I Canceled Weight Watchers. Why Does It Feel Like a Breakup?

I didn’t expect canceling Weight Watchers to feel like a breakup. But we had a long history, so it did.

Table Of Contents

When Weight Watchers Was My Go-To Diet
Regaining Weight After Goal
Weight Watchers Isn't Working
Time to Cancel Weight Watchers
The Problem with Counting Points
A Healthier Approach to Weight Loss
Life Since Canceling Weight Watchers

When Weight Watchers Was My Go-To Diet

WW had helped me lose 25 pounds a decade earlier. Recently, it helped me lose 60 pounds and get to my goal weight at 59 years old. It was a trusted friend. It was there every step of the way. It knew secrets that even my husband didn’t know, like what my top weight had been, and every bite I had eaten over the last year.

Once I hit my goal weight, I was ecstatic. I looked and felt great. Now I could eat all the things I had been missing.

I had finally figured it out. I knew so much that I didn’t even need WW any longer. I could calculate points like it was my job. But I kept my membership, of course. I knew it was there if I needed it. WW was my safety net.

I ate foods I had avoided on WW because they were too high in points. I fell back in love with chicken thighs (they weren’t zero points then). I rediscovered bagels. Oh my, I had missed them. And they worked with my changing digestive system.

For more than a year, I be-bopped through life in my newly reclaimed size 6 body, eating intentionally but not tracking. (Tracking was for people on a diet.)

Regaining Weight After Goal

Then those size 6’s started to feel tight.

I stepped on the scale. I had gained 10 pounds.

I told myself it was just a fluctuation. I paid more attention to what I was eating for a few days. But nothing changed.

So I went back to WW again.

Weight Watchers Isn’t Working

Except this time, it didn’t feel the same. Weight Watchers stopped working.

My digestion had changed. The foods that worked for me before didn’t work the same way anymore.

My attitude had changed, too. I was done depriving myself.

When I tried to track my current way of eating, it didn’t fit. Foods that made sense for my body were “too high” in points. I couldn’t tolerate many of the zero-point foods. And some of the lower-point foods just didn’t feel like real food to me anymore.

I didn’t see how I was going to make WW work. And if WW didn’t work, how would I lose these 10 pounds and keep them off?

I didn’t know what to do.

I had mastered the WW program, but I hadn’t learned how to live without it. And now it wasn’t going to work for me.

I tried to be careful. I tried limiting my snacks. I tried exercising more. I stopped gaining, but I wasn’t losing. I felt like I was back at the beginning… but worse. At least then I knew what to do.

Eventually, I realized that I had to start tracking in order to get back on track. And WW couldn’t help me anymore. I was worried. WW had gotten me this far. Could I handle this on my own?

Time to Cancel Weight Watchers

I made the difficult decision to cancel WW. And honestly…I felt guilty. The program had been there for me and with me through a pretty challenging time. Weight loss isn’t easy, and WW made it feel doable.

Now that we had broken up, I could look at WW a bit more critically.

WW hadn’t prepared me for that magic goal weight moment. Spoiler alert – there is no magic moment.

The Problem with Counting Points

Counting points kept me away from foods like chicken thighs, lactose-free Greek yogurt, and cottage cheese because at different times in the program, the points were too high to fit into my day.

The points had been deciding for me, and I hadn’t learned how to decide what was best for me.

At one point on my WW journey, I was drinking almost a bottle of wine a night, staying within my points, and losing weight. I thought WW was magic.

A Healthier Approach to Weight Loss

When I switched to counting calories, I felt like someone took my shades off. I could truly see what I was eating.

Once I got an accurate picture of my food intake, I realized I needed to work on why I was eating as much as what I was eating.

I leaned into The Holy Mess and became a student as well as a teacher. I worked on when to eat, what to eat, why I was eating, and how to add treats into my diet.

I got back to my goal weight and have been happily maintaining since.

Life Since Canceling Weight Watchers

I don’t have bad feelings about WW. It was a relationship that worked…until it didn’t. We have both moved on. And I am doing really well without it.

Looking back, the biggest change for me wasn’t just changing how I tracked. Going from points to calories was important, but not because of switching systems, or even changing what foods I was eating.

The transformation was understanding why I was eating.

Because sometimes, what felt like hunger wasn’t about food at all.

If you’re in that in-between space right now, unsure what to do next, and feeling lost and alone like I was, figuring out what drives your cravings is the next best step.

Check out the free 3 Triggers Quiz here and see what might be driving your eating. It only takes a couple minutes, and you’ll be amazed at the insights you discover.

Take The Free Quiz Now