I knew the New Year’s weight loss ads were coming…but I never saw this coming!

Weight Watchers claiming they are not a diet? WHAT???

The same DIET I restarted 17 times? (I don’t give up easily, especially when everyone said it was the best diet out there - so obviously that meant there was something wrong with ME!)

If I had had to go to medical school 17 times, I would have finally decided that wasn’t working either. But I was smart and determined enough to get through medical school so maybe the problem wasn’t me. When I saw one patient after another fail Weight Watchers too (please forgive me if I was the one who sent you there; I didn’t know better yet), I finally realized that diets don’t work (unless of course you are only interested in short term results).

So when I saw Weight Watchers using that very phrase, “diets don’t work,” I was astounded and offended. What were they charging me for all those years?

And to add insult to injury, they are using my tag line, Stop Dieting, Start Living (I am not kidding; I had to take it off my home page http://www.amihungry.com/ but it is already printed on a bunch of my products!). Maybe I’ll have to change mine to: Stop Dieting Weight Watchers, Start Living. But then maybe they’ll revoke my lifetime membership and I won’t be able to rejoin for ”free” for the 18th time.

They even have the nerve to say, “If diets worked, why are they changing every five minutes?” Good point! Why does Weight Watchers change every year? (Oh yeah, I have a similar line on my website, “If diets were the solution, there wouldn’t be a problem” http://www.amihungry.com/health-professional-resources.shtml. Maybe I should change that one too: “If Weight Watchers was the solution, there wouldn’t be a problem.”

Really, IF Weight Watchers worked, would anybody still be overweight? I RARELY meet  an overweight person who hasn’t done it - at least once.

Before any of you Weight Watchers fans write back telling me what a great diet, ooops, I mean lifestyle change, it is, just ask yourself a couple of questions:

1. If it’s not a diet, then why do they tell you how many points you can eat each day?
2. If it’s not a diet, then why do you have to earn the right to eat more by exercising?
3. If it’s not a diet, then why do you have to be weighed in?
4. If it’s not a diet, then how come vegetables are “free” instead of just good for you?
5. If it’s not a diet, then why is everybody on it talking about food ALL the time?
6. If it’s not a diet, then why do you have to weigh, measure and write down your food? (unless of course you choose their “Core” plan - then you can eat as much as you want of the foods they say are allowed).

I’m not saying Weight Watchers isn’t a “lifestyle change.” I’m just saying, who wants that kind of lifestyle?

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 3rd, 2008 at 8:12 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.