Why I Quit Weight Watchers
Note: Since writing this post four years ago, I have lost 28 pounds on my own fitness program. Yes, it’s been slow progress, but I’m not much of a “dieter,” and my body is too old to do super-strenuous workouts. I recently did a body scan, and most of the weight that I lost was FAT, not muscle or water. My hope is that by losing so slowly, the weight will stay off!
In last week’s People magazine, Oprah Winfrey announced that she’s lost 40 pounds on Weight Watchers. I’ve always liked Oprah, and I’m happy for her. I, too, had some success with the Weight Watchers program, but here’s why I quit the program and won’t go back.
As many of you know, Weight Watchers assigns point values for foods that calculates their fat, fiber, calories, and protein. If you stay within your assigned points for the day, you are likely to eat well and lose weight. One big key is tracking what you eat during the day, to stay within your point range. I paid around $40 a month for an online account that calculated the point values for me. I could input my favorite foods, so tracking was simple. At the supermarket, you could even scan barcodes of food packages with your phone to see the points value.
I am a slow loser, but I had actually lost about 14 pounds, and was feeling pretty good heading into the 2015 holidays — the hardest time of year to eat healthfully. But I felt confident that by tracking my points, I could stay on target.
Then with no warning, one morning in early December, I couldn’t get into the Weight Watchers website to log in my breakfast points. My app wasn’t working either. Mystified, I went to my weekly meeting and discovered that Weight Watchers had completely changed their program. The points values for foods had all been re-calculated. Now they were called SmartPoints.
For me, it wasn’t very “smart” to roll out a new program — supposedly the biggest change in 50 years — in December. The holidays are NOT the time to try to figure out a whole new points system, especially when you can’t access the new website and app.
At the same time, there was a media blitz about Oprah buying into the company and being the new spokesperson. It felt like the WW management was so intent rolling out a new ad campaign to get new members, they didn’t care if the websites and apps worked for the current ones. And the change to Smartpoints made the existing WW calculators, cookbooks, and other products obsolete.
The technical support was an epic fail as many members couldn’t access the new website and app. One night I spent several hours taking off the old app and trying to re-load the new one, but I couldn’t get it to work. The local staff weren’t able to help me, either. Frustrated, I decided to quit, and wrote the customer service folks an explanation of why — the sudden program changes with no technical support so I couldn’t use my account or app. I was told I still had to pay until Jan. 31 because my credit card was charged a month in advance. No apology, no explanations about why the technical support was a mess.
In January, I looked on my credit card statement and found WW had already charged me for February, even after I had already canceled way back in December!
Weight Watchers, you deserted me when I needed you most. And then you charged me money for it anyway. I felt sabotaged by the company I paid to help me. I know I wasn’t alone, because when I sought help online, I found posts by many frustrated members around the country.
When I saw the charge for February, I contacted their customer service, pointing out I canceled my contract in December. I almost laughed out loud when I got a reply offering me a free month if I would consider staying with WW. Had they offered that right at the beginning of my troubles, I might have gone for it. But now — Too little, too late! They did remove the February charge from my credit card, though.
I decided to lose weight on my own, but I didn’t really have a plan in place. A series of injuries and illnesses over 2016 made it hard to keep up my exercise efforts. And, embarrassing to admit, now I’ve gained back the 14 pounds I lost with WW. Sometimes I wondered if quitting WW was simply cutting off my nose to spite my face.
But I feel that I didn’t leave Weight Watchers, it left me.
Well, this is a new year. I’ve discovered a few diet & fitness trackers online, such as SparkPeople and MyFitnessPal. I’m making goals to:
- Follow the MyFitnessPal plan, tracking 6 of 7 days a week
- Exercise 1 hour a day for 6 of 7 days a week
- Eat 5 fruits/veggies every day, 6 of 7 days a week
I plan to report back occasionally on how I’ve been doing. And I encourage those of you who are also working on fitness to share some of your successes in the comments section.
(Here’s a three month update — lost 11 pounds on my own fitness program.)
Here’s a four-year update: Since writing this post, I’ve lost 28 pounds! All without Weight Watchers.