Choosing an anchor

I was able to go to my WW meeting today and it felt good.  I haven't been able to go for a few weeks due to my son's soccer games, as well as my own negative feelings about my weight.  I felt I had a good week and was ready to face the WW scale again.  As I have written before, I average my scales...I have my old scale which I refer to as the "mean" scale that adds a pound or two to what the WW scale says, then I have the new "nice" WW endorsed scale, which seems to take a pound or two off.  I find I enjoy the harshness of the "mean" scale so that I am surprised at WW rather than the kindness of the "nice" scale which leaves me pissed on the WW scale.  So for the past few weeks I have been averaging my weight between the two scales as logic would suggest this would get me a truer prediction of what I will weigh on the WW scale.  The lowest I saw this week was 204, but for the past few days I have been 205.  I went to my WW meeting eager to see if my scale routine would match up and it did!  the WW scale had me at 205 as well. YAY!

So the kicker is being able to hold on to that.  I always seem to creep back up to about 208 once I come down this low.  I have to combat that.  My Winning Outcome/SMART Goal due date is soon approaching, as is my birthday.  I would love to be able to give myself the gift of being under 200lbs by my birthday!  That is 6lbs between now and May 6th.  Hmmm..."6lbs by the 6th!"  I want that so bad!

I am a multitasker.  I cannot sit in any sort of meeting and not be doing something simultaneously.  So what I tried today was to add to my weight loss scrapbook while listening to the meeting.  I brought my scissors and glue and I always bring WW materials to the meeting to review anyhow so I selected one and cut out various bits and glued them in while listening to the leader talk.  Today I glued in bits about eating out and portion sizes.

Tool for Living #8: Anchoring
From the WW site: "When sticking to the plan is tough, that's when you need Anchoring, a process for creating cues and triggers to remind yourself of your weight goal and the inner resources you have to achieve it."

1. Identify the inner resource you need to respond the way you want. 
2. Remember a time when you had that inner resource. Think about the circumstances that surrounded you. See what you saw, hear what you heard and feel what you felt at that time. 
3. Choose an anchor that will bring you back to that time in an instant: a mental picture, a word, a gesture or an object. 
4. Then, remember again that time when you had that strong inner resource. When the feeling you had then is strong within you, connect it to your Anchor. 
5. Use your Anchor by itself. Did it work? Are you in touch with your resource? If not, keep repeating Step 4 until your Anchor grounds you when times are rough. 

The anchor that comes to mind when I think on this is one of my many wedding pictures.  My long term goal is to weigh what I weighed at my wedding.  I know some would say that is  unreasonable, but I really don't think it is.  I think the official weight for my height is unreasonable.  I am 5'6" and the official weight for my height is about 150lbs.  I haven't weighed that since I was 16.  For my wedding I lost 30 pounds on Lindora and got to 170lbs.  I still felt fat then, but overall I felt it was the best I had ever looked in my adult life.  I think on all my wedding photos and smile as I recall how trim I looked, how small my waist appeared and I love it.  I have always been thick in the rear, hips and legs, but in that big wedding dress, those flaws were lost...I loved that!  So I think the best anchor for me when I need to draw on some inner strength is the day I was married.  It was a glorious day on so many levels and I never felt so beautiful in all of my life.