Hi Lifetimers!
Back in the 80s and 90s, I had great success with the Weight Watchers exchange program. Since I have been trying to do points. Which has been me re-joining over and over again for the last 10 years. I have had had no success and can never stick with it for more than 2 weeks.
I decided I should go back to what worked for me. But I am not sure I remeber correctly the number of exchanges, and the free calories. And I think maybe there was some floating exchanges too.
Does any of you lifetimers still know this plan? Can you help me?

The Weight Watchers Complete Cookbook and Program Basics (Hardcover)
(1994) is available used on amazon.com for around $5 (approximately $4 shipping and handling and $1 for the book).

I have it on my wish list, as I am following a very similar exchange based diet.


The old WW diet was based on the food exchange diet first developed in the
1950's for diabetics. Two sites I can highly recommend for exchange information very similar to the old WW plan is hillbillyhousewife.com (gives exchange information for a variety of calorie levels for three different carbohydrate levels), and tops.org

TOPS is still using an exchange based-plan (members can use any diet plan they wish, but the official plan endorsed by the organization and described in the TOPS guidebook "The Choice is Mine," is an exchange based plan).

If you feel you'd like the support and weekly weigh-ins of a meeting, I also can't say enough good things about TOPS. TOPS is a non-profit organization and as a result much cheaper than WW. Unlike WW, each group is run a little differently, because members vote on policies and procedures of each group. My husband and I joined in August (I'd been a member in the past) and when we joined, we figured that our dues for the entire year would be cheaper than one month at Weight Watcher's. That was before we learned that our chapter has ways members can earn free dues (each 10 lb loss, or by losing weight 4 weeks in a row in a given month).

Whatever way you go, good luck!

I think www.dwlz.com has it for free on their forum.

Colleen and Kathleen,
Thank you so much. I love this site and all the wonderful knowledgeable people who come here. I had searched the web and even sent an email to weight watchers. But all they did is tell me to try harder at the points program.
I think 10 years of trying is long enough.

Kathleen,
Where on the dwlz do I find the old weight watcher program info? I find her site very confusing and there is no "search" that I can find.
Thanks,
Suzy

I found it. Here is the link in case anyone is interested.

http://www.dwlz2.com/forum/showthread.php?t=776

I'm a little fed up with Weight Watcher's myself. The lack of a family discount annoys me, but the high pressure some centers are putting on people to buy unnecessary products is ridiculous. My mother recently quit her WW group, because they were really pushing the snacks, cookbooks, and gadgets.

I love my TOPS group becuase when I joined, the leader actually discouraged me from buying "The Choice is Mine," guidebook without reading it first to make sure it was something I really wanted. The group's extra copy was checked out by another new member at the time, so she gave me her personal copy to take home, and told me to keep it for at least a couple weeks before deciding. Two weeks ago, I told her that I did want a copy, but that I would buy it after Christmas. She ordered it, and at the last meeting gave it to me, and told me to pay for it after Christmas! Ha! I'd like to see Weight Watcher's do something like that.

I realize they're a for-profit organization, and there's nothing wrong with making money, but I think at some point the issue of conflict of interest raises it's head. With TOPS some of that disappears, because profit is taken out of the mix.