Celebrating at the 2009 Weight Watchers Celebration Meeting

Saturday was very exciting.

I started off my morning with 3 fantastic meetings. The topic this week was the Good Health Guidelines and we had some great discussion on how to incorporate them into our meals each day as well as their importance. I also had a member reach their goal weight, 2 reach their 25 lb milestone, lots of other losses and non-scale victories and another member getting to Lifetime (after losing 42 lbs on the program).

Achieving Lifetime membership is a very exciting milestone with Weight Watchers. As you go through your journey, you eventually set an ultimate weight goal. When you reach that goal we celebrate in the meeting room, discuss the maintenance phase and the member is awarded a silver star for their keychain (bling!) After at least six weeks of maintenance, if the member is within 2 lbs of their goal weight they are awarded Lifetime membership, which has a ton of benefits including only having to weigh in officially once each month, a gold key for their keychain, being eligible to become a Weight Watchers staff member and not having to pay for meetings (as long as they continue to maintain) Getting to Lifetime is hard work and as I always tell my members “there is no save button at goal”. It is a pretty exciting time in the meeting room and it is incredibly inspirational for other members to see people getting to Lifetime.

On Saturday afternoon I skipped over to the the 2009 Weight Watchers Celebration Meeting for my Territory with some amazing friends. Avra and Lindsay (on my left and right) both became Lifetime members this year at my meeting and both made the decision to become staff members. I met Jess through Weight Watchers and watched her become Lifetime earlier this year. She knew right away that she wanted to become a staff member and recently completed her leader training. Lindsay T and I did our Leader training together back in 2007. Since then, we’ve attended 2 of these meetings together and it was thrilling to be celebrating together once again with these newbies. I am also thankful for the amazing friendships I have made as a result of Weight Watchers! It is such a pleasure to work with others who share a passion for this program and believe in giving their members the best experience possible.

The objective of the Celebration Meeting is to celebrate (duh). There’s a lot of amazing things happening within the Weight Watchers organization and this is an opportunity for staff to get together and celebrate the year in our territory.

I was incredibly pleased that Lindsay and I were both recognized for our efforts as Leaders. We both received awards for having members in our meeting rooms who have lost over 100 lbs. So pretty!! It’s been my honour to lead members to all amounts of weight loss, and to have a 100 lbs loser at my location has been so inspiring.

Lindsay was awarded the Diamond Leader award which is given to a Leader that meets a ton of criteria and I was incredibly proud of her. Lindsay is a fantastic Leader and it shows because her members are incredibly successful!

I received an award for having the most members in my meeting reach Lifetime. This year, I helped 23 members reach Lifetime!!!

I was so excited!! I actually started to tear up a bit. My team celebrated with me and I thanked them for letting me do what I do and not have to worry about any of the behind-the-scenes efforts. My team recognized me for my enthusiasm and passion in the meeting room.

I want to carry this around with me all the time.

I absolutely love what I do and find such joy in attending and leading my meetings each week. I have the best members and am so proud of all that they have accomplished. I always so that I have the best “job” in the world and yesterday’s festivities was really icing on the cake. I couldn’t be happier!!

I’m looking forward to another fantastic year ahead with Weight Watchers and celebrating with my staff, peers and these 4 lovely ladies again next year!

I'd like to thank the academy...

Today I was given my first ever blog award! The lovely Natasha gave me the award and stated: "I love her blog for the recipes/pictures of great food, book reviews, as well as I appreciate that she posts a printable workout calender every month! She is a WW leader and super healthy eater with lots of great idea's. Thanks Ashley!" How sweet is that??

Thank you so much Natasha, it really made my day!! I enjoy reading your blog as well and I'm really proud of all you have accomplished so far on your weight loss journey!

As part of the award, I get to give it to others!

Here are the rules for those who are tagged:

Pass it along to 5 fellow super bloggers, and comment on their blog to let them know how lucky they are today! When you present your Super Blogger awards, link back to the super blogger who gave it to you.

So here are my five:

Bitchcakes - She posts great recaps of the weekly meeting topics, providing her own thoughts and examples on how it relates to her life and how it will be useful in her journey. Her personal style is incredible and her biking adventures inspire me. I always look forward to her posts!

Yoga is Yummy - Polly is just a doll and her blog just makes me smile. Her yoga videos are great too!!

Making Love in the Kitchen - Meghan is my new hero. Seriously. I found her through a comment she left on another blog and I instantly loved her story and her blog. I'm SO excited to start cooking classes with her very soon!

Coco.nut Your Average Girl - I'm actually surprised it took us as long as it did to "discover" one another since we read A LOT of the same blogs. She also has an auto-immune disease and I think she is incredibly brave in how she handles everything. She has become someone I can turn to when my Crohn's is making me feel crummy and her blog is wonderful!

The Blogstalker - Nate recaps the happenings in the food blog world in a hilarious fashion and I'm really happy to have discovered his site. It has been a great addition to my google reader (and a great place to catch up when I'm too busy/lazy to read everything in reader)