Kent woman turns inspirational ambassador for Weight Watchers

By Rochelle Adams
For the Kent Reporter

After losing 40 pounds and becoming an active leader at the Kent Weight Watchers center, local woman Debbie Hugo has been featured as one of the success stories in a new, recently released book.

The book, “Weight Loss Boss: How to Finally Win at Losing—and Take Charge In an Out-of-Control Food World” by Weight Watcher’s CEO David Kirchoff, shares various weight loss stories from real people who have benefited from Weight Watchers.

“It’s an amazing honor,” Hugo said of being part of the book. “There are a lot of us who are very passionate about success and how our lives changed. But to be one of the people singled out in that book, it’s an amazing honor.”

Hugo’s portion of the book tells the story of how she was motivated to lose weight after seeing herself in a Christmas video in 1989 and being surprised by how much weight she had gained.

“I guess after seeing yourself day in, day out, you don’t see it,” she said. “But seeing yourself in a picture or a video really hammered it home for me. It took me three weeks to make the decision to go to Weight Watchers.”

Even when she got there, Hugo was not sure she would be able to lose the 40 pounds she needed to lose. Instead of planning to tackle the full amount, Hugo said she decided to start with the smaller goal of losing only 10 pounds with the expectation of quitting the weight loss program after that milestone.

But once she met that goal, Hugo said she had the motivation to set and meet another goal of 10 pounds. This tactic of setting smaller goals added up until she lost the full 40 pounds she aimed for.

She said Weight Watchers taught her that losing weight is not just a quick fix.

“I’m a person who dealt with weight issues all my life trying one stupid thing after another, after another, after another,” Hugo said. “Nothing worked. I realize now that you have to do it longer than just a week to make it happen … It’s all about education. It’s all about making it become a lifestyle.”

After losing the weight, she started working at Weight Watchers in May of 1991 as a receptionist. She eventually moved on to leading Weight Watchers meetings. Through this leadership position, she has received recognition from Weight Watchers, which may be part of why she was featured in the book.

In the early 2000s, Hugo led a holiday project in the company’s Kent center that eventually reached a national level.

“I put out to my members that for every week you come in during this time period, whatever you had in weight loss, you needed to find a nonperishable food item that weighed (the amount you lost) that week,” she said. “You need to put it in a place of honor and I was calling that place of honor the ‘Weight Loss Shrine.’ And the hope was that every week, you would be able to add to that.”

At the end of the time period, the members brought in all of the food they gathered and donated the 3,000 pounds of food they built up to the Kent Food Bank, she said. This became a program she put on every year.

In 2007, Kirchoff was in the area and sat in on one of her meetings where she discussed the food bank challenge. He then took the idea nationwide.

“A little silly idea, by one silly woman bringing it out to her member … in the Kent center, motivated or generated that same thing across the nation,” she said. “The whole nation picked it up … In that process, Weight Watchers said, for every pound you lose, we’ll donate a dollar up to a million dollars to organizations to fight hunger. Not only nationwide, but worldwide. They gave out a million dollars for the last five years I think it’s been.”