Thoughts on Weight Watchers

The score: I've been doing Weight Watchers at work since late January. So far I've lost 25 pounds and have 11 pounds left to lose.

The Weight Watchers program works. How I feel about the Weight Watchers organization itself is another story. Maybe some other post I’ll write about it. Maybe not.

Here's a list of what I've learned:

• In order to lose weight I need to eat much less than I was eating before. It's amazing I wasn't more overweight than I was.
  
  
• Sometimes when I think I'm hungry, I'm really thirsty and water takes care of the craving.
  
  
• Drinking eight glasses of water a day is easy and doesn't result in more trips to the bathroom. It does make me feel better than I've felt in years.
  
  
• Giving up almost all sugar plus drinking the water helped my aches and pains. They didn't go away, but they are much less noticeable.
  
  
• It's really fun to pull out my fall clothing and have it be baggy.
  
  
• There are some good tasting low fat products on the market. They are way outnumbered by awful tasting low fat products on the market.
  
  
• I would rather eat a small amount of a good tasting traditional dish than a large amount of a traditional recipe altered to be low fat.
  
  
• As long as I have grapes to munch on, I can ignore almost all other snack foods.
  
  
• Eating as a reward is not permissible. Rewards to replace eating are hard to find. In my case knitting time and laptop time are substitutes. But in a time pressured world they are not always practical.
  
  
• Once a week I can cheat and eat something that is more points than I'm allowed in a day. Maybe that's why I've lost less than a pound a week. On the other hand, it's made the process bearable.
  
  
• The health rewards are significant. Both the measurable (blood pressure, cholesterol) and the unmeasurable (energy level, joint pain).
  
  
• The WW eating plan is something I can live with for the rest of my life. That's were other diets fall short for me. They are too restrictive to maintain.
  

Question to Ponder: Why is it that two of my favorite low fat products, Skinny Cow Ice Cream Sandwiches and Laughing Cow Cheese, have "cow" in their name and a picture of a cow on their package?