Weight Watchers Freestyle- Not Working

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I'm an older guy trying to drop about twenty pounds. I started with WW late last Summer and by December I dropped from 210 to 201 or so, I was elated. since then all I do is bounce around between 201 and 203. I keep track of my points religiously, exercise, etc. I am just stuck. From my research I think that program has a lot of that; a good loss at first followed by stagnation. I am going to try this program and see if I can get a restart. Anyone else experience this with Freestyle?

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  • MikePTY
    MikePTY Posts: 3,814 Member
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    Here is the problem with a program like freestyle: It assigns points based to a large extent off what it considers to be a moral value of a food, not actually a calorie value. So there are lots of "bad" foods that have a high point value for their calorie total, but there are so called "free foods" that you can eat as much as you want and don't cost any points. The problem is, weight loss doesn't work like that. A calorie is a calorie, whether it is from a good food or a bad food. So if you are eating a lot of the free foods, you may not be eating at a calorie deficit, which is causing your stagnation.
  • vggb
    vggb Posts: 132 Member
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    I was doing the same thing but not with WW. I was 'forced' to pay attention to portion control as well as calorie consumption. I learned that I can't accurately eyeball a portion. What I thought was normal to small was probably a double portion. The portion control got me back on a losing trend and I have begun to lose steadily again. I have lost 8lbs since. Good luck with your continued weight loss.
  • jillery0210
    jillery0210 Posts: 5 Member
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    Hi, Yes, that is one of the reasons I ultimately quit WW. I had lost 55 lbs in 9 months on the previous plan. Then with the switch to Freestyle, I just bounced around with the same 5 lbs. Admittedly, part of it was my issue - I need strict accountability, none of this "you don't have to track certain foods". They always said free doesn't mean no calories, which I get, but I need to track exactly what I am eating.

    As the poster above said, they do assign values to foods, which actually initially I didn't think was too bad as the values made sense to a degree. And I felt in kept me in check from eating too much sugar, fat, etc. But then I started playing headgames trying to maximize my points instead of actually paying attention to eating when hungry, tracking all food etc. I ended up double tracking points and MFP, and my calorie intake varied huge from day to day for the same amount of WW pts.

    Regarding the bouncing between the few lbs, I noticed on Connect (WW social media platform) many people struggling with the same issue.

    I like the ease of MFP. I like tracking everything. I am doing KETO now, track everything, seems to be going well.

    Good luck!