Weight Watchers for Support

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leilafernandez2014
leilafernandez2014 Posts: 2 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I was a diet very low in calories since 2014. Lost 86 off the scale.
But these past 2 years have been hard to take off and keep off the same 25lbs i keep putting back on. With the PANDEMIC and worry i am not 40lbs heavier BOOOO SO SAD AND MISERABLE
I Joined WW to get back some structural help with the food. I lost 8 lbs the first 2 weeks. But now I am right back where i started. So i took the list of food that was eating on WW and plugged it in to MFP app and i was like now wonder i cant lose weight. Caloreis was like 1800. And i am not one that works out every day. I have a sit down job.
So i went back to WW forum and told what i did. And they all jumped on me. "If your eating the Points your allowed then your fine, your just adjusting. The plan is already mapped out. If you track your foods and you dont eat over your points. Your good..we dont count calories."
Also i have extea 6 or so points a day incase i want to splurge. Veggies, potatoes, whole grain bread and pasta are Zero points. You can have as much as you need to. This makes me happy. And it scares me. Ive been dieting all my life. I know what is good portion or not. But am i even suppose to be eating those foods if I am trying to lose weight?
So confused. The diet i was on before i ate prefab foods and it didnt really teach how to eat. Just learn to ignore hunger and go drink water. And make promises to me that i will get to transition phase. But even at 86 lost. And felt great. I still wasnt at "transition phase"
...and please don't tell me IMF or Keto . I cant do anything that makes me stay away from any foods. I will binge eat again for sure

Replies

  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,200 Member
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    OK, I have to admit I'm a little confused about what the core problem is. Is it that on WW you found you ate so many of the free foods that you got enough calories that you actually didn't lose weight, or that you're worried you might do that so won't lose weight? Do you want to stick with WW? Or, do you want to switch to pure calorie counting with MFP, but you're not sure what to eat if you do that?

    If you want to stick with WW, you can log your eating on MFP too, if you want (instead of logging on the WW site/app). You can use their guidance about food choices, but log them (before eating) and adjust portions so you don't exceed a reasonable calorie goal, even from free foods.

    If you want to switch to pure calorie counting, you can start by logging how you eat now, then gradually modifying over time to get better nutrition (if that's your goal) within a reasonable calorie level. There's a post here with more details about how to do this:

    http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10636388/free-customized-personal-weight-loss-eating-plan-not-spam-or-mlm/p1

    There are no specific foods that need to be off limits for weight loss to occur (unless you have unusual medical conditions). It's just that some foods are really high in calories, really low in nutrition, and not very filling, so it's easy to overeat them without getting the nutrients we need for best health.

    So, in a pure calorie counting approach (where we're trying to get adequate nutrition because health is also important!), we will usually need to eat those kinds of high-calorie, low-nutrition, not-filling foods in smaller proportions than we used to, and/or not often.

    I lost weight just fine eating not only veggies, potatoes, whole grain bread/pasta and such, but even reasonable portions of chocolate bars, craft beer, and other treats, when I had the calories for them without sacrificing nutrition.

    Best wishes!
  • fatgal333
    fatgal333 Posts: 9 Member
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    Curious if you find the WW tracker more effective than the FP tracker? I know the points system operates on a “not all calories are equal” formula. I was always dubious about the zero points foods. Personally, think WW is great to force yourself to be weighed and accountable, If I don’t weigh myself, I think I am losing weight but I am gaining. Not everyone is such a bad judge of weight as I am. I also liked seeing my friends at meetings every week. The WW meetings are excellent for behavioural training (how to have just 1 piece of cake), how to keep from giving up. However, they were not able to silence the emotions that caused me binge eat. For this I used a self help book on emotional eating. Combined with the FP app, I am at a much lower weight than I was when attended WW. However, for other people WW works very well.
  • Unicorn_Bacon
    Unicorn_Bacon Posts: 491 Member
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    Okay.. so.. I am a little against weight watchers because I find their system very flawed. Some people may have success on it but the key factor here is, we all have our own diets, lifestyles and mental capacities.

    There was a post I posted on previously that was asking about if weight watchers was better or was counting calories.

    Now.. the premise of weight watchers is that their huge list of 0 point foods, is based on their opinion that its harder for someone to eat 6 chicken breasts then 6 cookies. So by making chicken breast a free food, people probably wont over eat on those foods.
    There is no limit to those free foods and I had no problem showing how easy it was for someone like me to over eat, using 98% of those 0 point foods, eating 3 meals and 3 snacks.

    By giving some people.. like myself, an all access pass, of unlimited foods like that, it doesnt matter if its veggies and chicken, the extra calories will still result in weight gain and if you have a hard time finding structure in a structure less set up, it's not going to help you.

    How can one know which foods to limit less off if everything is blanketed at 0 points?

    In regards to my 3 meals and 3 snacks, it didnt seem like I was eating very much.. the meals were a reasonable size and the snacks were protein based. But having points wouldnt of showed me what was going wrong because I was barely using them.

    Calorie counting to me made much more sense because while nothing is off limits, it does provide structure.

    Having a set amount of calories allows me to see where my food fits in. It allows me to see where I might be making my portions just a bit too larger then I should be. I can still eat those breads and pasta and potatoes but I understand that these foods cant just simply be unlimited and that those calories do count towards my intake in varying degrees.

    You dont have to stay away from any foods, but unlike weight watchers, it definitely teaches you a better understanding of what your eating

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