Is The Weight Watchers Diet Sustainable?

Weight Watchers may be one of the more easily recognized diet programs in the United States, with Internet advertising, television commercials and ads in print magazines and newspapers. The program continues to evolve from its simple origins, and the latest program as of 2011 is the "Points Plus" program. If you are interested in losing weight and maintaining your weight loss, using the Weight Watchers program may help you achieve your goal of sustainable weight loss.

Program Features

The Weight Watchers program, overseen by selected physicians and nutritional scientists, focuses on using real food, regular physical activity and group support to help its clients lose weight. With the "Points Plus" program, you use Weight Watchers print or online tools to track and calculate the number of points used each day. You are able to exchange activity points for more food, which provides you with a reason to exercise. As an incentive to stay with the program after you reach and maintain your goal weight for six weeks, Weight Watchers allows you to attend meetings for free, provided you stay within a 2-lb. range of your goal weight and weigh-in once a month.

Sustainability Features

Many fad diets such as the grapefruit or celery diet are not sustainable; however, Weight Watchers is not a fad diet. The book, "Weight Watchers Weight Loss That Lasts," written by Dr. James Rippe in conjunction with Weight Watchers, indicates that the Weight Watchers program has sustainability features built into the program. Such sustainability factors include the fact that Weight Watchers teaches you how to monitor your food intake independently, assists you with overcoming emotional eating behaviors, recommends you make a permanent lifestyle change and encourages group support. Additionally, Rippe indicates that because the Weight Watchers program focuses on whole, healthy foods, you may improve your overall health by following the program's recommendations.

Expert Insight

Weight Watchers, used as one of 11 comparison weight loss programs in a review study published in the November 2009 issue of "Obesity Reviews," produced weight loss in participants after two years, as did several of the other programs. Additionally, the authors of the study concluded that of the diets studied, those programs that employed either calorie reduction, or combined calorie reduction with exercise and behavior modifications, improved the incidences of diabetes and the development of metabolic syndrome in diet program participants.

Strategies

When participating in the Weight Watchers program, talk with your group leader about strategies she used to help her maintain her weight. Group leaders in the program are Lifetime Weight Watchers participants who have lost weight and maintained the weight loss. Learn to prepare food using the low-calorie strategies in the Weight Watchers literature, work on changing unhealthy food habits you have and take advantage of the structured exercise ideas the program suggests. As you get closer to your goal weight, avoid the temptation to fall back into old habits, but instead continue following the program to further cement the healthy eating techniques the program teaches you.