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Weight Watchers
by suziedre
I'm writing this as tonight, for the third time, I joined Weightwatchers.
I first joined Weightwatchers in 2003 and lost around 1 and a half stones. Then I stopped going. I put it all back on, and then some.
In summer 2007 I joined again. This time, I stuck at it for around 2 years. I lost almost 4 and a half ... stones, and went from a size 16-18, to size 10-12. I felt fantastic when I lost all that weight.
Unfortunately I moved jobs, and went from a job in the city centre that involved a lot of activity and walking, to an office job with a car park right at the front door. It also took me out of the area where my meeting was, and gradually I stopped going. I thought that I would be able to go it alone and keep the weight off.
In early 2009 I moved into my own home and found that shopping and cooking for one meant that my portion sizes went out of control. This, combined with a very stressful year this year, meant that I found myself comfort eating a lot. And so here we are again.
At my meeting tonight I discovered I have put on just over half of all the weight I lost back in 2007/8. I'm back up to a large size 14 now, and so enough is enough.
Weightwatchers has changed since I was last there. The plan I lost all the weight on, the Core Plan, is no more. This was a very strict plan that didn't allow bread - but unlimited veggies etc. It was hardcore, but it worked, and I found that the weight dropped off me. I found it quite easy to stick to at the time.
Now, the Weightwatchers system is based on ProPoints. ProPoints are calculated on the kcal, fat, and fibre in foods. Most people are allocated 29 ProPoints per day. When you join, you are given a small blue folder with booklets inside. The booklet contains recipes, information on what the ProPoints plan is and how it works, tips for exercise etc.
You also get a weekly tracker, which is a small booklet for you to fill in every day with what you eat. This means that you can keep track of every single thing you eat, and makes you aware of any random snacking that you might not even realise you're doing!
The folder also contains a circular piece of card. It comes in 3 sections - calories, fat, and fibre. When you eat anything, you can find how much it contains by looking at the packet. Using the card, you can then work out how much ProPoints it contains. I know I'm not explaining it very well but I would say that you don't even really need it if you have a smartphone - there are several apps which work out the ProPoints for you - all you have to do is enter how many calories, grams of fat, and grams of fibre are in the food. I can see that apps like that are going to become invaluable for me.
At the meeting, you queue up with the plastic Weightwatchers card you will be given when you join. This card has a chip which contains all the details on your weight, how much you have lost, how much you have to lose, etc. The leader will put this into the machine when you stand on the scales, then you get told how much you have lost/gained since the previous week.
Every time you lose half a stone, you get a 'silver 7'. This is simply a silver sticker in the shape of a 7, however it is very motivating to get one.
After the weigh-in, you have a meeting with your leader which lasts for around half an hour. During the meeting you can discuss healthy eating tips, eating out, exercise - any topic relevant to weight loss. I will be honest and say I find the meetings pretty dull - HOWEVER for some reason, they work. They seem to help spur you on and feel up for the week ahead. The leaders do encourage you to attend the meetings every week; you don't have to, however as you are paying £5.99 per week to get weighed, you might as well stay for the meeting. It's half an hour out of your life and it will help.
I find the best thing to help your weight loss is to put the effort in and plan your menus a week ahead. That way you know how many points you're eating every day, and will stop you edging over the 29 point daily limit. Fruit is free, so you can gorge yourself of bananas and apples and keep yourself feeling full.
I am not sure if this new ProPoints system will be as good for my weight loss as the Core Plan is. However, I am going to stick at it, attend meetings every week and see how I get on. I have size 10 and 12 clothes hanging in my wardrobe and I am damn well going to fit into them again!
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Weight Watchers
by mickeyhunt
I have been a weight watchers attendee over the many years that I have been overweight and have seen many of their different plans come and go. I had to join again this year in August 2011 to avert health problems due to being in the Obese range!! The new plan is different from anything they have done before and from their own blurb is ... very scientifically designed. I had also seen many comments from existing members who were struggling with the new Pro Points as it is called. I was apprehensive and worried that it seemed complicated. You cannot now carry over daily points and as well as daily points to keep track of (36 for me) there are now 49 weekly points. The tracker card was so small I could not read it. However I went home and made my plans that evening on how to plan my eating for the next week and read and reread the literature till I was sure I had it all down pat. I religiously that first week recorded everything in the tracker keeping as close to my daily points as I could. I actually struggled to eat all of my points each day and was feeling nice and full and not having problems with cheating at all. On the monday before weigh in ( I weigh in on a tuesday) I still had my 49 weekly points left, so my Husband said lets go out for an Indian. Indian food is a dieters nightmare especially as my fav curry is a Tikka Massal at a whopping 24 points just for the curry (boiled rice is 12 and pilau is 16 and Naan breads are about 18 and onion bahjees are about 8 or 9 each). However I had what I wanted and I still had most of my daily points left and the weekly points. The total for my food came to a whopping 72 points, but I wrote it all down and still had a few left over for a shared ice cream. I was so stuffed and I felt so guilty, even though I had kept to the points. The next day I almost did not want to go to Weight watchers as I was sure that I would have put on weight. When I got on the scales I had lost 7 lb!!! It was amazing, the plan really did work.
That was just over 10 weeks ago. So far I have lost 24 1/2 lbs. I have lost weight each week (except for one week where I stayed the same). On the weeks were I eat all my daily points and all my weekly points I have lost more weight - 3 1/2 lbs, 4 lbs and even 4 1/2 lbs one week. The other thing that this plan has helped me to do is to re-evaluate what I eat and how I eat. Although I was able to lose so much in the first week despite having an Indian, I have not had Indian food since that night, because now I would rather look for options that give me healthier food, such as currys I make from scratch at home which contain more vegetables and less meat and fat. I eat at least 3 portions of fruit each day and at least 2 or 3 portions of vegetables each day. I drink 2 litres of water a day and have cut down dramatically on bread. I no longer buy bread from the supermarket, but make my own. Although you can "cheat" with Weight Watchers and eat unhealthily if you want to by cutting down on the amout of food to try to fit in the bad stuff, you will stick to the plan far more easily if you start to cut out the high pro point foods and look at those that are lower and therefore are more geared towards a healthy diet. I am not on a diet, this is a plan that will last the rest of my life. It is healthy eating made easy.
There is no calorie counting, just the point counting. Of course you still have to weigh food, but then I think that this is always essential, because our eyes always weigh far more generously than our scales do. Once you have weighed things for a while you get used to portion sizes very quickly. You do need to make sure that you have the shopping book from Weight Watchers that lists all the food that we buy with their points and you do need to track every day, but this is so easy.
It works by looking at the Protien,Carbohydrate, Fat and Fibre in the food. The calculation of the pro points for a particular food uses a combination of the four figures in such a way that weighting is placed on those foods that are higher in refined carbs and fat and those foods that are high in protein and fibre tend to be lower in points than they would have been under the older WW systems. The encouragement to make sure that you eat the right quantity of protein in your food stops the weight loss occuring from muscle and redirects it to a weight loss from burning fat. This in turn leads to a slower weight loss that is proved to be the best way to keep the lost weight off. Fat is about a third of the weight of muscle tissue and that is why the loss tends to be slower.
If I have to raise a downside, it is the cost of membership and the cost of some of the foods. I think that £6 every week is expensive especially in the current credit crunch. Many people may struggle to find the money. Also the chocolate bars that I have found invaluable are pricey and only available at the meetings. You can get lost of WW food from the Pound Shops, but not the chocy bars. The cheaper alternative for membership is the monthly membership where you have access to the esouce on line and can go to meeting to weigh in. This is £19.00 a month which makes it £10 cheaper per month to do it this way. Be careful not to confuse it with the Monthly on line membership at £10 per month as this does not allow you to go to meetings, only to do this on your own.
I cannot reccomend this plan for highly. If you have had problems losing weight before then give this a try and don't delay, do it today.
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