Ah, ambivalence . . .
crewahl
Posts: 5,408 Member
Since joining this board, I've been tracking here and on WW. There are some interesting difference.
I have no idea where this will all go.
What's your experience been?
- This site is more Jack Webb - just the calories, ma'am - with no specific effort to prioritize a food group.
- I like the idea of "if every day were like this, you'd weigh____ in five weeks". That's motivating.
- I like free fruit - in fact, I really like free anything.
- I like weekly points; I prefer the "safety net" of that even if I'm implicitly pre-funding it with lower daily allowance.
- I miss post-stalking.
I have no idea where this will all go.
What's your experience been?
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Replies
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Charlie...I have semi simultaneously been tracking on both WW and MFP since I committed to WW 5 years ago. I have been more confused than anything over just calories vs pp. That being said the success I have had can be contributed to WW system more over than just counting calories. Or is tracking points showing the success because I didn't count calories. Well the bottom results is a loss and that's what counts. So agreeing with you I like the idea of "if every day were like this, you'd weigh____ in five weeks". That's motivating to me as well. I like free fruit - in fact, I really like free anything is appealing as well but when I come over to MFP and pay 105 calories for a banana I begin to wonder was it really free with WW? Along with the many other fresh fruits.?
In the end Shendler's comments always come back to mind that eating less than you burn will produce weight loss. A pretty simple but oh so true statement.
As far as - I like weekly points; I prefer the "safety net" of that even if I'm implicitly pre-funding it with lower daily allowance does also work for me. I did that even yesterday as I used 10 of my weekly points but I knew in advance as I put the items in my mouth that I was going over. In the end however it all goes to the same place in my stomach where it decides how to deal with it. After it decides how to deal with it I then in turn get the results and have to emotionally deal with it.
So I have no idea where this will go either but my experience has been to watch the portions, watch the way my foods are prepared. How they are prepared I have found has a resounding effect on my weigh in results on Friday am. To much sodium, not enough liquids, too many sweets and the list goes on.
That's my experience in a short synopsis and we will see where it goes from here.
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It's been awhile since I switched from points to calorie counting, but I really appreciated that a glass of wine and a candy bar no longer blow my day out of the water since they're not weighted more than other food.
I have a friend who uses her exercise calories on MFP sort of like weekly points, where she allows herself to eat her exercise calories back any time within a week timeframe to get the weekly point feeling.
I'm not sure what post stalking is, but if you star (hit the star on the upper right corner) of the post you'll get notified anytime someone new posts in there.0 -
Rachel,
On the WW boards, if you clicked on the number of posts beneath somebody's name, it would take you to a list of threads on which that person had posted. So you could sometimes get a real sense of what was up with somebody by looking at where they'd been and what they'd posted. Or what they'd been told but simply chose to discount and look to others for the answer they really wanted. Helped in formulating appropriate responses.0 -
Post-stalking = clicking on the number of posts next to a person's name to pull up a list of all their posts that you could review.
It weeded out some BS when people knew what they said was accessible for later review. It's also useful to see if a friend has been posting.0 -
Charlie, Time for an avatar picture, the grey outline really does you no justice.1
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For me, still in my early years of this game / lifestyle, tracking is key. I can see where tracking anything relevant would make a difference for most people. In my life pre-WW, my tracking would be loads of food or numbers of drinks but obviously, that was not done to be mindful of intake. Now that I understand the 'currency', whether it was PP, now SP, or just calories and I know the RDA, I've pretty well acclimated to regulated eating and enjoy the benefits that go with it. For the time being, I'll stick with the SPs simply because they're smaller numbers and I do appreciate the weighting for sugary, fatty things. I like the weekly point mentality too; helps me juggle my overages when need be.
Ironically, several months back when I had to call WW 'tech support' because my voucher didn't get populated properly, they changed my starting weight such that I got 93 SPs daily. Since that was my second call to them that day, I just gave up. I knew I needed to be at 32 and haven't bothered to call again to have it revised. So everyday looks like I'm free to eat at will...but I don't.0 -
I've been tracking on both trying to decide to make the "complete" switch to MFP. I like things about both. I can't decide so far but its only been a week. Maybe the cost vs free will be a factor.0
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I played around with MFP a few years ago when I was lifting weights, because I wanted to get a better idea of how much protein I was taking in. It's a good site, and seemed to have a much better database than WW did. I do find keeping track of points easier than calories, but on the other hand, most foods list calories and not points (even though there used to be an easy conversion), so there's that.
As a matter of principle, I prefer counting calories as compared to points, because I think WW made such a big effort to change the "weighting" of things (more points for alcohol, for example, than their caloric content would indicate, less for protein), that it seemed to obscure the basic concept: you need to eat less calories than you burn if you want to lose weight.
I'll probably track here for a while and see if I can't drop the "final 10 pounds" again. After that, I'd like to go back to a completely intuitive approach.0 -
I'm tracking calories now. My WW flounce explains why. I really do appreciate the thought process WW and GOAD instilled in me.
I LIKE the free fruit
I LIKE the weekly points
Free fruit is so cheap on the calorie counting plan it really doesn't matter, other than I can't gorge myself with fruit, which is probably a good thing.
My plan for weeklies is to try to shoot about 300 under my 750 allowance and maybe use that up on the weekend.
You are implicitly eating your APs here, so I need to think about that some.0 -
I still do WW and don't count calories. Having said that I have "memorized" the program and don't formally journal stuff. I did track for a week or so on the new version (smart points) and found I didn't need to make any changes in my lifestyle except maybe use a few more weekly or activity points. I try and keep it simple.0
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Thanks for explaining post-stalking. I can definitely see where that would be useful to weed out BS and forum trolls0
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