When Sara Pereda, 35, lost 7 pounds on Weight Watchers in 2007, the Upper West Side woman thought she’d finally achieved a body she could be happy with. Instead, she felt tired and defeated, as she struggled to maintain her weight.
“I would lose a couple of pounds and then would put [them] right back on,” says the 5-foot-4 Pereda.
By April 2015, she was 12 pounds heavier than she’d ever been, weighing 165 pounds and wearing a size 12 dress. “I even ran a marathon, only to gain weight!” she says.
Pereda, who works in finance, isn’t the only one to have such an experience on Weight Watchers. Her trainer and nutritionist, Ariane Hundt, 40, says she regularly sees people who have struggled with the popular diet, which she claims damages people’s metabolisms, making losing and maintaining weight difficult.
“When clients come in that did Weight Watchers, they usually have a high body-fat percentage and have lost a lot of muscle due to lack of protein, low calorie intake and lack of strength training,” Hundt says. “When you lose muscle, your metabolism slows down. Eating less and being active only works for so long.”
In 2015, Hundt created a plan targeting clients who have been through Weight Watchers and failed. The $299, four-week program includes 15 boot-camp-style workouts to build muscle and a class on nutrition that advises participants to amp up their protein intake, cut out sugar and take probiotics and other supplements to benefit their digestive systems. Hundt also counsels clients to get plenty of sleep and to avoid exercising too much and eating too little.
“You need to build muscle mass and eat a clean fat-burning diet to boost metabolism,” she says. “It’s a matter of creating a healthy nervous system and reducing the stress response, normalizing thyroid function, proper digestion and creating a healthy hormonal balance.”
It worked for Pereda, who followed the program in 2015.
“In the first month, I lost 4 pounds,” says the investment services firm manager, who now weighs 148, after losing 17 pounds and 7 inches from her waist. “My life is so different and I look at food in such a healthier way.”
Hundt says the principles of the program are based on the law of metabolic compensation, a theory studied by the department of exercise and sport science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2014. Basically, the harder you work to lose weight, the harder your body works to hold on to your remaining fat, which slows your metabolism. Claims similar to Hundt’s made headlines recently when it was reported that many of the contestants on NBC’s “The Biggest Loser” regained weight after the reality TV show ended.
“You can absolutely damage your metabolism to the point that losing weight is difficult no matter what,” says Dr. Caroline Cederquist, a Florida-based obesity expert and the founder of the bistroMD diet plan.
Makeup artist Shibani Gambhir, 42, has been on and off Weight Watchers for 30 years and has struggled to permanently keep off any weight she’s lost.
Eight months ago, she lost 5 pounds on the plan only to gain 8 pounds back shortly after she stopped using Weight Watchers.
“Every time I would come off the program, I would gain weight,” says the Murray Hill resident.
Gambhir began working with Hundt in June 2015 and has now lost 3 pounds — a significant amount because she’s only 4-foot-11 — and dropped two dress sizes. “I am down to 112 pounds,” she says proudly.
Not everyone agrees with Hundt’s philosophy, though.
“Weight Watchers is not ruining [people’s] metabolism,” says Erin Palinski-Wade, a registered dietitian, certified diabetes educator and author of “Belly Fat Diet for Dummies.” “It has been one of the only commercial weight-loss programs to show long-term success for a high number of participants.”
For Myrna Lopez, 55, the problem wasn’t keeping the pounds she’s lost on Weight Watchers off, it was hitting a plateau.
In 2009, she dropped 60 pounds on the diet, slimming down from 212 to 152, but then her progress stalled.
“[I] stopped losing weight, and had no muscle tone,” says the 5-foot-4 Brooklyn resident. “It was all flab.”
Lopez, who started working with Hundt in February 2010, has since become a personal trainer herself and is now a toned 140 pounds.
“I [have become] one of those women I had admired for so long,” she says.
Gary Foster, Ph.D., the chief scientific officer at Weight Watchers, disputes Hundt’s claims. He says that weight loss does not result in a significant metabolic slowdown.
He also notes that Weight Watchers revised its program in December 2015 to focus less on calorie counting, taking into account the types of foods being consumed.
But new philosophy or old, Gambhir says: “I will never go back to Weight Watchers.”