Larry and Linda Theroux attend a Weight Watchers meeting in Warwick last year. After 3 1/2 years, they’ve dropped a combined 142 pounds and now fit into “regular size” clothes. No one recognizes them at weddings, Linda reports.

The Providence Journal / Glenn Osmundson

Linda and Larry Theroux of West Warwick weren’t competing to be the “biggest losers” when they went on a diet together a few years ago. They simply wanted to get into shape.

Linda’s mom had just undergone triple bypass surgery, after years of struggling with diabetes and other health issues, including three heart attacks in two days. When her mom suffered a debilitating stroke after the heart surgery, Linda knew she had to do something. She didn’t want to suffer the same fate.

Larry also had struggled with his weight all his life, going up and down like a yo-yo, 100 or more pounds at a time, every few years.

So they decided to lose weight together, and after 3 1/2 years, they’ve dropped a combined 142 pounds.

They now fit into “regular size” clothes, and no one recognizes them at weddings, Linda reports. Larry competes with people half his age in the martial arts. And they finally both fit comfortably on Larry’s Harley Davidson motorcycle.

Their combined weight loss has had such an impact on their lives that they’ve been selected among the regional winners in the Weight Watchers’ Inspiring Stories of the Year contest.

The contest features individuals and couples whose weight loss resulted in substantial “positive lifestyle changes and health benefits,” said Jessica Defilippo, a spokeswoman for the diet program. “It honors winners who have achieved the most remarkable results,” she said.

Coincidentally, NBC’s popular television reality show Biggest Loser is currently featuring couples competing for the most weight loss, including teams comprised of husband-wife, mother-son, a divorced couple, best friends, brothers, and former football teammates. One team is even comprised of total strangers, who didn’t meet until they were told they were being paired together.

The couple concept may sound hokey. But it’s a fairly successful strategy for losing weight, said Dr. Rena Wing, a Brown University professor who’s director of the Weight Control and Diabetes Research Center at the Miriam Hospital in Providence.

Weight-loss programs have proven to be quite successful when people join them together, whether for the moral support or for the friendly competition, Wing said. Parent-child efforts are particularly effective, especially because the parent generally controls the food and drink coming into the house. The parent also can “model the appropriate behavior,” such as exercising or eating fresh fruit as a snack. And, when two or more people in the house are working to lose weight, they can “arrange the environment” to support their goal.

But, Wing noted, “not all spouses are going to benefit by working together.” In some cases, she said, it depends on the relationship itself. If one person gives up the weight-loss efforts, the other may, too. And, in some cases, there can be examples of one spouse sabotaging another’s efforts by deliberately tempting him or her away from a diet, exercise or other efforts.

That said, many people benefit from support, Wing said. Whether it’s a group of family members or co-workers, the team concept can be helpful in providing support and friendly competition.

That’s what has made the three-year-old Shape Up Rhode Island program such a success, Wing said.

More than 11,000 people are signed up for this year’s Shape Up Rhode Island, which involves people forming teams to participate in a 12-week competition to get in shape. The competition pits teams against one another in a friendly competition to see who can lose the most weight, exercise the most hours, or log the most pedometer steps — or any combination of those. (This year’s contest began last month.)

But people can have just as much success on their own, Wing stressed; the bottom line is that people need to find what’s right for them when it comes to losing weight, she said. If that’s working with a spouse or other family member, a support group like those in popular diet programs, or a team of co-workers, that can be good, if taken in the proper spirit, she said. “It’s not really a competition of who can lose more. You’re really in this together, to help each other, and that has to be the overriding emphasis.”

Holly Specht, owner and founder of the Just Results weight-loss program with centers in Warwick and Kingston (a new one is opening in Cranston), agreed. “If you’re truly ready and motivated, you’re going to do it whether or not you have a friend,” she said. “But I also think when you have the support of a friend or family member, it’s easier.”

Specht created her program about eight years ago. She’d been working out of a gym, designing nutritional programs for clients, and decided to create her own business based on what had worked for her in the past. Her program involves one-on-one counseling once a week, with a weekly weigh-in and personalized menu planning depending on the person’s medical history, medications and other needs. “Everybody gets a different [menu] plan, but it’s all regular food you buy in a grocery store.” There’s a wide variety to pick from , she said, which makes the diet easy to follow and stick to.

Specht said her clients, who pay $70 a month for four one-on-one meetings, with weigh-ins and counseling, are about split in terms of whether they’re trying to lose weight on their own or with a family member or friend. “It’s all up to the person,” she said. “Some people are very private and want to do it on their own. Others want the support of a friend.”

Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, is among those who believe that teaming up is the way to go. A spokeswoman for Weight Watchers International, she said it’s critical to have the support of others during the battle for weight loss. “I think it’s key. I call it the buddy system,” she said in a recent telephone interview. Without the support of someone saying, ‘It’s OK, I know how it feels,’ it’s difficult to go on this journey.”

Once dubbed “The Duchess of Pork” by the British tabloids, Ferguson tried a variety of diets before settling on Weight Watchers about 11 years ago. She said she joined with a friend, but she quickly found supporters in the program, as well. “I had to go to the meetings, I had to speak to the leaders, I had to do it like everyone else was doing it.” And she still leans on that support now, as she continues to struggle to maintain her weight. “I still find food a problem,” she said.

That’s why she’s helping to promote the company’s new book, Start Living, Start Losing. It features profiles of people whose lives changed dramatically as a result of losing weight. Just knowing these stories are out there serves as inspiration and support, Ferguson said. That’s what she likes about programs such as Weight Watchers, she said, because they’re all about supporting one another in an effort to lose weight and get in shape. And it’s not all about dieting, she stressed. It’s about eating the right amounts of healthy foods — something that benefits everyone. When people sign up for Weight Watchers, they pay a flat registration fee of $20 and then $13 a week to attend weekly meetings that include a weigh-in and support group meeting. The program involves monitoring the types and amounts of foods eaten, to reduce total calorie intake. Participants can buy their own foods or buy those sold by the company.

Sheila Shaulson, a Weight Watchers leader who oversees about 18 meetings a week in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, said lots of people find their support among other people in the weight-loss program, she said. “If you find the right meeting, the staff and the meeting members become your second family.”

But it definitely helps if a family member or friend is on board — “someone to help motivate you 24/7,” Shaulson said.

In addition, she noted, it makes it easier to have a house that’s “environmentally friendly — to make sure there aren’t a lot of challenges, temptations and whatever.”

Shaulson said she tells people it’s great to have a spouse or friend to lose weight with, but she also says people shouldn’t wait until they find someone else to embark on a weight-loss program. “When you’re ready, you’re ready … It could take a long time to find someone to do it with you, and if you have to rely on somebody else, it’s not necessarily going to work for you … It’s like walking. If you rely on a buddy (to go for a walk), there’s so many times that buddy won’t be able to do it and that’s an excuse not to do it.”

With group programs like Weight Watchers, she said, “you don’t need to rely on someone else … You’re never alone.” There’s a room full of people who are there for the same reason. “Many times a member who comes in alone does not end up being alone because they find a person, or a couple of people, who they check in on during the week.”

Working together definitely made things easier for Robin Peck, 50, of North Providence. She works for the Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training, while her husband, Charles, 57, is retired from the highway department in Warwick. About two years ago, she decided she needed to lose weight and announced she was going to a Weight Watchers meeting. She was stunned when her husband said: “You know what? I’m going to come, too.”

Together, they’ve dropped about 185 pounds.

“I was in a [size] 26-28, and right now I’m in a 14-16, and I’m still going down,” Robin said. She doesn’t have any set goal weight in mind. “I’m taking this approach: One day at a time, one meeting at a time.”

And so far it’s working — better than she’d even expected, Robin said. “It took all the courage I had to walk through those doors” to the first meeting two years ago. “When I first started, I didn’t tell anyone I was joining because I was afraid I was going to fail.”

But that first week, her husband lost seven pounds and she lost 10 pounds. “And that was the incentive I needed,” she said.

Having her husband in the program with her makes it easy for both of them, Peck said. “I know some people that I work with who say, ‘I have to cook this for me and that for my husband,’ or, ‘My husband doesn’t understand why I’m paying to go [to Weight Watchers meetings].’”

But Peck said she and her husband provide each other with support every step of the way. She’s in charge of buying and preparing the food, while he encourages her to exercise. It’s a win-win situation, she said.

And they rarely miss their Tuesday weigh-ins and meetings, she said, especially since they have the support and kinship of everyone else there. “It’s like a family with that group.”

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Linda and Larry Theroux said they’ve each battled weight problems throughout their lives. They’d both slimmed down before they got married 23 years ago, but then the weight crept on until they decided to go on a diet together for the first time in 1986.

Linda, 54, who manages a group of orthopedists in Pawtucket, recalls how difficult it was to find clothes that fit way back then. “They didn’t have a lot of plus-size clothes, so I had trouble finding clothes that fit.”

Larry, 56, who does industrial radiology — taking x-rays of things like pipes to make sure they’re securely welded together — said his weight was see-sawing over the years, going up and down 100 pounds or more. It simply wasn’t healthy, he said.

So they joined Weight Watchers, and they dropped the weight, and managed to keep it off at first. But over time, it came back — and then some.

They could hide it at first, especially since Linda was working in a doctor’s office where she wore loose-fitting scrubs. “But I knew I was really, really huge,” she admits. Where she’d once worn size 10 clothes, she was now in size 22-24.

With the weight came the worries — especially when Linda’s mom became sick with diabetes. “It runs in the family,” Linda said. “My doctor said, ‘Linda, if you don’t lose weight, you get it too.’ ”

Larry also had his share of aches and pains that were weight-related, and he was tired of taking Advil just to get through the day. And, given his history of yo-yo dieting, he knew it was time to lose the weight for good.

So when Linda proposed going back to Weight Watchers, Larry agreed: “Let’s do it.”

They’d tried other diets, but Weight Watchers made the most sense for them.

“I wasn’t in the mood to weigh and measure and count [calories],” Linda said. Weight Watchers lets them follow a “core plan” that allows them to eat the foods they enjoy — as long as they cook them in a healthy way, control their portion sizes and load up on fresh fruits and vegetables.

“I’m able to adapt all my favorite recipes,” Linda said. “You just cook differently. I can have baked potatoes or mashed potatoes — just with skim milk and I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter.”

They lost the bulk of their weight in the first six months — which was among the most difficult time in Linda’s life, given her worries about her mom’s recovery and that her dad’s cancer recurred during that time.

She and her husband have been chipping away at extra pounds ever since.

Though Weight Watchers is popular because it’s easy to stick to, it’s not the only diet program out there, Wing and others said. Consumer Reports magazine last June ranked the top diet plans based on whether they were total weight loss, short- and long-term drop out rates, nutritional soundness and ease of use.

Volumetrics was ranked tops because it resulted in the best overall weight loss of any diet evaluated. This plan involves getting the “maximum amount of food per calorie” by using reduced-fat products, lots of vegetables and low-fat cooking techniques. Weight Watchers came in second, followed closely by Jenny Craig, which uses individual counseling but requires participants to purchase special foods as part of the weight-loss plan. Rounding out the top four was Slim Fast, a supplement used as a substitute for one or two meals a day.

The key to a weight-loss program, Wing said, is changing your behavior when it comes to food and exercise.

Experts agree that the best diet plans advocate regular exercise — though Linda Theroux admits she lost most of her weight without stepping foot inside a gym. She hated to exercise, but a few years ago bought an elliptical machine and now uses it several times a week while listening to books on tape to help pass the time.Larry, on the other hand, has long trained in the martial arts — starting with karate in the 1970s and later with Kung Fu. He exercises at least four times a week, primarily doing a martial arts routine called “kata” that promotes breathing, balance and strength.

The bottom line is eating right and staying active to be healthy, Wing said. It’s not easy, she and others stressed.

“It’s not an overnight success story by any means,” Linda said.

“It’s an ongoing thing — it’s a lifetime thing, it’s a lifestyle thing,” Larry agreed.

But it’s also a commitment, Linda said, noting that she’ll turn 55 in August and has vowed to be fit come her 55th birthday. “Personally, every day is a struggle. And if I am tempted, I’ll say, ‘Old habits, old me.’ And I don’t want to be the old me anymore.”Complaints filed against Pure Weight Loss

The Consumer Protection Unit of the Attorney General’s Office has received consumer complaints about the four area Pure Weight Loss centers in Woonsocket, Warwick, North Providence and Seekonk. Formerly LA Weight Loss centers, they were among non-independently-owned Pure Weight Loss centers around the nation that shut their doors when the Pennsylvania-based company declared bankruptcy in January.

The Consumer Protection Unit has received complaints from 21 consumers who had paid Pure Weight Loss for memberships and/or special food products, according to a spokeswoman for the unit. The Attorney General’s Office has sent Proof of Claim forms to all complainants. Those forms will be sent to the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Those forms are also online at www.pureweightloss.com. Rhode Island consumers with complaints or questions may call the Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Unit at (401) 274-4400.

Source: Office of the R.I. Attorney General

lkirk@projo.com