The problem with Weight Watchers...

....is that their plan is almost certainly absolutely correct.

I'm not actually on WW, as most of you know. Because there is no WW
where I live (Japan) I ended up devising my own diet. But I participate
in this group because it turned out that the plan I came up with
mirrors WW very closely. I just use calories directly instead of "flex
points". But the ideas are all very similar - a daily target limit of
calories, a week bonus to spread out over the week. Counting activity
to let me eat more, etc.

But after 84 weeks and about 100 lb lost, my weight loss has come to a
stand-still. My current BMI is 26.0. To get down to the upper limit of
"normal weight" I still need to lost about 10 more lb.

At this morning's weight of 176 lb, I figure that since I average about
1700 net calories a day that my CPP (calories per pound) needed to
maintain my weight must hover about 9.6 - 10. In other words, I'm
eating about about balance right now for this weight.

WW would tell me I need to eat closer to 1200 calories/day to keep
losing weight. Then maybe add points back until it comes to like 1600
calories/day to maintain it. And they would be correct, I'm sorry to
say.

So I am faced with the following choices (because of restrictions
imposed by reality):

(1) Eat less to lose more weight and then eat less FOREVER to maintain
it. I would find both very difficult to do, I'm afraid.

(2) Exercise like three times as much per day than I am doing now.
Sounds nice, but I know myself. That would be really hard to do.

(3) Try a different kind of exercise that I wouldn't necessarily count
towards activity points, but that I would try to do to increase
muscles. Like weight lifting. The idea here would be that more muscles
would naturally increase my body's metabolism thus allowing me to lose
some more weight without eating less. I'm going to investigate this
some more, but I don't know what is really required. I'm not ready for
2 hours of lifting weights a day...

(4) Just be happy with my current weight and maintain it! Hey - I'm
already at a weight I never dreamed I would achieve in my adult life. I
fit comfortably in an ordinary L size shirt (down from like 5L at
peak). My pants waist size is a comfortable, even loose, 36", down from
like 52" or more. And I fit in comfortably everywhere now - economy
seats on planes, booths in restaurants, etc.

I think I'll aim for something between (3) and (4) and see what
happens. I don't think I am ready for tweaking my calorie limits yet...

doug