by Vicki Niedzielska

Created on: August 05, 2008   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

Here's the headline - I lost more than 60 pounds with weight watchers. Now, I can see you thinking, "Yes... but how long will it stay off?" Well, it has been over 9 years now, and while I cannot deny there have been variations up and down (most notably when I was pregnant and soon after my son was born), the weight has stayed away.

Therefore, I guess I can call myself a Weight Watchers success story. I feel pretty qualified to write this testimonial.

There are lots and lots of reasons why Weight Watchers works, and I could write pages on how wonderfully healthy the program is, how it is nutritional, easy to follow and not too hard on a food addict like me who simply has to have a chocolate fix every now and then. But the reason why it worked for me is simple, I can sum it up in just one word. Control.

I admit it - I am a control freak. I like to have everything my way, and if you tell me not to do something, I will instinctively want to do it even more. I accept this part of my personality (not sure if my husband is quite so comfortable with it mind you!) and I deal with it. Diets have never been great for me because if you tell me I can't eat any more chocolate, cakes, or sticky toffee pudding between now and next Christmas, the craving will be so strong I will literally knock you over on my flee to the nearest supermarket. It just does not work. But here's the thing. As well as being a freaky control-obsessed woman, I am also quite intelligent, with a slight leaning towards the scientific and a preference for understanding why things work. Weight Watchers was literally written for me!

Being, as mentioned, not entirely without brain cells or education, I did understand in my pre-weight watchers years that more food = more weight, and more calories = more weight. However, dieting conflicted so violently with my own personality (and still does to be frank) that this knowledge just led me down the crash diet path. I would wake up one day and find my clothes didn't fit, and resolve not to eat for days, until I was so hungry I would eat the entire contents of the fridge in the middle of the night because if no one else sees then the calories don't count right? Sadly, this did not work (if it did I would be writing my own diet program and making millions my now!), and I soon found myself 5 foot 6, and heading speedily for 200 pounds. Only 22 years old, when I found that my favorite shop did not sell clothes to fit my post-Christmas self, I decided there had to be some

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