Weight Watchers (Split from Male Breasts Thread)

yomchi

zappb wrote:

Instead of drinking wine or beerk (wine is very fattening as well - 8 weight watchers points in a bottle) why not try Bulmer's light? If you put it in a pint glass of ice, it feels like your drinking a pint of bulmers - but its only 1 weight watchers point.

Tastes like piss though, but id imagine your 18th pint wouldn't taste the best either.

Other option is Coors light which is 1 and a half weight watchers points per bottle. You can really make a killing weight loss wise in the alcohol department. 18 pints a week = about 54 weight watchers points. Thats an awful lot of food - maybe 9 large dinners.

Sorry for talking in WW points - they are easier for me to understand.

With utmost respect my friend Weight watchers aint worth a fcuk to anyone

Clive

Jon wrote:

With utmost respect my friend Weight watchers aint worth a fcuk to anyone

Weight watchers has helped a shed load of people, certainly more than bitchy internet comments - with utmost respect.

yomchi

Clive wrote:

Weight watchers has helped a shed load of people, certainly more than bitchy internet comments - with utmost respect.

I wasn't being bitchy its how you interpreted it, weight watchers is a crash diet system, where people literally deprive their bodies of food. Ayone I know who has done it, and I know quite a few piled back on the weight when they came off it.

Clive

Dude, I think someone has been telling you porkie pies.

WW is not a crash diet or anything of the sort, and people do not deprive their bodies of food (except to the extent necessary to lose weight).

It's not a diet, in that you can eat whatever you want just that it's slated towards the healthier options. You don't "go off it" - that's like saying cardio and weights are useless, because people I know who went off them got fat again.

WW is pretty much a simplified, "user-friendly" version of watching what you eat.

Dragan

Clive wrote:

WW is pretty much a simplified, "user-friendly" version of watching what you eat.

Would agree with Clive on this one....the weight watchers structure is rather good, and unlike most "diet groups" they will happily change there ethos and advice based on the advances that are made in nutritional science.

It's also a very good support structure for those looking to lose weight.

I love going to the gym and all that jazz.....but remember that we need to be able to offer relevant advice for people in whatever stage of life they are in.

daveirl

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Dragan

daveirl wrote:

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With respect that is one person, and any system will have it detractors. For my money, for a lot of people, WW is a viable system that will help them.

The number of points that you should be eating is pretty carefully workout out, if you are more active you eat more points etc. I have known many, many people who have found success on the WW diet, because that is the system that suited them at the time.

I have also known many people to fail spectacularly.....it is all about the effort and research that people are willing to put in.

If the girl felt she was eating too little then good for her, just up the number of points that you allow yourself.

At the end of the day WW offers and easy to use reference for what foods will be good and what will be bad, and while i don;t agree with there frozen meals etc, i can see the strenghts in the program if used correctly.....or even incorrectly if that is what suits you!!!!:)

po0k

It's a marketing tool to sell boring yoghurt to silly young wans.

TerrorFirmer

SyxPak wrote:

It's a marketing tool to sell boring yoghurt to silly young wans.

My respect for WW ended the day I saw WW water - yes, water - in the supermarket. The points system can be really flawed in so far as that you could actually use up all the points and still be at a massive deficit of your requirements or even the opposite, but I suppose if it helps some people loose the weight then its better then nothing.

Dragan

Gusy, every diet system is flawed.....because it takes a bit of will power and common sense to make anything work.

I know for a fact that i have given people lots of the best advice that i can, both on here and in the gym, because i was ASKED for it, and then three weeks later they are still making the same mistakes, eating the same sh1t, asking the same questions or lifting with the same god awful form.

There is no "diet system" in the world that i could not get fat, lazy and unhealthy on if i put my mind to it enough. The are also very few diets systems that are COMPLETE TOSS!!! Most of them are based around some decent ideal, it's just that they then take that ideal too far.

Most systems are a crutch, because people need to read a book by someone who seems to know what they are on about, or be told what to do by someone who has "suceeded". As sad as it is, very few people have the willpower to just make the change and then shut the fu*k up about it, then make the next change and shut the fu*k up about that.

Very few people have the common sense to realise that an hour with google will find you an endless amount of info on diet and excercise, and some carefully experimentation with your own diet will yield fantastic results if you would just take a chance and put some effort in.

I would love it everyone would do the above, but sadly they won't , so things like WW are not so bad.

Linoge

daveirl wrote:

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WW only encourages you to drop about 300 calories from what your maintenance consumption would be. If she was in starvation mode she had calculated her points incorrectly

daveirl wrote:

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Theres nothing technical about that. They give you a guideline as to how many points you should allocate to your meals and snacks.

HavoK wrote:

My respect for WW ended the day I saw WW water - yes, water - in the supermarket.

Maybe it was low cal water?!?:D

WW is a publicly floated company selling diet products, you can't blame them for covering all areas!

zappb

WW has worked for me so far - I started at 17stone a month ago, and now I'm 16stone three and a half pounds - that's 10.5 pounds of a loss in 4 weeks.

I think its great - i barely count any points- eat what i want within reason for breakfast lunch and dinner and just keep and eye on what snacks - its really a simple way to promote healthy eating and if you give it a try you might find its not useless.

The support you get is wonderful. The cost is 9euros a week but this is really not that big a deal when you compare it to gym membership or personal trainers.

Getting weighted in each week helps keep you motivated, the fact that i stand up in a class of say 40 women and talk about my weight and put it out in the open means i'm making my weight public - yes i am 16 stone 3.5 pounds, and i am fat, it's real, its not the end of the world, its a psychological thing more then anything - you cant hide from the flab, and you can't make excuses.

Its amazing how you can pretend not to notice how fat you are. Its almost like you don't realise your fat.

I've started doing Yoga 4 times a week, and walking every morning for half and hour, and taking the bike out in the evenings. I rarely feel hungry and never famished.

I spent 4 months going to the gym before work and running my bollocks off, lifting weight and actually ended up putting on weight - muscle - i.e. got heavier because of it. There was absolutely no progress so i obiouvsly lost motivation and gave it up.

With this stuff its 70% Diet and 30% exercise - when i went to the gym i was only looking at 30% of the problem and was getting nowhere. Weight Watchers takes care of the 70% and lets you figure out the 30% on your own.

The reason i finally went to weightwatchers is i want to play football again - i played for home farm for 5 years and am fairly decent but now at 24 years of age couldn't even play for a sunday team. I get shin splints and have flat feet - most likely due to the weight. What a way to live!

yomchi

I think its great - i barely count any points- eat what i want within reason for breakfast lunch and dinner and just keep and eye on what snacks - its really a simple way to promote healthy eating and if you give it a try you might find its not useless.

You don't really need to got to weight watchers to do this. As you've stated already you don't count the points, you just watch what you eat.. sounds like a good way to go about it. Nice 1 on your weight loss!

daveirl

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Linoge

daveirl wrote:

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Where are you getting your information from? Let me guess, you are an ex-member???

Like I said before:

Linoge wrote:

They give you a guideline as to how many points you should allocate to your meals and snacks.

Ie. a Big Mac may be over your recommended points for a meal.

daveirl

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Linoge

daveirl wrote:

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I'm not talking about where you got the points from, but more where you got the idea that you can eat nothing but Big Macs and still be following WW.

daveirl wrote:

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Yes, it wouldn't (be allowed) and it isn't. Why don't you read the rest of the book. They recommend portion sizes etc.

And as Clive was saying, you can sway to extremes on any plan. Just because you are fulfilling part of diet, whether its staying within your points or eating big to gain muscle, does not mean that you are follwing all of the plan (ie, eating healthy, normal portions, getting excercise).

Maybe WW just wouldn't suit you Dave because you would happily eat nothing but Big Macs.

g'em

Linoge wrote:

I'm not talking about where you got the points from, but more where you got the idea that you can eat nothing but Big Macs and still be following WW.

chillax!! Dave's just taking an extreme view of the WW scenario, and I pretty much agree with him. Many people who use the WW system have little or no fundamental understanding of what good, healthy nutrition should be- all they understand is that they have a certain number of points they need to follow. And yes, I am an ex-WWer. But I was the same- I didn't know what healthy macronutrient ratios were, didn't know the difference between good and bad fats, didn't know that where your calories were coming from was just as (if not more) important as how many I was ingesting. WW, like any other system, will work to a certain extent, but its fundamental flaw is that those who use it will only truly succeeed if they look beyond the leaflets and the jaron and educate themselves on why the points system is there, what it means, and gradual learn about the simple, basic rules of healthy eating.

When it came to the stage that my friends and I were staring ourselves all day Friday and Saturday just so we could go out drinking at the weekend and not go over our points I knew there was something just not right.

daveirl

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Dragan

g'em wrote:

chillax!! Dave's just taking an extreme view of the WW scenario, and I pretty much agree with him. Many people who use the WW system have little or no fundamental understanding of what good, healthy nutrition should be- all they understand is that they have a certain number of points they need to follow. And yes, I am an ex-WWer. But I was the same- I didn't know what healthy macronutrient ratios were, didn't know the difference between good and bad fats, didn't know that where your calories were coming from was just as (if not more) important as how many I was ingesting. WW, like any other system, will work to a certain extent, but its fundamental flaw is that those who use it will only truly succeeed if they look beyond the leaflets and the jaron and educate themselves on why the points system is there, what it means, and gradual learn about the simple, basic rules of healthy eating.

When it came to the stage that my friends and I were staring ourselves all day Friday and Saturday just so we could go out drinking at the weekend and not go over our points I knew there was something just not right.

Why G'em, are you saying that people should accept resposibility for themselves and self-educate about nutrition???

Your obviously crazy!!!!

g'em

Dragan wrote:

Why G'em, are you saying that people should accept resposibility for themselves and self-educate about nutrition???

Your obviously crazy!!!!

I know, I know, it's a completely nonsensical idea, it'll never catch on.... :rolleyes:

Linoge

g'em wrote:

chillax!! Dave's just taking an extreme view of the WW scenario, and I pretty much agree with him. Many people who use the WW system have little or no fundamental understanding of what good, healthy nutrition should be- all they understand is that they have a certain number of points they need to follow. And yes, I am an ex-WWer. But I was the same- I didn't know what healthy macronutrient ratios were, didn't know the difference between good and bad fats, didn't know that where your calories were coming from was just as (if not more) important as how many I was ingesting. WW, like any other system, will work to a certain extent, but its fundamental flaw is that those who use it will only truly succeeed if they look beyond the leaflets and the jaron and educate themselves on why the points system is there, what it means, and gradual learn about the simple, basic rules of healthy eating.

When it came to the stage that my friends and I were staring ourselves all day Friday and Saturday just so we could go out drinking at the weekend and not go over our points I knew there was something just not right.

I'm not saying that WW is anything brilliant.

I am saying that Dave is wrong to take an extreme view just to prove a point. He did not make any valid points, he just kept harping on about Big Macs!

And Gem, you've said it yourself, many people who use the WW system have little or no fundamental understanding of what good, healthy nutrition should be- all they understand is that they have a certain number of points they need to follow. Most people who start WW are obese. How are they obese if they had any understanding of nutrition??

Surely it is better for people to get a basic understanding of a simplified diet and increase their knowledge along the way rather than plonking a 700 page GI book in front of them.

You have done this yourself Gem. Can you honestly say that WW didn't help you?

g'em

Linoge wrote:

You have done this yourself Gem. Can you honestly say that WW didn't help you?

I did WW in 1997 when I was in my late teens (it's probably changed a bit since then) and lost 7lbs in four weeks. Being a teenager I was out drinking at the weekends and got a bit fed up with having to sacrifice food for alcohol (being a teen the thought of giving up drink entirely never even crossed my mind :rolleyes: ) so I stopped WW. Because I hadn't been taught, or learnt myself, what healthy eating was actually supposed to consist of I put on a stone in the 6 weeks straight after coming off it.

I've also tried Atkins, the South Beach Diet, the Zone Diet, Slimfast, e-Diets, the F-Plan.. pretty much everything going. Each and every single time I lost weight and then put it back on with interest purely because I was relying on other people to tell me what to eat and not putting the effort in to educate myself.

I'm not saying it doesn't work, of course it does, but successes are in the minority.Nothing replaces self-education and the implimentation of long-term healthy eating habits and a good exercise regime. The big problem I have with any of these plans is that they take away the need for people to be repsonsible for their own eating habits- there's always a fall-back for blame. As you say, they can be a good starting point for people, but other than that I quickly lose faith in their effectiveness.

Dragan

g'em wrote:

B]Nothing [/B]replaces self-education and the implimentation of long-term healthy eating habits and a good exercise regime.

Ah.....the Team Test diet.

Linoge

g'em wrote:

The big problem I have with any of these plans is that they take away the need for people to be repsonsible for their own eating habits- there's always a fall-back for blame. As you say, they can be a good starting point for people, but other than that I quickly lose faith in their effectiveness.

I wholeheartedly agree!

kluivert wrote:

This is not a WW thread

Thanks Daveirl, Jak em er... I mean Kluivert.

King of Kings

never been in WW - but it helped my missus lose the weight (and a bit more) after having the baby.
She's kept it off too using the ideas
admittedly I think her diet is poor at times but the general principles (including her hour a day walk) keep her slim.

Well that's my 2 bits.

smiles

Okay, the general view of WW is that you can eat whatever you want as long as you don't go over your points.... That's true, but not the entire idea of the programme.

If all you eat is junk but don't go over your points then if that is all you do then you're not really doing to do yourself any good. (hence all the 1.5 big mac comments) :rolleyes:

WW also recommends healthy eating, variety in food, etc. You can look at any of their "daily menus" that they produce every month and see that they're all well balanced and nutricious. In the meeting I go to they talk about the "healthy 8":

1. Eat at least 5 servings of vegetables and fruits each day.
2. Choose whole-gran foods, such as brown rice and oats, whenever possible.
3. Include 2 servings of milk products (low-fat or fat free) each day.
4. Have some healthy oil (olive, canola, safflower, sunflower, or flaxseed) each day. This habit ensures that you get the essential fatty acids and vit. E that your body needs. Use the oil on salads, in cooking, or as an ingredient in a mixed dish.
5. Ensure that you are getting enough protein by choosing at least a serving or two of meat, poultry, fish, eggs, dried beans, or soy products each day. Many milk products are also good sources of protein.
6. Limit added sugar and alcohol.
7. Drink at least 6 glasses of water each day.
8. Take a multiple vitamin-mineral supplement each day.

Not bad ideas any of them, as far as I can tell.

They also push for increased exercise *and* have a maintainance plan for people to follow to get them out of dieting back into "normal" eating.

I can honestly say the programme has completely turned what I eat around.
When I started (January) I hated all veg and was a junk food eater, now (42 lbs down) I'm eating healthier food than I ever have -- not because I had to, thats why I started eating them but now I like them. Sure I could "spend" all my points on junk -- but I'd still but hungry and there's no point because I'd just end up overeating in the long run.

I've combined WW with increased exercise, started running and going to the gym and I'm feeling great.

As for people just putting the weight back on... I know that it's sustainable for me, I've new health habits that I wont lose when I finish -- I spent 6 weeks abroad working and ate out every night but maintained my weight by healthy choices and keept exercising, I wasn't counting points at all for this time, but I knew the goodness/badness of various foods based on their points.

Sure it wont work for some people -- weight issues are generally linked to food addiction of some form and like any addiction it needs to be tackled -- and willpower is required. WW meetings offer the support that many people need to deal with these issues.

As for the girl not clearing 1000 points..... sounds wrong to me.
The lowest points you should eat (for the smallest, most inactive, of people -- the bigger you are, the more points, the more active your lifestyle, the more points, etc.) is 18, which translates as 1300 calories (roughly), and with the recommended level of exercise earning you 2-3 more points, thats up to 1500 points. Now thats for a *small* *inactive* person. I'd recommend that girl go talk to her leader and find out where she's going wrong.

As for doing the programme "on the internet"... i'd be wary, it's changed several times over the years and mixing and matching different elements of it (and the programme is different in different countries -- including the points calculations) might not work.

As for the WW products -- they are a company and they do want to make money.... the WW water is a flavoured one which has no points. Most of the products taste crappy but are fairly nutritious, good if you want to have a quick solution, easier to cook your own meals and work out the points.