Why I Finally Quit Weight Watchers

I want to preface this post by saying that if you are currently on the WW plan, this is not meant to cause any hate towards you. If it is working for you and you like it, that is great! I just simply want to share my story and current experience with the hopes this may help someone else who is in the same boat as me. TW: disordered eating habits.

If you are an OG lifewithhanny Insta follower, you remember that my account was started as a full time Weight Watchers (WW) accountability platform. Driving back to North Carolina on New Year’s Eve in 2017 it hit me that I needed to make a change in my life. In three years I had gained ~80 pounds (and racked up thousands of dollars in credit card debt, but that’s a story for another day) after working in a toxic job in a call center. The stress of the job consumed my life. I would cry going into work and leaving, and started anxiety medicine because the thought of going to work and having someone scream at me on the other end of the phone would send me into panic attacks. I also suffer from IBS but the stress from my job made it awful at that time. We weren’t allowed to disconnect the phone on anyone for any reason, but what if I needed to use the restroom and I was stuck on a long phone call? My nightmare. 

All of this is to say, I learned so many unhealthy habits at that time as a way to just survive that awful time in my life. But at 27 and being almost 300 pounds I would get out of breath from walking up a flight of stairs, I finally said enough is enough. A few days later I signed up for WW. I had been following a few people on Instagram who would share recipes, workouts, and just be open and upfront about their weightloss journey. I wanted to have the same kind of space for support, but I didn’t want all of the F-boys from dating apps who followed my personal page to see my posts so hannah_m_fitness (old handle name) was born.

When I created it I failed to choose the option where it didn’t notify people you knew that you had created a new Insta profile, so a lot of people in personal life quickly followed the page. At first I was embarrassed by this and blocked some people from the page who I didn’t want to see. I guess in my head I was like if they knew I was on WW and trying to lose weight that they would know I was overweight.. I know this probably makes zero sense, but I was always in denial about what I actually looked like and making this profile was finally admitting to myself and the world I had a problem.

For the first few years whenever I would go out to eat I would study the menu beforehand to make sure I only ever ordered healthy items. Which I know is something you have to do when you are serious about losing weight. If I ever went somewhere and didn’t order something deemed ‘healthy’ in the weightloss community I would take pictures, but never post them because I felt like that kind of content was frowned upon. Food should not have a moral value associated with it, but constantly labeling foods as good and bad lived rent free in my head. 

So from 2018 to about halfway through 2020, WW worked wonders for me. I was full in, believing everything they said or promoted as the Gospel, even getting a few of my friends to sign up as well. I had lost over 75 pounds when I hit my lowest weight, and was less than 20 pounds away from being under 200 pounds. Something I hadn’t been since high school. I was on a roll and nothing could stop me, not even the beginning of the pandemic. Sure I had my fluctuations but I was killing it. I thought to myself there is no way I will ever gain all this weight back like so many people do. I had come too far and learned too much. Or had I?

One of the cool reasons to do WW in the Insta community is the clout you can get. From the beginning I wanted WW to notice me. I’d tag them in all of my photos, use hashtags that their profile followed. If I lost enough weight and posted enough great recipes and transformation photos maybe I could finally become an ambassador and get all of the fun WW swag boxes sent to me. Or be posted on their insta page with over 1 million followers. Or the best thing ever, being featured in one of their commercials. Don’t get me wrong, all of those still sound pretty cool to me even now. But I needed to be doing this full on for me, not for the chance that maybe someday someone in their marketing department would email me. The closest I got was one of the fall fun sweatshirts they mailed to certain people in October 2020. I still rock that at least once a week because it is hella comfy. 

In June of 2020 something changed. I gained 10 pounds that month from eating out a lot. That sounds crazy but for me I could gain 10 pounds in a weekend from a lot of sodium and water weight. No biggie. But that time it was just harder for me to lose the weight. So many local businesses were struggling at that time and I wanted to throw all of my money at them to help as much as I could. Plus I was furloughed eight weeks that summer so I had lots of free time to go out to all the places. I stayed 10 pounds heavier throughout the summer and was able to maintain that for a few months. Then came Q4, aka the best time of year. Every year, even when I was on my A game, I would gain 10 – 15 pounds but then was always able to get my ish together and lose it in the new year. I started off strong. I did a 30 day fitness challenge and made an accountability group on Instagram. Everything always starts off easy but as the month progressed, the less motivated I felt. I didn’t end up finishing out the challenge. I had spurts of motivation during the winter and spring- finding new recipes and starting GrowWithJo workout videos on YouTube, but it was so hard for me to stay on track. Why is it so hard this time around? I’m still trying to figure that out. In the beginning it was new and exciting but I was just over it and couldn’t find my motivation. 

My Instagram account had also fully transitioned to more of a food blog so I was not holding back anymore and just ordering out whatever I wanted all the time. A combination of a lot of things led to me essentially gaining all of my weight back by the end of 2021. I’m writing this on NYE and I haven’t weighed myself since earlier this month, but I’m sure I am very close to where I started in 2018. Yes, it’s disappointing. But also the past two years have sucked. We are all just trying to survive out here and it is really fucking hard so I’m giving myself grace.

WW Personal Points:

In the fall I had started tracking again. I was excited about the new WW plan coming out because I thought wow something personalized just for me, this is the extra motivation I was needing, it will be great! I had watched lots of YouTube videos leading up to the plan’s premiere trying to get all of the inside scoop about it. Zero smartpoint avocados? Oh hell yea, this is going to be great. I was so excited to take the quiz to see what my new points would be. After I took it I was literally like WTF. This does not look as great as people were making it out to be. I don’t remember all of the exact numbers, but I had way less daily smartpoints to use each day, less zero point foods, and a lot of my staple items were more smartpoints. How was this possibly going to work without completely messing with my head? In short, I just knew it wasn’t going to work for me. 

A lot of people who are against the WW plan always say people who follow it aren’t eating enough calories. I never thought that was true until this new plan started. I used to always eat to the top of my points each day where I could still get a blue dot (blue dots were what you wanted because it meant you were within the good eating zone). Then on the weekends I wouldn’t track everything and doing this still allowed me to lose weight. I know a lot of people are afraid to use their weekly points or fit points but doing it this way really worked for me at the time. I also always had a lot of fit points since I loved working out and going to the gym. But on this new plan I had less points to work with and not many fit points since I would struggle to get 5,000 steps a day vs. before when I would do 3 -5 workouts a week and burn over 700 calories each time. I’m in a different place in my life right now and the way this plan was designed didn’t align with my lifestyle.

The thing WW likes to preach the most is that you can eat anything, nothing is off limits. For three years I fully believed that, and would have argued with anyone who said otherwise. I realized a few months ago there were lots of food I had essentially made off limits to myself without knowing. Cheese was a big one. I have an unhealthy relationship with cheese because I am obsessed with it. A lot of times when I have it around or buy a bag of cheese cubes or big block I literally have no control. (Once I was sad and ate an entire block of this pizza cheese in the Aldi parking lot while crying and listening to Beyonce, not my best moment.) So I would stay away from it since I didn’t have control. 

This year I decided I wanted to work on improving that relationship and learn how to enjoy cheese each day for snacks but in moderation. I got the small individually wrapped slices from Target. On WW Blue the kind I had was 3 points each, or two slices for 5 points. Kind of high, but not horrible. Since cheese is higher in fat, WW made the points higher. I love cheese so I was willing to work it into my day. On the new WW Personal Points plan, one piece of this cheese was FIVE POINTS, yet it was ~85 calories. How? This was the same for many other foods. Cheez-itz packs- the tiny holiday ones that used to be two points each were now three or four. 

I also never allowed myself to buy pudding snack packs because it was 4-5 points per cup and it wasn’t worth it. I just bought some last week and realized those cups are only 100 calories each. I get that WW makes these types of foods higher because they aren’t as ‘healthy’ and have more fat and sugar so we stay away from them, but by having this mindset the past few years and not even knowing it has really screwed up the way I’m thinking about food. They also added a feature to ‘earn’ more points by eating vegetables and drinking more water. Yes those are both good habits to implement, but telling people they need to do certain things to earn their food for the day is just so messed up. 

After a few days on this new plan I was like I’m out, this sucks. I downloaded the Healthi app (formerly itrackbites) and started using the free trial. In the end of 2020 a lot of people left WW after they promoted a girl to an ambassador who had an extremely racist boyfriend and then partnered with a racist nut butter company. I decided to stay on the plan at that time even though that did not align with my beliefs because WW was all I knew. I had tried to lose weight in the past and failed. I needed WW to be successful. At that time I knew of several people who had switched to Healthi and said how similar it was to WW Blue. I was bougie and thought, I can’t use that app because the UI isn’t as nice, WW has prizes for rewards, and I can’t become an ambassador or be in a commercial if I leave. 

The premiere of the Personal Points plan gave me the boost I needed to finally cut ties and stop being so dependent on the plan. At the end of the day it is just a tool, I’m the one who lost 75 pounds the first time. I love the way Healthi does their points, it is very similar to WW and a lot of items are the same, but the snack items are not penalized with being a crazy high amount of points. If something is around 100 calories it is around 2 bites, which makes way more sense. I finally feel free and able to actually not have anything off limits unlike before. The WW online plan is $20 a month aka $240 a year and not cheap. I had a coupon code for Healthi and I paid $26 for the entire year. This is a much more affordable way to track if you enjoy the points/ bites system.

I have been seeing a nutritionist since 2019 to help me and hold me accountable. I definitely recommend getting one if possible (mine is free on my insurance). I told her my feelings recently about WW and how I decided I was going to quit. She spilled all the tea at that time saying she is against the WW plan since she has had so many patients come see her after gaining back weight or trying to break a lot of disordered eating habits while following the plan. I had no idea she felt that way all this time. I’m kind of glad she waited to say all of that until now because if she had said that when I first started seeing her I probably would have been so upset since I was gulping down all of that WW Kool Aid. 

My mental health also played a large part this year, being diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder and ADHD and starting medication for both. This year I want to work on getting both of those under control and I think that will also help with my eating habits. I used to spend hours each week meal prepping and cooking all the time. I am just not in a place mentally right now where that doesn’t overwhelm me and make me spiral. I try to be prepared with more frozen/ premade foods, things I would steer clear of in the past. I know eating lots of meals like that isn’t ideal, but it is better than me feeling too anxious to cook and going through the Cookout drive thru. I started following a lot of ADHD blogs and it has truly opened up my eyes to a lot of the ‘bad habits’ I would scold myself for in the past. I am trying to recognize them and work through them with both my therapist and nutritionist. 

This year I know I need to work on being more balanced and moving more. I start a new job on 1/31 and am treating that as my new year reset. @Phinaeatsbalance on insta is one of my favorite pages to follow for this. She is hilarious first of all, and lives in NYC with her family. I love how she is showing that you can treat yourself and enjoy all of the delicious foods you want in moderation and find a true balanced lifestyle. Her feed is full of delicious foods but after leaving WW she was able to fit more into her life while hitting her lowest weight recently. It is so inspiring to see. You don’t need to have just a food blog or just a weightloss account, you can have both while still hitting your goals. She was also featured in a commercial and on the website/ app for WW in the past. My 2022 mantra is #bemorelikephina. I’m excited to work on myself more going into the new year. Can’t wait to see what this year has in store for me!