Weight Watchers Takes A New Turn

The 360 Plan

Has Weight Watchers Taken A New Turn

For many years I was a on and off member of Weight Watchers.

While I thought the program made sense, I was not a very big fan of it’s maintenance program. I had lost well over two hundred pounds with Weight Watchers and was never happier.

As I finally met my goal weight though, I felt that like there was not a substantial enough plan in place to keep it off. I had not learned to change my life and I was not happy.

So I quit going. My immediate thoughts were to blame the company and go it alone.

Then even more pounds came back and I went in search of another magic cure. Some time later now, I heard all about Weight Watchers new 360 program.

My first thought was here we go again. Just another company playing another profit game.  After all, they just changed their program a year or so ago.

Yet to my total shock, there really were extensive changes. Many of them concentrating on more then just food and weight loss. Instead it was fantastic and easy techniques to give me a better chance at succeeding. All this without having to resort to my old school thoughts about dieting and the constant obsession with taking off the pounds regardless of my health. Could there actually be ways to deal with our horrifying food environment we are surrounded by every day?

What shocked me the most though was that I was greeted at the door by the group leader named Matt Karres. This is a man that was so similar to myself in his old weight that I could immediately relate.  He had once been over five hundred pounds and lost all the weight he needed to.

He showed me the the utmost compassion and interest. I had even brought my mother with and he treated her like she was his own. Bravo!

As I sat through the meeting, one thing struck me. Matt did not hawk any Weight Watchers products or make me feel obligated to buy anything. Later on I curiously asked Matt how he could even earn a salary doing this. The theory always was is if you push they will buy. Well that theory needs new thinking. Curiously, Matt has the highest sales of anyone in his center.

So what could be his trick. Does Weight Watchers have a secret plan. Do they own some unknown candy or cookie company like many other so called weight loss centers? Are they putting diet pills in the water? Absolutely not. There was no ulterior motive. Just the task and desire to help people help themselves.

It was just a admirable company with a goal and compassion towards helping others.

I will admit that the fees for this group can sometimes be scary at first and that bothered me.

Why should I pay out another weight loss company. These are difficult times. What do I have to gain.

Well ironically, other then a new much happier way of life, the amount of money I saved in eating out more then payed for the group fees. It actually tripled my savings.

I just needed to look at the bigger picture.

When I left that day, I was so inspired and more then relieved.

I knew that the company had made great changes with C.E.O. David Kirchoff.

There was a new level of hope from a company that I could have easily tried to bundle into a group with many others.

This was the first time that I knew that I was making a investment in myself.

Great work Weight Watchers and Mr. Krichoff as you have brought me along for the greatest 360 in my life. There is new hope after all.

Get Up and Go

Guest Post By: Chris Steurer

 

When it comes to dieting, exercising, and just overall staying healthy, many of us would probably be classified as insane! How many times have you tried the same or very similar diets over and over again? How about the exercise routine you are doing, is it actually working and making results? Often times, we won’t even notice that we are beating ourselves up over something so silly and obvious, try something new!

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

-Albert Einstein

Do Something. If it works, do more of it. If it doesn’t, do something else.

-Franklin Roosevelt

Our former president sums things up pretty well for us in a simple quote. The point is, it doesn’t really matter what you do, it just matters that you are doing something. If and/or when that something stops working, then try something else!

Curb Your Enthusiasm, Not Your Weight

About six months ago, Jeff Garlin from HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm” went on a nationwide tour promoting his new weight loss book. Garlin had taken off a considerable amount of weight and was doing the talking circuit to promote it.

The funny thing is, is that I was trying to get him to participate in my film “Finding Thin” and I was turned down twice.

I just couldn’t understand what was going on. He seemed like a nice guy and we were only trying to help people.

Perhaps Jeff was frightened to have his image on film forever instead of talk shows which would soon be forgotten. Perhaps he thought that if he gained weight, people would look and laugh.

I certainly am a fan of his work and feel for the man now that he has gained almost all of his weight -or even more- of it back.

This phenomenon is so common. The current statistics state that anyone who goes on a diet has a 98% chance of gaining back. The probability is nearly the same as winning the lottery.

Diets just don’t work. A change of lifestyle does; and this may be easy to say, but not necessarily easy to put into effect.

Everyone struggles no matter how much fame or money one has.

My suggestion for celebrities with recent weight loss is to keep it off for a year before you go writing a book about it.

Even Jennifer Hudson waited until she maintained her weight for a while. Not to mention that Ms. Hudson has a great program behind her as she is part of the “Weight Watchers” movement… she was an icon for one of the much healthier programs.

My final message to Mr. Garlin is to spend more time curbing your enthusiasm for a while and just concentrate on yourself, before you promote what certainly did not work for you.

There is hope out there and it applies to everyone. Keep going. I’m cheering for you.

This is a struggle that we all share together.

So She Thinks She Can Dance?

 

 

A Special Guest Blog By: Courtney Mueller, Co-Producer of “Finding Thin”

The pressure was on for Natalia Mallory. 18-year-old Natalia and her sister Sasha made it through the first round of auditions and headed to Las Vegas to compete on the television show, “So You Think You Can Dance?. For their primary
and perhaps most important audition the sisters performed a duet.

Upon initial review, you wouldn’t think these two were actual sisters.

Sasha Mallory was thin, very fit, and had a traditional dancer’s body. She represented the energy and beauty that an audience has come to expect from a dancer.

But Natalia was not typical. She was tall and stocky with a big personality. She was the bigger sister. She was the bigger dancer.

Her size was further emphasized when she had to switch partners- the first, more slight partner could not lift her during a jive routine.  Natalia persevered with the grace and smile her audience had already come to expect of her.

After the jive, Natalia became dizzy, felt chills, and ended up being
hospitalized for blood sugar issues.  Instead of speculating about whether or not her size played a role in her health problems, her fans just rooted for a quick recovery.

She rallied, and came back to the auditions where she performed once more before the next cut.

It was down to the last dance. Her sister had already made it, but
Natalia’s future was at stake and the odds were stacked against her. She was
already being compared to her sister as well as the rest of the traditional dancers.

The truth is, Natalia was more than just your typical dancer. She was
bigger in size, but she was fit, talented, and had an essence that
captured the music and the hearts of the judges and fans. She broke barriers. She broke the stereotype of what a dancer looks like.

Natalia showed that a larger sized woman can dance just as well as the skinny willowy girls we’re used to seeing.  She showed there was more to performing than a dancer’s body type.

She made it through to the next round.

We look at people like Natalie and are often quick to judge. We think
they are overweight instead of built. We think they are weak instead
of strong. We think the thin dancer has more talent than the thick
one. We judge the book by its cover.

Surely Natalie doesn’t look like the typical dancer; but her strong
technique, passion, and talent speaks for itself. Forget the cover,
open up the book and read the pages.

The first chapter title reads: Real Women Can Dance Too.

Healthy Kitchen to Healthy Living

This is a guest post by Chris Steurer

How many times have you walked to fridge and looked inside to see it loaded with a variety of food options and still thought to yourself; “There is nothing to eat”? Generally after that we move on to the cupboards or the pantry and think the same thing. After all of the food frustration many tend to give up and grab an unhealthy snack from the vending machine, nearest corner store, or even the secret stash laying in that tiny little cupboard.

Staying home and eating in is one of the easiest and best ways to ensure that we are eating healthy and staying on track with our diet because we are in control of what we eat. However, it is so easy to fall victim to the cycle of eating unhealthy because of the way we often keep unnecessary and unhealthy food items at the forefront in our homes.

How organized do you keep your kitchen?

We can help correct this by reorganizing our kitchens for healthier choices. To do this, we need to reorganize two main categories of our kitchens; the food and the eating utensils.

Food

Take a look at what your daily eating habits consist of and compare it to how accessible those food items are in your kitchen. Do you eat a lot of candy when you come home from work? Is that because you keep a candy dish sitting out? Candy is an easy choice when it is sitting in an inviting bowl on the counter right when you walk in the door. The proximity, location, and ease of access of the food in our homes can drastically effect what we eat, but it can also help us create new, smarter eating habits. If you try placing a bowl of fresh fruits on your counter where that candy bowl used to b, I bet you would be eating healthier right now.

How easy is it to find the junk food inside of your kitchen?

Take into consideration where your other food items are placed in your kitchen. What food do you have sitting in your fridge door? What is right in front on the main shelf of your cabinet or pantry? These items are often the ones we choose the most because they are simply right in front us and seem to be an easy choice to make. This is why you should make sure that you strategically place the healthy foods in prime locations like this; more often then not you will naturally make the healthier food choice when you check your food stash. Make sure these food items are always in your sight and that they are easy to reach for when you want a quick snack or a healthy, tasty meal. Move all of the unhealthy snack items to the back of the shelf where they can hide behind your good food choices, or get rid of them entirely!

Kitchen Utensils

Do you use different kitchen utensils and cooking items when you eat healthy versus when you eat unhealthy? Generally when I’m eating unhealthy I only use the toaster or the microwave and some dishes. When I eat healthy food items, I am much more likely to use all of my other cooking accessories like the oven/stove, pots and pans, spatulas, strainers, and so on. Knowing this, I can create a more inspiring environment in my kitchen by placing these cooking utensils out so that they are more dominant in my kitchen then even the microwave or toaster.

Organize for Success

Reorganizing your kitchen can truly create a more healthy eating environment. Keep those unhealthy food items out of sight and they will stay out of your mind. Place the healthy food choices up front so that they become the obvious choice for food and sticking to your health and eating goals can become a lot simpler.

Do you have any tips on how you organize your kitchen or food for healthier habits? Post a comment below and let us know!

Flight Travel For The Fat Man

After our very recent trip to L.A., I can officially verify that flying…sucks.

Sorry for the lack of better terms, but it is simply incredible how uncomfortable and expensive it truly is if you are obese.

Even from the time you check in, there’s a fee for the carry-on.

The seats are now half the size of a children’s roller coaster, but for a little bit more money out of my pocket, you can fly in a bigger seat.

I watched many people who were in no way overweight even struggle.

I think it’s time for a change.

Flight attendants are practically non-existent; they shout out the safety information when we are “comfortably seated” and then they proceed to sit down themselves to get right to their novel (Thanks Spirit).

Perhaps the next implemented idea should be charging by the pound for the ticket. I mean if the airline can’t afford the luggage, a mid-flight snack, or a little extra room for even the average customer, then we must take drastic steps….right?

Here’s an idea…why don’t we put the heaviest people in cargo and then make it an upgrade price to make it to the seating area? It’s genius; right, America?

Times have truly changed for the worse with flying. Plus, in our trying times of fighting obesity, I find it extremely ironic that they now sell value meals including soda, chips and chocolate chip cookies.

I think that’s sort of going the wrong way with pushing people to lose weight. Or are the ignoring the obesity epidemic and pushing for a more fattening flight experience to grab the extra buck?

Anyway, that is the traveling rant for L.A.

Tomorrow, I will cover an inside scoop about my quest in “Finding Thin” with what used to be among the thinest states… California. For starters…the earthquakes, fires and mudslides have not been the only things to change since I left years ago. California has been losing their thin.

“Houston we have a problem”.

Oh yeah, I forgot that they have their own problems with weight control down there too…

Emotional Eating

This is a guest post by Judith S. Beck, Ph.D., author of “The Beck Diet Solution: Train Your Brain to Think Like a Thin Person” and President of Beck Institute for Cognitive Therapy and Research.

Chronic dieters often have beliefs about emotional distress and eating that interfere with losing weight or keeping it off. They express the ideas in the following ways: “If I’m upset, the only way I can calm down is by eating.” “If I’m upset, I deserve to eat.”

Are you an emotional eater?

To address the first idea, I ask dieters about people they know who don’t have a weight problem. What do they do when they’re upset? Dieters frequently feel stymied–they simply don’t know. After polling hundreds of people, I’ve found that people who don’t struggle with their weight do lots of things when they’re upset: they try to solve the problem that is leading to distress, call a friend, take a walk, tolerate the feeling and return to whatever they were doing, practice relaxation or mindfulness exercises–or they distract themselves (surf the web, write emails, play a video game, do a puzzle, listen to soothing music). This group has a different idea about emotional distress: that it is temporary, normal, tolerable, and will diminish.

To address the second idea, “If I’m upset, I deserve to eat,” I get across the message that dieters deserve to feel better but that eating will only give them temporary relief. Once the food is gone, they’ll still have the initial problem that led to distress plus they’ll feel badly about having overeaten. I help them see that they have a choice: They can eat whenever they’re upset (and fail to lose weight or keep it off) or they can tolerate their distress or actively work toward reducing their distress in other ways (which greatly increases the probability that they will lose weight and maintain their weight loss).

I then work with dieters to create a list of compelling activities they can engage in when they’re upset and they quickly find out that they can self soothe in other ways. Many of these activities are described in the newsletters and blogs at www.beckdietsolution.org.

To Lose Or Gain: The Real Choice Of Weight Loss.

I am a person who hates making choices in my life. Sometimes I solicit opinions first like I’m living by committee. The hardest part for me is when I’m on my own in the car and deciding whether to eat fast food and milk shakes or to take the turn back home and actually make a healthy choice.

I could always make the excuse of the saying, “my diet starts tomorrow” or a thousand other excuses. Despite the plethora of unhealthy food choices, I have a harder time identifying what I feel like are a limited number of reasons to make better choices.

I could blame it on the environment, others, or just not feeling well. I could even try the excuse of wishing I had someone by my side day in and day out demanding my making the right choices. In reality, it doesn’t always work for celebrities that have the millions of dollars to afford that and even if I did I would end up resenting the person feeling like a prisoner.

So that leaves it to me.  I have to make my own choices and consider all the great results of having good health.  I want to be able to walk with out getting out of breath, I want to be able to fit into the normal clothes I have, which I currently packed away in my attic like I’m already dead and gone.

Sometimes I actually do feel like the Barry I used to be is gone and I just dwell in self-hate and very little self-esteem.

However the other day while interviewing the health expert, Robert Reames, who lost a whole bunch of weight and is trying to help others reminded me that I am actually getting the chance to not only help myself, but tons of others who are with me every day going through the same struggles as me.

It really does show the fact that my film ‘Finding Thin’ really will make a difference. For the first time in a long time, I felt proud and inspired.

So when driving today, instead of finding all the excuses to get that Shamrock shake, I concentrated on all of the reasons not to.

I really think I am breaking through to taking responsibility for making the choices that only I can make and living with the outcome.

Good times are ahead. I can feel it.

Victim of the Thin World

When I was a kid, I was always told that if I lost weight I’d be happier. My own father told me I was fat and ugly and would never find anyone to be with or even land a role as an actor. I was told many times to forget about a career in the show business.

In short, most of my younger years were not very fun. My dreams were crushed many times. I got reminded of this last time I passed by a playground I used to hang out at. I put myself into the entertainment business when I was 10.

Sometimes I have a few childhood memories coming to haunt me. Rejection, struggles, doubts… The latest in date: I have been signed up on online dating for a week or two now, and nobody answered me. Was my father right? Am I fat and ugly still?

I am thinking that not much changed in these years. Yes I have become more confident in my career and I have reached forward, but I am still struggling with obesity and looking for happiness. I get busy at work but at the end of the day I am alone.

I have met many people who have lost weight and enjoy being thin, but they are not the happiest people out there. Some of them are still hurt while thinking about what they went through when they were bigger. Others still perceive themselves in the mirror as heavy.

The pounds went away but happiness didn’t come knocking on their doors. There are still many people like me struggling with their weight. What if they were struggling and trying to change just because of the way the ‘thin world’ was judging them?

I really believe people should find what makes them happy and go from there. I feel happier and healthier when I am less heavy, so I am going for it. “Don’t worry, be happy” is my new motto.

Happier when Thin or Thinner when Happy?

I want to be thin. I would LOVE to be thin by tomorrow but that is just a dream. Fixing twenty-thirty years of bad eating habits is not the easiest thing to do. Going through a dozen of diets through my life always made me feel miserable.

Right now, I am trying to stay within a certain amount of calories and exercise while still enjoying myself. The thing is I am an emotional eater. When things go wrong, I turn to food as comfort. When things go right, I celebrate with food.

Sometimes I feel like I took the wrong path and I can’t back up to turn around, almost as if being fat has paralyzed my life. I recently had my birthday. It feels like I have just woken up from a twenty-year coma. All my friends and family aged but I stayed the same, time flew by.

Ever since my car accident five years ago, I have been spending my time in and out of hospitals and experiencing horrible back and neck pains. I lived on pain meds for years thus turning my life into a thick fog. I realized that I am not happy:

I live at home taking care of my morbidly obese mother and it is not fun at all. I now know I could leave and she would be ok but I got used to the area and I would be sad to leave people I care about. I would really love to move to Colorado though, it’s the one place that would make me happy.

Do I need to be happy first and then lose weight? Or do I need to lose weight to be happy? I don’t even know anymore, I feel lost in my own shadow…