Anchors, Away!

The topic a couple of weeks ago at WW was anchors: as in, what is my anchor? While I do seem well entrenched in program, I'm not sure that I've totally embraced anchoring. I usually get back into WW in stages, and some of the tools (or "tools", as I like to call them) are more for mocking than using. Or maybe that's one of the ways I shoot myself in the foot: not totally doing program.

But this time I have been pretty contemplative. I want this to be the last time I have 50 lbs to lose, and I want to get to lifetime and stay there. So I willing to be open, and to acknowledge that a million-dollar company with lots of researchers and dough behind it might just be onto something. 

The last couple of times I've done this successfully, I have basically used an Excel spreadsheet as my anchor. This was more an exercise of what could be than something that helped. I would track my weight and have scenarios of what it would be if I lost a certain weight per week, when would I reach my goal. But much of the time this was just frustrating and not helpful. Looking at what could have been after a "bad" week is not helpful. Having such a concrete goal that does not account for reality, like water weight or heat or being sick and not going to the gym just seemed to send me on benders of feeling like a failure.

I am on my third 10% key chain. The first one is the only one I got for having lost 10% sequentially, and sometimes I feel like it was the only honest one I earned. But last week, after reaching a low weight I have not seen in over 3 years, I allowed myself to earn a 25# charm, my second. And I acknowledged that even if I didn't lose the weight consecutively, it was earned, perhaps the hard way: in small steps forward and backward.

So I was looking at my keychain with its two 25 pound charms, and my Ganesh charm, and my namaste charm, and it occurred to me that it was, indeed, my anchor. The 2 WW pieces remind me of my journey, with all its ups and downs. Ganesh reminds me that I don't want to be a fat elephant-headed person with an enormous tummy (not really a threat, but still...). And my namaste charm reminds me that I need to chill more and not be so obsessive or stressed out. I drive everyday, and I use my keys multiple times. They will do perfectly as an anchor.