Posts

Showing posts with the label Weight Maintenance

Weight Watchers' Weight Maintenance Program: Success or Failure?

Image
Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other. --Abraham Lincoln How well does Weight Watchers do in helping their members manage maintenance? I know for a fact that Weight Watchers offers a good maintenance program for its graduates, a.k.a. Lifetime members, but why do so many members fail at maintenance and, as a consequence, end up returning again and again to WW to lose the weight they have regained? To understand WW members' frustration, one just has to go on this posting on Weight Watchers' Facebook. When Consumer Reports rated the best diet programs, the editors rated Weight Watchers as the second best program, basing their opinion on the fact the fact that soup, high in sodium, was offered as a menu option to help dieters to stave off hunger. Never mind that this was just a sample menu among many other sample menus. In other words, Consumer Reports was splitting hairs and needed to justify selecting another progr

Jenny Craig's Weight Maintenance Program: Success or Failure?

Image
When I try to get work in the US all they say is that I need to lose weight--but I bet they never said that to Mae West. --Charlotte Church When Consumer Reports rated the best diet programs, the editors rated Jenny Craig the top program, basing their findings on a study funded, in part, by no other than Jenny Craig. Consumer Reports made a lame attempt to use this small study (in which the participants were given, for two years of free Jenny Craig food and waived program fees) to prove that, overall, Jenny Craig members kept the weight off the longest. Well, duh... But now I would like to cut through the BS and see how well Jenny Craig (and, eventually, other programs) really works in the weight maintenance department. We all know that weight loss programs, even dangerous ones (which Jenny Craig is not), work for taking weight off. For example, I could go on a fasting diet for a week and lose a significant amount of weight, although it's not likely I'll keep the

What I Write When I'm Not Sure What I Want to Say: On Weight Maintenance and Vanity Sizing Redux

Image
Do not wait; the time will never be "just right." Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along. --George Herbert What a strange power there is in clothing. --Isaac Bashevis Singer On Wednesday, Dr. Oz featured Susan and Pete, a couple who started Weight Watchers three months ago. So far, they have done very well, lowering their weight (Susan, 18 pounds lost; Pete, 33 pounds), BMI (she, from 29 to 26; he from 35 to 29), and body fat (she, from 41% to 37%; he, 33% to 28%). Kudos to them! The truth of the matter: all diets work very well at taking the weight off. However, what I would like to see: follow-up shows on Susan and Pete, a year and two years from now, to see how well these Weight Watchers members have maintained their weight and healthy lifestyles. You see, I am convinced that this is the missing element from all commercial diet programs, and I'm trying to unde

Memoir Madness: Driven to Involuntary Commitment