Habib and I were having dinner with another couple a few nights ago, and the subject turned to the friends husband's new diet. He had recently lost 25 pounds on a low carb, Atkins type diet that his doctor had prescribed for him.
He was looking a lot better, and he mentioned that he had done this before on the South Beach diet. His comment on the South Beach diet was that "it works if you do exactly what they tell you to do." But it obviously was not something he could sustain long term, and he now found himself on a new diet that was low in carbs, and featured a good deal of meat as well as some shakes.
But he had a lot of questions for me and really wanted to know my take. I try to not give advice per se, but to present information in a way that people can make good decisions for themselves. He sort of knew he was potentially on another short term path, where he would lose weight and then start to gain it back.
So I mentioned to him our observations about Weight Watchers and how we see the long term success many have in the PEERtrainer community. We see South Beach as an excellent short term thing that will work, but with Weight Watchers there is a lot more focus on long term behavior change.
After sharing this observation with him he immediately mentioned that he had a male co-worker who had recently lost 80 pounds. He mentioned it because they had been watching a company video from a year ago, and this guy had lost so much weight that he was now unrecognizable.
So we are reaching out to this guy and try and get his story. We are focusing a lot on men's weight loss in the Tip Of The Day email coaching series and are also developing a program that focuses on the emotional, night eating and binge component of eating for men.
This conversation was interesting also because of Weight Watchers Momentum Program, which is the latest update of their program. Both the in-person and online versions of the program have been updated to provide even more of a focus on long term and healthy change. If you are one of those guys who yo-yo's, you might want to try their online program. The cost is roughly $5 a week which includes the signup fee. That is the price of a nice beer at a bar.
Many guys like the structure that the online version of Momentum can provide and are also comfortable with the computer. So if you feel stuck just sign up for the online component to start. Maybe do the meetings as a second step. Whatever works for you. And if you do join and are a subscriber to the Tip Of The Day please please let me know how it goes. I would love to blog about this. If you are a try before you buy person, you can also do a series of free assessments on the Weight Watchers site. Otherwise just click on the orange button below which takes you to the online version for men.
I am also starting a thread in the community about Men's success with WW. I am especially interested in how the program improves results with their new refresh. Also if Weight Watchers is not for you or you have tried it in the past, maybe it might make sense to take a crack at South Beach for a period of time. The success you have there might help with your transition period to a healthier, long term diet.
Comments