weight watchers

is anyone following the weight watchers way of losing weight? im trying but not getting very far, i got down to 149 after being stuck at 150 for what seemed like forever and having weighed myself this morning im 153!

i found on my deck in class today a weight watchers journal book thing which the other teacher left, looks really interesting.

how does the weight watchers program work? i know its about counting points? i might give it a try

I'm not entirely sure on how exactly Weight Watchers work, but I've heard mixe reviews on it.  Some live and swear by WW, and others said they lost weight but gained it all back as soon as they fell off of it.

The way I see it, completely biased because I consider any "program" to be a diet, is it's a diet, and therefore it can't be that great for you.  Diets eventually end.

I've tried numerous diets, thinking I'll just stick with it for life, but in the end they were still diets.  Once I started doing things how Calorie-Count and the AMASING forumers have taught me, weight comes off without a problem, and I don't count my points, just my calories.

So I'll leave this up to someone else to answer, but I will press you to read through the forums if you haven't already, and see what exactly you're doing wrong if the weight either won't go away, or if it does and just creeps back up.  I've found that even though I throw out every defense for myself and excuse, I'm still ultimately at fault if I regain weight.

Personally, I think Weight Watchers can be rather successful. Anybody can gain weight back on just about any diet; contrary, anybody can MAINTAIN weight after dietting. Honestly, I don't think it has anything to do with the diet, I think it has to do with the maintenance. People gain their weight back because they fall out of dietting and probably fall out of exercising as well, once they've reached their goals.

I have a friend who has been on Weight Watchers and has lost 50+lbs, and even though she stopped the program, she's still been able to maintain her weight loss.

Basically, Weight Watchers consists of a point system. You can eat just about anything you want, but everything has points. Depending on your age, weight, height, etc, you determine how many points you're allowed to have per day. There are some things that they don't count at all, such as most fruits and vegetables.

There are pros and cons to every diet. Particularly with the Weight Watchers diet, the good thing is that you're never deprived of what you love to eat and you can still be successful at losing your desired amount of weight. The bad thing is that fruits are rather high in sugar and carbs, which is one thing that *I* personally believe to be extremely important in any diet, and Weight Watchers allows you to eat a whole watermelon with no worry. Have you seen how many calories are in a watermelon? A lot. And the carbs, oh my god.

For Weight Watchers, there are weekly meetings where you go and they talk about stuff relative to weight loss and health, and they give you hand outs and books to help keep you healthy and up to date with the Weight Watchers program and such. Personally, you don't even need the meetings. Once you have the books that tell you how many points are in the foods, that's pretty much all you need. The meetings are just a waste of time.

Anywho, that's just about all I know. Personally, I think you should just change your eating style and start exercising. That's the best way to lose weight and keep it off. "Diets" and "programs" just won't work. Think of it as a Life change and you'll succeed.

Love and Alohas
Ihilani Kapuniai

i did it . i loved it, but yes eventually i stopped and put the weight back on because i just went back to my old eating habits.

you dont have to pay and go to meetings, you can just buy the book , or even find it online and follow the program yourself, although the book is cheap, 5 or 10 bucks.

you can literally eat anything on ww, as long as you stay in your point values. So based on your weight youd probably be able to eat about 20 points per day...ever food has a value and you just dont go over that value, and guaranteed success pretty much

I did it two different times after childbirth and lost 20-30 pounds. I liked. Didn't go to meetings, just had the information and used the point system. I now count calories which I found I can eat more. Haven't lost anything this way yet, but working on it. Good luck.

I'm counting both calories and points but am not to sure of my progress.....I have only been on it a week and went down from 149 to 143 BUT as I stated on another thread I was ready to start my period during my first weigh in.  THAT thread may be of some use to you bunnyish....If you are close to starting you WILL gain weight and the amount differs with everyone.  Try reading that and see if any of it sounds familiar with your current pounds you have put on.  :D

Weight Watchers uses almost the same concept as Calorie Counting....it's just "points" instead.  But it's the same idea...you get x amount of points a day, and each food has x points.  They do have meetings which is helpful for support.

I've been on weight watchers for 9 weeks now. I've lost a total of 17 lbs was 18.6 but went on vacation for two weeks.  Weight Watchers is not a diet or at least I don't see it that way anymore.  the way it works is a like counting calories instead the average 50 calories is like 1 point.  You get a daily point range then you get 35 extra points to use throughout the week.  I usually save them for the weekends since I know I'll probably have a few drinks then.  Every food has a point value and you can purchase a point calculator or the ww leader will give you a slider on your first meeting.  Like CC.com I think weight watchers is build around the group support or at least that's what I think has helped me.  Anyway good luck I know you can do it

I love weight watchers. Joined mid May and have nearly lost 40lb. Instead of just looking at calories it looks at saturated fat as well. And no food is forbidden! Also, for me getting weighed by another person is far more motivating than weighing myself.

My sister lives and breathes by WW.  She's lost over 140 pounds in the past year and a half.  She finds it very easy to follow.  It's become a lifestyle, and she doesn't consider it a diet.  

Me and my friend were at the same weight 2 years ago- she joined weightwatchers and I started counting calories.  We both lost the same amount of weight (around 20 lbs) on our respective plans and both have kept it off so far...

She liked the personal touch WW gave people - the weekly meetings and discussions of everyone's problems face to face. I like the anonymity of the CC website and the support on calorie counting and from forums & online friends.

As far as diets go- we both ate about the same amount of foods- we compared..

So what does that say? I guess both plans are effective for different people types. The important thing is to stick to a plan and understand it is for life.

When I was 14 I joined Weight Watchers on the points plan and lost 30 pounds. It taught me portion control and nutritional eating. When I went off it, I gained ten pounds back, but I attribute that to a period of depression where I was overeating and not exercising. When I started walking my dogs regularly and watching what I ate, I dropped back down. Now, in total, I've lost 50 pounds since then (I'm 16 now) and I don't think I could have done it without Weight Watchers. Their programs are very helpful if you're smart -- although honestly, if you don't find the meetings helpful, there's no need to keep paying week after week once you have the points plan.

If you feel like you need someone to be accountable to (other than us!), WW is a decent program.

I think the "points" system is a little off.  They give you credit for fiber, when I think calorie counting is easier, less math, and MORE ACCURATE.

But I do know people who are very happy with how well they've done on it.

My Wife is on Weight Watchers, though she didn't need to lose any weight in my opinion.  ANYWAY - it's worked very well for her and she loves it.  

The way I look at it - it's a much simpler way of "counting" what you eat.   The points value of food is determined by the Calories, the grams of fibre and the grams of fat.  So she's always looking for "1 point" chocolate snacks.   She found these fat free fudgcicles at Sobeys, Compliments brand that are 1 point for a large fudgesicle - as opposed to 1 point for the tiny Popsicle brands.

She's very aware of what she eats now -  at night she'll be like "I've saved 2 points for snacks" so she'll have a 1 point fudgsicle and a bowl of airpopped popcorn with splenda on it.

You can find points calculators on the web (Where you enter calories, fibre and fat,)  and I'm sure you can find your recommended point intake - as well as hints and tips etc.   

Mom lost a lot of weight with ww but she has put a bit back on.  She really liked it but found it to be a bit expensive.

WW is almost the same thing as calorie counting.  The difference is that the Points system penalizes you for eating fats, a notion that is based on old and bad science.  All of the current research on diet and nutrition tells us that dietary fats are NOT a cause of weight gain and in fact help people to lose weight.  Frankly, since this research overwhelms the notion that nutritionists had in the 80s and early 90's that dietary fats were evil, I'm surprised that WW hasn't restructured their Points equation. 

At any rate, people have success on WW because it forces a calorie deficit.  Personally, I prefer CC. 

WW is good for ppl that need to pay for something to actual lose the weight. Sounding odd huh? Not really if you are paying for a program you think by gosh im gonna stick to this one because they keep on taking my money every month. Only problem with this is you get burned out on the same program you only really learn about point systems and not how these points basically counting calories as said above.............you never really know what a real portion looks like you only know what 5 points looks like. Once you go off this 'diet' your scrambling around to figure out how to eat your foods. Its just easier to not pay a darn thing at least for me and count my calories and do some exercise and Kablam im losing weight and keeping it off~

Original Post by shellbysmomma:

I'm counting both calories and points but am not to sure of my progress.....I have only been on it a week and went down from 149 to 143 BUT as I stated on another thread I was ready to start my period during my first weigh in. THAT thread may be of some use to you bunnyish....If you are close to starting you WILL gain weight and the amount differs with everyone. Try reading that and see if any of it sounds familiar with your current pounds you have put on. :D

i am also counting calories and points but i'm finding some weird problem between the 2. i am constantly way under in calories and very close to my point limit. i'm going more with calories because you have to eat a certain amount to be healthy...additionally, one of my friends is a personal trainer and told me i need to be eating at least 1800-1900 calories a day or it is not healthy.

 

has anyone else had this issue?

EDIT: andesite, i hadn't read what you said.  this is certainly true as i've discovered.

I did WW a couple times and it really helped me lose a lot of weight. But then I fell away from it, stopped following the program, and gained it all back. Now I have a job that doesn't allow me to go regularly to the meetings, so I have to figure out something that will work for my current lifestyle.

As everybody has said, WW is similar to CC, except you count points rather than calories. However, they let you eat whatever you want, so it's not a "diet" per se. (I mean a "diet" as in here are your meal plans, and here are your allowable foods, etc.)

What I really LOVED about WW is:

• I learned how to track what I put in my mouth
• I learned how to do portion control
• I learned how to plan my meals, and they gave me the tools that I needed to make it easy.
• I learned how to plan ahead for problem situations, where I will be tempted to overeat.
• I got fantastic group support. Not only was the instructor encouraging, but so was everyone else. And the little ribbons and stuff that you earn for every major milestones proved to be surprisingly motivating.

I learned an awful lot from WW that I use every day in my weight loss efforts. This is especially true of the loads and loads of practical advice they gave me. Like the time the instructor bought in a 10 lb bag of potatoes, and explained that when we lose 10 lbs, that's what we're no longer carrying around on our skeleton. Or how shopping the perimeter of a grocery store is better than shopping on the aisles because the healthier foods are generally along the outer walls. You could hang out here every day and still not get as much valuable and helpful information as you would from going there for a couple of months.

I still even use the tools that I bought from them, such as my food scale, and their cookbooks. But...remember, if you do go, you don't have to buy any of their other products. Their program will still work without them.

Having said all this, I'd like to add that I understand when people say you don't need to go.  You don't need to pay for a program that you can figure out for your ownself for free.  That's certainly true.  But I have no regrets in having paid to go.  What I learned from them was priceless, and I learned it without wasting time on trial and error efforts.  WW also proved to me that I CAN lose weight, and that I'm not a hopeless case.  

While I realize this thread is pretty much dead, I do want to correct something another member said.

WW in no way allows you to eat something like a whole watermelon with no worries. By my calculations a whole watermelon is 27 points, 3 points above my personal daily limit.

Certain foods, especially fruits and vegetables, are 0 points. But that is per 0 serving. The WW equation rounds down to the lowest number. So, a serving of baby carrots has 30 cal, .1 g of fat and 2.5 g of fiber, giving it a "real" point value of 0.10833333333333331 - - which gets rounded down to 0. Obviously, if you eat more than 1 serving this number gets bigger and bigger, to the point where carrots are no longer a 0 point food.

I lost 25 lb on weight watchers in the summer of 2007 (hitting my goal of 150), and then gained 20 of it back over the next year when I stopped following it. Since starting it up again I've lost 10 pounds and plan on seeing those other 10 gone in no time. I think it's a great program and I've never been to a meeting or paid one cent for it. You can find the calculators all over the internet and it's not that hard to figure out your daily allowance either.

I have been to WW Probably 4-5 times so far (And I'm only 25 lol). It worked the first four times, I'd lose say 20 pounds, then find it too expensive,quit,then put on 40 pounds! (and so on...).

I went to WW in late 2007- I had lost around 14 pounds by myself first and wanted some extra help. I didn't lose anything for 2 weeks, so I had a one to one meeting with my leader who said I wasn't eating my points, and to increase to the required number. The required number was 29 points- more food than I was eating before the diet!!! I tried this for another 2 weeks and I had put on 8 pounds!

I may well be an isolated case- it is probably my metabolism or PCOS but I wasn't wasting £5 a week to put weight on.

I've since lost 114 pounds by myself- and CC of course!!!

Just my two pennith....