Weight Watchers

Honestly I couldn't stand the holier than thou attitudes that were there. I know people who have had better experiences. I may have just in a bad group.

To me it was also expensive. Why not give MFP a try? It's free. You can treat the forums like a WW meeting.

I know a few people who have lost 20+pounds on the points+ plan, but have had a hard time keeping it off. I think WW can work if you need/like the meeting part for accountability.

For me personally, I agree with elphie754...its expensive.

I did ww in 2009 and it was awful. They had me on basically 1200 calories a day and told me I couldn't eat back my exercise points because I exercised before starting ww (I was running 5 miles a day). Obviously I lost weight but I was absolutely starving. When I went to ww about how hungry I was, they blamed it on me and what I was eating saying that I needed to eat whole foods and ww products only.

efa

I'm doing the new WW program right now. I really like the changes they have made recently. They changed their points formula. You can have anything you want but you have to track it. Fruits and Vegetables are free, meat has a lower point value now, and anything with sugar/carbs or too high in fat also "costs" you more points. Following their program has helped eliminate my sugar cravings-or my craving to overeat in general. They are also encouraging you to exercise because it's good for you, not so you can eat more. This is a change from before. Their meetings are starting to have more emphasis on reasons we eat and how to avoid pitfalls-I think this is one of the greatest impacts of having Oprah as their new spokesperson. Finding a good and inspirational leader is important. The accountability of the weekly weigh-in and motivational meetings is what I think makes WW a good program. The program is constantly looking at research to improve their program. I've lost weight multiple times with WW over the years (unfortunately I didn't keep it off). The 40ish dollars you pay a month is another story. MFP app is a lot easier than the WW app. I'm hoping it will get better with time. I'll back all of this up by sharing that I just recently hit my 100lb weight loss, with more weight to lose but I'm over half way done. I use WW as my food plan, but use a multitude of other strategies to deal with "life" so I don't turn to food. I started using MFP when I felt like I wasn't losing enough weight on the old WW program, but since they made changes I've started losing weight again and a little faster. I like that MFP has forums like this. WW had one, but it's not nearly as big as this one.

cronus70 wrote: »

...counting points doesn't train you to eat better or give you much of an insight into portion control or nutrition.

That is something I never thought about, but totally true. WW was how I tried to lose weight the very first time (and I did lose about 35), but I never learned about portion size and to this day I struggle with eyeballing and tend to just weigh.

The whole reason you always hear about people being successful on WW, then having to re-join because they gain it all back is because they don't teach you how to eat, they teach you how to starve. I did a free three months through my insurance, and now I use the message boards occasionally, but don't use their points. My point allotment for the day, while eating entirely whole, unprocessed foods, equaled out to between 700-1000 calories a day that I was allowed. No thanks. I'd rather eat enough calories to sustain my exercise, not starve, and lose slowly but correctly than lose a lot in a short amount of time only to gain it (and probably more) back.

I did WW from April-now. Technically I have a membership till mid-Feb. although I cancelled it. At first I was paying $70/mo for "coaching". That consisted of a few phone calls with a coach who honestly was not helpful at all. She read me a bunch of motivational mantras and would then take notes on our call. She'd email me those notes. I felt like she probably said the same thing to every single person.

So then I dropped down to the $45/mo plan that was tracking and in person meetings. The in person meetings vary SO MUCH depending on the leader and the attendees. The one thing I didn't like is that only 1 leader lost a significant amount of weight (119 lbs). The rest had all lost 30-40 lbs. I would feel frustrated because I need to lose 100+ lbs. I lost almost 40 lbs and then would be disappointed that others were "at goal" when I wasn't even halfway there. Most of the meetings also had significantly older people. I'm in my early 30s. I actually saw 3 former elementary and high school teachers at the meetings. I was by far the youngest person at the meetings I attended.

I decided to quit when they did a roll out of a new points program in Nov./Dec. It was a disaster. The app wouldn't work for days. The website was down. The meeting leaders kept apologizing, but everyone was upset. We didn't get any money refunded. I can't believe how poor customer service was. A lot of people quit, and I decided to be one of them.

I had used MFP several years ago. Its a little more complicated than WW. I do prefer the points, but its not worth paying $45/mo. Also, MFP has more foods than WW.

I think WW is good if you eat out a lot. There are many restaurant foods listed. I don't eat out that much.

Another thing I don't like is WW's new system doesn't let you eat back activity points. I work out 3-4 times a week, and MFP lets you do that. WW doesn't. Perhaps this is because the majority of their users (that I saw) are 50+ years old and not exercising.

I'm happy to give opinions on any other questions folks may have!

Everyone has a personal preference and a different experience. WW may or may not work for you. I suggest if you want to try it - try it. See if they offer a free trial. Or stop by and visit a meeting see if it's something you are interested in. Best of luck

I had done WW back in my early twenties with a girl I went to school with. We both did well in the beginning losing about 10-15 pounds. Looking back the reason it seemed easy and convenient was that everything I ate and tracked was "packaged." It was much easier to eat chips, bread, frozen meals and fast food than measure and weight whole foods. It took no time at all to look up the points of something boxed. I think that's where I stalled with the weight loss and failed with eating real/whole foods. It did get me to be more conscious of how much I was eating, but in the long run I couldn't sustain the small amount of food I was allotted.

The meetings for me were awful. No support, just depressing or obnoxious stories from the same people every week. I stopped going to the meetings. There is much better support on MFP. Honestly there is more you can do with MFP than WW. You can customize your goals however you want. Which I think is great since everyone is different and responds differently to certain foods than others. I keep my carbs lower and fats higher which keeps me more satisfied. When I did WW I know I was overeating on carbs and that's part of why I never felt satisfied.

To each his own, by all means try it if you really want to. I just can't see paying for WW when MFP is better and free!