Goal Crushers

This week at Weight Watchers, we talked about what to do when people make comments about what we are eating. As in: "You're going to eat all that?" or "Are you allowed to eat that?"


Some people may simply not understand that a sandwich made with light bread, thin-sliced turkey, and fat-free mayo is 2 points. Others may legitimately think they're helping by pointing out how you shouldn't really eat that chocolate cupcake if you want to lose weight.


However, sometimes, we just want to punch these people in the face. One woman talked about how it made her defiantly eat all the more--"I'll eat what I want, thank you very much." Another said we need to guide the people in our lives and help them help us. Overwhelmingly, the sentiment was, We need to do what we know to be right, listen to our inner voices, and ignore the rest.

One woman talked about people she calls "goal crushers." Specifically, those people who, when you tell them you're on WW, say, "Oh, WW doesn't work, I've tried it a hundred times and never lost a thing and my friend who did lose something gained all of it back." The woman said she repeated over and over in her mind, "Goal crusher, goal crusher," and ignored her.

I think I've been lucky, in that I don't believe I encountered any of these blatant naysayers. Oh, yes, people have told me that WW doesn't work "for them," but this was after they were confronted with my minus-100-pound self, solid evidence that, oh yes, indeed WW works for at least one person. I don't correct these people. I don't say, "Stop kidding yourself--you obviously didn't work the program. You obviously didn't watch your Points, serving sizes, and pretty much anything at all. You obviously don't have the patience or the drive to calculate the Points values you find so annoying. You have no one to blame but yourself."

This would be too harsh than usually I allow myself to be.

But it would be accurate. I could ask them what problems they had with the program, but nothing I could say would instill in them the self-motivation required for long-term weight loss. I have no sympathy for these people because I was one of these people for 21 years. I cried and complained that I just didn't get how I couldn't lose weight when CLEARLY I didn't eat THAT much (as I finished my third slice of pizza). I was delusional, self-pitying, and full of crap.

Only when we accept that weight loss is HARD, that tracking what we eat is cumbersome, that measuring every cup of rice and cereal is time-consuming, that figuring out the Points values of all the foods in our pantries is another chore to add to an already long list, only then will we achieve long-lasting weight loss. It isn't easy, and for those of us who love to eat and love to eat a lot, it never will be.

The goal crushers--they're the ones to feel sorry for. They're crushing themselves.