YOU CAN’T FIX IT ON A PLATE

—After losing over 100 pounds this former Weight Watchers leader is convinced:
YOU CAN’T FIX IT ON A PLATE

I stop in at Weight Watchers to keep my account current. I am about ten pounds under my goal weight but haven’t been in for 5 or 6 months so they charge me $14. I start to wonder why I even bothered coming. Basically the job of leader never felt right to me. I did it because I wanted to give something back to people. But Weight Watchers wasn’t the right thing.

They were the right people, though. Standing in front of them, I’d smile and introduce myself. But my name barely stirred a glance or more than a couple of polite nods. I never minded. I was just waiting for the right moment---

Some of them are brand new, you see, but most are like I was. They’ve seen it all and tried it all before. And, even though we are determined and successful as employees and students, as moms, daughters, wives and sisters, we have failed here over and over. It’s a wonder we can make it in this door and can face these clipboards at all anymore. There are a couple that I know are under immense pressure to prove they deserve this hour and the $14 they just paid for it. There is one whose medication is making her go ounce for ounce with my scale. I’m positive the ten year old with downcast red rimmed eyes begged her mother not to make her come... I remember pleading like that.

I look to heaven for inspiration worthy of them.

“I’m not good at losing weight” I tell them. “The truth is I have failed every single time since I was nine years old—except once. Five years ago I joined after my second child was born. I had ups and downs. I had to reregister multiple times when my progress (and motivation) lagged and I couldn’t justify paying for all the meetings I missed. In 2002 the weight range for my height and age was so out of reach I told my husband I would never make an official goal and never have the privilege of lifelong membership. But with all of that, here I am standing in front of you and telling you truthfully, still surprised to be saying the next 4 words: “I lost 101 pounds.”

And now the heads snap up and the once merely courteous group is riveted, watching the way you do when you see a magic trick and are aching to know the secret. This is where you’d launch into your pitch if you had one. But that’s not what I’m here for. I have earned nothing and will sell them nothing except that inside all of us a miracle is waiting. I am living proof. It is a force so clear and bright and undeniable that once in a while the craziest thought dawns in the back of my mind…

If I had never been so lost and despairing I would never have known the feeling of being blessed beyond my measure.


Back at the weigh in, my jaw hits the floor though when they tell me about "Rachel". This bright committed successful WW member turned leader who went through training with me. When I met Rachel she was the only other person I knew who had lost more than 100 pounds. Now the news spins around and around in my mind.

“She gained it all back…”

I repeat their words haltingly. They catch in my throat like a pill you have to force down. I need to sit down. Suddenly I feel like I am going to throw up. Oh, believe me, I know this happens all the time. But the similarities between Rachel and me are too strong and take me from grateful to terrified at breakneck speed.

We lost approximately the same amount of weight, gradually over the same two years. We had the same tools, support, and training. Actually, Rachel is better at leading. She had a stronger connection to her own leader and was more in sync with the program. Rachel was the quintessential WW spokesperson; where I took what worked for me and resisted what did not;. That’s not why I asked for a leave of absence. But it is why I don’t plan to return as a staff member. I can’t stand up and say that being on Weight Watchers is what changed me for good. Apparently Rachel can’t say it either. I wish she could. But, that’s the old me talking. The one that must carry her blackest misery and self-loathing around all day and pretend she doesn’t mind. That’s the problem with weight wishing and watching.

I used to wish that I could be like other people, people who can eat whatever they want. I grew up with so many rules for eating: when to eat, how fast to eat, what not to eat, which foods are “good”, which foods are “bad”. I was on my first diet in second grade and by the time I was 12 or 13 I could recite the calorie and fat content of most common foods from memory. But here’s the problem with being “wired” for food; and the problem just migrates to Weight Watchers and self made plans—knowing these facts did not make me want to eat less, eat slower, eat better, or eat less often. So even when I pulled it off, even when I got results, I still wasn’t one of the “other people.”