Weight Watchers

I’ve gotten several emails asking what my main strategies are, so I wanted to go ahead and post about Weight Watchers.  Yup.  That’s what I’m using as my starting framework.  

There isn't one strategy that's going to work for everybody.  To be honest, I get the quickest results with The South Beach Diet.  Yet after six weeks of sheer will-power, I always fall off the wagon with it because I really don't like eating meat very much.  I need something I can live with long term.  The fact that US News and World Report ranked Weight Watchers #1 as the best weight loss diet was part of my reason for choosing it.  Their article describes the plan and benefits well.  (Click here to read it.)  The Weight Watchers website has a good follow-up article.  (Click here.)  What really grabbed me is this quote:  “We're about real food in the real world.  It's this overarching belief system about learning that managing real food in your life is always going to be the way for long-term success.” 

I tried WW a while back, but it was before their points system and the leader of the weekly meetings acted like a cheerleader on crack.  The whole atmosphere made me feel like I was on a game show with hidden cameras.  I’m going to take a deep breath and try another meeting soon because I know other leaders will have a different style.  Right now, however, I’m just doing WW online. 

I got curious about WW online when one of my mama friends loves it.  A skinny mama friend.  Although she’s never been overweight, she uses the site as a way to keep track of nutrition and exercise but also a source of healthy recipes.  I’d been thinking of WW sort of like a booking a dentist appointment to fill a cavity – beneficial but not pleasant.  My mama friend helped me look at it as a tool box.  And what a tool box!  I was really surprised by everything I found online once I joined – basic tips, message boards, tracking food/exercise but body changes, informational articles, a huge food/nutrition database, exercise mini-videos, health information, success stories, etc.  And my friend wasn’t kidding about the recipes.  WW offers recipes of the day, community recipe swap, recipe genie (type in what ingredients you have and it finds recipes for you), and a huge recipe collection.  I like the section on quick recipes, but there are dozens of categories such as budget recipes, no cook meals, snacking, etc.  Users can rate recipes, add cooking tips, and give serving suggestions, so it makes them easy to use.

I thought I’d really hate going by points rather than calories.  Shoot, after years of dieting I already know a lot about calorie contents whereas I have to learn the points values.  But the point system is skewed so that foods with more nutrition and that keep you feeling fuller have fewer points.  I thought I could guess what foods those were, but sometimes I’ve been surprised.  I now find myself shying away from some old dieting standbys and am learning new staple items to have around.  Also, most fruits and vegetables are “free,” so I’m suddenly eating a lot more of them.  The online point counter allows you to mark foods as “favorites” and also remembers items you’ve eaten recently, so keeping track of what you eat is relatively quick and painless.

One thing that I think helped was deciding I’d devote an hour to WW online once I joined.  While E napped, I took the provided “tour” of the site but also did a lot of clicking and exploring.  It is well-designed, so soon I felt fairly “WW literate” and discovered some tools I’m excited about.  I also spent some of that time entering in some of my “go to” recipes and lining up a list of favorite foods so it would be quicker every time I track my meals.

So far, so good.  My pants are getting looser!  I have to admit that I’m starting to daydream about getting a smart phone so I can have access to my WW “tool kit” on the go….