Diets.
If you haven’t been on one, you’re either blessed with good
genes or you’re in the vast minority of American society.
Our weight and body-conscious society practically demands that
both males and females look a certain way. Many times the only way
for the average Joe or Jane to achieve it is to diet their lives
away.
Diets.
If you haven’t been on one, you’re either blessed with good genes or you’re in the vast minority of American society.
Our weight and body-conscious society practically demands that both males and females look a certain way. Many times the only way for the average Joe or Jane to achieve it is to diet their lives away.
A longtime weight loss program, Weight Watchers, has an alternative idea that nixes the term diet and replaces it with change – a change in lifestyle that in turn changes your health.
Local Weight Watcher leader Janet Krogen lost 32 pounds on the program, and enjoyed it so much that she started working for them in 1996.
“When you say diet, you think deprivation,” Krogen said. “Weight Watchers isn’t a diet. It’s moderation, it’s accountability, it’s support. It’s the best.”
The program includes a point system based on calories, fat and fiber. Members assign a certain number of points to everything they eat and strive to keep their number of points within a certain weight-losing range.
With the program, people aren’t confined to eating only protein, or vegetables or this or that, Krogen said. It conforms to real life.
“There’s no, no,” she said. “It’s all up to you – how do you want to do this? It’s all your decision.”
With the low carb-based Atkins diet rampaging across America and even making its way into fast-food chain gimmicks, Krogen admits that you will lose weight on the diet. Unfortunately, there are certain drawbacks of limiting your intake to only certain types of foods, she said.
“If you’re on any kind of diet you’re going to lose weight because less food, less calories,” she said. “The problem I see with Atkins is that people will do well for a short period of time, but it’s harder to maintain that it’s how you’re going to eat for the rest of your life.”
One of the biggest problems facing society today is the increase in child obesity, which stems from the way our culture has taken a detour from active interests toward more sedentary ones.
Instead of playing outside, kids sit in front of television sets, computer screens and in video arcades, she said.
The answer to many of the problems surrounding the expanding waist lines of the next generation begins in the home – what parents do will trickle down to their children.
“As a family, go out and do something so kids don’t feel like they’re pegged, that they need to go on a diet,” she said. “It’s a healthy lifestyle. We can change things, but it’s hard to change things that you’ve been doing for years and years and years.”
Once upon a time watching your weight was only for the female population, but the inclusion of the male gender has come from a societal push to live a more health-conscious lifestyle.
There are some men that are members of local groups, but many times they are encouraged by their wife, significant other or female family member to join, Krogen said.
Whatever brings people into the Weight Watchers program, the bond that ties them together and imparts the needed support for it to work is the desire each member has to revitalize their life through weight loss.
In our society of quick fixes, pill diets and other weight loss fads that fade in and out of infomercial heaven, the most challenging realization people have to face is that the battle is never over, Krogen said.
“You’ve gotta work at it, and even when you’re done you still work at it,” she said. “That’s what’s nice about Weight Watchers, it will always be there. Hopefully when you walk into a meeting, you feel like you’re at home again. That this is where I should be.”
For more information call 1-800-651-6000, or log onto the Weight Watchers Web site at www.WeightWatchers.com.
Great American Weigh In
Weight Watchers is hosting the second annual Great American Weigh In, in association with the American Cancer Society, at Ridgemark Golf and County Club on Wednesday, March 3.
The event promotes cancer prevention by encouraging people to eat well, be active and maintain a healthy weight.
Anyone can attend and the event is free. The event will last all day, where free body mass index (BMI) screening will be available – a BMI over 25 is a health risk for many serious diseases and should prompt a personal plan of action, according to the American Cancer Society.
For more information call 1-800-651-6000, or log onto the Weight Watchers Web site at www.WeightWatchers.com.
