Weight Watchers is found to be the best way to lose weight

• Weight Watchers has seen some lean times, so to speak.
• The company's decades-old regimen of daily exercise, point-counting and monthly meetings hasn't been able to compete very well with the all-you-can-eat, low-carb diet craze of the past few years, and profits suffered.
• But just in time for New Year's resolutions, the Woodbury-based weight-control company may get a boost from a new study that endorses its low-fad diet.
• The study of a selection of weight loss programs, scheduled to be published next week in the Annals of Internal Medicine, found only Weight Watchers had strong documentation that it worked.
• The report was scheduled for release early next week but was published early by various news services.
• The study, along with rising company profits this year and a general waning in the low-carb craze, could mean more Americans are willing to work for weight loss, experts said.
• "I don't know if Weight Watchers will grow dramatically, but it has proven through the years to work," said Bob Goldin, executive vice president of Technomic Inc., a Chicago-based food industry research company.
• Weight Watchers is more of a lifestyle program than other weight loss plans, he said, which could come back in style as "common sense is now tending to prevail in dieting."
• Instead of relying on the point system it depended on for more than 40 years, the company in August 2003 launched a response to low-carb plans that eliminated point counting, said spokeswoman Jennifer Mitchell.
• Fewer consumers following low-carb diets could spell trouble for companies such as Ronkonkoma-based Atkins Nutritionals, experts said.
• "Our sales are still up," said Colette Heimowitz, Atkins vice president of education.
• "Most health experts have recognized that the low-carb craze is on its way out," said Melinda Johnson, spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association.