Ok, I gotta rant! sorry for the disjointed-ness, run-ons, and stream of consciousness writing

I am really stunned by how some weight loss programs still have it so wrong! I believe that they are truly detrimental to people trying to lose weight and become healthy. One program in particular - let’s call it, uh, Obesity Observers (or OO for short) - is the main culprit.

OO is based on caloric and fat intake, with some focus on fiber. Depending on how much you weigh, you are allotted a number of Credits to spend on food each day.

I tried OO about 2 years ago and it did not work for me at all! (Now I know why, because I was eating toast and cereal for breakfast and sandwiches for lunch!)

Not only is OO’s emphasis on the wrong thing (fat instead of sugar), they offer a lot of conflicting information to their members.**** I was thumbing through their bi-monthly publication today and I am shocked! shocked! I cannot believe the supposed weight loss and ‘health’ tips that are highlighted in OO’s publication!

Sugar-laden peeps are a healthy snack! Yes, there is actually a page in the OO magazine that states that those sugar-bombs are actually a good snack choice, because there are only 112 calories in a serving of 4 peeps! OO emphasizes the relatively low calories, but forgets to mention the 27 grams of sugar!!!! (This is also funny, because, on a few pages back, OO urges its members to eat no more than 25g of sugar a day!) Now, while I agree that limiting your sugar is a good idea, they are doing it to save the calories/Credits for the day, not for health reasons.

You deserve the sugar and starch – because it makes you feel good!*** Yes, this is actually the theme of a scant paragraph which basically states that low-carb dieters feel “cranky, confused, angry, and depressed”, because they cannot eat carbohydrates. It goes on to say that OO dieters should not ‘deprive’ themselves of carbohydrates, because, who wants to be cranky?

First, I live with an OO dieter. She is extremely moody and irritable, due to her unstable blood sugar and the way she decides to spend her allotted Credits for the day/week. She is often encouraged in meetings (or publications) to indulge in carb-laden treats. So, she ends up spending Credits on a small cookie or ice cream, which causes her to crave more later in the day! [Unfortunately, she is merely a victim of her rising and falling blood sugar, which is brought on (ironically), by her OO diet! ] Also, thanks to the focus on spending Credits and calories, she often doesn’t eat all day, on her weigh-in days….talk about cranky!


Second - whether you use the term ‘diet’ or you do earnestly want a life-style change - doesn’t that incorporate actual change?!? Any diet is going to restrict something: fat, calories, sugar, carbs. Any lifestyle-change or simple improvement to diet includes ‘deprivation’ of some foods and eating more of others! On that note, most of us have gained weight because we did not deprive ourselves of what we craved and wanted: carbs/sugar/bread/starches, etc. Why is ‘deprivation’ (or restricting) necessarily a bad thing? Why is restricting FAT ok, but restricting CARBS akin to undue torture?
I think we all should ‘deprive’ ourselves of certain foods completely and entirely! This applies to things other than foods: I ‘deprive’ myself of cigarettes, because of my health issues. I ‘deprive’ myself of certain TV shows, because they are not healthy for my mind/spirit. I ‘deprive’ my niece of Starbuck’s Frappicinos, because she doesn’t need all the caffeine in her system. Some things in life, although desirable or pleasurable, need to be restricted for our health and well-being.




So much of OO’s their dogma implies that you can eat whatever you want. Spend your Credits as you wish! They don’t really encourage a lifestyle change, although they do have some good health tips a long they way. They sprinkle some good health tips in, regarding sugar limits, high fiber intake, water, exercise, etc….but these are treated as mere options/suggestions, instead of rules for living. - - or true life-style choices! The majority of the theme and culture is that people continue eating/living as they have, just make adjustments to portion sizes….this is really bad on the snack food/sugar topic, because people never get off of their addictions.. Their publication is laden with ads that feature cupcakes, cookies, and sweets galore.


Finally, on the topic of carbs and emotions - - There is emerging research that is starting to confirm what many of us have experienced: the link among carbs,serotonin (and other neurotransmitters), and depression. Many of the foods we love are addictive because of the chemical make-up. That is one of the reasons why some of us suffer withdrawal-like symptoms when on induction. I state again, as I stated above, should we continue to take a certain substance, just because it makes us ‘feel’ good? Should a drug or alcohol abuser continue to take those chemicals, because it makes them feel good by the same process? I think not.

Sometimes limiting, restricting, or ‘depriving’ is actually a good thing!

"Sometimes limiting, restricting, or ‘depriving’ is actually a good thing!"

AMEN!!!

It is really tragic that a group which really should be up on research and an org to help people deal with food, is in fact more harm than help.

Obesity Observers turned me into a compulsive overeater. When I did it in college, I was absolutely starving all of the time. Seriously...a freakin bowl of rice was like half of my points for the day! They always say theat WW teachers you "normal portion size" PLEASE! Their portions are only normal if you're anorexic or possibly being starved in a prison camp!

Bottom line is any plan that doesn't teach people to eat meat is going to be a disaster. Nobody is full without some form of meat (at least fish) -- and people not getting that will be deficient in amino acids (aka "the building blocks of life") and will be pushed by their body to eat just to try and get those critical nutrients, totally on top of ordinary appetite issues.

Im still hung up on the ephasis of junk food....Im not saying that the avid LCer doesn't indulge, once at goal weight or once in a blue moon. But we are no longer addicted to that nasty sugar/flour/hyper-processed stuff...OO keeps you on that blood sugar roller coaster and makes you feel like a failure for being hungry all of the time.

Case study (at home): we've had the kids on a low-carb diet, since we started. Neither of them is overweight, or diabetic, but we wanted to cut out the junk that they eat. It has been wonderful! they don't want to eat every 2 minutes....however, daddy gave them spaghetti the other night and they were hungry 40 minutes later!

Sure. The higher you amp the blood sugar the more it's likely to crash -- and about 40 minutes later you need 'energy' again and want to eat.

Pasta kicks my ass, blood-sugar wise. So sad. How I loved thee, pasta, you wicked wretched of insidious poison...

I couldn't agree more...I can attribute at least 50 pounds of my high weight to a one year period when I basically lived off pasta and asian noodles. I loved it, but it's basically poison to me.

Jael/Rightnow Ditto! Although I have struggled for years with my weight, I can easily atribute 40-50lbs to dinners out at italian restaurants...yum. You got the pasta, sugary sauce, bread, and wine! makes for quite a carbfest!



LoL couldn't have sait it better!

When my kids come home from soccer, gymnastics or swimming, they are usually famished. In the past, they would go straight for the carbs. But if they eat popcorn, goldfish, watermelon or granola bars (you know, "healthy snacks," they just want to keep eating or eating until bedtime.

Now that I've switched them over to homemade pepperoni chips, berries with whipped cream and boiled eggs as normal snack foods, they eat their snacks and then just get on with life. No more constant cupboard digging.

I have a friend who joined 'OO' about a year ago. She lost 60 lbs and is now below her goal weight. She ate 'OO' meals, snacks, ice cream bars... nothing but low cal junk. She looks 10 years older then her actual age and she's afraid to stop counting her points. So here she is, skinny now, looking old and haggard, and scared to death to stop dieting. She turned into an old anorexic. Its sad to see what should have been a good thing turn out so bad.

Yes,I have a good friend who lost 70 pounds on 'OO'. We don't get together much these days now that our kids are grown, so when I went to her house for some event I had not seen her since before she lost the weight.

Well, when I saw her I was *shocked*. Sure she was thin, but she looked gaunt and drawn, and about 10 years older than she had looked last time I'd seen her. She looked like her own mother. I was terrified to say anything to her. I was convinced that she was dying of some terrible cancer and had not told me about it. But over the course of the evening I realized it was just because she and her next-door neighbor had joined 'OO' together.

But I had never seen her looking so terrible. When I saw her again next she had given up on 'OO' again and gained back a lot of her weight, and looked about 200% better.

yes! i did 'OO' years ago and lost more than 30 lbs on it (which i regained x 2 after). The problem is that your always hungry, the main point of the diet is portion size which i believe is the wrong way to look at losing weight because it doesnt teach you the right foods to eat. You end up looking at everything as points so if you find that a small fast food fries is 8 points and compare that with lets say a salad complete with protein and dairy. If both are 8 points your more tempted to have the fries because well, who cares, its 8 points! its all the same after all! Fast forward a few hours later and your zapped for energy, starving again, and wishing you could've had a bigger portion of fries.

LC teaches you that food is fuel, and yes you can still enjoy it. But you realize along the journey that everything you should put into your mouth should have the proper balance of nutrients, follow this and voila! no more cravings, eat less naturally, enjoy your food more and lose weight.

I couldnt have said it better. Ditto!

I was doing the online 'OO' program right before I started south beach a few weeks ago. I cancelled the program, but I still have access until the beginning of May. So just for the heck of it, I logged my first week of SB into the tracking database. Lo and behold, I almost always stayed within my daily credits, and never even went close to eating my weekly allowance.

Now when I was on 'OO', I was constantly hungry and tempted to eat horrible things. I also had a hard time keeping to my credit allowance, both daily and weekly. I ate WAY too many carbs (and refined crappy carbs at that), and I constantly was thinking of credits and therefore food.

On the first week of South Beach, there were several days where I didn't eat my daily allowance. The difference is that at the end of the day, I just didn't feel hungry or like I needed food. On 'OO', on the rare day I found myself below my credit allowance, I would have eaten something else because I could, and end up eating some empty treat because I was trying to meet a daily target.

After logging my food for 9 days with OO, I finally just figured out that what I'm doing is actually really balanced and I just didn't have to stress about meeting a target every day. I've thought less about food in the last 2.5 weeks than I have in decades, and I think that's because I'm not trying to quantitify what I'm eating and obsessing over things.

(A quick aside: I was at a weekly meeting one time and a leader talked about how she would occasionally eat chocolate all day long, but it was ok because she stayed within her credit allowance. No lie. I never went back to an in-person meeting, and instead started online.)