Okay, so I was skeptical, but Weight Watchers totally works (and, as I learned this weekend, so does a nasty case of food poisoning -- talk about weight loss!!)
I have never really been one to stick to structured diets. But, my work offered us 13 free weeks of Weight Watchers AND we get to skip out of work for an hour to do it... So I went. (On a side note, I don't get my workplace at all. They encourage us to live a healthy lifestyle and offer free Weight Watchers and stop-smoking clinics and free gyms, etc. But, they also give us 2 free cases of beer each month. No joke -- 48 bottles/cans a month. They tempt us into getting beer bellies and then offer us free Weight Watchers and tell us to work it off. Crazy.)
Anyway, the system is pretty simple. Everything is based on points. So, if you weigh...
Less than 150 = 20 points per day
150-174 = 22 points per day
175-199 = 24 points per day
200-224 = 26 points per day
And so on. The point is to eat exactly your allotted points per day (or as close to that amount as humanly possible but no less than 20 points no matter what). You can determine how many points everything is by going to sites such as dietfacts.com and looking it up (you can search by food brand or by restaurant). It's really shocking. I always ate pretty healthy but now I can see just how bad some things really are.
So, you keep a record of everything you eat each day and tally the points. You can eat whatever you want, but you need to stick to your allotted points. Of course, you're supposed to drink lots of water, eat fruits and veggies, etc. But, the points are the most important thing.
You also get additional food points for exercise. So, if you do light to moderate exercise for 30 minutes you get an extra food point for that. The number of points you get for exercise increases depending on the level of activity and duration of exercise. But, you never get more than 3 food points from exercise. And, anything under 30 minutes doesn't count.
Lastly, you also have 35 extra points that you can use whenever you want throughout the week. So, if you go to a BBQ and overeat by 8 points or something like that you can check that off your 35 extra points for the week. However, you REALLY shouldn't use all 35 extra points or else you won't lose that much weight. I try not to use any except on the weekends. And, it's worked for me -- I've lost 8% of my body weight since starting 6-7 weeks ago.
Oh, and another big thing is portion size. You really have to pay attention to that. You might say "Oh, this is only 4 points." But, then you look and see that if you eat the whole thing it's really 2 servings so that's really 8 points. We eat too much and don't even know it!
So, an average day for me might look like this:
Coffee (w/cream & sugar) = 2 points
Oatmeal = 2 points
Frozen Meal = 7 points
Carrots = 0 points
Light Yogurt = 1 point
Skinless Chicken = 5 points
Lima Beans = 1 point
Granola Bar = 2 points
TOTAL = 20 points
I'm not going to lie and say it isn't hard -- it is. But, it's totally doable. I can still eat pizza or whatever -- I just need to eat less and plan my day so that I have enough points for it.
Give it a try and see what you think.
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6 comments:
Sounds good, i'm going to give it a whirl starting today. I would have started yesterday but didn't have time to make breakfast and grabbed a bagel and cream cheese...12 points apparently, yikes!! I got my ass out of bed early today to have a respectable breaky. We'll see how it goes :)
Sounds too complicated... eeek.
but whatever works for you.
the stomach flu works best for me.. hahaha. i kid.
Sounds very interesting and you did a great job of explaining this to me.
I was under the impression that such programs are for obese people not people like you and I who are just trying to stay fit or lose a few.
Also, are these programs for men also? Also, everything made complete sense until you got to the ‘portions’. How do you know how much a portion is? Granted, most packaged food states the portion size on it but what about restaurants etc. it becomes guess work and that where I won’t be able to implement this.
y -- Yeah, it's for men too but there really aren't any men who come to our meetings. There are some obese people, but a lot of us are fairly thin already. I mean, the three people I go with all look really good already. But, eating good never hurt anyone. As for the portion sizes -- it's often hard to know. That web site I gave you tells you that sort of thing. But, you know the general rule: Meat portions should be the size of your palm and other food portions (veggies, etc.) should be about the size of your fist.
I'm fat because I have abnormally large hands.
Is it just me or does Suzy's before pic really look better than after pic on dietfacts?
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