What’s happening with weightwatchers?

[MakingSpaceForJoy]

I do WW’s. Right now I’m maintaining a 2.5 stone weight loss. It works for me. It’s my go to diet. It makes me eat really healthily.

I got an email about them filing for bankruptcy because the chemical induced weight loss industry has decimated their market.

It says they are restructuring debt. Are they closing or does that mean they will continue on?

I’m so upset. It’s the only program that has ever made me lose weight and I’ve used it on and off for 26 years.

Surely you’ve got all the books and recipes and stuff by now though? Just keep using them.

Are you in Britain? I have an email that says everything carries on as normal

It’s an app. The books etc. have evolved and changed over the years. Also the accountability daily makes a big difference.

I am going to start taking notes, and print outs just in case.

It’s been a steady friend and help and I’ll be really upset if it closes down.

If that does happen I hope you can still stick to the principles of it. If you're in a group you could branch out and just do your own one without the WW fee or branding?

There's a whole section about it on their website:

https://www.weightwatchers.com/uk/here-to-stay

Perhaps they could promote themselves as particularly good for food behaviour ‘training’ and habits to fit alongside WLI and to continue into maintenance.

They already have a "GLP-1 Companion Programme" but I think it's a hard ask of people to pay for that monthly alongside paying for the medication. Maybe if/when the injections are more readily available on the NHS, that programme might be popular and enough to save their business model.

Everything is staying the same. I got an email which I havnt actually fully read but the gist of it was something about its sticking around and everything continues as normal.

Since WLIs came along they have completely changed weight loss strategy for millions of people, many just like yourself who struggled to lose then maintain using traditional methods such as WW and SW. People don’t want the comfort blanket of a diet plan for 26 years, they’d rather use effective, robust solutions to enable them to lead healthy long lives without the burden of fluctuating weight and the constant battle of food noise and biological imbalances that they cannot control otherwise.

WW is like the BlackBerry trying to keep up with an iPhone 16 Pro Max.

Somebody told me the other day they had gone bust. If find it hard to understand how.

What about those who regain after using injections? Surely developing good lifelong habits is key. WW helps some people to do that.

DOI I’ve never used weight watchers but I’m a doctor and those who don’t modify their habits regain. A robust strategy is ensuring you change diet and exercise too, maintaining weight loss is a lifelong battle. Even those on maintenance doses the appetite suppression can dip. So for some WW is a great idea. We’re all different. But I think the weight loss board on here will be full of posters desperate that they’ve regained weight. I see a lot of patients on mounjaro who eat less due to appetite suppression whilst on WLI but with no plan afterwards. I hope I’m wrong and people don’t regain.

Does WW (or similar) actually help people form good habits?? I thought there was very little evidence of that, and that regain happens just as much for traditional diet programmes as for WLI. WW relies on repeat customers just as much as new joiners.

As a Doctor you will also understand that for many people weight issues aren’t always habit based, food noise and the way someone’s body digests food are very difficult to control, it’s a lifelong battle. Some will probably put weight on after using the WLIs and then stopping using them if there is no change in diet and habits but the bulk of the hard work is done, they’re at a new starting point that was otherwise virtually impossible to achieve.

That is the key advantage over traditional weight loss attempts, use WLIs and you have a tool to wipe the slate clean, read the WLI threads, it’s a game changer for so many who wasted money and time of WW and SW plus every other fad diet going because simply doing it alone is impossible when you’re up against physiological barriers beyond your control.

If people regain after reaching their target on weight loss injections, are they going to be able to afford to keep going back on them? The main drawback that I can see is the cost of them.

If they afforded them initially they will likely afford them again, yes the cost can be prohibitive for people but there’s a heck of a lot of people who can easily afford them.

A lot of users spend way less on food which mitigates some of the cost.

Overeaters tend to overspend on food.

I imagine Nutracheck decimated their market in the UK also as they charge £30 a year for the app which is a hundred times better than the WW one, plus you get more nutritional advice for your money. I tend to think also that WW and Slimming World haven't captured the under 40s market ever very well.

They were very slow on the uptake on the tech front, SW even worse. Weightwatchers website/online offering was really good and ahead of its time in about 2004, for me, but when I returned to it a few years later it had all changed and was pretty rubbish. Plus they kept changing their plans every year which was tiresome. Then Mounjaro was the final straw. Take your meds, track your food on a cheap and effective app, done.