Frustrated with Weight Watchers ProPoints

tara747

jenniewb wrote: »

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.

Brilliant post. I agree with you. :A BTW, if you remember the name of the bookm, would you PM it to me?

Incidentally, I am gobsmacked that people just go to get weighed and then leave!!! Does this really happen? Why don't they stay, isn't that what they are paying for???? :eek:

jetplane wrote: »

ckg. I know this, which is why I am struggling with the ethos but without the weekly weigh in I always start my diet the next day

If it's only the pressure of the public WI which is keeping you going, why not start a WI club/challenge with friends or colleagues? This would be free and would give you the same motivation (probably). HTH, and hope you don't think I'm being daft by suggesting it.

sarah*a wrote: »

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.

Another excellent post. Weight loss and maintenance IS a long-term thing. Take it from someone who used to be a slim 8st or so. I have put on TWO STONE in the last 3-4 years, gradually, through carelessness/increasing portion sizes since moving in with OH. As my weight has crept up, I have developed a bigger appetite and a real sweet tooth. I am now having to work hard to shift it. If I had nipped it in the bud earlier I wouldn't have this mountain to climb. I won't be making that mistake again! I'm reading 'Thin Secrets' atm, a fab book. I love weight loss books, they are good for motivation and I am trying to read at least one a month.

I have never done WW or SW or anything like that, but I can see how their principles can help build a foundation for lasting weight loss. They are not a quick fix though, and the principles must be adhered to for life!

sarah*a

rozmister wrote: »

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.

I can see what you mean - and yes some of the meetings are repetative (esp. if you've been there a while ) and you're also right that if people can't stay to meetings they should make the most of the online information.

But they don't do either and it just baffles me :think: It seems like such a waste of money if you aren't going to use what you are paying for. Some people don't even stay after their first meeting to learn how it works - they just take the welcome pack and go home - it's NEVER going to work for them!

tara747 wrote: »

Incidentally, I am gobsmacked that people just go to get weighed and then leave!!! Does this really happen? Why don't they stay, isn't that what they are paying for???? :eek:

Oh yeah - it really happens! At the moment the meeting I go to has approx 80 members - we don't need to have chairs out for more than 40! So thats 40 x £5 (assuming they are all on Monthy Pass) who just turn up, weigh and go home. £200 for telling people how much they weigh :eek: I could do that and you can come to my house and I'll give you a cup of tea for a fiver a week :rotfl:


:cool:

tara747

sarah*a wrote: »

I can see what you mean - and yes some of the meetings are repetative (esp. if you've been there a while ) and you're also right that if people can't stay to meetings they should make the most of the online information.

But they don't do either and it just baffles me :think: It seems like such a waste of money if you aren't going to use what you are paying for. Some people don't even stay after their first meeting to learn how it works - they just take the welcome pack and go home - it's NEVER going to work for them!



Oh yeah - it really happens! At the moment the meeting I go to has approx 80 members - we don't need to have chairs out for more than 40! So thats 40 x £5 (assuming they are all on Monthy Pass) who just turn up, weigh and go home. £200 for telling people how much they weigh :eek: I could do that and you can come to my house and I'll give you a cup of tea for a fiver a week :rotfl:


:cool:

Me too, I am clearly missing out on a great business opportunity. :rotfl:

Seriously though, that is shocking.

rozmister

tara747 wrote: »

Seriously though, that is shocking.

Some of the people at meetings attitudes are shocking. There was a woman when I started at my current meeting (beginning of December) who for my first 3 meetings sat at the meeting being like "Well I don't have time to track or point I'm too busy" and we'd all suggest solutions to her problem and she be like ".............no". Then she'd go on about how she couldn't AFFORD healthy food (!!!!!!?) but when we suggested alternatives she'd be like "Nah, I don't like vegetables. I don't have time to cook. blah blah blah." There was always some reason why she couldn't follow the diet and she'd announce in a really hard done by confrontational moany manner. She also complained every week that she hadn't lost. She was really big (about 2 stone heavier than me at least) and I used to sit there biting my tongue not to go " WHY ARE YOU WASTING MINE AND YOURS TIME".

I think some people truly believe that if you pay £5 a week and turn up to a meeting to be weighed you'll suddenly find the pounds drop off.

tara747

rozmister wrote: »

Some of the people at meetings attitudes are shocking. There was a woman when I started at my current meeting (beginning of December) who for my first 3 meetings sat at the meeting being like "Well I don't have time to track or point I'm too busy" and we'd all suggest solutions to her problem and she be like ".............no". Then she'd go on about how she couldn't AFFORD healthy food (!!!!!!?) but when we suggested alternatives she'd be like "Nah, I don't like vegetables. I don't have time to cook. blah blah blah." There was always some reason why she couldn't follow the diet and she'd announce in a really hard done by confrontational moany manner. She also complained every week that she hadn't lost. She was really big (about 2 stone heavier than me at least) and I used to sit there biting my tongue not to go " WHY ARE YOU WASTING MINE AND YOURS TIME".

I think some people truly believe that if you pay £5 a week and turn up to a meeting to be weighed you'll suddenly find the pounds drop off.

:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:

I am speechless!!!!

Lil_Me_2

jenniewb wrote: »

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 agree totally with everything else that you've said EXCEPT this bit.

You clearly have no idea how SW works! I'm pleased that WW have finally decided that fruit and veg are 0 points, but SW have been saying this for ages! In fact on SW fruit, veg, lean meat, potatoes, pasta, rice, eggs etc are ALL FREE!

Please do not bad mouth a plan that you don't understand just because it's not WW. Different things work for different people, for me WW was too restrictive and I hated counting points, at SW I don't have to count most of what I eat because I know it's healthy and free. I've never weighed any food out because I eat loads of the "free" food which doesn't have to be weighed.

Also SW is only £4.95 a week and doesn't have ready meals because you should be eating fresh food! Much more MSE

Lil_Me - lost 2.5 stone on SW and am now considered "healthy".

rozmister

Lil_Me wrote: »

You clearly have no idea how SW works! I'm pleased that WW have finally decided that fruit and veg are 0 points.

Veg has always been free (bar potatoes, parsnips, peas, sweet potatoes and sweetcorn) it's just fruit that's a new but very welcome addition.

Congratulations on your weight loss Lil Me! My cousin lost lots of weight on SW going from a 16 to a 10 and she found it was just right for her. Her two sisters lost 9st between them on WW so I guess it's all swings and roundabouts. I don't trust myself with a wide variety of free foods that I can eat as much as I like of hence I've never done it! I need to count every mouthful really (bar veg and fruit which are just plain good for you) because I don't know when to stop sometimes.

CheeseCat

I find it funny when someone posts about WW not going so well the SW brigade come and tout how great it is. I would say both are pretty much the same in the case of money grabbing etc.

I agree with those who say that we dont 'need' either and can follow healthy eating on our own but I did find in the past that WW helped me (old points scheme)a few yrs ago by giving me a set of rules to stick to. I lost around 2-3st opn WW before and have recently signed up to the WW online with propoints as i've put quite a bit on recently I HATE PROPOINTS! There I said it. :rotfl:8 points for a jacket potato without butter, 5 points for a cadburys creme egg, how does that work then?

I followed my points to the T for three weeks and I STS every damn week. So now I am just doing the 'healthy eating' on my own and seeing how that goes.

For the record I tried SW in the past and followed it to the letter and that made NO difference for me. I do think that for most people either (old) WW or SW seems to work and the other doesnt, does that make sense? Everyone seems to love one and not the other

Lil_Me_2

Cheesecat - it annoys me when people jump in on other threads too haha but I was genuinely interested in the new pro-points system as I did WW under the discovery(?) points thing. My advice is the same though, if the thought of a jacket potato being "worse" than a creme egg annoys you then the plan won't work and you should try something else! When I did it I had the mentality of oh look what treats I can have, why bother wasting points on stuff that is actually better for me.

I have to say that the poster whos mum is a WW leader coming on here basically slagging off SW and spouting all manner of lies annoyed me. It's very narrowminded when it's obvious different things work for different people. My mum did WW and that's what she gets on with, my sister and I both tried WW and didn't. When we moved to SW we've both lost lots.

The funny thing is if someone on WW and then someone on SW totalled up the calories for what they are on a day where they were totally on plan they would probably find that they're about the same. It just depends on whether you find WW or SW's rules easier to follow, but it all comes down to restricting what you put in your mouth which both diets do.

Good luck with your weight loss goal CheeseCat!

jetplane

I have been looking around the WW esource in more detail and being more precise with my food searches and this has helped - thanks.

However it seems that there are a few people who, like me are finding it complicated. I think if a diet is difficult to follow people are more likely to give up.

I don't agree that WW forces you to eat healthy as the points make no sense at all when you can have junk food for less pp than fresh food. I have asked a girl who I am working with today and she said she can not eat like that on SW its all back to basics. However my friend who hates cooking thinks that these processed foods are what make the diet easier for her so its horses for courses I think.

If I still find that I'm struggling with the propoints I may have a look at SW. My weight has crept up over the last couple of years and I really need to tackle it for health reasons. I think reading these posts its clear that whatever I use to kickstart me I am going to have to make the changes long term and stick to them. :idea:

Thanks :T