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After

Before	Name Lisa Age 37 Height 5'2" Was 150 lbs Lost   38 lbs* Weight 112 lbs As of 16/07/2004 *Results not typical.
A few months after Lisa began working at Weight Watchers, she decided to bring her work home. Here, 38 pounds lighter*, she shares her insider secrets.

Take it from a Weight Watchers employee: At the risk of sounding like a bad commercial, the new plan is not your mother's Weight Watchers. I'm a modern, single woman. I consider my best friend the microwave and my second best the computer, and I like to live at my own speed. When I decided it was time to drop the weight, I wasn't sure that Weight Watchers was the diet for me. I thought it was too retro. But I soon discovered that Weight Watchers had changed a lot over the last couple decades, and my independent nature is the very thing that made the plan right for me.

Bye-Bye Diet Pills

I am the original emotional eater. Happy, sad, lonely, any feeling was a great excuse for a jumbo cheeseburger and a slice of cheesecake. Hey, you copy what made you comfortable in childhood: Whenever something was wrong — or right — my grandmother would hand me a cookie. By the time I started working here, two years ago, I was 150 pounds, and at 5'2", I felt short, fat and basically invisible.

The Convenience Food Queen

My diet shakes, pills and get-thin-quick schemes just weren't doing the trick, so, somewhat warily, I subscribed to Weight Watchers Online. Every preconception I had just went out the window. Was I going to have to rush home from work every night to make dinner? (I am basically a non-cook.) Nope — my precious convenience foods are on the plan! Would I have to tell a stranger how much I weighed every week? No ma'am, not if you do it online. Would I feel hopelessly uncool? Uh uh. Any plan featuring this kind of savvy technology and so many smart articles is pretty darn hip. (Watching my weight decline on the Progress Charts is fun!)

Stick-With-It Tricks

Encouraged, I even started exercising again. Since I get bored easily, I developed all kinds of tricks to keep me motivated: the promise of a post-Stairmaster soak in the sauna, funky music on the treadmill that makes me feel like I'm running a marathon, and my favourite — high-energy, competitive kickboxing on the weekends.

But the greatest thing that Weight Watchers has helped me do is break the food-emotions connection. I know my family meant well, but food does not have to be the focus of one's life! It's only when you separate eating and emotions that food stops being an enemy — and can bring you pleasure again. I no longer stuff my face until I'm bloated, thinking that'll make me feel better, but I DO still eat out with my friends. A life without Mexican or Chinese food is, well, no life for me!

Lisa's Tips for Quick and Easy Eating:

• 94% fat-free popcorn — try flavouring it with chili sauce
  
  
• Frozen meals for lunch or dinner (they're convenient, cheap, there's lot of variety and many offer low POINTS values)
  
  
• Low-fat Chocolate Pudding (POINTS value = 3) with 2 tablespoons fat-free Cool Whip (POINTS value = 0)
  
  
• A scoop of regular ice cream (POINTS value = 4) — skipping the cone saves POINTS
  
  
• Juice or sports drinks instead of soft drinks

Lost weight on Weight Watchers and made it to goal? Want to be a Success Story? Apply to get your story published on WeightWatchers.ca. E-mail successstories@weightwatchers.ca to get started.

Lisa needed a diet that allowed her to live her normal, city life. Find out how you can lose weight and still be as social as ever by reading Surviving Happy Hour.

Subscriber Highlight: Nothing puts your weight loss in perspective — or motivates you more — than seeing it charted. Check out the Progress Charts to see your own weight-loss journey.

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