MyFitnessPal or Weight Watchers

cactus39

Anyone do weight watchers and then cancel and do only myfitnesspal? Any thoughts? Thanks

H_Factor

yes, but I pretty much stopped doing WW in April, then did my own thing for a few months, then found MFP in late July and have been on MFP every since.

sophjakesmom

I did WW online a few years ago and started on MFP beginning of this year. I feel like I get more of a community here and it is free. I would never go back.

rml_16

I actually bought a tracker from the old program and still do WW with that, but use MFP to track.

blm211

the old program worked well for me, but the new WW program did not work for me even though I was very strict with following the guidelines. I find MFP to be easier/more manageable - plus the food database here is much larger than WW's was.

fitzie63

You bet your sweet boots~~~WW's prices skyrocketed. This is FREE and keeping a daily food journal on the computer with the super MFP database makes it a "no-brainer".

mmelledge

Weight Watchers is a great program. I still refer to some of my old materials. But yeah, the free factor is huge here. I don't regret WW, though. I learned a LOT.

Becky1971

Yup, went from WW to here. I gained on the new program after consistently losing every week for a year and a half. I love MFP, I don't have to pay for it, I have support and motivation I never got from WW, and have learned so much about foods and working out.

Just1forMe

Anyone do weight watchers and then cancel and do only myfitnesspal? Any thoughts? Thanks

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30 year off and on WW who quit 7 months ago after discovering MFP & will never go back!

ktsdad

I think the WW concept is ok (don't know enough about old vs new plans), but I prefer MFP so I can track everything. My opinion is WW just tracks calories fat and carbs and combines the numbers to one point system. I think if you were the type that just could not deal with protein, carbs, and fat separately, WW could be better. I found I learn more about nutrition by seperating the numbers.

cactus39

The only scary part for me is that I have lost 40lbs doing weight watchers since March 2011 so its a proven thing for me. Ive been doing MFP for a couple months, just to compare.

Marig0ld

I liked MFP better because of the ability to track many different types of macros...carbs, sodium, etc. I didn't get that with WW, and the points system seemed kind of arbitrary IMO.

It is a very great program, I just think MFP is more user-friendly. And FREE :-)

triski73

I am still a WW member and actually liked the new program better than the old for the most part. I love that fruit is no points now. So I try to do both of them actually.

MinnieInMaine

When I first started, I was a WW member using the old points system (Momentum) and had a lot of success. Due to insufficient participation (and other details I wasn't privy to), we no longer were having WW at Work meetings so I tried continuing on my own. Did pretty well for a while then the holidays came - I cruised through but just couldn't get back on track and started slowly gaining. I was still working out but my eating was getting out of control again. Thank goodness someone told me about this site!!

As far as I'm concerned, there's not a huge difference between logging your food here and logging it through WW. You have a certain target to stay within and if you set your goal a bit higher, you even have a weekly allowance built in (set it to 1.5 pounds per week and even if you go over a bit, you'll still likely lose 1 pound per week) and when you exercise, you can eat more.

In fact, as others pointed it, it's even better because...it's FREE and you can track more than just the basic calories, fat and protein if you want.

phocid

Lifelong Weight Watcher here. On and off since teen years. I prefer MFP for a couple of reasons - free being the biggest one. I like that we're tracking information that is immediately available by flipping over the product packaging. There is no proprietary patented "system" superimposed over caloric information. Plus, with WW, they seem to need to "revamp" themselves each and every year. Sometimes fruit is "free" sometimes it isn't, depending on what they've decided to do this year. It got annoying.

dreaasha

I did pretty well on the old WW, but gained on the new plan. So I quit there-and since I got back into exercise, a friend kindly referred me to MFP. I've lost more in 2 months than I ever did on WW. And it's free.

Another thing that I noticed about WW-they don't emphasize exercise enough. There's just a box you check if you did something or not. Here, you have a certain amount of calories you need to burn each week to get to your goal each week.

SpongeBetty

I bought a 3 month on line WW membership. Their tracker was very cumbersome to use. They hardly have any food in it so I ended up adding many things. When I requested a refund telling them that I was not satisified with the product they said they could refund $3.95 of the $65.95 I paid after only using it for a month. MFP is way better. I can find everything in here. Love it. When I was going to WW meetings some years ago, I had success but the meetings were filled with people telling each other how to eat as much crap as possible for the least amount of points. The leader was not doing anything to get people to eat a balanced nutricous diet.

Just be honest with yourself and MFP will work for you.

rml_16

I did pretty well on the old WW, but gained on the new plan. So I quit there-and since I got back into exercise, a friend kindly referred me to MFP. I've lost more in 2 months than I ever did on WW. And it's free.

Another thing that I noticed about WW-they don't emphasize exercise enough. There's just a box you check if you did something or not. Here, you have a certain amount of calories you need to burn each week to get to your goal each week.

30 minutes of exercise per day is one of the Good Health Guidelines, plus you earn points for it so you can eat more if you wish to.

I think that's as much as any program can emphasize exercise. MFP isn't any different. It's an option, but there's no requirement.

I get that WW isn't for everyone, but I'm often quite shocked at the people who criticize it for reasons that don't make any sense because they're simply not true. Either people just didn't really read the plan materials or they have forgotten what that said.

WW isn't for everyone, and it will work better for some than others (mostly due to psychological things -- I find it easier to stick to counting points over calories), but it boils down to "eat less, exercise more," just like MFP.

As for the database, sure, it was lacking. But I never had a problem logging points. If I ate something from a package, I entered the NI and got the points (more reliable, anyway) and I could always find something similar either in the database or on the Web if I ate out somewhere.

MFP is far from perfect. So far, I've seen people post about entries for eggs that had no protein and bread that had no carbs. I've personally come across entries for foods that were so far off in the database, it was almost unbelieveable. I've come across that quite a few times.

No matter what weight loss program you do, if you expect others to do the work for you, you're not going to do well on it.

allie864

I liked MFP better because of the ability to track many different types of macros...carbs, sodium, etc. I didn't get that with WW, and the points system seemed kind of arbitrary IMO.

It is a very great program, I just think MFP is more user-friendly. And FREE :-)

This, exactly

mrsjohnson75

I started here (wasn't losing), then went to WW (came back here to compare points to calories) Once I finish with WW...I will use this site to maintain. I love the WW program. Ive lost 30 pounds since March only 10 more to go.

Becky1971

Actually WW says, you can break that 30 min of exercise up into 3 different ten minute sessions, which is something if you are greatly overweight and never moved before. But that's really nothing. I think they really want to make the exercise portion as inviting as possible to people, rather than being fully honest about the benefits/importance of it. I think it really is geared toward the very overweight and older people, which is great. Food is definitely the most important part, and I think their guidelines are great for teaching people about eating healthy.

The fact is is that they are a business, their goal is to make money. It was obvious to me that it's important to them to look at science, but it's also important to them to get money out of people, every time they switch things up, everyone has to buy all new tools again. Even those who just started brand new, while the company knew they were switching in a month. I think it's set up for very slow weight loss, and then they have this great incentive if you can maintain within 2 lbs. Most people I know who are maintaining, fluctuate more than that. So that's not too realistic either, so hard to get from maintenance to lifetime.

What it all boils down to is making the choice to succeed, mfp is a tool, it's not a weight loss program like WW is. We can make whatever choices we want, there are no rules or formulas, we can customize any setting we want, have whatever foods we want. We don't have to spend money to buy anything with MFP name on it. We don't have a certain time to show up for a quick meeting that we have to pay for where we stand on a scale and, where we may or may not get a pat on the back. You can get a pat on the back 24 hours a day here. The support here is what makes MFP fantastic.