Points Free Food

FatGirlSlim

Does anyone have a list of food with zero points in it please?:D

ladiee24

pretty much all veg except sweetcorn, avocado & parsnips!

az2wp0sye65487

Today for lunch I am having 'Points Free Soup' that the O/H made. Tis Nice. In it there is:

-Tins of chopped tomatoes
- Peppers
- Onion
- Carrot
- Turnip
- Garlic
- Tomato Puree
- Chillis (bit of a kick to it!)
- Tiny bit of sweetcorn

I think that's it.

neuro-praxis

I thought you were calorie counting FGS? There are no calorie free foods, mores the pity.

However on the WW plan, here's what's 0 points:

- All vegetables, except corn, peas, avocado, potatoes, sweet potatoes and parsnips, if I recall correctly.

- Sugar free jelly, and all sugar free soft drinks.

- 2 teaspoons of Hellman's extra light is so low in calories it is considered 0 points, along with condiments like mustard, salsa and hot sauce, and all spices and herbs. Ketchup and normal mayo are not free.

There are three things I eat when I want something at 0 points:

1. Butternut squash chips. Soften your squash in the microwave to make it easier to peel. Peel, and slice into chips. Bake at 200 in the oven until crisp and salt them. A bowl of yummy chips, fer nuthin but a bit of elbow grease.

2. Vegetable steam-fry. Add a small amount of stock to the wok and throw in a pile of julienned veggies. Add some 0 points sauces and spices - ginger, chilli, soy - to add a bit of flavour. Toss in the heat and eat.

3. Last and most certainly least, 0 points soup. I am quite sick of this. Any variation of veggies, boiled in stock and blended. It fills a gap.

rubadub

Is there no limit at all to the amount of these foods you can eat? carrots are ~5% sugar, and tomato puree is ~18% sugar. I could imagine somebody blindly eating bowls of the stuff and wondering why they are not losing fat! (though it would be hard to stomach it all, if I was hungry I could)

neuro-praxis wrote: »

along with condiments like mustard

There are lots of new "deli mustards" out now which are LOADED with fat, so would be very very high in points. Obviously they mean the likes of strong english mustard but I could imagine somebody mistaking it.

neuro-praxis

No, there is no limit. However nobody eats cartloads of the stuff. I usually have soup/salad at lunch hours and have 2-3 veggies at night with me dinner. I might snack on some sugar snap peas during the day but that's it.

I have always lost weight eating this way. It actually encourages you to eat more vegetables.

FatGirlSlim

Thanks all!

Yeah I am calorie counting technically but since doing ww before i like keeping track of stuff that way too!:D

Why are veg no points?

rubadub

neuro-praxis wrote: »

There are no calorie free foods,

+1

FatGirlSlim wrote: »

Thanks all!

Yeah I am calorie counting technically but since doing ww before i like keeping track of stuff that way too!:D

Why are veg no points?

There are no calorie free foods as mentioned, (well sugar free stuff like jelly or diet drinks could have negligible calories but are not really "food" in my mind). So if you are following calorie counting you cannot go eating zero point foods.

Neuro-praxis says it encourages you to eat more veg, I always wondered about the zero point thing too. Calories are not calculated with humans in mind, they are a measure of fuel, like for car engines. Thing is the act of eating and digesting the food can use up energy, your body might not be as efficient as a machine engine would, so some foods give you less energy per kcal than others. e.g. 1000kcal of alcohol or celery will probably cause less fat gain than 1000kcal of sugar.

I remember seeing a documentary with a obese man eating 35 oranges a day and wondering why he was fat, I just hope no WW people are doing the same with veg! and wondered if they do warn about it. I think it is safer to have a guide of veg which IS zero rather than ones that are not, though both lists would be better. It is too easy to omit ones. steviecakes zer0 soup had sweetcorn that the others said is not zero (though he did say tiny amount).

However nobody eats cartloads of the stuff.

Hopefully this is the case, common sense should tell people if stuff truly is "zero point", I just hope some are not fooling themselves, knowingly or not, like the guy with the oranges.

neuro-praxis

WW members do have a complete list of foods - it's called "Food in Full" and you get it on your first week of joining. It lists pretty much all wholefoods and gives points values for them.

I understand your concerns rubadub, but in reality, the problem with most people doing WW is that they eat too many sweets and processed foods, as the freedom of the points system allows this, and typically you will still lose weight. I have never heard of anyone however overdosing on vegetables. The calories in all 0 points veggies are so low as to have no impact. All fruits are pointed, and some are higher than others, so fruit is eaten in moderation.

In fact, looking back at my trackers, the weeks when I have lost the most weight have always been the weeks when I have focused on large portions of vegetables!

rubadub

neuro-praxis wrote: »

WW members do have a complete list of foods - it's called "Food in Full" and you get it on your first week of joining. It lists pretty much all wholefoods and gives points values for them.

Right, I expressed concerns before about people trying to follow WW without going to classes, I have heard my mother sister and a female friends talking about WW points, but none actually go. They could be getting skewed information and not the full story.

FatGirlSlim- I thought you were saying you did WW before, so do you not have this list? (or just lost it maybe.)

neuro-praxis wrote: »

the problem with most people doing WW is that they eat too many sweets and processed foods....
the weeks when I have lost the most weight have always been the weeks when I have focused on large portions of vegetables!

Yes, it seems that way from reading the sticky thread, every second post is "I went to this party and ate loads of sweets", so I expect if you are already full of nutritional food you would be far less likely to fall off the wagon like that. And so even though they DO have calories, it is probably less calories than would otherwise be snacked on when scoffing those chocolate biscuits.

I have heard people criticize WW for "allowing" people to still eat crap on the plan, but if healthy stuff is "free" it is at least encouraging healthy eating and hopefully steer people into eating such foods for good.

ladiee24

rubadub wrote: »

I have heard people criticize WW for "allowing" people to still eat crap on the plan, but if healthy stuff is "free" it is at least encouraging healthy eating and hopefully steer people into eating such foods for good.

you've cracked it there rubadub that's exactly what WW allows people to do. it gives them the healthier options & encourages healthy eating over eating junk food not just sweets, choc, crips etc it also encourages eating brown bread, brown rice, brown pasta healthy leafy greens & so on.

as neuro-praxis mentioned above the biggest problem most people who attend WW are those who have fallen into a convenience food trap with all the hidden bad things & they don't really realise whats in the foods they are eating or they're eating portions that are just crazy. i know i did! i've joined WW many times before & this time has been my most successful cause i've ditched the convenenince food & opted to eat more "no point foods" along side healthy cuts of meat & including pointed fruit in health quantites.

FatGirlSlim

Ok ill stick with the calorie counting I think:D

I just thought since veg doesnt count in ww it must not count at all in diets cause ww points are still based on calories!

rubadub

FatGirlSlim wrote: »

Ok ill stick with the calorie counting I think:D

It is still a good list of foods to know. They are obviously low in calories, nutritious & filling, otherwise WW would not be giving you free reign to eat them. So count the calories by all means, but they are good choices and will be low in cals, so you can eat lots.

Many people simply do not know what foods are high/low in calories, many are shocked to hear the burger buns often have more calories than the burger. Or that 2 plain biscuits usually has more cals than a full chicken fillet. By knowing calorie contents you often end up making better, more filling choices. I used to eat very little bread when calorie counting, I saw it as a waste when I could be having more chicken instead.

FatGirlSlim

rubadub wrote: »

It is still a good list of foods to know. They are obviously low in calories, nutritious & filling, otherwise WW would not be giving you free reign to eat them. So count the calories by all means, but they are good choices and will be low in cals, so you can eat lots.

Many people simply do not know what foods are high/low in calories, many are shocked to hear the burger buns often have more calories than the burger. Or that 2 plain biscuits usually has more cals than a full chicken fillet. By knowing calorie contents you often end up making better, more filling choices. I used to eat very little bread when calorie counting, I saw it as a waste when I could be having more chicken instead.

Yeah it's still a good guide! I love my bread, just stick to ww stuff now!

corkcomp

FatGirlSlim wrote: »

Yeah it's still a good guide! I love my bread, just stick to ww stuff now!

you would prob be better off with proper wholegrain bread TBH ... the weight watchers bread is nothing special, it just has lots of air in it and the slices + weight of the bread are reduced just to make it lower calorie/ less points

rubadub

corkcomp wrote: »

you would prob be better off with proper wholegrain bread TBH ... the weight watchers bread is nothing special,

+1 Compare all WW products side by side and many are just the same calories/points per 100g. They either give you small portions, or dilute them down with water, the ingredients and nutiritional info reveals a lot if you learn how to understand them.

ladiee24 wrote: »

it also encourages eating brown bread, brown rice, brown pasta .

That is what I wondered about, since all the WW meals I have seen use processed white flour in the bread or pasta, and use white rice. It is very rare to see wholegrain in readymeals, and if you do they are usually very expensive. I made "pizzas" the other day, just got 2 slices of 100% wholemeal bread (read the ingredients carefully!), and I rolled a glass on the top of them to flatten them out, so it was more like a dense pizza base I did them separate, I suppose you could put one on top of the other for a thicker base, then spread tomato puree on top and cheeze, had no chorizo but would would have added it. Then in the oven for 5-7mins.

ladiee24

rubadub wrote: »

That is what I wondered about, since all the WW meals I have seen use processed white flour in the bread or pasta, and use white rice. It is very rare to see wholegrain in readymeals, and if you do they are usually very expensive.

this is my biggest pet hate when it comes to WW. I HATE READY MEALS they are an abomination on the taste buds & waist line be they WW or not! i honestly think you need to be attending a meeting to see that they say these ready meals are literally just stop gaps & that nothing beats fresh home cooked meals.

i would like to think the WW people only produce those WW products to appeal to a wider market & to make more money sad but true. a girl in our meeting had said during class i'm starving all the time but i've been so good all i'm eating is the WW ready meals. safe to say a whole disccussion began about how horrible these ready meals are!

at the end of the day as you've said many times rubadub it's basically your normal ready meals "watered" down.

FatGirlSlim

True they're full of air but I enjoy them, I dont miss other bread and they're low in calories so for me they're perfect for when I want a sandwich.