Weight watchers points and MFP calories don't watch

did you eat any fruit and did you count it?

No, fruits and veggies (up to 5 servings I think) are "free" on weight watchers but they still have calories so you need to count the calories. That's probably a big reason why it's so off.

adcook1981 wrote: »

Ok, I have a question for those who have ever done weight watchers. I did WW before and lost a lot of weight. Now I'm doing MFP calories. Well today I tracked both to see what a difference it would make. I ate 25 WW points and it was only 975 calories. Do I need to stick with the points or calories?

The new points roughly average 38 calories so that sounds about right. In addition to your daily points (which are probably not 25 if you're in the US because the minimum is 26, I believe), you should be eating up to 5 servings of free fruit and vegetables and you should be spreading your 49 weekly points over the week, so there's another 270ish per day.

You're right, you don't need to use the extra 49. I just see a lot of people here who say that WW had them eating 1000 calories a day or less and so I wanted to make sure you knew it's not really a requirement to eat that little.

23, really? I haven't done it since 2014 but I thought the minimum was 26 then, though my book doesn't show goals under 29. I think my sister who weighs around 160 is on 28 or 29.

The old points were worth more, like average 50 calories each.

adcook1981 wrote: »

WalkingAlong wrote: »

You're right, you don't need to use the extra 49. I just see a lot of people here who say that WW had them eating 1000 calories a day or less and so I wanted to make sure you knew it's not really a requirement to eat that little.

23, really? I haven't done it since 2014 but I thought the minimum was 26 then, though my book doesn't show goals under 29. I think my sister who weighs around 160 is on 28 or 29.

The old points were worth more, like average 50 calories each.

Yeah. It started out 26 but had a place to do extra weight loss boost (of course I pressed it!) and it changed the points to 23. I did really good on the old plan. I'm struggling with this one. I didn't have to log my food for a couple years. I maintained (I'm very active during the day at work) Now my hormones are crazy I've gained 20 pounds. I've never had this much trouble losing weight. It's harder now! Thank you for responding. Any help is appreciated!

My hormones are crazy too so I totally hear you. The only way I maintain my weight is to eat much less on the 'easy' days to make up for the bad ones.

adcook1981 wrote: »

WalkingAlong wrote: »

You're right, you don't need to use the extra 49. I just see a lot of people here who say that WW had them eating 1000 calories a day or less and so I wanted to make sure you knew it's not really a requirement to eat that little.

23, really? I haven't done it since 2014 but I thought the minimum was 26 then, though my book doesn't show goals under 29. I think my sister who weighs around 160 is on 28 or 29.

The old points were worth more, like average 50 calories each.

Yeah. It started out 26 but had a place to do extra weight loss boost (of course I pressed it!) and it changed the points to 23. I did really good on the old plan. I'm struggling with this one. I didn't have to log my food for a couple years. I maintained (I'm very active during the day at work) Now my hormones are crazy I've gained 20 pounds. I've never had this much trouble losing weight. It's harder now! Thank you for responding. Any help is appreciated!

Oh, I haven't seen that boost thing. I lost about 50 lbs. on their old Core plan about 12 years ago and maintained it for years. I never did get that big again. But when I go back it's always harder. I don't know if it's less activity as we age or adaptive thermogenesis or just less motivation, or a combo. I feel ya. Be patient!

My sister seems to be doing well on the new plan. I think she joined back in mid-Dec. and is down like 16 lbs.

adcook1981 wrote: »

Ok, I have a question for those who have ever done weight watchers. I did WW before and lost a lot of weight. Now I'm doing MFP calories. Well today I tracked both to see what a difference it would make. I ate 25 WW points and it was only 975 calories. Do I need to stick with the points or calories?

Stick with what works, but don't try to mix. As was pointed out, fruits/veggies are "free" up to a certain quantity on WW because the points assigned to other foods bake in to their values that you'll eat your veggies, but with MFP, every calorie counts. I've never tried WW, but the flexibility of MFP works for me.

It's like metric/imperial wrenches. A 3/4 inch wrench is close enough to a 19 mm that you can use them interchangeably, but a 1/2 inch is nowhere near either 12 or 13 mm, so you can't. Pick what works for you and stick with it!

I lost all of my baby weight about 8 years ago with ww. They had free non starchy veggies at that time and it was fine. I also counted calories and I ended up around 1000-1200 most days.

adcook1981 wrote: »

Ok, I have a question for those who have ever done weight watchers. I did WW before and lost a lot of weight. Now I'm doing MFP calories. Well today I tracked both to see what a difference it would make. I ate 25 WW points and it was only 975 calories. Do I need to stick with the points or calories?

I prefer calories. I also did this test once. I was eating 1100 calories a day on WW (Points+). It's because WW doesn't really well define just how many free fruits and veggies you can have... if you put them in your diary separately, they're free, but if you put them in a recipe they're not if you look at the total points for the recipe (even though they're zero in the ingredients list! The total will be more than the sum of ingredients). Which I found very inconsistent for hopefully obvious reasons. So I took the "conservative" side and always added them to the recipe if they were part of the recipe (likely leading me to eat less). And 1100 a day and 5' 6" isn't cool.

Another thing for me was fruit isn't something I crave a lot of, so I never took advantage of the free points. Which had me eating less than a minimum amount of calories. And I lost weight really quickly (considering I was still in the normal weight category). And I was tired a lot. WW is great for some people, but not the best for others. I have one friend that it works really well for. Except that they made her quit when she got pregnant, instead of helping her eat the right amount and staying healthy while pregnant.

So essentially you need to count the calories of fruits and vegs on MFP. On WW you don't. For me, WW didn't encourage me to eat more veggies or fruits.

FYI the min points on SmartPoints is 30, right? So you have some left still?

ETA: I did WW Online so I also didn't have the resources of meetings to ask questions. And their forums were dead. It would take me 2 weeks to get a response to a simple question like "Is condensed soup counted as ml for prepared or unprepared?"

I stopped MFP on new year's day and started WW with the new smart points program. I've only lost 3 pounds in 6 weeks. Yesterday I compared my 30 smart points to MFP and realized I ate 1,610 calories! That's way more than I should eat if I want to lose a little weight...I am 57 y/o, 5'3" and 130 pounds. I can't eat 1,600 calories a day unless I am exercising 30 minutes a day...which I haven't been doing like I should. I'm back to MFP so I can better monitor my intake. Forget the points!

_John_ wrote: »

WW will also count a lot of points for even lean proteins, so if you don't eat fruits and veggies and eat a higher protein diet the calories eaten can be quite low (which make it work, but still).

They don't do that anymore. On the new program, the lean proteins went way down in points.

In any case, I had great luck years ago with weight watchers but know a lot do people who don't do well with the newer plans. If you're using MFP, that should be enough. Why are you doing both? I think it would be better to pick one and stick with it. But, if you are using both, on here, track everything you put in your mouth. Pretty much that simple. Also, using both may get very confusing.

junodog1 wrote: »

elv1ra wrote: »

Weightwatchers lets you eat fruit and veggies (within reason) for free, because allowing them to not be counted encourages people to eat them and make better food choices.

What bothers me about WW is that they can't seem to make up their mind about their points calculations. They've had at least 3 different points systems based on varied macronutrients. And also the fact that I gets most of my nutrition info off the internet and I can't stand having to look up one thing so i can plug that into into another calculator to get a points value. I prefer to just count my calories on MFP. My sister prefers WW. We've both had success and both gained the weight back when we went back to bad habits.

From a business plan viewpoint, WW needs to change the program every few years so that they can sell new materials.

Yup! And they charge way too much for their program. And penalize you when you don't go to a meeting. Ridiculous.