You choose to lose!

AND with the immortal words "you choose to lose" ringing in my ears, I left my first ever WeightWatchers meeting on Thursday night, almost bent double with the amount of leaflets, booklets and money off low-fat cheese coupons they bestowed upon me.

It was scary, but I did it. I stood on a scales in front of a roomful of strangers and let a woman I'd never seen before read my weight and the sky didn't fall in. Nobody laughed. Nobody pointed. The leader told me that I'd never be that weight again, that's what the class is all about. It felt good.

I'll be following a points system, where I'm allocated a certain number of points a day (25 in my case) and once I stick within that, I should lose weight. The book says I "WILL" lose weight, but being the cynical hack that I am, I'll 'weight' and see. Sorry, couldn't resist the pun there!

There was a 30-minute weigh-in and then a 30 minute talk with information about food that's really low-fat and rogue food that's not low-fat at all. (Beware the word 'lite' cos half the time the product isn't 'lite' at all. Just a little pearl of wisdom for you!) It was interesting stuff and I'm sure I'll have loads of questions next week.

Off I tottered to the supermarket this afternoon to stock up on some more fruit and veg as well as low-fat butter and cheese, low-fat wraps, turkey rashers, ham, chicken and WeightWatchers ready meals. I also bought WW chocolate chip cookies, chocolate mousse and low-fat crisps [only two points a bag!] so I'm not being totally deprived of sweets and snacks. The great thing about the programme I'm following is that if I choose to blow my entire 25 points on a greasy Chinese meal, then I can. I just know that if I want to lose weight, I can't have anything else to eat that day. I choose not to do this, I'd rather eat several meals than just one big one, but at least I know the choice is there.

That's what bugged me about other diets I tried, the fact that I was limited in what I could eat or I had to cut out a certain food group (I lasted three days on the Atkins Diet before diving literally head first into the Gotham Cafe and hollering 'pasta pesto, large, now, with garlic bread and a side order of potatoes...and rice...nooooowwww!). This way I can have bread and cereal and pasta and noodles and sausages and sweets and cakes and biscuits and milk and, God, everything! I just have to count the value of what I eat and drink and make sure not to go over my points limit.

It took me a while to do my shopping because I had to work out the points value of everything, but as I get used to the system, I'll whizz around no problem. WW also advocates a 'switch' mentality whereby you switch the full-fat version of something for the low-fat version - makes sense to me. So far I've switched to low-fat milk, cheese, bread and butter and it's amazing how many points you save and being really honest the only difference I've noticed is the butter...it just doesn't taste the same. But it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make. (I know, I'm practically a saint, I'm thinking of writing to the Vatican and seeing if I can get myself beatified!)

You also can earn bonus points by exercising and cos I walked for 20 minutes today I earned myself another point, which I can eat today or save for the weekend. (Possibly for a nice vodka..mmmm!)

Just to give you a little taste (groan Kaz, another pun) of my diet, so far today I've eaten: a bowl of cornflakes with low-fat milk and a glass of orange juice; a wrap with chicken, tomato and cucumber and a bottle of water; a WW ready meal of Special Chow Mein; two chocolate chip cookies, a chocolate mousse and a cup of tea. That comes to 16 and a half points and I intend to have an apple later (half a point) and some crisp breads/crackers with cheese, tomato and cucumber (about three/four points I think) as well before I go to bed. Meaning I'll stay UNDER my 25 points and can carry the remainder over to tomorrow (again will probably save them to have a drink in the evening!) Not bad don't you think? I know it's not "full Irish breakfast followed by a McDonald's and then duck in plum sauce with egg fried rice along with crisps, chocolate and coke" but it was all tasty enough, I got to eat biscuits and chocolate and I feel like I've been eating all day.

So that's about it. It's only been one day but I've stuck to it and I think I'll continue to be able to stick to it. I'm already excited about next week's meeting, to see how much I've lost. I'm hoping it'll be 3lbs, but that might be overly ambitious, as they say you'll probably lose 1-2lbs a week. But I'm hoping for the magic three. So keep your fingers crossed readers, and remember don't feed the elephant!