"You've got to get your mind right."
That was the advice Captain, Road Prison 36, gave the convicts in "Cool Hand Luke." Once you got used to your sentence, that there was no advantage to escape, you could accept things - get your mind right.
Lucas "Luke" Jackson (Paul Newman) would never have made a good Weight Watchers (WW) member, as he never took the Captain's (Strother Martin) advice. See the movie; he was always fighting, trying to escape.
I started WW in late June 2002 at 295 pounds; at this writing, I'm at 207. To me, getting my mind right is focusing on the money.
I'm a WW "Lifetime Member," which means I met my weight-loss goal of 215, which was set by my doctor. As long as I get no higher than 217, I don't pay to be a member, and I can go to as many meetings as I choose. (That's a savings of $12 per week; rates by WW region may vary.)
Making that goal was HUGE for me. I have had to pay twice since I made it, but that has been only twice in well over a year. That's a lot of money - my money.
My road to WW started years earlier. I was sitting in front of the television (I don't do TV, you know) surfing channels and I noticed my ankles were kind of big. Now this was a time of a 58-inch waistline but no true concept of my actual weight (honest) and not much concern. I was "big boned," as my mama said.
But I went to the doctor, about the ankles. He said that was just water retention, which he could give me pills for, but he suggested I see a dietician ... and the rest begins my personal weight-loss history.
My dietician and I had to go to the wheelchair scale - a miniature version of what trucks weigh on - to get my weight of 378 pounds. She got me counting calories, writing down what I ate, and moving. I started out on the high school track once a day with a goal of eight laps; for awhile, I couldn't make eight, and then, when I could make eight, the time it took started to get less and less, as did my waistline.
I was down about 60 pounds or so when I started getting lazy; I had moved, and given up on dieticians. But after feeling very dizzy a few mornings in a row and being put on hypertension medication, I sought out another dietician. This was a rough period; food options were too varied and the dietician was too nice. I held steady, but no loss.
Ready to get serious again, I asked my current doctor (after I had moved again) about a dietician. Straight-shooter that she is, my doctor told me she didn't think my insurance would cover it, so why didn't I try WW.
I've been there ever since.
I've had up weeks and down weeks, frustrations and elations, but when the compliments started coming in and the clothes started coming in more options and at less cost, and I started feeling better, and I was taken off the blood-pressure medicine, and ... well, I got my mind right.
Looking back, the dieticians were a form of WW. They were good, they were helpful. I don't regret them.
But WW was every week, out-of-my-pocket cash, with a compliment or an insult from the scale followed by good advice and positive reenforcement from the WW leader and fellow members. (You can join WW on-line, but I don't recommend it; you have to get your fat out in public and flop it down next to other fat - it's the only way.)
I want to get to 199 by basketball season; I originally set that goal for June 30, but I got a bit lazy ... but only a bit. Because, as Captain, Road Prison 36 also said - and I'm not talking about the famous "What we've got here is ... failure to communicate" - what he also said was this: "Now, I can be a good guy, or I can be one real mean sum-bitch."
Got my mind right here, Captain.
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