As you may recall, if you have read the beginning of this A to Z, the plan upon retiring was to regain fitness and good health.  That included weight loss so when a friend recommended Weight Watchers I found a local group and turned up to my first meeting.

The group leader was very informative and gave me lots of booklets to get me started.  In those days we paid in cash for each visit.  There was a little book for recording weight each week and suggestions for meal plans plus another book with the points value of most foods you might eat.  For an extra cost there were books to help with eating out, eating fast food and a more extensive food list.  I was given the total number of points I could eat in one day and off I went.

At first it seemed impossible to record everything faithfully but I was nothing if not determined and each week I was pleased to see the figures going down.  I know family and friends thought I was being fanatical as I refused to deviate from my eating plan even when visiting or eating out.  Reaching my goal weight I was able to relax a little but the conditioning had worked.   Akin to being under hypnosis, I now avoided anything fried or creamy or in any way weight inducing.

I had been going to Weight Watchers about a year when our group leader asked if I was interested in training to be a Weight Watchers leader.  I agreed, thinking that having been a teacher, it would not be all that different.  It involved several weekends of study with a senior leader going through the subject matter, discussing and role playing possible scenarios, looking at the history of the organisation and understanding the scientific theory behind the eating plans.  I would be supported with factual notes each week, suggestions to make group meetings interesting and a room full of products to sell.

I had my phone interview for WW at 11.00am and was told at any time I could pull out.  I kept thinking “do I want to lose my freedom?”  Then I thought “I need a new challenge” so I went ahead with the interview.  The material is arriving shortly and I will go into training thereafter.

Before my first meeting I accompanied other leaders to their meetings and usually took over part of the proceedings.  The first half hour was spent weighing each person and recording their statistics on their cards and in their booklet.  

With great relief I can now say I have completed a session of weighing.  I was very pleased that a person called L was there to show me what to do.  I am going back tomorrow.  I probably won’t have any help and there will be a lot more people there so hopefully I can put into practice what I learnt today.  

Sometimes people bought cooking books or boxes of snacks and this was usually paid for in cash or with a credit card using a cumbersome imprinter machine which pressed the raised card number onto a multi-copy, carbon slip. How I hated doing that. Teaching had not prepared me for retail.

  I did two credit card transactions and most importantly remembered to write on the back of all the stickers to double check who paid what.  Putting everything away took ages but at about 1.00pm we finally got outside.  

I wondered if I would still be able to go away on holidays and had my mind put at rest.

  I spoke to A afterwards about some aspects of the job and it seems that it is possible to take some time off for a holiday for as long as you like as other leaders are happy to take your meetings and earn a bit of extra money.

My first meeting was fortunately with the assistance of my trainer B.  Even so I slept fitfully the night before, waking up at one stage dreaming I had left my palm cards at home.  

I headed out to D at 9.15am and started unloading the car, talked to the woman at the desk who gave a quick rundown on safety and where to go for evacuation.  As a result we had to leave all the doorways out of the room clear of furniture.  B arrived soon afterwards and finally came M, the recorder.  It was a frantic rush, even with three of us.  I managed to break the storage cupboard lock trying to find a Weight Watcher’s Unlimited form (which I didn’t find).  There were three new members, all over 100kg.  Two of them said their main aim is to get to double figures.  Everything went well except I took the money to the bank without the deposit slip.  They wrote their own so that problem was solved.  

I spent the afternoon checking the WW paperwork and ringing B for advice.  I made the “Waterfall” phonecall which was recorded at the other end and consisted of financial and numerical details of the meeting.

Preparing motivational meetings was something that I enjoyed . One suggestion was to show the group a 5 kilogram piece of fat to indicate how much weight they had lost when they reached that milestone. Off I went to the butcher with my unusual request. It was difficult keeping it in pristine condition despite an esky and ice so by the end of the week the last group missed out.

I learnt a lot as I was preparing my presentations.

I spent the afternoon preparing for WW tomorrow.  The topic is plateaus.  I have a couple of aids I made on the computer.  One is a definition of metabolism – the fire within, written on top of a raging fire.  The other is a description of the weight loss cycle and how body first loses lycopone when less food is eaten, and this contains water so a lot of water is lost at first.  The lycopone loss is replaced by fat loss and fat has less water in it than lycopone so the weight loss slows down.  OK – then we have to look at ways to get the weight loss started again.  

Oils aint oils!  That was what today’s meeting was about so I took a box of different oils to the meeting.  We started with a quiz and then went on to discuss how to eliminate trans fats from our diet in groups.  At that stage 3 people got up and left – always a bit off-putting but we had 28 people through and sold over $200 worth of products.  We couldn’t get the sales to add up correctly so I had to check all my stock at home to get it right.

Another time we had fun estimating how much wine equals 100 ml and 150 ml. People were amazed at how little wine made up one standard drink.

After each meeting the money had to be banked.  It consisted mainly of cash and a few credit card slips.

I left half an hour early for WW and walked up the street to the bank carrying the money.  The bank had gone and was now a variety store so I asked at the Commonwealth and they said it was in the Stockland Centre but I only had 3 minutes until closing.  I streaked down to Stockland but they were just closing the door when I got there and would not accept my money even though I just wanted to put it down the chute.

Sometimes we just couldn’t accommodate all the different types of cards on our primitive machine.

 The only problem was a woman who wanted to pay with a Cirrus card but we told the woman we couldn’t accept it, only Visa and Amex.  She volunteered to go to an ATM but decided against buying the Choc Crisps, maybe because she was letting us know she wasn’t happy.

The dreaded supervisor would come to inspect a meeting to make sure everything was running smoothly.

I went to the WW meeting with a little bit of trepidation as T was coming to supervise.  I sent a text to M but she didn’t open it so she didn’t know until she got there.  Her daughter was with her which added to her stress levels although the child was very helpful and well behaved.  Everything went well and T gave some useful advice which I tried to apply to the evening meeting.  At night I accidentally went overtime by ten minutes.  Finally someone said they had to go home.  I worried about a mother and daughter who didn’t look very motivated but I did have a lot of new enrolments (7) which kept us very busy.

All the time the pressure was on to keep the sales of WW products high and the numbers of new enrolments increasing.  Keeping track of sales and new memberships was tricky.

I was looking forward to WW today with all the new products.  There were 4 new people and $256 worth of sales.  After the meeting S had a problem with balancing the books so we spent about 3/4 hours working it out.  Then we had to look at the problem of last week having too much.  We finally found someone who joined WWU (Weight Watchers Unlimited) but it hadn’t been recorded.  I rang the woman and she is bringing in the orange tear off slip next week.  I will send the money in then.

Sometimes there was some positive reinforcement which made it all worthwhile.

Today is Australia Day.  We had a few flags up at Weight Watchers.  27 people passed through, although only 12 stayed for the meeting.  One woman said she was inspired by last week’s meeting and lost 2kg.  She had moved from another meeting but found our’s much more to her liking.  Another was excited about going swimming for the first time in years after our talk about exercise last week.

The two meetings went well except I got to D and found I had left the booklets at home.  I rang John who brought them out and he didn’t even grumble.  The group enjoyed “Dem Bones” as an introduction.   In the evening a new member was so pleased about the meeting she couldn’t stop saying “Thank you.”

The weather didn’t always co-operate but people still turned up regardless.

What a day!!! M rang in the morning to say she was flooded in and couldn’t make it to the meeting.  I assumed very few others would as well but 17 turned up!!!  Fortunately I arrived early to deliver stock and had the room just about set up when people arrived.  However, I was faced with people buying huge quantities of food, credit card transactions, people buying ten week packages, new members.  A woman offered to do the weighing but I forgot to give her the cards to write down the weights and she put the other cards away so I had to guess the weight loss.  To make matters worse I had new members and had to be out of the room by 12.00.  Why does it all happen at once?  I had to literally throw everything on the trolley and sort it out in the storeroom.  I spent most of the afternoon doing the paperwork and was $9 out which wasn’t too bad.  Probably it was stock sold which I hadn’t recorded or maybe magazines.

Sometimes people got tired of waiting and were very vocal about it.

 A woman complained about waiting, saying she had a houseful of guests at home.  I asked the woman in the front of the line if she minded letting her in but she had a houseful of guests too.  The penny dropped that she wanted two to work on the weighing so I did a few but had to go and start the meeting.

Numbers fluctuated from too many to not enough.

The C meeting had only one person stay which was a bit embarrassing for both of us.  I showed her some of the exercise video to use up the last ten minutes as she seemed determined to stay the full hour. She wanted to avoid the grandchild at home!  

Although most people were lovely a very few were critical.

 One had joined up online to WWU so I sent her to M who weighed her and sent her back to me to fill in the paperwork.  I was a bit confused about recent changes in membership rules. She was quite arrogant, saying that I didn’t inspire confidence.  For some reason that rankled and I have not been able to get it out of my mind.

There were some interesting personalities at some of my meetings.

This morning there were no new people at WW but a woman from C’s class came.  I had been warned about her – she has some issues, and is very talkative.  It was difficult to keep her quiet in the meeting and then she eagerly asked questions afterwards.  

Weight Watchers went well.  There were 24 people with one new member.  My lady with the issues almost became teary but I managed to cheer her up before the floodgates burst.  She stayed around after the meeting, even looking in the windows as we were packing up.

Sometimes I had to fill in for someone who was away.  This could be quite daunting in an unfamiliar environment.

I arrived at the Salvation Army hall about 20 minutes early.  I hung around until 5.15 when finally someone turned up.  This was not the person with the keys but they managed to let me in.  We were however all set up by 6.00 and were then busy recording and weighing.  I weighed people too and was so busy I didn’t realise there was a new person waiting to join.  The recorder said she told me but I didn’t hear her.  It was noisy in there.  The meeting went OK although I could do it better tomorrow.  One woman queried me on using exercise points for extra food as she said that was not what their usual leader said.  I’m not sure now how well I answered that but I should have said if that’s the way her leader wants it, its fine by me.

My husband received some bad news.  He was diagnosed with a serious condition requiring surgery. Immediately everything else became unimportant.  I felt I couldn’t continue with WW which was consuming a lot of my time.

I talked to J from WW and told her I was thinking of resigning.  She supported me and my last meeting will be 15^th November, four day before John goes into hospital.  I sent my resignation letter to T so it is done.

Although I found being a WW Leader was stressful, time consuming and underpaid, I still enjoyed it.  For the first time I was teaching adults, not children.  They were there of their own free will and left if they wanted to. I especially enjoyed the meetings at AP.  The people there were so responsive. I devised a competition where people wrote their names on a nametag to be drawn out of a hat at the end of four weeks (my last day).  I planned to  give out a cookbook or something similar.

Saturday, 15^th November, 2008

The last WW meeting is over.  Before I left home I made up three presents, two for S and K with the Maggie Beer sauce in a Xmas bag.  I also wrote a note of appreciation to both of them.  The gift for the meeting was four little cook books in a white carry bag.  The meeting went well with everyone talking happily.  I told my news at the end and was surprised at how emotional they were.  P,  who never speaks,  nominated J to get up and make a speech of appreciation which she did very well.  She has no inhibitions so she waxed lyrical about how much I had inspired the group.  I must admit there were tears in my eyes which I did not expect.  I left the keys with K, dropped S off at her home but felt sad rather than liberated as I drove home.

 This morning after aqua jogging and breakfast John helped me carry all the stock down to the Prado to return it.   I hope that is the last of it and I never have to balance another product sheet.  On the way home I posted the last WW letter with great ceremony at FM Post Office and banked the money in Wollongong.

It was a great relief to be able to concentrate on one thing only, helping my husband recover after his operation.  That was fifteen years ago and he has had no recurrence of his condition.  Apart from some voluntary work here and there I have not been in the workforce since.

As for Weight Watchers (now WW) I used to go to meetings now and again just to keep on track. Of course face to face meetings stopped during Covid so I joined online to access recipes and to track my points and weight. I find this is not as effective as the group meetings as I lack the motivation that I had in those early years. I love food but its quality and usefulness as fuel for my body is always at the back of my mind, thanks to my conditioning at WW.