Okay here's the deal, ive done Weight Watchers for some time now and have pretty much hit a plateu that has lasted for about a year! I know Weight Watchers is pretty much the same as counting calories but would it be more effective to count calories instead of doing Weight Watchers? Has anyone gone from Weight Watchers to counting calories or vice versa? I really want want to drop about 20 more pounds! Any insight would be greatly appreciated!

I have done both and just get a little obsessed with calorie counting....weird but I can totally manage the smaller numbers Both are very very similar though.

I don't know how exactly you are working the WW plan though so maybe give us a little bit more info....like a day of your journal, activity, meetings if any etc

I did WW. I think it to be a little more rigid than just counting calories. You need to get your healthy fats, your vegis, that type of stuff. I have lost over fifty pounds within the past year and feel great. It is basically the same as counting calories when it comes right down to it though.

I don't go to any meetings, i just do it from home. Im a 22 female and i weigh about 170 as of now. I follow the flex plan and i eat 23 points a day. Sometimes i have cheat days and eat some of my allowance points but everything is accounted for. Ugh, i haven't really been doing any physical activity since im a fulltime student and i work 44 hours a week as well but im planning on walking agian soon and rollerblading too. I know i need to exercise more and that would help but i've done this before and lost 43 pounds and then gained a little back (about 10) so i know it works it just doesn't seem to be working NOW. My diet is pretty balanced, oatmeal for breakfast, veggies, protien... i just don't know if i should try something different....?

mamaspank, thats great! I see your start weight is about the same as mine. How the heck did you lose that so fast?! Ugh, why is this taking so long! Are there any tips you can give me?

Have you ever tried upping your points? I weigh almost as much as you and eat 25-26 pts a day not including my activity points (I eat about half of those too a day)...if you don't eat what they recommend it can stall your WL.

I extremely busy too (3 kids, a business to run, etc) but then again who isn't these days? If you really want something to happen then you make it happen.

You need to really look at what you are doing and just tweak things a bit until you get past your plateau. I know sometimes I have to give myself a reality check with my portion control lol

I have done weight watchers as well as other diet plans and find calorie counting is best for me. It is something you can carry over into maintenance, and of course it is free.

I tried shaking up my metabolism once by combining south beach eating with weightwatchers. For about four weeks I followed phase 1...basically no grains or fruit. I slowly added back grains and friut. This limited diet was successful in moving me off my plateau but tough to sustain and I evantually worked my way back to following my points with all foods.

thanks RomanceDiva, maybe i should up my points and def exercise more! thanks for the input ladies!

Hi there!
I'm on WW,too! I have just a few questions -- have you been really, really REALLY disciplined and counted every single point for the last year? And have you weighed and measured everything? And have you been writing it all down?
This might be one area that you want to address, because it may be time to sort of tighten up on the eating and see what happens.
As for calorie counting vs WW, I've done both. Calorie counting drives me NUTS because you have to count everything! And the numbers for me get unmanageable. I can track my WW points in my head -- I get 23 (like you) and can keep a grip on them mentally at this point successfully (but this is only because I've been on this strictly for a long time) -- but I absolutely can't do this with calorie counting (743+129+22+37...you get the idea!). And WW has some 0 point foods. I know they have calories, but what a pain in the BUTT searching for and adding up the calories in 11 baby carrot sticks!
So, for ME, WW is the best fit.
But I am very, very strict. I weigh and measure everything, I know my points values. I don't taste a thing without accounting for it. I use some of my flex points every week. I eat as many whole and unproccessed foods as possible. I cook with WW recipes 99% of the time and count the points for my own recipes the other 1% of the time. I plan where and when I eat out (no more than once a week, thai food or vietnamese food at my favorite restaurant). And it works for me. And I don't think it matters what plan you go on, as long as you are disciplined and realistic about what you are doing...
Kira

Vixxi, you haven't done so bad yourself! The day I started WW, April 7, 2008, at home, I started walking that day as well. My walking slowly morphed into jogging six miles an hour about four to five times a week. I also play a TON of softball (about five games a week) from the end of April until the end of October. At the start of the year I picked up rock climbing again, and I completely love it. My arm are stronger than they have ever been. Rock climbing has given my body a sinewy look that I think could only be rivaled by pilates.

So the answer to your question is a lot of exercise. I never really had cheat days; just cheat meals. I can't think of a day in the past year that I went really crazy off my points. There were many meals, however, where I would use most of my extra points for the whole week.

Also, if you maybe screw up and take a step back for every two steps forward, you are still ahead a step. I am a food journaling fool. This has been key for me. I write down everything that goes into my mouth, even if I don't know the points for it. I also keep track of my morning weigh in and my exercise for that day. It is great to be able to look back and see where I have been sneaking in extra points and how to avoid overdoing it too much.

Honestly, I never thought I would ever see my 130s again. Even when I hit my first goal of 155, my pre-pregnancy weight. Things were going so great that I just decided to keep going to see how good of shape I could get myself in.

I also love fruits and vegis. Right now in my fridge, I have watermelon, carrots, tomatoes, asparagus, grapes, apples, strawberries, blackberries, and cantaloupe. My ideal snack is maybe cottage cheese with strawberries or chopped up apples. I love carrots and grape tomatoes with a bunch of sour cream and ranch dressing mix. I go through a lot of regular sour cream. It is the one thing I refuse to diet on -- I guess because I taste a huge difference between the fat laden stuff and the diet crap.

I also go through a box of SF popsicles every week. Waking up surrounded by popsicle wrappers is not among my proudest moments. Right now I love Crystal Light popsicles like Rasberry Lemonade and Lemonade. I also try to have a heavily protein laden meal every day, whether it is an omelet or chicken salad.

I have, over time, increased the amount of water I drink versus soda. I always drank diet soda, but I feel so much better with just the water, not to mention the number I think it was doing on my skin. I also take fish oil pills because I don't eat fish.

As far as bread goes, I really prefer a couple of slices of really great, heavy whole grain chewy bread in comparison to four slices of Sara Lee's 45 calorie bread. I have this weird thing about not denying myself my favorite things, and if I were to die in an accident tomorrow, I would regret not having that really chewy bread. I am totally willing to eat less in order to still eat what I want. It is a decision I made after having a really horrible experience last summer with getting sick, and I think I was overdoing the low fat thing a bit too much. They ran a bunch of tests and couldn't figure out why I was having the most excruciating headache of my life. I came to the conclusion that I wasn't eating enough fat. So now I eat my fats. Plenty of fats.

As others have said, exercise is probably your missing component. I got down to my original WW goal of 150 with sporadic exercise. Once I ramped up the exercise, I started losing again and realized I could go lower. My goal became my wedding weight which was 135. I kept exercising, and I kept losing. I exercise 5-6 times a week. If I don't have much time, I run for 30 minutes. When I have more time, I take classes at the gym. I vary my exercise and I really and truly crave it now. I know it is hard to fit in-- I work full time, with a second part-time job, I am a grad student, I have 2 kids, 4 pets, a husband, and a house to take care of. But, I make the time for it somehow because I look too good now not to! I find if I schedule it into my day like everything else I have to do, I am much more likely to do it.
Good luck!!

It sounds like you know what works and you probably don't need to count calories just stick to the program. It is so frustrating to have a couple bad meals/days whatever and see those pounds fly back on. It takes so much longer to take those pounds off. Also those last 20 can be very frustrating! I was in a similar position when I hit my WW goal weight but still hadn't reached my personal goal. I used www.fitday.com to track my calories and weight and I still sometimes use that as opposed to counting points as a way to get remotivated. It also helps me see when I may have eaten too many "0 point" things. As a former WW leader, I kinda cringe when I hear people suggest eating more points until you have actually really looked at the points you have eaten and been honest at how closely you have really adheared to the program...we all stray a little from time to time and need a reality check to get us back on track! I actually think that it is better to re-gain a little and learn the how quickly it can come back on before you get to goal than to get there and think you are in the clear. It is all part of the journey.

I just wanted to throw my 2 cents in as well. I learned this the hard way. I got complacent, thought I was working the program and doing everything that I could only to find out (with the help of my friends here ) that actually I wasn't. It's so easy to get slack with the program and then wonder why it's not working!

So my suggestion is - whether it's WW or Calorie Counting you are going to have to be more strict with yourself. By that I mean planning, writing things down, weighing, measuring etc. Once I started doing this again, and being brutally honest with myself, I started losing again.

And the exercise thing... I totally get that you are busy with a packed schedule. I too said I really didn't have time to exercise. I work at least 40 hours a week if not more and on top of that I commute 4 hours in total every day. That's 4 hours I lose. I get home just in time to make dinner, plan for the next day and prepare and maybe watch one tv show that I like. When do I have time for exercise??? Well. I made time. I'm now getting up even earlier to walk/jog for a half hour, or I'm using my lunch to take a 20 minute walk, I started a belly dance class on Thursdays and... after I told everyone there was no way in heck I was going to do a workout DVD in my living room... I bought three DVD's and actually started using those as well.

So, whatever the reasons that you have for being complacent or not having time to exercise, believe me, I bet you can turn those things around and get the program working for you again

Congrats on being in the 130's...can't wait till I get there!!! Just one thing, I noticed on you start wt/current wt/goal wt, I think you mixed it up....it reads

S/C/G: 201/135/145

I think you mixed up the numbers...thought you would like to know!!!