WW Food and Point Issues ...other than recipes

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Old 03-23-2006, 08:15 PM   #1  
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Default new member...need help please!

ok so i've always struggle with weight. sure i havent gained a lot, but just enough to make me feel uncomfortable and struggle to fit into my jeans. i was on atkins for awhile, which at first was great for me. so i decided to get on it again, but alas no weight came off at all. im so annoyed and it upsets me at times. i talked to a friend who suggested WW. i joined tuesday. i get 20 points a day and have trouble making it to those points. so wednesday i weighed myself and gained a pound. and today (thursday) i gained another pound! now im getting in all my veggies and fruits, lots of water. for example today i had oatmeal and yogurt for breakfast. a bologna and turkey sandwich, yogurt, pear, and green beans for lunch. a 100 pack for a snack with a few nibbles of fruit. for dinner i had soup with chicken and a mini WW carrot cake. i still have 3 points left over for today and im stuffed full. ive also always struggled with gaining weight and i fear if i eat those last 3 points to get to 20 ill gain again. its quite frusterating b/c i dont want to eat junk food to get those points in. any suggestions? am i doing this all wrong?
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Old 03-23-2006, 10:46 PM   #2  
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Quote:
Originally Posted by emarie
i get 20 points a day and have trouble making it to those points. so wednesday i weighed myself and gained a pound.
First off that is your problem you are eating less than your body needs to survive. The 20 Target aka Daily points are the bare minimum your body needs to keep from thinking it is starving. Thus eating less than that your body will hold on and store as much as it can because it thinks you are starving it. You need to eat the minimum a day (and more than likely some of the Activity (if not all) of them along with some (again if not all) of your FlexPoints.

Quote:
Originally Posted by emarie
...and today (thursday) i gained another pound!
additionally you need to stay off the scale between your official weighins because your body weight can fluctuate a lot throughout the week.

[/quote=emarie] now im getting in all my veggies and fruits, lots of water. for example today i had oatmeal and yogurt for breakfast. a bologna and turkey sandwich, yogurt, pear, and green beans for lunch. a 100 pack for a snack with a few nibbles of fruit. for dinner i had soup with chicken and a mini WW carrot cake. i still have 3 points left over for today and im stuffed full.[/quote] Where is your (minimum 2nd) dairy, where are you healthy fats?

Look at these points pies on how to breakdown points for the day:

Points Pies

Balanced (under 250 pounds)

Complex Carbs/Grain Based Foods – 8-9 points a day
Protein-rich Foods – 6-7 points a day
Fruits and Veggies – 0-3 points a day
Fats, added sugars – 2-3 points a day
Milk and Milk Products – 4-6 points a day

20-28 points a day

Higher Protein (under 250 pounds)

Complex Carbs/Grain Based Foods – 5-6 points a day
Protein-rich Foods – 9-11 points a day
Fruits and Veggies – 0-1 points a day
Fats, added sugars – 2-4 points a day
Milk and Milk Products – 4-6 points a day

20-28 points a day

Higher Carb (under 250 pounds)

Complex Carbs/Grain Based Foods – 9-10 points a day
Protein-rich Foods – 5-7 points a day
Fruits and Veggies – 1-3 points a day
Fats, added sugars – 1-2 points a day
Milk and Milk Products – 4-6 points a day

20-28 points a day

-----

Balanced (over 250 pounds)

Complex Carbs/Grain Based Foods – 11 points a day
Protein-rich Foods – 10 points a day
Fruits and Veggies – 3-4 points a day
Fats, added sugars – 2-3 points a day
Milk and Milk Products – 4-6 points a day

30-34 points a day

Higher Protein (over 250 pounds)

Complex Carbs/Grain Based Foods – 8 points a day
Protein-rich Foods – 12 points a day
Fruits and Veggies – 2-3 points a day
Fats, added sugars – 4-5 points a day
Milk and Milk Products – 4-6 points a day

30-34 points a day

Higher Carb (over 250 pounds)

Complex Carbs/Grain Based Foods – 13 points a day
Protein-rich Foods – 8 points a day
Fruits and Veggies – 2-4 points a day
Fats, added sugars – 3 points a day
Milk and Milk Products – 4-6 points a day

30-34 points a day

Then while you don't need to your body will respond better if you follow the 8 Great Health Guidelines:

For onlines here is how to get to them:

You may visit the Web site and read 8 Great Health Guidelines. After you log in, it can be found in the Select a Resource dropdown menu located in the Shortcuts toolbar on the left hand side of the page. Click on Weight Loss Topics of the Week in the My Plan section of the dropdown menu. On the next page you will see the View Topics Archive link in the box on the upper right side of the page. Click the link to be brought to the topics archive. 8 Great Health Guidelines is the first first link on the archive list.

For e-tools and meeting people it is page 34 in your Week 1 booklet.

1) Eat at least 5 servings of fruits and veggies a day (in general 1 serving is 1/2 a cup except for 100% juices where it is 3/4 cup or leafy veggies where it is 1 cup).

2) Choose whole-grain foods such as brown rice, oats whenever possible.

3) Include 2 servings of milk products (which in addition to 1 cup of milk is: 16 fl oz unsweetened cappuccino, 2 cups cottage cheese, 1 1/2 oz hard (think parmeasan) or semi-soft (think American) cheese, 1/2 cup ricotta cheese, 1 packet reduced calorie dairy shake, 12 fl oz unsweetened latte, 12 fl oz fast food milk shake, 1 cup fat-free sugar-free made with skim milk pudding, 1 cup yogurt or 1 serving W/W smoothie)...3 servings if you are a teen or over 50.

4) 2 tsp healthy oils (such as canola, olive, sunflower, safflower or flaxseed)

5) Ensure you get enough protein

6) Limit sugar and alcohol

7) Drink at least 6 glasses of water (8 ounce glasses and 1/2 of those can be decaff, no alcohol beverages such as juice or milk)

8) Take a multi-vitamin daily

You will find that most of the people have to eat most if not all of their points to lose at a consistent rate.

Finally read this article called WHY THE SCALE LIES:


Why The Scale Lies by Renee Cloe, ACE Certified Personal Trainer

We’ve been told over an over again that daily weighing is unnecessary, yet many of us can’t resist peeking at that number every morning. If you just can’t bring yourself to toss the scale in the trash, you should definitely familiarize yourself with the factors that influence it’s readings. From water retention to glycogen storage and changes in lean body mass, daily weight fluctuations are normal. They are not indicators of your success or failure. Once you understand how these mechanisms work, you can free yourself from the daily battle with the bathroom scale.

Water makes up about 60% of total body mass. Normal fluctuations in the body’s water content can send scale-watchers into a tailspin if they don’t understand what’s happening. Two factors influencing water retention are water consumption and salt intake. Strange as it sounds, the less water you drink, the more of it your body retains. If you are even slightly dehydrated your body will hang onto it’s water supplies with a vengeance, possibly causing the number on the scale to inch upward. The solution is to drink plenty of water.

Excess salt (sodium) can also play a big role in water retention. A single teaspoon of salt contains over 2,000 mg of sodium. Generally, we should only eat between 1,000 and 3,000 mg of sodium a day, so it’s easy to go overboard. Sodium is a sneaky substance. You would expect it to be most highly concentrated in salty chips, nuts, and crackers. However, a food doesn’t have to taste salty to be loaded with sodium. A half cup of instant pudding actually contains nearly four times as much sodium as an ounce of salted nuts, 460 mg in the pudding versus 123 mg in the nuts. The more highly processed a food is, the more likely it is to have a high sodium content. That’s why, when it comes to eating, it’s wise to stick mainly to the basics: fruits, vegetables, lean meat, beans, and whole grains. Be sure to read the labels on canned foods, boxed mixes, and frozen dinners.

Women may also retain several pounds of water prior to menstruation. This is very common and the weight will likely disappear as quickly as it arrives. Pre-menstrual water-weight gain can be minimized by drinking plenty of water, maintaining an exercise program, and keeping high-sodium processed foods to a minimum.

Another factor that can influence the scale is glycogen. Think of glycogen as a fuel tank full of stored carbohydrate. Some glycogen is stored in the liver and some is stored the muscles themselves. This energy reserve weighs more than a pound and it’s packaged with 3-4 pounds of water when it’s stored. Your glycogen supply will shrink during the day if you fail to take in enough carbohydrates. As the glycogen supply shrinks you will experience a small imperceptible increase in appetite and your body will restore this fuel reserve along with it’s associated water. It’s normal to experience glycogen and water weight shifts of up to 2 pounds per day even with no changes in your calorie intake or activity level. These fluctuations have nothing to do with fat loss, although they can make for some unnecessarily dramatic weigh-ins if you’re prone to obsessing over the number on the scale.

Otherwise rational people also tend to forget about the actual weight of the food they eat. For this reason, it’s wise to weigh yourself first thing in the morning before you’ve had anything to eat or drink. Swallowing a bunch of food before you step on the scale is no different than putting a bunch of rocks in your pocket. The 5 pounds that you gain right after a huge dinner is not fat. It’s the actual weight of everything you’ve had to eat and drink. The added weight of the meal will be gone several hours later when you’ve finished digesting it.

Exercise physiologists tell us that in order to store one pound of fat, you need to eat 3,500 calories more than your body is able to burn. In other words, to actually store the above dinner as 5 pounds of fat, it would have to contain a whopping 17,500 calories. This is not likely, in fact it’s not humanly possible. So when the scale goes up 3 or 4 pounds overnight, rest easy, it’s likely to be water, glycogen, and the weight of your dinner. Keep in mind that the 3,500 calorie rule works in reverse also. In order to lose one pound of fat you need to burn 3,500 calories more than you take in. Generally, it’s only possible to lose 1-2 pounds of fat per week. When you follow a very low calorie diet that causes your weight to drop 10 pounds in 7 days, it’s physically impossible for all of that to be fat. What you’re really losing is water, glycogen, and muscle.

This brings us to the scale’s sneakiest attribute. It doesn’t just weigh fat. It weighs muscle, bone, water, internal organs and all. When you lose "weight," that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ve lost fat. In fact, the scale has no way of telling you what you’ve lost (or gained). Losing muscle is nothing to celebrate. Muscle is a metabolically active tissue. The more muscle you have the more calories your body burns, even when you’re just sitting around. That’s one reason why a fit, active person is able to eat considerably more food than the dieter who is unwittingly destroying muscle tissue.

Robin Landis, author of "Body Fueling," compares fat and muscles to feathers and gold. One pound of fat is like a big fluffy, lumpy bunch of feathers, and one pound of muscle is small and valuable like a piece of gold. Obviously, you want to lose the dumpy, bulky feathers and keep the sleek beautiful gold. The problem with the scale is that it doesn’t differentiate between the two. It can’t tell you how much of your total body weight is lean tissue and how much is fat. There are several other measuring techniques that can accomplish this, although they vary in convenience, accuracy, and cost. Skin-fold calipers pinch and measure fat folds at various locations on the body, hydrostatic (or underwater) weighing involves exhaling all of the air from your lungs before being lowered into a tank of water, and bioelectrical impedance measures the degree to which your body fat impedes a mild electrical current.

If the thought of being pinched, dunked, or gently zapped just doesn’t appeal to you, don’t worry. The best measurement tool of all turns out to be your very own eyes. How do you look? How do you feel? How do your clothes fit? Are your rings looser? Do your muscles feel firmer? These are the true measurements of success. If you are exercising and eating right, don’t be discouraged by a small gain on the scale. Fluctuations are perfectly normal. Expect them to happen and take them in stride. It’s a matter of mind over scale.
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