MFP Vs WW

Sweettart

I was wondering what everyone's advice is or your past experience between couting calories with mfp or following the ww points plus program.

When I did ww I did lose 8lbs in a month but weighing my options on which to re-start jan 2.

Any advice for me

audigal2008

MFP of course, you cant leave us!

Sweettart

Oh I will be here regardless of what one I choose. I could never leave you!

fultimers

MFP is free!

CMmrsfloyd

MFP is free, which is awesome. MFP has awesome friends for support, which is awesome. And MFP recognizes that vegetables actually count, which is awesome. :-)

Sweettart

I had paid for a 4 week program so I still have all the books so it would still be free.

AwesomeSauce4

I say MFP!!!!! It's All on it's own and something that will be free all the time.. So You don't want to rely on WW forever do you ????
Of course not.. You can do this without WW.. I Believe in ya Chicky *muah* Love you ~Rachel~

nikicrin

WW is too much messing around in my opinion, it works, i know... but i love the fact this site it so black and white... make the right choices and you will lose weight... these are habits for the rest of your life too

xxxx

sweetheart37

i say stay with us but u can always follow the ww food guide if it helps u.. we never want to lose uu .....loves n huggggggggs

AwesomeSauce4

WW is too much messing around in my opinion, it works, i know... but i love the fact this site it so black and white... make the right choices and you will lose weight... these are habits for the rest of your life too

xxxx

AGREE!!!!!!!!

Saruman_w

MFP by far. It's free and all you need is a little bit of determination and you'll succeed.

wittersby

MFP!! I was on the points plus program and actually GAINED weight because i would constantly snack on fruits and veggies since they were "free". It's nice to have accountability even on the healthy foods.

honor82

Personally, I tried WW for 3 years and it didn't work for me. I think both programs are amazing and get you the results, if you are willing to commit. I chose MFP, because it's free, it has a cool scanner, it's all around easier to do than WW. Counting points became way too annoying. I have a perfectionist attitude, so one day when I blow my weekly points allowance and I see that negative number for the rest of the week, it would just make me give up. I'm sure you wouldn't have that same attitude, just giving you a little piece of what I went through for 3 years.

I say if it's free and you still have the books, do what you think will make you most successful.

Apazman

here is the dope:


1. WW has a 97 % failure rate. did you get that 97%. most gain it back after leaving the program.

2. it costs money. This is a business geared twards selling you stuff and keeping you with them.

3. Do you really need someone else to tell you what's healthy to eat and what's not? No. You know what's right.. you just aren't doing it.

4. Do you really need someone else to tell you when to work out? again, No

Lastly, Why do YOU want to do WW instead of doing it on your own? What is appealing about it to you?

BobbyClerici

I prefer a system that empowers me as opposed to making me dependent on some costly system.
No thanks; I see zero value in it when no cost resources are readily available.

At the end of the day, my decisions will result in success - not WW, MFP or anything else.

All Is Possible!

aweightymatter

I think WW is a pretty good program -- before sites like MFP existed in their current form, I used WW online to just track my maintenance intake and it was pretty cool.

Now with so many free tools, though, if you largely know how to make healthier food choices, why not stick with the free, feature-rich tool? The other downside is that with WW, you cannot adjust your macros at all, and the point system penalizes certain healthy foods that are higher in fats. I know the point system changed again recently so I cannot speak to its most current iteration, but I know in the recent past, foods like peanut butter would be far more costly in points per calorie than things like low-fat diet products.

For instance, by the old system (Points Plus), 1 TB of peanut butter (100 calories) would be like 3 points, but, surprise surprise, a WW-brand processed snack cake would only be worth 1 point, despite being about 80 calories.

ivansmomma

I prefer a system that empowers me as opposed to making me dependent on some costly system.
No thanks; I see zero value in it when no cost resources are readily available.

At the end of the day, my decisions will result in success - not WW, MFP or anything else.

All Is Possible!

I totally agree with you. I have done WW, and it is a good program, but I was so stressed by counting my points, that I didn't lose, and was obsessed with the points. I have been on other free websites and have come back to MFP. It is a great website, it has a lot of good information, it's free, and you meet encouraging and supportive people!

mamamia410

I just left WW. I had some of the same issues as others. If I messed it up on Monday, I felt like quitting for a while. They are adding stuff like 'take a day off' and stuff to make it more flexible but it's so costly and so geared towards business rather than my success... So they refuse to automatically include lean cuisine, which is crap because people eat those. They made it hard for me to enter the foods I actually ate so that they could encourage me to buy a certain brand that was included. That was frustrating for me. And here, I've just started but it's more about me than about MFP. That's important because I am the important one in this, I am the one accountable for my success, rather than WW which is kind of all about them.

angiek941

I think WW is a great program. It taught me to eat healthy and to think about what's going into my body. That being said, I'm less than 10 lbs away from my goal, and I am currently doing both MFP and WW at the same time to see how MFP stacks up. It's free, yes, but I've had a tremendous success on WW, and so it's a bit of a security blanket for me. As a PP said, I know how to eat and I know to work out. If WW worked that ways it's advertised, I should be able to move on to doing it on my own. I think I can do it, but I guess I just like to drag out a break up ;0)

jpburcham

I'm a lifetime WW member. I've gone through about six different WW "improvements". The newest Points Plus program was the hardest for me to make work. I love fruit, and when I'm told that fruit if "free" (doesn't count toward my daily points) I thought yeah! Like Wittersby, I also gained weight. But the real decision maker for me was "sustainability". Calculating the "points plus" points for me is just not possible in my head. It requires a "tool" other than my brain. MFP is simple, and I need simple for it to be sustainable for me. All said, I lost a lot of weight on WW, and gained all of it back (twice). It is a good program, but it is a "for profit business". Best of luck with whatever works for you.

emgs52

I lost with ww until they changed to points plus and then i starting gaining, i find mvp much easier to follow by counting calories

AussieNikki

here is the dope:


1. WW has a 97 % failure rate. did you get that 97%. most gain it back after leaving the program.

2. it costs money. This is a business geared twards selling you stuff and keeping you with them.

3. Do you really need someone else to tell you what's healthy to eat and what's not? No. You know what's right.. you just aren't doing it.

4. Do you really need someone else to tell you when to work out? again, No

Lastly, Why do YOU want to do WW instead of doing it on your own? What is appealing about it to you?

Do you actually have a source for #1? Also if you leave the program of course you will gain weight back, It's for LIFE!

Also they don't tell you what to eat or when to exercise.

AussieNikki

I have lost over 50lb with Weight Watchers. It's the #1 weightloss program in many countries.

I love it. But it's not for everyone. There is no need to bash it though.

Diary_Queen

I do a hybrid of WW Points Plus and MFP. I always did WW online, so this is just another part of it for me. I lost a ton of weight with only one plateau on WW's whereas I've plateaued a ton just on MFP alone. I wasn't making good choices on MFP alone and liked the WW Points system better. WW helps me keep my carbs more in check and I like that. I just log my food here and then calculate points based on my macros. It seems to be working pretty well so far. I don't have that constant feeling of starvation that I did when I was just going on calories alone (I tried low calories, recommended calories for each weight loss level, i.e. 1/2 pound a week, 1 pound a week, 2 pounds a week, I tried eating back none of my exercise calories or eating back all of them and eating back some of them - none of these things worked as well, for me, as WW Points Plus). I love MFP though. It's super easy to make recipes and track here. So, I'm doing both.

Oh and I don't pay for the WW system. I have a calculation system in a spreadsheet that tells me how many points I get per food item. I also started keeping a list of everything I ate when I was doing the system online that you have to pay for. So, I go by those points a lot. I also find foods that have the points listed on them. So, all of my stuff is free. No, I don't need to pay for it. No, I don't need someone telling me what's good and what's bad. No, I don't need someone telling me when to exercise or what exercises to do. I use the resources that work for me.

AussieNikki

I just left WW. I had some of the same issues as others. If I messed it up on Monday, I felt like quitting for a while. They are adding stuff like 'take a day off' and stuff to make it more flexible but it's so costly and so geared towards business rather than my success... So they refuse to automatically include lean cuisine, which is crap because people eat those. They made it hard for me to enter the foods I actually ate so that they could encourage me to buy a certain brand that was included. That was frustrating for me. And here, I've just started but it's more about me than about MFP. That's important because I am the important one in this, I am the one accountable for my success, rather than WW which is kind of all about them.

I have never felt pressured to eat anything I didn't want to with WW. I honestly don't understand what you mean by that? If a food I am not eating isn't in the database I just add it. It takes 1 minute to do so.

chevy88grl

Well. I did the old style WW and boy was I hungry while doing it. It felt too much like a "diet" to me. I have to admit that I was disgusted one day when I had a tuna (with 1/2 tblsp of light mayo) on wheat bread and used up more than 1/2 my points for the day. Yet, I could eat a piece of cake and only use a couple. It seemed a wee bit skewed to me. I like the concept - but it just didn't work for me. (I'm not saying it won't work for someone else - it just didn't work for me)

I much prefer calorie counting. It is just easier to manage.

Legalchica

I've done both... WW a couple of times. I think MFP has a weath of knowledge, however WW did help motivate me cause I was paying.... what a waste of money if i didnt follow the plan!!! but in reality the community and help I find here is much better.

SamBuck123

free is good to me Although ww does work and u can get a free year through your insurance usually..,...i did before but i like this site.TONS of support

LindseyDD

Stick with MFP - I have been doing this for 7 months and have lost 80 pounds my cousin has been doing weight watchers and although she is having success she doesn't have the daily interactions with people supporting her goals so her progress is much slower.

But you have to go with what will work for you because in the long run losing weight is the most important thing!

Good Luck!

gwennypink

I've done WW several times and it always worked great for me in the past as far as losing. But I was never able to maintain the full weight loss. The first time I joined (around 5 years ago) I lost 45lbs. Gained about half of that back. Lost it, then my husband and I found out we were expecting. After I had my daughter two years ago, I lost all of the 40lbs that I had gained during my pregnancy with WW as well. But after the recent switch to the Points Plus program I decided to leave WW for good. It became difficult to track and calculate points, and like many of the previous posters have mentioned, if I would blow all of my allowance points earlier in the week then I would just give up after seeing the negative number and restart next week. The best thing that I love about MFP is that if I have a bad day and go over my calories, I can just start over fresh the next day. I also feel that this is a lifestyle that I can adapt to forever, I'm not having thoughts about this being a "diet." I can see myself finally being able to maintain with this system. And you cant beat how easy it is! And free of course Hope this helps!

Thomasm198

MFP = Free
WW = $$$$$$

MFP = Count every calorie
WW = some "free foods", eat as many as you like? (everything will make you gain weight if you eat enough of it).

MFP = :drinker:
WW = :indifferent: