The Sweet Smell of Success

Ahh…the sweet smell of success! both the Hubster and I are within 10 pounds of our Weight Watchers goal ranges. We can see the finish line, which we know by now is really the starting line. There’s some kind of synchronicity in this, since we find ourselves evaluating our weight loss progress to date and our goals for the future around New Years – a time of year when people traditionally do the same in some or all aspects of their lives.

In this spirit, I thought I’d take some time to review the symbol that Weight Watchers has chosen as representative of success on their program. Here’s my interpretation below:

Last week, WW introduced their newly re-designed program complete with new promotional material that highlighted their swag: the 10% keychain, which hubby and I both received this past summer. It’s sort of a stylized number ten, with some esoteric symbols on the left side (representing the number one). The symbols are a 10 (meaning of which is self-evident), a star and a key. I figured the star was to represent the star-shaped stickers that Weight Watchers leaders hand out at meetings to members who have achieved 5 or 10 pound increments of weight loss, and I figured the key was because it was…well…a keychain, after all!

But when I read the newly designed Weight Watchers welcome booklet, I realized it was, in fact, the rosetta stone for my hieroglyphic keychain. First, the keychain is made of bronze (metallurgical significance to be made clear shortly) and is "in recognition of your achievement – and as a constant reminder that you can be successful."  Nice. I like it. Despite the fact that I would normally consider myself to be a skeptic, someone who is instrinsically motivated to suceed and the possessor of an internal locus of control, this keychain meant (and means) a lot to me. It is a reminder that I can be successful.

So now we move to the star…representative of your ultimate weight goal. Mine, according to the WW Healthy Weight Ranges (which, in turn, are based on the 20-25 BMI range) is 128-160 (for a 5’7" woman…I’m actually closer to 5’8", but at WW, you round down). So I asked my leader, "do I shoot for my ultimate, ideal goal, or do I go for the top of the range, work on maintaining it in order to achieve the coveted "Lifetime Member" status, and then lose more later if I like?" The latter, she assured me. I liked this answer because it’s going to save our family several hundred dollars. You see, once you achieve lifetime member status, you don’t have to pay to attend meetings unless you weigh in over 2lbs HIGHER than your goal weight. You can be 2, 4, 10 or 20 pounds BELOW your goal weight (mine is 160), but if you tip the scales at more than 2 lbs over goal, you’ll be required to pay again. And at $15 each per week, times hubby and me, times the number of weeks it would take us to lose the extra 15-20 or so pounds EACH that we might wish to still lose…well, I’ll let you do the math. This was supposed to be a lesson in the hieroglyphic symbology of the WW 10% keychain, anyway!

My leader’s reason, incidentally, was not the same. Hers is based on actual scientific research (yes! for real! in a peer-reviewed journal and everything!) that showed that lifetime members maintained 87% of their weight loss two years after completing the maintenance phase of the Program. I like that part, too, but the money saving part sure doesn’t hurt!

Okay, so, when you reach your goal weight, you recieve a silver star award – like a little silver star-shaped charm to add to your 10% keychain. Are you getting it? Bronze keychain, silver star…I bet you can deduce what’s next!

Yup, you got it! A gold key award! Once you achieve lifetime member status — you have to be no more than 2lbs above your goal weight, at least 5lbs less than when you joined (LOL, that’s a good one…it’ll be ten times that for me), and maintain that for six weeks — then you get the gold key award to add to your keychain. Silly as it seems, I covet that completed keychain!

But, just when you thought you had it all figured out – take a look at what my keychain looks like today; the bronze 10 – still waiting on the silver star and gold key – but what’s that? A pair of applauding hands with a "16" engraved on them? Well, that’s the Stay and Succeed award. And I have it. It’s to celebrate my ability to stick with it. And you know what? I’m darn proud of the thing (cheesy as it may be). I plan to keep the keychain, the Stay and Succeed award and the silver star and gold key for at least the first two years following my achievement of my goal weight. Let’s see if these talismans will serve to keep me on the straight and narrow, so I can "be an after" as they say at Weight Watchers!