Weight Watchers Are Not Losers

                               

“Jean Nidetch saved my life,” said, Gina, my co-worker. She’s in her early fifties, has lost over a hundred pounds on the Weight Watcher’s Program, and has kept it off for going on eight years. Each anniversary, she commemorates her weight loss with another small eternity ring embedded with small stones, now stacked up to her knuckle.

I’d brought Jean’s obituary in the Business & Tech section of the Wall Street Journal in to work that day in April of 2015.  I’d seen it over my usual breakfast of egg whites, cottage cheese, tomatoes and fruit at my local diner, the article described Jean as “a perpetually overweight housewife who discovered a weight-loss tool that was missing – empathy.”

Jean Nidetch, who died at the age of 91, went on to help millions shed unwanted pounds.

I am one of those millions.

I laid my fork down on my plate as my mind drifted back to February of 1973.

'71 High School Yearbook at 155 pounds

“Heather? Where are you?” Mom called out from the entry hall. “It’s time to go to your first Weight Watcher’s Meeting!”

“I’ll be right there,” I called back from the breakfast room off the kitchen. I took a hurried bite of my BLT sandwich. Mayonnaise oozed outside the crust as I bit into it. I licked it up all around the edges.

“Heather! What the hell are you doing?”

“I’m coming!” I held the rest of my sandwich, looking at it, debating. I stuffed the rest of it into my mouth, taking in the flavor of the bacon, the rich texture of the mayonnaise, the soft white bread. It would be the last bite of fattening food I would ever eat with abandon.

The meeting was held at a Synagogue in West Hollywood, and as I took my place in line to be weighed, the scale loomed large, waiting to show the truth. Sweat poured down my side as I stepped onto it. The woman weighing me in slid the bar over, and over, and over. I watched the numbers pass by, willing the bar to stop at some acceptable place. “You’re 5 feet 3 inches tall and 172 ½ pounds,” she said, jotting it down in a little booklet that she handed to me.

I stared down at the written number and looked sheepishly over at my mother who had forced me to go. “It’s my fault you’re heavy,” Mom said. “I fed you a cookie every time you cried as a baby.”

The first item on the agenda was “True Confessions” and I listened in disbelief as an obese woman, who hadn’t lost any weight that week, told of her midnight search for something to satisfy her craving for a snack. In a desperate effort to stick to the Weight Watcher Program, she’d devoured a box of her toy poodle’s Milk Bone’s.

I pictured her, all by herself, polishing off a box of dog biscuits. I often ate alone, too.

My attention turned to a brunette woman in her late forties. She was having difficulty seating herself in one of the folding chairs. The man next to me, his protruding belly pushing against the constraint of his button down shirt, noticed me eyeing her. “She’s come a long way,” he said. “Last week she graduated from the aisle to a chair. We are so proud of her.”

I knew if I didn’t get control of my eating, I’d end up like that woman.

“Do you eat because you are lonely or depressed?” our lecturer asked the group. “If you answered ‘yes’ you are not alone.”

Even though I was the youngest in the group, my secret eating binges were not unique in this crowd. I was not alone here. If I polished off a can of Redi Whip in one sitting or hid Oreos in my closet, these people could relate. Unlike the Milk Bone lady, though, I hadn’t learned to laugh at my own self-destruction. Food had become my comfort in a chaotic home.

Our leader told us that she’d been overweight, too. It was hard to imagine her heavy, with her flat stomach and shapely legs.  She’d lost 106 pounds. And when she’d reached her goal weight, she joked that she’d  “seen the light” when she toweled her legs off after a shower and actually seen light coming through between the long lost curves in her calves.

The following week, I lost 6 ¼ pounds and I was on my way. I was a poor student in school, barely earning C’s. This could be my first real success and I was going to see it through. The program was easy to follow and I could modify our meals at home. I had choices and I didn’t get bored. Each week, I saw progress. Some weeks it was only ¼ of a pound, but I hung in there, determined to meet my goal.  The scale no longer loomed large each time I weighed in. Instead, it became my ally, charting my progress.  It took eight months to reach goal of 115. Then, I began “Maintenance” to keep the weight off.  

Forty-four years later, I’m still grateful to Jean Nidetch and her approach to weight loss. I still use some of the old Weight Watcher tricks.  I couldn’t do it alone back then. I needed the community of a room full of people who understood. And I needed a goal.

Jean understood that there is no magic pill. That no snappy device is going to do the work for you.

I sometimes feel that fifteen year-old girl inside me.  It never really goes away.  But, I learned how to keep her at bay.

On that February evening back in 1973, I too, saw the light.