Sue Carvalho sits behind a folding table at the First Christian Congregational Church in Swansea. Each person who enters the room greets Sue, steps on a scale and hands her a little book, a record of their weight loss. As Sue records that day’s number, some are happy to have simply maintained their weight. Others expect to be lighter. Every tenth of a pound matters.

It’s Sue’s Wednesday evening Weight Watchers group. Minutes before the meeting begins, Sue rushes from the room, then re-enters dressed as a rather loose version of Christopher Columbus. She’s wearing a fur coat and a beret, holding a telescope made from paper towel rolls. “She’s looking for lost pounds,” says one of the group members.

“The only thing I could think of when I put this on was that I looked like a white version of P. Diddy,” says Sue, as the room erupts in laughter. “Did you know who I was?”

Sue has been Houdini, a belly dancer, the Pink Panther. She’s performed Weight Watchers rap, and when exercise was the theme a few weeks ago, “my husband dashed into the room and we did ballroom dancing.”

Sue, 53, a production scheduler for a jewelry manufacturer, says she was an overweight teenager. Throughout high school and into early adulthood, Sue was 50 pounds heavier than she is today. “I have probably done every weight-loss plan you can think of. I even took up smoking, thinking it would help me lose weight. It didn’t, so then I was a person who was overweight and smoking.”

Sue married at 42. “I thought just because I was going to be a bride I would lose weight. That didn’t happen.”

She joined Weight Watchers, vowing to think of losing weight differently. “I told myself, ‘I’m not going to think of it as punishment or something bad. I’m going to think of it as a process I need to go through and I’m going to enjoy the process.’ ”

In keeping with the night’s theme of “dream, explore and discover,” Sue asks her group: “What are your dreams?”

“Finding love again,” calls out one woman.

“It’s overrated!” says another.

“Does anyone have a Weight Watchers dream?” asks Sue.

“Wearing a bikini!” shouts someone.

“Have you written down or told someone about your dream? One of my dreams was to do the Danskin Triathlon. I talked about it. I asked my girlfriend to do it with me. Now it’s a commitment between the two of us. So I have to do it..”

One member proudly declares that she ran a 10K this summer — “I wanted to try to be a runner and the 10K was my dream.”

Another member talks about her dream of learning to drive an 18-wheeler.

“I’m known as the corny leader, but people feel comfortable here,” says Sue, who’s maintained her goal weight for eight years. “They know if they say something quirky it’s okay. If I get up here dressed like Christopher Columbus, they feel comfortable enough to say ‘I would like to drive an 18-wheeler.’

“I need this group as much as they need me. It’s as important as going to church, earning an income, or working on my marriage. We all want somebody to believe in us, and I like to think that when they come here, they know that there’s someone who believes in them. “I see myself doing this forever. I’ll be up here as a little old lady leading this Weight Watchers group.”

cgrosch@projo.com