Hi all,

Just before Thanksgiving (I know, what a time to start, right?) I started Weight Watchers.
Now, you don't lose it fast...but you do lose, and I've lost 15 lbs so far. My wife has lost over 20.

The nice thing about it though, is it teaches you how to eat better. It's not so much about avoiding the things you love, but about how to minimize their impact, and even make similar things, but in a healthy way.

I strongly urge those trying to lose weight to give it a try.

Here are some examples. You get so many points per day depending on your size/weight.

I love ice cream, and fudgesicles in particular. But, just switching to the Sugar Free ones (losing no taste), I'm eating half the points value, and about 1/3 of the calories.

A regular sandwich I'd make would normally be about 14 points. Remaking the same sandwich, but with leaner meat, lowfat cheese, and lowfat spreads, and whole-grain bread, also cuts it down, this time to about 5 points, nearly a 1/3 of what I'd normally do to myself. Again, with all of the same taste.

And, you can still splurge on things, but you simply have to track it all, and try and make up those points elsewhere, whether it's doing better in a later meal that day, or offsetting it with some exercise.

This is actually a diet I can live with, and one that is working. I'm already down belt sizes, and wearing some clothes that haven't fit me in a while. Anyhow, just thought I'd share it.

It can be quite eye opening when you first start tracking, and realizing how many calories you'd innocently consume, without really thinking about it. It isn't about eating twigs and berries. I'm a meat and potatoes kind of guy, so that wouldn't work for me. But, there are ways to incorporate these things and still reduce calories, and this program does it, and recognizes you're a human...not a rabbit.

15 pounds since Thanksgiving? Not a very fast weight loss plan, but whatever works I guess.

I think I have it down pretty good, my girlfriend using my plan lost over 120 lbs in about 8 months time and we ate everything we wanted. I'm still at my high school weight 20+ years later and I eat whatever I want, but I eat actual "food" which makes all the difference.

We had to cut out a couple things to achieve and maintain normalized weight, which required no more SODA or FAST FOODS. Just eliminating those 2 things has dramatic results. We also don't have any more cravings for the unhealthy toxic substances our bodies were addicted to. It's hard to detox from soda, unless you dig deep into the ingredients and learn how it affects your body.

Cutting out soda was something I did just about entirely.
First to diet soda, then to water. I still do soda when we go out, but then it is diet, and that's about the only time I do it...and only when they don't have decent iced tea that I can use some artificial sweetener in.
My wife is slowly being weened off it.

I don't necessarily want to get into my starting weight, as I'm a lot heavier in lbs than I look, but I will put up a before and after once I reach a couple of different milestones I set for myself.

The 15lbs isn't quick, but it's in line with the Weight Watchers average (which is 1-2 lbs a week).

As for sweeteners, I don't do a lot of any particular type of artificial sweetener, so I try to minimize that.

A gym near my work is now offering us a discount, so I'm going to check into that also, as I could just walk to it.

Diet soda = artificial sweeteners, mainly Aspartame.
Tea, instant, powder, unsweetened = the most Fluoridated product in ppm on the market, I hope you're staying away from that stuff.

If you absolutely must have sweetened coffee, use Agave, you'd never know the difference from sugar/sweeteners. $10 worth of Agave at a Job Lot store would last a month or more of daily coffee consumption, and your teeth and innards will thank you.

Sugar (mostly from sodas) and processed foods are what does it for over weight people. Everyone is focusing on the wrong labels, they should be focused on the "ingredients" and making sure it's as all natural as possible. If I don't know what an ingredient is, I look it up before eating it. If the ingredients are a paragraph long, throw it away, it's Nazi style Eugenics.... example: *Raman noodles*, the body can't absorb or process what's in those packages.

A gym isn't really necessary if you are eating organic and avoiding preservative ingredients. My gf lost all that weight with zero exercise or effort, I've had other friends lose 80lbs or so doing the same techniques. Once the body is detoxified from the preservatives, sodas, fast foods, and all that crap in snack foods, then those cravings are all gone and that battle ends.

I'm also a meat & potatoes kind of guy, making fried chicken later tonight, a greasy fatty mess in all, but no one will be gaining weight from it, we'll just be full of GMO vegetable oils. Experimenting with sunflower oil vs. vegetable oil, takes time to weed out all the crap in our diets, but the fact that we'll live 5 minutes longer than the rest of the population will be worth the effort.

You lost 15 lb?!

What a coincidence, I found at least that since Christmas!

Where can I mail it back to you

The silly thing is I eat relatively healthy, lots of vegetables, rice, occasionally I make my own pizza (maybe twice a year).. never eat fast food, etc.. and I just keep stacking it on.

ugh, and I watch my weight... in the mirror, I see it every day...

Weight watchers is alright.
It's good that you aren't expected to see DRAMATIC results in a week, it's pointless it dropping off without learning about the foods you eat along the way. Far more chance of the weight staying off their way.

Good for you two.
I know someone who's on it, but she keeps falling foul of the mighty Donner kebab.

I always feel like weight loss groups see results for a couple of reasons.
A: You're provided with information on the 'right foods and wrong foods'. Naturally most people should know what they are, but some don't and it helps those who do keep on track.
B: PEER PRESSURE. You want to go to your group and be more successful than others, you don't want to be 'that person' who only lost half a pound or have even gained since the last weigh in.
C: It provides you with motivation to get it done. Depending on your reasons to lose it, remaining motivated is sometimes hard. Perhaps you want to lose weight to look better and date someone who would be otherwise unavailable to you, you might want to prevent heart disease and diabeetus, other medical concerns.

As someone who constantly struggles with weight loss due to polycystic ovaries (currently unmedicated) I have found my weight loss to be incredibly slow, and I attribute it to a couple of things. I've lost 10lbs since before Christmas (about 8 weeks, though I think I might have gained some back at the moment, I don't know since I need new batteries for my weighing scales lol), but I also joined a gym last month and saw my weight loss hit an all time slow down. I'm not using weights or anything like that, but I do use aerobics classes which work out the entire body, and have been gaining muscle mass.

I do feel however that to pay a fee to groups is kind of wrong. Obesity is becoming so common now, and with money becoming tighter for many people, more things could be done to help combat it other than letting it get worse and then going to a doctor for gastric band surgery.
Anyone can lose weight, whether its quickly, or slowly, a free group could be set up to help educate others about their eating options, exercise suitable for anyone of any age, swimming pools and leisure centres could do free swim sessions on a day of the week. Local councils in our area ARE making an effort, and have teamed up with various organisations to do a free 10 week course in various activities such as karate, running, circuit training, badminton.

I had been waiting for a blue moon for my doctor to get back to me about a subsidized gym membership, but the times were limited which isn't suitable for me as I have a young child in pre-school, and the gym is a town over and I don't drive and getting the bus takes half a hour. In the end, a friend and I got a joint membership together, and we go together, and we have a great laugh doing it.

I do feel however that to pay a fee to groups is kind of wrong.

Groups have to have a place to meet and a leader though...so it gets justified. Plus, there's LOTS of tools you get, such as web tools and phone apps that can really help you.

Personally, I don't need or feel the peer pressure...that's more for the wife. You can actually find most of the weight watchers tools online for free if you really look for them.

Also, many employers and insurance companies may even pay it for you. (ours doesn't, but our friends' does).

Same price as a monthly gym membership really.

My aunt has been through a few bouts of weight watchers. It works, but not so much in the long term. Their point system still advises to avoid fat. And it's still a system that's based on calories in vs. calories out. I hope it works for ya, Gazrok, but now that you've gotten results, you can adjust a few things and you won't have to worry about how much you eat and points, and you can begin to focus on what you eat without any real regard to quantity.

Well done!

Weight loss should be slow and consistent, so youre on the right track. Hope that both you and your wife continue on with good results.

My wife and I have been using the LoseIt! app on our iphones and have seen some good results. We started on Dec 26th and she is down 10 of her 15 lb goal. I am down 17 of my 25 lb goal. From what I have seen, it works a lot like WW and is free...

I dont understand why people want to lose wieght unless they are excessively heavy like 200 lbs plus (obviously talking about men, women generally weight less)

Im 176lbs with a bf% of less than 9% whats the problem?(almost 2 years of refining diet and excercise) Its about WHAT you eat and and HOW you eat it.

Im going to be 19 tommorow and about 2 years ago became concious about the first and foremost important thing we do as organisms on a day to day basis. Eating. NOTHING is more important to our survival than the consumption of nutrients to literally fuel our bodies with energy to stay functional.

Now heres my beef with dieting programs...they dont always teach you about the bigger picture of food. Currently our food supply is contaminated with innumerable toxins, poisons, genetically altered ingredients, you name it. Its unnatural. Meanwhile these diet programs supply you with absolutely garbage food that while might still technically have SOME nutritional value to it, it pales in comparison to the huge leap in value of organic, natural, UNALTERED food out there. The way nature intended it to be. (You can find MOUNTAINS of studies and research showing the detrimental state of human health and its connection with unnatural food production and proccessing)

Long story short, eat healthy (organic, raw, natural, cut your calories if you need to lose a LOT of wieght but dont become underweight and pathetic), work out, excercise, meditate on occasion. You dont need to freaking waste money on garbage manufactured diet "food".