Weight watchers

I had a lot of luck with the original points program because they taught you the value of calories, fat, and fiber. The new program never taught you what made up their "point." I do a lot better in the long run when I can continue to monitor my calories, fat, etc after I'm off the WW program. I'll still occasionally revert back to the old WW points calculations to really put a food's worth into context.

I just signed up for the online, but I feel like I may need to upgrade so I can go to meetings. There's one on campus so it might help not to feel like the only one having to be on a diet in the dining hall and resist all that temptation lol

Yeah, I lost 55 lbs a few years ago using MFP but I wasn't deeply connected at the time so I just counted calories and exercise so I didn't really get support or anything as a struggled while gaining it back so I'm finding it easier to stay committed now with a larger community WW appealed to me because of the in person stuff, weigh ins, ease of finding foods to plan for points, and plus I can stay connected with folks on campus going through the same thing

I am doing ww online for over a year now and lost a good 2 stones. I just switched to mfp to get a better view of the nutrients I consume. Now here comes my confusion. I always have my ww on lose weight as that is mostly who ugh food to fill me up. What confuses me is that lately with being more active at the gym (3/4 X a week intense training) I'm obviously more hungry. When I use ww to track I go over my daily limit (without tracking fruit and vegs). Tracking on mfp (losing weight) I consume too less calories with tracking my fruit and vegetables. Does anyone has a view on why this is?

I have done WW before and lost. I have actually being thinking about going back. I seem to do better with accountability when I'm doing WW. The meeting leaders were great too. I do love mfp as well. I like seeing all the macros and calories, so I know exactly how much I'm having. I wish WW did that, but I may just convert my points on mfp. What works for one doesn't mean it works for everyone. You need to find what works best for you.

BarbieAS wrote: »

fevrale wrote: »

daphnee456 wrote: »

I am doing ww online for over a year now and lost a good 2 stones. I just switched to mfp to get a better view of the nutrients I consume. Now here comes my confusion. I always have my ww on lose weight as that is mostly who ugh food to fill me up. What confuses me is that lately with being more active at the gym (3/4 X a week intense training) I'm obviously more hungry. When I use ww to track I go over my daily limit (without tracking fruit and vegs). Tracking on mfp (losing weight) I consume too less calories with tracking my fruit and vegetables. Does anyone has a view on why this is?

They take entirely different things into account. Weight Watchers points are calculated from grams of fat, carbs, protein, and fiber and MFP is counting calories.

Calories = Carbs X 4 + Protein X 4 + Fat X 9. Grams of fat/carbs/protein/fiber are the same as calories. It's just maths. They're counting the EXACT same thing, just getting there a different way.

WW assigns slightly different weights to certain types of macros and allows you some credit for fiber, but it takes a significant swing between macros before two foods with the same number of calories are assigned different points values, especially since they only use whole numbers. 100 calories of pure fat or pure carbs would each be 3 points; 100 calories of pure protein is 2. 200 calories of pure fat are 6 points, while 200 calories of pure carbs or protein would each be 5 (yes, this time the macro that's different has changed, that's accurate). With the average user being allotted around 250 points per week plus activity, not a major swing. It's still basically calories.

daphnee456 wrote: »

I am doing ww online for over a year now and lost a good 2 stones. I just switched to mfp to get a better view of the nutrients I consume. Now here comes my confusion. I always have my ww on lose weight as that is mostly who ugh food to fill me up. What confuses me is that lately with being more active at the gym (3/4 X a week intense training) I'm obviously more hungry. When I use ww to track I go over my daily limit (without tracking fruit and vegs). Tracking on mfp (losing weight) I consume too less calories with tracking my fruit and vegetables. Does anyone has a view on why this is?

WW does not give as much credit for activity as MFP does. On WW, it takes burning about 100 calories to earn one activity point, which when translated to food is about 40 calories, give or take a couple. On MFP, it's a straight one-to-one relationship where you're credited ALL of the calories you burn as available to eat. When you're burning lots of calories through activity, it adds up and is going to create a noticeable difference between the 2 plans. Plus, the initial goals are set slightly differently - I find WW to be closest to a 1.5 pound per week goal for me if I stay only in my daily points, but that's going to be different for everyone. I don't know what formulas WW uses to come up with their daily points goals.

With WW it's actually 80 cal per activity Pt. earned. To be honest from tracking here on and off again and using eTools I find that both MFP and WW exaggerate the amount of calories and points earned for exercise. Also, like MFP, WW will allow you to input your own exercices and amount of points earned if like me you use a HRM to calculate the calories burned during steady state cardio sessions. For the most part I've found that you get about 2 pts per 30 minutes of slow cardio and anywhere from 3 - 4 for more strenuous exercises. I find that eating at TDEE here and using a higher point system at WW and not eating exercise calories back has helped me maintain all that I lost and then some for the past few years.

Eileen_S wrote: »

BarbieAS wrote: »

fevrale wrote: »

daphnee456 wrote: »

I am doing ww online for over a year now and lost a good 2 stones. I just switched to mfp to get a better view of the nutrients I consume. Now here comes my confusion. I always have my ww on lose weight as that is mostly who ugh food to fill me up. What confuses me is that lately with being more active at the gym (3/4 X a week intense training) I'm obviously more hungry. When I use ww to track I go over my daily limit (without tracking fruit and vegs). Tracking on mfp (losing weight) I consume too less calories with tracking my fruit and vegetables. Does anyone has a view on why this is?

They take entirely different things into account. Weight Watchers points are calculated from grams of fat, carbs, protein, and fiber and MFP is counting calories.

Calories = Carbs X 4 + Protein X 4 + Fat X 9. Grams of fat/carbs/protein/fiber are the same as calories. It's just maths. They're counting the EXACT same thing, just getting there a different way.

WW assigns slightly different weights to certain types of macros and allows you some credit for fiber, but it takes a significant swing between macros before two foods with the same number of calories are assigned different points values, especially since they only use whole numbers. 100 calories of pure fat or pure carbs would each be 3 points; 100 calories of pure protein is 2. 200 calories of pure fat are 6 points, while 200 calories of pure carbs or protein would each be 5 (yes, this time the macro that's different has changed, that's accurate). With the average user being allotted around 250 points per week plus activity, not a major swing. It's still basically calories.

daphnee456 wrote: »

I am doing ww online for over a year now and lost a good 2 stones. I just switched to mfp to get a better view of the nutrients I consume. Now here comes my confusion. I always have my ww on lose weight as that is mostly who ugh food to fill me up. What confuses me is that lately with being more active at the gym (3/4 X a week intense training) I'm obviously more hungry. When I use ww to track I go over my daily limit (without tracking fruit and vegs). Tracking on mfp (losing weight) I consume too less calories with tracking my fruit and vegetables. Does anyone has a view on why this is?

WW does not give as much credit for activity as MFP does. On WW, it takes burning about 100 calories to earn one activity point, which when translated to food is about 40 calories, give or take a couple. On MFP, it's a straight one-to-one relationship where you're credited ALL of the calories you burn as available to eat. When you're burning lots of calories through activity, it adds up and is going to create a noticeable difference between the 2 plans. Plus, the initial goals are set slightly differently - I find WW to be closest to a 1.5 pound per week goal for me if I stay only in my daily points, but that's going to be different for everyone. I don't know what formulas WW uses to come up with their daily points goals.

With WW it's actually 80 cal per activity Pt. earned. To be honest from tracking here on and off again and using eTools I find that both MFP and WW exaggerate the amount of calories and points earned for exercise. Also, like MFP, WW will allow you to input your own exercices and amount of points earned if like me you use a HRM to calculate the calories burned during steady state cardio sessions. For the most part I've found that you get about 2 pts per 30 minutes of slow cardio and anywhere from 3 - 4 for more strenuous exercises. I find that eating at TDEE here and using a higher point system at WW and not eating exercise calories back has helped me maintain all that I lost and then some for the past few years.

My mistake (80 vs 100), I was just basing off estimates of my own activity. You still are burning double what you are credited back to eat, and that can add up when you're burning hundreds of calories through activity. It really does just depend on what works for you, the same thing won't work for everyone, especially when it comes to activity calories and what you eat back.

Though, there are few foods that are purely based on one macro. I can only think of oil and sugar. Sometimes in practice, 3 points represents 410 calories while a meal of 317 calories is 7 points. When I was counting both calories and points, they were rarely aligned.

There is no possible way that 410 calories can equal 3 points under the current points plus system. I'm a current paying WW member with a points calculator in front of me, and plus I do know the points formula (which I won't post because I'm staunchly anti-copyright infringement, and I've already gone WAY past what I'm comfortable with by posting what I have already plus what I'm posting below with regard to points values of various foods), and there is no reasonable combination of macros that would total 410 calories that would be recorded as 3 points. It's mathematically impossible unless you were eating 100 calories of literally pure fiber. If you were recording an individual 410 calorie food as 3 points under the traditional points plus system you were making a terrible error.

I do agree with you that there are few foods that are made up of only one macro, but I was simply showing the extremes to demonstrate a point - WW does assign different weights to different macros, but they vary only so slightly that the same calorie total of a single serving of food isn't going to vary more than a point or two in either direction (or maybe slightly more if you're talking a 500+ calorie serving of something) based on the macros. I'll show a more practical example. 200 calories of raspberries (if you counted fruit) or plain cooked chicken breast would each be 4 points. A 195 calorie donut, a 190 calorie Quest bar, a 200 calorie Kind bar, 200 calories of cooked untrimmed sirloin steak and 200 calories of spinach (if you counted veggies) would each be 5 points. I'm sure you can appreciate the vast variance in macros of those foods? Do you see what I mean? It's still calories, with just a little extra incentive to keep carbs (and fat, which I disagree with) down and encourage more protein and fiber.

lulum1986 wrote: »

I just find on weight watchers I don't eat very healthy foods. I give it up after I started this post. Just feel like MFP breaks it down and you know exactly what you're eating.

Whichever one helps you reach your goals is what matters most. It sounds like MFP is the better option for you.

I hated WW. I lost some weight but I was hungry all the time! I think they had me only eating 1200 calories a day (I was 5'9" and 23... I should have been eating 1800) I kept telling them I thought they had my points wrong but they kept blaming me for being hungry all the time.
They also told me I couldn't eat my exercise calories back because I was exercising before I started WW so it would be pointless because my body was already use to exercising.
I like MFP because it puts me in control and explains why my calories should be what they are.