Might leave Weight Watchers - how to stay accountable?

annabananaLA

Hi all! New to MFP. I have finally had to face the fact that despite the good that WW has done for me it may be time that we consciously uncouple. But I feel like I did get a lot from the fact of the meetings and the accountability that they brought. Has anyone else here made the same transition from WW to MFP? How did you deal with maintaining accountability?

Diatonic12

Moi. I come from a long line of WW lifers. None of them have ever graduated, they've been paying their dues almost all the days of their life. I'm not going out like that. Guess what. I came here and I'm in lurve with the joint. I take full responsibility for myself. I no longer diet.

If dieting really worked, you would do one diet, one time and be fixed for life.
Dieting doesn't work. It's a temporary fix to compensate for weight struggles...during giant month hunks of your life.

I was here for 2 years before I joined the community. I would read the posts as I tooled along. You will find that most of the people with lasting success track their meals and calories. They do everything on their own terms with food and movement they actually enjoy.

You'll run into the veterans here with the perfect mix of common sense and brains. They won't steer you wrong. So settle in with your stats and data points. In the end, no one else can do any of this for us. We are accountable to ourselves. Oooo, one last thing. Remember, there are people all over this world that have all of the money in the world, chefs, shopper, fetchers and catchers and they still can't find stability with their weight. No one can do the hard work for us. There are days it will take true grit. But it's all fun, really.

emmamcgarity

I focus on the Weight Watchers Good Health Guidelines but use MFP to keep myself accountable for portion control. I do incorporate many of the WW zero point foods into my diet. I just track the calories for them.

I was a WW At Home Kit member back in the day, and a WW online member at another point. But, I never did meetings. Just wasn't interested in meetings....

berky06

I'm a WW drop-out many times over. It would work for a bit-then I got bored, tired of driving to meetings, etc. My daughter was doing MFP and having great results losing her baby weight. So she helped me get into this. I love this site and the people here are so supportive and friendly. What is the best for me is doing it the way I want to do it. I've been doing this since mid-January and I'm down 32 pounds! I enjoy the healthier lifestyle now. I am hooked on walking, I am so aware of what I eat. If, I mess up (and I have) I get right back on track. When it comes right down to it, the only person I am accountable to is myself. I lost my weight on my own, doing it my way and I'm proud of it. Believe me, that accomplishment is the best feeling in the world! I still have about 25 or so more to lose and I know that I will get there! You can do it!

vingogly

Mari22na wrote: »

Moi. I come from a long line of WW lifers. None of them have ever graduated, they've been paying their dues almost all the days of their life. ...I take full responsibility for myself. I no longer diet.

If dieting really worked, you would do one diet, one time and be fixed for life.
Dieting doesn't work. It's a temporary fix to compensate for weight struggles...during giant month hunks of your life.

... You will find that most of the people with lasting success track their meals and calories. They do everything on their own terms with food and movement they actually enjoy.

... In the end, no one else can do any of this for us. We are accountable to ourselves. ...

^^ This 100%.

Long term success is about self awareness and being honest with yourself. You have to get away from mindless eating, and using food as self medication. Food is for nourishment and enjoyment, not a drug or a solution for our negative mental states.

I got rid of all my fat clothes and decided: I'll never buy larger clothes again because I was putting on weight. I'll accept my decision to put on weight, and accept my responsibility for getting back on track because no one else can do that for me. It's just that simple.

MizLandryEats

I go in and out and recently dropped out to do a 90-day challenge with my trainer and using MFP to track. I was spending nearly $45/month and not going to the meetings. I'm only a week in my new program and lost 1.6, but I still had to assemble an accountability team. We'll see how it goes long term. I think WW is an excellent way to lose weight, but it was becoming white noise to me. I was great at recruiting others! I'd bring them in, they'd lose weight and I just remained the same. Maybe we need a MFP WW Dropout Group!

kittybenn

shele62 wrote: »

When it comes right down to it, the only person I am accountable to is myself. I lost my weight on my own, doing it my way and I'm proud of it.

This^ This^ This^ Did exactly the same and down 87 lbs. I just had to wake up.

Diatonic12

If dieting really worked, you would do one diet, one time and be fixed for life.


"Long term success is about self awareness and being honest with yourself. You have to get away from mindless eating, and using food as self medication. Food is for nourishment and enjoyment, not a drug or a solution for our negative mental states."


@vingogly The mind warp dieting throws at us. Books and clubs, trainers, coaches, dues and memberships. It's the biggest biz on the face of the planet. So much of this stuff is mental. I got off the dieting merry-go-round for good.

So many, many words have been written about dieting and when you're at the crossroads, you can't remember any of them. I resented the WW weigh in. I felt like I was waiting at the feedlot for my turn to be tagged as part of the herd. The weigh in actually worked in reverse for me. The longer I went, I was going out completely backwards. There was the eating-it-all-back-after-class club. Weigh in and go out to eat. I was throwing my $$$ out the window.

I stopped dieting cold turkey. I could see the flaws in dieting. The total mind warp.

There are only choices and consequences. I choose to go back to my original factory settings. That time in my life when dieting wasn't any part of the equation. We all have one. Deprogramming yourself from ww/ atkins/paleo/primal/keto/IF/OMAD/all food group elimination diets and food delivery diets/powders/potions, hexes and dieting curses is a choice.

With every day that goes by that decision does get easier. This is the strategy I've used to break all of the eating it back - dieting cycles for me. I will not read another book that rephrases all of the old dieting psychobabble and packages it up with slick marketing tricks. Using other phrases for moderation but really, it's absolutely the same thing. I've been duped by it. Dieting Nitwittery Mistakes = experience.

I'm not ever going to diet another day in my life. That is all.

annabananaLA

I LOVE all of this feedback. Thank you so much for the helpful advice everyone. I’ve been repeating “I’m not going out like that” to myself all day @Mari22na!

adotbaby

I did WW too, lost almost 50, then put it back. All that money spent, for what?! Now I am a MFP fan, I call it WW without the guilt

RetiredAndLovingIt

@Mari22na ...how did you "stop dieting" and "go back to original factory settings"? Since you are on MFP, are you counting calories? This is interesting.

meatbal263

I am a WW lifetimer and I really only go for the accountability of the weigh in and to see the friends I have made. I dont have to pay but if I did I would have walked away, this new program is designed to keep people going and paying forever.

teresap423

I loved the WW meetings but could no longer afford the program and driving to meetings was becoming costly as well. WW is really about common sense eating. I’m with you on this journey of moving from WW to MFP. I worry about the accountability factor but it sounds like everyone here at MFP is friendly and about cheering each other on.

iamunicoon

LynnLandry1 wrote: »

Maybe we need a MFP WW Dropout Group!

That's actually a great idea.

I'm not a WW Dropout, so I wouldn't be eligible.

But I can see why you would struggle with suddenly not having the meetings and the accountability they provide anymore. You could use that group as a substitute, maybe even find local members to have mini-meetings and weigh-ins with.

Diatonic12

@RetiredAndLovingIt Yes. I stopped dieting cold turkey. I hold these truths to be self-evident.

If dieting really worked, you would do one diet, one time and be fixed for life.

For 5 years, I researched everything I could find about the side effects of long term dieting. In 2016, I joined MFP and I read the posts here for over 2 years before I connected with the community. With every passing day that you let dieting eat your dust, your endurance and stamina will increase. You take full responsibility for everything and become 100% accountable to yourself.

You learn to cook with wild and reckless abandon. No more rinky dink recipes. Dieting causes behavioral relapse. You fall back into old habits or playing with all of your old play foods. I call that thrill eating.

There's so much to say but do everything on your own terms. Eat your foods and find movement you actually enjoy.

Doing things you don't want to do - all in the name of weight loss is the recipe for eating it all back. Rid yourself of the starting over and over and over thinking. There is no such thing as the finish line. There is no such thing as the perfect day or time to start. Think of your very next meal as the time to hit the reset button. Don't let yesterday use up too much of today. Don't linger long over past mistakes. Keep tooling along.

I use music to intercept old habits. Did you know that music is one of the very few things that connects both hemispheres of your brain. Use a song to break yourself from old stinkin' thinkin'. Music helps all kinds of patients relearn language. It also works for breaking yourself of useless habits. I use it daily. I leave you this song to jumpstart your day.

http://"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GmZBhw48QM[/url]


I think the most difficult part about ridding yourself of the dieting mentality is actually giving yourself the permission to do everything on your own terms. Giving yourself permission to stop thinking about your life and your decisions about food through the bias of someone else.

Dieting can become the new addiction to compensate for everything. Can you count on one hand the number of times you've found weight stability with dieting. If you cannot it's time to lay it all down and become 100% accountable to yourself. You don't need to live through the bias of someone's thinking about you. Dieting books compartmentalize and marginalize people. That's not freedom but mostly slick marketing tricks.

The 4 or 40 personality types for dieting and how you can pound another square peg into a much deeper hole with more dieting, dieting, dieting. I don't want to go out like that. Thanks for listening. I appreciate it.

Nataliegetfit

You can connect with people on here, add them and you can see their progress on your home page and like or comment on them and they to you as well. It's not really being held accountable to someone, but sharing and encouraging each other. Plus always someone to ask questions, lots of encouraging posts to read. If you log your food correctly it will help you to hold yourself accountable. Start slowly with just walking or swimming. The food is the most important part of this. Try to find lower calorie foods when you're hungry and want to snack. I just found some 80 calorie greek yogart that is very good.

cheryldumais

I left WW 2.5 years ago to go it on my own and lost 106 pounds. I had paid and paid and paid with WW for years. I learned some things from them back on one of the old programs but after that felt that the program kept getting harder and worse. When I left I decided to build my own program. Something that fit me and I could live with the rest of my life. So far I am maintaining and it is amazing to be normal sized finally. There is loads of support here but it's true ultimately you are only accountable to yourself. If we can do it so can you.

Diatonic12

My relatives who started with the original program back in the 60's swear up and down it was the best one. But there was weighing and measuring portions. Only 7 eggs a week, fish, fish, fish at least 4 x week, so on. The program changes every year so you have to buy new books, keep coming for the latest info. That's marketing for every dieting program out there. Write a new book every year and change it all up, offer you a day planner and calendar. Badges, pins, tiddlywinks to throw in your purse.

My grandmother loved clubs so this was right up her alley. She never graduated but was a lifer. Her dieting legacy was passed on down through the generations. I decided to Shawshank it.