Weight watchers vs. MFP?!!

Does weight watchers include exercise calories?

The way I look at it, everything here on MFP is free. There is no hidden charges and definitely plenty of motivation. Sometimes you have to put yourself out there and take what people say, but it's far worth it.

I posted this on an earlier thread, so this is just copied and pasted!

I'm actually (kind of) doing both now.

I have been doing WW online since December. I lost pretty rapidly in the beginning because I was really following the plan perfectly. After a few months, I started gaining just because I wasn't motivated anymore. I would stop tracking for a few days at a time, then halfway track what I felt like tracking. In total, I lost about 30lbs on WW. As you lose weight, your target point goal gets significantly smaller, and it's pretty small to begin with. I got back to seriously doing WW in May, but found that I wasn't losing any weight anymore while tracking everything and staying below my point goal. I lost maybe 1lb the entire month, and was constantly hungry and cranky. I'm not much fun to be around when I'm hungry and cranky! Especially in a NC summer where it's hot!! :]

I found MFP on my cell phone and started to do it a few weeks ago. Since then, I've lost 6lbs. I started out tracking with both WW and MFP just to see the difference, and I was always WAY over in my WW points, but under in my MFP calories. This week I've decided not to track with WW during the week, and instead just go by MFP. I find when I track with both, I would always pay more attention to WW... so if I were over in points, I would stop eating, regardless of how many calories I had left on MFP. At the end of the week, I'll track everything on WW to see what my point total was. I weighed myself this morning, and I've already lost 2lbs since Sunday morning's weigh in solely using MFP.

So: why I think MFP is a better program -
1)Tracking food: the MFP food catalog is FULL of brands, restaurants, etc. where the WW food catalog is much, much smaller. This also accounted for my lack of motivation to track some foods. If you eat at a restaurant, when you use WW, you have to figure out all the nutritional values yourself and add them in manually (which is REALLY more of a pain than it seems considering a lot of restaurants don't even put their nutritional info where it's easy to find). But I've yet to run into a restaurant that I've eaten at that I can't find in the MFP food catalog.
2)Hungry (all.the.time): I realized, while doing both WW and MFP that WW severely limits your caloric intake, so if you exercise on top of eating your small allotment of points, your body is severely malnourished. Which just leads to me being cranky!
3)Convenience: I love the MFP phone app. I have an android phone, and the WW app was just released for android. It's slow and buggy still, making it a pain to actually need to be on your computer to track most foods. MFP's android app is good for tracking... although I wish that it did more than JUST track (but that's for another post!).
4)Cost: When I signed up for WW, I got some deal with some months free or something (I can't remember that long ago). I just saw on my credit card statement that now, my monthly fee is less than $20. I don't remember the exact amount, maybe $16-17? That's only for online access... to a tracker, blogs, recipes, etc. but no face-to-face meetings. It's not too bad of a deal, but why pay when MFP is free!?! :]

Anyway, I didn't intend on writing a book here, sorry! I can update you with my total weight loss using MFP after I compare the WW points this week if anyone would like to hear the difference. I might actually cancel my WW membership after this week if I end up losing a lot only using MFP (which looks like it might be the case).

Good luck!

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And to whoever asked, yes, you can include exercise on WW, but I've found that exercising doesn't give you too many extra points to use.

From the little I understand about weight watchers the points are based on the types of food and not the actual calories in them so maybe what it's telling you is that you need to look at what you're eating not nessicarily how much you're eating... just a thought

I agree. And after much debate with my own plans, I've decided that MFP knows best, plus it's free!

If you ate another 600 calories in fruits and veggies mfp would be telling you that you're over by 100 calories and WW would still be telling you that you have 1 more point. I think calories are more accurate than the WW point system for this reason.

MFP alllllllllllllllllllllll the way i have to say ive lost 40lbs in 61/2 months....never lost that much om WW....so the proof is in the pudding ..as the saying goes...keep at it tho and lots of excersise imust stress!!:drinker:

The idea behind WW giving people free fruit and veggies is to encourage responsible eating. Instead of debating over a 100 calorie apple and a 100 calorie pack of cookies, WW would rather you eat the apple...so it costs 0 points. And to whoever asked, yes WW has a system for exercise. And to the other person who said you can binge on fruits and vegetables on WW...well, that's not really the right attitude and no, you aren't supposed to. The idea is to avoid the late night cookie binge and instead have an apple or banana.

My girlfriend is on WW and it's working fantastically for her. You just need to stick to the program, eat your points, and try to make healthy choices (which is no different from MFP...), except WW is easier for some to keep track of and if you have meetings, then it's like a support group.

I used to do weight watchers and i found that I lost more weight that way. Now that they have switched to the "points plus" I dont really like it. That is why I am here. But on MFP I am stuck at a 7 lb weight loss and I know that in weight watchers I always lost at least 2 lbs a week. I can't afford weight watchers any more though. I will have to really watch what I eat now if I want to loose more weight. Its frustrating.

Don't forget about your flex points (49 for the week) on WW. If you eat the flex points evenly throughout the week, that is 7 points per day (49/7 = 7). So, really, your 1 point left over + 7 flex points = 8 left over points, which is pretty comparable to 500 calories.

I have been a WW lifetime member since 2002 and the plan really works. I am using MFP because it is new and lets me change things up a bit, but I still fully believe in the WW program.

And to the other person who said you can binge on fruits and vegetables on WW...well, that's not really the right attitude and no, you aren't supposed to.

I agree that is not the right attitude. But let me just put it a little more blunt...How many people are here because they ate way too many fruits and vegetables and got fat? I would bet that would be NO ONE! Trust me, binging on fruits and veggies is not the problem.

If you ate 6 bananas a day along with the rest of your points, you would definitely get fat.

I am trying both right now. However, I'm not using the new version of WW - I went back to the materials from 2004 when it was called Turnaround. That is when they introduced the CORE plan. I got to goal back then, kept it off for 2 years, then "life" happened and I regained most of it.
I have been a WW member since 1978, back when we had to eat fish 5 times per day. You have to find the right balance for what works for you. For some reason this new Points Plus plan was not "it".
I am logging into MFP, then printing it out on paper and adding up the points next to each entry. Yesterday calories were just under what they should be but the points were 4 over. However, I always used my weekly extra points so I would have been fine according to WW.

We'll see how it goes...............on MFP forums, are there "groups" anywhere...........i.e. former WW doing MFP or something like that?

I've done both! I like MFP because it's free and is a lot easier to use. I switched because I have Diabetes and I needed a way to track the carbs and keep a close eye on them and MFP lets me do that easier. I'm not sure why weight watchers is saying you only have 1 point left-it may be the exercise that MFP gives you extra calories, and ww is not adding those back in. Either one you choose, just don't give up. We all hit plateaus where we don't lose for awhile.:flowerforyou:

Much of what people have already said, I would second.... WW and MFP are similar, need to make a life style change to be healthy, eat the right foods, exercise. I did WW and lost 40 lbs. Mantaining weight here on MFP is better since the tool is free and the WW online is not. I did compare WW to MFP for a while and also found a difference in points left versus calories left. I finally made the commitment to just MFP and have been maintaining for like 4 months with MFP. Pick one and stick wtih it.... you'll learn from tracking and your body if you need to make adjustments. Like for me, the 0 point fruits was a killer... I was eating way too many during the day and I my body gained. I stick wtih fruit as a once a day treat.