weight watchers

bubthatub

hi i am thinkin about joining weight watchers has anyone here that are in or were in weight watchers can ye tell me what it was like and woould you recommend it. also do you just turn up on the night or do you have to let them know in advance

bilbo79

Weight watchers is a disgrace and only encourages low calorie dieting and is run by people with no qualifications. if you eat the designated points they dont care if all the points came from bags of sugar-when you reach weight target you know nothing about healthy eating-just reduce calories and make the calories you use good quality-fruit veg white meats-nuts etc...about the qualifications-you only have to meet your goal weight to become a weight watchers teacher. rant over!!

Dan133269

friend of mine lost 6 stone in under a year with weight watchers and his own exercise plan. I'm sure that's incentive enough for you to try them out, I don't know anything about them personally

sillysocks

Bubthatub, I joined weightwatchers a while back and lost around 3 stone, think that the programme is very good if you stick to it (the odd variation won't kill ya though!) and always works for me when I do stick to it. They do two programmes now, one is 'no count' which is a list of foods that you can eat freely for your main meals during the day, and the other is where all foods are assigned a points value and you stick to a specific number of points each day. I always went for the points programme because it meant you could still have the few treats once you counted them in.

And I obviously cant speak for all WW meetings but in my one we are always encouraged to eat fruit,veg and other foods like that, and there are often classes based on how we can get enough fruit and veg etc into your diet. The handbooks etc also are very encouraging towards eating 'right', and not just using all your points on chocolate or anything like that.

I think it also helps you change how you eat, when I had lost the 3 stone i stopped doing it for a while , but never put back any of the weight becasue my habits had changed. Have started back now and hoping to lose a bit more before I'm completley finished!

Oh and they encourage exercise as well by giving extra points when u exercise.

Trotter

Maybe Bilbo79 knows what he/she is talking about though.

I dont think Bilbo79 would do the usual thing for the fitness board and just dismiss an idea completely out of hand without going to a weightwatchers meeting regularly over a few months to see for him/herself..

Would you Bilbo79??!


I've heard great things about it. I know a few people who have lost a lot of weight and use it as a tool to avoid eating crap. They know if they have a chocolate fudge cake for breakfast that they cant eat again all day.. so they dont do it. If it works for some people, it may well work for others.

I would say to the OP, go and see for yourself.

As for the qualifications?
If the group leader is a 45 stone cake eating champion who in her spare time manages to help a whole lot of people lose weight and gain confidence.. then woohoo it works.

You dont need to be wearing lycra with your sports and fitness degree stapled to your lean muscular forehead to inspire people to lose a few pounds.

Sangre

Trotter wrote:

I dont think Bilbo79 would do the usual thing for the fitness board and just dismiss an idea completely out of hand without going to a weightwatchers meeting regularly over a few months to see for him/herself..

Would you Bilbo79??!

Weightwatchers is a long established and widely promoted program. You needn't go to one class to find out exactly what it contains. Either from pamphlets, actual members, the internet or books.

Your suggestion of needing to be a member to dismiss it is laughable.
Hmm, the X group promotes bulemic activities, but I haven't tried it so I can't comment on it.


Saw Weight Watchers water in the shop the other day, heh.

Trotter

Sangre wrote:

Saw Weight Watchers water in the shop the other day, heh.

Now that it sh1te, I'll give you that.

Maybe some people like the whole concept of discussing their common issue at the meetings. A problem shared is a problem halved etc..

I dont go to the meetings but I know from people who do that its the concept of not being alone in the challenge thats worth a lot to them.

Meh.. each to their own. If climbing a tree naked helps someone lose weight.. let em off. If it works for them.. fan flippin tastic.

Boru.

I was persoanlly offended when my own mother went on weight watchers over one of diet plans and exercises regiemes....at least that was until...she started getting great resutls and eating delicious and sensible meals.

Weight watchers is a mix of both good and bad points. Its not suitable for the fitness enthusiast but it will be of use to deconditioned or those new to fitness and need to lose weight. It provides an overally sinmplified understanding of nutrition, but many people don;t want the level of detail and understanding some of us do. Most wnayt to be tld eat this up to this point and thats it. It provides an inrtoduction to diet structure and discipline through a point system.

Sure I'd love if poeple learnt baut nutrition, calories etc, but most don;t have the time and won't put in the effort, rather that lose them to obesity and poor health, I prefer to use weight watchers as an introduction to better health and diet.

Thats a good thing.

Now the bad things - the ready made meals are awful, and never should be ingested. The marketing and gimmicks associated with it are equally useless.

Now, wiht that said - the Weight Watchers cookbook is one of my favourites.

Ginger chicken, beef teryaki, sweet and sour pork, all delicious, healhty and natural. Excellent ratios of protein, carbs and healhty fats. Easy to make and very tasty.

At the end of the day Weight Watchers is not an ideal system, but it is better than nothing and may likely led to a better and more developed understanding of healhty diet and nutrition.

kittenkiller

Bubthatub, you can just head along to your local meeting at the designated time or 5 minutes beforehand if you're eager and register there and then.

You have to fill out a form and give a €15 (or there abouts) once off registration fee and then it's €7 a week for a meeting after that.

Most people say you get better results of you stay for the meetings but if you're ina rush on that particular night you don't have to stay for the whole thing and just go for the weigh-in.
You have to keep your shoes on so it's best to wear similar footwear each week and everything is kept private and discrete.

Give it a go for a few weeks and hopefully the results will motivate you.

They usually ask you to go without alcohol for the 1st week to boost your start.
You're allocated a certain amount of points for the day, these are based on calorie and saturated fat content of food and if you've overdone it on a particular day you can "earn" points back through exercise.

They aim for 2-3 lbs loss each week so if you go this week you could definately have lost a stone by Christmas.

Best of luck and don't be nervous, your ww-leader is chosen because of their own sucess and an approachable manner so there's no need to feel threatened or intimidated going in there.
Or bring a friend if you're feeling a little nervous.

cowzerp

Bilbopaulo is spot on. im a personal trainer and all my clients who do weight watchers gain the weight back-not only that-when they do lose weight its nearly always lean mass-therefore the people come back 6 pounds lighter and not in any better shape-eat sensible and reduce calories-never eat that crap weight watchers processed food-:mad:

K!LL!@N

There seems to be a lot of ignorance of what actually goes on with Weight Watchers.

I've lost 28 pounds since joining in May, that includes some 3 weeks in July when i got married where i was eating out a lot with family and friends. So i would have lost more in that time.

Let's get one thing straight first of all. You do not have to buy or eat any of the food that WW sells. I can't comment on it's quality one way or the other, as i haven't eaten anything beyond a WW ice cream bar.

Bilbo said that WW is a low calorie diet. The fact of the matter is that all weight loss related diets require you to consume less calories than you use.

Bilbo also said that WW doesn't care how you get your calories as long as you're within your points allowance. Again this is just ignorance. If you had been to a meeting or read the literature you would know that they encourage members to eat 5 servings of fruit/veg, 3 servings of dairy and well as drink 6 glasses of water and try to get in 2 servings of "good" oils. They also encourage eating wholegrains over processed.

It's the people themselves that think it's ok to eat whatever junk they want as long as the points tally up. WW is not to blame for that. It's in people's nature to try and "work the system". These people are fooling no one but themselves.

One of the things that WW strongly encourages is journalling. I'm sure all you fitness instructors are familiar with this one. They want you to keep track of everything you eat and all exercise you do, on a day to day basis. This helps you keep track of your points but also makes you look at what you've been eating and the other activities you've been doing.

They also encourage you to pay more attention to how you're feeling when you eat. Do you still feel hungry after you've eaten something? Or, are you continuing to eat just because something tastes good? It's a pretty universal thing among western societies that children were always encouraged ( sometimes forced ) to eat everything put on their plate whether they were full or not. Obviously this is coming from a time when food was scarce but it has carried on through to today. Next time you eat and feel like grabbing seconds take 5-10 minutes before you do and often you will not need to. Again, it's simply a matter of how the human stomach works but a lot of people either don't know or just don't pay attention to it.

The WW system is not perfect by any means but it works for a lot of people.

In the past i threw myself into a rigorous training program where i was in the gym 4-6 days a week but during that time i never changed my diet. I did lose weight but i was still completely ignorant about my diet. And once i eased off on the training the weight crept back on. This time i've changed the diet first and i'm gradually getting back into exercising.

Killian