The news is out that I am leaving Weight Watchers (as employee), yet I am absolutely not leaving Weight Watchers in the way that matters most (as a member).  From a professional point of view, it’s time for me to pass the steering wheel of the business to a person for whom I have tremendous respect, Jim Chambers.  He’s a great guy, who happens to be wicked smart and a top-flight executive.  He has crazy good experience, and he can (and will) make great things happen.  Weight Watchers has huge opportunities in front of it, and I am very much looking forward to cheering Jim and his team on as they realize all of their aspirations.

I am SO going to do the hobo thing for a while!

From my point of view, I’m going to spend some time thinking about my next chapter (Wait!  A new book?! – one never knows).  I first joined the Weight Watchers organization in January of 2000, nearly 14 years ago.  I’ve been CEO for six and a half years, and I’ve got all the newly grey hair to show for it — either that or I really am turning 47 years old.  I haven’t had more than two weeks off of work since 1994, and I’m looking forward to thinking fresh about what might be next.  I know it’s a bit trite to say, but I’m also looking forward to being an overly present nuisance to my family for a little while.

But that’s work stuff.  When I started writing this blog in March of 2009 (over four years and 180+ posts ago), I made the decision to write as a Weight Watchers member not as the CEO.  Before I joined WW, I was a BMI 30+ guy with total cholesterol of 270.  I slouched a bit, and I wore mom jeans.  I walked into my first Weight Watchers meeting in February of 2000, and I became an official lifetime member in March of 2009 (as I’ve said, I’m a slow learner).  I’ve been at goal weight ever since.  I’m the healthiest I’ve ever been, AND I wear skinny(ish) jeans.

Throughout these 4+ years writing this blog, I’ve learned a lot about myself and a lot about my health and my weight.  I’ve had more than my fair share of ups and downs, many of which I’ve chronicled on this blog.  Today, I feel more relaxed about my weight and my ability to manage it than I ever could have imagined.  In my 14 years at Weight Watchers, I’ve become vastly healthier, stronger, more energetic, and (I’d like to think) prettier than I ever could have hoped for.

I’d like to take credit for doing all of this on my own, but that would be a giant fib.  I have absolutely no doubt that I would not be where I am, either professionally or personally, without Weight Watchers.  I’ve officially had two WW Leaders (Mike Filan and Liz Josefsberg), but frankly I’ve been to so many WW meetings that I’ve had 100’s of WW Leaders.  I am who I now am because of them.  Period.  I can never say thank you enough for all the ways that they and this company have enriched my life.

During my 14 years at Weight Watchers, I’ve seen so many people change their lives that I’ve lost track.  I’ve had the pleasure of watching people accomplish what they never would have thought possible.  I’ve seen the unfettered joy and pride on their faces when they reached their goal weight.  I’ve seen the way that they make everyone around them rise up in their own self-belief.  Weight Watchers truly is an incredible and special organization, with one of the most important missions on Earth:  helping people get healthy by helping them live healthy.  That mission was happening long before I ever got to Weight Watchers, and it will be happening long into the future.  And for Weight Watchers, I believe the future is bright indeed.

For each of you who have had the kindness to read this blog as well as to contribute to it with your thoughts and comments, I say thank you.  Your warmth and support, particularly during some of my spectacular crashes, were appreciated more than you could ever know.

As I look to the future, I am now (predictably) already worrying about how I will manage to not gain 3,785 pounds.  Did I need the CEO job to keep me honest?  The answer is no.  I love my health and I like the way I look, and that’s all the incentive I need to stay healthy.  I’ve got 14 years of learning and experience that I can use to stay on the healthy path.  I may no longer be the CEO, but I will always be a WW member.  I’m just a civilian now, but WW has made me a confident one.  Just like many/most of you.

For all of you out there, regardless of where you are on your journey, please never forget the power and strength that lies inside you.  I cannot tell you how many people I have met who came close to giving up and ultimately found their spark and made their life different.  They aren’t just like you.  They are you.  Every one of you has everything you need to get to where you want to go.  All you need to do is work that WW program like there’s no tomorrow.

As this is my last blog post, I want to thank you once again for coming with me on this journey.  You will be missed on these pages, but you can still find me on Twitter.

See you in the future.

Cheers!!!!

Dave

p.s., after all the news came out last night, you might be wondering what I ate after dinner.  Did he eat a huge bowl of ice cream?  No!  He had his “fake” ice cream (0% fat Greek yogurt w/ frozen berries and Fiber One).  And a spoonful of ice cream.

It goes without saying that on trips like this, a whole lot of rules go out the window.  When I’m strapped to a seat for this long, the whole hedonic hunger eating thing pretty much beats down my frontal lobe and restraint goes out the sealed airplane windows.  I’m thinking of the 60 hours as a three day cruise.  How bad could that be?  On terra firma, I’ve been pretty good, sticking with smart choices for my meals in hotels, offices and restaurants for dinner.

As always, my saving grace in trips like this has been sticking with my workout routines.  I hit the gym the second I got into my Singapore hotel on Tuesday morning for about 45 minutes of disgusting sweat-infused cardio.  Cardio is always pretty easy for me to squeeze in, but my exercise planning efforts center around making time for four days of heavy weight lifting each week – no matter what.  Therein lays the topic for this post.

I’ve spent the last 4.5 years at goal weight, and I attribute much of my success there to making pretty consistently healthy food choices.  However, if you put a gun to my head (please don’t, btw), I would have to say that exercise has been my salvation.  I’ve preached for many years that you can’t lose weight without changing your diet, but you can’t keep the weight off without exercising pretty consistently.  I think most of us find this pretty intuitive.  The trick is in finding an exercise regimen with which we can be happy (or at least not very sad).

Those who have followed this post for a while or have read my book know that weight lifting is a pretty big part of my life.  I lift free weights four times per week using what bodybuilders call a four day split –focusing on one or two body parts once per week (e.g., back/biceps one day, chest/triceps the next, etc.).  I also try to follow the rules that bodybuilders use which is to focus on getting 8-10 reps with increasing weight as heavy as I can manage for that rep range.  I do not try to get a cardio workout in from my weight routines, and rather I use the bicycle for that.  Each body part is good for about 6-8 exercises with three sets of 8-10 reps each.  I do superset (quickly alternate between exercises) when I can, but not always.

Why do I do this?  Because Arnold did.  In the days of fancy workout systems like Crossfit, Insanity, PX90, kettlebells, etc, I am a dyed-in-the-wool 1970’s knuckle-dragging meathead.  The only thing missing for me is tube socks and parting my hair in the middle.  I’m not against any of those high-tech and fancy pants new workout systems, I’m just not interested in them.  My logic is that Lou Ferrigno looked pretty impressive (particularly in green), so why fight it?  I realize that I am missing out on a whole wonderful world of muscle confusion, but I’m pretty confused about most things in life so why confuse myself more?

Why wouldn’t everyone want to rock this look?

So there you have it.  I’m aligning myself with bodybuilders (sans steroids).  I’m with the dudes from the Jersey Shore.  I am a proud member of a subculture that is oft-mocked. I certainly expect to be required to give up my metrosexual New York City credentials.  I am a meathead.

Honestly, I’m not sure why more people don’t do the same.  For any guy reading this post, I hate to break it but there is no way that lifting hard for an hour four days per week will make you balloon up into a cartoon figure.  However, if you lift as heavy as you can and keep lifting as heavy as you can, you will build up muscle mass.  That will hugely help you keep the weight off, and you will look better.  What’s wrong with that?  It’s also worth mentioning that I didn’t really start lifting in earnest until I was in my mid-30’s, ramping it up in my 40’s.  My point is that it is NEVER too late to start.  Show me a really fit 60 year guy, and I will show you someone who worships at the altar of iron.

For any woman reading this post (of ANY age), building up muscle and raw strength is one of the smartest things you can do.  It boosts your metabolism, it reduces risk of osteoporosis, and it will give you great tone.  What it won’t do is bulk you up.  Given your relatively lower levels of testosterone, it’s almost impossible for women to bulk up no matter how hard and how heavy you lift.  Four hours a week will put you at little to no risk.  That this fear of bulking up exists after so many years is a source of endless surprise for me.

I write all of this knowing that most of these words will fall on deaf ears as many find weight lifting “boring”, “too time consuming”, “icky”, “intimidating” etc.  However, I feel obligated to make the case for my meathead big iron ways because of everything it has given me and the effect it’s had on my health and looks – though I haven’t rocked a spray on tan (yet!).  If you do decide to give it a go, start slow.  Learn proper technique.  Most importantly, begin building a weekly routine that you can develop and build over time.  There is no reason to start with four days of heavy lifting per week, but two days might be pretty manageable.  My only advice is that once you get going, keep trying to gradually increase the amount of weight you are using so that you are doing the 8-10 reps, struggling a bit on the last one.  Most-most-most importantly, don’t quit.  Build it into your schedule, simply stick with it, and the results will follow.

Finally, the next time you see Mike “the Situation” Sorrentino, give him a hug and commit to solidarity.

Cheers,

Dave

The AMA called obesity a “multimetabolic and hormonal disease state” that leads to unfavorable outcomes like Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.  It also stated that obesity as a disease “requiring a range of medical interventions to advance obesity treatment and prevention.”  Previously, the AMA had referred to obesity as an “urgent chronic condition,” a “major health concern” and a “complex disorder.”

I was also trained as an engineer. Double disease states it seems…

Okay.  So what does all this mean?

At the most basic level, the AMA is suggesting that 78 million Americans with a BMI over 30 have a disease state that requires treatment.  That’s about three times as many people who are classified as diabetic.  This would have included yours truly in 1999 right before he joined Weight Watchers.

The question on whether obesity is a disease is not a new debate, and considerable blood has been shed on the battlefield of those who have been duking it out on this issue.  Interestingly, in voting for the resolution to classify obesity as a disease, the AMA members were voting against the recommendation of their own expert panel that had been evaluating this question over the past year.

It feels like a pretty complicated topic all the way around.  For starters, most of us think of a disease the same way we think of the flu or a cold.  However, more and more, the diseases that have the biggest impact on us are of the chronic variety including cancer, heart disease, pulmonary, diabetes, etc.  Obesity in turn significantly raises risk for most of the aforementioned chronic diseases, particularly diabetes and heart disease.  So does that make it a disease?  Honestly, I have no idea and will happily leave the finer details of this debate to the clinicians and health experts that are much more heavily steeped in these designations than little old me.

The question I find more interesting is whether this new designation is (or can be) a good thing.  I see the answer to this on three levels:

1)  The healthcare level

We have seen from our own research at Weight Watchers that the urging of a doctor to address weight can have a profound impact on how seriously we take the issue.  I have met countless members who have shared that it was their doctor that gave them the final push to get started on the road to changing their habits and lifestyle.  I happen to be one of those members.

Unfortunately, many doctors don’t have this conversation with their patients, and if they do, it may be merely a passing comment.  Worse, one study from Johns Hopkins indicated that doctors were 35% less likely to have an emotional rapport with their overweight patients.  For many physicians, the conversation about weight with a patient can be at best uncomfortable.  In some cases, they may worry that nagging a patient may cause the patient to seek care elsewhere.  In other cases, the doctor may shy away for fear of coming across as judging how someone looks.

So, by far, the biggest benefit I see coming out of the AMA pronouncement is having more doctors having constructive conversations with their patients about obesity. 

The second, likely longer-term benefit coming from announcements such as this will be greater support by health insurance companies to provide coverage for clinically proven treatments for obesity.  For many/most of us, losing weight on our own has been a losing proposition (pardon the pun):  it’s hard to just “lose the weight” and to simply “cut back”.  For many of us, we need the help from proven treatments and help.  Yes, I’m horribly biased here in that I see Weight Watchers as a leader in this area with roughly 85 publications over the past 15 years.  Programs and support systems that have stood the test of time and have a track record for clinically demonstrated results should be covered under health plans just as hypertension medicine is covered under our health plans.  If the healthcare industry starts seeing obesity as a disease, it would be odd for them not to consider covering the treatment of said disease state.  It’s impossible for me to advocate for this without being self-serving, but I believe in it passionately nonetheless.

In general, I’m a big believer that the healthcare system has a strong role to play in addressing conditions such as obesity.  We need to shift our health system from sick care to health care by helping to people avoid becoming diabetic rather than to kick into gear once it’s too late.

2) The human level

So, if you have a BMI greater than 30, you are now considered not only “obese” but also suffering from a “disease.”  Have a nice day!

First things first…  I’m not a fan of the word “obese”, particularly when applied to me.  It’s hard to argue that it has any connotation that isn’t pretty harsh/negative.  It conjures media images of exposed bellies underneath shirts.  It’s symbolic of “what’s wrong with America” and all sorts of other states of judgmentalism.  I frankly cannot think of a better word, but this one seems pretty bleak.  That said, when the healthcare world talks about obesity, they are referencing it as it relates to health risk factors, not body image.  That doesn’t make the medicine taste any better, but at least we can understand the intent.

Secondly, let’s just state right away that having a BMI greater than 30 does not mean you are currently sick.  By the way, having a BMI less than 25 does not mean you are necessarily fit either.  That said, there are very clear statistics that your RISK for related diseases (comorbidities) become greatly elevated once BMI travels north of 30.  If you are also pre-diabetic (ask your doctor), have high cholesterol or high blood pressure, the risks are that much more clear.  So, if you are not pre-diabetic, you’ve got the heart of a lion and low blood pressure, are you “sick” or “diseased” because your BMI is greater than 30?  Your risk for becoming sick is still higher even if you are not currently symptomatic other than by weight.  It’s one of the tricky parts of obesity:  the diseases it causes often come later in life.  Nonetheless, the word “disease” carries a lot of connotations, most of them not pleasant.

I wonder what my reaction would have been when I got my physical in 1999 were my doctor to have told me that I had obesity, which was a disease.  Honestly, I don’t know.  My guess is that my first reaction would have been to be pretty depressed and maybe a little freaked out.  I hate being sick.  That said, I also can’t rule out that I might have had an even greater sense of urgency to deal with it.  I also think my doctor would have been that much more forceful in how she delivered the message.

3) The broader conversation level

It goes without saying that there is a tendency (understatement) to feel pretty badly about ourselves when we are told we are obese.   Is there a way to turn this entire conversation on its head?  What if we simply saw our weight problem as a health condition that requires treatment lest we get sick or get more sick?  What if there was a way to have the obesity condition leave the world of body image, self-flagellation and bad feelings once at for all?

Ironically, just before this came out, I wrote a piece for the Huffington Post that tries to get at this very point.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-kirchhoff/health-as-a-measure-of-success_b_3398673.html

Call me a ridiculous idealist, but I see the possibility for a better way and a much more empowered and constructive conversation with this new announcement by the AMA.

Thoughts?

I had the opportunity recently to listen to an excellent presentation from a psychologist that had just completed about 50 in-depth interviews with various people losing weight as part of a research project.  As a psychologist, his unique angle on the topic was a function both of his understanding of the human psyche but also of his ability to get his interview subjects to open up.  The research was a treasure trove of insight and perspective.

Many of the results of the research were not necessarily surprising, but they were no less profound.  I couldn’t possibly hope to do it all justice in a single or even multitude of posting(s).  However, a couple of his basic observations stood out:

1. Obesity is a symptom of other emotional challenges.  His graphic to depict this was the familiar iceberg with an itty bit above the surface and a whole lot of stuff beneath.
2. Its really tough to solve a weight issue without addressing the knotty drivers underneath
3. Obesity is particularly tough to address when times are tough and stressful

It frustrates me that I continue to observe an on-going tendency in the conversation-sphere that keeps trying to boil obesity down to some pretty simplistic statements.  One that particularly bugs me is the over-used:

“It’s simple!  It’s all calories.  Just take in less and burn more.”

You don’t say!  Sadly, most of us already know this, and yet we find ourselves unable to sustain an effort to meet the demands of this seemingly simple calorie conversation.  Even worse, I see far too many people aspiring to a level of caloric perfection, often frustrating themselves into a heap in the process.  Why?  They aren’t attacking the underlying issue.

We often throw out the term “emotional eating” in an almost dismissive way as though it was an affliction for the weak and needy.  Yet, if we really self-examine ourselves, all of us with weight issues practice emotional eating whether we recognize it or not.  From our earliest days, we are given treats when we are sad.  We get treats when we get a good grade.  We all see the nurturing benefits of what we call “comfort food”.  Food becomes both reward and medication.

This isn’t psychobabble; it’s chemistry.  We know from research that eating or even seeing reward-grade food gives us a dopamine rush.  When we are feeling stressed or vulnerable, our brains are trained to seek some way of making the uncomfortable feeling go away.  We can numb the sensation through a shot of whiskey, a cigarette and yes, a scoop of ice cream.  Having a bad breakup?  How about some Ben & Jerry’s!

It’s unfortunate that we use food this way because it’s frankly hard to recognize when we do it.  Most of us are pretty aware that when we dive for a bottle of wine after a horrible day that we are knowingly self-medicating.  Yet, when we do this with a handful of food, we may be only vaguely aware that we are doing exactly the same thing.  Where wine is a grown-up thing to indulge, getting a treat is much like mothering ourselves.  Throw in a kiss and hug on top of a bowl of ice cream and there is precious little wrong with the world.  So while abusing a bottle of wine seems a little unseemly, abusing a pint of ice cream is just what mom might have ordered.

I buy into the issue of emotional eating because I very much recognize it in myself.  Give me a really crummy, stressful day, and I am craving food in a seriously dangerous way.  Give me a tough week, and I deserve a full weekend of food abandonment.  Whether I like to admit it or not, I use food to medicate.  In fact, after a fairly rough week of travel and feeling utterly fatigued and sorry for myself, that’s exactly what I did in my hotel room last night.

So what to do about emotional eating?  There are basically two options, though not mutually exclusive:

1. Find something other than food to self-medicate with
2. Acknowledge and address the underlying source of stress

I try to make it a point to know myself well enough that I can identify when I’m in an emotional state that will lead to the attendant food reaction.  I once heard a therapist give a talk on how to recognize anger before it becomes a full-blown tantrum.  He noted that everyone has an emotional thermostat where you can observe the temperature begin to rise.  He stated that the trick was to figure where your thermostat is and check in with it so you can detect the flare up early.  For me, recognizing stress, frustration, etc. works much the same way.  At minimum, if I am gorging food in a torrent of tears, I at least want to recognize and acknowledge that I’m abusing food to numb my brain.    At best, I can find some other way to make myself feel better, like taking a walk or breaking some dishes.

Addressing an underlying source of stress is much harder to do, and frankly I don’t think I’m very good at it.  However, I do take great comfort in knowing that I’m not alone.  I had the chance to attend a battery of Weight Watchers meetings across the country last week.  Over-and-over again, I saw the value of seeing people open up about their challenges and observing others feel a sense of relief that they weren’t the only crazy person in the room who struggled with this stuff.

This Teddy bear doesn’t seem up for providing emotional support…

In dealing with a weight issue, self-awareness counts for a lot when going through the long process of changing your lifestyle.  I am much more tuned in today to the why’s of my eating challenges than when I first started.  That awareness doesn’t make me perfect, but it does help me nip trouble spots in the bud more quickly.  Being around other people going through the same process makes all of the above that much easier and comforting.

In this context, it’s ironic that being perfect on the program can lead to so many wrong directions.  It’s impossible to be perfect, and it’s not even desirable.  Rather, admitting and recognizing our flaws and vulnerabilities is what gives us the true power to address the challenges of our waistlines.  When it comes to weight, touchy-feely can ultimately win the day.

Now where is the damned Teddy Bear when I need it?!

Cheers,

Dave

All of this begs the question about how exactly to find motivation and how to make it stick around.  It’s obvious to state that motivation is much easier to find when we are, well, motivated.  When something truly matters to us, it’s easier to stay motivated.  When we have a goal that we truly desire, we can stay motivated.  If there is someone pushing us, it can help maintain motivation.  Given this, there must certainly be external aids that help us find motivation and then keep it around.

Over the past few years, I’ve had the opportunity to be exposed to a fascinating little corner of the world of health, known as healthcare economics.  A big part of healthcare economics centers around the notion of how money and incentives can help nudge us into doing things that we might not otherwise be fully motivated to do.  This is hardly an alien concept in the world we live in.  We work hard with the hopes of making money.  We save with the hopes of keeping our money.  We invest with the hopes of making our money bigger.  It may sound mercenary and shallow, but there is no avoiding the magnetic forces of financial incentives.

Maybe a Fat Cat isn’t the exact right example of financial incentives for weight loss…

There are a group of folks that are dedicated (at least partially) to the study of how incentives can influence behaviors when it comes to health.  One particular group of these researchers that I’ve had the opportunity to get to know pretty well belong to a research group at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, called the Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics.  It’s a joint effort between academics and researchers at U Penn and Carnegie Mellon.  Some of their notable members include Kevin Volpp, George Lowenstein, Scott Halpern among others.  They are an interesting group in that they are all at once practicing physicians and psychologists as well as being economists.  They study the application of incentives to areas such as smoking cessation, obesity and others.  They are crazy smart, but also incredibly nice guys who are trying to make a positive impact in the world — no matter how scary the subject matter can sound (!).

Kevin Volpp asked me to write a piece on the subject of health incentives to weight loss, and I agreed.  It then occurred to me that it might be an interesting subject for a blog post.  So here you go!  For all you fellow Mathletes (yes, I was one, so please don’t give me a wedgie), put on your seat belts.

Back to motivation…  How could finance incentives be potentially used as a weapon in our arsenal to make this very difficult change in our life?  It’s a big wide open topic that I could never hope to do full justice in a brief(ish) piece, but allow me to take a brief crack at it.

Let’s start with a discussion about where motivation is needed.  In my last magazine column, I summoned my inner-nerd (maybe it’s outer too) by referencing a principle of physics:  the force required to set an object into motion is greater than the force required to keep an object in motion.  The reason force is required at all is for the simple reason that there is friction all around us.  It is what keeps us from sliding across the floor, and it is the force that causes a refrigerator to sit still even when you try to push it.  The greater the friction, the greater the force required to create motion.  Because friction is always around, objects have a tendency to revert to a point of rest.

It’s easy to see how this applies to the process of becoming healthy.  In the case of weight issues, friction can come in the form of ingrained habits that are hard to dispel.  Friction can be the powerful wants in our brains for foods that aren’t particularly good for us.  A huge source of friction for many of us is procrastination, rivaled by the friction of boredom.  These forces seem perfectly oriented to keep us from getting started or making progress.

So if we need to overcome these frictions, what are forces we can use to push past them?  Can want for money be used in a constructive way?  To test the theory, let’s break the problem into two areas:

1:  Getting started

The cards in the obesity deck are frankly stacked against us.  As much as we’d all like to  weigh less and be healthier, we all know that it takes work.  We all recognize we will have to give up some of the things (at least in quantity) that gave us our weight problem in the first place.  We know that there is no easy fix and that it will require effort.  Worse, we also know that most of the health issues associated with a weight condition are years down the line, yet that damnable blueberry muffin is right in front of us.  Hence, there are few things easier on Earth than procrastinating the process of changing our lifestyle and habits and becoming healthier.  Seriously, can’t it wait?

The inherent issue with procrastination is that it reflects the basic challenge of long term benefit vs short term indulgence.  We are all human, and the short term indulgence wins the race more frequently than we can count.  However, what if the the long term benefit suddenly became a right now benefit?  This is where a financial tool could come into play.  If someone were to tell me that I could have a million dollars if I lost a pound, I’d take that deal.  More practically, I’ve seen people use the specter of a life insurance exam to get their head into the game and lose weight.  Other examples could include:

• Agreeing to lower your health insurance premium if you agree to reach a goal
• Giving you the chance to win a lottery if you hit a certain goal
• Giving you a monetary award up front, but allowing you to keep it only if you reach your goal
• Doing the above with a group of people

2:  Keeping going

For many of us, the big challenge in keeping a weight loss effort going is having it matter week after week.  It’s one thing to pull together the energy and resolve to get started, but it’s all too easy to see this early vigor fade away.  How might we use money rewards or penalties to keep our heads in the game?

• One that’s become increasingly popular is to form a challenge where the winning team to win a pot of money at the end if they do the best
• Weight loss bets are a time-honored tradition among guys losing weight.  At the beginning of the challenge, everyone puts money in the pot.  Those that don’t meet their goal, lose their money while those that do get to split all the money left in the pot.
• One website, stickk.com, uses a novel approach in which you put money in upfront, and if you don’t reach your goal, the cash gets sent to the charity of your choice.
• There are increasing examples of companies that will set up rewards programs, like frequent flier, that allow you to win prizes, gifts and cash the more you participate and achieve

There is a lot of research behind all of the above.  One thread of work shows that we humans would rather not lose money vs. winning money.  It’s called loss aversion — this is the theory behind the program at stikk.com.  There is other research showing the promise of team efforts and lotteries.

For me personally, I used a weight loss bet with four of my colleagues to jump start the weight loss effort that finally got me to my goal.  Ironically, I didn’t get to my goal by the end of the bet, but it got me most of the way there.  I think I still owe my friend Mike about a hundred bucks (he was too nice a guy to collect from the losers).

Research is showing that all of the above can have a pretty positive effect in helping to stimulate and motive change in our behavior.  Keeping engagement going and having a weapon to fight off procrastination can give us the nudges we need to be successful.  However, I also have misgivings.  A carrot for one person can turn into a stick for someone else, and I firmly believe that obesity should never be punished.  Getting a reward for achieving a goal can be something positive if done the right way for the right reasons.  It’s a pretty slippery slope, but I’ve seen it done well.

Thank you for suffering through a particularly long post.  Since you’ve gotten this far, I would love to hear from any of you that have used money to push your weight loss effort along.  Think of it as your contribution to research!

Cheers,

Dave

This seems as good a time as any to reflect on what I’ve learned about myself over this past year, and possibly what I might say differently if I were writing the book today.

To put this past year in context, allow me to provide the briefest of refresher on my weight loss experience:

• 2000-2009:  the almost losing weight years.  These were my nine years in the wilderness, sometimes losing weight and then watching it come back.  I never returned to my worst point, but I never got to my goal weight either.  As I’ve said on numerous occasions, please don’t judge my nine years to get to goal:  it’s not nice to pick on slow people.  
• 2009:  GOAL!!!!!!  LIFETIME MEMBER!!!!!
• 2009-2012:  These were my three years as an @ goal, Lifetime Member (Free Lifetime for those familiar with WW membership parlance).  2009 also marked the point of beginning to write this blog.  Weight Loss Boss was published in early May 2012.
• mid-2012 to present…

I am now a bit more than four years at goal weight, a fact that I do not take for granted. The past year has been particularly interesting in that it happened after I published my book.  One might reasonably ask why the publication of a book has anything to do with my weight loss status.  For me, the book was the culmination of sharing everything I knew about the process of losing weight and keeping it off.  There was something about the process of writing it that it somehow felt that a conclusion had been reached.  “And then Dave jumped on his trusty horse Trigger and rode off into the sunset, never to be seen again.”

What if Dave ate Trigger instead?  Well, I’d have to be European for that to be true, so fear not, no horses were hurt in the production of my story. Nonetheless, it’s a fair question, because in fact, I had to continue living in the world after the book was published.  There is no sunset in the process of adopting a healthy lifestyle.  There is no concluding point.  There is no epilogue.  Life goes on, and staying healthy always remains a process.

Over the past year, I’ve had some ups and downs.  If anything, I’ve found that this past year has been a bit more challenging in keeping my focus. There have been more than a few times where I let myself fall into Superman-mode, thinking that I cannot be harmed by mortal man or his junk food. During these times, I could feel the weight slowly start to creep back on while I could feel my hard won habits slightly slip away.

In truth, I’ve met very few people on maintenance who haven’t gone through what I’ve described many, many times.  Maintenance is tough because we are constantly surrounded by temptation, and periodically our defenses lower.  Fortunately, the worst I have gotten has been about 6-7 pounds over my goal weight.  At this point, you might now ask the questions:  “Are you serious?  Are you actually self-flagellating about 7 pounds?  Go get yourself a quarter and call me when you have a real weight regain problem!”  I would of course reply back:  “You are very mean and insensitive.”

Even when I was feeling the most at risk, I had a couple of advantages that kept me going way over the edge of weight control:

• Working out:  even when I’m slacking a little bit, over these past 12 months, I really have not missed many days of exercise.  My workouts may have gotten less intense from time-to-time, but I have kept going.  I cannot stress how important this has been to me.  Exercise covers a lot of sins.  It’s incredibly hard to maintain a weight loss without becoming much more active.  
• Course correction:  when I’ve crashed spectacularly, my saving grace has been to be honest with myself pretty quickly.  If I’ve had a gross food week, I usually find myself in a Sunday night session of self loathing followed by a Monday morning of redemption.  The self-inflicted psychological warfare may not be a good mental health practice, but being honest with myself has been incredibly important.  The trouble really starts when denial sets in, and we start telling ourselves that it’s all fine.  I’ve also forced myself to stand on the scale even when I knew it would make me terribly sad.  Every painful weight in was like a shot of horrendously bad tasting medicine that ultimately made me much healthier.  
• Lightening up:  seemingly inconsistent with the point on course correction above, I’ve also found myself getting more and more comfortable with my new fangled healthy life.  I’ve grown more confident that when I do fall off the wagon that I can get right back up.  This has allowed me to be somewhat of a less neurotic, tightly wound mess about the whole thing.  
• Honoring my healthier habits:  all the while, I have held onto certain go-to routines such as my standard breakfasts and lunches.  

Interestingly, over the past month, I have found myself becoming a little more intense and disciplined about my health.  I’ve upped my workout intensity a decent amount, mostly by adding extra cardio into my mix.  I’ve become much more disciplined about planning before going on trips after a spectacular wipe-out this past Spring Break.  I’ve also gotten back into the habit of not cleaning my plate and more quickly turning back mindless calories when offered.

The folks that run research at Weight Watchers would tell you that this is pretty typical.  We all go through periods of being heavily engaged and focused followed by periods of being a little more slack.  For most people, this is pretty much standard operating procedure and is to be expected.  The standard of success is NOT perfect behavior all the time.  If it was, we would all fail spectacularly.  The trick for me has been to not go over the deep end when I’m being intense as well as to not let everything fall to pieces for too long when I’m being a slacker.  Over time, it’s been about finding my middle path and trying to stay within a healthy zone.

So what would I say differently in a book if I were to write it now?  In truth, not much.  I was prescient enough in the book to acknowledge that the process of staying healthy is an unending one that will require effort and focus forever.  I’ve lived that this year, and I have no regrets.  I’m still healthier and happier by far, and it’s been more than worth all of the effort.

On a separate note, I am greatly pleased with the new cover of the book.  I’ve long been read to retire the guy with the constipated face holding the ice cream in favor of a cartoon.

And don’t forget!  For those who haven’t read it, all the proceeds (as always) go to Share Our Strength (not greedy me).  For those who have read the book, THANK YOU!

Cheers,

Dave

When last I wrote, I was owning up to a rash of irresponsible and dangerous vacation eating behavior.  I spent the better part of a week equipped with loose health morals and having lots of unprotected relations with food.  I was an unrestrained food trollop, and I subsequently spent many days wondering where my moral nutrition compass went so terribly wrong.  As is always the case in times like this, the underlying source of my sins was the same:  I was unprotected and unprepared.  I did not have a plan.

It’s always pretty easy for me to get back on plan when I get home as the routines and patterns of my life, heavily built over these past ten years, quickly come back to me.  Despite a 25^th college reunion, which resurfaced any range of suspect consumption choices, I have survived and recovered back to my puritan food eating ways.

However, my work travel has now accelerated back into overdrive.  I was in Philadelphia and DC last week, followed by a 24 hour layover at home (sad that I would see it that way) leading directly into a flight to London.  I now write this post from Heathrow where I am waiting to get on my 8 PM flight back to New York.  It’s in times like this that well meaning young men get into trouble.  Lots of jet lag, much socializing and plenty of private (secret) eating opportunities abound.

My new BFFL, Evernote

Through serendipity, I discovered a little app that has helped me to change my sinning ways.  I might be one of the last harried people on Earth to do this, but I finally opened up the Evernote application on my iPad that I had downloaded months and months ago.  I have never been a big one for to-do lists, but I was finding it increasingly difficult to make sense of my scribbled meeting notes spread over countless notebooks with no hope of ever being read again.  This was my impetus, beginning this weekend, to finally go fully electronic in organizing my work life.

To make my days ever so slightly more productive while I was in London sitting through many, many meetings, I decided to try out a new routine.  I started using Evernote to write my plan for the day, laying out what I wanted to learn and achieve in each of my meetings upcoming over the course of the day.  While I was doing it this daily plan, it occurred to me that I could do the very same with my food occasions over the course of the day.  Good intentions in hand and before I went down to the hotel lobby for breakfast, I mapped out a quick & dirty plan for my health.  It went something like this:

• Breakfast:  try not to molest the buffet.  Stick to cereal and skim milk, yogurt and fruit (they do not have oatmeal, sadly).
• Lunch:  small plate, no seconds, mostly fruit and green things
• Snacks:  fruit only (seriously!)
• Dinner:  one beer and some kind of ocean dwelling meat substance
• After-dinner:  There is no after-dinner!  Get your hands off the mini-bar.  NO SNACKS!

OK, it’s a little odd to talk to myself like this, but I decided to give it a go.  Here’s the weird thing.  It totally worked.  Completely and 100%.  It is as though the mere act of writing down my simple little plan bound me to obedience and gave me the strength to withstand temptation.  I stuck with the plan without even feeling a pull.

Some time ago, I had a chance to talk to my NY Times friend, Charles Duhigg (Oh my gosh, I just dropped a name!  Oooops!).  He told me about a researcher at NYU (I think) who had done experiments showing that people who wrote down a plan before encountering a situation were MUCH more likely to be adherent (i.e., behave).

It’s also quite similar to the research of Carnegie Mellon behavior mod superstar George Lowenstein, of the Hot State/Cold State fame, originally applied to risky sexual behavior and then applied to risky eating behavior.  Basically, his research shows that we can make calm, rational decisions when temptation is not staring us in the face (cold states).  However, in the heat of the moment (hot states) and without a plan, we do crazy stuff.  In my case, I was writing my plans in a cold state and it helped me manage what would have been hot states.

Before you accuse me of being an OCD freak-of-nature, which may be true in some parts of my life, know that I am not naturally wired to write lots of lists.  In Myers-Brigg parlance I am a P(erceiving), not a J(udgement).  For those not familiar, J’s are known for writing to-do lists on their days off while we P’s like to follow the Grateful Dead.  So, here I am as P finding religion in a simple little eating plan to start each day.

The big question for me is this:  can I stick with it?  Well, the key in creating any new habit is to make it pretty easy, make it worthwhile and do it long enough so that it starts to stick.  My plan is to keep my list VERY simple (not much longer than a Haiku – in fact that might be an excellent art form for it).  The “worth it” part is how unbelievably great I feel being in control in a known trouble spot, travel.

Will let you know how it goes!

Oh.  One more thing.  Evernote ROCKS!

Cheers,

Dave

Luke: Got ‘im! I got ‘im!
Han Solo: Great, kid. Don’t get cocky.

I was 11 years old when I first heard that exchange.  From there on, I thought Han Solo was possibly the single coolest dude that ever rocked the galaxy.  Never mind the fact that my thinking this confirmed my status as the nerdy kid that I truly was (and only later fully appreciated — Star Wars t-shirts and all).

In that scene, I kind of felt badly for Luke who was shut down by the cooler, older, more world-weary Han.  It turns out Han had a very valid point to make (at least until Luke became a full-on wisdom wielding Jedi in the Ewok-infested Star Wars 3).  It never pays to get cocky, because you never really fully have it all under control.  At least that’s the case when it comes to maintenance.

Where is this all coming from?  My vacation!  I got cocky, and in the process, I had the opportunity to see my old self (Dave 1.0) in full and frightening display.

The set-up up was that I was going on long-planned and much anticipated week long vacation with wife and one of my daughters in Equador.  We would be spending half the week in the Andes Mountains on mountain bike and foot, exploring little Ecuadorian villages, and the second part of the vacation would be in the Galapagos Islands.  Each day would have some level of activity and many days would have quite a bit.  From a vacation point of view, the prospects were fantastic.  From a healthy lifestyle point of view, the prospects also looked pretty darned good given all of the exercise.  So what happened?

The vacation part (i.e., the part that truly mattered) was SPECTACULAR.  The mountain portion of the trip was probably the biggest surprise with crazy beautiful lush green mountains, enormous condors and incredibly nice/kind locals.  The Galapagos portion had a high expectation, and it frankly over-delivered.  97% untouched and untouchable by man, these islands are an insane wildlife sanctuary.  You don’t see one Sea Lion, you see a lot of Sea Lions.  And Galapagos Tortoises.  And penguins.  And Blue Footed Boobies (yes, all you 12 year olds, I said “boobie”).  And sting rays, sharks, and many, many, many fish.  Plus lots of iguanas.  It was the trip of a lifetime, and will always be remembered as such.

Not that it matters hugely, I also found the healthy lifestyle part of the vacation instructive in that I became somewhat unhinged.  For the past four years at Lifetime, I have cultivated a set of patterns and behaviors that I have been able to reliably count on.  I have the same kind of breakfast whether I’m at home or on the road or on vacation.  I don’t get seconds.  I share deserts.  All are hallmarks of a healthy and satisfying approach that works for me.  Last week, every hard-earned new healthy habit disappeared like a bat hiding from the sun.

My first give was breakfast.  Every place we slept had a buffet, and I found myself going for eggs and bacon.  Within a day or two, I was throwing on a couple pieces of toast with butter and jam.  The next thing you know, I was eating Bob’s Big Boy style every morning.  Then came the large bags of nuts that I carried on rides and hikes, rationalizing that they were valuable fuel for lots of activity — never mind the fact that a sandwich bag of nuts probably carries at least 1,500 calories.  Then came lunch & dinner.  First by clearing my plates and ultimately by degrading into going for seconds.  The final moment of abandon was on the flight home on which I found myself grabbing breakfast pastries from the flight attendant like a man just released from solitary confinement.  I’m not sure I even took a breath as I plowed them down my throat, two bites each.

Said differently, I turned into my old vacuum cleaner self.

Now, please allow me to put all of this in perspective.  On a bunch of the days, I really was getting in a lot of moderate to sometimes vigorous activity, particularly on some of the steeper hikes.  I was generating some respectable Activity Points.  I also realize that a week does not a collapse make.  That said, I kind of freaked myself out.

When you’ve been on maintenance a while (years), you like to think that you are a fully different person who lives a fully different way.  You see yourself in the mirror and you look different.  You have a ton more of confidence, possibly bordering on ill-conceived narcissistic swagger.  You feel a little high and mighty and righteous-y about you saintly healthy self.  You think you’ve put all the bad behavior behind you.  Here’s the hard news:  you’re kidding yourself — or at least I was.

It turns out that Dave 1.0 was quietly hiding out in the back of my mind, patiently calculating his prison break from the manacles of my new fangled healthy lifestyle.  When he saw daybreak, he made a serious run for it, and he got to spend a week on the lam.  At one point I found Dave 1.0 running naked through the buffet, hurling himself into the middle of the food trays covering his naked body with all manner of sweet and fat food alike.  It.  Was.  Not.  Pretty.

I was a little shaken by the whole thing, so I made the very simple decision to get back on program this Monday.  Today is Wednesday, and I’m still on program.  I will be on program tomorrow too.  I’ve totally fine being on program, and it’s a bit of a relief to be back.

So what did I learn?

1. Apparently my brain has a law forbidding capital punishment, so I can’t execute Dave 1.0 as he deserves.  This means he will always be running around my mind somewhere, plotting his next escape.  I need to respect this, and make sure I keep his prison door locked.  Knowing that he’s always up for a run-for-it is a good reminder to stay reasonably vigilant.  Practically this means getting weekly weigh-ins and regularly checking in with myself to make sure I’m keeping it honest when it comes to my food choices.
   
2. It always pays to have an explicit plan, particularly on vacation.  I usually do this, and I’m always fine when I do.  Last week I didn’t, and I got a little naughty.
3. I like eggs, and I’ve decided my ban on them is kind of dumb.  I think my binge last week could have been the result of being a little inflexible in the variety of my menu.  I am making it a point to start looking for a PointsPlus-friendly egg dish, preferably with chicken and/or other high protein stuff that would go with my knuckle-dragging weight lifting obsession.  Said differently, it’s time to mix it up a bit.
4. Huge sea tortoises swim much faster than they walk.

Cheers,

Dave

There is one particular genre of story that never fails to send me into a teary mess:  the triumph of those that others had given up on.  I received the following email this past Friday from a woman named Lennie M. Jones, daughter of Lennie B. Jones.  The younger Lennie Jones wanted me to know the story of her mother, a teacher and principal, who had decided in her 60’s to make a fundamental change in her life.  At a weight of 250 pounds and facing a long list of health issues, her mother decided to make a big change in her life and lost 100 pounds in the process.  She gained back so much more in the process.

[As always, I asked Lennie for her permission to use her letter and photos prior to my publishing this post...]

Dear Mr. Kirchhoff, 

Lennie B, April 2011 (pre-Weight Watchers)

Lennie B. Jones down 80 pounds

Lennie B. Jones down 100 pounds (and riding!!!!)

What I love about this story is its triumphant contrast to the sad reality that most folks would have the instinct to give up someone in their 60’s whose weight issue had reached such an unhealthy point.  Prior to joining Weight Watchers, I would have been one of those people.  How can someone like this possibly hope to overcome such a seemingly insurmountable challenge?  Why not thrown in the towel on these folks and focus instead on childhood obesity?  Maybe she’s supposed to let herself succumb to her sentence of an unhealthy life and give up the notion of ever becoming active again?

As someone who finds himself looking in the mirror of a curiously old person despite the fact that he’s only 27 years old (I have a vivid imagination), I need to believe.  I need to believe that at any given point of my life I can still change.  I need to know that at any given point of my life that I can still reinvent myself.  I’m a pretty flawed dude, so this is not an idle request.

In truth, I am a very different person today from a health and fitness point of view than I was in my 30’s or 20’s.  Weight Watchers allowed me to reinvent my health in my 40’s.  I’m glad Weight Watchers could help Lenny B. Jones reinvent her health in her 60’s.

So, Lennie M. Jones (daughter), please allow me to publicly thank you for this letter about the inestimable Lennie B. Jones.  Your mother makes you proud, and she makes me believe.  May she have the same effect on many more!

Cheers,

Dave

Last May, I was in Los Angeles for the “Weight Loss Boss” book promotion tour.  For reasons that I still don’t completely understand, I got booked on Extra.  I look nothing like Matt Damon, yet they still had me on.  Go figure.

I showed up for the taping at the Grove (a shopping mall in LA), prepared to do an exercise demo with our fitness expert, Jennifer Cohen.  In my mind, this made the taping already a little odd as I had to wear shorts and a t-shirt and then do something that looks a bit like a burpee on national TV.  What can I say?  There isn’t much that I wouldn’t do to get the WW message out into the world.

When I arrived, I was told that the Extra producer (Tammi Fuller — a veritable force of nature) had something extra (no pun intended) in mind.  They were going to grab a person off the street, have them join Weight Watchers and then ask me to be their mentor.  I was completely caught off guard and bewildered, but I impulsively agreed.

OK, that’s my story, but here is how it looked for my new mentee (not a word I realize).  A nice woman by the name of Sheila was minding her own business at the Grove shopping for lipstick.  She happened to notice that someone was giving out free vouchers for Weight Watchers at the mall.  She stepped forward and asked for one, and she was then pulled aside and asked if she would like to be mentored by the CEO of Weight Watchers and have her progress followed on TV.  I cannot for the life of me imagine what this must have felt like for her.  Were it me, I would have started to scream “fire” and run for the nearest exit.  Sheila took the other path, and simply said:  “sure, I guess.”

So try to imagine being Sheila, having been pulled off the street, asked to join Weight Watchers and then have her progress followed by over a million people.  Sheila and I were taken upstairs to a filming area above a restaurant at the Grove.  There, we were met by Sheila’s Weight Watchers Leader-to-be, Alicia.  Sheila was asked to stand on a scale and get her starting weight from Alicia.  Just like a regular Weight Watchers meeting except for the itty-bitty-minor-little addition of having a giant video camera trained on her and her number.  290 pounds.  Not exactly a confidential weigh in.  Frankly, I almost passed out in sympathy for her.  She then got her Getting Started Session (GSS for those in the know), and just like that, she began the Weight Watchers program.  The filming crew disbanded, I went to catch a flight and Sheila was probably wondering exactly what she had just stepped into.

The Extra! episode that I came out to tape was aired, but the material including Sheila didn’t make the cut (Extra! is only a 1/2 hour show and their segments are usually 1-2 minutes, so they have my full sympathies!).  My assumption was that the show changed its mind, and I didn’t have any expectation that there would be any future mention of Sheila on TV.  However, I felt that a deal was a deal, and I wanted to uphold my commitment to be Sheila’s mentor.  And so I did…

Over the next eight months, I would get an update from Alicia, Sheila’s Leader, on her progress.  I would usually send Sheila a quick email with an encouragement or congratulations of some sort.  She and I started corresponding on email, and I would try to offer useful advice whenever I could.  We also did a couple of Skype sessions along the way.

Sheila was going to her meeting pretty much ever week without fail.  She loved Alicia’s meeting.  None of the other members knew of the arrangement — in their eyes, she was just another member.  In truth, that was actually true.  Sheila was tracking all the time, she started to clean up her “spaces” at home, and she started working on her new “routines”.  She also started to exercise for the first time in a very long time.  It was hard at first, but it all started to take.  Sheila was losing weight regularly, by simply following the program and sticking with it.

There were definite moments of trepidation in Sheila’s journey as there are for all of us.  One of her first was a 10 day trip to Memphis, the land of eating big.  She was going to be with family and in an environment that she could not control.  Sheila first talked to Alicia, and she then spoke with me.  We both gave her the same advice:  try to stick to your new routines, meals, exercise patterns whenever and wherever you can.  Lo and behold, she came back from vacation and discovered that she had lost over three pounds.  She couldn’t believe it.

Over time, I noticed a lot of changes.  Most significantly, I watched her confidence grow and grow.  I would try to give her advice, and she would tell me, “Dave, I’ve got this.”

Sheila started the program on May 17 of last year.  I got word in January of this year that Sheila was getting ready to hit the 70 pound loss milestone.  I then received word that the producers of Extra! wanted her on the show.  I agreed (eagerly) to come out to celebrate her success on national TV.  Sheila was introduced to the world having lost 77 pounds in nine months.  She had become an entirely new person in less than a year.  The woman who never cooked was now regularly making her own healthy meals.  The woman who never exercised was now working out every day.  Sheila has now set the goal of running a half marathon this fall.

Sheila told me the story of how she used to dread seeing her doctor, who she loves, because she would be confronted with the fact that she was “morbidly obese”.  70 pounds later, and she was understandably eager to now see her doctor who was amazed by her progress.  She was rewarded further still when her doctor told her that she no longer needed to be on blood pressure medicine.  As someone who lost three loved ones to heart disease, Sheila could not have hoped for a bigger gift.

What I love about this story is that Sheila is exactly the kind of person that many people would have counted out.  Many would have said she was beyond help.  Instead, Sheila chose to make her own destiny.  She is now a healthier, stronger, more confident person for it.

I am indebted to Alicia for guiding Sheila in the way that only a Weight Watchers Leader can.  I am indebted to Sheila for showing me once again the possibilities of the human spirit in action.

Here is the tape from the Extra! show this week.  Watch and be amazed and try not to mock the stiff in the suit.

Cheers,

Dave