I agree, PJ, and I am not trying to come off as trying to make WW look like a worse diet when it comes to success rates. I think people fail at WW and other calorie restrictive diets for different reasons than low carb, at least in part.

I think dieters (or whatever you want to call them) have to overcome mental issues like their relationship with food and food addictions no matter the diet. I think that for both there are cultural and social pressures to overcome, but I think that it's much greater for low carb. Most of us weren't raised eating this sort of food, are constantly told that we are eating unhealthy stuff by the media and sometimes our doctors, on top of things like pressure not to be "dieting" during the holidays, special occasions, etc.

I think a diet where there is no suppression of appetite through either ketosis or carb restriction (like WW) adds that challenge to both loss and maintenance. And then there is the refeed issue, particularly if you aren't taking in adequate protein and your body is screaming out to rebuild its lean body mass. Yes, this happens with calorie restricted LC, but I think it might be slightly less of an issue.

With low carb, gaining water weight when you start to eat higher carbs is a big blow. I gain 7-10 pounds if I let my carbs go too high for more than a day. Luckily, this usually drops off quickly once I am in ketosis, but it is a hard thing for dieters to have to deal with.

ETA: My criticism of their success rate has more to do with how they've managed to become the "respected" option for most dieters without earning it through actual success. This doesn't mean I think that it is automatically that much harder to lose or maintain losses on WW. I think if there was a cultural shift in what we ate, I think there would be a bigger difference.

so the idea of the fewer "points" per day you eat, the more successfully you will lose weight? Is that the premise of the points counting?

I'd be interested to see the ratings for the different foods. If fruit is "0" and meats are "high ##" then, to make it work for LC all we would have to do is switch the premise to the "more" points you eat per day from the fewest sources, means you win! That way you'd still be following the points system but losing weight and confounding everyone at the weigh-ins who is doing the fewest points possible and still not losing or even gaining.

Really, the reason I don't use the quote function in this site is because I'm lazy. I also think that if I put something in quotes and then proceed to comment on it, it means I'm quoting something someone said and actually, it doesn't matter who said it. I'm commenting on what they said.

I used to use the quote function but then I thought, 'What a lot of work when you actually have a quote key....'

The success of WW will continue - and yes, it does have a lot to do with the skill of the leaders. I happen to like the flexibility of the diet, also, but I've learned that there are a lot of things people will never get past - so they will pile these criticisms on WW:

1. You have to pay to attend. 'Nuff said.

2. You failed before - and you are absolutely sure you know why - and you apply the reasons to the program and generalize about how it's a danger to everyone else so they are bound to fail with WW. You may have gone to WW last week and quit in a huff, you may have to WW last year and quit in a huff, you have gone to WW 20 years ago and quit in a huff. Or maybe you just felt like a failure and now that you're losing weight with a low-carb approach, you like to scorn WW and praise low-carb. The fact that you can go to WW and diet anyway you like and no one tells you to stop doesn't seem to matter. I go to WW. I also watch my carbs.

3. You don't like people to know your weight and see your weight and think anything about your weight. You like to weigh yourself alone in your home and no one will ever judge you. At WW, there's one person who knows your weight; it's the person who weighs you. She prints out the weight on a sticker for you and she may say something out loud to you if you have lost weight - she thinks it's positive reinforcement and she may also just be happy for you - but if she says nothing, people may guess that you either gained or just stayed the same. Just like them.

4. You want to talk about food. But the topic and the group is such that you aren't talking about food. You don't want to talk about food. But the topic and the group is such that they ARE talking about food.

5. You don't like restrictions. Period. 'Nuff said.

6. You don't believe the diet works. It works for a lot of people but it doesn't work for you. No one's forcing you to be there. But, then, even without a doctor having examined everything about your health thoroughly, and without him prescribing a specific diet just for you, you know that either you are a special case (possible) or the people who regularly lose weight at WW are special cases (less likely).

7. It's a sign of a weak diet for wimps that you have to go to a meeting to get support for the diet. Well, aside from the devotion to online forums to get support and give support for any diet, such as this one (WW has such a forum, and WW is available online to people who can't get to meetings - and you still pay and it is a good site - yet, there's a lot of support for WW online elswehere), a lot of WW's success is that they use approaches that they discuss as behavior-modification tools. Most topics at WW are about how we can deal with our own behavior when faced with food challenges. This is done in the personal setting of the meeting. Also, online.

8. You didn't like the leader. 'Nuff said. I didn't like the leader much when I started WW a few years ago. I found that I stopped going. Then I'd start up again, then I'd stop. When I realized the leader was key, I found a leader I liked - which is possible because there are meeting in several towns in my area, so there are several leaders. They have their fans - the one I didn't like is very popular, in fact.

9. The LC diet is superior. Actually, I don't think it is. I think it's a good option for people who like it and can live with it. Personally, I think it tastes pretty good. And no one argues with that.

10. You know someone who lost weight and then regained it on WW. Well, meet me - I lost weight on Atkins and regained it. So? WW offers the attraction that they don't tell you what you have to eat and yet they do tell you that your weigh-in (once a week) is important and they are there to discuss any problems with you. There's no magic to LC'ing. There's no magic to WW - and they never say there is. They only say that it works - because if you follow the plan, it does. If you don't follow the plan and merely focus on your weight goal and weigh-in every week, losing with your own variation of some diet, it is working. If I'm losing weight low-carbing, are you really going to butt in and tell me what I'm doing wrong? WW sees you lose weight and just says, 'Good for you!' (I must admit that the leader will ask the person who lost 5 pounds that week, 'What helped you the most to make that happen?' to get positive tips for the group.)

11. You get hungry on WW 'counting points' plan. They will help you with problems you have with the plan. You're never hungry when all you're eating is protein. I am actually hungry when all I'm eating is protein. I start craving carbs. I find the balance of protein, fat, and carbs that works for me - and WW never tells me that's wrong, because they never know what that balance is. No one at WW has ever looked at my food diary (it's online).

WW has not 'earned' their success? Please. They've been recommended by doctors, sure, because they are successful. My doctor recommends WW because his practice has seen so many people lose weight with WW - but he also has said that he's seen success with South Beach. Whatever works.

WW is about to change the program to introduce a new plan after Thanksgiving. I'm excited. I'll take what they say, see if it works for me, keep what works and see if I can figure out what doesn't work for me. They have no problem with that.

'That way you'd still be following the points system but losing weight and confounding everyone at the weigh-ins who is doing the fewest points possible and still not losing or even gaining.'

People don't have discussion about how many points they ate at the meetings. It's online that people give the rundown of what they ate for breakfast, lunch, snacks and dinner - and they do that at every diet forum, no matter whether it's WW or Atkins or the Shangi-La Diet or the Macadamia-Nut Diet.

When the leader says, 'Congratulations on your 8 pound loss this week' (the leader at my meeting actually did lose 8 pounds this week - the most she's ever lost at WW and she's following the new plan), I am waiting for the first person to say, 'Well, I ate prime rib every day, about 6,000 calories worth, every day, and drank a lot of water.' I'm imagining the scenario:

She will be flabbergasted, as all of the group will be. We'll gasp and say, 'Are you SURE you were eating 6000 calories EVERY single day?'

'Yep.'

'And you didn't exercise, or anything?'

'Nope. I watched TV 24/7 and chewed on the bones between feedings.'

'And you feel OK?'

'Best I've ever felt in my life!'

'And your bowels are moving regularly?'

'Yep, I go every day, like clockwork.'

'Does your doctor think this is OK? Are you going to eat that much meat the rest of your life?'

'He's an idiot. I stopped going to doctors years ago. I have a freezer full of meat and this is exactly what I plan to eat for the rest of my life.'

Leader: 'Well, good for you! Now, who can tell me what the worst night of the year is for people who are trying to lose weight? Does someone think it's Halloween? Why is that?.... '

You're actually making more work for yourself cutting and pasting. For all the effort you make to write your posts, you'd think you'd want people to understand what you're saying. And yes it does matter who said what and the original context. It might not to you, but to at least some of the people you're trying to communicate with it sure does.







As far as I can see not one of these (except the hunger and possibly people believing low carb is superior) were criticisms I read in this thread. All I see is mostly little numbered strawmen.



Oh, they've earned their "success", just like any other multinational corporation. Part of this success was earned through marketing, including marketing to the medical community. As I explained, things like the National Weight Control Registry registry allowing WW collected data to be used helps skew things to make WW look more successful than other programs. Whether or not your doctor recommends it and why is just anecdotal information. Further, I doubt you are privy to his decision making process regardless of what he may or may not tell you.

Corporations have one duty, and that is to make money for their shareholders. It's their legal obligation, in fact. They don't care whether or not you lose weight or drop dead tomorrow. Now, actually delivering weight loss to their participants is one way that WW could make a profit. It's not the only way. WW really only needs to ensure that people think they are the best option for fat people. In fact, it would probably lead to more profits to have more people fail yet have WW maintain a stellar reputation, especially if they can convince the dieter/consumer their personal weakness is at fault and not the diet/leader/or physical nature of the dieter.

Again, I am not saying WW doesn't offer a solution to some people. It's just rarely recognised for what it is, and it has been shown in studies to be no more successful than other programs.



I wish you luck. Honestly, I would cheer you on if you lost a lot of weight on WW and were able to maintain it. I don't cheer on WW. I am not sure what sort of validation you get posting about WW on this forum, but honestly, I do hope you meet your goals.

The Candyboots link is hilarious!

This is at the bottom in small print:
'This site is not affiliated with
Weight Watchers International, Inc.,
whose present-day recipes
are very nice and do not look like ass at all.'

I have over a thousand cookbooks and I can tell you - those recipes are not that weird for 1974. I think I could probably top them if I dug through my collection but what would be lacking is the garish photographs. Food styling has certainly changed over the years!

There are a few WW cookbooks today that are just excellent - depending on what you like to cook or what your family likes to eat. There's a fantastic recipe I heard about for sweet-potato leek soup that I could never find until I saw it in a WW cookbook. Someone had it at a dinner party and it was a WW recipe.

I was a volunteer for the local library's support organization - we would have people look through the cookbook collections at our sales just to find recipes they remembered being very good.

'You're actually making more work for yourself cutting and pasting.'

No, that was actually quick.

Some of my points (the 'straw men') were in this thread. But in general, the ranting against WW is not new on this forum. So, I was listing the more common criticisms. But I forgot one, which can be number 12!

12. WW is a company! It's BIG! It's a corporation! It has stock! It's competitive! Its success rises and falls on the success of its members. Oops, that's actually not related to being a corporation....

Might as well add:

13. It has a drop-out rate. It counts that. Other diets are smart. They have drop-out rates, also. You don't actually see those numbers because they are not 'out there' so I guess they must be lower. Or not. Who knows.

It being a corporation has a lot to do with the dietary advice that is given to the dieters (which I hypothetically showed in a post upthread). While this may or may not impact dieters' success rates, WW does have the power to manipulate the public's perceptions of its effectiveness. The perception is what matters to the corporation, not if people are actually succeeding.



Sorry, did anyone say that other diets don't have a failure rate?

WW's being a corporation doesn't mean much beyond it having to be competitive. To keep members and attract member, it has to be successful. That's competition.

No one said that diets don't ALL have drop-out rates or failure rates. WW has them, it's just that their rates are counted. That's all that I said. There is no way to ever compare the Atkins drop-out or failure rates with the WW rates. It may very well be much higher. Who knows. (Make up a number in your head and stick to it - that's all you can do when you think about Atkins and its success!)

Oh, it means a lot, and I've referred to how that changes things again and again in my posts. If you're not going to read them, let me know, and I won't bother posting them, at least in response to your posts.




No one mentioned WW's failure rates either. This is another strawman. In fact, no one's even brought up WW's actual success rates. I explained how things like NWCR's readiness to take WW's data (but not weight loss data from dieters themselves) gave WW a perceptive advantage.

WW works for some people, but bottom line, it's a business that wants to make money. Yes, some of that is made by provided a service that people can use to reach their goals. I've never denied that, and if you've read my posts, you would have seen that I've admitted that. It's not the only way, and again, in every single one of my posts I've explained how perception trumps actual effectiveness and how even something you see as wonderful like the lifetime membership is actually a way that WW ensures that that person is tied to their program, is around to buy crap, to help them recruit and retain members, and to help ensure if they do screw up (and with a margin of error of 2 pounds, they will), they will be paying consumers again. Their lifetime memberships seem genius to me but hardly corporate altruism in action.

I really fail to see how hard it is to use the quote function. You've already cut the text, pasted it and it's already selected. All you have to do is click on the quote button and you're done. There is laziness and there is laziness

I tend not to read your posts at all. Your practice of quoting a lot while adamantly refusing to use the quote function actually turns them into a "wall of text". You say you are lazy, but what you end up doing is making your readers do the work for you. Personally, I am too lazy to bother.

No offence, but that's just the way it is for me.

If we keep this up we can throw the weight watchers thread into the warzone where it belongs.

PJ

'There is laziness and there is laziness'

To the warzone! (... sheesh. Give it up already.)

'WW works for some people, but bottom line, it's a business that wants to make money.'

OMG!

'...even something you see as wonderful like the lifetime membership is actually a way that WW ensures that that person is tied to their program, is around to buy crap, to help them recruit and retain members, and to help ensure if they do screw up (and with a margin of error of 2 pounds, they will), '

The EVIL ARMY!