What to WW devotees love about the system?

[Anonymous]

There seem to be many people who love WW, what is it you like about the system? Are there any people that have lost and maintained for years? Do you continue to convert everything you eat to points? How do you know what to eat in a restaurant. I get that there was a time when tracking food was hard (meaning pre smart phone and cool free calories tracking apps), but now it is pretty easy and all food packaging has to provide nutrient information. What is it that WW provides on top of a workable tracking mechanism.

[Anonymous]

Lifetime success. I have lived on WW for 30 years. Lost the weight and used the principles to maintain. After kids when I had weight to lose, went back and learned the point system and have been tracking for years. As far as restaurants, that's what I use my weekly points for. I try to make good choices and try not to go out out of convenience, which means that the 35 weekly points covers it.

[Anonymous]

WW allows you to eat any food you want, as long as you eat it in moderation. So if you can't function without a piece of chocolate every day, WW says it's OK, just make sure you track your Points.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:WW allows you to eat any food you want, as long as you eat it in moderation. So if you can't function without a piece of chocolate every day, WW says it's OK, just make sure you track your Points.

I get this, but so does counting calories. Counting calories is actually a lot more transparent and provides substantially more flexibility. WW designs its points system to encourage certain eating habits, but when I have tried to compare it is actually pretty calorie restrictive. I think WW added tremendous value when tracking food was cumbersome, but technology has simplified food tracking and put incredible amounts of information and tracking ability and everyone's fingertips. I just think that WW online is pretty expensive for what you get, as the same capabilities are available for free.

So, I understand someone who learned to eat well under it and has used the system for 30 years because 30 years ago (or even 5/10 years ago) it was pretty much the best thing going. I do not understand why someone starting out now would choose it given what else is out there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:WW allows you to eat any food you want, as long as you eat it in moderation. So if you can't function without a piece of chocolate every day, WW says it's OK, just make sure you track your Points.

I get this, but so does counting calories. Counting calories is actually a lot more transparent and provides substantially more flexibility. WW designs its points system to encourage certain eating habits, but when I have tried to compare it is actually pretty calorie restrictive. I think WW added tremendous value when tracking food was cumbersome, but technology has simplified food tracking and put incredible amounts of information and tracking ability and everyone's fingertips. I just think that WW online is pretty expensive for what you get, as the same capabilities are available for free.

So, I understand someone who learned to eat well under it and has used the system for 30 years because 30 years ago (or even 5/10 years ago) it was pretty much the best thing going. I do not understand why someone starting out now would choose it given what else is out there.

What are the free apps? I just signed up for WW online today because I wasn't aware of anything as easy as the WW site counting my points.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:WW allows you to eat any food you want, as long as you eat it in moderation. So if you can't function without a piece of chocolate every day, WW says it's OK, just make sure you track your Points.

I get this, but so does counting calories. Counting calories is actually a lot more transparent and provides substantially more flexibility. WW designs its points system to encourage certain eating habits, but when I have tried to compare it is actually pretty calorie restrictive. I think WW added tremendous value when tracking food was cumbersome, but technology has simplified food tracking and put incredible amounts of information and tracking ability and everyone's fingertips. I just think that WW online is pretty expensive for what you get, as the same capabilities are available for free.

So, I understand someone who learned to eat well under it and has used the system for 30 years because 30 years ago (or even 5/10 years ago) it was pretty much the best thing going. I do not understand why someone starting out now would choose it given what else is out there.

What are the free apps? I just signed up for WW online today because I wasn't aware of anything as easy as the WW site counting my points.

I use loseit.com and its app, others like myfitnesspal.com, sparkpeople.com and livestrong.com and I believe they all have apps. You input your data (height, weight, age goal weight, target rate of loss) and it gives you a daily calorie allotment, you can earn extra calories with exercise or use exercise to speed up weight loss. Be careful not to be too aggressive in your goal, I lost 35 pounds using a target goal of 1 pound a week. I lost more than that early and evened out over time. If you set the rate of loss too aggressive that really lowers your calorie allotment and makes keeping to the plan harder. Slow and steady wins the race. Good luck.

[Anonymous]

I love the online version. I love that it combines tracking food with tracking activity. I love that you adjust both activity and food as you lose.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:WW allows you to eat any food you want, as long as you eat it in moderation. So if you can't function without a piece of chocolate every day, WW says it's OK, just make sure you track your Points.

I get this, but so does counting calories. Counting calories is actually a lot more transparent and provides substantially more flexibility. WW designs its points system to encourage certain eating habits, but when I have tried to compare it is actually pretty calorie restrictive. I think WW added tremendous value when tracking food was cumbersome, but technology has simplified food tracking and put incredible amounts of information and tracking ability and everyone's fingertips. I just think that WW online is pretty expensive for what you get, as the same capabilities are available for free.

So, I understand someone who learned to eat well under it and has used the system for 30 years because 30 years ago (or even 5/10 years ago) it was pretty much the best thing going. I do not understand why someone starting out now would choose it given what else is out there.

Just started WW online for the first time 3 weeks ago. I chose it because I am more into learning to eat well and not just count calories, and I believe WW has a well rounded approach. Its long track record is also impressive. And I don't consider $48 for 3 months expensive at all. It's not like I'm buying specific food marketed by a company.

[Anonymous]

FWIW, the calorie tracker website also adjust the calories as you lose and can track exercise (and actually add the calories burned into your daily and weekly totals so you can see the added deficit). This is also actually done more precisely, as it is math based on your specific stats and your specific amount of time doing a specific exercise (and if you use a heart rate monitor your info can be even more precise).

Also, as I understand it the nature of WW points encourages what WW has determined to be a better combination of foods for weight loss and maintenance, meaning the way it calculates the points advantages whole, fiber rich foods and protien over white pasta (etc.) and some fruit is free. So, I guess that could teach better eating habits by force of habit. But, of course, fruit is not actually free from a calorie perspecitive so I am not sure how that plays out.

For me actually understanding the relationship between how much and what I eat and how my weight reacts has been revolutionary and I like more information, not less so calories/exercise (and other factor) tracking sites are more appealing and the ease of use with my iphone made it fun. There is and has long been a huge supply of information available about what is a healthy diet, so WW never added any value to me there (and in my opinion was a member of the low-fat bandwagon for far too long) . I have always eaten a healthy diet, just a little too much of it which combined over time with 2 pregnancies left me with some pounds to lose.

In any event, this is helpful. It seems that WW works for many and, if it works, that is great as there is no one answer for everyone and I am not trying to offend those for whom WW works.

I personally suspect it will lose favor over time among the rational dieters (meaning those who go into dieting as a lifestyle change rather than looking to lose large amounts of weight quickly so that they can return to prior eating habits). WW used to be the only weight loss program playing in the space and it can only ride its reputation so long. $48/3 months may not be much but $18/month for a year is over $200/year and, when compared to free, people eventually will not see the value. Blockbuster was probably not worried about Netflix at first either.

[Anonymous]

WW is NOT a program for people who want to lose a lot of weight quickly. Its guidelines say 2 to 0.5 pounds per week. I don't have a smartphone, so many of the competing free sites would not be useful for me. I also don't have time to count calories - points are much faster.

The big benefit is that I am not one who has always eaten a basically healthy diet. I'm a carb freak and WW keeps me in check.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I also don't have time to count calories - points are much faster.

This is me too, but when I started to type it in my own response, I wondered why? How is it quicker to count points than it is to count calories. You still have to either look them up, or they have to be built into the program. In fact, it seems calories would be simpler, because they're listed on every pkg. It's not that I disagree with you at all, because again, I think it's simpler to count points than calories. I just want to have a good answer when my DH reminds me of these free calorie counter sites! LOL

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:WW is NOT a program for people who want to lose a lot of weight quickly. Its guidelines say 2 to 0.5 pounds per week. I don't have a smartphone, so many of the competing free sites would not be useful for me. I also don't have time to count calories - points are much faster.

The big benefit is that I am not one who has always eaten a basically healthy diet. I'm a carb freak and WW keeps me in check.

OP here, I agree completely that WW is not a plan for quick weight loss and I intended to say that when I categorized it as one of the rational weight loss plans. Rational calorie tracking plans have similar goals. I also agree the smartphone is what makes it so easy, before I had the phone the idea of tracking my food over the course of the day and then inputting the data into a website seemed onerous to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I also don't have time to count calories - points are much faster.

This is me too, but when I started to type it in my own response, I wondered why? How is it quicker to count points than it is to count calories. You still have to either look them up, or they have to be built into the program. In fact, it seems calories would be simpler, because they're listed on every pkg. It's not that I disagree with you at all, because again, I think it's simpler to count points than calories. I just want to have a good answer when my DH reminds me of these free calorie counter sites! LOL

On WW, I don't each much packaged food at all, so it's just easier to load in the item and the site spits out the points.

[Anonymous]

don't "eat" much packaged food

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I also don't have time to count calories - points are much faster.

This is me too, but when I started to type it in my own response, I wondered why? How is it quicker to count points than it is to count calories. You still have to either look them up, or they have to be built into the program. In fact, it seems calories would be simpler, because they're listed on every pkg. It's not that I disagree with you at all, because again, I think it's simpler to count points than calories. I just want to have a good answer when my DH reminds me of these free calorie counter sites! LOL

On WW, I don't each much packaged food at all, so it's just easier to load in the item and the site spits out the points.

FWIW, this is informational not a criticism of what works best for you, the calorie counting sites have general food already loaded in. So a medium apple is 95 calories, or whatever, no loading required, just type the name and select. The site I use keeps favorite foods for each user and you can also just choose prior meals, so I eat about 3 different breakfasts and I just click that prior meal and it is done, it takes me approximately 5 seconds to track my breaksfast and that includes turning the phone on. Some people choose to get really precise (so weigh said apple to find our how many ounces or grams it is), but there is no need to and I do not. I am assuming that WW requires some form of measurement too.