Weight Watchers POINTS program...

[chiffonade]

Is anyone on the WW Points program? As an on-again off-again member of WW from years back - I was disappointed to learn of the inner workings of this plan. I think it borders on "gimmicky" and I have no time to use a slide rule to figure out the point value of something. I lost a great deal of weight on the original plan when they said, "Here's a list of foods, eat them." You weighed and measured portions to keep your eye trained as to what constituted a healthy portion and I found this less obtrusive than having to do calculations all the time.

Any thoughts?

[phatch]

My friend is on this system. It's working for him. He has been on almost a year. It's very similar to the way you were first doing it, with just a numeric value assigned instead of a weight/size. This makes it more flexible in working with those indulgence foods that weren't on the earlier program.

I'm going by my impressions of what I see him do. This may not be accurate. It seems that most things are broadly grouped. Fruits have a single common point value. Same with vegetables. Same with comparable sizes of meat, salad dressings etc. Serving size still matters of course, but I think all serving sizes are the same for simple calculation. You probably eat more than one serving of many things because not all dishes are served at the same size.

One of the tweaks is that as you lose weight, they recalculate your points total to keep you losing weight. This helps reduce your appetite gradually instead of starvation up front.

In the end, it's still about portion control, self control and ideally, exercise.

Phil

[chiffonade]

Don't know if anyone's real interested in this thread but I thought I'd post this anyway...

It's not just the points system that wasn't working for me - it was the meeting. I was attending a Saturday morning meeting that was so cliquey and unfriendly, let's just say I wasn't as motivated as I should have been upon departure each week.

I found a great Tuesday night meeting and feel like I've found a "home" @ WW. I took it as a good omen to have missed 2 Saturday meetings and weigh in on Tuesday at 4.5 lbs. less.

Weight watchers has a great site www.weightwatchers.com and so does Cooking Light www.cookinglight.com. Also, there is a well-known dieter's site called Dotties Weight Loss Zone. They have chat and many, many ideas for losing/maintaining weight. www.dottiesweightlosszone.com. She even has the old 1972 WW program posted on a page! What a kick!!

[SeattleDeb]

I've been on the points program since June 2001. Lost all my weight in the first six months, this year my focus is maintaining. After a few months you can pretty much look at most things and add the points up in your head. Gimmicky? Perhaps. But it works.

A huge component of my success with Weight Watchers was fitness. Jazz Dance, weight training, yoga, Pilates, and now I'm doing a lot of running (and racing!).

I'm not the meeting type, so I wasn't interested in following the traditional Weight Watchers plan. I did Weight Watchers Online, which was also a lot cheaper than going to meetings.

Deb