Joining Weight Watchers

Appleshape2017

I count calories and would never diet using points. My question is has anyone joined ww just to have a place to meet others on the same journey and have the weigh in. I have no intention of following their plan but like the idea of being weighed and encouraged.

NovusDies

What is wrong with their diet? My mother and a number of her friends got off all of their weight and my mother hasn't fluctuated more than about 5 lbs in 20 years. She goes on and comes off a few times a year. She knows the point system so well she doesn't even have to think about it.

skinnyjingbb

I did for a while two years ago, I joined WW for the meeting and accountability, but always used MPF to count calorie and didn't do the points and didn't buy any product. I lost more than 30lbs but then I fell off, I stop tracking and stop going to the meeting even when I was still paying for the membership and finally I cancelled. I though the meetings will keep me on track better than do it by myself but I didn't. But it might work for your so you should definitely give it a try.

HilTri

I did WW lost my weight and hit maintenance. I still go to weigh in monthly but don't really socialize with anyone because I prefer to count calories and lift heavy weights and I am no longer oncerned too much w my number on the scale but more so w how my clothes fit.

88olds

It’s a 2 edged sword.

Hope you don’t mind, this is me and WW. Starting at 285lbs, I lost to 215-220 on my own and was stuck there. Really stuck. In desperation I joined WW. All I knew going in was they wrote down what they ate and counted something they called points.

My starting weight -216lbs, April, 2006. By September, 2006, I had hit my goal of 184lbs. And in 6 weeks WW Lifetime. I sort of liked counting points, getting enough to eat within my number was like a puzzle game. (A secret- points are just calories in disguise. They can’t patent calorie counting.)

But unlike nearly everyone else I’ve met at WW, when I hit Lifetime I did not stop tracking and I did not quit the meeting. I tracked for 5 more years before I could maintain without it. But I still went to the meeting. Disclosure- the meeting was a few blocks from my house, it was easy to go. But I went nearly every week for 11yrs until I moved away.

So I hit Lifetime and kept going. Here’s how WW saved me. Maintaining is tricky. There would be times when I would let bad habits creep in. I’d eat a bit too much. Then the scale would start to creep up. WW gives you a 2lb cushion over goal weight, then you have to start paying again to go to the meeting. In 11 years I hit WI over my 184lb goal twice. Both times I started tracking again. Both times it worked.

The moment of truth. One day I showed up at WI uncertain of whether I would make the 186lb limit. It was the last day of the month. I had to weigh 1X per month. I thought about skipping. But everyone knew me. I was the only guy most weeks. Regarded as the nut who kept coming to meetings, they all knew my story. If I just disappeared, they would know why. I’d seen bus loads of people drop out of WW. But I had 9yrs in at that point. I was the meeting leader’s biggest success. I went to the meeting. WI=186lbs exactly, the highest acceptable number. By next WI, good tracking had got me back from the edge.

The bad at WW. The first thing I noticed about WW was the revolving door nature of the place. They come back and tell their story. “I lost 60lbs 10 years ago, made Lifetime, now I’m back to lose the 75lbs I’ve gained.” I vowed not to do that.

Then there’s the unserious efforts of most of the people. The meeting I attended was usually mostly about people struggling with tracking and why they weren’t doing it. “I did good until Tuesday when my sister brought over brownies, so I’m starting over today. “ If there were 20-30 people at my meeting, I bet maybe 5-7 track the whole week. Not a big meeting, in 11 yrs I probably saw 15-20 people make Lifetime. That’s out of 100s of people cycling through without making it.

If you want a place to hang with people pretending to do a program, it’s OK. If you aren’t counting points a lot of what they say will be irrelevant to you. I thought the program, if followed was terrific, but the underlying culture, not following the program that they are supposedly there for, and paying for, is very odd and not healthy.

Sorry this is so long. Had to get it out.

NovusDies

The bad at WW extends to every diet though. Half-hearted efforts, regaining weight, out and out lying like they hope they can trick the scale, and of course drop-outs. If that were not then there would not be so many overweight people and one diet plan would take over the world.

This place has plenty of those people too. I have been plenty guilty of being in a few of those categories myself over the years and trying my dead level best to *not* be one of them this time around.

SarahChick87mfp

I joined Weight Watchers about a month ago... I hated it! Their stupid app does not account for half inches, so my ‘points’ allowance was constantly wrong. In group my consultant used my height of 5ft 4.5 which gave me 29 daily points. On the app there’s no option to put that half inch, so I had to put that I was 5ft4... which meant that the app calculated my daily points to be 27. Every single day my weekly allowance was being chipped at because of something so stupid! So it became hard to keep track of how many weekly points I had leftover. Plus it messed up my Flex points as well.

On top of that...they advertise the convenience of just scanning foods and the app will automatically tell you the points value - well it seemed all my favourites were never in their database! So that ‘convenience’ feature was also useless to me.

I decided to email them to tell them that the app wouldn’t calculate my points correctly and that surely I can’t be the only person who is a half inch out? NOPE they didn’t care! Said they had no plans to change it etc...

Also, the cheeky sods like to take your next months payment 2-3 weeks EARLY!! They claim this is to ensure you receive your monthly pass on time - except I never once received my pass in the post... it was always emailed to me! So why the need to take the payment early? If you decide to cancel it, they won’t refund you either if you’ve already been billed... even if you’ve been billed 3 weeks early for the following month! If you do join, make sure you pay at group so that they can’t take your money and then refuse to give it back if you decide it’s not for you.