"If You Want My Body -And- You Think I'm Sexy..." Thank Weight Watchers!
Written: Aug 13 '03 (Updated Aug 16 '03)
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Pros: Easy to understand, follow, apply in daily life. You can still eat out!
Cons: Requires your full committment, "paying to lose weight" is annoying.
The Bottom Line: Weight Watchers can give you a sexy body, or a strong body, or whatever kind of body you want. You just have to work the program!
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| mrs-j's Full Review: Weight Watchers Winning Points |
Introduction
I have always been one of those who silently smirked at those who paid for weight loss programs. I'm sure you're familiar with the logic: I didn't pay to gain this weight. I sure as heck won't pay to lose it!
Sure, the snickering worked great, as I ate my way up the scale. Oh, I'd tried most diets and even had limited success on them. Then I'd fall back into my old ways because honestly, cutting out all the fat, or all the carbohydrates in your diet, is hard to do. Sick of stalling, and sick of being told I couldn't have this or that, I would inevitably cave and fall off the wagon, disgusted with myself and depressed that I was just getting bigger.
In the ten years before I finally discovered and tried Weight Watchers, I had gained approximately 20 pounds and had gone from a size 9 to busting out of my size 12's.
It all came down to this: Last summer I was engaged. I didn't want to be at my heaviest for my wedding. As I looked at some photos we had taken while in California for our best friend's wedding, I realized how chubby, shapeless and pale my arms had become.
While Mr. J was out of town on business on August 12th of 2002, I furtively snuck into a local Weight Watchers meeting, my first ever. I stood on a scale for the first time in a year and faced the (very ugly) music.
And in the year that's passed, I've had quite an adventure.
Weight Watchers History
Weight Watchers did not start out as the marketing brainchild of industry executives. Quite the contrary. It began with a housewife in Queens, New York. Jean Nidetch began inviting friends to her home in 1961 to discuss weight loss and to form a casual support group. She met her goal and the circle of friends joining her group grew larger and larger, until she finally had to move the meetings out of her house.
Originally the weight loss plan was one that Nidetch derived from health department materials that New York offered. The support group concept was unique, however. Nidetch believed that having a support group was integral to weight loss success, saying:
"Compulsive eating is an emotional problem and we use an emotional approach to its solution. To me, this is just plain common sense."
Weight Watchers' plans have morphed throughout the years, emphasizing different nutritional standards. But one thing has remained a constant: Emotional support.
Weight Watchers - Basic Tenets
No matter what the specific WW plan is, they always encourage that members do the following:
- Keep a food journal and record your meals every day
- Drink at least 8 glasses of water a day
- Take a multivitamin daily
- Eat five or more servings of fruits and vegetables
- Exercise regularly
- Follow the WW dietary plan
How Winning Points Works
The current plan being used is the Winning Points plan.The way it works is that all food servings are assigned a "Points" value based on: Calories, Fat and Fiber. Weight Watchers provides members a slider to determine the Points of their foods. At first it's rather cumbersome, but once you know the values of your favorite foods and how to estimate point values, it simplifies your dietary habits greatly. There is no "illegal" food on this plan. You can eat anything, you just have to wisely budget for it and keep your portion sizes down.
The basic gist of the diet is that it is a moderate calorie diet. It's not highly restrictive in calories (for me, at least) and it isn't about restricting a macronutrient (like fat or carbs).
The basic Points calculation counts one point for every fifty calories you consume. Beyond that, the formula accounts for fat and fiber, "penalizing" you for the former and "rewarding" you for the latter, up to 4g of fiber. This is an extreme oversimplification of the Points formula, which I won't post here because Weight Watchers is very proprietary about it. However, you can find Points calculator pages on the Internet.
Instead of having to account for every calorie, every gram of fat and every gram of fiber individually, you can rely on one number: Points. At the beginning, I actually wrote the point values of each food item, per serving, on boxes and labels in Sharpie markers. This helped tremendously.
For example, the Points values of some foods I commonly eat:
- Light string cheese: 1 point
- Wampler turkey burger: 3 points
- 2 slices toast w/1T peanut butter: 3 points
- Red Robin petite natural burger and fries: 15 points
- And most importantly, Light beer: 2 points
How Many Points Can You Eat?
The number of Points you can consume is based on your present weight and your activity level. (You can earn up to 4 additional Points each day, called Activity Points, by exercising for an hour or more.)
At my starting weight, I was in the 20-25 point range. After losing thirty pounds, I dropped to the 18-23 point range. If I worked out, I could add up to 4 points to the top of these ranges, or I could choose to not eat those points and instead bank them.
Banking? Huh? What is That?
Banking is where you save points on one day to eat later on in your Weight Watchers week. Your WW week is determined by your Weigh-In Day. Say, your Weigh-In day is Friday and your points range is 20-25 points.
On Friday your "point bank" resets to 0.
Friday you eat 23 points: (2 are banked)
Saturday you eat 20 points: (5 are banked - balance = 7)
Sunday you eat 22 points: (3 are banked- balance = 10)
Monday you eat 28 points: (-3 points from your bank - balance = 7)
Tuesday you eat 23 points: (2 are banked - balance = 9)
Wednesday you eat 34 points: (-9 banked - balance = 0)
Thursday you eat 23 points: (2 banked - balance = 2)
Friday you weigh in and your balance goes back to 0 for the next week.
WW allows you to use up to ten banked points if you have them, in one day. This way you can eat conservatively throughout your WW week and then splurge for a social event. Most members plan for parties and upcoming events by banking their points. You should not bank more than 5 points per day.
That about covers the technicalities of the actual current plan.
Emotional Support: AKA What Do You DO At Those Meetings Anyway?
The second and equally compelling part of the Weight Watchers program is going to weekly meetings. Everyone weighs in weekly until they have achieved Lifetime status. Members achieve Lifetime status by getting to their goal and maintaining at or below their goal weight for six weeks. Lifetime members must weigh in once a month, and do not have to pay dues as long as they are at or below their goal weight.
What you are really paying for are the weigh-ins. You can go to as many meetings at your local branch as you want each week, but you only weigh in once. And when you get on the scale, you pay the staff member who is charting your weight.
Payment for Weight Watchers runs from $8.95 a week to around $12.95 a week, depending upon how the type of plan you pick. (If you buy the 10 pack of meeting coupons in advance, commit to coming every single week and paying for weeks you don't show up, it's the $8.95 fee.) Honestly, if you have more than just a few pounds to lose, I think it's more motivating to buy the bulk coupons in advance. That way you know you've committed to showing up each week and weighing in.
Note: I have never seen anyone's weight publicly announced at a WW meeting. You will not have to reveal your weight to anyone except the person writing it down and in my experience, they are not judgmental people. All of them have done Weight Watchers too. Some of them may have already lost more weight than you need to lose!
After the weigh-in period (the first 30 minutes before the meeting) there is a meeting which usually follows a theme outlined by the Weight Watchers organization for that week. Some meetings are more free form than others. It all depends on your leader.
Your leader, by the way, will be a WW Lifetime member. I've had leaders who have lost more than a hundred pounds. They sometimes bring in before and after photos to show. They always seem to dress well and look great. Some aren't as skilled at public speaking as others, but they all offer valuable experience at losing weight.
Weight Watchers is currently basing their meetings on their "Tools for Living". Some of the more emphasized tools are:
- Winning Outcomes: Defining and solidifying your goals. Determining what your idea of a Winning Outcome really is.
- Storyboarding: Picturing and envisioning ways to reach your goals. Outlining action plans for what you do in certain situations.
- Empowering Beliefs: Writing out the positive things about you to build up your confidence. Giving yourself the reasons you deserve to get to your Winning Outcome.
- Anchoring: Choosing something tangible, that you can have with you at all times to remind you of your goals and keep you from making bad choices.
- Reframing: Altering the way you perceive things and looking for positive motivations behind your actions.
So How Well Does This All Work?
Weight Watchers works, but... It will only work as much as you are willing to make it work. You can't do this program halfway and expect great results.
Here are my stats: I joined in mid-August of last year. By mid-November I had lost 25 pounds and had made my official WW Goal. After six weeks of maintenance at or below that goal, I made Lifetime status two days before the end of the year.
2003 was the first year that I did not have "Losing Weight" as my top New Year's resolution. That was a fantastic feeling!
I had lost the weight, and on top of it I lost about four dress sizes. I started in 12's and 14's and by the time I reached my goal, I was wearing 6's and 8's.
BUT... You must stick with it...
In the spring, I had my wedding and we went on our honeymoon to Greece. I had given up going to the meetings because of the hustle and bustle of wedding planning. And I knew full well that I would not be tracking points in Santorini. I returned from my wedding with about a five pound gain.
I stayed off the wagon, since I could still fit into my clothes. And soon my clothes stopped fitting. I had gained another five or so pounds.
But Weight Watchers had taught me something so important, that it's never left my mind: It's never too late to start again. So, before my weight spiraled back up the scale, I got a handle on it.
I started tracking Points and following the Weight Watchers plan religiously again a little over a week ago. This week, I'm down 4 of the 10 pounds that I want to lose. I hope to be back to my "fighting" weight and those size 6's again by mid-September.
Summary
The biggest lesson you can learn from Weight Watchers is that you can do it. You just have to take the initiative from this moment on. The best thing about this plan is that it's not "Do or Die". Weight Watchers teaches you that you will make mistakes and the solution to those mistakes is simple: Don't let it stop you from going forward. Unlike low-carb diets where you "blow" your diet out of the water by eating something sugary and full of carbs, Weight Watchers just advocates that you get up, and make sure your next meal is a good one. And the meal after that. And the one after that too.
Recommended:
Yes
Approximate Monthly Cost (US$) 35-45
Food Variety Restrictions You eat any food you want
Restrictiveness of Portions Satisfying
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mrs-j
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"Man was made for something better than disturbing dirt." - Oscar Wilde
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