New Year's is Christmas for purveyors of diet products

Ce n'est pas mon petit dejeuner

On Saturday I went to Harmon to pick up one of those temporary "cover the gray" sticks to use till I get to the hairdresser this weekend. Those of you who have Harmon stores in your neighborhood understand why I put this particular chain in the pantheon of other emporia without which one simply cannot live a civilized existence: Trader Joe's, World Market, and Tuesday Morning. Harmon always puts those bins of travel size packages of every toiletry product you can imagine near the front door, but once you've successfully navigated that particular gauntlet, you get to the seasonal merchandise.

Most of the year, this stuff is pretty innocuous -- cheap gift sets, Whitman's Samplers in heart packaging, plastic hollow Easter Eggs, sunscreen and flip-flops. But once Christmas is over and New Year's is in the offing, the seaonal merchandise becomes diet products.

Given that January 1 occurs every year, and given that every year there's a spike in the purchase of diet products and gym memberships after the year turns, you'd think people would wonder why every year the market for diet products is so huge, and you'd think they'd put it together that maybe all these appetite suppressants and Slim-fast bars and overpriced, pharmaceutical-named snake oil, and whatever piece of plastic-and-metal crap Tony Little is pushing this year just don't work. I've seen a lot of New Years, and every year there are millions of people going through this drill yet again.

I know people who swear by Weight Watchers, and if that works for you and you want to spend your life counting points and denying yourself for the next three days if you happen to dare to eat a point-heavy meal (such as the bounteous repast of which we availed ourselves New Year's Eve, one which featured hummus, falafel, babaganoush, zucchini pancakes, lamb kebab, and baklava), well, more power to you. For me, the last thing I need is something where I have to obsess even more about food than I already do, not to mention a "lifestyle" that ultimately will require me to live on the morning dew and a lettuce leaf after my Russian peasant body keeps adjusting to an ever-lower calorie count.

As far as I'm concerned, Kate Harding is my go-to gal for those times when I find myself succumbing to the mandatory self-loathing that's part of being a "person of girth" (girth being anything over a size 0) in this country. And she's been on a tear about Weight Watchers lately:

The only thing you really get from WW, or any of its competitors, is a specific structure for your efforts. If that’s what you want, go nuts. It’s your money. And it’s certainly true that some people respond well to the WW structure and do lose weight steadily on it. I myself lost 40 lbs. on Weight Watchers pretty easily, as diets go. Found it all again within a few years, but hey, that’s just me and my lazy, non-committed, hopelessly gluttonous ass, right?

Uh huh. Except, do me a favor. Go click on the “Success Stories” section on their website. I won’t link, but go ahead, I’ll wait.

Do you see that asterisk underneath the “after photos”? The one next to the words “RESULTS NOT TYPICAL.”

Yeah.

Weight Watchers, according to their website, is “unique.” It’s different from all those other diet plans — in fact, it’s not one! And one of the main reasons it’s different is that they will give you “the knowledge and info you need to help you keep it off for good.” But for some strange, inexplicable reason, they still have to include the same disclaimer as every other diet program that touts its success with pictures of former fatties. The disclaimer that says, in slightly fewer words, We cannot legally claim that someone who lost weight and kept it off represents the typical consumer of our product, even though the entire purpose of our product is to help people lose weight and keep it off. Or, in still other words, In a majority of cases, our product does not do what it is meant to do.

Oddly enough, they still include that same disclaimer, even though this is not like all those other programs that include it. Even though this is the one that will teach you how to lose weight and keep it off for good! Somehow, despite having discovered the magic secret to permanent weight loss, they are still not willing and/or legally permitted to claim unreservedly that it works for most people.

Weird, huh?

Weight Watchers: A time-tested approach informed by analyzing years of scientific studies.

Diets: “Proof” often based on one scientific study designed to support the diet’s claims.

Okay, first, how “time-tested” can their approach be, when only thirty years ago, their approach was fucking Mackerelly? And when the Weight Watchers program I did in 2003 was a different program from what’s offered now (though what I did was very similar to the current “Flex” plan)? One of the slogans in the new campaign is, “If diets work, why do we need a new one every 5 minutes?” To which I respond, if Weight Watchers works, why does the whole program get revamped every five minutes?

And… *snicker* and… *BWAH* and… *wipes away tear*… I’m sorry, did Weight Watchers just slag off other diet programs for basing their claims on studies designed to support them? I need to go lie down.

Weight Watchers: Flexible food plans that can adapt to any lifestyle or unique needs.

Diets: Little consideration for you as an individual, with just one approach to suit everyone’s needs.

That’s right. Weight Watchers doesn’t offer “just one approach.” They’ve got TWO! The “Count our fancy POINTS instead of the calories and fat they represent!” plan, OR the “If you’re already a vegan who doesn’t eat sugar, you’ll never have to count anything again!” plan. SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE.

That’s it. That’s their whole list of ways Weight Watchers is different from “diets.” On the other hand, here are a few things the program involves that bear some small similarity to “diets”:

• Restricting fat and calories


• Exercising for the express purpose of being permitted to consume more fat and calories without breaking the rules


• Focusing on weight loss as the primary goal


• Weekly weigh-ins


• Rewards and encouragement for losing weight


• Zero guarantee that the program will help any given individual lose weight at all, let alone permanently


• Warnings that people who do lose weight and keep it off are not “typical”of those who use the program


• Warnings that “only permanent lifestyle changes - such as making healthful food choices and increasing physical activity - promote long-term weight loss.

” Promote long-term weight loss, you’ll note. Not guarantee it. Not even cause it. Merely promote it.

Blame placed entirely on the individual, not the program (much less the myth of long-term weight loss being possible for most people) — if permanent weight loss does not follow from adherence to the program

In this post, she addresses the "You must be lying about what you ate" factor at the mandatory weigh-in.

I don't know about anyone else, but I just don't think it serves my mental health to pay good money to go someplace where if I haven't lost any weight between meetings they'll blame it on the Hall's Ice Blue Peppermint cough drops. I mean, think about it: COUGH DROPS? Are these the depths to which we must descend? I don't know about you, but I don't even LIKE cheesecake; but if you tell me that if I eat cheesecake it means I'm a lazy-ass slob, you can bet your life that I am going to respond by heading over to Mara's Bakery and buying the biggest-ass piece of cheesecake I can find.

Accusing overweight women of lying about cough drops. This is a healthy lifestyle? But I really don't have time to rant about this any more. I'm taking my fat, lazy downstairs to do my morning yoga, after which I'll have a gluttonous breakfast consisting of a 100% whole wheat English muffin spread with a tablespoon of Smart Balance of Omega 3 peanut butter, a glass of milk, and a clementine. If I'm really feeling gluttonous, I might even have TWO clementines. Now if I were really committed to weight loss to start off the new year, I'd go outside and suck the frost off a grass leaf in the front yard.