Weight Watchers

[Deleted User]

Im just watching the Channel 4 Dispatches WW programme. Any comments. I know mine, never used the products, never will. Cook from scratch the OS way.

Honeythief

I'm a big fan of the WW programme but not of their branded products. They are expensive and quite often no lower in fat/sugar/calories than the supermarket equivalents. I'd much rather cook from scratch and eat something that tastes really good without hitting me in the waistline or the pocket!

ScarlettOHara_2

I've always been cautious of diet products - they never seem to be all that good for you. Diet coke makes you crave sweet things so you could have gone full fat. Low fat yoghurt always seems to be full of sugar (other than Muller light). Having read the ingrediants on the diet crisps I've always avoided those too. The 'potato snacks' are made out of dried out starch from the water potatoes are washed in, not real potatoes.

chanie

I think the attraction is the portion sizes as you don't have to think about it.

I did WW years ago and I did find you can get non-WW products which were bigger portions for the same or less points, but it is a time consuming process.

I did find the portion sizes of the products small and I found I was better off bulking out normal meals with fruit and veg.

jemb

I think the main thing for people like me on a calorie counting diet is that it has a specific number of calories marked on the front. Where as if you do home made then you have to add as you go along, sometimes you dont know portion size etc so it is easier. I would never substitute HM with full WW diet, i use the biscuits and puddings for when really craving sweet things mostly.

foxgloves

I did lose about a stone & a half on WW some years ago, but have lost five & a half stone in the last couple of years doing healthy eating, then when weight plateaued, switched to Rosemary Conley. Comparing the 2 systems, I do find this a better one for me, as just about ALL foods do list calorie content on the packaging, easier than messing around with points, which I think is probably why so many people opt for the WW packaged stuff that is clearly labelled with points, even though a lot of it is more expensive & not very healthy. It comes down to choice, really. I cook from scratch every day, so just make sure I have a calorie guide next to me, weighing scales, a set of RC's portion pots for quickness & a calculator! You soon get to remember the calorie content of regularly used foods, so the process soon speeds up. I did buy some WW fruit biscuits a few months ago. The 'fruit' element turned out to be a line of sticky red jam on top. On the label, it said 'One of your 5 a day'..........Really, WW??? I swear there was no more than a couple of tsps of jam on there & as a jam maker, I know how much sugar goes into jam, as well as boiling the fruit to death, so I thought that was a really disingenuous claim.

Solstice_3

I got to my goal weight with WW recently. I found I have changed my eating habits and the way I look at food, I cook from scratch anyway but now weigh things like rice, pasta, bread and potatoes as I was always making too much and overeating. I found the dispatches programme to be offensive and biased to be honest. Not everyone buys WW products and I would suspect the people who did would buy that sort of food anyway and don't cook from scratch though I could be wrong. As for diet foods I do use low fat yogurt but I buy plain and flavour it myself with home made fruit compotes, healthier and cheaper plus I can use a pot of yogurt for topping savoury dishes that way.

Mollymoonlight

I haven't seen the program yet, but I can guess what it will be saying. I've recently been following the WW program, as I have several times in the past, and have lost just under 2 stone so far. It works for me because it forces me to think about what I'm eating, and as I am paying for it I will aim to get to my goal as quickly as possible. I've always felt the product lines to be far removed from the meetings and eating plans, for example, at the meetings and in the literature you are discouraged from taking sweeteners as an alternative to sugar as they only make you crave sugar, however sweeteners seem to be the basis of much of their biscuits and desserts. They are also horrendously overpriced!!! I have found that by cooking from scratch and being sensible about adding oil etc, as well as controlling portion sizes, you can easily lose weight. If I had enough willpower to do it on my own, I also wouldn't be spending £25 a month to go and be weighed, however I don't, and will continue to do so until my goal is reached (which I hope will be spring).

Hezzawithkids

I watched the programme but struggled to understand the point they were trying to make. They didn't criticise the system, only the way its marketed, the amount the NHS spends on it, and the sales tactics of the meeting leaders. They did some secret filming at a meeting but I didn't hear anything untoward. They did do one exercise where they compared WW ice cream to Hagen Daas to show the amount of cr*p that goes into the WW product, but I would argue you can do that with any processed food, its not specific to WW. They also interviewed a few current and ex WW members to see how much they've lost and if they've kept the weight off.

So nothing ground-breaking, in other words, bit of a waste of airtime IMHO.

ragz_2

In my opinion, WW does NOT teach how to eat healthily it teaches how to lose weight while cheating! You can eat crisps, sweets, bars, as long as they are within your points. Which is fine until you stop counting points, then you learned no decent eating habits and the weight comes back.

It does depend how good your leaders are as to what info you get in the meetings...

I have done weight watchers, I have since studied nutrition

Hezzawithkids - I agree, they were careful not to overly criticise, you had to really pay attention to get what they were getting at, certainly could have been done a lot better. I liked where they showed one lady the cost of her weight loss at over £100 per lb!

Meadows

Products? Weight Watchers is not about the lazy, quick fix, expensive products, it is about healthy eating of foods and portion sizes to make a life change of eating habits. To make you more aware of what you are eating and how much you eat compared to your activity.
The products they sell are another side to Weight Watchers, a way to cash in and make money from foods and snacks that people can not be bother to prepare or work out the points for themselves.
Like all things you get out of it what you put in and if you want the quick fix don't expect it to be the best way of achieving what you want to achieve.

The best way to make Weight Watchers work and to not only reduce your size, better your health and be frugal with your food budget is to learn how the points work, calculate what you eat (make notes so you know the values next time) and eat your own home made foods so you know exactly what goes into each meal. This goes for any meals you cook Weight Watchers or not.
I daily cook using the WW system, we never eat boring foods, we seldom eat the same meal twice and I know exactly what my food values are and what has gone into the meal.