19 - Whatever Happened To...

I’ve been sick every day of the past two weeks save about three days, so this will be a short one. I know you’ll all weep tonight.

Those of you who are possessed of great memory may have a vague recollection of two Weight Watchers members who agreed to let me have a peek into their progress for a year. Well in my blogging hiatus the year mark came and went and I let the assignment lapse, much to my shame. When they both “unfriended” me on Facebook, my disgrace continued. When I got an “unsubscribe” request regarding the blog from one, I knew I’d really blown it.

I did manage to follow up with both of them around the four and a half month mark and both were gracious enough to at least let me know where they were at with the program now. So on those two things, I shall report. However I won’t attach names to experiences since they aren’t really on board at this point.

One of the participants had to leave the program by the four month mark because of a serious health issue. At this point, she continues to struggle with this issue and so far cannot go back to the program. She’s on a special diet presently, the goal of which is to control the illness that she’s dealing with, so Weight Watchers is just not an option. In our last contact, however, she did express the hope that at some point she would be able to meld her special medical diet with Weight Watchers because she had really enjoyed the supportive environment of the program.

The other participant kept an online journal for some time, which made it nice and easy for me to follow her progress (and still I managed to suck at keeping on top of it). At the point when I checked back in with both participants in July of 2008, she had been on the program about 9 ½ months and had lost 7.8lbs (net). When I checked back with her recently she said she was no longer on the program, but I don’t actually know if she reached her goal in the end or not. Unfortunately, when someone is asking to be unsubscribed it seems indelicate to ask too many questions.

So my less than scientific sample in this case didn’t work out so well, but here’s to better-conducted experiments in the future. There’s a Jenny Craig centre just a door over from my apartment building. Perhaps I can recruit some people there!