WW says way over points, Sparkpeople says within calorie range
This is why I double track. Because some days WW says I'm over points, and yet I'm famished (I bike a lot). Then I go to my Sparkpeople tracker and I'm well within my calorie range.
Does anyone else find this? Is it from being very active? I am allotted 29 PP per day on WW, and always use my weeklies. Spark says I should have between 1400 and 1700 per day. Today I had 1500 and used 37 WW points.
Sometimes it's enough to drive be batty, especially when I'm famished and WW thinks I should be done eating but SP is like "hey, no wonder you are hungry, you haven't eaten enough today."
That's a reason why I don't do WW. My sister-in-law loves WW. She was talking to me about it and told me fruit and veggies are free. That would work for me because a good portion of my calories are fruit and veggies. I would never lose weight!
(although that is the complete opposite of the problem you are having!)
Yes I find this all the time seagirl. I've counted WW Points Plus and calories for the last year, tracking everything. The value of a PP in calories does vary depending on the composition of the food you eat. I have my calories set in MyPlate at 1100 a day (that is base point and doesn't include the calories that MyPlate adds when you exercise).
Unna - WW points are calculated based upon fat, carbs, protein and fiber. Basically, fat grams and carb grams contribute more to points than do protein grams. Even though a carb gram is 4 calories and a protein gram is 4 calories they don't contribute equally to points for WW. This is basically because when you burn protein you use up some of the protein in burning it so not as much of protein grams contribute to your actual calorie intake as do the carb grams. Also, fiber is not digested by the body so WW deducts some from points based upon fiber content.
To put it this way - imagine you ate 1000 calories that were purely fat. Under the WW formula, that is 29 Points Plus.
Imagine you ate 1000 calories that were purely carbs. that would be 27 PP (since carbs burn up a bit of the calories in processing them than does fat).
TLDR:
PP will be higher if you eat the same number of calories but eat high fat, high carbs, and low fiber.
PP will be lower if you eat protein and high fiber.
But if you 1000 calories that were purely protein, that would be 23 Points. This is because not all of the protein grams would actually go to weight gain due to the calories used to burn up protein are higher than those use to burn up carbs and fat.
So, seagirl, I find that my PP can be high in relation to calories when I eat a lot of fat in particular. I eat low carbish to I do tend to eat higher fat, but that is usually balanced by also eating higher protein. However, if I eat a lot of fat and have higher carbs in a day but they aren't cars with a lot of fiber, then my PP are more likely to be high than eating the same calories in a day where I eat more protein and less carbs and eat a more average amount of fat and where I eat high fiber.
Good, I'm glad its not just me. I find the double tracking easier. Maybe because there are fewer points than calories (in numerals) it confuses me. Like today, I biked 110 minutes which burned 1200 calories and earned 24 activity points. I ate 43 points, which seems way over my points range, and ate 1900 calories which is only 200 over the high end of my sparkpeople calorie range.
I guess I'll just keep double tracking and see what my weight does.
this is why i also will not do ww. it's easier for me to count calories. ww is based on a basic 1200 cals per day, with a little extra added for activity, and a small amount of fruit. if i could eat that low of calories, i would lose weight anyway. i've lost weight and still hardly ever reach that 1200 cal mark, to this day.
Kosha, it sounds like you know your PPvalues!!! I applaud your explanation. You know I had issues with PP. At 1200 calories, I was undereating points, so, conversely at 29 PP I was overeating...generally. Some people found that hard to believe...but the way you just broke it down was wonderful.
For me there was too much gray area in PPvalues. At 1200 to 1400 calories per day, I'm doing well.
That WW just adjusted the program speaks volumes as well...it proves that it wasn't working for some people, and I was one of those people. Too little too late. I took a lot of bashing when I was asking for help. I'm so over WW. Never again.
In my family I am a CC while my mom a WW. One think I like about WW is that it takes nutrition into account, however I feel like it strays from the simplicity (not the best word but maybe you'll know what I mean) of weight loss which is a calorie deficit. There are certain foods we both struggle with in meeting each of our daily goals but refuse to compromise on. Like whole milk, avocados, olives, etc. There is research backing up the need for good fats in our diets to optimize brain function and both of us have noticed a difference. Whole milk is kind of weird because usually animals fats don't fall into the category of healthy fats but there is an enzyme or something that makes it work. Honestly, I don't remember a lot of the details from the nutrition course I took two semesters ago. I shouldn't have sold that textbook back, would have come in handy now.
WW says way over points, Sparkpeople says within calorie range
