a bunch of the women I work with were telling me about weight watchers (I was wondering what all this point talk was). I am perplexed...the points...the extra weekly points. They were suprised when I said I didn't diet because I know I always fail at them and I make gradual and sustainable changes but that's awesome that they stick to it (they have been on it for years and not lost any weight). They said my lunch was 26 points (all the food I would be allowed to have in a day) I told them I am freaking hungry. Anyone on this point craziness?
what did you have for lunch?!? lol the way the point system works, they give you a slide scale. you enter in the dietary fiber, the calories and the fat, and it tells you how many points it is. i am [trying] to follow the plan, and i am allowed 22 points a day. (it goes by weight--if you weigh more, you are allowed more points.) IF you make good choices and eat rounded meals, 22 points is a reasonable amount of food. the extra weekly points are 35 points that they allow you in addition to your daily points range, so if you want to splurge one day, it's ok, or if you wanna have a few extra points each day, that's ok too. i started a thread on it cuz i thought a lot of ppl would be in, but they're not, it's kinda just me and duncan. ww is a very effective program if used right. weight comes off slowly, 1-3 lbs a week, and it stays off for a long time. my problem is i really like food, live with my skinny bf, get crazy munchies, and work at a greasy, delicious steakhouse where there is always extra food around. mmmm...cheesy fries.... peace. LP
I remember when I was a pudgy kid, doing ww with my mom (my dad liked it too - the oldschool program that encourages you to eat liver every friday night - ewww!). It was hard to keep track of. We had to print up little forms on our computers and carry them around, to check off and write down what we'd eaten. Personally, I'm not into diets. I can see how they can be good for some people, but once a person gets to their "goal" weight, they always just want to go back to normal. Who wants to be on ww for the rest of their lives? Of course, one GOOD thing about really dieting, as opposed to what I do (like lynsy, I'm more into "gradual and sustainable changes") is that it FORCES you to keep track. I've never been good at the food diary thing, and when I'm trying to lose weight I tend (unconciously) not to eat. I'm trying to be healthy, not anorexic (and really, is there such a thing as a fat anorexic girl?) but I weigh myself in the morning and somehow it just gives me motivation to think of things other than food, all day long. When I do eat it's usually a small healthy meal, and I'm full halfway through! Blah, sorry, that was supposed to be about ww!
man that sucks. Yeah I just don't get the weird diet program things. I mean if just seems like a set-up for failure and obsession.
It is a set up for failure and obsession. When you are on the program you will lose weight, but the program itself is in my opinion stupid. And when you aren't on the program (which in my opinion is practically impossible if you were ever really overweight to begin with) then you gain all of the weight back and then some. First of all people think that they can eat whatever they want on the program as long as it is within points. So, theoretically, you could have a whole box of WW brand cupcakes and still be in points range, does that seem healthy to you? Yet that is EXACTLY what people on WW do. And they don't get it! And yes, WW does recommend eating 5 fruits and veggies and healthy oil and water and dairy, but people tune that part out for some reason. The other reason it is stupid is because it doesn't emphasize how important exercise is. Specifically weight training. It assumes that everyone doing the program is a big fat slob who has never gotten off the couch. I mean they tell you to lift soup cans as a workout for Christ's sake. Trust me, fat people can most certainly lift a soup can, and a milk jug and anything else that is completely ridiculous that they recommend. DUH! Maybe telling them to get out and exercise for 30 whole mintues or more, none of this chop it up into walking a little further to the entrance of the mall. Parking far away is not exercise. And telling them to lift heavy weight, so they can actually build muscle would be more beneficial. But they don't want to say any of that, because of 2 reasons: first, when you gain muscle the scale doesn't keep going down, if the scale isn't going down, people quit and WW stops making money. second, they want people to believe that WW caused them to lose the weight and not the exercise. They don't tell them to do a lot more activity because people would then realized oh duh, I started walking 2 miles a day and now I have lost some weight. As far as the obsession problem, well that is what got to me. I was weighing myself every single day even though I knew how dumb I was being. I knew that my body weight fluctuated, and I knew that I worked out hard so I wasn't going to see dramatic losses. But in my mind I had to "beat the scale". And the scale is all they use. Yeah they talk about NSV's (non-scale victories) but they measure your sucess in the program and whether or not you get the priviledge of not paying anymore by the numbers on the scale, which for most people are not healthy weights. They don't test body fat, they don't go by clothing size, they don't go by how one feels, they don't go by cardiovascular improvement, they don't go by strength gains, they don't go by overall health, they don't measure you. No, it is all the scale. This caused perfectly normal people go crazy in my office. They would wear the same clothes every single weigh in day down to the underwear and socks. They would not eat breakfast, or drink any fluids, which is extremely unhealthy (and supposedly WW doesn't reccommend, but again its the SCALE) and then they force themselves to take a shit before weighing in. Or at the very least go pee. Not to mention that it is still about deprivation. You can't eat what you want when you want how you want. The operative word in this is WANT. You can follow the program which is a diet, but everyone doesn't WANT those things on the diet. Someone might want cheesey fries, but the settle for a salad. After a while you get burnt out just like any diet. But it does work for some people. I've seen it work for people who have not had a lot of weight to lose or for people who had an extreme amount of weight to lose (because modifying your activity and diet for someone severely obese is going to cause weight loss, duh). And as far as some other programs out there this one is one of the best. LOL, I know it doesn't sound like I think so with my rant up there, but you can get past those things if you use common sense and don't let the obsession get to you & then it is fairly healthy. But when faced with the opportunity to have a 2 point snack cake or a 2 point apple, take the apple you dummy. (disclaimer: the dummy comment directly above was not intended for anyone here, but rather the dummies doing Weight Watchers who do not understand that concept, if you understand that, then you are not a dummy).
PS. I'm not bitter, I did lose weight on it, (about 20lbs) and so did my boyfriend, but I modified it, plus I'm a personal trainer so I know a little bit more about health and fitness than the average person doing WW (why I picked up on these inconsistancies in the program). In the end though, it just proved to be a waste of time and becoming an unhealthy obsession for me. I mean paying someone $11 a week to weigh me when I don't even measure my success by the scale is kind of silly. But I lost a lot more weight on my own before I ever even heard of WW simply by using common sense. And I honestly believe my way is healthier. If anyone is interested I can give them a sample of what I did.
