Weight Watchers Vs Calorie Control

I have done both as well. I started out with WW last year and transitioned to MFP when I was about 6 months into it.

Weight Watchers is a good program and does take a common sense approach (portion control, logging, weighing food) and does encourage you to make better choices by making most fruits/veggies 0 points. It also focuses a lot on building healthy habits.

One of the main things that I didn't like about it was that their food database was in need of a serious update. There were a lot of foods missing or had incorrect points (including their own products).

Their focus on exercise was pretty much non-existent unless they had their activity monitor on sale.

I was on Weight Watchers when I found this site and changed over to calorie counting.

I get more food with calorie counting than I ever did on Weight Watchers.

Like many other posters said, I also find a bigger variety of food on here compared to ww food list.

Oh and this is FREE!

I'm doing both WW (online only) and MFP - well I'm really doing WW but double checking protein on MFP & lurking in the forums. I don't agree that MFP is for "eating healthier" - it's all about eating within your calorie and macro limits (which you can set), nothing else. Both programs give you the ability to set your own diet (paleo, vegan, low carb, SAD, whatever) so how you eat is down to you.

It's all in what works for you. I like the smaller numbers on WW (if I'm doing math in my head, an extra four activity points added to my daily 26 is easier to work with/remember than 314 calories added to 1260), plus free fruits and some veggies does encourage me to eat fruits/veggies which I personally need. Basically it sort of dumbs everything down for me, which I both want and need right now. Losing weight/getting fit is not the number one priority in my life, and WW helps me fit it in.

OTOH plenty of people prefer MFP, and it has the big advantage of being free. MFP forums also seem saner and more supportive.

I did WW for years, when I left I basically worked out that I was on 1100-1200 cals per day. I was hungry all the time & it just was not sustainable, therefore I was just yoyoing - loosing and gaining the same few lbs. The leaders had very little nutritional knowledge - it was all about WW products and finding the lowest calorie version of foods possible (regardless of their nutritional value).

I'm now on 1650 cals per day, loads of energy, not hungry all the time and i'm losing on average 1.5lb per week consistently. The data base on MFP is far better.

WW just made me obsess about finding the lowest calorie version of every food - like bread which was 50 cals a slice and was basically air with no nutritional value at all and therefore not filling. Now I eat a multi grain delicious bread which is so filling and keeps me full for hours. Low fat yogurts which tasted awful (i had a full fat yogurt the other day for the first time in years - it tasted divine). I did WW for so long, that I didn't realise how tired I was - now I eat more foods which provide the nutrition and energy that my body needs.

I thought I would miss the online support on WW, but I feel that there is more nutritional info & knowledge on MFP.

I did WW 3x...I have done MFP 1x...

There is the difference...

WW does not promote fat loss it's all about weight loss...doesn't matter where it comes from
Portion size is out there, weighing food, weekly weigh in (but that promotes starving for the day then binging afterward for some), when I did it you could earn points through exercise...free fruit and veggies to encourage "healthy" eating

But to be frank I have learned more here in a year than I ever did with WW...I am maintaining muscle mass...getting in enough calories so I can exercise and not feel faint.

I hated walking around the store too with that points card checking everything to see if I could fit in my daily points (which wasn't a lot)

Now I buy what I want, log my food (usually prelog for a week) and bam I know I have hit my macros, I am within goal and I will have enough energy to exercise..

But to be frank I have learned more here in a year than I ever did with WW...I am maintaining muscle mass...getting in enough calories so I can exercise and not feel faint.

This is the biggest reason why I am so thankful for the MFP forums. I never knew that strength training was so important until I started lurking on here.

Weight watchers has changed their approach and a calorie is not just a calorie any more. That said... I found the weight watcher system overly complicated and too simplistic at the same time.

The points method is semi complicated with "cheat points" and exercise points and normal points and a points calculator etc.

The free raw fruits and veggies would have me never loosing weight. I would not gorge myself on this but I would eat till I truely felt full...which would make me fine with point counts but over on calories...thus no weight loss.

The support groups can be good to bleh...and I found more bleh then good. I really dont need to sit for an hour through a group session to learn something I could have in 5 min online..or something I already know.

The support part was really semi-minimal in my experience. WW was even free from work but not worth it IMO.

I lost about 60 pounds on Weight Watchers before completely stalling out. I don't blame WW for the plateau, but I found that counting calories has helped break my plateau for a few reasons:

1. I was eating A LOT of fruit and veggies in addition to eating nearly all my WW points. Though fruits and veggies are 0 points, they still have calories. So I was probably eating well over my weight loss calorie goal even though I was still within my points.

2. Exercise isn't a big focus with WW and I workout a lot -- training for a half marathon, running a half marathon, cycling upwards of 20 miles at a time and strength/circuit training. MFP has a better system for tracking exercise and eating some of the calories back bust still saying at a net goal.

3. WW didn't allow me to track carbs, protein and fat in an easy way, so I have no idea if I was eating a balanced diet.

I think WW is a great tool to start with to learn how to eat better foods and incorporate more fruits and veggies, but I've found that MFP is better for someone who understands calories and nutrition and who works out a lot.

WW is also all about eating at a deficit but their system really doesn't make you think about WHAT calories you are eating, it just makes the calorie counting easier to do. I had excellent success on their program but I was not paying attention to my macros, just trying to get as much food for my points as possible. As a result, I was not eating nearly enough fat and I was a bit low on protein too. Four months in, my hair started falling out which is kind of my personal "canary in the coal mine" telling me I am not eating as nutritiously as I should be. The fault is mine, not WW but they really don't make it easy to follow macro and micronutrients.

To me a banana is not free. It is too calorie dense, high in carbs and sugar. How can it be free? I liked WW years ago, but think now they really messed up a good thing. I much prefer MFP, and the fact that it is also free of charge is an added bonus!!!

This.
There's a right way and a wrong way to use WW, and some people misuse it. I knew a girl who was very overweight, probably obese, and she would just eat like two pounds of strawberries, pineapple, bananas, and blueberries for dinner, saying it was worth 0 points and therefore she could eat garbage later.

Fruit is healthy, and I get that WW wants to help people learn to eat healthy, but it doesn't work when people don't understand how calories/carbs/sugar and whatnot function within the body.