The following story appeared yesterday in both the Charlotte Observer and The News & Observer. The basic reporting was done by The New York Times; I provided the local comments. Yesterday, I ran more of those local comments in this space. The story below appears in expanded form, with links.

When Linda Helms first tried Weight Watchers four years ago, she lost weight using the venerable weight-loss program’s popular points system, but she didn’t feel like she was eating healthy.
“Sugar-free cookies, Fig Newtons, Snackwells, those used to be my snacks,” says the Mount Ulla resident. “It’s not really a bad thing,” she says of the low-calorie but processed foods, “but they’re not as healthy. Done before, you didn’t touch a banana. It was a lot of points.”
But when Weight Watchers revisited its approach last year, then tweaked it in December, Helms and her husband, Rex, were ready to recommit.
“The best part for both of us is having fruit,” says Helms, which Weight Watchers now tells the devout they can have as much of as they like. “Fruit is a far more sensible snack, and under the old points system it was almost out of the question.”
Diane L. Robrahn of Cary, who dropped out of Weight Watchers in the 1980s, agrees. “In the 80s, you had the choice between a cookie and a banana. Well, you’d choose the cookie.
“I’m so happy about the push toward natural food,” adds Robrahn, who has lost 106 pounds since rejoining Weight Watchers less than a year ago.
Millions of people around the world belong to Weight Watchers International, ranked best commercial diet plan by U.S. News & World Report last year, and even nonmembers look to it for guidance and recommendations. The 51-year-old program is best known for its points system, which assigns specific values to different foods and permits each member a daily allotment. At its weekly group meetings, healthy eating and exercise are emphasized over rapid-fire results.
The latest iteration of the weight-loss plan, called Points Plus, is intended to steer people toward more healthy food choices, encouraging people to eat more fresh fruits by giving them zero points, as most vegetables already were.
The change, Weight Watchers’ first adjustment in 13 years, annoyed some who said they haven’t been able to lose as much weight. In December, in a move that seemed to acknowledge the difficulty some dieters were having, Weight Watchers recommended that all members consider reducing their daily food intake, or points allotment, by 10 percent, not counting fruits and vegetables. (For those who’ve missed a few meetings, that means most women might cut their daily Points Plus allotment to 26 per day, down from 29.)
Weight Watchers officials say the change in points allotments was optional – that members could adjust their daily points up or down – and insist that it was not a response to members’ failure to lose weight.
“I don’t believe the pounds come off quite as fast as before,” agrees Helms, “but not being hungry keeps us from wanting to give in to bad food temptations.”
Company officials insist that the only reason Weight Watchers modified the plan was because they had become convinced members were getting more than adequate nourishment under the new plan and would not be harmed by eating less.
“We chose to be conservative when we introduced the plan, because we wanted to make sure that the things we stand for, nutritional health and well-being, weren’t going to be compromised,” said Karen Miller-Kovach, a registered dietitian who is chief scientific officer of Weight Watchers.
Still, she said the company had been following the progress of members who use online tracking tools and had found that dieters have been gaming the new system.
“People were having to circumvent the system in order to lose weight at a healthy rate,” she said.
While weight loss is important, many say they like the new program because it continues to push them in the direction of lifelong healthy eating.
“It reframes how I use food and view food,” says Swooz Brazzell of Charlotte. “As you can tell by my slow progress” — she’s lost 25 pounds in nearly two years and expects, eventually, to lose 20 more — “this system is retraining me over time to have a healthier relationship with food.”
One aspect of the new approach that has raised a professional eyebrow or two regards fruit: Under the new plan, participants can eat as much as they like.
“No single dietitian I know would count fruit as a ‘free’ food if someone is on a diet and trying to lose weight. You have to account for it,” said Marjorie Nolan, a New York City dietitian who speaks on behalf of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.
She expressed surprise that even bananas (which used to cost two points under the previous Weight Watchers plan) are zero points.
“That just doesn’t make sense,” she said. “They’re a denser fruit.”
But Dr. Jeffrey Mechanick, vice president of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists, said there was no evidence that indulging in fruit impedes weight loss.
The reason fruit and most vegetables are zero points is that the formula actually “prepays” those points, Miller-Kovach said; the daily points allocation includes an allowance for what the plan has determined is a typical daily consumption of fruits and vegetables. Miller-Kovach said she could not divulge the number of fruits and vegetables used in the calculation because the information is proprietary and not revealed even to participants.
But since average consumption of fruit is low in this country, usually not reaching the five to nine servings a day recommended by government health experts, the prepayment may underestimate the effect of more liberal fruit consumption on waistlines.
Joanne Latham of Cary is on her third try with Weight Watchers. On her first two go-rounds, “We ate a ton of pretzels and a lot of frozen meals.” Low on points, low on nutrition as well. Now, she packs four to five servings of fruit in the morning and snacks on it throughout the workday.
“It keeps you from doing the vending machine thing,” says the 51-year-old Latham, who has lost 50 pounds since joining Weight Watchers May 20.
“I’m in the best shape of my life.”
Results of randomized clinical trials of the new Points Plus program have not been published in peer-reviewed journals. But two brief reports have been presented at scientific meetings on obesity, and the authors found no difference in weight loss between the old and new points plans.
In one of those studies, participants lost an average of 8.2 pounds over 12 weeks and saw significant improvements in their total cholesterol and triglyceride measures. But only 111 overweight adults completed the 12-week trial, and only 55 people were following the new Points Plus program.
Weight Watchers officials said the number of participants was sufficient to provide statistical proof that the new diet system works.
The new Points Plus plan also was evaluated in an earlier unpublished trial, Miller-Kovach said. And Weight Watchers has been following more than 12,000 members in Germany since the introduction of the new Points Plus program there. So far no differences in weight loss have been found between users of the new and old programs, she said.
Sherry Casey joined Weight Watchers the same day as Latham and has lost 35 pounds (their Weight Watchers chapter at work, Allscripts in Raleigh, has lost a cumulative 1,500 pounds between 55 participants). For her, the healthier diet promoted by the new system has had a more profound impact than weight loss.
“My family has a history of heart disease, and I had high blood pressure and cholesterol,” says Casey, of Cary. Now, she says, those numbers are in check.
“My grandmother died at 56,” Casey said. “I’m 51. I felt that’s just too young to die.”

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In today’s Charlotte Observer and The News & Observer is a story on Weight Watchers‘ shift within the past year to the Points Plus system, which WW said was intended to steer people toward more healthy food choices. One change under the new plan: encourage people to eat more fresh fruits by giving them zero points. The guts of the reporting is from the New York Times; I added the local comments.

Alas, there was not room enough to include all the comments, the majority of which came from solicitations post on both papers’ online sites. I won’t include all 45 of the comments here; rather, a brief summation of how people feel about the new system plus select comments that capture the prevailing sentiment.

As I mentioned, 45 people responded. Thirty-seven spoke favorably of the new Points Plus system, five weren’t crazy about it and dropped the program, three weren’t initially initially crazy about it but were giving it another try. (A small contingent wrote to complain about their weekly meeting location being moved.)

Of those who didn’t like the change, some saw it more of an opportunity for Weight Watchers to make more money. “Of course, the changes they made caused everything that their members had purchased in the past (points calculators, cookbooks, etc) to be obsolete,” wrote Susan Gordon. “… I do agree that carbs, sugars, starches need to be controlled in order to have a truly healthy diet and weight loss. But there were so many ways they could have done that and not caused loyal followers to spend unnecessary money…..especially in these difficult times. Shame on them!”

Of Weight Watchers introducing the new program early last year, then tweaking it in December based on consumer feedback, Peggy Myers didn’t appreciate being “guinea pigs for the new system. … WW ‘tweaked’ the new system based on a year of data from people who paid to be unwitting members of the experiment.”

Kathy Squires initially found the new system “cumbersome.” But her husband convinced her to get the Points Plus app for her smartphone, which lets her scan items and calculate points instantly. “I find using the app much easier and less time consuming than using the traditional method (calculator).”

Amy Clipston had success under the old program, losing 59 pounds after having her first son in 2001 and 65 pounds after her second son was born in 2005. But the weight kept coming back. “The old program wasn’t working for me anymore, and the new Points Plus was the boost I needed to lose weight before donating a kidney,” she wrote. That donation came last year after losing 30 pounds on the new program.

Likewise, Ronnye Boone lost weight through Weight Watchers in the early 1990s and has lost 43 pounds since rejoining a year ago. “The Points Plus plan is easy to follow – no food is off limits, which is wonderful,” wrote Boone.

Boone also likes that Points Plus stresses activity, awarding points — which can be redeemed for food — for exercising. “In addition to the changes I have made in making better food choices,” Boone says, “I also started walking and am now walking 5-6 miles a couple times a week.”

“I had been sedentary for years and thought, ‘I can’t exercise!’” added Cati Montgomery. “They said, ‘Hey, just start out easy. Just walk 10 minutes a day.’ And I did. Now I routinely spend 60-90 minutes on a treadmill daily!”

Points Plus’s emphasis on cleaner eating drew widespread praise.

“Having seen every iteration of WW plan since 1999,” wrote Jennifer Hynes, “I have to say this one is the smartest. It takes all the best parts of previous plans and amps them up with a focus on fresh foods, unprocessed and ‘cleaner’ eating. It’s more balanced and more nutritious.  Some would say it is more like a common-sense approach to eating, but people like me need the support and accountability that Weight Watchers provides.”

The free pass on fruit was also widely praised.

“I now spend more money in produce and love to buy fruits and veggies!” wrote Kristen Roulette, who has lost 40 pounds since joining Weight Watchers last June. “I was never much of a fruit eater; however, on this plan fruits are FREE and I have really started enjoying them!”

Several respondents noted that Weight Watchers, especially under the new Points Plus system, isn’t the fastest way to lose weight. The growing emphasis on healthy eating, they said, is a tradeoff: lose less now, but stick with the program and you’ll keep it off.

“WW does not fall into the American culture of instant gratification,” wrote Margie Tippett, who has lost 35 pounds since August. “The average weight loss per week is 1/2 to two pounds. My average per week was just over one pound. Weight that comes off slowly, in a healthy real-food way, tends to stay off longer.”

“It’s a health plan that can easily be followed for life,” agreed Janet Tart. “It’s more than a diet, it’s a lifestyle change.”

Here’s what that “lifestyle change” has meant for Tart since losing 70 pounds and keeping it off for nearly a year now:

“When I started the Weight Watchers program I was a very unhealthy overweight person who was exhausted all the time. I am now a very healthy, energetic wife, mother, and business owner who loves myself and loves life. Since meeting my weight loss goal in April of 2011, I have become an AEA certified professional aquatic  instructor. I teach water aerobics classes, participate in spinning classes, lift weights, do punch boxing, etc., all while running my own busy income tax office. I also have done a couple of public speaking engagements to women’s organizations about diet, health, and exercise. Weight Watcher’s Points Plus program has changed me into a new woman.”

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(I wrote the following story for The News & Observer and Charlotte Observer; it appeared in both papers on January 31, 2012. It appears here, with links.)

Used to be that neighborhood moms got together for lunch or a game of bridge. Today, they’re increasingly likely to gather for burpies, squats and to work up a good sweat.
The boot camp workout, born a decade ago and initially targeted to hard-core fitness buffs, is moving out of the gym and into local neighborhoods, where it’s finding a growing following among busy moms struggling to juggle work and family, let alone find time for a workout.
The workouts incorporate a variety of intense strength and aerobic exercises jammed into a half hour or hour. Boot camps continue to be one of the nation’s most popular group exercise programs, according to the non-profit American Council on Exercise, ranking with Zumba, TRX suspension training and interval training as 2012’s hottest options.
That boot camps are now coming to your neighbor can only enhance their attraction.
“One of the most commonly cited barriers to working out is that the gym is too far, it’s not convenient,” says Jessica Matthews, an exercise physiologist with ACE. “The workouts are fun, they’re convenient and they have the added social element of catching up with friends, of seeing your neighbors, of being part of something active.”
Fun?
Thirteen women from North Raleigh’s Harrington Grove neighborhood who gathered in 25 degree temperatures for their regular Saturday morning Boot Camp Moms workout a couple weeks back might take issue with that notion.
“My hipbone hurts!” complained one during a bout of figure-eight crunches.
“That’s because you have tiny butts,” shouted instructor Kyle Gill Furlow, attempting to spin the pain.
“Yeah, right.”
“We lie to them all the time,” joked fellow instructor Jennifer Pinder. “We find it motivates them.”
Friends Furlow and Pinder came up with the idea for Boot Camp Moms when both emerged from pregnancy five years ago, Furlow carrying an extra 45 pounds, Pender an excess 80.
“Kyle joined Jenny Craig and I joined Weight Watchers,” says Pinder, “but we knew we needed to exercise, too.”
They got in shape and in the process realized that other moms were in similar condition. Both got certified as group fitness instructors through the Aerobics and Fitness Association of America and hung out their shingle — via fliers placed around the neighborhood and word-of-mouth. The response surprised them.
“We had 22 women at our first session,” says Pinder.
The path for Missy Isom, founder and owner of Moms Evolution in Cornelius, was similar.
Prior to having her first child in 2008, she was a financial adviser by day, a body builder by night.
“But I always wanted to take my love of fitness and turn it into a job,” says Isom.
She, too, got certified through AFAA and initially struck out with Baby Boot Camp, a San Francisco-based franchise operation. But she found the focus was “less on the moms, more on the baby and the social aspect. My true passion,” she says, “was on taking these moms and helping them get fit.”
Which isn’t to say that baby doesn’t play a key role in her workouts. For some of her exercises the baby is integral to the exercise.
“We use the baby as weight,” says Isom. For curls, for overhead presses, for lunges … .
Matthews, the ACE exercise physiologist, says that’s smart for two reasons.
“That movement, that up and down: out of the crib, into the car, how many times do you do that in everyday life?” she says. “Those are very functional movements.”
Further, she says, “In working with people who specialize in new moms, from a psychological standpoint that face-to-face eye contact is important for bonding.”
Isom’s group, which started in 2008 and averages 30 moms at any one time, uses space in a neighborhood fitness studio. Furlow and Pinder, who currently have 40 signed up in their year-and-a-half-old program, meet on the outdoor tennis court of the Harrington Grove neighborhood community club.
On that 25-degree morning, the 13 Boot Camp Moms who braved the cold for an hour-long workout that began and ended with aerobics (jumping-jack-infused sprints, running a circuit course) with strength training wedged in between. For strength training, the women rotated among eight stations, doing TRX, Bosu Ball pushups, snatches, equalizers, rowing, squats with a medicine ball, resistance bands, more squats.
“Your mind is going to give up before your body does,” yelled Furlow, the self-appointed drill sergeant of the duo (Pinder is the cheerleader). “Don’t let it.”
Melissa Diana didn’t let her mind give up, despite being “scared” at the group’s very first session.
“I tried everything,” she says of what Furlow and Pinder threw at her on day one. “I couldn’t do many reps.”
But Diana, who is 33, kept coming back. Within a year, she had lost 80 pounds. More importantly, she’s kept it off and she’s embraced an active lifestyle.
“I went from exercising zero days a week to exercising six days a week,” she says. “I like the group atmosphere. I like that we’re all in the trenches, doing it together.”
Julie Nelson, at 52 one of the group’s advanced moms, echoes the sentiments of several fellow boot campers. “I like that I have much more energy. I like the way I feel.”
That, says Furlow, is what ultimately counts: how you feel, rather than how many dress sizes you drop.
“Strong,” says Furlow, “is the new skinny.”

* * *

More info

• Boot Camp Moms meets Mondays at 6:30 p.m. and Saturdays at 7:30 a.m. at the Harrington Grove Clubhouse in North Raleigh. Cost is $8 per class, 10 classes for $50 through Feb. 1. More info at Bootcampmoms@gmail.com or here.
• Moms Evolution meets Mondays at 9:30 a.m. and Fridays at 10:30 a.m. at KadiFit in Cornelius. Cost is $8 per class, $50 a month, or $40 a month for a six-month commitment. More info at MomsEvolution.com.
• Another option for mom/baby workouts is Stroller Strides, a franchise that operates nationwide with several offerings throughout North Carolina. For more information go here.
• If you don’t live near one of the above options, the American Council on Exercise offers two free parent-oriented workouts you can do at home. Postural Workout for Parents “is designed to help people who have postural imbalances resulting from carrying unbalanced loads (e.g., children, a heavy shoulder or computer bag) for extended periods on a regular basis.” Total-body Conditioning Workout for Parents “is designed to improve muscular endurance and strength through exercises that focus on the correct execution of the five primary movement patterns (bend-and-lift, single-leg, pushing, pulling, and rotational movements) in all three planes of motion.”

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Move more and eat better in 2011 using these seven simple strategies:

1. Mix it up. The big trend in fitness isn’t one thing, it’s everything. Avoid drudgery, avoid stressing the same muscles and work your entire body by doing a variety of workouts. “Incorporating several different forms of exercise in a training program can be an excellent way to develop the various components of fitness,” according to the American Council on Exercise. If your goal is to lose weight, varying your exercise regimen — walking one day, lifting weights the next, taking a Zumba class after that — keeps your muscles from becoming too efficient at any one exercise and thus burning fewer calories.

2. Find what works. If you don’t enjoy it, you won’t do it. Think, personal trainers advise, about what you like to do, or what you liked to do in the past. Did you love riding your bike as a kid? A preponderance of fun-to-ride bikes — from the aptly named “comfort” bikes to speedier and more aggressive urban bikes — has flooded the market, and with nearly 150 miles of greenway in the Triangle, it’s easy for the grown-up you to rekindle your childhood love. Or maybe you get so caught up in the joy of dance you don’t realize you’ve had a good workout until the following morning. Zumba, dance exercise with a Latin zing, and Nia, a marriage of dance, the martial arts and the “healing arts,”  are two popular dance options.

3. Eat smart, eat simple. It’s a paradox, but the more we learn about food, the poorer we seem to eat. Good-eating advocate and author Michael Pollan writes in his latest book, “Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual,” “for all the scientific and pseudoscientific food baggage we’ve taken on in recent years, we still don’t know what we should be eating.” Pollan, whose “In Defense of Food” and “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” were both best-sellers, doesn’t claim to have all the answers, but his “Food Rules” offers 64 succinct suggestions for common-sense eating. They range from “Don’t eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food” to “Shop the peripheries of the supermarket and stay out of the middle” (fresh food generally lines the walls, processed foods are in the aisles). Some suggestions are only a sentence; none takes up more than a page.

4. Try the unthinkable. Running, for instance. Few exercises elicit a more visceral negative reaction than running. Yet an increasing number of people who find their metabolism slowing as they pass 40 are turning to running as a way to keep the pounds off. Consider: A 170-pound person who walks three miles in an hour will burn 337 calories; that same person will burn more than twice that many calories (775) running six miles in an hour. One reason running doesn’t seem as arduous anymore: an explosion of walk-to-run programs. A walk-to-run 5K program takes nonrunners and, over the course of 12 weeks, converts their walks into runs to the point that they can run an entire 5K (3.1 miles).

5. It’s a lifestyle, not a quick fix. There’s a reason programs such as Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig and TOPS have been around so long while the all-grapefruits-all-the-time diet fads quickly fade. Fad diets — promising fast results based on a quick fix — may work in the short term, but once you’ve dropped that 20 pounds, you’re back to your old, bad habits. Programs that focus on changing behavior have a better chance of helping you lose weight and keep it off. According to WebMD.com, a healthy weight-loss program should include a daily minimum of 1,000 to 1,200 calories for women and 1,200 to 1,600 for men; promote slow, gradual weight loss, generally 1 to 2 pounds a week; offer flexibility in food offerings; and not cut back on your recommended daily allowance of vitamins, minerals and proteins.

6. Find a support group. Look at it as misery loves company, if you must, but knowing you’re not alone in any challenge can make a difference. According to the Mayo Clinic, “A support group can help you cope better and feel less isolated as you make connections with others facing similar challenges.” In a convenience store getting hit on by Little Debbies? A fellow dieter who can talk you down is just a cell phone call away. And for those times after a long day of work when you don’t think you have the strength for Pilates? The guilt of knowing your classmates are gutting it out should be enough to get your butt in gear.

7. Persevere. Losing weight, moving more and adopting a healthier lifestyle aren’t easy. It won’t happen, in a healthy way, over night. And studies have shown that most resolutions fall by the wayside before January is over. But if you slip up, don’t throw in the towel. According to a study by the University of Scranton, 71 percent of people surveyed who achieved their resolution slipped up at least once (and usually early on, in January). So you miss a day at the gym or a seductive slice of cheesecake crushes your vow of no desserts? Look at why you slipped up — maybe five days a week at the gym is too much with your schedule, maybe one dessert a week isn’t a bad thing — and adjust if you think it will help you reach your goal, and carry on.

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