Weight watchers vs. My fitness pal

I lost 40 lbs on the old WW plan. Thing is though the old plan was effective in helping me lose weight, I was still not eating the best nutritionally...WW does not show you the nutrients you need (or help you track them) for a healthy body. MFP does that.

You do have to do whatever you choose faithfully.

It is strongly recommended to use a food scale.

MFP is a tad bit more involved than WW. But it is more complete imho...and 100000% free.

Think of the money you could save for and new wardrobe..

You need to stick to a plan. I would recommend MFP because you have control of food choices, its free. WW works (I mean in principle you are consuming less calories but counting points instead of calories) but the limitations on an self admitted undisciplined eater may be harder to do.
Just find the discipline inside and get it done my friend!

WW wasn't a good fit for me. I felt I needed to almost eat too much to hit my points and didn't feel healthy about it and didn't lose weight. When I start paying attention to my food, of course it's going to be more veggies and some fruit and having all that free, well....I didn't feel it was a good program to get me back to more nutritional options. I never got past the first 90 day special and barely followed it even the first couple weeks. I already know how to eat too much and didn't need to pay some company to encourage more of the same.

MFP is free. Every bite and sip counts. It's free. I'm eating a much more normal amount of food and most of it is very nutritious. It's free. It's got me back to making my own food, which tastes better than most restaurant food anyway. It's free. I'm losing weight and a lot of inches. Best of all, it's free.

Just use MFP. It's everything you need, it's free, and you can use it for the rest of your life without paying a penny. It has to be a permanent lifestyle change.

I did WW about 5 yrs ago and lost 50 lbs but put back on about 35. I've been using MFP for about a month and like it much better. If you're concerned about fiber (since that's a big part of WW) you can add that to your food diary. Add some accountability friends and you'll be good to go. Feel free to add me as a friend if you like and good luck!

My doctor recommended Weight Watchers to lose weight with MFP coming in second. She told me a combination of monitoring food and exercise will help lose weight. Personally, I make time for exercise and eat a lot of protein. Protein helps me feel full. Ever since I changed my diet to include more protein than MFP recommends I find I'm more satisfied and eat less. Hope it helps.

My wife has been on WW and I have been using MFP since last May. She has lost about 30 lb and I have lost 50, both reaching our goal weights. It has helped that we prepare most of our food, and I have been calculating calories and points for each, so we can design recipes and meals to meet both our requirements. WW is in fact a calorie counting system with slightly different factors for the macronutrients than used in the conventional calorie (Atwater) system. Depending on the fat content of a food, a "Point Plus" is about 36 to 42 calories, and using an average value of 38 is accurate to within the margin of error in the calorie determination. What I don't like about WW is, as others have noted, the supposedly "free" foods (raw fruits and vegetables). In reality, WW has simply made an assumption about how much of those you will eat (about 200 cal/day) and factored that into you allowable daily points. That strikes me as an unnecessary gimmick. As also noted by others, it is not possible, as far as I can tell, to determine the composition of foods eaten from the WW log; it tracks only points. You need the macronutrient composition of a food to determine the points, but there is no way to reverse the calculation. The ease in MFP of following the nutritional composition of food eaten is a deciding factor in my preference of it to WW.

I also lost weight previously with weight watchers And became a lifetime member. After having two children needed to lose weight again but I don't know why but the new system didn't work for me. I would track everything but still not lose weight. As others have said I think it's this free fruit and veg thing even though I don't think I was eating a ton of them. Also this weekly point thing might of been a problem as i used to use them at weekends and then probably weighed more due to high glycogen stores, sodium etc. I find my fitness pal much better. It's free it works and it's much easier to find the calorie content of foods when your are grocery shopping then having to work out the points.

The biggest difference that I've seen from both is that WW does not support maintainers the way they should. It seems to me that once you get to goal with WW and you no longer have to pay money to get weighed in or attend meetings, the leaders there no longer seem to care or have anything encouraging to say. I've had a much better overall experience here on MFP over the last year in maintaining my weight than the first 2 years with WW.

My opinion? Don't waste your time with Weight Watchers- you need determination and motivation to make the change, not money.

I just reached lifetime at ww. I'm mfp because I've been gaining and losing the same 3.5 lbs since nov. 28. I need something new to lose the last 8 pounds.