Frustrated with Weight Watchers ProPoints

sarah*a

cgk1 wrote: »

It's a scam designed to confuse you so you can be constantly upsold to - learn about healthy eating and leave that cult behind.

I wouldn't go so far to say it's a scam but certainly they want to make as much money out of you as possible. I am amazed by the sums some people spend week after week and IMO those are the people that will never reach goal as they take too many of their points as junk food.

You can use the system to learn about healthy eating/lifestyle - you just have to learn to read between the adverts

But I think the reason it works so well is that alot of people (and I include myself) need the feeling of accountability every week to stay on track. I know I'm gonna stand on those scales and I know if I've put weight on i will feel awful so it gives me that extra oomph to do it.

I wish I had the inner strength to go it alone - but I don't and thats why the meeting work for me

jetplane - the more info you put into the search box the easier it gets - say you've bought a Tesco Low Fat Chicken Curry for example - if you just put Chicken Curry in the box you'll be there forever - but if you put Tesco Low Fat Chicken Curry - you should go straight to it.

sweetilemon

Scottish slimmers is pretty easy to follow similar to weight watchers but 25cals = 1check number of checks depends on your starting weight. Theres an online forum too.

nodwah

I was thinking the same things as the OP! Just been looking for a thread!

I lost weight a few years a go on the old WW Core Plan and even kept going to meetings as a gold member but when they changed to the Discover plan (was the name?) I stopped.

The core plan really suited me - no points counting ( well there was a wee bit but not much) and a big list of foods you couold eat. As soon as I start counting points or cals I feel deprived

So anyway the weight crept back on and I've gone back to WW and I can't say I really like the Pro points - I do feel like there is a lot of emphasis on ready meals. My friend told me they're owned by Heinz so that explains it eh?

Mythi

I've recently rejoined ww online and find pro points plan is working well for me. I rarely buy any weightwatchers products; I eat normal food with plenty of 0 point fruit and vegetables....and if I fancy a glass or two of wine, a packet of crisps or a bar of chocolate I have them and count the points

The reason that some things that are only 2 points for one item but 5 points for two items is there are no .5 points now so items are rounded down singly but the nutritional values for more than one will equate to more points....yes it does sound complicated but as long as you track what you are eating/drinking the online points planner will do the calculations.

Good luck!

rozmister

I am on the new Proplan and I really like it. I find it is much easier as a long term diet than the old plan. Whilst on it I've cut my food money per week by about £10 and I'm still bringing it down.

I buy most of my free fruit and veg from Aldi where it's much cheaper. Most things are 69p or so for a pack and even though posh apples I like are £2 instead of £3 a pack. I buy WW cheese bites from Poundland for snacks and sometimes I get the biscuits there too although they aren't my favourites. I currently spent quite a lot on WW bars from the meeting but I'm planning to try out Sainsburys Basics crispy toffee bars and mini swiss rolls because they are both 2pps like the bars and at least a third cheaper.

There are ways around each diet to make them cheaper unless you're doing something hardcore like Lighter Life but you need to find the one that fits you and your lifestyle right

grey_lady

Sorry folks but the chances of ww or sw succeeding for anyone in the long term is about 2 percent. To prove my point, the poster who's mum is a leader, ask her how many out of 100 people who turn up and pay to join reach goal, and how many out of that original 100 are still at goal two years later, oh and exclude people that work for ww, so not counting leaders and helpers.

jenniewb

grey_lady wrote: »

Sorry folks but the chances of ww or sw succeeding for anyone in the long term is about 2 percent. To prove my point, the poster who's mum is a leader, ask her how many out of 100 people who turn up and pay to join reach goal, and how many out of that original 100 are still at goal two years later, oh and exclude people that work for ww, so not counting leaders and helpers.

Was that a question to me? "to prove a point"? I can certainly ask my mum for figures if thats what your after but as far as I can see as a helper, we do have a fair amount reach goal and maintain it- either they don't return or they return once every few months to keep intrack, we have quite a few who are at goal but I do not know numbers as I don't live with my mum, just see her once a week.

I just wanted to know why you thought it would not work and also why you have grouped it with slimming world which is a faddy dieting system? the whole ethos about WW is that its geared towards (almost forcing) you to eat healthily. For example on the current plan they say "all fruit and veg is 0 points". Slimming worl have days which are tied to colour and you can only eat certain foods on certain days, bit more of a game then looking at what your eating and thinkin about making the healthier option.

I don't think WW can ever guarentee the weight will stay off just the same as any eating plan- even normal calorie counting/moderating yourself will, the reason? because as a biological entity we are geared towards a famine situation, its in our genes, we eat and store food with ease (most of us!) and for that reason unless we are on guard and create ourselves inground habits and reflexes to eat a moderated healthy non excessive amount forever (including when drunk, when at a party/xmas meal/if under emotional stress....) we are always on an upwards battle. Sure it gets easier when its something you do every day: eating in moderation, eating for fuel not for comfort, eating to stay healthy and not out of boredom..etc but the fact is its always something which will be something we have to think about before we act, and its letting go of that guard which has people put back on the weight they have lost- they believe they 'can eat anything they want' once they have gotten to goal. Its for this reason that most diets fail: they fail to teach moderation and they fail to teach people that you need to always stay concious about what you eat if you want to stay a healthy weight.

But its not these diets that are to blame. Its partly our culture- brilliant book about overeating (forgotten its name but was out about 2 years ago). Food companies go out of their way to have us buy and eat more, our society views more food for less money a good thing and we take part by refusing to throw away the so-so chocolate bar "because I paid for that! I'm not throwing away something I paid for!" and so we overeat, we over drink (happy hour anyone?) and we don't respect that food is actually not there to be something purely for enjoyment, its a fuel to keep us alive. We need to remember this and really think "am I hungry?" when reaching for the additional whatever throughout the day. But its not an easy question to answer, its like a part of our brains we so rarely use it becomes weak and hard to focus on so it needs to be utilise and trained to work-

I'll stop my mini-rant and rave here or I'll go on all night! But I do think as gimmicky as WW is (and OMG its gimmiks make me squirm most of the time!) I do think its one of the few diets that aims to teach healthy eating. Its only downfalls I think are that not every member sticks around to listen to the healthy eating info (most get weighed and leave without obtaining the help they are paying £5.99 for) and the rest don't realise that you have to continue the plan or something close to it for life, not just when your losing the weight- same goes for any diet.

sarah*a

jenniewb wrote: »

........ I do think its one of the few diets that aims to teach healthy eating. Its only downfalls I think are that not every member sticks around to listen to the healthy eating info (most get weighed and leave without obtaining the help they are paying £5.99 for) and the rest don't realise that you have to continue the plan or something close to it for life, not just when your losing the weight- same goes for any diet.

See - the problem with a lot of people is they go to these groups thinking it will be a 'quick fix' and it works and they lose the weight - but as soon as they hit 'goal' they think 'woohoo - back to eating normally' - start eating all the junk foods they've weaned themselves off of and BAM! back comes all the weight.

So WW (or SW or Scottish Slimmers or whoever) get the blame 'it's a con/scam' etc.

But at no point do they take any responsibility themselves and realise that what they are eating and the lifestyle they are living is what is making them regain weight.

WW isn't a diet - it is a lifestyle change. And like any lifestyle change you have to stick to it for it to work. Even if you went down the surgery route and had a gastric band/bypass you can't wake up from the anaestetic and go 'woohoo - lets have a KFC! I'll never be fat again' - it doesn't work like that - you have to stick at it!

Yes I agree - and have already said so - that there is an awful lot of hard sell but (as I also tried to explain earlier) the ones who don't rely on the ready meals/branded choc/sweets/crisp etc and actually 'read between the advertising' and learn the healthy eating habits, cook from scratch and include a healthy amount of activity in their life are the ones who stay at goal when they reach it.

and as rozmister said - if you do want to include some 'treats' in your day-to-day meal plans then, with a little bit of effort, you can find tastier and cheaper versions of the ww branded stuff.

It astounds me the number of people who turn up week after week and hand over £6, stand on the scales, buy a bag full of 'goodies' and then go home rather than sit for 20 minutes and take part in the actual meeting. To me thats like going to the doctor when you are ill, getting a prescription, paying for the medicine and then leaving it in the pharmacy. :eek:

I know there are people who don't understand why people can't just 'eat less do more - it's easy' and I sympathise with that (I have a similar problem with people who can't stop smoking - for me it was easy and all I see are excuses from others - so I do honestly get where they are coming from ) but some people do need the regimented weigh-ins to help them and attend the meetings to ask what might be seen as common sense questions.

Apologies to the OP for taking the thread off track

jetplane - if you do you find you are continuing to not 'gel' with ww (and not everyone does) you could see if your GP surgery has a weight loss clinic. Many do now. I see the nurse at my surgery once a month (one-to-one not in a group) to be weighed as well as attending ww (I have to for medical reasons) and she is lovely and encouraging. You can get weekly weigh-ins at the start if you need the motivation of the scales and they will help you with food choices and meal planning - and it's free

:cool:

rozmister

sarah*a wrote: »

It astounds me the number of people who turn up week after week and hand over £6, stand on the scales, buy a bag full of 'goodies' and then go home rather than sit for 20 minutes and take part in the actual meeting. To me thats like going to the doctor when you are ill, getting a prescription, paying for the medicine and then leaving it in the pharmacy. :eek:

I completely understand what you're saying about meetings and it astounds me people who DON'T use esource or any of the online resources don't stay because after all the meeting and literature from it is all they have for reference but I think WW can work without staying for every meeting.

Saying that I don't always stay at my meeting. I work a minimum of 52 hrs a week and sometimes in excess of 60 and my free time is precious. If the meeting is on a topic I know I already know well (like the introductory first weeks after christmas when you talk about breakfast and lunch) and I have other stuff I need to do I will go home but I log onto esource every single day and track on my iphone. For instance tonight I won't be staying because I go away on Thursday straight from work and I'm working 9am - 9pm tomorrow so I need tonight to tidy my house, sort out my luggage and see my boyfriend.

I think every diet is what you make it and it all comes down to attitude. I know, speaking from my experience, that I am overweight because of many complex and some emotional issues surrounding food that I've had for more than half my life. I can't expect 6 months of WW and losing some weight to resolve all those problems it's something I will have to work on everyday for the rest of my life if I want to be slim. It'll become routine and easier and when you reach goal you can eat more points per day (to stabilise). The high failure rate is rooted in people not tackling or acknowledging the reason they have weight issues (which normally isn't as simple as ignorance) and learning to manage them. You'd get this if you calorie counted, exercised, dieted, whatever.

maman

jenniewb wrote: »

slimming world which is a faddy dieting system? Slimming worl have days which are tied to colour and you can only eat certain foods on certain days, bit more of a game then looking at what your eating and thinkin about making the healthier option.

I really don't want to get involved in an argument but that comment has to be based on ignorance of SW. Members have a choice and the red and green days have advantages, particularly for big meat eaters and vegetarians so they're still available for members that like/want to use them.

Most recent members are following the Extra Easy programme which is just that! What's faddy about an eating plan that encourages fruit and veg, eggs, fish and lean meat with rice/pasta/potatoes but discourages fats, sugars and flour based products like cakes and biscuits? It's also based on cooking from scratch, whenever possible, which is very healthy indeed, leaves portion size to the individual so you're never hungry and all-round makes for an easy (as in Extra Easy;)) and sustainable lifestyle choice.

I'm obviously a convert but I wouldn't pretend that SW is perfect (it's a money-making organisation too). What I believe is important is not how people choose to eat (that's their business) but that they make informed choices.