Weight watchers...?

I tried it online before I signed up for MFP but it didn't work well for me. The points system was just too much for me to easily translate into what I was eating and buying at the grocery store. MFP with the simple calorie counting was a better fit and free so I cancelled WW.

But, I think going to the meetings probably is better than online. More motivating. And one thing I did love about it was access to the recipes on their website. Great recipes! I still subscribe to the magazine too...love it!

I have been a member of WW for 13years now and am a gold member. I now have some more to lose after baby no 3 and I choose Mfp! It's free, their app is fantastic and there is a huge database of food. WW is expensive, the app is outdated and unreliable and the food lists are not very long. And it's complicated too! Calories are on everything, but points are not!

I'm on WW, going into my fourth week. I've been on an off MFP for awhile, it never really worked for me by ltself. I could never seem to hit my carb/fat/protein goals in the right ratios, and if I didn't, I wasn't sure what to eat to balance it out. I also found myself focusing too much on the calorie content of stuff rather than the overall nutritional value.

I don't find WW complicated. I'm doing it online though, so the computer does just about all the work. The "free" fruits and veggies encourage me to take those over other options. If I'm shopping and I'm really concerned about the points value of something (so far, this only happened once, with bread) I have an app on my Blackberry to help me make decisions. To each their own.

I think WW is a good way to start losing weight...rather than trying to balance all the nutrition facts on the different labels and understand all sorts of different nutrition advice out there, you just follow your points and you can eat whatever you want so it's easy and effective.

However, I did WW for 5 years and my grid looked exactly like a roller coaster - up and down, up and down. In my opinion, WW makes it really difficult to include healthy fats/oils and exercise into your lifestyle and diet - things like avocado, nuts and EVOO are very high points for a snack/addition to a meal and you get very few points back for the amount of exercise you do. I think this is because it's not based on calories, but attempting to "balance" carbs/fat/fibre/protein. That's great in theory, but it means that foods which are high in one but not the others are higher points than they should be, rather than letting you balance out a meal as a whole. With MFP, I can balance out these things in total to hit my targets, but WW is too simplistic for that. It's also focussed on being very low fat (and ends up being very low cal much of the time although that's not the focus) and encouraging people to make up for this by eating lots of the "free" fruit and veg to keep from being hungry. Also, doing it online there's not much health advice from a "leader" like there is with the meetings, and with the flexible points and "eat whatever you want" mentality, I found myself eating very low cal during the week (800 - 1000 cals per day) and then binging on booze/takeaways on the weekend. Not healthy! That's not down to WW, but me struggling to follow a plan like that in a healthy way - for me, personally, it didn't set me up to succeed!

Because of this cycle, I found myself feeling hungry all the time and then reaching for biscuits/cake/crisps/etc when ravenous in the late afternoon after I'd eaten all the "free" veg I had. I realised this wasn't working and so I've done some research on healthy eating instead. I've replaced my afternoon fruit/veg snack with a handful of almonds, added in more high protein food with healthy fats/carbs, and upped my exercise and I feel and look 10 times better! I haven't had a biscuit/bag of crisps/piece of cake in a month without even consciously trying not to (when I'm not super hungry, those things don't sound appealing!).

On WW, I lost lots of weight when I stuck to it. However, I found it difficult to stick to for long periods of time. I feel like MFP is more of a long term solution for me, as it's more flexible and I can focus on being healthy and setting my percentages in a way that prevents me from falling back into my "I can eat whatever I want as long as it's within points" mentality and ending up in a starving/binging cycle. I can eat healthily without feeling hungry and still loose weight/look better/feel better.

I'll always champion WW and recommend it - it was that first step that made me look at my portion sizes and to think about what I am eating before I eat it - two very valuable skills in weight loss. But I think once it gets into the long term, for me it's not a sustainable plan due to the lack of flexibility :-)

Good luck!

I love Weight Watchers. I've lost over 100 lbs on it.

If you work the system, the system works.

I lost 30 pounds on WW and then gained 50 back; But it's like everyone above has said. It's abaout accountability to yourself. My wife lost 160 pounds on WW and has maintained that loss for 8 years, but I had trouble following it again, but I've had success with MFP and have started losing again.

For me personally, the calorie counting works a bit better, plus keeping track of things like sodium and the fat/car/protein thing too. WW defintiely works. But MFP works too. It's all up to us though to step up and own our transformations.

I did Weight Watchers online from Nov 2010 to April 2011 and lost 30 pounds. That was when they counted calories, fat and fiber. I reached my goal weight for literally 2 months then started gaining weight back because I stopped counting and watching what I ate. After about 5 months I had gained all the weight plus 20 pound more. So I decided to go back to Weight Watchers online. Now they changed theyre points system. They count fat protein carbs and fiber. I tried the new system for about 5 months and didnt loose anything. I would loose maybe a pound or two a week if I worked out really hard all week but nothing significant. So I decided to go back to the old Weight Watcher system and MFP. I Have a whole start up package with calculator form the previous WW and I like to use the online counting and community on MFP. I track all my food and excersise in MFP and translate it to WW POINTS.
I think the MFP website is more user friendly than WW especially if you have an iPad or iPhone.

I just started with WW and I must say its a good way to learn the way to eat correct. I use the site because I dont feel like I need to go to a meeting to weigh myself, I just do it at home. I got a 3 month plan right now with them and if i want it after ill keep it but im working with MFP and WW to calculate my caloric intake as well as my pts.. and slowy break myself from WWs

I love weight watchers!!! i just signed back up for the program because I need the support of the meetings. I incorporate the MFP tools with the weight watchers program. When I am doing it diligently it works!

About the WW recipes, I have a WW cookbook I really like
I've never done WW, but have been enjoying MFP