Weight Watcher Tips from a Busy Mama of 3 |

I’m not stranger to Weight Watchers (now rebranded WW). I first “joined” or I should say pseudo-joined in 2000 when I was 14 years old. That’s a whole other story for another day that led to a decade long battle with food.

For the last several years, God has brought huge freedom in the area of self-image and bondage to food. Thankfully, with my first two pregnancies, I was able to lose the baby weight after several months by just making mostly mindful choices and exercising would I could. (I did have to eliminate a ton of things with our second while breastfeeding and that helped a lot- you can read about that here: and I lost the last bit of my baby weight with number 1 doing the whole 30, but for whatever reason, with baby 3 in 3 years, the weight just didn’t want to budge. I found myself more than a year out, and I still more than 30 lbs from my healthy goal weight.

After a conversation on a girls trip weekend in April to see the Happy Hour Live Event with Jamie Ivey- if you don’t you should listen to her podcast. It is so encouraging and so much fun! (here are my top 5 favorite podcasts), I decided to try the WW app. I thought about beach body (I’ve done the 21 day fix before), doing whole 30 again, intermittent fasting (faster way to fat loss), but in the end, WW seemed doable and not so restrictive.

There is a blessing a curse with WW. The blessing is you can eat whatever you want. No foods are off limits! The curse is you can eat whatever you want, lol. In theory you could stay within your point range and eat nothing of great nutritional value the whole day. The last several years, I’ve tried to eat mostly “real food” as in avoid processed foods/things that come in a box or have a ton of ingredients I don’t recognize on the regular- not a hard fast rule, but just eating them in moderation. But with WW I have the temptation of eating lots of food that is fake- “sugar free”, etc, etc- made with ingredients with crazy names. I just try to balance it. Now that I’m getting closer to my goal weight, I will have a “splurge” meal or two on the weekends. I ate some cake at the baby shower last weekend, and it was delicious. But, I didn’t finish the whole slice (because really I didn’t need to), and also, I’m not eating cake every day. I know I have much greater long term success if I don’t make any foods forever off-limits. We only live once and God has made food for us to enjoy. That being said, I know I feel better when I eat more nutrient-dense food.

So I tried my best to marry these two ideas: eating real food, but also staying within my point range (with the exception of my sweet tooth). I will say I’ve tried a bit of everything: Beachbody/21 day fix, whole 30, eating just real foods and working out, and now weight watchers again. I also joined a few Facebook groups that were full of wonderful ideas!

**there are a couple affiliate links, which simply means if you purchase through that link a small percentage goes towards maintaining this blog at no additional cost to you

Breakfast ideas:

Eggs (“free” food)- most often these days, I just eat eggs for breakfast
Eggs with two pieces of light toast and 1/4 avocado smashed and sprinkled with Trader Joes Everything but the Bagel seasoning. So good and filling and I eat this most days. You can also pair it with some berries or scramble in some spinach into your eggs.
Eggs on Bagel Thin or Two Ingredient Dough Bagel (so good: Self rising flour + greek yogurt) Read the recipe I used here
Kodiak Pancakes (high protein pancake mix)

Snack Ideas- when possible, try to balance carb + protein + fat:

- Protein One bars( here)– 2 points each- I like the chocolate peanut butter ones (as a busy mama, these have been key to my success- I used to carry around lara bars to snack on in between breakfast and lunch or z bars- but lara bars are like 7 points each and z bars are 5). I really wanted an easy grab and go non perishable low point snack option and this has fit the bill. I know some people don’t care for these as much, but for me, they’re a nice grab and go for when I get way too hungry out and about mid morning.
- Cheese stick + a few almonds and or apple, sliced
- Strawberries + chocolate hummus or some berries and cool whip
- Pretzels + hummus
- Carrots, celery, cucumber, baby tomatoes, or peppers dipped in hummus or ranch dip made with greek yogurt (zero points)
- Frozen grapes (you can also sprinkle with sugar free jello- this is addicting)
- Sugar Free Jello + cool whip
- Skinny Pop Popcorn (SKINNYPOP Original Popped Popcorn)
- No Sugar Added Ice cream + a few chocolate chips and cool whip
- Halo Top Pops- these are super low calorie and help with my sweet tooth
- Hard Boiled Eggs (I’ve even baked eggs in muffin tins to cook them in the same way hard boiling would- I want to try them in the instant pot, but haven’t made time to, yet)
- Roasted veggies- if I make a big batch of these earlier on in the week, they are great to have as a snack or with lunch.

Lunch Ideas:

Most days I eat turkey on light calorie bread with tomato, spinach, a little mustard and a side of fruit or a few pretzels and hummus or roasted veggies (cut up carrots, half a sweet potato or whatever else, add a little olive oil and some everything but the bagel seasoning and a little kosher salt- roast at 400 for about 30 minutes or so, shaking the pan once half way through)
Chicken Salad on a wrap, bread or bed of romaine
Roll Up Sandwich on flat out bread or low carb tortilla
“Pizza” made on flat out bread- use a little pizza sauce, low fat cheese and turkey pepperoni and bake until cheese is melted
Salad- the possibilities are endless. Two of my go-tos: 1) shredded chicken on a classic salad (lettuce, cucumber, tomato, bell peppers, nothing but the bagel seasoning, greek ranch dressing) and 2) Fiesta Type salad- either turkey taco meat if I have some left over or shredded chicken, salsa as dressing, some light cheese, corn, black beans, onions on a bed of spring mix.
This dressing is a good one.
Left overs

Dinner Ideas:

To be honest, I haven’t changed our dinners all that much. I have however traded out beef for lean turkey in most all of our beef dishes. I try to eat a smaller portion, and I do really well for breakfast, lunch and snacking. Here are a few we’ve tried and enjoyed. When all else fails think: grilled or roasted meat (I heard chicken thighs in the air fryer are amazing! But we don’t have one yet), add some roasted veggies or salad on half your plate and maybe a small starch/carb (rice, potatoes, etc).

Hummus Crusted Chicken (this is linked in my dairy free post- just scroll down)
Chicken Pot Pie Bubble Up: you can find the recipe at my instagram page here.
Pork tenderloin Pork tenderloin + roasted veggies
Pork chops with a side of broccoli and carrots or a baked potato (russet or sweet)
Grilled chicken + veggies
Turkey burgers (scroll down whole 30 post)
White chicken chili (scroll down in dairy free post)
Spinach Tortellini Soup
Spinach Feta Turkey Meatballs
Turkey Tacos on low carb tortillas
Taco Salad
Sheet pan Salmon (scroll down in Whole 30 post)

You can find a list of many of our go to recipes here.Also, recently, I have been meal planning once at the beginning of the month and then putting in our grocery order (or going shopping) weekly, and it has helped cut down my Sunday afternoon/night routine. I have also heard wonderful things about this book Cook Once, Eat All Week

Eating out:

We don’t eat out much in this season of our life (when you have 3 kids in 3 years it’s just rough to go to any sit down place + let’s be real, we are on a budget). We either pick up a hot and ready from Little Casears (1 slice is 6 or 7 points I believe and then add a salad with some greek yogurt dressing and that’s a good meal) or get chick-fil-A (grilled chicken is 0 points, as is a fruit cup). I also have eaten the chicken fajita tacos at Taco Cabana and I think they are only 4 points each. The app is a fantastic tool. You can scan anything and it will tell you the points, the restaurant list is abundant. It really is a wonderful, easy to use tool. I tracked all of my food for the first month- maybe month and a half, but then once I learned how to eat lower point valued breakfast, snack and lunch items, I stopped writing down every thing as much simply because I do better in the area of becoming obsessive about food if I just don’t weigh every single day and count every single thing. I am so thankful, the program seems to have worked well for me and I have lost a good 20 lbs in a few months, and I hope to lose a little more and keep it off.

Working out:

When the Lord freed me from my decade long bondage from food it started by signing up for a sprint triathlon. I began working out and enjoying it and slowly started eating healthy, but not restrictive. I started to learn how to feel fullness again and stop when I was hungry. One day, I will take time to write out the whole story, as it is truly quite miraculous how my mind has so radically shifted. When freedom came I focused on working out and food followed.

After babies, however, I have so struggled to find a consistent routine. I’ve tried working out at home- beach body videos, made up workouts (tabata) and my current favorite one of my friends told me about: Body Fit by Amy! (awesome, free- tons and tons of options on youtube). I’ve tried running with the jogging strollers, baby boot camp and even a really expensive gym with childcare (but it was last summer when the boys were 7 months, 2 and 3 and they cried so much every time I dropped them off , the caretakers had to get me after 20-30 minutes, and it just wasn’t worth it. I left too many times in tears).

So this go around, I decided to simply focus on food first, even though that’s not what I’d done in the past. I really didn’t work out super regularly (maybe once per week) the first month or so. And by work out, what I mean is a short 1-1.5 mile run pushing the boys in a double bob (you can fit 3 kids on it, thankfully: Double Strollers that can be Rigged as Triple Strollers: More bang for your buck!) or a 20 minute body fit by amy video. I haven’t pushed myself much yet, but maybe I will try signing up for a gym again and see how the boys do now that they are older.

Some last reflections:

I always wanted to be one of those naturally “skinny” girls who hardly gained any weight during pregnancy and instantly bounced back to their pre-baby weight. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
I gained around 60 lbs with each of our 3 boys and having them all in quick succession has been rough on my body and ability to put my health first. {especially with all that lack of sleep- My First 6 weeks as a Mom (spoiler alert, it’s way HARDER than I thought!)}. But alas, comparison is the thief of joy (except when it’s not) and I know I have 3 healthy boys to be endlessly thankful for. (When I don’t feel thankful)
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
God has worked wonders on my perception of myself in regards to body image specifically, but I wanted to feel comfortable in my body again, and feel like I have enough energy to keep up with my rowdy boys.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
So here’s to self discipline (2 Tim 1:7), treasuring His Word (John 4:34) over my go to treats that I tell myself I “deserve” after a hard day. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
I want to have a healthy and whole mindset in regards to taking care of myself, and fight to not find my identity in anything other than Christ. I want to take care of my self because we are to treat our body as a temple- we were bought with a price and we are not our own. There are often extremes that we can fall into on either side of an issue: with food, it can be no self-discpline/gluttony or on the flip side it can be a place where we attempt to find our life, it can be a source of control, pride and even idolatry. I want to take care of myself so that I can serve Him and others better. ⠀You can read some more of my thoughts on body image and appearance here.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

If you feel like you have a mountain to climb when it comes to losing weight, the journey begins with one small step. And then continues with small choice after choice. It will not be perfect, but one misstep doesn’t mean you’ve failed. We are imperfect people. Get up, press on. Put one foot in front of the other, and I pray you will find a tool that will help you find freedom in this area.