What do you think? insights from a WW leader

neffybetty

My sister who was a weight watchers leader said that people who struggle to lose weight are usually on medications that cause weight gain or have addictive personalities and chase instant gratification so won't say no to something they want. She said that most people are four chocolate biscuits a day away from a bikini body (as in they are only overeating by a small amount, but it makes a big difference). She also said that most people stop tracking their food intake because they want to cheat and they can't face up to what damage they are doing to their daily intake so they won't even look. They stop tracking so they can pretend the calories/points don't count.

Something I've noticed, is that they say only 5% of people who reach their goal weight will keep the weight off. But how many people reach their goal weight in the first place? I've tried to lose weight hundreds of times, and mostly have only lost 3kg at a time. I got about half way on my first real attempt, but mostly it's failure after failure. It would be interesting to get numbers of how many people are successful at keeping weight off from all diet attempts, not just people who made it all the way.

Sorry if this post is a bit all over the place to read. Hopefully you understand what I'm saying. Sorry again, this was supposed to be posted under debates.

neffybetty

If most people who are on WW and can't stick to a weightloss plan are on medications or have addictive personalities, does that mean that they can't lose weight, or they just need to learn new strategies?

nsk1951

What do I think about what your WW leader sisters view? Speaking strictly from my own experience with obesity … it sounds true to form. How do I feel after reading what your sister thinks? Like I (and everyone else struggling with overweight issues) have been “told off”.

sijomial

I think your sister's two assertions are flawed.

1/ Medication doesn't cause fat gain without a calorie surplus - the energy has to come from somewhere. Yes medications can make loss or maintenance harder or even much harder by affecting either the CI or CO parts of someone's calorie balance - as can the conditions being medicated.
e.g. Migraines 5 times a week really reduced my CO considerably, medication to treat the condition messed with my feelings of being full and so my CI went up considerably as I could eat all day and my improve CO wasn't enough to compensate. I had to consciously consider portions instead of a using hunger cues. Harder but not impossible.

2/ You don't need an addictive personality to prefer pleasure over deprivation or even discipline. That's just part of being human.

Yes everyone CAN lose weight, that's a simple fact. But far, far fewer WILL lose weight and keep it off long term. Simple and easy are two different things though.
Thought the usual success rate figure was more like 10% than 5%.

Long term commitment is hard and people fail at hard things including but not limited to diet (noun and verb). Too often people (including me) hold on to a reason or an excuse as to why things are harder for them which stops them trying hard enough - may well be a true reason (mine wasn't, it really was an excuse!) but I don't think it's helpful to think I can't do this because of xxx or yyy. Taking the responsibility of what and how much food we take in is a huge part of being successful and excuses weaken taking that step by making failure the expected outcome.
Imagine being given a long term project by your boss but your boss also tells you they expect you to fail at it and that's OK.....

People can change if they want it enough and it's depressing that people like your sister seem to think that can't happen. Yes strategies including WW or calorie counting (and many other approaches) can help enormously but the drive has to come from the person.

Xellercin

People say a lot of stupid crap.

This person is not an expert in any way, shape or form. I've seen the job listing for those roles, it's a sales listing, not a weight loss expert listing.

She's saying whatever is consistent with the narrative that the program "works" unless there's something "wrong" with the person.

That's what she's being taught to believe by a company that makes more money when people fail to achieve their weight-loss goals.

If WW members lost and kept off weight, the company would lose the vast majority of their business, which is repeat clients who keep coming back.

Why would you listen to this person?

FTR, I lost from obese to very lean, never regaining any weight except for a period where I was on a lot of prednisone and I regained a bit (much less than people typically gain), but was still in the healthy weight range. I re-lost the weight last year and am easily keeping it off.

I do so by ignoring the diet-culture BS spewed by almost everyone out there.

COGypsy

"Leaders" like your sister are why I quit WW. I found meetings to be super judgmental and mainly a way to sell boxes of their branded snacks. I tracked calories myself without meetings and points and managed to lose all the weight I wanted to and kept it off for years. I gained a little weight at the beginning of COVID and while I was caring for my mother after some surgical complications that I'd like to lose, but other than pretty specific situations, I've had no problems losing or maintaining without WW. In fact it was much easier once I got out of that whole environment. Seriously--who needs lectures about the evils of full-fat cheese? How is that kind of moralizing even helpful?

cwolfman13

Observationally, I'd say struggling to lose weight is more of a discipline thing...It is difficult to remain disciplined for months and months and even years in some cases. For maintenance I think it's lifestyle...I believe the low % of long term maintenance is due in large part to diet and exercise being a temporary weight loss effort rather than a good diet and regular exercise just being a part of who you are and what you do. People lose weight and then tend to revert back to old habits and drop healthy habits like regular exercise.

I maintained my weight loss for over 7 years until COVID hit and I gained 20 Lbs over the course of 2020 and 2021. In 2022 I decided I wanted to drop that weight, but I haven't been disciplined about it. I'll drop 5 Lbs and then put it back on...drop it and put it back on, etc. I know exactly what I need to do, I just haven't had the discipline to do it over an extended period of time. I yes, for myself cutting out a couple of snacks and evening beers would pretty much do the trick...I just haven't stayed consistent and disciplined with that over what I know from experience will be several months.

AnnPT77

If you want to learn about people who lose weight and keep it off, one source is the National Weight Control Registry in the US:

http://www.nwcr.ws/

It has more info about who those people are (demographically speaking), and reports research about how they did it.

As far as the things your sister said, I agree with others who said (possibly more politely) that it's judgy BS. Is it true for some people who leave WW? Maybe, I have no idea. I'm quite certain it's not true of everyone who's so far been unsuccessful at weight loss.

I think many/most people can lose weight, but they need to find an approach that's right for them, that fits with their individual preferences, strengths, and limitations. I like to think that people who haven't been successful yet just haven't found the right personalized tactics.

I'm pretty sure that miserable, punitive, unsustainable, extreme "diet plans" and "exercise regimens" to "lose weight fast" are a low probability route for most of us . . . but they're the most widely marketed and touted. The few people who do succeed via extreme measures will be held up as magical unicorn examples for the rest of us, with glowing testimonials. Those who make money from selling "weight loss miracles" make more money if those miracles don't last. They have a motivation to see us fail repeatedly.

Some people do succeed on WW, so it's maybe not the worst of the lot. But those for whom it doesn't work aren't necessarily weak, broken people of poor character. Even more so, if your sister's pontificating about why other plans don't work for other people, and saying that it's universally because those people are weak, broken, of poor character, that's complete nonsense.

If a plan doesn't work for a person, it's much more reasonable to conclude that it was a bad plan - at least for them, and maybe for lots of other people.

I have some of the faults your sister seems to decry: Liking pleasurable things, having a (mildly) addictive personality when it comes to enjoyable things like eating, being inconsistent/undisciplined, etc. Somehow, I lost weight anyway, and have stayed at a healthy weight for going on 7 years since (after around 3 previous decades of overweight/obesity). It's almost as if even weak, broken people of poor character can succeed if they find the right route. 😉

Xellercin

AnnPT77 wrote: »

If you want to learn about people who lose weight and keep it off, one source is the National Weight Control Registry in the US:

http://www.nwcr.ws/

It has more info about who those people are (demographically speaking), and reports research about how they did it.

As far as the things your sister said, I agree with others who said (possibly more politely) that it's judgy BS. Is it true for some people who leave WW? Maybe, I have no idea. I'm quite certain it's not true of everyone who's so far been unsuccessful at weight loss.

I think many/most people can lose weight, but they need to find an approach that's right for them, that fits with their individual preferences, strengths, and limitations. I like to think that people who haven't been successful yet just haven't found the right personalized tactics.

I'm pretty sure that miserable, punitive, unsustainable, extreme "diet plans" and "exercise regimens" to "lose weight fast" are a low probability route for most of us . . . but they're the most widely marketed and touted. The few people who do succeed via extreme measures will be held up as magical unicorn examples for the rest of us, with glowing testimonials. Those who make money from selling "weight loss miracles" make more money if those miracles don't last. They have a motivation to see us fail repeatedly.

Some people do succeed on WW, so it's maybe not the worst of the lot. But those for whom it doesn't work aren't necessarily weak, broken people of poor character. Even more so, if your sister's pontificating about why other plans don't work for other people, and saying that it's universally because those people are weak, broken, of poor character, that's complete nonsense.

If a plan doesn't work for a person, it's much more reasonable to conclude that it was a bad plan - at least for them, and maybe for lots of other people.

I have some of the faults your sister seems to decry: Liking pleasurable things, having a (mildly) addictive personality when it comes to enjoyable things like eating, being inconsistent/undisciplined, etc. Somehow, I lost weight anyway, and have stayed at a healthy weight for going on 7 years since (after around 3 previous decades of overweight/obesity). It's almost as if even weak, broken people of poor character can succeed if they find the right route. 😉

I've helped A LOT of people lose and keep weight off over the past decade, and I always start with identifying *why* they have excess weight to begin with.

It's not because they're weak, or have addictive personalities, it's because their lives are not set up to support the kind of lifestyle they need to maintain a healthy weight.

Most people try to cram weight loss into an already over-packed, over-burdened, over-stressed life. They don't realize that they need to make room for new priorities, which means other priorities need to fall by the wayside.

The very, very first thing I do is identify burdens that can be removed to free up time and energy resources for habit changing. Then I help them find ways to make healthier habits the easiest, laziest option.

If people don't have nutritious, portion controlled convenience options, they are setting themselves up for failure every time they're over-worked and exhausted, which is most of the time for most people. A plan can't require constant will power to work, because you can always rely on will power to be available as a resource.

The key to success in any project isn't will power, it's having enough resources to pull off the project, and optimizing the use of those resources to pull it off well.

The answer isn't "try harder," the answer is "make it easy." Most diet approaches make people's lives more difficult, not easier.

threewins

>Something I've noticed, is that they say only 5% of people who reach their goal weight will keep the weight off. But how many people reach their goal weight in the first place?

Back when weight loss blogs were a big thing and I had a lot of time I kept data on a large number of blogs, and about 15% of weight loss bloggers actually reached goal weight.

nsk1951

If losing weight was as easy as it is to put it on (for so many people, but not all), then most of us would be slender. ...
... I feel that once you are in a pattern of excess weight that it will be a struggle for the rest of your life to keep it in check; and if you don't keep it in check all the time you will gain some/loses some/gain some more ... over and over again.
... Back when I had a husband, we ended up like a fairy tale couple .. you know Jack Sprat and his round wife? He could eat no fat and she could eat no lean. ... and the thing is ... he naturally kept track of his food all the time and also had a high-energy job while I had a sluggish metabolism and didn't keep my portions smaller than his when I plated the food. When we ate cheese and crackers with a glass of wine, he stopped at 2 or 3 and 1 glass, I would continue on until the tray was empty! .. Stuff like that... no wonder I grew to obesity. And it's been a struggle to get it off and keep it off.