About the Blog

Shannon Lightening the Load – a statement that can be taken both literally and figuratively.  I started this blog as a place to share my weight loss journey with anyone who was willing to read along with me.  A sort of paying it forward, if you will.

I’m a real girl, who eats real food, who lives in an everyday world but still manages to lose weight and be healthy.  It’s true, I eat potato chips, cupcakes and snacks but the difference is I eat them in moderation, I know the points plus values associated with them and I allow myself to have things I want.  It’s all about moderation, not deprivation.  There isn’t one thing I cannot have because if I or someone says I cannot have it, I’m going to want it more than ever.  Plus, I’m all about following a plan I can manage and maneuver my entire life – not a fad diet which is going to make me crash and burn.

With my blog, I like to have a platform where I can talk about the different things that matter to me, while also having the ability to discuss passions of mine.  I blog about different dishes I’ve cooked (making sure to provide the original recipe to whatever dish I’ve recreated).  When I make a dish that is my own, I provide a recipe for that with the Weight Watchers points plus values associated with it.  I like to express my non-scale victories, my experiences and my honest opinion.

If you read my blog, you’ll know I’m a bit of a foodie at heart.  Because of this, I do feature Food Finds on my blog.  I find this to be so interesting because I recall when I first started Weight Watchers; the grocery store was a big sigh.  I loved shopping (still do) but the thought of having to calculate every single thing before buying it was tiring (but I still did it!).  The more I got accustomed to buying certain items, the less I had to recall how many points they were because it was all engraved in my brain.  These days when I find a new product, I like to share the points plus values of the item, the nutrition information (if I remember to photograph it) as well as my initial first impression/review of the product.  I recall pre-Weight Watchers I liked hearing what family/friends had to say about something that was new on the market because if they said it was awful, I’d typically steer clear of it.

I like to be able to share and help people.  From all this, to know that I perhaps helped one person makes my journey even bigger and brighter.