Hi Everyone!

A combination of a few other posts have gotten me thinking a bit.

WW has, for a very long time, had some form of food out in supermarkets and of course in their centers, and it only seems to be a growing industry. I was wondering how these foods fit into your WW food plan, if at all? What do you think of their taste? Do you think they should be selling foods at all?

For me, they've been a waxing & waning staple depending on what's going on in my life.

In the beginning, I didn't buy too many of them. I was able to find other brands that fit my needs, and I didn't want to fall into the habit of relying solely on WW brands foods. After all, one of my main reasons for joining WW was so that I could figure out a portion of "real" food.

As time wore on, I still find myself using them sparingly, and often choosing between which WW product I will use. The one thing I liked in the beginning were the muffins. I liked them for breakfast. I stopped buying the muffins for the most part, and then transitioned to the WW yogurt. Right now, I'm going through a phase where it is easiest for me to use Lean Cuisine meals for my lunches. (I admit that I dislike having to do this so heavily, but I must accept that this is what is working for me right now, and in a few short weeks I will be back to normal and be able to stop using them so frequently.)

I like that they are there "just in case". As for example now where using them is helping me. And I completely understand needing to work the program the way that fits our lives.

That being said, I do not like that they seem to be branching out further & further into the dairy area. I realize that most WW members know that we do not need to use WW products in order to follow WW. And that we should be doing our best to follow the 8 Good Health Guidelines that are built into the program. But, with so many WW products in the stores... all easily labeled with points, I fear that new members may grow to think that in order to be on WW one must use their brand of foods. First some frozen meals, then some breads, muffins, sweets, candies, yogurt, cheeses.... And the more I read the ingredients the less I wish to use them.

The yogurt, for example, has 3g of fiber. Yogurt doesn't naturally have fiber... and the WW plan does not allow us to add fiber to our foods in order to lower points. (For example, you cannot add a spoon of fiber to your ice cream to lower the points. We must take the food as it is.) But, WW has clearly done so in order to make this yogurt 1 point. This doesn't seem quite right to me.

I realize that weight loss is a business. And WW is competing in that realm. (Heck, even Atkins & South Beach have food products out there.) But, I'm wondering if they should really be making foods that do not follow their own plan.

I don't mind the taste of most of their foods. However, the farther along I come on my WW journey, the less I seem to like them. I end up finding products in the stores that I like more. This could have a lot to do with the fact that (Lean Cuisines aside) I've become a label reader, and I don't like the ingredients I'm seeing in the WW products.

Anyway, I'm curious to see what you fine folks out there think.

well i was buying the yogurts and then i said fergetabout it and started counting my two points for my other yogurts that i can get flavors i like

I don't eat bread much but i love a good english muffin... I got the WW muffins till I found that Thomas' makes a multigrain 100 calorie muffin 1 point... same as WW.

I do use the progresso 0 and 1 point soups

I also got some red box chicken and veggie dish that's 2 points. makes a quick lunch or snack for me....

I'm not on WW but I do occasionally buy the foods, like the soups and sometimes cereal. I'm not overly fond of them because as Nessa said other brands with the same calories/points with more taste are available. I'll say this though, they definitely taste much better than they used to...

For me, personally, I don't find them helpful and don't tend to use them.

The baked goods/snack kinds of things, like bars and muffins and cookies and bread, #1 are too processed, #2 are too easy to over-indulge in. My one experience with the mini-lemon cakes (when I was less picky about the ingredients) was that I rationalized eating nearly the whole box in one day, because "they were just one point each."

Smart Ones - I used to eat these every now and again along with Lean Cuisines, depending on what was cheaper at the time. I ended up only liking a couple of them, and I still wasn't happy with the amount of food I'd get for the number of points. In certain cases, I could make something equally tasty but with way more bulk for the points. Lasagne and most pasta dishes, I'm looking at you. I now buy a couple of the Kashi frozen meals to keep just in case but they are expensive - so rare treats. I really have to be desperate for lunch materials to have one of them. I like them far better than LCs and SOs though.

Dairy... way too expensive. I don't tend to eat dairy anymore, but when I did, I found that the WW stuff was pretty over priced. I mean, you could just as easily buy a block of cheese and slice off measured pieces, stick em in a bag for future consumption... You get all of the convenience of pre-portioned cheese at a fraction of the cost. FF yogurt never tasted good to me, especially artificially sweetened ones, and again, way too expensive.

The problem I see with the pre-packaged stuff and the sheer amount of it out there now is that it encourages the idea that WW is about eating "their" food. Like Nutrisystem or something. But when you go and look at the WW materials, they do encourage a pretty "whole" diet of lean meats, vegetables, fruit, etc. So there's this contradiction, it seems, between public WW and private WW.

I guess they make enough money from the packaged foods that they don't mind scaring off a few people who might have considered WW if they thought it didn't emphasize packaged foods - and you know, it might not even scare people off. That might be in my head. I don't know. They've been around a long time, I'm sure they have their business model worked out

Hm, long reply with no real point. Short answer: I don't use their products. I can make or purchase similar items at lower costs that are more satisfying/healthful in my opinion than those offered by WW. But I understand that they can play a role in some WWers lives, and so they serve a purpose.

Hi! I personally use a ton of WW food products! But, it works for me. I carry my lunch everyday so the Smart 1's are easy for me. As far as the snacks go........I work in a candy store surrounded by chocolate all day, so I do buy them and try to eat them instead. Cheese, cream cheese, yogurt, and the other dairy stuff I like too - but can find other cheaper products out there for the same point value. As far as the breads and bagels........can you say "cardboard"! Loved the muffins but are too pricey for 3! Well thanks for bringing this point up! It is interesting to see everyones input!

jeanne

I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with Weight Watcher's. I think it's a wonderful weight loss program, but the commercial aspects annoyed me.

Really, I consider Weight Watcher's three separate companies (which I think they are in actuality).

The Weight Loss Centers and meetings, and the gadgets, and foods sold in the centers (I make an exception for the books and magazines).

The Books and Magazine (this might actually be two seperate companies, legally)

The grocery store food brand


The last meeting I attended was in a center that REALLY pushed the products that the center sold. At the time, the meeting fees were pretty steep, especially as hubby and I were both going. We could barely afford them, but I was ok with them until they started aggressively pushing all the other products, and then raised the meeting fees to boot. That bothere me, because it felt like being charged to go to a tupperware party. I'm not sure if I would have felt as overcharged, if I hadn't been a member of TOPS in the past. At the time, my husband wanted to go to WW, because from my descriptions WW seemed slightly "less lame" to him. Now on disability, we couldn't afford WW even for one of us, so we're both in TOPS, and hubby still thinks the meetings are "lame," but he's losing. I've also gotten stubborn. We quit WW after husband got whiny that we could lose weight just as well at home (which after we quit, we never did). I've decided that now he can whine as much as he wants, I'm not leaving TOPS (he stopped whining, for the most part, though when he took the treasurer's job, I think feeling useful helped, though he swears he won't take the job next year).

The books and magazine: I love, love, love them. I think the magazine is one of the best healthy lifestyle magazines on the market. The cookbooks, well I'm a sucker for a good cookbook, and the WW cookbooks are pretty to look at, and the recipes aren't just a thousand variations on tuna salad.

The grocery store products, I give mixed reviews. Some of the products are of extremely questionable nutritional value. Some of them prove the point that anything can be included in a weight loss plan. I have an unhealthy love of their toffee ice cream bars. I would not call them a reduced calorie food, they just make the portion smaller. I can't have them in the house (or most other sugary items) because I'm likely to treat a box of 12 as a four day suppy (and that's if I'm restraining myself).


I think first and foremost, it's important to remember that Weight Watcher's is a business (or are businesses). Their goal is to make money. That doesn't mean they're not a good company, that can assist us in losing weight, but it does mean that we've got to be aware that just because something carries the Weight Watcher's label doesn't mean it's got any particular weight loss "mojo."

I look at it this way, if a WW product has a price and quality good enough that I would buy it if it were sold by another company, then I buy it. If another company has a similar product with a better price or quality, I buy that instead. If it's a product I wouldn't buy except for the fact that is is being sold by WW, I don't buy it.

Or at least, I try not to. When I was in WW, I have to admit that I did buy some products (at the meetings and at the store) that I realized after I brought them home, that the main reason I bought them because of the WW label. Marketing is powerful, which is why companies use it.

I use the frozen Smart Ones sometimes but not very often....I'm on Core so I don't eat really anything WW sells besides their Spanish Rice side dish (it's core) and their ice cream (using part of my weekly points).

Oh yeah and I love the progresso soups...I'm going to a national training for my company this weekend and I am depending on these to see me through the temptation lol

I think if the 8 healthy guidelines aren't focused on then you will not really succeed with WW. When you go in thinking you can eat whatever you want as long as you stick to your points then it's going to be very hard to lose. From my understanding, it is that if you mess up and have something unhealthy, don't beat yourself up, just count the points and move on. This is my 3rd and most successful attempt at WW though and that finally clicked. lol

Luckily for me my leader is a Core girl but even when I switched to Flex she had some wonderful ideas and doesn't push the products. We have a time before our meeting where we share great food finds and 99.9% of the food is non-WW food.

I do purchase some of the products mainly for convenience and for occasional use. The points are posted clearly so you can see at a what they are. Whit that said alot of other products are posting WW points on their packaging. Yes, I know that I can figure out what the points are by using my WW calculator but just peaking in the freezer and grabbing a Smart one and a yogurt for lunch is very quick and easy.

My grip is that they have very few low point (under 4) meals anymore, at least where I am. I am not interested in a 7 point meal! As you lose, you get lower points and i am finding this very challenging. Anyone else having this problem?

I don't know if you've done this, but if you go to eatyourbest.com and click on "Products" (at the top) and then scroll down to points, you can search for their 2-3 pt meals. I count 5 that they produce now. (The rest are desserts.)

There are quite a number of the meals that are exactly at 4 points, which doens't seem too bad. (I know 4 out of, say, 18 still seems like a lot.)

I couldnt have said this better myself & I am glad you said it b/c quite frankly I thought it was just me and that I was being my typical corporate conspiracist paranoid. Wow I feel a little less jaded and bitter now.

This is the exact reason why I had to STOP purchasing these myself.

I always hated the taste of those bars they sell at the meetings so that was never an issue. Thank goodness they taste either too sweet or too salty. They used to have samples and I would have to drink a whole glass of water just to wash down the sample.

What I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE is the WW Maple Brown Sugar Instant Oatmeal they sold in the meetings (I am not sure if they still have them). I work in an office and I hate eating breakfast so that was a no brainer for me. It also taste better than any other oatmeal out there and for less points too! I bought it by the case! I can to fill mine with hot water from the water cooler and throw a handful of raisins in it and I am good to go! I do by the Smartones too b/c I work in an office and it is easy just to buy 5 at a time and throw them in the pantry freezer and have them on hand when I take my lunch break. I find they tast good enough and are convenient enough to avoid the temptations of eating out at lunch. I usually run across the street to El Pollo Loco at lunchtime and get 2 Loco Salads w/o dressing for $1.00 each and use salsa as my dressing and since they are 1 point each I supliment the Smartones with those as well.

The thing that I just tried and will have to toss is the WW bagels! NASTY aftertaste that makes me say, "oh, these are diet bagels" with every bite.

I don't really buy too many Weight Watchers-branded products anymore, other than (very few) Smart Ones that I like to keep around for convenience sake, but then, as others have said Lean Cuisines just taste better. (And I feel like, for what it's worth, the LC Spa meals are a bit healthier than red box stuff) I do sometime buy LC pizzas and paninis, because those are treats for me - I don't keep bread in the house and I won't buy a pizza.

As far as the other supermarket products? With the exception of the Chocolate-Caramel candies...Nope. I absolutely did not like the yogurt, I will not eat FF cheese, and the muffins/mini-cakes/pitas/english muffins seem like a rip off too me.

With the Center products, I will only buy the mini-bars, and only if they have them on sale for some reason. $7.50 for 12 mini-bars seems pretty steep. I know they aren't the "healthiest", but it satisfies my sweets craving something fierce. That being said, I have bought one box of them in 6 months. I also bought a box of cheese twists. They were the saddest, most disappointing snack I've ever had.

I no longer use the WW brands. They are too expensive and I have found other products that serve the same purpose. Sometimes it is nice to eat something and not have to think about calculating points though. I used to buy the sweet stuff, but I would just end up eating the whole box. I do agree that the oatmeal was good though.

I buy a few of the WW products. Some of the yogurt. I agree about the taste of some of these. My first time I bought some, I thought "oh, Boston creme, yum". Boy was I sadly disappointed! I have bought the cheese, but I refuse to buy their cake, way too expensive. I've found other delicious treats much cheaper.

I do buy a few Smart Ones. I don't eat them that often. As for the Progresso soups, I can make a pot of soup much cheaper, but then I eat my lunch at home. Maybe if I ate elsewhere I'd consider buying some. They're a little bland.

I really haven't seen too many of the WW products at our store, but thanks to you I'll avoid their breads if they ever get them in.

Thrift shops are a good place to look for the WW cookbooks ; ) I've found several there.

DH and I have been on WW for a month now. Every week, we take out handy dandy calculator with us to grocery shop. We've found regular items are cheaper and have equal points as WW products. It does take a bit of time to compare though.

I buy Smart Ones for me for lunch when he isn't home (twice a week). That's about it!

I've bought a few of their little snack cake things, They were alright, but far too small and expensive.
I've also had their whole wheat english muffins, wasn't a fan of those.