Should I Do Weight Watchers
Should I Do Weight Watchers
There's not a food group out there that I haven't eliminated at some point in my dieting life. Carbs, dairy, sugar, meat. If I supsected a potential culprit in my struggle to lose a few pounds, I got rid of it.
So when Women's Health challenged me to sign up for Weight Watchers for a month, I was ready to give it a shot. After a recent foot surgery, some very well-meaning friends brought me dinners, sweets, and snacks. That led me to gain eight pounds in a short period of time, and I couldn't exactly walk it off.
I downloaded the Weight Watchers app, signed up, and completed my personal assessment, where I admitted that my reason for joining was to try to get back into my size four pants.
After that assessment, I went through the humiliating task of defining how active or inactive I was and describing how I may or may not eat more chips than carrots on the regular. Then, Weight Watchers ran the numbers and said I was allowed 30 Daily Smart Points.
I was ready to get going.
Week One
Alison Bonaguro
Eggs and coffee for breakfast, some soup for lunch, grilled chicken and roasted red peppers for dinner? "I could totally do this forever," I thought.
But then, life happened.
A couple days into my weight-loss journey, a friend invited me out to lunch. I chose Panera, because I'd seen their food in the Weight Watchers drop-down menu via their app, so I knew there'd be no guess work.
Related: What 6 Nutritionists Order at Panera
I ordered the Chicken Cobb salad—yes, the one with the avocados—and was only allowed to eat half. That was a little disappointing, but so is having jeans that don't button.
One thing I learned about myself pretty quickly is that I can be frugal if I need to be. So the other half of that Cobb salad became my dinner. I was ready to become the kind of person who eats leftovers.
During the first week, I thought a lot about wine. Because on the Weight Watchers commercials, when Oprah says, "We're doing it," she is holding a glass of wine. And if she can, I can. I just had to leave room for the wine points at the end of my day. If I had to choose between wine and dessert, wine always won.
Week Two
Alison Bonaguro
During week two, I learned that I can't lie—even to a point-counting app. I was going to put an extra handful of cereal in my yogurt and not tell Weight Watchers, but I realized that if I cheat when I'm keeping track, I'm just cheating myself.
Well into my second week, I kind of got the hang of how to track things properly, but it was tedious. If you log in to tally your breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a snack for a month, that's 120 eating occasions when you have to put every single item into the search bar. And with each meal potentially having five items—for example, a breakfast of a cup of coffee, two tablespoons of creamer, two hard-boiled eggs, one piece of toast, two tablespoons of peanut butter—well, you do the math. It could be about 600 items to tabulate.
Related: 'How Many Eggs Is it Really Safe to Eat Per Week?'
There's also the measuring. I couldn't just eyeball things. When I thought I was eating "just a little spoonful of peanut butter," I was actually eating about five tablespoons, which is the same amount of points (15) as three strips of bacon.
I faced the same issue when I tried to make myself a balanced dinner at home, like chicken, roasted cauliflower and asparagus, and a salad. I'd add those items to my daily calorie log, but then had to add the ingredients I'd used to get there. The marinade for the chicken, the olive oil for the roasting, and the dressing for the salad. My thumbs are tired just thinking about it
Because I dreaded record-keeping, I kept my meals simple and tended to eat the same things quite often because I knew what they were worth.
When I was faced with an unknown, like snacks at a neighbor's party, I almost wanted to rummage through their fridge to see if they had hard-boiled eggs. Because those, I know, are two points. Instead, I opted for basics, like all the veggies I could eat (without any of the dip) and a handful of almonds. I was dying to try the hot ham and cheese sliders, but just not this month.
By mid-month, after what I considered a lot of sacrifice, I'd only lost two pounds.
Week Three
Alison Bonaguro
So many people love Weight Watchers. Their reason is usually some form of "you can eat the things you love." And you can. But it's not exactly that freeing.
This is my guacamole lament.
I love tableside guacamole—and the chips and margaritas that usually accompany it. One night in this Weight Watchers journey, my husband and I went out to a Mexican place with friends. We ordered the guac, and I knew I'd be able to enjoy it because this diet is so not about deprivation.
Related: The 13 Best Things to Order at a Mexican Restaurant, According to Nutritionists
But here's the sad reality I had to swallow with all that deliciousness: The 12 chips and six tablespoons of guacamole (which I measured out with a stainless steel tablespoon and leveled off with a knife as soon as it arrived) I'd allotted myself barely lasted me five minutes into our appetizer-heavy meal. I think the lesson I was supposed to learn from is that an hour or two of mindless snacking doesn't work when you're trying to lose weight.
Still, it was hard to watch my friends go HAM on all those apps long after my portion was gone.
I tried to make my own simple meals for the remainder of the week after that, even if it meant just getting by on an elementary school staple like a PB&J.; I upgraded it with sprouted wheat bread, low-sugar jam, and a very thin spread of peanut butter.
The reward, of course, is that three weeks into this, I'd lost four pounds. With only one pound and one week left to go, I was feeling pretty good about my progress. (Torch fat, get fit, and look and feel great with Women's Health's All in 18 DVD!)
Week Four
Alison Bonaguro
I'm sure this happens to everyone at some point during any diet. You lose a little, and you get cocky.
So when one of my friends brought over a chocolate cake, I didn't want to be rude. And I had lost those four whole pounds, so why not?
I'll tell you why not. One slice was 27 points, meaning essentially an entire day of points. I didn't know that before I devoured the cake. Lesson learned: check points first, eat cake later.
I tried to make up for it for a couple days post-cake, but I was very hungry and also very remorseful. And remorse for me has a tendency to turn into a binge-eating session that would undo all the good I'd done. Since that cake was still in the house, I jammed it down the garbage disposal, and went back to the foods I knew were more Weight Watchers-friendly. RIP cake.
See the weirdest diets people have actually tried.
The Results
Alison Bonaguro
After losing five pounds and gaining the ability to zip up my jeans without laying down, my 30-day (free!) trial membership was behind me. Though I don't plan to keep using Weight Watchers, I learned that losing weight is kind of like a story problem from grade school: Alison wants to lose five pounds. She is 5'6" and walks her dog for an hour five days a week. She likes wine and cake. What can she eat every day for four weeks to lose weight? In other words, it's all about balance and making healthy food choices.
Five pounds is a very manageable amount to lose, so it's not like I was setting myself up to fail. But the lessons I learned about keeping track of what I ate seem like they'd work for almost anyone trying to lose a more considerable amount.
Through this 30-day period, I learned how to look at a meal and know if it will fit into my eating plan that day, that no food or drink is the bad guy (except for maybe that cake), and how to be more mindful about almost everything I eat (minus the bottomless bowl of chips and the unmeasured handfuls of granola).
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Source: https://www.womenshealthmag.com/weight-loss/a19955385/weight-watchers-free-trial/
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