Division Essay

I have been a lifetime member with Weight Watchers since 1987 and even though my weight has fluctuated over the years I have never forgotten the basic fundamentals of how the program works. There are three main parts to Weight Watchers and none of them will work alone. In order to be successful at the program, you have to incorporate all three of the following parts into your everyday life.

The first and main part of the Weight Watchers program is choosing which food plan you are going to follow. There are two approaches to making wise food choices, one is the Flex Plan and the other is the Core Plan. The Flex Plan you can learn to eat healthy and enjoy the freedom to eat any food you like. On the Flex Plan every food has a POINTS value. You can eat any food you like, as long as you keep track of POINTS values and stay within your personal daily POINTS target. Your personal daily POINTS target is determined by gender, weight, age, height, and activity level. On the Core Plan you choose from a list of wholesome and nutritious foods, without tracking. The Core Food List is composed of foods from all food groups – whole grains, fruits, vegetables, lean meats, fish and dairy. With this plan there is no need to measure or count.

The second part to being successful at Weight Watchers is to incorporate exercise into your daily life. Weight Watchers breaks activity into four stages – Starting Out, Building Up, Ramp Up and Keep Going. By doing this anyone can increase their current activity level. The best part about doing more activity is you earn Activity POINTS based on the number of minutes you exercise and the intensity level of the activity. For example if I run for 45 minutes, based on my current weight, I earn 4 POINTS. Those points get added to your daily POINTS target, if you are on the Flex Plan or can be used for those extra items, not on the Core Food List, if you are following the CORE Plan.

The third and final part in being successful at Weight Watchers is to attend your weekly meetings. I know a lot of people turn their nose up at this part, but in my mind it is very important in losing weight and keeping the weight off. The people working at the meetings have all lost weight with Weight Watchers and become lifetime members, their knowledge and experience is invaluable. The feedback and information discussed in the weekly meetings will help you to be successful. Think of the meeting as a community of people helping each other through a series of steps. They are there to congratulate you for doing well and also understand when you have a week that was difficult. It is proven that people who attend meetings lose three times more weight than those who go it alone.

I went back to Weight Watchers in February of 2007 because I was 7 pounds over my lifetime goal weight. For me personally, I follow the Flex Plan because I like being able to have anything I want to eat, which includes ice cream and pizza. I also have become interested in running and attend weekly meetings 2-3 times per month. Since going back to Weight Watchers, I have lost 20 pounds and been successfully maintaining my weight for over a year. I was also instrumental in starting a Weight Watchers at Work Program at my place of employment last June, which is still currently running. There is nothing I like more than going to the weekly meetings, seeing people succeed and helping them on their weight loss journey with information I have learned by being successful on the program.