The Fatslayer Chronicles

What is it about weight loss that turns some people into tyrants and others into unquestioning sheep? It’s amazing how many people ignore the evidence of their own experience and senses, and simply swallow the current dieting advice hook line and sinker.

One thing life in general (and trying to follow a healthy diet in particular) has taught me is that when it comes to diets, we’re all different. There are no ‘rules’ to follow that will guarantee you the holy grail of successful loss and maintenance – you have to sift through the information that’s out there, experiment,  and see what works for you and what doesn’t. Not everything that you taste is worth swallowing (heh heh – I’m sure you can think of examples!), and it’s the same with information – you have to learn what’s palatable and what you should spit back out again. It’s a lifelong learning process and there aren’t any shortcuts.

This has been on my mind a lot since yesterday evening, when I made the mistake of going into a diet chat room – boy, did I soon regret it! The room should come with a health warning - “Abandon any attempt to have a light hearted chat or rational discussion, ye who enter here!”

There were a few brand new dieters there requesting advice, and the conversation soon turned to weighing – how often do you do it?  Some folks said “”Never” – that bitter experience had taught them to give scales a wide berth and use other gauges to monitor their progress.  At the other end of the spectrum I said I weighed daily, faithfully recording the ups as well as the downs but only really paying attention to the moving average and not allowing a stalled or misbehaving number to ruin my day. Others (mainly the WW crew) were evangelical about weighing only once a week, and one lady – a WW leader in Florida - started to get really strident, stating as a “fact” that weighing daily was psychologically damaging and caused people to lose heart and give up, whereas weekly weigh-ins (at WW of course) were the only possible “guarantee of success”.

I said that surely it depended on the individual – personally I used to find it much more disheartening to step on the scales for the ceremonial once-a-week weigh and find I’d gained or stayed the same after 7 days of effort. It would feel like the end of the world, whereas in reality it may simply have been a ‘blip’ in the middle of a whole run of lower weights. “So,” I said, “psychologically I’m better to weigh daily and learn that my body fluctuates naturally, and that ups are as inevitable as downs and nothing to get wound up about.”

The response from the WW leader?  “That’s just stupid!”

“Oh,” I said – “why stupid if it works for me?“

“Well it WON’T work for you in the long run,” she said. “WW have been in the weight loss business for a long time and they know what works and what doesn’t, and weighing daily NEVER works!”

I retorted that I’d been a WW member in the past and it hadn’t worked for me, and that I’d seen plenty of dysfunctional behaviour at those meetings. Before every meeting I’d seen women removing their watches, earrings, wedding rings etc., squeezing out every last drop of pee (well, I didn’t witness that bit, obviously, but you know what I mean), heard them saying they couldn’t wait to weigh so that they could finally eat and drink something (and the weigh –in was at 5pm!). Often I’d hear women saying that they regularly had a food binge on weigh-in night because they had a whole week to get back on track, or heard them apologise to the leader for skipping last week’s meeting, but they’d been ‘scared’ to step on the scales after a bad week. Wasn’t that dysfunctional, psychologically damaging behaviour?

The WW leader became increasingly aggressive, saying that “people like me” were “dangerous”, and should “stop misinforming people”. I’ll spare you the rest of the conversation, but basically she tried to browbeat me and everyone else in the room into accepting her version of the “facts”, even if they didn’t dovetail with our own experience. Apparently it’s a “fact” that ‘independent’ diets don’t work, it’s a “fact” that public weighing (and fee-paying) is the only thing that keeps you accountable, its a “fact” that “lifetime membership” stops you backsliding.

What a load of unsubstantiated fucking propaganda!

Now, to set out my stall so there’s no misunderstanding, I can sincerely say that I’ve nothing against WW, or any other dieting organisation – I think they provide a valuable (if expensive) service. I’ve been a WW member 3 times in the past and had some success with their methods but I never made it to the finishing line (for which I blame my own shortcomings, not theirs). Their methodology and structure works for some people, and if folks need the support and don’t mind parting with their cash that’s their prerogative.

What I don’t like are their fucking thought-police advocates, who try to coerce everyone into accepting their version of the ‘truth’, and try to shoehorn everyone into the same uniform one-size-fits-all pigeonhole. It’s arrogant, insulting, and irresponsible. I don’t blame WW per se – these people aren’t official spokespersons and they probably peddle a bastardized version of the WW message – but I wish they’d choose their leaders better!

What these browbeaters don’t acknowledge is that we’re all unique individuals – different ages, sexes, sizes, races, histories, goals, metabolisms, psychologies, motivations, desires, hang-ups…the ONLY thing we have in common is that we’re all trying to lose weight.  Why does it follow, therefore, that there’s only one successful methodology? It’s a form of dictatorial dieting-by-numbers, and while it’ll work for some, it’ll fail for others.

I’m learning to embrace my uniqueness and individuality and to be proud of it! So what if I’m different - who the hell wants to be ‘ordinary’ – or an unquestioning sheep - anyway? I’m an experiment of one, and I’ll learn over time and through trial and error what does and doesn’t work for me. I’ll take as much advice as you all care to offer, and all your tips and success strategies too, but when push comes to shove, it’s my life and my body, and no-one’s going to force me to do it their way.