Joy, our meeting moderator, could not have had a more appropriate name. She practically bounced off the walls with enthusiasm about how wonderful the Weight Watcher program was. Her introduction was followed by real-life accounts of how real-live people were managing to lose a half pound a week (or none...but that's okay-- we all have setbacks. Rah, rah, keep up the good work and don't get discouraged...Count those points! Weigh your food!) And then came the assurances of how well the program works and how, on Weight Watchers, you can eat anything. That's right, anything. You just have to weigh it and measure it and count the points.
Now, before I go any further, I should tell you that the Points are very very important. Points are based on two things -- your current height and weight, and your goal weight. Mark was allowed 26 points, whereas because I'm much smaller than Mark, I got 18. Eighteen points is the smallest possible point value awarded. Apparently, you could actually starve to death on 17 points. On top of your individual point calculation, everybody gets an additional 35 per week, to use as desired-- all at once for special treats or dinner out, or spread out over the week to, for instance, get from one meal to the next. You might say, 18 points seems like a lot... you might say that because that's what I said. Until I saw the little book with all the point values and discovered that 18 points amounted to something like one meal.
But, like the trooper that I am when starting out on a new adventure, I buckled down and counted and weighed and measured and recorded every bite of food that went into my mouth. And I had success! By the third meeting, I had lost five pounds and got my first star. It kind of reminded me of kindergarten, but I won't go there. Every week I was dropping a pound or a pound and a half. But along the way, a strange thing was happening...call it obsession, if you will. It seems all I thought about was food--all day long. I was jotting and calculating and planning and thinking about food.
To make a long story short, we lasted about six months. We hit a stubborn "plateau," defined as a period of time where one stops losing weight and possibly even gains a pound or two...or three (usually because of cheating on the points or getting morbidly tired of tracking every bite of food). Once off the plan, it didn't take long to gain back just about every pound I'd lost.
Weight Watchers is not a solution, it's a lifestyle. And, in all fairness, they admit this. Don't get me wrong--it really does take a lifestyle change to affect weight loss and weight management. So what's my problem, you ask? Glad you asked.
First and foremost, in order to achieve success, Weight Watchers requires keeping calorie consumption low. Calories are the measure of energy that our bodies use. Essentially, food is the fuel that keeps us moving. If you dare to apply logic to this requirement, you would have to conclude that less calories means less energy. And less energy means...exercise?! Are you kidding?! How about a nap, instead. What they leave out is the essential point that food is more than just fuel...it also contains the building blocks the body uses to grow, heal, and maintain optimum health. Any diet plan that misses this big point will eventually cease to work because we just can't stay on it. Remember the mantra? You can eat anything! Well... that's not exactly true. Eighteen points of carbohydrates will not give me the building blocks my body needs, and I will therefore ALWAYS be hungry and tired and craving more food.
The Weight Watcher plan did shift (right about the time I left) to focus more on complex carbs and protein (PointsPlus), awarding them fewer points by virtue of their higher nutritional values, but they still get the fat factor wrong and don't understand the nature of how the body uses energy. Here's a very good article by Dr. Mercola about the difference between burning sugar and burning fat: What does it mean to be fat adapted?
Fast forward to today. Since leaving Weight Watchers fourteen months ago, I have lost 17 pounds. How did I do it? By eating fat. That's right, EATING FAT MADE ME LOSE WEIGHT. I can't be more emphatic. There is an incomprehensible insistence in the Health and Nutrition establishment that fat is bad and we should do everything in our power to eat a low-fat diet. The reason for this insistence is impossible to support with actual evidence. Every study ever done has at best been inconclusive, and at worse shown the exact opposite...that low-fat diets not only result in higher risk of cancer, diabetes, and heart disease, but they actually contribute to weight gain.
Today, I eat three meals a day, going approximately 3 to 4 hours between meals without being hungry. My blood sugar is stable because I eat little or no sugar. I eat about a pound of butter a week. I eat full-fat yogurt, and raw cheese occasionally. I eat 2 to 3 eggs every day and meat or fish at nearly every meal. I eat fresh or frozen vegetables and fruit with no restrictions. With the exception of (organic) condiments, I do not consume processed foods of any kind. I eat until I'm full and I don't count calories! My weight continues to drop about a pound a month, which doesn't worry me because I still have a little fat on me.
So, my apologies to Weight Watchers...whose leaders (I'm sure) have the best intentions...but the following tenets are, indeed, myth:
- You can eat anything you want as long as you count it into your "points." [Fact: Bad food is bad for you--even when you count the points.]
- Keep the weight off for the long-haul. [Fact: This isn't true unless you stay on the WW program for the "long-haul"...count, measure, weigh-- Oh my!]
- Low calorie, low fat, low carb...is the key to healthy eating. [Fact: You cannot eat low fat AND low carb--what will your body burn? Dietary fat is not the bad boy--that title goes to Sugar--and Sugar's cousin, Carb.]
- Burning calories through exercise is an effective way to lose weight. [Fact: "Calories In/Calories Out" is a false doctrine. You will always eat more than you can burn off, as evidenced by WW themselves...a one-mile walk will give you back ONE point, the equivalent of a half a piece of dry toast.]
In closing, my advice to you is this-- Make the lifestyle change that will give you the best chance at good health, the best success at attaining a healthy weight, and the least time wasted obsessing over your food. Dump the commercial diet programs and go back to a natural human diet-- you know, the one designed by the Creator: organic meats, fruits and vegetables, and properly processed grains. Do this, and you will never again have to "watch" your weight.
Have you ever tried Weight Watchers? What do YOU think about it?
Good sources for more information on calories and diet...
Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It, by Gary Taubes
Good Calories, Bad Calories, by Gary Taubes
Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, by Dr. Weston A. Price, DDS
Real Food: What to Eat and Why, Nina Planck
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