I’ve lost 9.6 pounds in a mere six months, that’s a whopping 1.6 pounds per month. Dr. Oz will cry when his viewers hear reports of my miracle program, which, by the way, puts a little less weight (pun intended) than his plan on the role of green tea in helping those pounds slide off.

Much earlier this year, I decided to lose ten pounds. I just wanted to turn the fist-sized love handles around my middle into small bulges more the size of love knuckles.  Not a big challenge, I thought, just cut back on sugar. In the two months following this resolution, I added a few more pounds. “That’s it,” I told my husband.  “I’m rejoining Weight Watchers.” He decided to do the same.

I know the Weight Watchers’ approach works. It has every time I’ve tried it. WW employees spend their working lives examining fat, sugar, and nutrients in anything you can put in your mouth and chew. They then assign points to these food items and advise participants to eat anything they want within a thirty-point limit.

The cornerstone of the WW program is counting the points for everything you eat in a day, even if the total comes to more than 30. They convince you to eat many fruits and vegetables by assigning these zero points, and proteins, most of which are low-point items. One possibly unwanted boost to your protein points is the 6 oz. T-bone steak which provides more than one-third of your daily total. (Since 6 oz. seemed small, I checked the menu of a local steak house for weight of the smallest steak on their menu. It’s 8 oz. and the largest is 24 oz. No worries if you need bypass surgery following the larger meal. Whatever they feed you in the hospital will have very few points.)

After my first WW session, I read over the Pocket Guide and made a quick decision to stay away from certain choices, such as,”restaurant-type grilled cheese sandwich” (20 points), accompanied by 8 oz. of prune juice (10 points), on the grounds that I prefer to eat several meals of many foods every day, and not a single 30-point meal consisting of two items, one of which is prune juice.

The other times I participated in WW, I didn’t mind writing down my points, but this time after two or three days I quit counting.  It’s obvious that eating a pound of nuts will delay your next meal for a week. What more did I need to know? Instead of counting, I looked up some items, weighed some, and decided to wing it.

I didn’t stress out if I gained weight one week and lost some the next. I enjoyed every dinner out and every party, but controlled my portions.

I reached my goal yesterday.  Our leader said, “Now we have to talk about how many points a day you will have on ‘maintenance’. What’s your average now?”
“Uh. I don’t know. I didn’t count.”
“We’ll you’re going to have to count for a few days so you know how much more food you can add to maintain your weight.”

So yesterday I counted. Wow. Forty-five points. Today I was a pound higher. At this rate I won’t have to worry about maintenance.

PS In all seriousness, there are women in our weekly weigh-in who have dropped more than one hundred pounds using this system. The program works…if you count your points.