Weight Watchers/My Fitness Pal

pgoodt1994
pgoodt1994 Posts: 32 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
What is the difference between counting points for Weight Watchers and counting calories for My Fitness Pal besides the obvious, one is free and one is not?

Replies

  • Maxxitt
    Maxxitt Posts: 1,281 Member
    edited May 2019
    Here you go (from the WW website) - https://www.weightwatchers.com/us/article/how-smartpoints-work

    Edited to add: toward the end of that short write-up WW explains the difference between "points" and "calories."
  • cheryldumais
    cheryldumais Posts: 1,907 Member
    MFP puts you in the driver seat and WW wants to drive. Weight Watchers is built to drive people towards what they consider a healthier diet. Some people love it and are very successful. Other's are not. For me I was a WW member for years but never got to my goal. On MFP I did. I needed to make decisions about how I was going to live my life. There's no magic in either plan. If you don't mind the expense and want someone else to tell you how to eat and you are willing to follow their instructions then WW might be a reasonable solution for you. I didn't fit that mould. I prefer to make my own decisions. I also needed to be accountable for everything I ate because if you tell me bananas are free I'll eat them all day long which obviously would prevent weight loss at around 100 calories each, lol.
  • jaymijones
    jaymijones Posts: 171 Member
    edited May 2019
    In all fairness I left WW over 5 years ago and never looked back. So I don’t really have experience with the current WW program. They were great the first time I used them (I’ve had four babies). There were a lot of things I learned at WW that were great, such as eating the foods I want, just in moderation. And looking at a calorie deficit as a weekly number to hit instead of daily, so if I splurge now and then, I don’t feel like I’ve fallen off the wagon.

    Those were things I liked. I hated that every time I came back after having another baby, the program had changed again.(they still do that, give it another year or two and they’ll roll out a new version again) I had to learn a whole new program every single time. I really liked the first version of the program I tried, back when it was just Points, veggies were free, but fruit was not. I got within a few lbs of my goal before getting pregnant again. Neither of the subsequent programs I tried (really just slightly tweaked versions of the same one) worked as well for me. I really struggled to lose even a lb. I even started paying more and went to meetings after struggling so hard after baby 2. It didn’t help, and when the leader told me my problem was the half brownie I was eating to reward myself for staying far enough within my points to have room for it, was the reason I couldn’t lose (not the 500 calories in fruit I was eating on a daily average), I decided to be done. I think I went back for maybe a month after baby number three. The program had changed again, so I was hopeful it had gotten back to what worked. Nope! I switched to a free tracking app and haven’t looked back. There just isn’t anything about WW that I miss.

    I like using these free tracking apps better. I’ve tried 3, and while MFP is my favorite, it doesn’t play nice with my Apple Watch, so I currently use a different one and it works just as well.
  • sarajean1976
    sarajean1976 Posts: 5 Member
    I started with Weight Watchers Freestyle last August. I lost my first 40lbs on WW, for me was a great kickstart. I incorporated more fruit and veggies into my diet which it had been lacking. I followed the program through the end of February but I was beginning to feel restricted. I started using MFP in February as well as WW and then switched over solely to MFP in March. I've lost 20 lbs since switching to MFP and like the flexibility it gives me....and weighing fruit in grams was an eye opener!!!
  • Scottgriesser
    Scottgriesser Posts: 172 Member
    Basically, weight watchers is a lie and counting calories is not.

    Fruits and veggies have calories. Therefore, you do have to have a limit in order to stay under your maintenance intake. Weight watchers let's you eat them to your hearts(stomachs) content.

    An accurate mfp log will show you exactly what you ate in a day and that number can be adjusted based on results. A ww log has built in variance because fruits and veg arent counted. Have no way of knowing what's what.

    You can indeed get fat eating vegetables and you can indeed lose weight eating twinkies. Mfp > ww.

Categories