MFP vs Weight Watchers?

Hey, How you doing? I have never done ww but if you hit the search function at the top of your page and type in weight watchers or "ww" there have been loads of ww coments and posts on here in the past. You should get some great info from them! I love mfp and it is free.

I did ww online and liked it, but I think the montly fee is too high for what you're getting. MFP is better in my opinion; I also like that you can track your macros (when I belonged to ww you only tracked points...don't know if that's changed or not). It's also easier to track calories than points (again, just my my opinion). Also, MFP is more fitness-health oriented...I remember on the ww message boards it seemed as if a lot of talk was about low point puddings, cakes, etc. and I never liked the idea of trying to lose weight while eating junk. Finally...I like weighing in daily and tracking my fluctuations (I know most people don't think daily weighing is a good idea) but ww only lets you record yor weight weekly.

I'm guessing WW base their points system on a typical 1200 calorie a day diet anyway. To test this, you can count the calories of what you would eat in a day on the WW plan. I've done WW before and it definitely works but the money I save from not paying for WW is going towards my exercise classes.

I track using WW and MFP and to stay in my daily points range (26) I can typically eat between 1200-1400 calories.

I don't do WW on line, because I am a Lifetime member, and attend in-person meetings for free.
I don't want to pay for something that I have earned for free --- I think that there should be a way for Lifetimer's to access their site (with our memebership number) for free.

So --- I come here to track and use the community boards and I attend WW in person on Saturday mornings.

I will say that the monthly weigh-in helps to keep me accountable.

I did Weight Watchers a couple years ago and lost over 25 pounds. I loved it. However, I think MFP much easier to use and love the phone app. It is all about exercise and portion control and love that MFP is free.

It depends on your temperament.
My wife is doing very well with weight watchers, and she had much more modest success here.
On the other hand, the points confuse me, and I would much rather tweak things here.
Burn more, eat less, and however you get there, as long as it's healthy, is fine.

I never learned half as much about how to eat healthy at weight watchers as I have here. When I did WW I lost, but the importance of strength training to build muscle was never brought up. I see changes in my body following MFP that wasn't happeing on WW. And I have to say the info I have learned from the the MFP members has been awesome. I learned here more than anything that you must eat to lose and that the muscle I'm building through resistance training will help me burn fat 24/7, this in turn will help me to keep the weight off.

weight watchers can have you eating less than 1200 calories a day..you need to NET above your BMR so your body can burn fat instead of getting rid of lean muscle..

You can eat more than 1200 calories if you make the right food choices. I have been doing both WW and MFP for a while. I eat around 1600 calories sometimes more. I make healthy lower point choices, fruits and veggies are free, and I eat back my activity points and my weekly points. You can also do simply filling which will have you making good healthy food choices and netting over 1200 calories. That said, I think you can be just as effective here if you don't stick with a 1200 calorie diet, but exercise and eat at least your BMR. I like WW for the community. I have made good friends there so I have not left. I log in both places and I like doing that. At the end of the day it is all about making good healthy food choices and burning more calories than you eat. IMO you should use which ever forum you think is easier to use and offers you the type of support you need.

Yes done WW twice, didn't lose a thing, since being on MFP lost 14 lbs, love it!

I just switched because this is free. The only thing I dont like is counting the fruit and veggie calories where on WW those are 0 pp. I loved WW PP but not the cost. I have only been doing this a few days. I do like it. I wondered about just logging the calories from the other foods and not the fruits and veggies but not sure how that will work on here.

Was doing WW until they changed the program recently. Fruits and vegetables that were no points made no sense. They still had calories, but no points. I really wasn't happy with WW after the program change. Weight wasn't really dropping. MFP has helped me drop 15 pounds in four weeks.

The one thing I liked about WW is I lost weight consistently and so far I'm struggling since I started MFP, but overall I like MFP better.

So is there a way, and does it make sense, to modify the calorie count that is set for you? One thing that has worked for me on WW is having the flexibility of the "weekly points." I almost always stick to my daily points only, but those extra points allow me to eat out, for example, and go a bit over on one meal. I've been losing steadily. How would I account for that on MFP? Eating the exact same calories every day seems like it might be harder.

There is really no way to do it on MFP the way it happens on WW. That is, you don't have any extra calories set aside for the week and the exercise calories don't go into a bank that can be used on a different day.

What you can do though, is intentionally eat less during the week and then on the weekend, add up all those "remainder calories" so you can eat more. In that context, it's not nice and simple like WW.

weight watchers make nice ice cream, mfp is yet to offer me this.....


i dont know the differnence. im not even here for the wieght thing. but i think ww uses a point system so you can save calories and stufff.