I read an article in today’s New York Post (sorry, I can’t link to it from here) about Susie Orbach who is “vowing” leagal action against Weight Watchers. She is upset because many people, it seems, after losing the weight they lost, regain it back and have to re-join (and repay the membership fee). She was quoted as saying:
She is planning to found a lobbying group to represent the men and women who joined WW and went off it only to end up “fatter than before they began the laborious programme.”
A woman who posted her opinions on Epionions.com agreed with Orbach. The woman lost 45 pounds in eight months, but promptly gained half of it back. After she lost the weight she said:
Well, guess what? The plan really does work. Weight Watchers makes no promise that once you hit your goal weight it will be off forever. That’s something that the individual has to work on by themselves. If you go off a diet program and resume eating in the manner by which you first became fat, you will gain the weight back. A diet is a means by which to go from 250 pounds to 150 pounds (or whatever your goal weight is). But if you want to keep it off, you can’t just resume your old eating habits when you hit your goal weight. You have to change your way of eating permenantly. Is that so hard to understand? If you lose 45 pounds and then go on a “backlash,” you will gain weight back.
Full disclosure: I am currently attending Weight Watchers. I have lost 50 pounds over the last five months. But I know that I can never go back to the way I used to eat. I realize that I will be counting points pretty much for the rest of my life.
I dont know if you have any experience being overweight but I know that some people have a very hard time with it to the point of discomfort and ill health. Allot of it is a series of events in their life right down to inactivity. But the real cause is hereditary, a genetic connection.
I agree if the weight watchers program works to help you lose the weight then you should in theory be able to maintain it.
But keeping weight off is allot like holding your breath, you can only starve yourself or eat their food chemically geared to keep you thin and on their regiment for so long, along with the process of holding your breath. Both are not healthy for you in long doses.
There is another large element to weight issues which are psychological. I am assured that you and I and everyone here are put on this earth to be different, most of are better off to take what we are and accept it. Some people have it better than us in our minds eye, then again others die young and fit.
Fuck weight watchers and the superficial world that deems its existence as a necessity.
If these people who “lost their weight” specifically set a goal weight, reached it, completed six weeks of maintenance and became Lifetime Members, then THEY WOULD NEVER HAVE TO REJOIN. They would be required to pay for meetings they attend in which they weigh more than 2 pounds over goal.
But they need not pay a REGISTRATION fee. Being a Lifetime member means you are always a member. You simply pay meeting fees.
When you simply “stop coming” to Weight Watchers, your membership is discontinued. So when you decide to come back - guess what? You need to rejoin.
I’m going to check this out, because this truly pisses me off.
I’d also like to point out that it is perfectly clear on the instructions [written on a Lifetime Member’s weigh-in booklet] that should they regain weight they are required to pay the meeting fee when they attend.
There’s no bait & switch. You lose your weight and keep it off - it’s free of charge. If you gain some back, you pay for the privilege of sitting in the meeting and receiving help to get the weight back off. But you do NOT have to reregister.
I don’t know that I agree with that. The real cause is eating too much (or making poor food choices) and/or not exercising enough. Does genetics cause you to eat too much? I don’t think so.
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The point of a diet is not (or should not be) weight loss alone. The point of it is to recoginize what you did that caused you to be fat and to change that.
There is nothing in WW that says you can’t have a big meal now and again. There’s nothing in WW that says you can’t go to McDonalds and have a greasy quarter pounder with fries. Just realize that (a) you can’t do it everyday and (b) if you eat more now, eat less later.
No one says you have to starve yourself forever. You simply need to learn to eat in a healthy manner.
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No, we’re not alawys better off taking “what we are and accepting it.” Guess what? Obesity causes a whole host of ailments, and, ultimately, untimely death? How many obese ninety year olds to do you know? There’s a reason for that.
People may be genetically predisposed to being overweight, but that doesn’t mean they are stuck that way. You can’t just change your eating habits, you have to change your living habits as well, like exercise.
It’s hard to find healthy food in the grochery store today though. That is why most people stay overweight i think. 80% of the food they sel is crap. All the lowfat food they sell is bs too. They take out the good fat, and replace it with more salt and suger. more suger = more fat.
Oh, and Weight Watchers does not require you to “eat their food”. You can find WW products in the store, and sure we’re going to plug them in the meetings, but if you don’t eat 'em? No skin off my nose.
There ARE programs that require food purchase. Weight Watchers isn’t one of them.
<<No, we’re not alawys better off taking “what we are and accepting it.” Guess what? Obesity causes a whole host of ailments, and, ultimately, untimely death? How many obese ninety year olds to do you know? There’s a reason for that.>>
I think we are, it is my belief that we owe it to ourselves to due whater it takes to stay happy, healthy and above all enjoy life.
I know overeating causes troubles, and that Obesity causes a whole host of ailments, and, ultimately, untimely death. I also know that my grandmother lived to be 85 and as fat as Aunt Jamima. What can I say, Im ignorant to the fact that fit it best but I am also a believer that we cant outrun our destiny.
Wow. I lost 50 pounds on WW and quit a year ago. Since then, I’ve gained back 30 through my spectacularly bad eating habits–habits far worse than those I had before joining.
But that’s my own damn fault. I can’t imagine suing for something that’s so obviously of my own doing–and I’m a lawyer!
Hmm. I’m on WW right now. I’m down 50 some odd pounds. You mean if I stop counting my points, I’m going to gain weight back? Dumbasses.
And Freap, whether or not it’s unjust to judge people that or overweight or not, it’s easier to change myself than the world. I’m happier lighter, and I don’t feel like I’m starving.
Q.N. I think you hit the nail right on the head. The real point here is that your body cannot create mass (cite? see Einstein). So, I have no sympathy for the people who claim to have genetic problems (ie-- I am fat because I have a glandular problem). Granted, not everyone can look like Kate Moss…we do not have the bone structure for it, however we all can eat reasonably and have a healthy life. The trouble comes when we make excuses and fail to take responsibility for our own health and well being.
Ok… you say that keeping a medically appropriate weight for a long time is unhealthy. Right? That’s what you say. I’m not sure if it’s what you mean.
As for the heredity point, i’m sick to death of hearing this bullshit. Heredity doesn’t cause obesity rates to SKYROCKET in a generation! Of course, some people have medical problems, and some people are just so big naturally that they shouldn’t be expected to fall into society’s desired weight bracket, but in general, heredity is no fucking excuse for a continent full of obese people who believe that they aren’t at fault.
People need to learn to respect their bodies. Instead of just healthy food, try a healthy lifestyle! :smack:
I think it’s great. Weight Watchers needs to guarantee that people will keep weight off after they leave the WW plan. No matter what draconian weight-loss tools they have to use – be it midnight visits from Mafia goons, compulsory liposuction, or machetes – this guarantee should be a part of any diet plan.
A diet plan that abdicates its responsibility for my weight loss just because I leave the plan is acting unconscionably.