Weight Watchers

It all depends -- a great leader and group participation make for great meetings. I found them useful - getting tips from other people, but I had a wonderful leader.

I did WW at work and loved it. It was motivating to weigh in with the leader. I disagree with the person who said that WW expects you to fail and sign up for more sessions. I lost 30 pounds on WW at work five years ago and have not gained back a single pound. (I joined MyFitnessPal a few months ago because I want to lose a bit more weight,but I am still at my Weight Watchers "lifetime" goal weight.) I didn't buy the WW products (waste of money and they are filled with chemicals); I just tracked everything using their system. It's similar to MyFitnessPal, so you can do the same thing for free on your own, but I did find it helpful to talk with people in real life because you are more accountable. Good luck!

Such negative feedback! WW has the best success rate of all weight loss groups. It is based on a healthy diet developed for people with diabetes. The weigh ins are private, the encouragement is great, and best of all if you follow the plan you will lose weight at a healthy pace.

What a great incentive to be able to be reinbursed by your company! Good luck in whatever you decide.

Depends on your leader, but I've lost weight on WW before and find it pretty simple. If they offered this at my work, I'd jump for it!

I did not like WW at all. Our leader was a complainer. I have friends that LOVE it.

I agree that a great leader makes a great meeting. There is always a topic of the week that is discussed and if anyone has anything they want to share with group. Ours were always 30-40 minutes. To get full reimbursement from your company I would be all over this. WW is easy to follow if you follow it. I found it to easy to "cheat" myself and not stay on plan.

Wait, you should also figure out how much you need to lose.

See, 20 pounds during 4 months is 5 pounds a month -- doable if you're quite overweight, but if you have only 20 pounds to lose total, it probably would be really difficult to do it without feeling utterly miserable and damaging your health or your willpower to continue.

my boss went and hated it, grown women saying 'ooh, I'm wearing a heavier cardie then last week' when they get weighed in and trying to loose the most to get a 'pointless accolade'.

I saw on FB an old school friend getting lots of likes and comments for 'loosing 12lbs in two weeks, so gonna win slimmer this time' I was horrified.

I did WW at work and loved it. It was motivating to weigh in with the leader. I disagree with the person who said that WW expects you to fail and sign up for more sessions. I lost 30 pounds on WW at work five years ago and have not gained back a single pound. (I joined MyFitnessPal a few months ago because I want to lose a bit more weight,but I am still at my Weight Watchers "lifetime" goal weight.) I didn't buy the WW products (waste of money and they are filled with chemicals); I just tracked everything using their system. It's similar to MyFitnessPal, so you can do the same thing for free on your own, but I did find it helpful to talk with people in real life because you are more accountable. Good luck!

I totally agree. The best thing about WW at work (that makes it different from other WW meetings) is that you're doing it together with your coworkers. I lost 25 lbs, as did several of my coworkers. It was very encouraging. We all kept it off for a long time, too. I've only gained it back due to some health problems and stress, but that was after 2 years of being at my lowest weight ever. It definitely helps to have your natural community (work folks) losing with you.

You know how in high school you had to take certain classes, couldn't get out of them, and the teacher (and to a lesser extent the other students) made the difference between a terrible class and a wonderful one? Same way with WW meetings. The leaders and other members completely make the difference. Your experience can suck or it can be wonderful, all depending on who's directing it.

I knew a couple of the people in my local WW group and no effing way was I going to sit in a room with them voluntarily, so I did mine online. My first 25 pounds came off quite nicely with WW online, and I never bought their prepackaged overprocessed crap either, just cooked my own food and was honest about how much I put in my mouth.

This is so true!!!! the leader and other people you do it with makes all the difference. Also, their pre-packaged foods are not good, but you don't need to use them.

I've done WW over the years and I agree they set you up to fail. It's a money maker for them, getting paid every week to sit and listen to 30 minutes of who did what right or wrong and here's a recipe to try. They are very forgiving if you stay the same or gain, heck that's another few weeks you add to your goal date. Sure, I lost weight, because I logged what I ate and ate better while I paid to "belong" to the group. But even though that's my take, I joined and rejoined over the years at least 10 times. You can get a good leader that makes it fun to get together and chat and you can get one that is struggling herself and whines the whole time about how we all have to do better in the future. I found MFP with the community page was all I needed, just log your food and exercise and talk to others when you have questions or need motivation. What really irks me about WW is when you lose 5-10-20 lbs, you get a sticker or plastic "reward" and I sit in a room of 30 people and think "really" you just took in $300. in this meeting and the ones that accomplished something significant got a sticker from you? wow, you really give back when your members succeed on your plan. Speaking of which, they love to change the plan every year just enough that a new slide rule, calculater, app, etc will be required to continue figuring out your "points". When I finally quit WW and did MFP, I hit goal. That says it all. Oh, and anyone can go to the WW sight and join the community pages, you do not have to be a paying member to start or join a challenge. That's the only good/free part of WW I did appreciate, even though they lock you out of recipes and diary options, you can still share info with others and work the program from the community page. Whatever you decide, plan to lose your $150. and then hope you don't. Very few in the groups I was in at work ever lost more than 10 lbs, in 10 weeks. Just sayin

I forgot to add when they started the PP program I didn't lose a thing and hated it and bailed. Fruit is no longer free, veg is though. To me it's too much of a diet, MFP is a lifestyle so I think that's why it works and it's free I weight myself 100 times a day too so no need to drive half and hour and pay $20 for that

I heard it does not work and it makes you fart like crazy

I did weight watchers several years ago (prior to points plus) and really liked it. 80% of people that loose weight gain it back in with any method of loosing weight, so the fact that weigh watchers banks on that isn't really due to anything but the individual. It is no magic pill. Here's what I liked about it...fad diets don't work, but weight watchers doesn't really fall into that fad category...it's based on keeping a diary and eating what you want in moderation (the same as most of us here on MFP are already doing). In my opinion, this is the only real way to learn anything you can apply to your life that may make you successful long term. Whether you fall into the 20% that succeed in keeping weight off or the 80% that don't is not up to weight waters. It's up to you. WW just breaks your day down into a certain number of points you can consume each day, but it's pretty much the same thing as counting your calories, just with a smaller number. Will you lose 20 pounds if you do the WW challenge at work? Probably, so your work will pay for it and you aren't out anything.

I liked the support groups because people help and support eachother, sharing there solutions to problems, etc. (much like MFP forums). I liked that I could keep track of how many points I had left, even in my head because I was dealing with easy numbers. I like that it taught me to look at labels.

Why don't I do it now? Because I essentially get all those things for free here on MFP. I don't have to keep track of calories, cause the mobil app makes it even easier than a points system. I get support from my MFP friends.

I guess one thing I don't get from MFP is the support of a leader. Each meeting had a topic that encouraged you to examine certain things about your emotions, trends...whatever. I'm more on my own on MFP, but I have read, researched and experienced enough personally that I don't feel I'm missing this element. I was really good for me at the time though and I still carry a lot of the WW lessons with me today.