This past summer, I signed up for Weight Watchers Points system (online program). I had several friends who had used Weight Watchers – they all lost a lot of weight, and kept it off for years. So, I thought I’d give it a go myself.
Because I couldn’t fit a live meeting into my schedule, I decided to try the online program. To start, you have to enter your weight, age, sex etc. into the Weight Watchers’ website. You are then given a daily number of “points” based on your personal statistics (I was given 24 points a day).
The points correspond to food – for example, an apple has one point, whereas a bag of chips might have 15 points. The Weight Watchers website has a running list of foods so you can always find how many points a particular food item is. You can also use the website’s “points calculator” to check an item’s points value. (After a while though, you tend to memorize points values)
You can eat whatever you want, so long as you don’t go above your daily points total. Plus, you also get a “stockpile” of extra points you can use throughout the week (say you’ve already reached your daily point limit, but you want some crackers – you can “dip into” the weekly point stockpile) You can also “gain” points for exercise – say, if you took a 2 mile walk, you can eat an extra point that day.
The website offers you an interactive daily log to help you keep track of your points. (it’s basically a food journal) After every meal, or at the end of the day, you plug in your foods and points.
They also have you weigh yourself once a week, and enter your weight into the computer, in order to measure your progress.
It’s anonymous. You don’t have to go to meetings and no one will ever see your weight.
You get to eat whatever you want – no deprivation.
It can easily be incorporated into the real world -family dinners, going out to restaurants, even fast food joints.
It is a common sense approach to weight loss. It trains you to re-think about your food choices and portion sizes. It really is a healthy eating “lifestyle and mentality”.
It’s expensive. (I purchased a one-month membership, but the cost does go down substantially if you purchase a multi-month membership)
The points system can be confusing and time consuming at first. For the first few days, I was glued to my computer, checking and re-checking my food points, looking up foods’ points values, logging my points into my daily points journal etc.
The points go fast! Initially, I thought my points limit would be easy to stick to – but not when you realize one serving of French Vanilla coffee creamer is 2 points! Those points add up quick!
I must admit that I didn’t give Weight Watchers Points my all. I didn’t lose any weight the second week, so I sort of gave up and cheated after that. Eventually, I gave up completely. But overall, I thought it was a good diet – if you have the money to do it and the initial time it takes to learn (and get the hang of) the points program. If I had an extra 100 bucks now, I’d probably give it a go again.
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