MFP vs Weight Watchers

I've never done weight watchers but a friend showed me the app yesterday and looks almost exactly like my fitness pal. I'm sure it's helpful but it's pretty much the same concept as counting calories and u can do that for free. And plus there's always others on the same journey as you to look to for support.

I really love my WW leader and the emphasis on eating filling healthy foods. However the database on WW sucks and so I only track about 1/2 of what I eat - so I've lost nothing in the many months I've been a member this time. Previously before I found MFP I was a member of WW and lost 40 lbs. I am ready to quit WW again and come back to MFP. Not looking forward to being hungry 100% of the time again as I was when I tracking on MFP before but it did work for me so back again I come.

I was a WW follower back in 2012. I lost some weight when I was really heavy but free fruits and vegetables caught up with me and I stalled. I learned NOTHING about the energy balance and how to budget my calories, and since switching to MFP I learned all that, and more. The forums are a really great resource, there's some very knowledgeable people here that helped me when I was a noob. MFP has seen me through 80lbs of weight loss and I've kept it off because I understand the energy balance and I don't get discouraged when I see glycogen gains and "throw the baby out with the bath water" which is what so many people do after a bad day, weekend, week etc. Definitely in the right place If you want to keep your weight off.

I just rejoined WW in January to see what all this new information was with WW. With the incentive to lose 10 pds in 2 months you would get your joiner fee of 3 months back as a refund was a plus. With the new system I found out I could have more points to eat. Its not working out so good. I am not loosing as quickly as I did before. Plus this green smoothie I eat for breakfast counts my fruits and veggies I put in there. Usually all fruits and mostly all veggies are no points with WW. I'm thinking of cancelling my membership. What I love about MFP is the daily end result. Having a Fitbit I can see at the end of the day calories in vs calories out and extra calories from excercise. It helps me see my goal as to what I could weigh in 5 weeks when I hit the complete entry icon. I also love to see my nutritition info and make sure I am getting my water in. Plus the app is free!

I am in the same boat with wwers! THe new "improved" plan is not only not working for me to lose, but I started gaining it back! They have to keep changing it, for some reason, but it's a mess now. I am going to try "MFP" for a month and if it gets me back on track, then I'm cancelling WWers...besides, I cannot STAND Oprah, LOL

My sister in law just hit her goal weight doing WW. It worked for her. I personally do not see the point unless you like spending money and going to meetings. MFP is free, I still feel accountable too it because I have built a group of friends on here that I do not want to let down. I agree with the posters above, I didn't learn anything about food on WW, MFP gives you so much freedom and I can see how 1200 calories of junk affects my body vs. 1200 calories of healthy foods. My sister in law was explaining some weird program WW has now where a POTATO counted for no points, that makes no sense to me.

I lost about 60 lbs on Weight Watchers last year and changed to MFP after WW changed its plan. As I had done WW already for awhile, you're used to tracking and weighing what you eat so MFP was not a difficult change for me, it is free, and I agree with others who have said that the MFP database is larger than WW's database of food. Also, I am more mindful of what I eat on MFP because I'm paying direct attention to calories as well as nutrients, so I feel more informed about what I'm eating. I also have less guilt when I eat sometimes because I feel like WW steers me towards "bad" versus "good" foods thinking. On MFP I feel that it will work longer for me long-term especially when I get to maintain my goal weight because I still focus on eating healthy most of the time, but without worrying about what is "bad" versus "good" food.

I recently switched from WW to MFP (nearing end of my second week using MFP). I lost 30lbs on WW almost 10 years ago and it worked much better for me back then - but I was under 30 and the plan was different. I joined WW in January and gave the new plan 2 months before deciding I didn't like it. I lost 10lbs and plateaued so I thought I'd try MFP to compare results between WW points and counting calories. I lost 2.6 pounds counting calories last week! I don't expect to maintain that every week but it was more than I ever lost in a week on WW, and it was a nice jump start/motivator! I'm wearing pants today that I haven't worn for a LONG time - it's the best feeling!

I think that MFP will be easier for long-term maintenance and it's FREE. In the new WW program, the points are not as intuitive to figure as they used to be, the website sucks now and the database of foods is limited. I was constantly searching other sources for nutrition info to figure points and I was getting frustrated by the amount of work it took to figure out points. I think this site has much better resources.

I'm going to cancel my WW membership as soon as I get my refund for losing 10lbs. So, the upside is that I did lost 10lbs for free with WW and I'm not sure if I would like MFP or counting calories as much had I not had my WW experience first.

i tried WW off and on for 10+ years. i couldn't maintain my initial weight loss. but even though my losses are VERY slow, i can understand calories in vs calories out and listening to my body's signals. that makes sense to me and is free.

fvtfan wrote: »

I think WW is great for people just starting out, who need that support and knowledge, but you do outgrow it after a while - the topics of the meetings are limited and they definitely do not know what to do if you are super active. They just kept telling me I wasn't eating enough because I was so active, but that never made sense to me.

Actually, they were probably right about that. There's another user on here whose leader told her not to eat her exercise calories back because she was already active before starting...or something close to that. Oh, okay! So this person was only imagining expending all that extra energy?

I did weight watchers but never went to a meeting but from all I've read from other members, it really depends on your leader.

I lost 90 lbs on it and ate better along with learning portion control so that was good.

To me, the only differences are you're paying for meetings and accountability and your daily goal number is a lot lower.

I lost 38 pounds on WW back in the Eighties through an at-work class, but ended up putting all that on plus more. I am now working with a registered dietician and an exercise physiologist, and have lost 55 pounds since working with them.

I found WW classes outside of the small group to be too big and too frustrating because it took forever to weigh in. I hated how the system would change every couple of years, and I found that weighing in every week gave me loads of anxiety.

I see my dietician once a month, and I hand him my iPad with my MFP diary. I see the exercise physiologist twice a week in the gym.

I actually do both together. The new WW program is difficult , but it does steer me towards super healthy choices. I think WW alone would be extremely difficult. I have tried it alone and ended some days using the allotted points and only eating 800-900 calories which makes no sense. I have tried MFP alone and had trouble staying on it because it is so flexible, and I was eating the wrong foods-so even though the calories looked acceptable, I was not losing and I was also dealing with cravings due to choosing too many simple carbs and sugary foods. I suggest trying them together. They balance each other out well.

I did ww for about 2 months last year. The meetings were useful, as well as the accountability of it. If I lost weight, it was recognized. If I gained, I wasn't. It is really the fact that someone is seeing and responding to my weight gain or loss that made a difference for me. I quit because it wasn't helping me do any better than I already was.

AnnaBeach7 wrote: »

I actually do both together. The new WW program is difficult , but it does steer me towards super healthy choices. I think WW alone would be extremely difficult. I have tried it alone and ended some days using the allotted points and only eating 800-900 calories which makes no sense. I have tried MFP alone and had trouble staying on it because it is so flexible, and I was eating the wrong foods-so even though the calories looked acceptable, I was not losing and I was also dealing with cravings due to choosing too many simple carbs and sugary foods. I suggest trying them together. They balance each other out well.

[I did do both together and MFP won by a landslide. Why pay money for something you can get for free? Also the meetings lately were all about how much junk you can get in for lower points, they dissed eating healthy fats and fibre foods. colossal waste of money!

I have done WW 3-4 times over the decades. I mainly have a problem with the double speak of talking about healthy food and pushing unhealthy food from their store or their brand. I read the ingredients on a free snack at a meeting and handed it back. I do try to be careful with the quality of food and drink I consume. It's not all about taste and calories.