Weight Watchers- Excellent!

by Sarah
(Australia)

I started the Weight Watchers diet in August last year, and to date I have lost 20kg! I still have 5kg more to reach my goal weight.

Weight Watchers was an easy plan to follow. It's main ideas are that it is a change in eating habits for life -- not just to lose weight.

You can eat what you want on this diet (anything! even chocolate, maccas, anything!) as long as you write down everything you eat, and count your points.

Points are given to each food based on saturated fat and kilojoule (calorie) content. You get to eat a certain amount of points each day. You can also "earn" points through exercise, or save them up.

At first, I felt a bit hungry for greasy food (I was used to eating it all the time), but as I could have easily used a day's points allowance on one KFC meal alone, I had to slow down. I didn't often feel hungry, as there are plenty of no-point and low-point meals.

The meetings are great as they really motivate you and set goals for you each week, and you are getting support from like minded people.

Eating out at restaurants was no big hurdle, as one of the books you can buy has points values for common dishes (i.e. honey chicken at a Chinese restaurant), and as long as you don't feel stuffed at the end of your meal, that's OK.

I really like the weight watchers program, as the eating plan is sustainable -- you could eat like that for the rest of your life. It's big on fruit, vegetables and low-fat dairy, with minimal sugar and saturated fat.

It's not really a diet, more of a life style change. I would recommend it to everybody!

Note from Dr. Dan

Sarah,

I visited your country several years ago when the Olympics were held there. One of the first things that we noticed was that the people were thinner than in the United States.

We saw less fast food outlets. And we saw a lot more people walking than they do here.

This situation is changing rapidly all over the world, as traditional foods and activities are replaced with fast food and computer games. Obesity is now a worldwide problem, and it has really developed over the last generation or two.

Dr. Dan