Weight Watchers - How they make their millions.

Pennylane

Bitsy_Beans wrote: »

Sorry I should have clarified......SW recipes for treats I've seen rely heavily on artificial sweetener which was the crap I was referring to.

OK. What about natural sweeteners? Am I allowed to say the name?

Pennywise2012

suki1964 wrote: »

You don't have to buy the ready meals, nor do you calorie count

What you do learn is portion size and how to make healthier choices, with out depriving yourself or cooking a meal separate from what the rest of the family

I'm doing WW at the moment. I kind of agree and disagree with you - it IS calorie counting, essentially. You get a set amount of points, and they assign the points values based on the calorie content. (I know they like to pretend it's all about carbs and fibre and fats, but 1PP is always 40 calories!)

It does teach you portion control though, because although you can have pizza or whatever, you can't have anything else that day cos all your points are gone.
However, because low calorie stuff like fruit and veg are 'free', so you are gently nudged in that direction.

I don't think the WW food is great - ready meals and sweetener-laden processed foods aren't the best way to educate someone about healthy eating. But, I suppose that A) they're a business first and foremost, and some people simply don't want to spend their time cooking from scratch with fresh ingredients, and for those people there's still the health benefit of losing weight.

suki1964

No way am I saying ww is perfect but it worked for me and untill I started drinking again the weight I lost stayed off (over 10 years I kept at between 8.5and 9 stone, now I'm drinking well I just don't bother)

I liked the points, I liked that it wasn't cc as such, rather the hard work was done for me and it trained me into knowing if I wanted more I had to work for it - eg exercise

What I did like was nothing was not allowed. If I was having a curry night out, I had curry, but made sure I had enough points either by picking the healthy healthy options all week, or going for a swim or skipping

My meetings were really good as the ww meals and snacks were not pushed. Infact in the chat part of the meeting we were encouraged to share our own recipes and tips.

Even today with my diet a mess and drinking the head of myself, I still kind of point my meals, and I can't abide ready meals

WW worked for me in as much I did learn portion control and learned how to make healthier choices. It never cost me a fortune as soon as I hit target meetings were free (took perhaps 12 weeks to get there) and like I say, I never bought ant processed crap with the WW logo on it

cleggy.

I'm in 2 minds about weight watchers and slimming world.

They are both money making 'cults' of which I would never become a member.
I am more than capable of sticking to my own plan and know the good from the bad food and drinkwise. I also have motivation by the bucket load.

But, not everyone does. For some it will be a social event, maybe the only time they get away from the family for a week and have a chat with humans. They don't need to know about food as it's all done for them, points, red or green, sins and all that bollx.
So no brain required, just doing.

The trouble is you won't learn how to stand on your own two feet and take responsibility for your overeating when you are done with your 'cult'.
This is why so many people seem to leave, fail, come back, leave, fail again etc.
Every time you fail and come back, they get more money out of you each week. They set you up for long term failure really without you knowing.
But, if in the short term you lose weight, and thus reduce the risk of heart problems/diabetis/joint problems etc then it has indeed helped in some way.

Good and bad, swings and roundabouts. I'm still not joining.

stir_crazy

I have tried weight watchers, and I have never lost weight doing it. Having said that, I know people who have lost weight but then gained it all back once they stopped attending meetings. I find that a lot of these weight loss businesses tend to say that they are reeducating people about food, but only focus on the weight loss rather than the maintenance afterwards. Who can blame them really if people just gain the weight back and then rejoin?