AWOL

Dawny shared with me that she attended her “old” WW meeting.  This was the meeting she attended through her journey to goal and beyond.  Dawny stopped attending that meeting a few years ago because her leader is quite toxic.  As it turns out, rumors have started to spread that she has quit WW all together and gained all her weight back.  Well now…isn’t that just like a group of gossiping women to come to that conclusion?

We all know what it means when a WWer stops coming to meetings.  Or at least we think we do.  Many times during my 9.5 year WW journey I had to move around to various meetings due to my work schedule.  Heck, I’ve not attended my “old” meeting for many years.  Once I got to my goal weight, I needed a different kind of support that my original WW meeting wasn’t providing.  When you make goal it is hard to stand among your peers.  To those still trying to get to goal it looks like you have figured it all out.  When you have just gotten to goal, you realize you haven’t figured it all out and still need support. 

It is a fact though that several Lifetime members that attend meetings during their weight loss phase will stop attending meetings once they get to their goal weight.  Since I always had such a strong connection to my WW meetings, I have never understood this concept.  You work so hard to become a free LT member that you stop attending once you no longer have to pay?  For at least the first six or seven years of my LT journey, I attended my WW meetings regularly.  I still attended even though I was over goal and had to pay a weekly fee once again. 

It hasn’t been until the last two years that my meeting attendance started to dwindle.  Mostly it was driven by the guilt I was feeling at having to come up with an excuse as to why I had, yet again, gained more weight.  The other part of it was a shift in my priorities that contributed to the weight gain to begin with.  It become exhausting to feel like a constant failure and so to me that the clear answer was to stop attending my meetings except for my once a month WI requirement to stay active as a WW member.

Since meetings have always been such a big part of my WW journey, that was a pretty boneheaded move.  The hardest part is that connection I once had to my meeting wasn’t there anymore.  I am hardly able to attend my favorite Tuesday AM meeting with my favorite WW peeps and my favorite leader.  While we have a lot of other meeting options in my area and a lot of other wonderful leaders, I continue to struggle with finding a meeting that I fit in.  I miss the connection to the members and the connection to the program I had for so many years.  I’m not sure if it is just me that has changed or if it has been WW that has changed.  I ache for the strong connection I once had.  I miss the successful feeling of being a part of a group that celebrates and encourages.

 

 

I miss the old days where it felt easy.  The crazy part is that it wasn’t easy during the thick of it.  It was hard and it took work.  On the outside looking in, the struggle of re-gain makes the struggle of weight loss seem easy.  How is that for sordid thinking? 

I guess there is some truth behind this saying: