I went to my first Weight Watchers meeting when I was ten. Here's what I remember: "Good evening Weight Watchers! Today we're going to learn to make chocolate cake!" There was cautious excitment on the women's faces. The big 'treat' back then was the Weight Watchers milkshake: one cup of milk, three ice cubes and the extract of your choice. Blend until frothy. So yeah, you can understand why these women were nervous.
What the lecturer had to say next was cruel: "To make chocolate cake start with one pound of crookneck squash..."
Appropriately enough, the response was "Ugh!!!" and / or a chagrined "Oh...."
Zucchini in chocolate cake can be delicious when shrouded with butter and sugar, but crookneck squash with chocolate extract? Not so much. Weight Watchers was pretty rigid back then. Your sweet tooth was allowed only sacchrine and extract. Foods were grouped into 'legal' and 'illegal'. To make matters worse, the only diet soft drink back then was Tab which tasted like rat poison.
Over the years as I've struggled with my weight, people have suggested Weight Watchers. I tried to be receptive, but my subconscious mind could not let go visions of foamy milk with that stupid, **cking extract. Instead I tried Jenny Craig where, as previously shared, I ate my week's supply of miniature candy bars in ten minutes. I also tried Atkins, which I lost a lot of weight on when I was 15. But then you eat a piece of toast and gain back 30 pounds.
At times I've managed to keep my weight down. I really liked how I looked three years ago. Now? Well, you don't see many pictures of me here do you? I don't have X's in my clothing size (although I was perilously close a year ago). I'm not morbidly obese. But our society is disdainful of anything other than thin. Thinner than nature intended. Thinner, for many of us, than our genetics dictate. When men have told me "I love your body. You look great just the way you are" I beleive them (well, I try to beleive them), but the last time I heard that was 15 - 20 pounds ago. Ok, once since then but I'm writing it off as a fluke. Fluke being, appropriately enough, a whale-related word.
I went to a Weight Watchers meeting yesterday morning. The format is better now. Less rigid, no extract, yay. I liked the meeting's topic: Feeding your Soul. Each person was given an index card with a letter on it. The objective was to think of something beginning with that letter (other than food) that 'feeds your soul'.
The letter I got was Q. My response of "Go on a Quest for things that excite you." was well received.
Not so well received: Another activity consisted of listing reasons why we eat. After the lecturer wrote all the yesh, duh, haven't we been through this before? responses (boredom, stress, etc)on the board she started to put the cap back on her dry erase marker. I raised my hand: "I think all of those things can be secondary to the fear of being thin."
Silence. Crickets. The bubbly lecturer composed herself, wrote it down, and informed me that actually that wasn't anything new. I shrugged to myself. I wasn't trying to be creative; I was being honest. In her levity! We're all about levity! manner she asked if anyone else could relate to 'fear of being thin'. Nothing. Finally one woman raised her hand, but she didn't speak. "I can relate!" said the lecturer. "Most of us have lost weight before and when we're thin we're scared we're going to gain it back."
Wrong, but thanks for playing. I nodded politely.
The new system involves points. It kind of amounts to "Don't spend it all in one place." Fattening foods are no longer illegal, but you have to budget for them. The system emulates reality pretty well. I like that its a permanent reconditioning approach.
I'll go again next Saturday. We'll see what happens.
You brought back those lovely memories of the extracts. I was on weightwatchers when I was about 10. You didn't mention the condensed milk or all of the damn water that you had to drink each day. I think I wet the bed one night because I had to finish my daily allotment before going to sleep.
ReplyDeleteSorry, didn't mean to extract those memories from your subconscious. Wha ha. I don't remember anything about condensed milk. That sounds fattening. As far as the water, I associate that with the Stillman Water Diet, the predecessor to Atkins. Not sure if Weight Watchers required that much water, but they may have. They probably suggested flavoring it with extract.
ReplyDeleteMore came to me..... fish. We had to eat lots of it and I hated fish. My first lunch at school was a disgusting tuna sandwich accompanied by a thermos of lumpy, poorly mixed evaporated milk (I made a mistake writing condensed). I starved so I guess I lost weight that day. One scheme to satisfy the fish requirement was a product called hi lo's (sp?), fish hot dogs. The tuna seemed good compared to those: there's nothing quite like finding a bone in your dog.
ReplyDeleteI also did Stillman. Weight watchers was the reward for two weeks of Stillman. My mom wouldn't allow us to stay on it any longer.