Weight Watchers.... I can't really gasp my mind around it

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  • lrichardson2360
    lrichardson2360 Posts: 225 Member
    Also, people keep saying MFP shows you how to eat healthy....no it doesn't. You can enter McDonalds into your diary every day and still be under your calorie goal and MFP will say great job for staying under! This is what you would weigh in 5 weeks if you ate like this every day and it WILL be a smaller number! No where on this sites besides the forms tells you what to eat. WW is the same way. Yes, you can eat McDonalds every day and stay under your points and lose weight, but you aren't getting healthier.

    So true!!
  • Lynn_SD
    Lynn_SD Posts: 83 Member
    I tried WW about 4 years ago. I was assigned only 19 points per day, the lowest at the time. The only "extra" points were given for exercise activity. I asked for the formula that was used to calculate food points and finally the group leader brought me the very complicated equation. I didn't lose any weight there. I really joined for the social support, was hoping to find an exercise buddy but no luck there.
    I LIKE knowing how much protein, fiber, fat and calories I am eating per day so MFP is much better for me.
  • mtaylor33557
    mtaylor33557 Posts: 542 Member
    Last reason (I keep remembering more after I've posted).

    The goal weights they give in WW are too high imo. I'm now 7lbs under what my goal weight in ww was, and I still want to lose anotehr 12lbs. 19lbs is a huge difference. My goal on here is 125lbs, which is not too low for my height of 5'4". Their goal was 144lbs. Way too high for me.

    WW let me set my own goal.. as did MFP.. I set them as the same number.
  • Prudiddy
    Prudiddy Posts: 262 Member
    I love your weight tracker!
  • ShrinkingCatrina
    ShrinkingCatrina Posts: 12
    I did WW here in Canada, 40 points seems high. I had 40 pounds to lose and they gave me 26 daily points and 49 added weekly points as well as eating back exercise calories. I liked the meetings as the energy was high and they do not promote eating your entire calories in junk, moderation is key but must fill you day with a balance diet. I got the impression that the daily points should be balanced and the extra weekly points were for treat days. Anyway, I cancelled as MFP is similar and my fitbit syncs with MFP making it easier to know how much of my exercise calories to eat back in order to lose 2 pounds a week. I miss the meetings but the cost of $51/month was too much for me.
  • montana_girl
    montana_girl Posts: 1,403 Member
    I started weight watcher in 2006 back when you got a set number of points for your age range plus 35 extra points for the week. Back there points for food were based on calories, fat, and fiber. I did very well with that and lost 65lbs and 8 months.

    I started having issues with it when they switched over to the new points system that had a whole different way of calculating points for both target points and food points. I've seen a lot of people that this system worked for, but I struggled it with. Another reason I struggled with it is because I got A LOT more active. I always had trouble grasping how calories burned equated to activity points.

    Their basic premise is that you eat can eat anything in moderation and move more and a couple other catch phrases and you'll lose weight. It's the basic calories in calories out premise. They just do it with points.

    The giant bucket of fried chicken is super high in points and they may take up most of her points per day. It all comes back down to energy density of food. Would you rather eat a box of chicken for 15 pts (totally making that pt value up), or some grilled chicken, and apple, some whole grains, more fruit, and cheese for 15 pts (again making that up, but it's probably pretty close).

    I have nothing against weight watchers, my leader was the most amazing woman and still one of my closest friends ever after she moved away. I am not a fan of the new corporate WW that changes programs and pretty much forces clients to purchase the new products (calculators, books, etc) every time they change.

    To each their own.

    Oh man... this sounds like I could have written it! I did great on the old WW points system and lost over 100 pounds, got to Lifetime, then they switched to the new program and I struggled and gained back weight. Somone online suggested counting calories and points to see if I could find the problem. I think the problem came down to I wasn't eating enough...

    Anyway, I still continue to go the meetings (I love my WW Leader and get a lot out of the group support) and follow the "Good Health Guidelines" but I count calories instead of points. Works for me!

    And, also have to agree that it is getting very coporate and focusing more on product sales than helping members. And I can say this with all honesty since I am currently a receptionist for WW. I can tell you that no one (leaders, receptionist, etc) at our WW center is happy about the changes. :grumble: We work at the WW center to "pay it forward" and help others, but corporate is making that more and more difficult.
  • xMonroeMisfit
    xMonroeMisfit Posts: 411 Member
    I lost 50 on weight watchers doing absolutely nothing but eating junk. Was i healthy cause of it? absolutely not. I gained some of that weight back and am losing a lot slower now but i look better.
  • 4My40th
    4My40th Posts: 22 Member
    I'm doing both Weight Watchers & MFP. It has helped me to get a grasp on what I can and can't eat in moderation. I just signed up for 3 months to kind of kick start my knowledge. You can choose to use up your points on junk & then eat carrots the rest of the day and lose. I have chosen to use it as a tool to learn a new and healthier lifestyle. :smile:
  • dpo74
    dpo74 Posts: 2
    As a junk food king, I have come to rely on MFP's ability to track nutrients using the daily summary on the smartphone app, not sure if WW goes to that level of detail. This is what got me started in the first place, and now 52 lbs. lighter, it's worked well. I am able to pick my vitamin supplements at the end of the day based on what I have eaten that day, loosely using iron as the indicator. I don't miss any foods and enjoy the lattitude to make my own desisions. On occasion, I also use MFP to guide me to have an extra snack in order to prevent any further weight loss as I have reached my target weight. It works boh ways.
  • enchantedeskape
    enchantedeskape Posts: 121
    My issue with WW is that they don't educate very well. They need to educate their members in food, nutrition and exercise. I feel like it's almost like "ok, do this and lose weight. When you're done, you're done" and the weight comes back for a lot of members, so that have to keep up with it, and follow the WW plan. MFP is more realistic. It shows you what you eat, and many people here know what their talking about, so if you have a question about a food, you will likely get a lot of great answers.

    I'm not sure if anyone else addressed this post or not. I haven't finished reading the thread. This is untrue. If you take the time to read their literature (if you are an online only member) or attend their meetings & getting started (or now called power sessions I think) sessions, then you get tons of information on nutrition, exercise, etc.

    In the past, WW didn't focus as much on the nuts and bolts of healthier living and sustaining a healthful lifestyle, but that was quite some time ago. Now it focuses on really educating their members, giving them all the information to make healtful choices, educating on portion control, how the body digests different nutriets (why you should choose X food over Y food to keep you satisfied longer, etc), and the many benefits of exercise.

    The point system builds in their "weekly points" for multiple reasons, one of which is to help people not completely deprive themselves of "forbidden foods". Most of the time when you completely forbid a certain food from your "diet", you will eventually crumble and binge. WW doesn't forbid food. It educations you to help you enjoy it in moderation.

    Also, the points given to each member varies on more than a couple of factors. Age, Weight, Height & Gender all factor in.
  • rlwart
    rlwart Posts: 47 Member
    I've been doing WW on and off since 6th grade, and I'm turning 40 this year, and it is still my go-to method for weight loss. Truly the PointsPlus version is extremely frustrating, but looking at protein, carbs, fat and fiber is nutritionally a sound method of figuring the nutritional value of a food, and tells us way more than just looking at the calories.

    When I was a kid, WW had little menus back then on a sheet of paper, and you would go home and make yourself a plain chicken breast, eat some vegetables, and they had little treat ideas you could make like microwaving an apple and sprinkling cinnamon on there and truthfully if you had the sense, you could learn from WW the basics of healthful eating. Obviously a 6th grader at Weight Watchers? I am fairly sure that constitutes a family-induced eating disorder, right? Now I log my foods on MFP, but I'm figuring the WW PointsPlus as well with my little calculator to see if I can find the right combination. This was my first week back and I think I went over by 4 points for the week, but I didn't count any of my activity points either, so I bet I was fine. However, I am hypo-thyroid so my metabolism is not the average normal metabolism, and I will probably need to consume a bit fewer. I was looking to use only my daily points and not my weekly ones, but I guess that didn't work out so well.

    Anyone can cheat themselves and eat crap from fast food places and stay under their points/calories, but saying "They don't tell people" is first untrue, and second, blaming it on the Weight Watchers company constitutes just plain not taking responsibility for yourself. Honestly, anybody can figure out the right way to eat. Some lean meat, a ton of vegetables, and a little bit of bread if you like bread, and there you go. If you are eating the amount of vegetables you're meant to be eating, and have little snacks of a small apple and a lot of water, and eat good protein from a source that remembers where it came from and isn't processed beyond recognition, then you're doing the best you can for yourself.

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