AND only lost 4lbs!!! I am always hungry. I get 26 points a day. How do you guys split up your points? i'm cleary not doing this correct =[

Make sure you are eating a lot of fruits and veggies throughout the day - that will add more food, but not add points. Maybe if you post your food, people will have ideas on how to make the most of the points you have. Or come look at the March daily discussion thread- some people post their menus. I know, 26 points is not very much, but there have gotta be ways to help you not be hungry (e.g., adding 0-point soup, cheese, protein-filled greek yogurt, etc)

I get 29 points, but if I was only getting 26, I might do a menu like this:
Breakfast:
2-point yoplait greek yogurt (2)
berries (0)
Lowfat granola cereal (4)
banana (0)

Lunch:
Veggie burger (3) on whole wheat sandwich thin (3) with lots of lettuce or spinach (0)
raw veggies (0)

Snacks throughout the day:
Apple (0)
string cheese (1)
veggies (0)
Kashi granola bar (3)

Dinner:
chicken breast (4)
lettuce with 1 tsp of olive oil and balsamic vinegar (1)
shredded cheese (2)
pudding (3)

Without knowing what types of food you are eating.....I think that the key is to make sure all the points you use are on something filling - we are "allowed" to eat thing like fries, chips, etc- but they don't really fill you up and they actually can make you hungrier. Making a 0-point veggie soup to eat whenever you're hungry may also help.

And are you eating weekly points?

4 pounds in a month is actually a good loss - you are supposed to lose 1-2 every week. Remember the goal is sustained weight loss. You have less to lose than a lot of us, so it is going to be slower and more grueling!

Great advice StraightAhead. I agree. Fat free cheese and fruits and veggies.

Good luck reevaluating your eating habits is a great start!

Thank you soooo much for all your help!!!! During the week im really good, the weekends KILL me! i try to save my weekly points for sunday cause we ALWAYS have HUGE family dinners and I just have zero will power when all this food is infornt of me =[ I try but the food always wins!!

this is what my day normally looks like

Breakfast:
fruit (banana, berries, peach, and spinach) and o% fage yogurt shake (3)

Lunch
I normally have veggie soup (o)
5 egg white (2)
hummas (4)
apple

Snack
luna bar (5)
fiber one brownie (2)

Dinner:
I just try to have lots of boiled veggies and a some protien. (i would guess it would be some where about 5 points)

it comes to about 20-21 points a day. i know i'm not using all my points BUT
I eat so many fruits and veggies and even tho they are 0 points they still have calories. I am positive I am eatting more then is "allowed" for zero points.

I also try to work out for an hour 3x a week

Make sure you are eating enough. You need to fuel your body for weight loss. So really make sure you are getting all of your health checks (Healthy oils, Dairys). I know it seems counter productive but you need healthy fats to fuel your body.

Excerise will help but the Healthy oils and Dairy are VITAL!!

In my opinion, you should be eating all your points if you are hungry...I only don't eat all mine if I am really not hungry that day. If you are afraid you are eating too much fruit, maybe add up calories (or points under the old system if you are familiar with it) for a couple days to see if you really are eating too much....or perhaps you are not eating enough. Regardless of whether or not eating only 20 points will stall weight loss, it is not a maintainable amount of food to live on long term (imo), so I think you run the risk of quitting and gaining the weight back quickly. Your menu looks good to me, but I would probably add more veggies as snacks and maybe a good fat like almonds, lowfat cheese, etc. Popcorn and green giant frozen veggies are a couple low point snacks I find filling.

I can empathize with the family dinner problems! I only have those once a month tops, but no matter whether I go in with a plan, I end up eating too many different foods, which adds up so quickly

And I will say again that 4 lbs in a month is good!

If I ate what you ate I would be hungry too. What do you consider "so many" fruits and veggies? I mean, that's the point of the new PointsPlus, you SHOULD be eating tons of that stuff. After all, no one ever got fat on eating too many bananas!

I get 26 points and I'm never hungry. Honestly.

Also have you thought of instead of a bar and a brownie, replace one with a fruit or veg or protein?

Welcome! Few things:

1) Eat all of your points. That is not just a random number assigned to you, but a number that is based on making sure you get the correct amount of nutritional requirements. Food is fuel and while it's okay to be under a couple of points every once in awhile, making a habit of with that much of a deficient would be like trying to drive a car with an empty gas tank.

2) Make sure you are not eating *too much* fruit. WW recommends 3-5 servings of fruits and veggies a day. It's actually built into your points. One serving = 1/2 cup (except for green leafy veggies which are one cup and starchy veggie like potatoes have points). Those, of course, are just guidelines as everybody has a different threshold for how much fruit they can eat without it affecting the scale. But if you are eating so much of the 0 point food that you are too full to eat your points you might want to scale back.

3) Four pounds in one month is excellent. It comes out to 1 pound a week, which might not *sound* like a lot but is a really really good rate.

4) Good Health Guidelines. Make sure you are getting your dairy and oils. If you are okay with the amount of food, use full fat dairy. It will help you get higher points without make you eat more food (like, say, dipping raw veggies into 2 T of regular ranch instead of 2 T of fat free. Same amount of ranch, but it will help you reach your daily points).

Congrats on the loss! 4 lbs is a good and gradual weight loss, which is the best kind, and right in the .5 o 2 lbs a week that WW recommends.

A couple of other things I noticed - are you drinking enough water and are you getting enough fiber?

How about adding some more raw veg (which are 0 pts)? You could add it to lunch with your hummus.

Personally, I eat so much veg (5-7 servings, and sometimes more, a day) that I count my fruit at 1 pt each (so maybe 2-3 points a day).

I would also agree that you need to eat all your points every day.

I agree that at your current weight 4 lbs a week is great.

I disagree that she should scale back on fruits and vegetables. What I do when I stop losing, because I like eating more fruits and vegetables than is required, is cut back my daily allowance by 5-10% to make up for the extra calories I am getting from those foods. I am satisfied because I can pretty much eat fruits and vegetables freely and I lose weight again.

You are right about the GHG. IT does not look like this person is getting enough fat. I don't see any oils in her foods for the day.

Here's been my experience... when I've been well within a normal weight BMI when I'm trying to lose down to what I used to weigh which for me was at the low end of the BMI... I'm 5'9" and weighed 127lbs through college and into my mid 20's.... it has become more and more difficult... Which I think for me is because I spent the last 10 years yo-yoing by as much as 50lbs... and now getting my weight below where it is now is a lot harder than it used to be...

I get 26pts too... so I eat a lot of fruits and veggies to supplement that... plus I eat my weekly's and some AP's too... I exercise a lot too... so I do get hungry still... and I usually try to have a piece of fruit, but if that doesn't do the trick as far as my hunger is concerned than I use like 3pts on some sort of "snack", usually a piece of cheese for the protein and fat which helps me more with my hunger...

I'm just finding since I don't have that much to lose, that expecting a 1 to 2lb loss every week just isn't realistic for me anymore at this point after all the weight that I've already lost... So for me it seems a half lb loss per week is turning out to be more in line with still being able to lose, but also be able to manage my hunger that this calorie deficit is creating...

I don't mean to sound like a know it all, but does ranch actually count as a dairy? Or did I read that wrong?

First, pat yourself on the back, 4lbs in a month is awesome!!

However, in my opinion, one of the reasons you are likely feeling hungry is that you say you are not eating all your points per day. It looks like you are leaving out 5 important points per day (or about 250 calories). FRUIT IS FREE, so don't add it to your points. But, as folks have wisely mentioned, do keep it to about 3-5 servings. What I do is add a piece to each of my 3 daily meals, and a piece to an AM snack and a PM snack.

By all means have fun with your family on Sundays. Maybe allocate a certain number of WP to that, and perhaps kick up your APs to compensate further.

But ya gotta eat all those DPs first.

Let us know how you go