Counting Calories Vs Counting WW Points

AlexiaC47

I am a firm believer that all plans/diets/lifestyle eating changes "work". If you follow them. Some are better for certain people, some are healthier, and some are better long-term. I remember I did Atkins and it was the single most quick extreme loss ever- but completely not maintainable after a couple of weeks.

I was on and off WW for many years and successfully lost and kept it off. But after many years I got lazy and sloppy with it. But it taught me lessons on how to eat and mentally keep "some" control, even if not tracking.

For me, MFP is kind of similar, but new and exciting. I have high cholesterol and love that I can track macronutrients. I am already losing weight on MFP in just a few days! (But if I was on mfp for many years, I probably would be excited about switching to ww)

domeofstars

I hated counting weight watchers points. It might work for some people, but not for me. Calories are king, always.

DonnasJourney0805

@Raegold ...just reading this.. I totally agree 100%... I'm finally making the move to calories 🙏

yirara

Personally, for me WW would not work. If I had started out with them back then I might have thought: Hey, I could use my points to have a bag of crisps instead of dinner. Not very filling but yummy. And then fight the hunger with apples, bananas, a steamed piece of fish with lemon, ginger and chili. Cool! I guess I can eat a lot of 'free' foods throughout the day - and then use the points for snacks. Of course people who generally don't eat a lot of these foods will benefit from it and maybe learn new habits. Is it necessary though?

Kiernla

I've used WW in the past, and have binging issues. It didn't work very well for me, and there were a couple reasons for that. I ate so much in 0 point foods (think 5-10 servings of fruit daily) because based on the plan, I could. Also, the meetings weren't all that helpful for me. I tended to be both on the younger and fatter end in the meetings in my area, and my tastes and habits were clearly different from many others', so advice *I* could use was sparse. Finally, some meeting leaders would push WW products hard. I had no interest, and having them act as salespeople reduced my trust in them as advisors.

beautyonthebeach83

I lost 90 lbs on WW back in 2004 and kept it off for 5 years til I had back to back pregnancies (the second with modified bed rest.) Even then I didn’t gain it ALL back, but I had a good chunk to lose. I started WW again in early 2013 but I didn’t love spending so much money to feel like I was starving all the time.

A friend told me about MFP and I joined in May 2013 and haven’t looked back, especially when I inputted my average day of WW eating on MFP to find I was often eating only 1000-1200 cals. 😳 There is a wealth of free information online! No reason to pay for it unless you really, really need the accountability of a program. (I actually did when I was new in ‘04 but everyone is different!)

DonnasJourney0805

@beautyonthebeach83 ... That is the struggle I'm having on it.. my calories are often below 1200 and I know that's not good for that often. 😩

rsj7799

I'm a lifetime member of weight watchers and their new system isn't that bad, but calorie counting is going to be a lot better if you are going to log accurately and weigh your portions. I think they just assume people will not weigh their portions and eat more than they are supposed to so as others have said your calories can be set too low if you are being accurate and don't go nuts on the zero point foods. Ultimately the problem is 1) you can make yourself nuts trying to figure out exactly how much to eat esp. when you get close to goal and you are in the slowest part of your weight loss and 2) it costs money.
Weight watchers really only has value if you like the support of the meetings and need the accountability of the weigh ins (which again cost money, and probably aren't even happening due to COVID). Paying to just use the app is imo, a waste. Spend $15 on a digital food scale and that's really all you need to lose weight counting calories.
The weight watchers social networking feature is also filled with every bit of BS diet "science" you can ever imagine (It is not really moderated for any kind of accuracy). You will get much better advice on these forums, although ironically, I actually learned about MFP from other members of WW.