MFP vs. Weight Watchers

besides this is free??? and probably an easier LIFE choice.......... Ithink with your hard work and dedication, YOU will be her motivator so WW nor MFP will matter!

Yes $$$$$$$$.......My daughter and I did WW in the past online and it was great. She was also 14 and the doctor said it was o.k..
The main difference I see is being able to physically go into a WW meeting if you would like to. Depending on the person the social aspect of the meetings are often useful.

I've done WW and been successful with it. However that being said, I think MFP teaches you how to eat properly and healthfully better than WW did. I find I'm more motivated to learn and stick with a healthy lifestyle now than I ever was on WW. Also, double check me, but I think for someone that young, WW will require Dr. permission for your daughter to do their program.

I did WW for a while. It was an easier to grasp method for someone who was completely clueless (me.) Once I had a better grasp of food values I moved on to MFP where I could track my diet with more detail.

The weight watchers cook books are amazing though. I still use them.

Having done both, I find MFP much more livable. It has a much more extensive database which makes dining out SO much easier. Calories are just easier to figure out than points. However, Weight Watchers did help my sister learn to eat in a more nutritious manner and that habit has stuck with her. She never had to lose much, but the woman definitely needed to learn to vary her diet! If you feel confident on providing nutrition advice to your daughter, then I say use MFP. If you think you both need guidance in that area, then perhaps do WW for a while.

I also did Weight Watchers but fruits and vegetables up to a certain amount are not counted, whereas this has the ability to count ALL calories which for some reason I am losing more steadily by logging and being more accountable

I am doing both right now...mostly to make sure I am getting enough calories. I am finding that I can be within my WW "points" yet only be hitting 1000 calories.

I think WW is a good starting place as they are encouraging fruits and veggies (0 points) and helping you monitor portion sizes. Once you get a good foundation going, you could definitely switch over to MFP. I find both of the sites very helpful.

FYI-there are some apps out there for a small one time fee that let you do the WW program without having to pay the continuous monthly fee of WW online. I might switch to that in bit (right now my employer is paying for WW)

I did WW several years ago and lost about 20 lbs over the course of six months. To be honest, I much prefer MFP and think that in the long run, it is something sustainable (at least for me).

I didn't like figuring out "points" for everything. I don't mind logging in my food, but having to carry around my special little points calculator (in the days before apps and smartphones) was something that I found terribly annoying.

I also didn't like that they pushed their food items/snacks at the meetings. The few things I tried were not that good and I thought were expensive, not to mention full of ingredients I can't pronounce. Teach me to make better choices, don't just shove a box of WW food in my hand and tell me it's what I need. It was almost like cattle going through the chutes at a livestock sale - pay your weekly fee, get weighed, and oh - by the way, our Choco-Minty cardboard sticks are on sale this week. They taste *just like* thin mints but only have 3 points per bar.

Support-wise, I've found the forums and my friends here on MFP to be FAR superior to any meeting I went to. I've been a member here since the beginning of February, and I've learned so much about nutrition and exercise.

Plus MFP is free.

They are different methods to basically accomplish the same thing. MFP counts calories and makes you responsible for determining your own macros. WW counts calories through a points system that has already been weighted to have certain macros (like carbs) "count more" than others (like protein). I've had good success on both systems. Both simply come down to personal responsibility and willingness to follow your plan and make adjustments based on how well you are succeeding. Both websites have similar tools (although I personally think the MFP food database is more extensive). Your success on either plan is dependent on adherence and what lifestyle changes you are willing to make.

The big thing that WW offers than MFP does not are in-person support group meetings. Some people find them very helpful and important for continued success. Personally, I never even considered going as having to attend a cheerleading/ sales pitch session each week would have just annoyed me into quitting. Also, WW costs money. It is more to do meetings than just online and even more to both go to meetings and have access to online tools. I found WW online to be a good way to get my weight loss started, but after a while I decided it was dumb to continue paying for it when I could just switch to MFP and track calories and macros without their help for free.

I was on WW and ended up looseing 65 lbs. I went off of tracking and gained 40 lbs back and now I'm trying MFP.

I could never make it to a meeting because the closest one was 1.5 hrs away so I did the online and it did work but I noticed something. A lot of food with WW points on the box have the artifical sweetners. That throws me for a loop because I started to get hungery. When I stopped my hunger stayed the same. After having a billing problem I switch to MFP. I just started so I really can't say which is better but I like the fact I get to see, in numbers, the break down of what I am eating. Plus if I have to go to the doctors and descuss my meal plans this is a lot easier to pull put and show them.

In general, I think that whether WW or MFP is a better fit ultimately depends on one's understanding of nutrition and ability to self-motivate and set realistic, healthy goals.

WW, in my view, is pretty good for those who don't really know where to begin and need a bit of structure/direction. Furthermore, the in-person meetings are a great motivator (nothing sucks more than doing the walk of shame to the scale when you know you've gained weight over the week) and there is some decent evidence out there to suggest that face-to-face support keeps most folks accountable better than an online forum. Another important point about WW is that the program has gone through fairly extensive scientific evaluation over the years (including clinical trials comparing the efficacy of various popular weight loss programs) and in its present form it's a fairly sane, safe diet built on valid nutrition research. Having said that, when I attended WW meetings I was fairly surprised to see that they were not led by a qualified Registered Dietitian - given the membership fee, I would have expected an actual health care professional to be involved. I also didn't love the "black box" of the points - I agree with others who have commented that the points system sometimes leads to poor choices based on calories alone, rather than nutritional quality. Still, the advice we received at the meetings was reasonably sound and I suspect (but don't know for sure) that in-person meetings may allow a good group leader to identify individuals who may need a more carefully supervised diet, in order to then refer them to the best professional sources for help.

Now, MFP is free and the degree of online involvement I've seen since joining has been pretty impressive. It seems like people join and take it seriously, although those who stick around and do their daily logging may be a self-selected group of innately motivated individuals (i.e., it may be that MFP seems to work because the people logging are those for whom it works, and we don't know how many other people have joined and left just a few days later without leaving a trace). I agree that the database is much larger than the WW one, which makes it easy to log in food - and tracking is important because it gives awareness of what one is eating. It's also good that the tracking is done in actual calories and various nutrients - you are more likely to learn lifelong habits by seeing what things actually contain than by counting points, which are a very abstract concept. I sum, I think that, for those who already know a fair bit about nutrition, physical activity and health, are able to set REALISTIC (can't stress this enough!) goals, and can self-discipline, MFP is probably a better fit. But for those who may need a bit of help getting started, I would recommend giving WW a try first and coming to MFP after learning the ropes.

Good luck!

Hi everybody,

I am also trying to figure out the pros and cons of WW vs MyFitnessPal. The issues seem to be price and features, but its also important that WW has worked for so many people over the years.

After thinking about it, I actually decided to do a study on Weightwatchers for a class in my university.

Can you please fill out my super-quick survey on Weightwatchers versus MyFitnessPal?

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/RRMG73S

I promise it will take less than a minute and I will share the results when I get enough replies!

Thanks so much!
Brian