Ok - I know in my heart I'm ready to do this. I've joined Curves (which I love) and need a healthy eating lifestyle. I've tried SOOO much and SOOOO much has failed. I really do think WW points is best for me, but I have one question. For those of you who have been successful - did you eat a lot of the frozen meals and desserts? They seem high in carbs. Should I worry about that - or should I just count points knowing that all of that is taken into consideration?? I know I just have to make a decision and do it - and I try to analyze way too much - but I just don't want to fail again. Any thoughts?
I've been fairly successful, so I think I'll take a shot at this one.
I eat whatever I want that my points will buy me. Some days I eat very healthy, some days I save up points and eat McDonald's. I eat something chocolate almost every day. If I had to give up the stuff I love I would have never made it this far. It's calories (or POINTS) in and calories (or POINTS) out. Carbs and all of that are just another way of looking at it. It's all about balance and moderation and learning how to literally manage your weight.
Good Luck to you!
Oh - - and to answer your question, I do eat the desserts and meals, but I prefer the Lean Cuisine to Smart Ones. I usually eat them for lunch or if the kids want something fattening for dinner and I don't have the POINTS to eat it with them.
I rarely eat frozen meals. YOu can get so much more food for the same or less points and have healthier foods.
I still eat a dessert everyday...sometimes it is pointy like a piece of birthday cake sometimes it is something as small as a snack size candy bar.
W/W has 8 Healthy Guidelines to follow which helps with your food so you get enough protein, dairy, healthy oils in relationship to your carbs. Carbs are not a bad thing really...veggies are carbs. It is the type of carb...you should limit simple carbs (white flours, sugars...) and fill up more on whole grain carbs and veggies and fruit.
What I do is use my daily points for my 8 Heathly Guidelines, my exercise points for additional dairy and/or protein and then my weekly points for whatever I want.
when i first did the plan i had started at 200 lbs and gotten down to 140 ( which i was very happy with ) in 4 months thats like 5 lbs a week the weight came off very easily .... i ate alot of the weight watchers packaged foods because they came in choices i would have normaly wanted to eat but in smaller pre packaged portions i think eating the WW food helped me stay on the plan because it taught me how to enjoy my favorite foods but in smaller portions , had i stayed on track with the portion sizes i would have been on track today ! i think WW foods are great!
I follow the 8 healthy guidelines, and make sure I reach at least my target point value daily. I also exercise 3-4 times a week. The first time I joined WW, I did eat frozen meals, desserts etc quite a bit. I lost 80 pounds that time. I ended up eventually gaining 70 pounds back (all my own fault!) and this time around, I am down almost 60 pounds, and I have focused on a healthy, more "whole foods" lifestyle. I cook a lot now, pre-preparing my own lunches, etc. For instance this weekend I made soup - 6 servings - to last DH and I a few days of lunches. Last night I made chili, which was dinner last night and will be tonight again. You can really do it either way, but you need to watch the sodium content of those prepackaged foods and make sure that throughout the day you are following the 8 healthy guidelines.
I have a similar fear of eating the "wrong" things and using up my points. Should I be focusing on a certain food group or can I just spend my points as I want, as long as I don't go over? Just started WW today and fear it will have the results of my many other "last" diets and I fall way off the wagon! Riya
Morning Riya - I posted that on 10/3 - my first day - and it's now 10/12 and I'm well into this. I'm using my points on whatever I want - and the first couple of days I will admit it was a lot of junk..lol...now I'm finding that I'm enjoying cooking some things - enjoying chicken with low point herb diced tomatoes and spaghetti. My fear of the frozen foods was the carbs - I've eaten some frozen foods, but have really tried to focus on eating what my family eats, but portion everything so that it stays in my points. I've lost 5 lbs so far, so I must be doing ok. I will say, I'm not getting real caught up right now in certain food groups or anything - but I DID print off the healthy 8am really studying them so they become 2nd nature. I've added in more fruit and veggies - but they are so low in points I still get to enjoy snacks and stuff.
That's a lot of rambling to say I think that as people get into this, they begin to detail the plan to how they want to eat. The most important thing is to eat your minimum points each day, and as you get the hang of it, you'll begin to figure out what you want to use your points on.
I did WW 4 yrs ago, lost 35 lbs and have gained it back over the last 2 yrs. This time I don't have time to attend meetings so I joined the online WW and everyday now I enter in my food and activity points and find this is really helping me again. I'm just not the kind of person who can make the right calorie choices each day without help, obviously b/c I gained the weight back. Its been 3 wks for me and I'm down 5 lbs so for me, going online each day and recording my points works. I like that fact that I can go online and thru WW tools can search for food and/or recipes or can enter recipe ingred to give me the pt values quickly and easily. So for me, the $20 a month is worth it.
Just wanted to let you know what works for me. BTW, I found that if I ate the same pts of bad foods or the same pts of good choice foods that the weight came off my body differently so I do splurge sometimes but mostly try to pick good choices...whole grain, high fiber, lots of fruit and veggies and limit my frozen dinners b/c I tend to lose more belly fat with these foods.
Good luck to you...you can do...we all can...with each other's support!
The packaged meals are good if you need help with portions, think Jenny Craig or Nutrisystem. They just package your food for almost all of your meals. When I did WW years ago, that's how I got started, it was a good way to get on track.
My humble opinion, you're best off with the closest to how the food comes naturally, like mashing your own potato rather than out of a box or peeling a banana rather than opening a can of fruit.
But, the bottom line is, whatever works best for you is what you should do, if you need to eat packaged then do it.
As far as carbs and such, if you go with "whole" foods rather than packaged you avoid alot of high fructose corn syrup and such which is good.
Anyway, best of luck and success to you (and all of us!)
I've been fairly successful, so I think I'll take a shot at this one.
I eat whatever I want that my points will buy me. Some days I eat very healthy, some days I save up points and eat McDonald's. I eat something chocolate almost every day. If I had to give up the stuff I love I would have never made it this far. It's calories (or POINTS) in and calories (or POINTS) out. Carbs and all of that are just another way of looking at it. It's all about balance and moderation and learning how to literally manage your weight.
Good Luck to you!
Oh - - and to answer your question, I do eat the desserts and meals, but I prefer the Lean Cuisine to Smart Ones. I usually eat them for lunch or if the kids want something fattening for dinner and I don't have the POINTS to eat it with them.
I'm only a month into Weight Watchers and I'm down 8 pounds, but this pretty much sums up my strategy too. There is something in one of the books they give you at WW about how they take into account the glycemic index, etc., so you really don't need to worry about carbs. They've figured it all out for you.
I have to say, I'm loving WW for its flexibility. I've been on several diets. One is the 90/10 Plan, written by a nutritionist, which was basically a calorie counting plan that let you eat a 250 calorie "Fun Food" every day. I also read up a lot on Volumetrics, which is heavily based on research. I've found that WW basically combines these plans (and I'm sure others) to yield healthy, achievable results. I'm more impressed than I expected to be!
THENwo years ago I joined WW online but I did the Flex Plan following the Wendie Plan so I could go to our favorite buffet restaurant. I really did it dumb then. It was like the first time you get your own checking account. I would use my points on regular soda etc. I didn't feel very healthy and I probably wasn't. I did lose weight but it didn't stay off.
NOW: I got all of my old materials and THIS TIME I decided that I was going to do this in a smart way. Since I had followed the WW Flex Plan before I gave up caffeine and found that one change lowered my blood pressure dramatically. This past summer I found a great diet rootbeer that used Splenda and I began having that instead of desserts. I gave up eating second helping at the beginning of September and lost 9 lbs in two weeks!
THAT is when I decided to really follow the Plan as it is written. During those two years I began going back to cooking from scratch and I found that I was also eating healthier as a result. I began doing it for economic reasons and then found out that I prefered doing it.
I have since lost another 7 lbs since mid-September. I have another 135 lbs to go. I have also been moderately active since then as well. I walk on my treadmill 30 mins 5x a week, lift free weights and do abs and lower body work. This past weekend I added Pilates and a dancing dvd for fun. I have more energy than I can remember in decades!
NOW, I am more responsible with my points. I do like having the flexibility but it really is a "on your honor" system. You have to be honest with yourself so I keep track of every thing I put in my mouth. Check out the lists of low point snacks including candy and chocolate! I think this is a plan that I can work the rest of my life. I am eating healthy with a smidgen of "junk". I don't eat at fast foods because after you start eating "real" food you will go away feeling hungry and not satisfied. Try it and you will see! We do still go to that buffet restaurant once a week but with the Wendie Plan I make that my Super High Day and then I can eat some of my old favorites along with some new ones. It also feels more special when I only do it once a week.
If you are willing to try the healthy guidelines then you can build and customize your own daily food plan so it becomes You and Yours Alone. That is the beauty of it. I think it is an ingenious way to lose weight. I don't buy frozen foods other than a few items. I never did so I wouldn't have bought tv dinners any way. I like having leftovers. It is a bit of a challenge to figure out points for home made food but nothing tastes better IMO.
A question about WW Points...
and make sure that throughout the day you are following the 8 healthy guidelines.
Then and Now
THEN
wo years ago I joined WW online but I did the Flex Plan following the Wendie Plan so I could go to our favorite buffet restaurant. I really did it dumb then. It was like the first time you get your own checking account. I would use my points on regular soda etc. I didn't feel very healthy and I probably wasn't. I did lose weight but it didn't stay off.
