Well, it is good to know that I am not the only one who is fed up with Weight Watchers. I finally quit. I would get up early on Saturday morning following my family Friday night dinner and weigh-in. Since I weigh myself every day, I knew that Saturday's were practically the highest weight of the week. I would wait in line a half an hour because they didn't get enough members to hire two people to weigh everyone in. The good thing was the little booklets they gave you. The bad thing was the instructor gave zero motivation and flipped the flip-chart they gave her asking for everyone else's opinion. In a year and a half I was never asked once to look at my food log. I was up a pound and down a pound and virtually stayed within the same 20-25 lb. loss I had in the first few months. Then the New Year came around and every woman was cut down from 29 to 26 points. Obviously they weren't meeting with the success they had hoped. The crappy, fake sugar products increased on tables and many would walk out with boxes of the 3-point packages of junk food. When you are only on 26 points, the snacking sure eats into that.
I am somewhat relieved today to see I am not the only one that has felt this way. The New York Times reported on trouble brewing at Weight Watchers' meetings. Unhappy members were grumbling about slow weight loss on Weight Watchers latest PointsPlus plan. Some flat out said the program's "magic" had disappeared.
The article in another magazine asked a panel of members who were successful for their tips for losing weight. There were a couple I found interesting. One was make carbs work by pairing them with proteins... like fruit with almonds or eggs with whole grain toast. This woman initially gained on PointsPlus then used the combo trick to triple weight loss.
Another woman said make "zero" points count. for example, WW doesn't limit zero-cal drinks, but they are not all equal. Diet drinks make you crave junk.
I am a believer in shocking your metabolism and one panel member agrees. Just scrimping every single day, the scale was not her friend. She hit on a much better strategy: Saving extra points or calories, say 500 calories or so, for a big weekend indulgence and lose faster than with non-stop deprivation.... Oh, by the way, "non-stop deprivation" would never be WW words and neither would "diet". These were stupid head games.... Don't deprive yourself. Give me a break! On 26 points you were majorly depriving yourself. Anyway, the scientific explanation: Keeping calories at a continuous low brings on psychological cravings and slows metabolism. By contrast, Cornell University researchers found that a splurge revs metabolism by about 14%.
The whole Weight Watchers thing is just a blueprint. It gets you going in the right direction, but you have to adapt it to what works best for your body. Once you know the program, quit. It is just a waste of time and money after that. I am bummed no more and back to blogging.
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