Points!

So a lot of you know I used WW back when they were still calling themselves Weight Watchers. I was a huge success story for them. They tried to get me to become a coach and join the company I had such a great success story. 

I took to the points system and followed it to the letter, or number as the case may be. I could figure out how to get the maximum value out of my day with the least amount of points. And I rarely ever, bordering on never used my bonus points. That stash they give you to have a treat or two when you wanted one, plus the ones you earned by working out. I just watched them add up in my "good" column as the weight just came right off. 

It worked for me. Every meeting you'd weigh in and if you had lost the "right" amount of weight you got a gold star. YOU GOT A GOLD STAR. And once you had so many gold stars you got trinkets. And once you reached your goal weight you got even bigger trinkets. 

And then even if you'd reached your goal weight if you kept losing weight you got more gold stars. YOU COULD EARN GOLD STARS FOREVER.

Weight Watchers had all of the disclaimers that if you had an eating disorder this was not the program for you. And I didn't have an eating disorder. I mean not anymore. It had been since high school since I had "dieted" by just not eating because that was easier than trying to count calories. I mean living off of caffeine and nicotine at 17 didn't count anymore in my 40s right? 

And I'd never been hospitalized or gotten too terribly thin. I just didn't have a good relationship with food. 

BUT I have a great relationship with gold stars. 

When I was about 15 pounds under the goal weight I set I saw a picture of myself where I didn't know who I was looking at. Literally. I saw the photos from an event I had gone to and there was this really skinny woman in one of them. Not healthy looking thinner. But kind of haggard looking skinny. And it took me a long time to realize that was me. But once I saw it I could see it in the mirror. Before that I saw the five more pounds I wanted to lose to get to that magical place that lives in the back of my brain. 

I'm not built to be skinny. My bone structure doesn't lend itself to that. My hips are always going to be broad. It's just a matter on if it's a rounded broad or a jutting hip bone, but my pelvis developed in such a way that my hips will always be wide. Nasty trick of nature my pelvic opening ended up narrowing at the same time so pushing Katie out was a bit difficult, after years of being told I had good child bearing hips. Well no...

I've also got large boobs and a round butt. Well usually. What I ended up with when I first did Atkins (RAPID weight loss and then a pretty steady regain) and the WW loss was a flatter rear end and kind of empty sack boobs. Neither one is my preference. I actually like my curves and my soft spots. Which I know is hard to reconcile with the years I spent trying to get rid of them. I just wanted to be my shape, only smaller. 

And I loved those gold stars.

I tried going back to WW one more time after gaining back a little bit of the too much weight lost but felt right away that trigger cock and knew I was going to be off to the races losing more and more again. 

It wasn't healthy for me. It was the exact wrong program for me. It triggered a new level of disordered eating and it took a long time for me to leave all of that good food, bad food, low point, high point, background noise behind. 

So when I saw a headline about the CEO of WW coming out and saying that they now realize their approach to weight was all wrong and the points and the prepacked foods were not a good idea I thought...wow. This is amazing. 

Then I read further and saw that they have purchased a drug company and will now be giving semaglutide medications. You know the ones that were supposed to be for diabetics but people started losing weight on them and so a new level opened in our diet and weight loss industry. 

There are a lot of problems with these meds, I mean just start with the fact that this is a lifetime commitment. As soon as you stop getting the injections the weight comes back. And as weight likes to do it brings friends. It's also not some sort of easy path. People report that they are ill while on them. Nausea is a big side effect. And then there is a whole other social aspect. Why do people need to be thin?

I mean, you all know that's the piece I've struggled with my whole life. I'm never going to be thin. But I am healthy. I am fit. I keep an eye on blood work so I can fix health problems. But being fat isn't a bad thing. It's just a thing. It's a body type. Just like being skinny. Or being in the middle. Fat is only a problem so they can sell you weight loss products. 

And now WW has realized that the points system wasn't the way to go. Medication is the way to go. 

Yeah, they were wrong. The got that part right. But they just went more wrong instead of better.