You two on the left? GTFO of my WW meeting
So I’ve not really been blogging about my weight issues because, well, there wasn’t much to *say*. I’ve been attending my Weight Watchers meetings as usual, but in addition to putting ON 20-ish pounds (as detailed in posts last fall), since then I’ve either not lost a single pound, or dropped a few and then just put them on a few weeks later. WTF. Then, about two months ago, rushed for time as work got busy, I went to my WW at Work meeting, and merely weighed in and didn’t stay for the meeting. Ok, I’ll be honest, I also couldn’t bear the emotional ups and downs of sitting in a meeting, surrounded by FUCKING THIN PEOPLE on a week where I was the same old fatty as always.
Well, you know what? Since I stopped staying for meetings, I’ve dropped about eight pounds. Seriously. Eight pounds that I struggled to get off all fall and winter, have been falling off. I am a firm believer that the program works better if you stay for meetings… but not my meetings.
Here’s the thing: my company is really, really, ridiculously good looking. The average employee is 23, female, a size 2/4 and unnaturally perky and pretty. And those who aren’t the prettiest dress and act like they are. I can describe pretty accurately my fellow “normals” who work in the building, because when I see anyone over a size 12, I rejoice, silently, OMG MY PEOPLE!!!! There aren’t very many, hence the few are memorable. So you’d think that my Weight Watchers at Work meeting would be made up primarily of these individuals. Um, no. It’s 4-5 women who, like me, have struggled with their weight either all theirs lives or consistently since high school/college. They struggle, have ups and downs, and are fighting the good, long fight. The rest, 10-15 per session, though their faces constantly change, are super pretty, super skinny girls who have put on 5-10 pounds of pudge recently. Weight Watchers teaches them that OMG beer/cocktails have calories! and how many points/calories are in chicken wings/salad dressing/whatever, they do the program for 3-6 months, wherein they lose all their weight (nevermind that I can lose 5 pounds in a week, if I really try), and become Lifetime members! But we never see them again, of course, because THEY WERE FUCKING THIN TO BEGIN WITH, AND NOW THEY’RE JUST THINNER.
Now, like a good little Weight Watcher, I will acknowledge that everyone’s weight struggles are personal, and that one should not place a higher value on one person’s struggle over another’s. Weight Watchers is just as much about learning to eat healthier as it is about losing a ton of weight. Yes, yes, yes… but FUCKING HELL, I CANNOT RELATE TO SKINNY BITCHES. It is embarrassing sitting in a meeting wherein girls who wear a size 6-8 eat yogurt and talk about their “struggles,” when you are over 200 pounds, have been overweight since you were 8, have serious food issues, and JUST CAN’T SEEM TO LOSE ANY DAMN WEIGHT. I think my leader is secretly ashamed of me — I weigh MORE than when I started her session. Yeah.
I can’t be the only one in this boat. We’re all supposed to be nice and supportive, but let’s be honest: some people have it WAY harder than others. Someone who weighs 100 lbs more than me has it harder than I do, and I should STFU and stop complaining. Well, equally I think I can be a bit miffed and discouraged by pretty, thin girls clogging my meeting and making me feel like a big, fat, ugly failure. I miss my old meeting, which was full of “normal people,” with life-long weight struggles, and long journeys. But my work meeting is just so damn convenient. For now, I’m going to continue just weighing in and skipping my meeting. Yes, this makes me a bad Weight Watcher, but I’m losing weight, and isn’t that the point?
I think the proper term for people like this is people who were born standing on third base and they think hit a triple. (and I say that as someone who struggles a lot more with self-acceptance than actual weight… but at least I realize I’m genetically fortunate.)
Personally, I find all the weight watchers stuff dangerous mentality zone for me and my history, but I agree that it can teach healthy habits to people who are not naturally prone to OCD and eating issues. I don’t want to put down anyone else’s struggle… God knows I had some pretty serious issues when I was about the size you’re talking about and it makes me sad to look back on it.
But stay out of situations that make you feel worse about yourself. I think that’s just a good mentality in general.
Also – YAY you are in town. Tomorrow is kind of a crazy work day, but I can make plans to hang out either late-ish tomorrow night or over the weekend.
Yeah, it’s a multi-faceted issue. But this meeting just isn’t healthy — the girls going probably need therapy more than WW in some cases, or just need a crash course in healthy living. And, well, I guess that’s what they’re treating WW as. But to a lifelong fatty whose problem isn’t beer & nachos, it’s really, really depressing — to me they are SO THIN and I am SO FAT. Just can’t relate to them, which defeats the purpose of the meeting.
And I am SO EXCITED. This weekend is probably best. Am going to be in SF tomorrow, and have familial obligations until Saturday-ish…
This is complicated….I think that weight issues are something all women should be able to bond over, its not really helpful feeling anger towards the thinner women. Weight issues are largely mental, and while they may be smaller, their minds may be suffering just as much….difficult difficult..
Hi Sam! It is, indeed complicated. I don’t think it’s a gender specific thing all the time — I’ve bonded with men who suffer from disordered food thinking. Most women who attend WW meetings are female, though. And I agree that women in particular have to deal with expectations of their weight that men do not.
The thing about the meeting I was attending, and the reason I wrote this post (almost two years ago, wow!), was that there’s a difference between a woman suffering from disordered food habits and life-long weight issues, who has been the target of ridicule and discrimination and a thin, beautiful woman who has been thin and beautiful their entire life, who has been brainwashed into thinking that she is fat. It was truly galling and depressing to see thin, 23-year-old women think they needed to lose weight. By and large, they were healthy, too. But they thought they needed to be a size 2 (or zero) to be considered “thin and pretty.” I was attending an at-work meeting at a company largely populated by thin glamazons; the prototypical Mean Girls — hundreds of them! It was one of the most divisive places I have ever worked as a woman, where women judged other women relentlessly, talked about them, and saw them as competition for sleeping with male colleagues. It was gross. (the female to male ratio was pretty skewed, so it was mostly women. The few men, well… office hookups were expected. I worked in “high school!”)
But since I’ve written this I’ve come a long way (through blogging!) and while it is here for posterity, I would not apply the term skinny bitches going forward.
I would personally feel financially jealous of the women who attend the meetings for a month or two to lose five to ten pounds and then become lifetime members because they don’t have to pay for the meetings anymore! If they weigh in once a month and don’t gain more than two pounds, they’re good to go. I agree that it’s not fair to weigh (haha) one person’s issues against another’s, but I would definitely need to pay for several months or over a year’s worth of meetings before I could reach my target weight goal at a healthy pace.
Yeah. To be honest, I highly doubt these women continued to attend meetings lol. Where the real disconnect happens in some of these meetings is the individuals who don’t need Weight Watchers — not the way that I know I do. I’m happy for anyone who uses WW as a tool to health… but I don’t necessarily want to be in meetings with them. They do a stint, lose the weight using the formula (which works), but they don’t HAVE the deeply ingrained food issues, so they don’t need to go long term, or keep going, even as lifetime members.
But, also, yes — if they *wanted* to keep going, they could, for such a small financial investment! I’m jealous! LOL. Gosh, I’ve spent… SO MUCH MONEY on WW in the past few years. $40 a month, every month since January 2008 (minus six months between ending my at work meeting and moving). Once I get Lifetime, I will have EARNED IT. Literally.