I can’t believe I’m even going to admit this out loud, but here goes… My name is Melissa, and I’m a Weight Watcher. Yes, I signed on last Sunday and began first thing that Monday morning. I am just so determined to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight, and after hours and hours on that elliptical machine, I was definitely starting to see (and feel!) a difference, but it’s the food part that was going to do me in. In the past three years, I’ve become so accustomed to eating for two that I don’t even know what a normal portion looks like any more. (Note: I gained 70 pounds with my first pregnancy and 40 with my second. So I’ve literally gained and lost an entire person in three years. Wow. That’s something.)

I was on the eating plan from Body After Baby for about a week. But whoa, I cannot live on steamed broccoli, brown rice and salmon. Ugh. And 15 raw almonds is a snack? Please. I love food way too much to stick to a plan like that. Although I will readily admit that I learned quite a bit about not only portion sizes but nutrition in general. Honestly, though? I’d rather have two mouse-sized bites of a gourmet white pizza baked in a real brick oven than all of the steamed broccoli in the world. Enough said.

In the first full week on WW, I have lost close to two pounds. And this was with a pretty hefty amount of “cheating.” I figured if I didn’t log it on my food journal, than surely I didn’t really digest it, right? Must work on that this week. NO CHEATING. Well, maybe just a little.

But I know this is a topic that so many moms are constantly thinking about. How the heck to you get enough food into your system to keep up with the demands of motherhood, hands down the most challenging job out there, when you are busy with the day-to-day of raising a family? Sometimes all I’m going to get to eat at lunch is the three left-over bites of my daughter’s Annie’s Shells & White Cheddar mac & cheese. As long as I know what the points value is on that, I really know I’m going to be OK.