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Senior Member
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Wausau, WI
Posts: 13,383
S/C/G: SW:394/310/180
Height: 5'6"
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I do think that you'll find most TOPS groups are much closer knit and much less impersonal than Weight Watchers, and that closeness and more personal atmosphere can feel intrusive when you're used to the relative impersonal, anonymity of Weight Watchers.
I joined my first TOPS group about twenty-some years ago, I'd guess (in my early to mid- 20's). At the time, I had mixed feelings about the group. On one hand, there was initially no one my age (and eventually a girl would join who was a couple years younger than I and we would become gym partners). Most of the other members were 30 years or more my senior, so at first I found it hard to relate to what I saw as a group of "nosy old ladies". Having been used to the anonymity of WW, it took me a while to get used to the closer, more intimate and personal atmosphere of that particular TOPS groups. In many groups, members are encouraged to send cards and make phone calls of encouragement to each other during the week, and I found that very disturbing at first (though to be fair, I've never been in a group where this was widespread - still I find it incredibly silly now that I felt so uncomfortable receiving the occasional a "have a nice day, hope you're doing well this week" greeting card).
Eventually I learned that I didn't have to send anyone cards or calls if I wasn't comfortable doing so, and I eventually really warmed up to that group as I discovered that the very parts I hated were the parts I needed most. I was uncomfortable with the "sharing" at role call (we all shared whether we gained, lost, or "turtled" (stayed the same), but I also realized that no one had ever been unsupportive of anyone (unlike my many years in Weight Watchers where the weight recorders would at times make condescending or judgemental comments - such as saying "better luck next week" when I had a small loss. In all the TOPS groups I've ever been in, ALL LOSSES and even all turtling is celebrated (everyone claps for the member after they've shared that they've lost or stayed the same, and if the person has gained, we say "We're glad you came.")
I also learned that many of the "old" ladies saw life very much as I did, which was a really good experience for me at the time, to realize that there wasn't really a lot of difference between 23 year old overweight woman with an outgoing personality and an irreverent sense of humor an 83 year old overweight or formerly overweight woman with an outgoing personality and an irreverent sense of humor. I learned that age wasn't much of a social barrier - I had more in common with some of the funny old ladies than the woman (2 years younger than I) who became my gym buddy.
That group ran a lot of contests (and some of them were kind of lame, but it's kind of what you come to expect when people volunteer to run the contests. Some are good at making fun contests, and some aren't).
I lost about 70 lbs in the group, and then moved for my job. I didn't like the TOPS group in my new location. Ironically the groups were everything I thought I wanted when I joined my first TOPS group. The groups in my new city were as impersonal and anonymous (and almost clinical) as WW meetings, but by that time I didn't want that anymore. I'd come to enjoy and really benefit from the "family" atmosphere of my former TOPS group.
In hindsight, I wish I had just driven the 90 minutes every week to my "old" meeting - or been brave enough to put up flyers at work, or at the colleges in my new city (it was also the city I went to college in, so I could have easily helped create a new chapter that was more to my personality). I just wasn't persistent enough in finding or recreating a group like my old group (or just had sucked it up and made the commute once a week).
In my current area, there are four TOPS groups, and each is very different from the other (well at least the three groups I've attended). One is new, so I haven't heard anything of that group yet.
I like my current group the best, and they're more "invasive" than most, in that the weight loss is taken more personally - but it works. Our group has won state recognition for weight loss both for individuals and for the group.
Instead of just reporting our status (gain, lose, or win) our group shares the amount. You can opt out, no one will force you to share the amount, but since everyone else does, this doesn't happen too frequently. At first I hated this, and then I realized - everyone cared in a good way, and no one cared in a bad way. The only weights we remembered five minutes after hearing them was our own, and maybe that of the person who had won the best loser prize for the week.
Our group sings silly songs about weight loss during the beginning few minutes of the meeting. This was almost a "dealbreaker" for my husband, and I have to admit that I would have found it (and did find it) really strange and uncomfortable when I was younger (I'd only encountered a group that sang in meetings once and I never went back).
Now, I find the singing fun, even as I'm rolling my eyes at some of the nonsense of the songs themselves. It's supposed to be fun, and if you don't find it fun, you just have to weight about 45 seconds and it's over (and as I've said, most groups don't sing)
... but every chapter is different, because except for the national chapter bylaws that every chapter has to follow, all the bylaws are decided upon and voted on by each chapter. Each is self-governing, so there are no diet "experts" and there is no one "selling" you anything. There are some books and tools you can buy, but it's all optional, and not pushed in the least (because no one is making a profit here - this is a not-for-profit organization and money made in excess of operationg expenses is donated to obesity research (The Medical College of Wisconsin dedicated the TOPS Center for Obesity and Metabolic Research to recognize the $4.5 million that TOPS Club, Inc. had donated for medical research, at that time. Current donations to obesity research exceed $6.5 million).
No specific food plan is endorsed (though the Choice is Mine book does offer information on a couple different calorie-counting based approaches including exchange plan dieting).
And if you can't find a group you like, anyone can start a new chapter with only four members (not that long ago there was an article in the monthly newsletter that talked about (forget the term they used) private or "closed" chapters, these are chapters that aren't open to the public. Often these are groups made up of family members, coworkers, or a close group of friends... Many of these small groups don't charge any monthly dues at all (again because if you start a group, you get a vote in how it's operated). If you gather four or more like-minded folk, you can pretty much make TOPS anything you want it to be - as long as your group operates within the national guidelines (you can't for example have a potluck at every meeting - chapter food events are limited to two per year, although many groups do circumvent this somewhat, for example one group I belonged to met for dinner after the meeting each week)...
Because each group is different, if there is more than one group in your area, it really does pay to visit as many chapters as you can to get a feel for which is best suited to your personality, and really it doesn't take a lot of work to start your own chapter if you want something completely different - you just have to find three other people who feel the same way. It's not at all unusual for TOPS groups to branch off from one another (either because the group gets so big that dividing it in two makes sense, or because people meet others like them who want something a little different and decide to create the group they want).
In my last TOPS group, that splintering probably SHOULD have happened, because there was a lot of disagreement over how the meeting should be rung, and it mostly fell into two camps. One that wanted meetings to be rather long, and accomodate a lot of personal-story and idea sharing, problem solving and fun activities (one woman in that "camp" organized a very fun field trip to a grocery store in which a dietitian conducted a tour - I thought it was a lot of fun), and the other camp that wanted meetings to be very, very short and business-like (everyone weighs in, conducts the absolute minimum business required by the national by-laws and everyone leaves as soon as the minutes from the last meeting were read).
I was of course in the first camp (if all I wanted was a weekly weigh-in, I could have arranged that with my doctor).
So in a nutshell, TOPS can be anything you want it to be, and if you can't find it, you can create it if you find people who want the same from a group that you do (and yeah it sounds like a pain in the @#$ to find 3 people who think like you, but really it boils down to what are you willing to do to get what you need. You can find it, or you can make it... either way it's up to you).
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