Come on over for dinner, Big Brother.
May 12, 2011 1:23 PM   Subscribe

I'm looking for a weight loss program with more accountability than Weight Watchers.

I find it very simple to lose weight when I think someone is paying attention. I wish I had nobler motivations, but sadly I do not. I lost a lot of weight my second year in college when I had to eat in a dorm with all of my hallmates at the table -- there was too much social pressure to go back for seconds or desserts, so I ate very normal portions. I was also distracted by interesting conversations, etc. It was completely painless to drop the weight in this way.

Now my days are largely spent alone or in the company of my very young children (husband is currently working out of state and returns infrequently; this is the foreseeable future). It's frankly depressing, and there is absolutely nothing to keep me from horking down an entire chicken potpie. I also find myself taking the kids out for dinner often, because our table seems so empty without my husband there.

I have tried Weight Watchers in the past, but it is not a good match for me. Once a week is not enough accountability. Many times I found myself chowing through the week and fasting the day before the weigh-in, only to skip it if I thought I would post a gain.

Ideally I would have fifteen scintillating peers over for dinner every night, but that's not going to happen. Are there "diet coaches" or similar, who provide a more personalized approach/ more frequent oversight than Weight Watchers? Is this the sort of thing a personal trainer might do? How do I find such a person? Cost is not an issue, but I'm in charge of the kids, so I can't swan off to a destination spa or weight loss resort.
posted by apparently to Health & Fitness (13 answers total) 6 users marked this as a favorite
 
I don't work for WW nor am I currently a member, but did you know that once you pay the monthly fee, you can attend as many meetings as you like? It is only suggested you weigh once per week, but if you had, say, a Sunday and a Wednesday meeting, you could certainly step on the scale at both. There are also WW online forums that could be helpful. (Apologies if you already knew all that.)

Others will hopefully have better info about life coaches and such, but I encourage you to join Team Metafilter at Health Month. I just started this month and am finding it very simple and very helpful for staying on track.
posted by Glinn at 1:36 PM on May 12, 2011 [1 favorite]


sparkpeople might be a better fit for you. There are lots of groups on the site if you want to find people who will nudge you or keep you involved. It has "sparkpeople points" that you get for things like logging into the site daily, reading things on the site, etc; some people find this helps encourage self-competition "I'm gonna go find something new to read because I totally want to make it to the next point level!"
posted by rmd1023 at 1:49 PM on May 12, 2011


Here's one option.
posted by novalis_dt at 1:55 PM on May 12, 2011 [1 favorite]


How about booking some time with a nutritionist and keeping a food diary which the nutritionist will review, say every week?
posted by unlaced at 2:18 PM on May 12, 2011 [1 favorite]


It's not nutrition-focused, but Twitter is awesome for this. I've built up a network of fellow losers (largely meatspace friends, but some others) and we're all very accountable for each other. One of my favorite things about it is posting my weekly loss amount and seeing the chorus of kudos stream in. One tip: find your favorite weight bloggers' Twitter accounts!
posted by theraflu at 2:58 PM on May 12, 2011


I am just finishing a Medical Weight Loss Management program through Kaiser with group sessions once a week. You only have shakes, bars, or soups by Optifast for the first sixteen weeks, which I logged on FatSecret.com. The accountability comes in because it's so #@!% expensive and you have blood tests every few weeks to make sure you're doing okay on a very-low calorie diet. Lost lots, though and am keeping it off.

Maybe just something like Fat Secret would help, if you don't want to spend a lot. They have Challenges where you can sign up to "compete" against other dieters. Some of them make it kind of fun.

You could create your own challenge for "Daily Weigh-Ins and Logging Every Calorie"
posted by rw at 3:15 PM on May 12, 2011


Seconding Sparkpeople. Everytime I've used it regularly, I've lost weight. I need to start using it again. What I like is that it counts calories, so you can see when you are over the recommended amount of calories and feel bad about it. It does the same for recommended amount of protein, fat, etc... And it has charts and graphs, seeing the line go down on the graph makes me happy.

Okay, I need to go log in to spark people right now.
posted by echo0720 at 3:27 PM on May 12, 2011


Maybe start a Fat Bet with somebody you know and put up real money?
posted by web-goddess at 5:46 PM on May 12, 2011


VTrim.

It was developed by the nutrition department at UVM and is apparently a great program.
posted by pintapicasso at 7:06 PM on May 12, 2011


My comment was cut off. BUT - I remember my nutrition and food science professors speaking about developing this program before it was available to the general public and it had a really good success rate.
posted by pintapicasso at 7:07 PM on May 12, 2011


I go to a weight loss coach (I'm in New York City). I feel exactly the way you do - I need that level of accountability - and she weighs me every week. Online groups don't do it for me. Even a large Weight Watchers group where somebody you don't know weighs you in each week didn't do it for me.

I don't know where you are, so I can't help you find a weight loss coach in your area, but, yes, they do exist.

Another possibility might be for you to form a group of your peers and weigh in every week and cheer each other on.
posted by DMelanogaster at 6:33 PM on May 13, 2011


oh, sorry, you're in Brooklyn! Maybe you'd be interested in talking to my weight loss coach. I could give you her info if you MeMail me.
posted by DMelanogaster at 4:41 AM on May 14, 2011


I have 3 little kids, 5 and under. A few things that helped me were:
- make a new year's resolution to cook every night. EVERY night. Each meal had to have at least 2 different colored vegetables and a protein.
- Treat my time at the gym as fundamental "me time", not as something to beat myself up about.
- figure out what accountability meant to me. Exercising with a friend? Competing with my siblings to lose 10 lbs? Telling my husband to not let me eat ice cream during the week? etc etc.

FWIW, I wrote for Weight Watchers -- those little books you get when you join, on how to eat and live once you've committed yourself to getting fit. And I've done a ton of fitness writing as well. But finding out what *I really wanted out of getting fit*, and what worked for me, was more important than knowing all the rules and tips and tricks for following them.
posted by mdiskin at 6:34 PM on May 17, 2011


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