Childless Wants Her Body Back

While awake at 3am in my hotel room the other night, I was watching an informercial for a workout system called "Mama Wants".  It seems like a great workout that's time effective and targets notorious trouble zones for women. I was genuninely interested in buying it. I may not have kids, but I've got a gut I wouldn't mind ditching and not a lot of time to devote to exercise.

But the longer I watched it, the more annoyed I became.  I understand that it's called "Mama Wants" and it's designed to be marketed to moms. Moms are hot right now. I totally get how marketing works.

An aside, back in 2006, Kathy and I were asked to author a tech book specifically marketed to women with a "girlfriends tone", heavy on the sass and girlie extras that one doesn't normally find in a tech book.  So we did and that was one of the biggest complaints about out it.  Some women didn't like feeling pandered to, they didn't like that "their" book was pink, etc. I respect that perspective, but our point of view on that was, "Thank you for your opinion, but you don't have to buy it.  If pink isn't your thing, buy a different book."  Everybody wins.  We didn't ever imply that the book was for every woman. It doesn't say "For all women" on it.  It just happens to be pink and has the word "girl" in the title -- a title that made sense for the pop culture at the time.

So I totally get that this system is targeting a niche and that I could do the workouts without being a mom and shut up about it or just buy some other workout.

This is more of a marketing critique -- a way they could have increased their sales.  I think they could have acknowledged that there are women on this planet that don't have kids that still could benefit from the workout.  Just one line in their informercial like "And it's not just for moms!" or throwing in a testimonial from a non-mom would have included a whole audience of women that they've virually excluded.  By not even throwing them a bone, they're basically saying "This workout won't benefit you unless you've carried a child", thereby implying women aren't important unless they are moms.

I realize that sounds overly sensitive or bitter even as I'm even typing it, but that was the reaction I had. Marketing is all about reactions, so I'm conveying how their marketing affected me. I'm not anti-mom -- I had a mom, my friends are moms. It's not about that. But you can't escape the mom frenzy online right now and non-moms would still like to be acknowledged once in a while. Guess what? We buy things, too. We have disposable income, even!  

Most women face the same trouble zones when they're overweight, baby or not -- glutes, inner thighs, triceps, and the all-important abdominals.  And in my opinion, all women need a stronger back, not just the ones with kids on their hips.  All women lift things, most carry groceries, do housework -- we can all benefit from those sorts of strengthening exercises. We can all benefit from these workouts.

I think, if they'd just added one line or one testimonial from someone who wasn't a mom in their marketing, I wouldn't have had this reaction. As I said, I understand the marketing tactic, I get the demographic it's trying to reach. But by negating the rest of the women on the planet, it just pissed me off.  That one tiny bit of copy, that one testimonial would have allowed me to accept, "Hey, that's their target audience, I can still do the workouts!" and go on to squat, lift and stretch to endless mom-related chatter. That would have been my choice.  But to broadstroke that it's for moms specifically makes me not want to buy the product at all. Sale lost.  And isn't that ultimately what it's all about?

But I guess their response could be the same as ours to our book, "Thank you for your opinion, but go buy another workout if you don't like it."  The difference is our book had pretty much the same technical info found in other tech books, served up in a fun, less-dry, girlie package.  I've not seen a similar non-mom workout.  It's too bad, really, the workout looks really great. 

We Meet Again, Again.

A few months since my last post and fortunately, only 4 lbs more than I was when I made it. I just got back from a mexican-food laden vacation in my hometown of San Diego, so... well, beans happen.

I kind of got stuck after 21 lbs. I got all the way down to 25lbs lost, but quickly gained those 4 lbs back due to... well, food. And Bravo's summer programming.

So, here I am, starting anew.  I've decided to scrap Weight Watchers for now. I think it's a fantastic program, but I was tired of paying for it, never went to meetings, and even with the new PointsPlus system, I felt frustrated. I felt guilty ALL the time because what I ate, even when it was a healthy choice, didn't always meet with their "approval". And after almost a decade, I'm tired of "watching" my weight. I want to lose it, not watch it. While I realize that losing weight, especially a large amount, is a lifestyle change -- I don't want to be a Weight Watcher for the rest of my life. I want to lose the weight and then maintain a healthy lifestyle. WW was starting to feel like a life sentence with how many times I stopped and started.

Again, no fault to the program, it works if you work it, but I was just tired of working it.

Enter Lose It!, which is similar to WW in that you log your food and your exercise, but there's a more cohesive social component that I like better. It feels a bit more modern than Weight Watchers in that aspect.  You can share your exercise and accomplishments to Twitter/Facebook, they have a mobile app and the best part -- it's FREE.

 It tallies my fat and my calories and all that jazz, as well as tells me how much of a deficit I have every day and I am totally nerding out over all the charts n' graphs n' reports. You earn badges, much like other social media these days, which is a minor, but fun incentive. It also allows me to tally in my Fit Bit automatically. I also like that working out for 30 minutes gives you real numbers. I was always depressed when I'd do what I thought was a good workout and get 2 lousy points.  Now I can see that an hour of water aerobics burns 400 calories. That makes me feel like it's *something* and not just a Tic-Tac's worth of effort.

We'll see how it goes, but a bunch of us have already started on it. Everyone is seeing results and everyone has plenty of calories left over at the end of the day they are free to eat.  Everyone, so far, has said that they feel less restricted, that overall, it's easier. I joined a few weeks ago, but wanted to wait until post-vacation to begin in earnest.  

I like that it tells me, at 2 lbs a week, by this time next year, I'll be at my goal.  It's in my face every time I log in -- by X time, you'll be X weight.  It's a constant motivator, a reminder when I feel frustrated, that there's an end point, there's a goal. With Weight Watchers (while its still a great program), I felt like i would be dieting forever.  

I still kind of follow WW in my head -- I'm long-trained on Points, but I can see where I may feel more freedom. And those philosophies and portion control ideas I learned on WW are invaluable. But now, I'm a big girl (no pun intended) and I know what I need to do. Hopefully, Lose It!, along with my support system of participating friends, will be the ticket to keep me on track.

Are you on Lose It?  Still doing Weight Watchers? What's your tool to stay on track?

The Unintentional Diet

Well, here I am... almost 6 months into 2011 and I'm down 21.2 pounds.  I'd hoped to be further along, but I got stuck around 17 lbs for a couple months and apparently, it just took a rather nasty stomach flu/food poisoning/prayer for a swift death to push me over the plateau.

I'm not recommending this method. I wouldn't recommend this to my worst enemy.  Well... maybe them, as long as they were going to live.

But, there it is -- even after rehydrating and gaining a couple pounds back when I was finally able to eat, I'm still down roughly 4 lbs since before I got sick this past Saturday. I know this is not a healthy way to lose weight and again, let me reiterate, I'm not recommending it, but I won't say I'm not happy to be off that dime I was stuck on for so long.

Strangely, I feel better than before I got sick. That's likely a product of a renewed psychological outlook based on the weight loss, but also I feel trimmer, more vibrant, as though in getting sick I had exorcised some kind of parasite that was weighing me down -- both literally and figuratively.

But likely, it was just some employee who didn't wash his hands before making my chicken tacos.

21 pounds down. Let's keep this going.