring people that helped kick my butt in gear. I was so encouraged by them that I started a separate account to post my food, my workouts, and my weigh-ins.
At first I just thought I’d do it for myself. Actually seeing what I was eating everyday made a difference and helped me make better choices. But soon, I started gaining followers, being encouraged by people I didn’t know, and getting advice from people trying to make healthier choices. It became this little community where I could go if I needed meal ideas, a kick in the butt to get me to the gym, or resolve to make it through the day when all I really wanted to do was make bad choices.
I had no idea that Instagram could be such a powerful tool. That it could be more than a place to look at pretty pictures and see what someone was wearing and what everybody’s cute kids were doing. I don’t want to say it’s been magical because that sounds dramatic and over-the-top, but it’s been magical. And just what I needed to keep going on this journey to be a fit and healthy mama.
Here are some of my favorite Weight Watchers or health and fitness-focused Instagram users:
This is seriously what I needed to read today to keep me on track,thank you,so inspiring!I just started back up weight watchers and going to the gym regularly for the past 2 weeks and I am so ready to be healthy again 🙂 so following on istagram to keep me motivated 🙂
I love following you and its given me some great meal ideas for myself. I am a TERRIBLE SNACKER and I love sweets. My biggest downfalls.
This is a great post!! Congratulations on your progress thus far!!
I’ve been back and forth about creating a separate instagram account strictly to chronicle my health journey. I post food pics and workouts along with other pics from my daily life on my current IG account but I’m wondering if some of my followers get tired of the exercise and food pics lol. I’m torn between creating a new account because a) it seems hard managing two accounts and b) I already have a good amount of followers on my current account.
What do you think?
I would say go for it. I do log in and log out of my two accounts multiple times a day, but it’s not that big of a deal. When I first started the health account, I let all my personal account followers know and they could come over to the new one if they wanted to. Some of them did and some of them didn’t. But I like having two accounts and on the second one, I follow all the health-related accounts I like and can always log in and find motivation or inspiration. I like the division. Plus, for me, I post things like current weight and what workout I did at the gym and some people on my personal account (like family members or friends from church, especially males), don’t really want to hear that info. Or see it. Ha! So I say try two and if you don’t like it, you can always delete it. 🙂 And let me know if you start it, I’d love to follow you!