Weight watchers vs. MFP?!!

mynameisnutz

And to the other person who said you can binge on fruits and vegetables on WW...well, that's not really the right attitude and no, you aren't supposed to.

I agree that is not the right attitude. But let me just put it a little more blunt...How many people are here because they ate way too many fruits and vegetables and got fat? I would bet that would be NO ONE! Trust me, binging on fruits and veggies is not the problem.

If you ate 6 bananas a day along with the rest of your points, you would definitely get fat.

TK421NotAtPost

Does WW track your macros? I think that is always an important component in a healthy weight loss program. Protein is crucial...

dkk1953

I am trying both right now. However, I'm not using the new version of WW - I went back to the materials from 2004 when it was called Turnaround. That is when they introduced the CORE plan. I got to goal back then, kept it off for 2 years, then "life" happened and I regained most of it.
I have been a WW member since 1978, back when we had to eat fish 5 times per day. You have to find the right balance for what works for you. For some reason this new Points Plus plan was not "it".
I am logging into MFP, then printing it out on paper and adding up the points next to each entry. Yesterday calories were just under what they should be but the points were 4 over. However, I always used my weekly extra points so I would have been fine according to WW.

We'll see how it goes...............on MFP forums, are there "groups" anywhere...........i.e. former WW doing MFP or something like that?

Actavella

I was doing weight watchers from Febuary 2011 to recently. I cancelled my membership because I can do MFP for FREE and lose the same amount. with weight watchers I was not losing more the 2lbs a week tops! As a full-time student FREE is cool with me anytime!! Weight watchers is just points and thats it. You don't know how many carbs, protein, fat , sugar, or sodium you are getting with each bite! It's just POINTS FOR WHATEVER. I ate a 3muskateers bar one day and that thing was ONLY 4 points! Now I consider sugar and fat, that makes a big difference!

waterjogger

I've done both! I like MFP because it's free and is a lot easier to use. I switched because I have Diabetes and I needed a way to track the carbs and keep a close eye on them and MFP lets me do that easier. I'm not sure why weight watchers is saying you only have 1 point left-it may be the exercise that MFP gives you extra calories, and ww is not adding those back in. Either one you choose, just don't give up. We all hit plateaus where we don't lose for awhile.:flowerforyou:

dlpnrn2b

The way I look at it, everything here on MFP is free. There is no hidden charges and definitely plenty of motivation. Sometimes you have to put yourself out there and take what people say, but it's far worth it.

I agree!!! I did WW in 2008 and lost 48 lbs...felt great, went on a cruise and well it was gone from there... I re-joined in May but honestly do not like the new points plus method.. I loved the flex points progrma but it's too confusing to do that one with everything having the new pp on it.. and MFP is FREEE

cee134

The best diets are not diets but lifestyle changes. And they are the ones you are motivated to do. I like this site becasue stay motivated to eat healthy and log in. Sometimes it's hard, but the people are great and there is a common goal here.

I'm sure WW works, but the people I know that are successful with it, do it for life. It's hard to do a program for life. This site is free and teaches you and helps you log your calories. I will always be logging calories. But being healthy is worth the annoyance. And the people here keep me on track.

That's my 2 cents.

thin4life67

I have to say that I love WW. I have been very successful with it and am a free lifetime member. On the other hand I can say that WW doesn't work for everyone. Especially since the new Points Plus. My daily points allowance went from 18 to 29 with the new and improved plan. I gave it an honest 1 month and found it just wasn't working. It is stressed that you should eat no less than your daily points. I was already eating pretty healthy so it was impossible for me to eat 29 points worth of food. I spoke to my leader and she said as long as I was getting in all the guidelines I would be okay not eating all 29 points. The I gave SFT a try and found that a better fit. Now I only count points for what is not on the Simply Filling list using my weekly allowance. I've heard lots of WW members say how they "tweak" the new plan to make it work. I just started using MFP last week out of curiosity to see what I was really eating.

I'm not sure if you'll get anything out of this...LOL!!
Feel free to add me if you'd like.

kristidem

Much of what people have already said, I would second.... WW and MFP are similar, need to make a life style change to be healthy, eat the right foods, exercise. I did WW and lost 40 lbs. Mantaining weight here on MFP is better since the tool is free and the WW online is not. I did compare WW to MFP for a while and also found a difference in points left versus calories left. I finally made the commitment to just MFP and have been maintaining for like 4 months with MFP. Pick one and stick wtih it.... you'll learn from tracking and your body if you need to make adjustments. Like for me, the 0 point fruits was a killer... I was eating way too many during the day and I my body gained. I stick wtih fruit as a once a day treat.

jpburcham

I'm also a Life Time member of WW. I've lost lots of weight on the program, and loved it. I re-joined last november - Yep just before the holidays! I lost 15 pounds through the holidays, and by Jan 1. Once WW introduced the new and improved Points Plus. I haven't done so good. As stated above, I ate fruit all the time - although WW says that fruit and veggies are 0 points, I still could not loose.
Also the mobile app on my Ipod has not been a great experience. Locked up three times, and if I forget to get the the current day before I leave the house, I'm hosed, can't get to log anything at all.

So - Here I am - Giving this a try - So far, I'm really liking what I see here.

Forget to say that for me, the old WW program at least used calories to figure points. - I could divide the calories by 50 and get close to a point value - No longer the case ! I have to have a calculator (WW Calculator) or the app for the Ipod. I don't know if Calculating points this way will be sustainable for me for the long term.

Joe

kd10680

I posted this on an earlier thread, so this is just copied and pasted!

I'm actually (kind of) doing both now.

I have been doing WW online since December. I lost pretty rapidly in the beginning because I was really following the plan perfectly. After a few months, I started gaining just because I wasn't motivated anymore. I would stop tracking for a few days at a time, then halfway track what I felt like tracking. In total, I lost about 30lbs on WW. As you lose weight, your target point goal gets significantly smaller, and it's pretty small to begin with. I got back to seriously doing WW in May, but found that I wasn't losing any weight anymore while tracking everything and staying below my point goal. I lost maybe 1lb the entire month, and was constantly hungry and cranky. I'm not much fun to be around when I'm hungry and cranky! Especially in a NC summer where it's hot!! :]

I found MFP on my cell phone and started to do it a few weeks ago. Since then, I've lost 6lbs. I started out tracking with both WW and MFP just to see the difference, and I was always WAY over in my WW points, but under in my MFP calories. This week I've decided not to track with WW during the week, and instead just go by MFP. I find when I track with both, I would always pay more attention to WW... so if I were over in points, I would stop eating, regardless of how many calories I had left on MFP. At the end of the week, I'll track everything on WW to see what my point total was. I weighed myself this morning, and I've already lost 2lbs since Sunday morning's weigh in solely using MFP.

So: why I think MFP is a better program -
1)Tracking food: the MFP food catalog is FULL of brands, restaurants, etc. where the WW food catalog is much, much smaller. This also accounted for my lack of motivation to track some foods. If you eat at a restaurant, when you use WW, you have to figure out all the nutritional values yourself and add them in manually (which is REALLY more of a pain than it seems considering a lot of restaurants don't even put their nutritional info where it's easy to find). But I've yet to run into a restaurant that I've eaten at that I can't find in the MFP food catalog.
2)Hungry (all.the.time): I realized, while doing both WW and MFP that WW severely limits your caloric intake, so if you exercise on top of eating your small allotment of points, your body is severely malnourished. Which just leads to me being cranky!
3)Convenience: I love the MFP phone app. I have an android phone, and the WW app was just released for android. It's slow and buggy still, making it a pain to actually need to be on your computer to track most foods. MFP's android app is good for tracking... although I wish that it did more than JUST track (but that's for another post!).
4)Cost: When I signed up for WW, I got some deal with some months free or something (I can't remember that long ago). I just saw on my credit card statement that now, my monthly fee is less than $20. I don't remember the exact amount, maybe $16-17? That's only for online access... to a tracker, blogs, recipes, etc. but no face-to-face meetings. It's not too bad of a deal, but why pay when MFP is free!?! :]

Anyway, I didn't intend on writing a book here, sorry! I can update you with my total weight loss using MFP after I compare the WW points this week if anyone would like to hear the difference. I might actually cancel my WW membership after this week if I end up losing a lot only using MFP (which looks like it might be the case).

Good luck!

---

And to whoever asked, yes, you can include exercise on WW, but I've found that exercising doesn't give you too many extra points to use.

I was doing the same thing that you are doing with WW and MFP and I agree MFP is much better and it is free! With WW I don't feel like I am really learning about foods and all of the components with them, such as fat grams, sodium, protein, etc.- all I would focus on was POINTS, POINTS, POINTS! I like the database for MFP SOOOOO much better and the support on here is much better as well. I have lost more weight with MFP than with WW too...I think that is mostly because this site is more inspiring and you can view other people's food diaries to get ideas and stay accountable with each other. Also, I love the fact that there are lots of people on MFP that have the same exercise interests that I do!

dkk1953

I've compared the two for the past 2 days

Wednesday: 1613 calories - 30 WW points (from my book of 2004 - Turnaround program)
Thursday: 1412 calories - 24 WW points

Down 1# this morning

I'll be away from home this weekend but will try to still log on my phone here at MFP to continue this experiment !

annameier8706

From what I understand of weight watchers, the program is more of a way to help you change HOW you eat. Making you aware of good and bad food choices with their point system. Where MFP is for understanding how MUCH you eat.