Having posted before in this thread, I'm not going to repeat myself but for many obese people, Weight Watchers doesn't work long term, it didn't work for me (more than twice, I only lost weight with it twice but had at least 4 periods in my life where I joined.)
The basis behind it is faulty. It assumes that losing weight is a merely a matter of overeating remedied by willpower. "Eat less, move more". Yes, there are some obese people who are overeaters but there are also slim overeaters. (This belief is what lies behind fat shaming, all obese people are assumed to be weak willed overeaters.)
It doesn't take into account that many obese people are insulin resistant (often many years before their diagnosis of diabetes. ) have a metabolism that is very efficient at storing fat. It doesn't explain why some members of my family can eat anything they want, as much as they want and never gain weight whereas others struggled. My mom has told me that when I was young, the neighbours wondered if I ate more than my slim sister. My mom told them no, I ate less and had a better diet! My mom even took me to the doctor to tell him that there was something wrong with my metabolism for this reason. She was told that they could not treat a growing child. (Good thing because the treatment then was amphetamines!) The same dynamic exists with my slim father and his obese brother.
My doctor and I had a discussion about this at my followup a couple of days ago. She told me that low fat diets don't work long term. I told her that eating low carb was much easier and that for the first time in my life, I had normal hunger and how on Weight Watchers I was constantly hungry, craving sugar and carbs. She now has 2 of us in her practice who have lost weight (my best friend has maintained a 98 lb loss for 1 1/2 years, I'm still losing) and both of us have seen substantial reductions in our hba1cs and daily levels. My friend who started with a hb1ac of 26%, - 206.7) now it is 5.0% - 31.1) at her last checkup (elevated because she had to have a shot of steroid in one knee), and has discontinued all of her meds except for 20 units of insulin at bedtime for dawn phenomena - she was on 3 meds and insulin.) I started out with a hb1ac of 7% - 53, after 3 months, it is now 5.6%. - 37.7. I've lost 40 lbs so far and I'm still losing (faster than I ever did on Weight Watchers.) BTW, my doctor is now recommending low carb eating to all her Type 2 patients.
I was a low carb skeptic for a long time. I thought it was unhealthy, very limited diet consisting of just meat and butter, no vegetables (it's often portrayed in the media this way.). That's totally wrong, I eat a lot of vegetables, just not the starchy ones (potatoes, sweet potatoes and corn) and I'm careful with carrots and beets (small amounts occasionally). Seeing the experience of my best friend first hand who initially struggled because she followed the recommended standard plate method with 1/4 plate carbs convinced me to go immediately to low carb eating after getting the diagnosis.