Hey all,
Anyone checked out the new WW Points Plus plan? I did some reading on it, and it looks very close to SB... there's still the points flexibility which did me in last time, but all in all this looks promising. I've been thinking about doing "another" Phase 1 starting in January, and might also do the points plus to monitor portions. My friend brought me materials on it, and I've been counting points the last couple of days and oh boy, do I need work on portions. Anyone else seen/heard anything about it?

I have several family members on WW... I read through the entire thread here about the switch and went to their website. I think the changes are great!!! And I thought the same thing as you, that they are basically aligned with SBD... Except that you can "cheat" if you want without really cheating, it just costs you more points. That's funny, because that's how I often think about things - if I am eating non-SBD foods, I am still mentally keeping a rough calorie count to have some accountability. The eternal problem still being that if I eat something off-plan, say a 280-cal candy bar, that is 280 calories of beans/yogurt/nuts/whatever that I am not going to eat that day.

Since WW+ includes unlimited veggies AND fruits (with exceptions for starchy veggies, avocados, olives...), it seems like a lot of people are turning to a piece of fruit if their points are used up and they are still hungry. I think the WW advice has been up to 5 fruits "free" and count anything beyond that... but from my experience, 5 servings of fruit is a LOT, if an apple and a banana for example are one serving each. The calorie-counters had a thread asking if anyone included free fruits and the consensus was that they counted fruit, as 5 pieces of fruit would be in the range of 250-500 calories.

The free fruit question aside, I do wonder if WW+ makes it easier to "calorie count" but have better fiber, fat, protein, etc ratios. I know a lot of good choices to make now food-wise but it takes me a lot of time to plan out. I wonder if using WW+ points would have that built in. Something to consider. I am curious to hear from Beachers who have included WW about what is the advantage over calorie-counting (if you are already making supposedly good choices within the guidelines of SBD)? Having never actually done WW I don't know the answer...

I have seen lots of blog posts about it. Most of the response has been very favorable. Lots of fans over fruit being zero points... which I could see being a problem for me. I did WW many, many years ago. Actually, that is when I first heard of 3fatchicks.

I have to say that what I have read about the new plan has me intrigued enough to toy with the idea of doing it again... if they maybe have a free membership deal (which is pretty common after New Year's.)

But I HATE counting points. One of my fav things about SB is no counting.

Yes, I also thought that about the fruit. I am not a huge fruit fan (although I did just eat an apple because it has zero points) and will probably not be eating more than 2 pieces a day on average, if even that. However, I do need to admit that I will probably be eating bananas with some regularity if I do this. Are they even allowed on Phase 3 in SB?

Bananas are approved in Phase II. I weigh in once a month at WW as a Lifetime member to be accountable. Got the new materials but didn't stay for the meeting. I need to read through the booklets to see what has changed.

sounds good. I'll keep everyone posted. Until the new year, I'm tracking points and trying to stay SB friendly, but I really need to get an idea of how out of scale my portions are and that's what I'll use the points system for.

I am/was a member of WW and was automatically switched to Points Plus...I really didn't notice anything different about it. Healthy foods are still worth low points, and they advertise that most fruits and veggies are worth 0 points...but they were before too. I don't know what the real difference is.

A lot of the junk food has gone up in points - so has wine and beer. And the carb foods have also gone up in points too. I think it's all good. Zeffryn, do you track points as well? BTW 70lbs is amazing!!

I looked at it and once I figured that I would have to completely recalculate how many points things were, said forget it. I'll just stick with SBD. I'm all for less work.