Why I left WW
There are several things with the program that in the last six months or so I have found that I struggle with. But that is not actually why I left. The reason I left was simple. Before I get into that, I will give context of my time with WW. I have spent the majority of my last 11 years as a WW member. I have gotten to my goal weight twice. The first time was my first time on the program. I lost the weight, I ran a marathon, I thought I had it figured out. And then my mom died. And over the next 3-4 years I gained the weight back (65 pounds), plus a bit more. I stopped running. I buried myself in work. I tried to come back to WW twice in those 4 years but my head was not in a space to do the program. I most recently rejoined in July of 2018. I am currently at my goal weight and have been since October of 2020. So its important to know that I don’t pay for the program. I am a lifetime member at goal and can attend meetings and have the program for free. To continue to be free, I need to be no more than 2 pounds (I think its 2 pounds…) above my goal weight. To confirm with WW that I am in that range, I have to weigh in once a month at the studio.
The summary: I experienced anxiety leading up to those monthly weigh ins, even when I was well below my goal weight (I have been as low as 8 pounds below my WW goal weight). I would find myself considering things that were not good for me as a way to try and manipulate my weight. Things such as not eating before a hard workout, not drinking during it, and then having the “benefits” of a lower weight on the scale due to water loss. That’s not okay. Additionally, the power the scale would have over my mindset in general was not healthy. As someone who finds joy and confidence in seeing my gains in fitness through workouts, I could have an awesome workout one day, be flying high, and then the scale says what I don’t want the following day and I would question everything.
I cannot be mad at WW for making me weigh in. They are a business. They cannot give everyone a product for free. However I got to the point where I was finally able to see that the harm to me mentally by going through that weigh in process was not worth it.
There are things with the program that I dislike, and experiences that I had, that started my brain going down this journey back in late Spring of 2021. At that time I started to seek other voices in the fitness world. I started to learn more about sports nutrition. And as I branched out and listened to more and more experiences and philosophies, I found myself really disagreeing with the WW approach. For the 10 years when I only knew the WW approach, I was content with it. WW worked for me to lose weight and it taught me a lot. But I didn’t know anything except WW so of course I would be happy with it. Until I knew different.
Below are the bits of the program and my experience that I found I really started to disagree with. Fair to say some of this isn’t WW, some of it is how the community takes in the information they provide, how coaches present it, etc. But some of it is the core program.
1. Association between food and activity: In the most recent version of the program, you earn “weeklies” for activity. Weeklies are your “extras” past your daily points allotment. This directly creates a correlation between food and working out. And it took me 10 years to work past the idea of “I ran for 60 minutes so I get to eat XYZ.” Or, “I ate XYZ and so I need to run for 60 minutes”. While WW doesn’t directly state the two things I just said, those thoughts were my natural response. What WW does is when preparing for holidays or special events, members and coaches often talk about getting in extra activity as a way to allow yourself to indulge more at a holiday event. This creates an approach of “I need to work out to enjoy this BBQ”. Additionally, when I came back to WW this last time, I was not active for the first almost 2 years. And a massive part of that is because I was having success without activity, and I was scared that if I started being active I would fall back into the mindset. I believe we should be active because its good for our mental health, good for our bodies in the long run, and important to our quality of life. Period.
2. The “why” behind things: When WW teaches about a behavior or why you should do something, the “why” always ties into weight loss. It seems they cannot remember that they rebranded from Weight Watchers to WW because they are not wanting to just be about weight loss. One example: when teaching that eating fiber is important, it is shared that this is because fiber will fill you up longer. Sure, it will. But its also really freaking important to having a healthy 💩 too. And without that 💩, a lot can go wrong. Sure, talking about poop isn’t always fun but actually teaching me why the things are important to my overall health would go a long way to allowing people to really learn about food and nutrition. This same concept applies to water. With the new program you earn a point for drinking water and eating cups of non-starchy vegetables. I was measuring my broccoli to make sure I was eating a cup so I could earn a point 🙄 You don’t need to earn your food.
3. Constant changes in the program: About every couple of years, the program is updated. You have to learn something new, adjust to different points, and whatever else they change. Most recently the Personal Points program made it so that everyone’s program was custom to them. Sounds great, right? Except now it makes it more challenging to speak the same language, to collaborate over recipes, and to cook for a household of people that have completely different plans. Sometimes it felt like the changes were just to make things fresh and have a new plan to advertise and market. As someone who needs to understand the why behind things, this just never made sense to me. The changes were never explained enough as to “why”. It was just that the latest science and research said we should do this. Ok, thanks. That’s not helpful.
4. Food and points values: For the last 11 years I have associated all foods with a points value. And WW 100% says you can eat what you want, just track it. Whether it’s an item with more or less points, tracking it and having awareness is what matters. There is no “good” or “bad” foods. Except when you assign points to things, you are inherently making some food appear to be better than others. Because often people are trying to get the most they can and stay within their points, so obviously lower point items will allow for this. An example: In our house we have a really tasty whole grain bread that we bought because it was high in fiber and looked like it would be good and hearty for toast. When I got it home and scanned it, I learned it was 4 points for 1 slice. As someone who would get between 16-20 points (depending on which version of the program I was on), I decided this was not worth it, and instead ate the 1 point per slice low carb keto friend bread. Do we really think that bread is better for me? Absolutely not. But did it fit better in my points, and so I ate it? Yup. Processed vs whole and because processed was lower points, that is where I went.
5. Being an athlete on WW: I became active in September of 2020. I had decided that I was going to pursue my dream of completing a 70.3 triathlon by the time I was 40. I had 6 years to do it. Welp, things escalated quickly. As I began moving again, I fell in love with being active. I bought a Peloton bike, and then a Peloton Tread+. I set a goal to complete my first Sprint Triathlon in Summer of 2021. And it continued onwards, with me completing 2 traithlons in summer of 2021, and a half marathon (PR by 6 min) in the fall. I am signed up for Michigan 70.3 in September of 2022. I am sharing this so you can get a sense of the level of training I am doing. One of the aspects of the program is to get a “blue dot” each day because this means you are within a “healthy point range”. This is a range below or above your daily points and staying within this is an area that you can focus on to know if you are making pretty good decisions overall. It is not a requirement at all but certainly is there to guide you. As my training increased, I found it really freaking hard to get a blue dot. I was eating because I was hungry. Safe to say that running 8 miles or riding a bike for 90 minutes takes a lot of fuel. And every day that I didn’t get a blue dot, I felt like I was doing something wrong. At its core, WW is not built for individuals who are partaking in a high volume of training. The food you need to fuel your body is too high in points and you will go over your points every day (if you are fueling correctly. AKA eating CARBS ❤️).
6. “Thats a lot of points”: The story I am about to tell was one of the biggest cracks in my relationship with WW. I was training hard, eating all my daily points, fit points (at the time that is what they were called), and my weeklies, and STILL losing weight. I spoke with a coach about this and asked what I should do, because at that point I was trying to maintain my weight. When I shared this experience/question, their response was “thats a lot of points”. They told me I was eating a lot. And then we got interrupted and couldn’t continue talking. But I didn’t need to. And they didn’t try to follow up with me later. What I know now is that the simple answer should have been “You need to eat more”. I didn’t know that then. I do now thanks to Featherstone Nutrition. Instead I got shock and judgement. The coach’s response is what sent me seeking other voices and wanting to learn from sources outside of the program
7. Encouraging maintenance throughout the journey: One of the individuals I follow and have learned a lot from is Jordan Syatt. In his podcasts he often talks to clients and gives them guidance based on their goals. During several podcasts he coaches his clients to maintain their weight for a period of time even before they are at their ideal weight. This teaches them how to do this. That seems pretty fucking genius to me. Teach me how to do something before I actually need to do it. WW, I suggest you incorporate something along these lines. Or at least stop kidding yourself that when you get to your goal weight “nothing changes”. When all a person has ever done is try to lose weight, suddenly not trying to lose weight is a MASSIVE MINDSET SHIFT.
8. Tracking for the rest of your life: No thank you. I do understand that there are people who are actually content to track forever but I am not one of those people. I am too stubbornly independent to want to rely on something other than myself for the rest of my life. I need to know I can do it on my own. As I have embarked on my first couple of days without tracking, I am finding that I am listening to myself and my body more. When tracking, WW tells you when to stop eating (if you want a blue dot that is ;-)). WW tells you how much to eat in a day. Now, I need to figure that out without a number associated with it.
9. Graduating from WW: As someone who is in a leadership role in my professional life, one of my goals is to make sure my team can do exactly what they need to every single day WITHOUT ME. This means they are knowledgeable, confident, and empowered to do their job. But WW basically wants you to stay on WW forever, hence the comments about tracking forever and this not being a diet, and being a lifestyle. You could say that you graduate from the program when you become lifetime and at goal. However in order to continue using the tools and community that you have come to rely on, you have to go in each month to the dreaded scale and weigh in. And that brings us full circle.
I wish I had a number ten to round this out but oh well. I do not. Typing this out, thinking it though, it was cathartic for me. I needed to find ways to capture what I have been feeling and what has been building for the last six months.
The community that I gained via WW is amazing, and I don’t want my words to in anyway diminish the value I gained from so many people I had the pleasure of meeting through WW. However WW also really did a number on some aspects of my relationship with food and activity. So now the next part of my life begins. The part where I rely on myself to determine what I need to eat to feel healthy and strong, and perform how I know I can when training. The part where I go for a run and don’t immediately check my app to see how many points I earned as a way of quantifying how hard I worked. The part where I start to actually live my life, empowered by the knowledge I have gained, and not held back by striving for a number on a scale.
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