I believe WW does work for everyone - everyone who follows the plan.

Actually, that is true for any plan, including low-carb plans.

What is different about the WW of today, versus the WW of years ago, is that it is now flexible enough to allow low-carbing.

Does WW include 'dropout rates'? I don't know. Is there any equivalent in the diet studies that has WW's vast amounts of data?

Data mining is a realistic option when it comes to WW. There is data available, lots of it. There just isn't that kind of data even available, spanning time, with comparable groups, when it comes to other diets.

Issues of protocol apply when you are planning a study. That's nice. It's been done. To see several studies involving WW (and low-carbing diets as well), Google 'NCBI' and search Weight Watchers.

However, I'm talking about the sheer amount of data that one can find in the WW computer records. People do leave and do gain weight and do come back and do lose again. Look for similar data about low-carbers - good luck with that...

Understood. I believe differently.

Is it flexible enough now to acknowledge a hijacked reward system? Last I heard they did not acknowledge any reward system physical reality - all the behavioral talk advocated the "in moderation" that allows sales of highly palatable processed WW products that keeps a physical reward system hijacked.

'Last I heard they did not acknowledge any reward system physical reality'

You've lost me there.

I don't even know what that means.

One thing I DON'T like about WW is their hawking WW products. However, I can also see low-carb items that are sold by Zone and Atkins and I think they are utter crap, so it's really up to me to not spend my money on these things, isn't it?

I'm just not a sweets person. I don't like the Atkins bars, the Zone bars or the WW bars. For some reason, lots of people at WW meetings do like sugar. In that respect, they are probably representative of the average consumer. I don't even want to HEAR about how you can make S'mores that taste almost as good as the real thing.

Maybe for that reason, low-carbing tastes better to me, as a diet.

Sorry, but nope. I failed WW twice, and yes, I did think that maybe I was under-reporting or under-weighing--that's how I explained my failure to myself. And, like most other women with weight problems, I tried many times on my own to eat low-cal, low-fat, to no avail.

So, my umpteenth try at losing weight was with an expensive nutritionist, who put me on a 1200-calorie a day low-fat diet that I followed meticulously. I weighed every gram of food that passed my lips. I worked out for over an hour nearly every day. I NEVER went over 1200 cals/day, and I've got the food journals to prove it. And after five weeks, I had gained another pound. That's when I quit and started LC, on which I promptly lost a bunch of weight eating a lot more calories than 1200/day.

(I was so meticulous that last time on a low-fat diet not just because I was tired of failing, but because I had just found out I was adopted, and had gotten my biological mother's medical history. Turns out I've got obese people on both sides of my family dating back to the 19th century--pretty unusual, I'd say. Scared me to pieces, as I was already up to 220 pounds and was rapidly climbing.)

So, unless you mean something very subtle about WW's newfound flexibility, or "any plan" that's followed, I'd have to disagree that any plan, even closely followed, will work for people.

Actually, if you don't lose weight on 1200 calories a day, and you absolutely have to lose weight, go to 1000 calories a day. Then you will lose weight, or start to lose weight. It may be slow, it may be uneven, and it may not work so that you have to go even lower in calories!

I joined a clinic for weight loss years ago and I ate 750 calories a day. I lost weight. 20 pounds. It was fantastic. It was very doable. I was meticulous about counting and measuring what I ate. It was not Weight Watchers. It was a clinic that required you to check in every single day (except Sunday) to report your progress and problems. Needless to say, there was plenty of support with one-on-one counseling.

Imagine 750 calories a day. I was on that diet for months. Don't you think I should have lost more than 20 pounds?

WW is geared to the average person. If your dietician did not change your calorie requirement so that you DID lose weight instead of gaining on 1200 calories, then something was wrong with your dietician.

I was listening to a podcast a few years ago in which a person who wanted to lose some weight worked out AND dieted for months before she lost something like 5 pounds. She was a person who already exercised and dieted anyway and this was ON TOP of her ordinary regimen.

One thing that WW will tell you is that, if you are not losing when you eat 20 points worth of food in a day, lower it to 18, then to 15, then to 12, and so on. Until you do start losing. How's that for flexibility.

Atkins may have worked better for you. It will, as time goes on, pose its own problems, and you will have to adjust that method of dieting - just as WW diets have to be adjusted! They are all basically subject to the same laws and pitfalls. Boredom, changes in hormones, changes in metabolism as people age, etc.

WW will say, 'Does it work? Then fine...' In that respect, WW does not care if you have a steak for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The scale is going to be the judge, no one else.

That 750-calorie diet I was on, by the way, was FANTASTIC. It beat Atkins AND WW, hands-down, in any contest. Why? Because you lost your appetite on it. If you want to understand that diet, read Kafka's 'The Hunger Artist'!

"I'm Dr George Lundberg, At Large for MedPage Today. "
you sir are a "PUTZ"
if it was truly as easy as just "STOP EATING"
no one would be fat.
It is my most sincere hope that your license to "practice" is
"JUST STOPPED
Oh and bite me. .

Well, three and a half years into it and still no problems, so I'm pretty hopeful.

I do agree about adjusting calories downward, by the way. I had to go all the way down to 500, though (which I'd done several times), and, like you, I wasn't hungry. It was the only other diet that "worked"--but each time I did it, after a few months, I'd get weak and dizzy. The first time I ever did it I passed out on a bus in San Francisco after about month three.

Also, each time I did it, my starting and ending weights were higher. Right now I'm the lightest I've been since my first time on the 500 cal diet--and I was around 18 or so when I did that (46 and perimenopausal now).

The classic downward spiral of semi-starvation diets. Sheesh. I feel sorry for all the people sincerely wanting to learn and going there.

Do you draw any connection between what that diet did to you, and your present state? Not being snarky. I draw connections all the time between my present state and all that came before.

Oh and. Here's a fun article by John Berardi and Tom Venuto on the "eat more, move more" approach. Stop eating? Feh!

http://www.precisionnutrition.com/b...with-tom-venuto

An interesting (and depressing) thing about WW is that, as you lose weight, your point allowance goes down. You adjust the amount of calories (points) progressively downward!

No, I don't see any connection between my weight today and the 750 cal diet. If anything, it became a self-sustaining weight-loss process (makes me think that whole set-point philosophy has some validity). I stopped watching what I ate and yet, because I didn't have the appetite, I still continued to lose weight. Without even trying or thinking about it.

The clinic went out of business eventually, which didn't surprise me. They had a doctor on staff, nurses on staff, daily consults with each client, vitamin pills included in the plan (although you bought your own food), which is all expensive!

What did change is 1) I got older 2) my body went through normal hormonal changes - childbearing, menopause, etc., and 3) I had a very, VERY sedentary job. I went from working in a lab, standing and moving around, to working on computers, sitting at a desk! Add to that - of course, I have obesity in my family. Not when my relatives were young but as they got older. Which is how my body changed, too!

Very low calorie diets are dangerous as it can cause loss of muscle mass and this includes heart muscle!

I've been to WW for a few weeks about 15 years ago and for a few weeks 13 years ago. Two years later some of the same people were there, they had carried on attending and looked around the same weight as two years previously. They had spent two years losing and gaining, totally commited to the WW religion, all the time helping to increase WW profits. Yes some people do lose weight, but as with all calorie controlled diets 95% of people gain the weight back.

Lee

My mom was on WW for years. All it got her was a blown gall bladder.

Gall bladder problems abound whenever anyone loses weight. There's a person on this board right now, recovering from gall bladder surgery!

I hate to have to defend WW (which I seem to be doing) but once you reach your goal weight, you're entitled to attend all the meetings free to keep yourself at goal. Which is great - yet, WW can do that because people who diet (diet= can't eat this, can't eat that, have to watch this and that) will slip, will gain, will get back on track. In that respect, low-carbing, or Jenny Craig, or the Zone are in the same category!

I have my weekly meeting tonight. I will go. There WILL be someone there who has lost 50 pounds, there will be someone there who DIDN'T lose this week (and we'll discuss that), there will be a topic that is pretty general and is good common sense, there will be some mention of the sweet WW stuff on display being marked down this week (but I don't have to buy it and I won't) and I will get weighed. The result will go in their computer.

While I've only been low carbing for 2 and half years and thus may yet fail to stay within a few pounds of my goal weight. I've yet to slip, gain or have any need to get back on track nor have I ever had to waste time going to meeting to maintain my current lifestyle.

I don't really even regard myself as being on a "diet" I just don't eat refined carbs and/or industrial seed oils.
While of course I may the exception that proves the rule I cannot see any reason why I should not continue as I am now as long as I live.

Interesting to see how george lundberg has replied to the comments on his article It would be helpful if there was a little more Low Carb input to the comments section.

Well, then, good luck to you!