First came the low-carb diets. Then came the low-carb foods.

Both developments have been bad news for Woodbury, N.Y.-based Weight Watchers International Inc., purveyor of a group-based dieting method that emphasizes controlling calories, not carbohydrates.

There have been an estimated 1,500 low-carb products introduced in the past two years, according to Daisy Whitney, editorial director for Low Carb Biz, a Denver-based magazine. Products such as Carb Options Blue Cheese Dressing by Wish Bone and Mueller's Reduced Carb Penne Rigate pasta promise the same taste with fewer carbohydrates.

Low-carb diets, such as Atkins and South Beach, have peaked, Weight Watchers International President and Chief Executive Officer Linda Huett said during a May conference call with investors. But now Weight Watchers International struggles to compete with low-carb food products, and the millions in advertising dollars that food companies have spent on them, Huett said.

"Unfortunately, this explosion in low-carb products and the intensity of this campaign has created a perception among many that weight loss can be achieved by simply substituting some of what you normally eat and drink with low-carb equivalents. For many, that thought is enticing: 'I can lose weight without even dieting.' It's the equivalent of the magic bullet," Huett said.

"The effect of this is that a large number of overweight people have moved away from structured calorie-restricting weight- loss programs and are doing their own diet in an unstructured way, focusing on reducing carbs by eating low-carb foods," Huett said. "The truth is calories count."

The effect on Weight Watchers International is reduced attendance at weekly group meetings, the centerpiece of the weight-loss program.

Without including attendance from recently acquired centers, attendance at North American company-owned centers declined 4 percent in the first quarter of 2004, compared to attendance at the same centers a year earlier. Including acquisitions, attendance increased 11.8 percent. The company expects a percentage decline in attendance (without recently acquired centers) in the low teens through the summer.

Investor confidence appears shaken as well. From the beginning of the year through June 15, the company's stock has fallen 5.11 percent, while the S&P 500 Index has risen 2.9 percent.

Legg Mason downgraded its stock rating for Weight Watchers International from "buy" to "hold" in May because there is no "near-term catalyst" to spur company growth.

Huett said people will return to Weight Watchers when they realize low-carb foods aren't leading them to slimmer selves.

"This is a sad situation when you realize these people have little chance of achieving real weight loss since they are simply replacing their normal foods and drinks with premium-priced low-carb versions of bread, pasta, chocolate, beer, often with the same caloric content," Huett said.

"In time, when they realize that their waistlines are not shrinking, they will be looking again for a proven effective and livable weight-loss program and none has a higher reputation for providing such a program than Weight Watchers."

Taking off the pounds

New City resident Patty Trout agrees. Weight Watchers has helped her lose 40 pounds in just over a year.

"If you stick to it, it does work," said Trout, 44, who first used Weight Watchers to help her lose 80 pounds after she graduated from college.

"I kept it off for many years. Having a child and getting older, I put it back on," said Trout, a physical therapist at the Jesse J. Kaplan School in West Nyack. She said she ideally would like to lose 60 more pounds.

Trout returned to Weight Watchers last March because she was not feeling well, emotionally and physically. "I have a 6-year-old. I want to live to see him do things," said Trout, who walks 3 miles at least five mornings a week.

As part of the Weight Watchers diet plan, called FlexPoints, Trout gets 28 points of food a day, which she tracks using a checkbook-like ledger. At the start of each day, she writes down 28, then subtracts points as she eats.

The Weight Watchers diet assigns a certain number of points per food serving. A scoop of ice cream is four points. A Lean Cuisine Chicken Marsala frozen dinner is three points.

Each Weight Watchers user is assigned a number of daily points, based on their weight, and 35 points to use anytime throughout the week.

"If you want to waste them all on a 25-point dinner, you could conceivably do that," Trout said.

Trout said the better she tracks her points, the more successful she is at losing weight.

Trout carries a Pocket Points Guide that gives points for a single serving of hundreds of foods. It also has a key to help users figure out what a serving looks like. One serving of rice or pasta is about the size of a tennis ball, while a single serving of meat is about the size of a cassette tape.

As part of her weight-loss plan, Trout attends Weight Watchers meetings in Nanuet nearly every week.

Weight Watchers' meetings are held mainly at rented spaces in community centers, churches and civic organizations, as well as at storefront offices. There are approximately 18 meeting places in Westchester County, three in Putnam County and five in Rockland County.

Trout pays $8.99 for each meeting, which begins with a weigh-in, then a group discussion about weight-loss challenges and tips for success.

Trout said her next weight-loss goal is to lose 40 pounds by December. And her plans do not include lowering her intake of carbohydrates, but rather eating lower fat, higher protein foods.

"I really don't believe in the low-carb diet. I don't think people can do it on a long-term basis," Trout said.

But low-carb still has high appeal, according to Whitney of Low Carb Biz, which began in July 2003. She said the magazine conducted a study in December that found about half of all adult Americans are cutting back on their carbohydrate intake or plan to this year. "I think they are struggling because low-carb is a more appealing diet for most people," Whitney said about Weight Watchers. "You get rid of the junk and processed foods."

Fighting back

Weight Watchers International is hoping to hold onto members like Trout and attract even more users through a three-part plan Huett outlined in May:

•Improving effectiveness of marketing.

•Concentrating on service quality.

•Improving appeal of program.

Huett said Weight Watchers International will introduce a new program this fall, just about a year after its last innovation, FlexPoints. Typically, the company introduces a new program every two years.

"FlexPoints has performed well in a very difficult environment," Huett says. "But we believe that new insights upon which the upcoming new innovation is built has the potential to appeal to a wider audience. We also believe it will be able to cut through the clutter in this crowded environment."

Huett declined to offer any details about the new plan, but she did say, "Rest assured, it is not a low-carb diet."


http://www.thejournalnews.com/newsr...ightwatche.html

The basic problem with these quotes from Linda Huett is that she equates low carbing with eating so-called low carb foods. There are many low carb foods that are not LC.

Low-carb diets, such as Atkins and South Beach, have peaked, Weight Watchers International President and Chief Executive Officer Linda Huett said during a May conference call with investors.

You wish.


"The effect of this is that a large number of overweight people have moved away from structured calorie-restricting weight- loss programs and are doing their own diet in an unstructured way, focusing on reducing carbs by eating low-carb foods," Huett said.

Then, they need to read DANDR, Protein Power, etc. Because those do not advocate eating a steady diet of LC foods.

"The truth is calories count."

Agreed.

Huett said people will return to Weight Watchers when they realize low-carb foods aren't leading them to slimmer selves.

I don't think so.

"This is a sad situation when you realize these people have little chance of achieving real weight loss since they are simply replacing their normal foods and drinks with premium-priced low-carb versions of bread, pasta, chocolate, beer, often with the same caloric content," Huett said.

No sane person is out there slamming down LC foods. Linda Huett, you should read the book.

Unfortunately, I believe Ms. Huett has a point. There will be a segment of people who "try low-carbing" by just eating LC versions of food and when they don't have the great loss the hype has talked about, they'll assume it's all a big scam and go back to WW, or do nothing. This is the peak that I don't think has happened yet. It's also been called the Snackwellization of a diet trend. The major manufacturers have picked up on a trend, and created a whole bunch of dubious products to cater to those we are not really understanding what they're doing. People will eat a whole LC cheesecake thinking that just because it's LC that they won't gain weight.

More unfortunate is that because there is a certain amount of "eat as much as you want of food as long as it's low-carb" hype about this way of eating, this phenonmenon, I believe, will be even worse than with low-fat. Hopefully, though, as the press gets a bit more educated, and as people encounter others who have been successful with the diet, some of the truth will out. I'm just afraid that there will be a bit of a backlash as the Snackwelled diet failures bad mouth the diet as all hype and the circling diet sharks will pounce and say, "I told you so! You have to eat a balenced diet and exercise." Or whatever their chosen diet ideology might be.

It's too bad that most people, and not just Americans as some (not on this forum) have tried to accuse, just want a simple answer to their complex problems. In reality, banting (living a low-carb diet) is quite simple, but there are some basic rules. Without understanding the rules, you can only get into trouble. Until the rules for banting are as well distributed and understood as the current rules for low-fat, high-carb diets, then you will have misunderstanding and frustration.

It's a long process and will require the media, doctors and officials who determine health education in the schools to change their viewpoints before it really happens, but I believe it will happen, eventually. Until then, some will fail, and will go back to WW. But I don't think their numbers will ever grow significantly ever again. Frankly, if I owned any WW or Jenny Craig or whoever stock, I'd dump it now. But then I'm not a stockbroker, analyst or even someone with a clue about the market, so don't take stock tips from me!

Plane Crazy

I don't disagree what you say about the Snackwellization of the LC trend. The Consumer Package Goods (CPG) companies will definitely crank out products that are not any more LC than their labels. (At the same, there are products that make LC eating more convenient. I would put Cascadia soda in that camp, and every time I go to the store the shelves are almost empty of it.)

But there is nothing in the LC WOE that says that you eat a bunch of LC chocolate, bread, pasta, or beer. Ms. Huett has created a strawperson argument that LC has peaked/is doomed because it will be Snackwellized. She is trying to justify the WW share price.

The CPGs will attempt to Snackwellize the LC WOE. I don't underestimate their drive and desire to do so. Those are powerful forces (Unilever, General Foods, General Mills, Nabisco, etc) that have been peddling grain products for years. But the CPGs will have a harder time than they had with Snackwellizing the low fat because the core of this WOE is fresh foods.

I disagree but not on your statement that the core of low-carb is fresh food. To come to realize this, you need to actually be informed. However I think it's the unfortunate truth that a lot of people out there simply think low-carb is eating a low of meat and buying anything that bears the label low-carb.

Why read a book when you get all the info you need on talk shows on TV and in Woman's Day magazine.

Good points. I totally agree with your last statement, if you know what you're supposed to do. I believe there will be a certain segment that tries to do banting with only a half-heard, tenth-understood knowledge of what it's really all about and then just replace all the bread they're eating now with LC bread, all the pasta they're eating now with LC pasta, all the sugar they're eating now with Splenda, etc.... For some it might even work a bit, but for most, it won't, and those are the ones who will create a temporary backlash. Until we can really get the message out that it's about fresh, whole foods, this will happen. It also wouldn't hurt if we can replace the ubiquitous image that accompanies almost every story about banting, a pan of frying bacon and eggs, or a steak. At least put some veggies with the steak!!

Plane Crazy

I think we might see WW trend towards LC as a weight loss method. They might come out with a revised point system that takes carb quality into greater account, or a parallel point system for full-fledged LCing.

I think they're going to have to. Who are they going to rely on for business: those people who couldn't be bothered reading the book and (obviously) fail when they try the "sort-of-LC junk food substitution" diet? The endangered species known as low fat believers, who starve their way through the program?

I wonder if WW is still as low-fat as they were when my mother tried it ten years ago.

Does anyone have a reference to how WW points are currently calculated? Or do you have to join WW to get it?

Here you go.

http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthre...907#post1773907

Just my morning coffee and supplements (EFAs) would probably take up all of my daily points!

I think about these products every time I go shopping, plus the zillions of other products I pass over and refuse to buy.

Bulk is cheap. And by that, I mean corn, wheat -- anything that we produce in excess. CPGs are mostly bulk. Carbohydrate count aside, I've always had this crack theory that in order to make up your nutritional requirements and not just feel full, you have to eat multiple times of That Stuff to get what your body needs.

Having said that, I wouldn't trust any one of these CPG companies to feed me. It's all marketing, and while some of these products might have reduced carbohydrates, I can't believe that they are low carbohydrate or that they provide the most nutritionally dense choice. Of course, to some degree, I have no choice, and I draw a wavy and hypocritical line between what I will feed my family and what I won't.

It does seem like this frenzy is going to do more harm than good for the reputation of low carb diets. But the same was done for low fat diets by the same frenzy.

Erin

Thank you.

POINTS(R) = (calories/50) + (fat grams/12) - (fiber grams/5)

That formula is definitely tilted against fat, and needs revision.

So what determines how many points you are allowed. Is it your target weight or your present weight? What happens when you reach you goal, do you get more points or do you just go off WW?

I did WW briefly, due to the advice of my doctor. It all depends on the weight your are currently at. Say you weigh 215(like I did when I started WW), your daily points are 24-30 points. As you gradually lose, your weight you are at, represents how many points you can have. And say if you want to have a big ol slab of cake on the weekend, and suppose the cake have 10 points, you save 2 points each day during the week, and on the weekend you'll have 10 points to endulge in that big ol slab of cake. I did WW for a month and I only lost 2 lbs. I know it helps a lot of people, but it wasn't for me.

What irritated me about WW were the lectures!

I lost initially on WW, but slowed quickly and plateaued, usually after only a few pounds lost! (And btw...plateaus are NOT just on LC...just about every diet warns of this). The problem is, that no matter what I did I couldn't get my weight to budge! And there were times I'd gain! So then I'd get a lecture on what I ate! And every comment during the general lecture was pointed at me....or it seemed anyway! (Once I was PMSing and almost cried!)

They don't believe you.....and I agree, I wouldn't either! But it was SOOOOOOOO frustrating! What I know now is that I was likely in starvation mode.....but unfortunately not to the point of loss of appetite! I'd be starving, working out like crazy, and still not loose! I didn't look any better and I didn't feel any better.

Now, on LC I'm loosing. Even when I stall on LC I look and feel so much better! And I feel a bit better each day! I have stomach trouble, menopause symptoms, and arthritis, and I think hypothyroid. The arthritis has improved to the point I'm off all meds! Stomach trouble has improved to the point I'm taking the "normal" does of my meds at 1 Nexium/day (I'll be on something for life, even with LC I think).

I know they help a LOT of people, but they also continue to sell their crap to people who come and go, don't follow the plan, don't see results. They are big on the guilt trips!

Now, that being said, I hope they DO switch to LC. After all, the first time I tried it back in the late 60's it basically WAS low carb.....or at least lower carb! Pushed fruit and juice a lot....but no potatoes, bread, cereal, etc.....and when you could have them, they were limited.

Because they do seem to help so many people, I would like them to go back to their early diets and start pushing whole foods, lower carb. I think they're afraid. I think they realize that they were duped with the food pyramid.....and they're afraid they're gonna get burned again. At least I hope they know they were duped!