I know, that not something you’d ever expect me to say, right? But I am grateful to Weight Watchers, not because I reached my ‘goal weight’ with their programmes – I never did, any of the three times I signed on with them – but because something that happened during a lecture helped free me from the ‘must weigh x to be good enough’ mindset I’d lived with for years.
So it was just another lecture day, I guess I was about six weeks into the program, when the lecturer called on one of the regulars to share one of her favourite weight loss tricks.
This was years ago remember, when I still believed that finding the right weight loss trick was the elusive key to ‘success’.
So, this lady shared her top tip. Turns out she loved coconut milk in her food, so to get the flavour of the cream without the calories, she’d replace it with a tin of evaporated skim milk and half a teaspoon of coconut essence.
From my perspective here and now, evaporated milk is milk boiled within an inch of its life and is essentially a dead food, with nutrients added in afterwards. And coconut essence is also essentially a synthetic food. But, at Weight Watchers in 1990-something calories were the important factor, so let’s compare:
15ml evaporated milk 10 calories
Coconut essence 0 calories
Made of: Condensed skim milk, sodium ascorbate (vitamin C), carrageenan, vitamin A palmitate, cholecalciferol (vitamin D3), may contain disodium phoshate [from synthetic sourcesose calorie cou I believe].
15ml coconut milk 26 calories
Made of: coconuts.
Now I guess when you multiply those calorie counts into a recipe there’s a good calorie saving. But what about the nutrition? Coconut milk also contains calcium, magnesium, phosphorous, potassium, manganese, copper, zinc, vitamin c, vitamin e, lauric acid (all trace minerals our bodies need), some sugar from the coconut, and saturated fats including omega 6.
Saturated fats – gasp – the great evil. Well no they’re not, read anything by Cyndi O’Meara or Sally Fallon to get the true story on saturated fats. As my granny still says (at 100!), everything in moderation!
I didn’t know the above numbers during that lecture but there was something about the whole conversation that made me feel distinctly uneasy. I was already getting leary of all the synthetics and low fat everything with artificial sugars that the lectures promoted and sent us off to the supermarket to buy, their own brand of course.
Why fake it, I thought? Why put in all that synthetic stuff to save a few calories? It just didn’t make sense….
After the meeting I sought out the woman – I can remember her face but not her name – because I wanted to know what kept her going to WW, two years after she’d reached her goal weight. She told me she still attended regularly because she felt the group meeting kept her motivated to ‘stay on maintenance’.
Again, something that didn’t make sense to me, that made me feel immensely uneasy – why did we have to put so much time and energy into manage our weight, when 100,000 years of ancestors hadn’t had to do that?
That night really opened me up to the absurdity of what we were all doing, just one more step to finally loving and accepting my body, imperfectly perfect…
So I wonder, what ‘weight loss tricks‘ have you tried over the years that when you look back at them now, make you think – what the? Please share below….
Sandy
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I couldn’t agree more! I was a weight watchers member twice. The first time it took me about 5 months to lose 15 pounds. I basically isolated myself from my friends because I knew that if I went out with them to a restraunt I would (god forbid) go way over my ‘points’. Also, I was always hungry. It was a pretty miserable 5 months, but I did feel good that I had lost some weight. Surprisingly, I kept most of that weight off after quitting weight watchers for about a year. But, not surprisingly, I did eventually gain it back. Of course, at the time, I blamed myself for not having the discipline, etc, etc, to lose weight. I tried off and on for the next 6 years to lose weight on my own. Calorie counting mostly. None of it worked. Then I tried one last ditch effort at weight watchers again. I remembered how miserable I was the first time I did it, but I figured that that was the only time in my adult life that I had lost any weight, so I decided to try it again. I hated it. After that final attempt in January 2010, I decided never again. Its not worth the obsession, mental anguish and self hatred. Who wants to count points or calories for the rest of their life? I’d rather have a life. I’m all for being healthy, but the diet industry is just so ridiculous. I still struggle quite a bit with my body image, but making the descision to never diet again was a big step for me towards self acceptance. I am not there yet, but I know now that I am on my way. Thanks for posting this!
@Daisy, Oh you’re so welcome, thank you for reading.
I wonder if you got the ‘stop being cruel to yourself report” Daisy – it’s got a great process in it that you can use anytime you notice you’re going off giving your body a hard time – you can get it by filling in the form at the top of the page. Thanks for sharing
Daisy, also reading some info on the Minnesota Starvation Study will make a big difference to your understanding of all this… you’ll realise that YOU are not crazy, that YOU are not weak, that YOU are not lacking or deficient somehow. It opened my eyes and frankly it really pissed me off! But it was very freeing as well!