Hi Yvonne and Rachel! I am on the Canadian/U.S. WW plan which is the Flexpoints plan.
On this plan instead of having a point range per day (depending on your weight) you have a
minimum amount of points that you have to eat per day + an additional 35 points per week that you can use however you want but you must count them. And you can't carry the points over from week to week. If you don't use em' you lose em' and your new week begins with your daily minimum and a new set of 35 points.
My minimum points are 22 per day. On one day I may just have my 22 points and the next day I may use 24 points. I sometimes don't even bother with the extra 35 points and just use my 22 per day + any exercise points I have. You don't have to use the Flexpoints but they are there if you need them.
They do come in handy when you are going out for a meal or have a special event to attend where you know that there will be things like birthday cake etc.
Yvonne- I think that the pasta/potato business must be a German thing as we have to count the points per serving for those two items and it is definetely not 2 points - though I wish it were!
The programs over here also emphasize eating whole grain breads and cereals, whole wheat pasta, couscous, etc., which they had not done in the past. They are also really pushing exercising by selling WW exercise videos/DVD's, including exercise information in the weekly materials and in January we were given an exercise CDrom with our materials. WW seems to be contantly improving their program. I love the Flexplan!
Hope this helps! If you have any other questions just post and I will try to help you out it I can.