My love-hate relationship with Weight Watchers

So far I've been on Weight Watchers for 3 weeks. Here's the top five list of reasons that I love to hate and hate to love the program.

5. The "eat less/move more" chatter. I find it over-simplistic, and resent that people are always going on with the "eat less/move more" thing (especially thin people, especially thin people who can eat all day and never gain a pound, especially thin doctor people who tell me that I have a cold because I am fat and I should just eat less and move more and then want me to be suddenly enlightened because they have given me the Answer to the Universe). Ok, fine. It's good and basic. But it does not address issues like metabolism, genetics, problems real people have with moving more, eating less, etc. And it causes such a visceral reaction for me because I've seen doctors for years who think every ailment I've ever had is weight-related, from an ear infection to a broken toe.

4. The crappy online interface.  Although the options for recording food are pretty simple and user friendly, I can't enter simple exercises such as a run at a certain speed for a certain time. And the points offered for activities are not based on my weight. The group formats are crappy, as are the challenge format. These guys have money spilling out of boxes- $40 a month per person, you think they could hire a GD web developer to neaten this stuff up. The website should be so super-charged that people are fighting to get in. There are better ad-supported sites (oh yeah, their site also has ads) out there on the interwebs. Really, get it together WW.

3. The lack of nutritional tracking. And I am pretty sure "points plus" is not designed to simplify eating for the end-user-- it keeps the measurements propitiatory so that you need to be a member to figure out your points and how much to eat. It does not allow one to track nutritional information to see the split of carbs/fat/protein. It does not track calories or vitamins. I would like to see the whole picture. Sometimes I double track in a free program to see these other things- why couldn't they incorporate a system like this?

2. The weight-focused philosophy. It's all about how many pounds. Although I am trying to keep a healthy mindset and escape from my lifelong scale-focused fight with my health, this brings everything back to the digits on the scale.  Meeting handouts say things like "what were you doing the last time you lost weight?"  Goals are weight-focused, high-fives are weight-focused, success stories are weight focused.

1. The Happy Meeting People. The leaders of these meetings are so cheery, and may very well remind you that they have Kept The Weight Off, even if it's their post-baby weight and it was only 20 lbs. It does not endear me to their plight or make me feel more optimistic about my lifetime struggle with weight and the 100 lbs I have left to lose. Occasionally there's the Meeting Confessional where someone admits to eating the Whole Box of Cookies and shames herself in front of the group (and then gets a star for admitting it out loud). I usually feel like I know more about food, nutrition, health, and exercise than these folks who want to give me a sticker for being "On Target" every time I open my mouth. (I have neatly saved all of my stars in my weekly weight log-in book, thank you very much.)

I didn't even mention the bounty of stuff for sale at every meeting. I think women trying to lose weight should be a protected class not exposed to the bounty of Things To Buy that will supposedly help make them slim. Most of the women in my New Year's meeting were buying $50 start-up kids that included menu planners, special notebooks for tracking food, the WW calculator and so on. Fortunately (for me) all of this stuff is free on the web and WW does have a few good phone apps as well. At every meeting they also push their expensive snack food and bring free samples to share. I know they won't be sharing veggies at meetings until they figure out how to brand them.

All that said, I am tracking my food like a maniac, weighing in at every meeting, collecting my high-fives like I am on a victory tour, and losing weight. So I'll eat my words (zero points) and keep it up.  I am not turning away any tool that keeps me feeling like I am making healthy progress at this point, and right now WW seems to be helping me toward my goals.