Why I left Weight Watchers new "Freestyle" Program
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I am really regretting signing up for 6 months. I am about to quietly chalk it up as a loss and go back to counting calories. As long as I lose weight my husband will never know.
(He wouldn't care really, just be annoyed about wasting money and I am right there with him.) But today, for example, I ate an Amy's vegetable pot pie. FIFTEEN POINTS. Why?! It's maybe not ideal food but it's not, in my opinion, bad enough to count for 2/3 of my day's intake. I guess, maybe, this is where they would tell me to have a zero point dinner? Man, sometimes life just happens and with "bad" foods so heavily penalized, it makes it rough to improvise. 12 -
WW seems a completely rubbish diet these days. Forty years ago it at least made sense.2
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I've done WW a couple of times over the years. The first time was around 2004-ish, and veggies were zero points but everything else had points. I got to my goal weight, and was on maintenance, and they changed the program and I lost a couple of points a day. I was already struggling to stay within my points and now I get even less? Yikes. Somewhere around 2013-ish they changed to veggies AND fruits being zero points. I guess people were looking at a 2 point apple and a 2 point cookie and choosing the cookie, so they wanted to encourage more fruit. Again, though, it had to be raw and unprocessed. For example, I could eat a banana and it was zero points. If I mashed it up and froze it so I could pretend I was eating ice cream? BOOM, 2 points gone because I "processed" it. Just was never going to work for me long-term. I've been just using MFP now since last July, and have lost 26 pounds - slow and steady - and a banana is a banana no matter what temperature it is.15
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Infact DeanaCal, you are doing what common sense decrees.
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PurpleOrchid531 wrote: »I'm glad I found this post.
I did WW back in 2006 when I believe it was using the Flex Points system. This was before smart phones and I only did it online. I lost 15 lb in about 9 months but I felt like complete crap. I did not learn a lot about protein, fats, macros, etc. - basically their moto was if it fit in your Points, you could eat it.
That was the year I gave up regular pop and started my addiction to diet pop. I've tried giving up diet pop several times now only to always go back to it because you know, 0 calories. Back then I had a freezer full of frozen meals and there were many days I ate ice cream for dinner because it fit into my points. I may have lost weight but I was getting migraines, probably from the ton of processed food I was eating, and I didn't know much about portion control.
I thought about joining again but I too was puzzled by the number of Zero Point foods. Like so many of you, those foods account for many of the things I eat. I need to be more accountable with my portions and my sugar intake so I don't think the Freestyle plan will work for me.
And $35 a month online? That's pretty steep. I want to say it was around $16 a month when I did it, and I thought that was high back then!
I just need be more accountable and stick with MFP.
This was me exactly - probably around the same time too.0 -
I'd never even consider WW with Oprah as their spokes-person. Really? So she starved herself and lost a bunch of weight and kudo's to her personal trainer. Then she gained it all back and went on Jenny Craig, became their spokes-woman, then she gained it all back. Then she did WW... and is still doing WW... and doesn't appear to have lost any weight, but is super excited about eating whatever she wants. So essentially it's a free for all... eat whatever you want but restrict your calories? I don't get it. I know that years ago my mother had a lot of success on WW, but that was back in the 60's when it was all about cottage cheese, celery and diet frozen dinners hahaha! Screw Oprah! She can't even control her own weight or her own life, who is she to tell anyone else how to do it?12
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cushman5279 wrote: »I'd never even consider WW with Oprah as their spokes-person. Really? So she starved herself and lost a bunch of weight and kudo's to her personal trainer. Then she gained it all back and went on Jenny Craig, became their spokes-woman, then she gained it all back. Then she did WW... and is still doing WW... and doesn't appear to have lost any weight, but is super excited about eating whatever she wants. So essentially it's a free for all... eat whatever you want but restrict your calories? I don't get it. I know that years ago my mother had a lot of success on WW, but that was back in the 60's when it was all about cottage cheese, celery and diet frozen dinners hahaha! Screw Oprah! She can't even control her own weight or her own life, who is she to tell anyone else how to do it?
Oprah's weight has gone up and down (as is the case for many people before they found long-term success), but I think her *life* is pretty much under control.
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cushman5279 wrote: »I'd never even consider WW with Oprah as their spokes-person. Really? So she starved herself and lost a bunch of weight and kudo's to her personal trainer. Then she gained it all back and went on Jenny Craig, became their spokes-woman, then she gained it all back. Then she did WW... and is still doing WW... and doesn't appear to have lost any weight, but is super excited about eating whatever she wants. So essentially it's a free for all... eat whatever you want but restrict your calories? I don't get it. I know that years ago my mother had a lot of success on WW, but that was back in the 60's when it was all about cottage cheese, celery and diet frozen dinners hahaha! Screw Oprah! She can't even control her own weight or her own life, who is she to tell anyone else how to do it?
I think adding Oprah as their spokesperson was a brilliant move on their part because their ideal customer is someone who will always have a problem with being heavy - they don't make money off of lifetime members - they need new recruits. Oprah appeals to their target audience because she is successful, smart, a woman, and has done all the same things they've done to try and lose weight and still can't and look Oprah made peace with her body and you can too and here...spend money so you can learn to be like Oprah.11 -
I left WW this week because the new "Freestyle" program just will not work for me...
With this latest change, they added 200 food items that are zero points, but by doing this, they took away 7 points a day for everyone. So I went from 30 points a day to 23 points a day.
I liked the previous system better, too. Since I was already at 30 points a day & it can't go lower, I just bought one of the Weight Watchers calculators (just calculates the points, it doesn't know if the food is fruit or doughnuts) & I track on paper.0 -
I've just come back from my (umpteenth) return to WW and I'm feeling similarly fed up. They have finally managed to absolutely ruin an excellent program.
The first time I did WW I'd gained a bunch of weight after quitting smoking and moving from Toronto to a much smaller and colder town, and a friend encouraged me to join her. This was back in back in 2005-6; I lost about 50 pounds with a very early form of the points program (the program long before Points Plus, when you counted EVERYTHING). I loved it, because it was the first 'diet' I'd been on that didn't restrict me to a crazily narrow selection of foods. I loved the diversity of choices; I loved that I could eat *anything* as long as I weighed, measured and counted it (including potatoes and rice and chocolate and bagels and wine). I also really, really loved the cookbooks, which had tasty, enjoyable recipes that were still reasonable and healthy. I got to goal, and I stayed at or under goal for over a year. I could go out! I could eat at a friends! I could have drinks! I could still fit in size 4 pants!
And then they changed the program, to Points Plus -- and *everyone* in my meeting slowed or stalled or started to climb. I gained, started having to pay, continued to gain and gave up. I left, and of course gained all the weight back.
I have since joined and re-joined, often losing quite a bit, but never getting back to goal; I've never been able to trust the program, and I've never been able to eat all my points (or rather, I could, but if I did I'd not lose an ounce). And now there's this new nonsense, which is both much too restrictive and not restrictive enough. OF COURSE I can lose weight if all I eat is skinless boneless chicken breasts and steamed veggies, but I don't need WW to tell me that. But I can't trust the 'zero points' food to drop my calories low enough to ensure I will lose -- and the great joy of the old system was that I could eat reasonable amounts of all foods, including starchy carbs and breads and sweets, and still lose weight. I sat down and ran some of my standard old recipes through the new points counter -- and dishes that had been 6 points a serving are now 16 or 17.
Honestly, I'm now done. I like the meetings, and I like having a scale I can trust; I like feedback and support. But this is ridiculous. Someone mentioned an app that calculates the old system? I can use MFP, but I find it a bit overwhelming...9 -
There isn't an app that can calculate the old system (at least not to my knowledge). What you can do is change your status to maintenance in your settings and that allows you to adjust your daily points back to what they were before the new system. However, when you log foods you have to remember that newly free foods should be given points if you are using the old system, and this is fiddly and I found, not sustainable. Although mfp is a bit difficult to use, especially if you come from the UK and don't use measurements like cups, once you get into the habit of weighing and logging, double checking calories where necessary, you do build up your own database of foods and their value gets easier. Advantages are that foods have proper calorie values - if you want some chocolate for example, you are not penalised as in WW, because it doesn't carry an artificially inflated 'point value' for anything. Good luck.
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I've just come back from my (umpteenth) return to WW and I'm feeling similarly fed up. They have finally managed to absolutely ruin an excellent program.
The first time I did WW I'd gained a bunch of weight after quitting smoking and moving from Toronto to a much smaller and colder town, and a friend encouraged me to join her. This was back in back in 2005-6; I lost about 50 pounds with a very early form of the points program (the program long before Points Plus, when you counted EVERYTHING). I loved it, because it was the first 'diet' I'd been on that didn't restrict me to a crazily narrow selection of foods. I loved the diversity of choices; I loved that I could eat *anything* as long as I weighed, measured and counted it (including potatoes and rice and chocolate and bagels and wine). I also really, really loved the cookbooks, which had tasty, enjoyable recipes that were still reasonable and healthy. I got to goal, and I stayed at or under goal for over a year. I could go out! I could eat at a friends! I could have drinks! I could still fit in size 4 pants!
And then they changed the program, to Points Plus -- and *everyone* in my meeting slowed or stalled or started to climb. I gained, started having to pay, continued to gain and gave up. I left, and of course gained all the weight back.
I have since joined and re-joined, often losing quite a bit, but never getting back to goal; I've never been able to trust the program, and I've never been able to eat all my points (or rather, I could, but if I did I'd not lose an ounce). And now there's this new nonsense, which is both much too restrictive and not restrictive enough. OF COURSE I can lose weight if all I eat is skinless boneless chicken breasts and steamed veggies, but I don't need WW to tell me that. But I can't trust the 'zero points' food to drop my calories low enough to ensure I will lose -- and the great joy of the old system was that I could eat reasonable amounts of all foods, including starchy carbs and breads and sweets, and still lose weight. I sat down and ran some of my standard old recipes through the new points counter -- and dishes that had been 6 points a serving are now 16 or 17.
Honestly, I'm now done. I like the meetings, and I like having a scale I can trust; I like feedback and support. But this is ridiculous. Someone mentioned an app that calculates the old system? I can use MFP, but I find it a bit overwhelming...
There is an app called ITrackBites. It has smart, plus, and even the old Momentum plan.
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I just found ITrackBites! I have it set to Classic WW (which is the old Momentum plan) and am hunting for my old booklets with my former food records -- And will be using MFP as well, of course.3
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Dottie s Weight Loss Zone has a ww calculator that does winning points, smart points, and points plus
http://www.dwlz.com/PHP/pointscalc.html5 -
Has Oprah made peace with her body? I'm sorry, I'm just curious. If she has, how does that help Weight Watchers? I'm a Brit and don't keep up with these things.
Edit. I googled her and find she has bought 10% share.1 -
Has Oprah made peace with her body? I'm sorry, I'm just curious. If she has, how does that help Weight Watchers? I'm a Brit and don't keep up with these things.
It sounds like it from this article.
http://www.oprah.com/food/oprahs-cookbook-food-health-and-happiness-excerpt0 -
I've never looked into weight watchers... but that 0 point list looks like a bunch of crap? On the days that I make an effort to eat clean, all my calories would be from baked fish, broccoli, sashimi, egg whites, spinach, mung bean sprouts, scallops etc. 0 points, but eating as much as you can of any of those/not watching your portions would still make you fat....2
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I've done WW a couple of times over the years. The first time was around 2004-ish, and veggies were zero points but everything else had points. I got to my goal weight, and was on maintenance, and they changed the program and I lost a couple of points a day. I was already struggling to stay within my points and now I get even less? Yikes. Somewhere around 2013-ish they changed to veggies AND fruits being zero points. I guess people were looking at a 2 point apple and a 2 point cookie and choosing the cookie, so they wanted to encourage more fruit. Again, though, it had to be raw and unprocessed. For example, I could eat a banana and it was zero points. If I mashed it up and froze it so I could pretend I was eating ice cream? BOOM, 2 points gone because I "processed" it. Just was never going to work for me long-term. I've been just using MFP now since last July, and have lost 26 pounds - slow and steady - and a banana is a banana no matter what temperature it is.
This is the most truth I have seen on the internet in a while...a banana is still a banana!!! Just like boneless, skinless, grilled chicken is a zero point food....unless you get the boneless, skinless, grilled chicken nuggets at Chick-fil-a. Somehow those are 1 point. Must be the fact that they are in nugget form.
Did WW PointsPlus many years ago. Loved it. Lost 20 pounds. Tried it again when they switched to SP, too much calculating to get point value for me. Decided if I was going to have to know all that info just to get point value I could use MFP for free and just count calories. Ended up losing 25 pounds that time with MFP. Deciced to try again with this Freestyle program only to find I feel like I can't eat anything and my points seem to be gone after one meal! I mean a high fiber, low carb, protein bar is 8 points?!? Lost a few pounds the first week and have been gaining ever since.
So ready to get back to MFP starting tomorrow!!!0 -
cushman5279 wrote: »I'd never even consider WW with Oprah as their spokes-person. Really? So she starved herself and lost a bunch of weight and kudo's to her personal trainer. Then she gained it all back and went on Jenny Craig, became their spokes-woman, then she gained it all back. Then she did WW... and is still doing WW... and doesn't appear to have lost any weight, but is super excited about eating whatever she wants. So essentially it's a free for all... eat whatever you want but restrict your calories? I don't get it. I know that years ago my mother had a lot of success on WW, but that was back in the 60's when it was all about cottage cheese, celery and diet frozen dinners hahaha! Screw Oprah! She can't even control her own weight or her own life, who is she to tell anyone else how to do it?
I think adding Oprah as their spokesperson was a brilliant move on their part because their ideal customer is someone who will always have a problem with being heavy - they don't make money off of lifetime members - they need new recruits. Oprah appeals to their target audience because she is successful, smart, a woman, and has done all the same things they've done to try and lose weight and still can't and look Oprah made peace with her body and you can too and here...spend money so you can learn to be like Oprah.
I have no problem with Oprah being the spokesperson for WW. She is a real person who has struggled with her weight, proving that no amount of money can make it happen for you. But...let's also remember that Oprah is not just the spokesperson. She also owns 10% of the company.
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eatyogarun wrote: »I am really regretting signing up for 6 months. I am about to quietly chalk it up as a loss and go back to counting calories. As long as I lose weight my husband will never know. (He wouldn't care really, just be annoyed about wasting money and I am right there with him.) But today, for example, I ate an Amy's vegetable pot pie. FIFTEEN POINTS. Why?! It's maybe not ideal food but it's not, in my opinion, bad enough to count for 2/3 of my day's intake. I guess, maybe, this is where they would tell me to have a zero point dinner? Man, sometimes life just happens and with "bad" foods so heavily penalized, it makes it rough to improvise.
Right there with ya! Signed up for the 3 month program, have done 3 weeks of it, hated it, cancelled tonight. Of course I am just having to let my 3 months run out or else they will charge me a $39.95 cancellation fee.
Oh well...lesson learned. Glad to be back using MFP. 4
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