It is interesting that you post this, Consumer Reports within the last 1-2 weeks announced WW is the #1 diet out there! (! is in jest...). I have known several people who do weight watchers and have not lost more than 2-3 pounds, but the still pay to go see their WW counselor.

Over40

I lost nearly 19kg on WW. The bad thing is that as your weight decreases, so do your points and the thinner I got, the less I could eat and therefore the more hungry. Which doesn't sound right to me! I was thinner so had a more efficient metabolism AND able to exercise harder and for longer periods. I don't think it's healthy to then further deprive. I turned to Atkins after a 2.5kg gain. I don't want it all back! Today is my first day of induction.

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A lot of people I know find they have to decrease and track calories to continue losing on low-carb too.

I'm not doing it this time, not so far, but with other behavioral problems in the past, I found great success in 12-step programs. In theory, 12-step programs don't prescribe a specific plan, and even the 12 steps are just a suggestion, you don't have to buy the steps to profit from the meetings. The basic idea is that people with similar issues get together and talk. Kind of like this web site, only pre-Internet; and also without even the "low-carb" bias. (This site permits pro and con, so the difference is not that great.) The 12-step program for food and eating issues is Overeaters Anonymous, and it has been a fairly successful program, as can be measured by the relative abundance of meetings. I've been to one or two meetings when I lived in California, and they were great. I also knew people in other programs who were also in OA. One woman, for a couple of weeks, carried around a 10 lb flour sack, everywhere she went, something that had been suggested by her sponsor. A great motivator, without any nagging!

Weight Watchers is a private, for-profit program, with a set agenda. It is an entirely different animal, I'd expect, though I've never been to a meeting, I can only judge by what people have written here.

See [http://www.oa.org]

Just wanted to add this - I personally know 4 people on the WW diet. (A bunch of coworkers signed up). All 4 of them complain about being hungry all the time. They are losing weight, but very slowly, and they also complain about the point thing which is time-consuming.

But it's the constant hunger that turns me off from WW. I am never, ever hungry except right before a meal on the low carb diet I'm on.

Same here. I know one women in my office is trying to loose for a trip to Hawaii in the fall. She also just had a baby. She keep raving about all the weight she's lost....but I certainly can't see a change....except of course for the initial loss from having the baby.

She's hungry all the time. The funny thing is she had done LA in the past....on rrecommendationof her doc. Now she says she can't do LC because of the SF candies! LOL She does WW and obsesses over every point! And the more you loose the less points you get! LOL

I'm joining this conversation quite late, but sympathetically, as someone who's tried all the diets, WW included. Of course, they all work--until you quit doing them!

If weight management is your lifetime "affliction," you'll always have to be counting something. So far, for me, LC (Atkins) has been the easiest to keep track of and the most liveable to sustain. I'm at maintenance now, and fighting the temptation to "fudge" just a little (literally) here and there as I add more variety to my menu.

I am a member of the National Weight Control Registry, a study of people who have lost at least 30 lbs and sustained that loss for at least a year. While I initially lost 50 lbs. on low-fat, I've turned to LC for the long term, and have kept that weight off for almost ten years now. It is a never-ending journey, but one that adds to my quality of life and health.

Every person I know always tells me that Weight Watchers is the only valid diet and the most successful. The tell me I am a ticking time bomb for a heart attack, because I got thin through Atkins. I don't dare admit to being on Atkins. Even people that have gained back weight through WW, still maintian it is the only way to keep weight off. "Huh"?

The funny part is South Beach does not get as bashed. Maybe because of the name. Anything with the word beach must be wonderful.

The goal of every good diet is to provide the dieter with a sustainable habit. Wholesome foods you like to eat, in satisfying quantities.

One of the downsides of WW is that the more successful you are--that is, the less you weigh--the fewer points you get. It's like being punished!

With LC, the more successful you are, the more stuff you can ADD. Now that I'm at pre-maintenance, I've been enjoying more fruits, like apples, on a regular basis. It's possible that I will want to add some whole grains, like crackers, eventually. But I've learned to live without bread so easily, why bother? Pass me the broccoli, please--with a blob of that dill dip, too.

It's because people have been brainwashed for at least 3 decades through industry propaganda to believe that blood sugar spiking food are the foundations of a "wholesome diet". I mean, years and years of healthy attractive people eating cereal in commercials, telling you fat free grain food makes you thin... years and years of doctors saying the less meat and dairy fat, the better, the more beans grains and sweet fruit, the better...
It's hard to undo that kind of brainwashing, facts or no facts. Humans are emotional before they are logical. We will believe what "feels right" (emotional conclusions) before we believe what is self evident in observable reality. It doesn't matter that reducing total carbohydrate is for some (if not most) by far more effective than a low fat weight watchers diet, or even more effective than a pure glycemic index one (some "good carb bad carb" approach that doesn't actually reduce carbs in diet). There's just too many people who for too long have been saying the opposite.

Attitudes are slowly changing, Atkins isn't as ridiculous as it once was... but it's still embarassing to say you're on Atkins. People hear Atkins and they get images of massive steaks, deep fried pork rinds, take out burgers without the bun. If you're overweight still, they imagine that you're just being a glutton and eating anything and everything that has "no carbs" totally unconcerned with health, and you won't lose it. If you're thin, they imagine you're really unhealthy and destined to gain it back the "minute you go off the all-steak diet and eat "normally"".

Even though I eat pretty low carb to maintain weight (25% carbs is the max, usually under 20%), I just tell people that I lost it by reducing carbs a little.

Itsthewooo!....Thank you. I could never had answered in that way! I still feel a little uncomfortable to admit in public that I did Atkins. Always afraid someone would think I was some kind of nut. Great post.

Yep, I find it's best not to talk about any kind of fitness routine. When people ask what I do, I just say, "Oh, I watch what I eat and keep moving."

Nobody wants to know what it really takes.

I Think you guys are weak. You should be proud, you're working hard to diet, certainly not weak there. Why say just watchin' my weight? The world will never change that way. After all ,"Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world... are the ones who do."
-Apple, Think Different commercial.
"Push the human race forward"
-Apple
- Tell people you use Atkins or SB or whatever! Say a high-fat diet. Say no frankenfoods!
"We shall Prevail"
-Apple, "1984" commercial

I hear what you're saying, Ryax. But most comments and inquiries about appearance are just makin' conversation, not looking for advice.

Those who are seriously interested can solicit the full spiel from me. Even so, I've found that people who ask for and receive advice often begin avoiding me--as though I were somehow responsible for their feelings of guilt when they fail to follow up.

I'd rather not be in that position, thank you. Nothing takes the place of individual motivation and commitment.

Another way to look at it would be this: Choose your battles; you can't fight them all, so pick the ones that are most important to you. If it's worth it to you to go on a personal quest to convince the world that low carbing is the way to go and you don't mind the inevitable debates and controversy that choice will bring, go for it.
OTOH, a lot of people just don't want to be bothered with having to defend how they choose to eat on a daily basis (as if it's anybody else's business in the first place!) and instead choose the path of least resistance.
Personally, unless someone is really interested I usually just reply "I'm cutting out sugars and eating more vegetables" and leave it at that. It's not a matter of weak or strong. For me it's more a matter of having more important battles to focus my energies on.