Written by: Olivia Shakespear, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
If you've struggled with food or weight for any length of time you've probably tried the odd weight loss club or two. And I imagine to start with they might've worked, but for some reason it wasn't possible to keep it up long-term. Slimming clubs are still popular, and the setup seems a really good idea, so why don't they work for many people? In this blog I'm going to look at the main reasons I feel they fail in the long-term for so many, and why for the people with disordered eating or who binge eat they can actually make things worse.
The history of weight loss clubs actually dates back to post-war America, but it took a while for them to get going. By the 80s and 90s they were in full swing. Weight Watchers today has over 4 million members, so from these numbers you would assume they must be highly successful in terms of supporting people with long-term weight loss. There have been a number of studies, looking into the success rate of slimming clubs, but what you often find is that whilst they are successful for the people that stick to them, there is a big dropout rate.
I want to say clearly that weight loss clubs can be really helpful for a lot of people, and also provide a means for people to meet others in a similar situation. However, as someone with a long history of disordered eating and binge eating I feel that my days in the various slimming clubs made the underlying problem worse. My main concerns are as follows:
Not enough food
The idea of a 2000 calorie a day diet comes from the FDA in the states, where 2350 calories was the actual recommendation but this was undercut because it was felt this would encourage better health. In fact, 2000 cals is definitely not adequate for many adults. More accurate numbers are just over 3000 calories for an adult male and about 2400 for an adult female. These are for moderately active people who are of average size, and are neither overweight nor underweight. Obviously, there will be a wide range with regards to calorific need considering the number of variables.
Given that I am almost 6 foot tall, and was at least four stone overweight when I first went to slimming clubs, I remember being given a calorie allowance of just over 1600 a day. This was calculated from my weight, height and sex. So it's no wonder that this didn’t work for more than a few weeks! And given that under eating triggers the survival centres in the brain to search out more and more food, these diets just made my behaviour around food more extreme.
If you have a look at my previous article, I go into more detail on why under eating is one of the most reliable ways to trigger an urge to binge.
Focus is on calories not nutrition
Okay, so not all weight loss clubs use calories directly, but whether it points or other methods for keeping people to a certain amount of food each day, the bottom line is these diets drastically lower calorific intake. And this often means that as long as something is low in calories, it's okay.
I did notice over the years that there was a lot of improvement and an increased focus on limitless fruit and vegetables, but as a trained nutritionist I can now see that there was plenty of room for improvement on the nutritional side of things. One of the first weight loss clubs I went to focused on an almost fat free diet, and whilst I was overjoyed to lose huge amounts of weight to start with, I felt pretty rough with it. My skin and hair clearly took note of the lack of essential fatty acids in my diet.
Plus what about all the chemicals in the heavily processed diet foods? The worst were the branded diet foods from whichever particular club you had joined. I have the distinct memory of some bright pink marshmallow wafer biscuits, that seemed ridiculously low in calories but in those days to me they tasted like heaven! I got through packets of them – guilt free! I assumed at the time that this was better than just having some high-quality chocolate, or dessert. I literally wouldn't be able to touch that stuff anymore, it's funny how your taste buds change and move away from the chemically laden foods when you start providing your body with proper nutrition.
Obsession with weight
I'm not blaming the slimming clubs for this, as of course the idea is that you go there in order to lose weight. So naturally, the focus is all about weight. However, I do remember that I became increasingly obsessed with the scales. I used to love buying the various weight loss club magazines that had success stories to gorge on every week. It was amazing to see the changes that people had managed, and in many ways it was inspiring, but ultimately these were a small minority of people who for some god known reason had managed to stick to "the plan". And when you're not able to do that yourself, it just increases the feelings of guilt and shame – as if a life time yo yo dieter needs any more!
My weeks became summed up as a success or failure depending on what the scales said. The strange thing was, some weeks I would lose 2 to 3 pounds and then the next week even though I was eating exactly the same things I'd lose nothing, or would even commit the cardinal sin of putting on weight! I felt completely demoralized as it was hard to feel positive if the results weren't reflected on the scales. Weight tends to come off at variable rates and it can be hard to just roll with that.
So in conclusion, I really do feel that weight loss clubs, whilst great for some people, are not necessarily the best option for people with disordered eating and especially those who binge eat. I'm sure they also make this claim, as they don't talk about disordered eating during their post weigh in chats. Fair enough, but I imagine there are quite a few people who go to these places who do have disordered eating and they aren't being told that this might not be the best place for them.
Weight loss ultimately is a side effect of stabilizing eating habits. I find that when I'm working with clients, as long as I keep the focus on balanced eating behaviours, then the weight will go. As my programmes are all a minimum of three months long, then this is enough time for people to see the results and understand that you don’t need to starve yourself to get there. It takes a bit of trust, and it takes time as well. There are no promises of X amount of pounds being lost every week, but at least when the pounds do go, they go for good. Ultimately the tortoise does when the race.
Olivia Shakespear, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Olivia Shakespear is a Naturopathic Nutritional Therapist specialising in support for people with binge eating disorder and those who have an unhappy relationship with food. After many years of her own struggles, she created a unique method that is incredibly successful with moving people into a balanced way of eating. Olivia uses nutrition within a truly holistic framework, understanding that problems with eating occur due to multiple physical and psychological factors. She understands the pitfalls of applying a "clean eating" approach, whilst appreciating the incredible power proper nutrition has in healing the mind, body and soul.
