Weight Watchers could work for you too

It is heading toward that most dreaded of all times ... bikini time. If you are considering losing weight, I strongly suggest that you give Weight Watchers a try. It's true that the stereotype of a meeting full of middle aged women carping about their boring lives has some basis, but I found many positives as well.

(1) IT WORKED. This is obviously the most important bit. I have lost a bit more than thirty pounds since last October, have reached my goal weight (5'7" - 151 lbs), and have maintained that weight for two months now. I have hypothyroid. I take medication, but the medication leaves me functional, it doesn't really make my metabolism normal. So it is quite difficult for me to lose weight. I have been trying various diets to lose these pounds and giving up due to hunger for the last five years.

(2) I can do everything online. I can check my "points" (Weight Watchers counts these, rather than calories), track my eating and exercise, and even enter my weight from your scale at home if I don't want to attend meetings. However ...

(3) Having someone else weigh you once a week gives me a sense of accountability. It's easy to weigh yourself at home and make excuses for "scale creep." We all know them ... "It's that time of the month" ... "I had a lot of salt with dinner last night" ... "The clothes I am wearing today add more weight than usual" ... "I've had a stressful week, but I'll do better next week, and the weight will just drop off" Knowing that someone was going to be writing my weight down in black and white every Thursday helped me stay motivated to keep going.

(4) I've seen it work for other people as well. I like to go to meetings because I was watching the other regulars around me lose weight too. Then, when I had a crappy week, and maintained or even gained, I could look around and remind myself that the program was working for all these people, and it would work for me if I worked it and didn't give up. I even found a workout buddy at my meeting who I now jog with 45 min 3 x a week.

(5) I WASN'T HUNGRY. My previous diet experiences consisted of starving myself until I couldn't take it any more. I never got lower than 170 lbs with any other diet, and I always gained the weight back after I started eating "normally" again. On Weight Watchers, even if I ran out of points, I could always take a 20 min walk and get a point back. Then I could eat a fruit, or a piece of light string cheese, or something to tide me over until bedtime. There are also several foods that have a points value of zero, including Asian pears. I never had to go to bed at 7pm because I was out of food for the day and still starving.

I don't have any affiliation with Weight Watchers, aside for paying them $9.99 a month to use their online tools. I don't get anything if you join. But if my doctor had not told me that it had worked for her, I would never have tried it myself, and I would still be 30 pounds overweight and miserable about it. If you need to lose weight, and are motivated to change your eating habits but aren't willing to be hungry, I urge you to visit Weight Watchers' website and try out a free meeting for yourself.