Good News

MB's employer is always trying new ways to get its employees to diet and exercise. That means that they have a lot of fat people working for them. Fat people have more health problems, and that costs her employer money. Late last year, they sponsored a series of on-site Weight Watchers meetings. Her employer paid half the cost up front. Employees who signed up paid half price, and at the end of the session, if they met their individual weight loss goals set by Weight Watchers, they were reimbursed for the half they paid. MB did very well, making her goal in the first session. They had another session the first part of this year. Again she did well, narrowly missing the new goal. MB was jazzed. They wanted to offer a third session, but not enough people signed up. Those who did sign up tried to recruit enough members to have a third session. When pressed, people said, "We want to take the summer off. That's when we go places and do things." In other words, "We want to put the weight back on, and get credit for losing the same weight again in the fall. Assuming they do this again in the fall." That's how fat people think. That's why they're fat.

We couldn't afford the fees for her to join another group. Not at full price. Not on what they pay her. MB was frustrated. She'd lost weight in the past, but it was a slow and arduous process, and she never seemed to keep it off. Now that she'd found something that seemed to work for her, she didn't want to lose her momentum. After scrabbling about for ideas, she decided to continue to follow the plan on her own. But to stick to it, she felt she would need encouragement and moral support from other people on the plan. She got a friend to agree to do "at home weight watchers" with her. I agreed to try it too. We weigh in once a week and report our progress.

I've never been what I would call fat, but I am carrying around more weight than is good for me. I've only lost weight three times in my life. All three were in the summer. One summer, we had a hot spell that seemed like it would never end. We lived in an attic apartment with no a/c and very little insulation. I was working 60 hours a week, doing hard physical labor. We had a baby who didn't sleep much. Another summer, I was experimenting with semi-vegetarianism. On that diet, I could eat meat, and I could eat carbs, just not at the same meal. I got so bored with the food choices, eating became a chore. I usually didn't finish my meals because it didn't seem worth the effort to chew them. The third summer was the summer I spent unloading trucks at Wal-Mart. None of these were things I could keep up long-term, the first physically, the second emotionally, (I got to the point that just looking at a salad made me depressed.) and the third financially. When I returned to normal food and activity levels, the weight returned. Other than these, my weight has either stayed the same or slowly increased.

So I was not optimistic about Weight Watchers, at home or anywhere else. I only agreed to track points and weigh in to support Mama Bear. I didn't think I could stick to the plan, not even in the short run. Well, five weeks in, I've found that I have to plan ahead a bit more, but most days I manage not to go over my allotted points. Even on the days I do go over, I don't go over as far as I expected. I've lost 10 lbs. so far, and I don't even feel like I'm working that hard. One thing that helps is that there are no forbidden foods. I just have to add up the points and decide what's worth it to me. MB hasn't lost any additional weight, but she hasn't put any of the weight she lost back on.