ok so im almost done with my fifth week of weight watchers and i havent even lost a pound. this is ridiculous!!! im doing everything right b/c i talked to the people there and they keep saying do variety or eat all your extra points. well when i eat over my 20 i usually end up gaining the next day! i dont have a lot to lose just around 15 pds but still i want to lose that weight. here are some examples of my diet. what am i doing wrong???

examples of my meals:
oatmeal 2pts
yogurt 1pts
bread 1pts
bologna 0pts
pear 1pts
yogurt 1pts
weight watcher cake 1pts
green beans 0pts
apple 1pts
100 calorie snack 2pts
lean cuisine chicken and potatoes 6pts
chocolate 2pts
weight watchers ice cream 2pts
total 20 points

another day
cheerios 2pts
special k bar 2pts
bread 1pts
turkey 0pts
yogurt 1pts
pear 1pts
broccoli 0pts
weight watchers cake 1pts
apple 1pts
oat bran bar 2pts
2 english muffins with tomato sauce and FF cheese 6pts
chips 2pts
peanut butter chocolate eggs 1pts
popcorn 1pts

And they are right however I will post my ANALYZE THE PROGRAM and you tell me being very honest about each and ever aspect:

1) Where in your points range (range meaning utilizing your TPs, APs, and FPs) are you eating? Most people find they lose better when eating most if not all of their points for the week. Especially if you are exercising you need to eat toward a high point total and not the lower end. The reason is because your body thinks it is starving and slows down your metabolism and holds on to the calories you intake.

2) What are you spending your points on? Review the POINTSPIES (Also make sure you get in some REAL fat (butter, margarine, mayo, real salad dressing, etc) however your fats really should for health concerns come from non-saturated sources. I had subconsciously removed almost all fat from my diet and had plateaued for SIX (count them 6) months. Make sure you get in some fat. Again W/W and nutritionists recommend for health healthy fats such as olive, canola oils etc but the important thing is to not eliminate the fat and get in at least 2 points in real fats (this is from nutritional courses).

3) Are you drinking your water?

4) Are you eating a lot of processed foods (canned, frozen, etc.) which contain a lot of sodium, which causes water retention. What about diet sodas? They can cause bloating and water retention.

5) Are you exercising? Have you taken your measurements to see if you are building muscle while losing? Remember muscle weighs 2.2 times more than fat volume for volume (this means for a 3”x3” piece of muscle and a 3”x3” piece of fat the muscle will be 2.2 times heavier). If you are exercising remember to eat high in your point range.

6) Are you journaling? This includes every BLT (bite, lick and taste). Those BLTs can add up in 'hidden' points. My leader suggested for each BLT or freebie to put a tick mark in your journal and for each 4-5 add 1 point to your day.

7) Are you calculating points correctly? Ninety percent of new members don't count points correctly. I have a favorite muffin and I realized my 3-point muffin is really 6 points because it is 2 servings. Make sure you use the nutritional information rather than the 'generic' list W/W puts out. You'll find a lot of differences.

Once you have analyzed these things then you need to start playing with the program to adapt it to you and your body. Like reducing the carbs and increasing the protein and stuff like that.

Now I'll post the PointsPies:

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

Quit getting on the scale daily if the daily fluctuations are going to upset you. Your weight can fluctuate hour to hour let alone day to day. You also could have other reasons about weight gain after eating more than 20 points one day with the change the next...sodium or other water retention issues or the food could still be in your body. You cannot say you can't use more than your TargetPoints UNTIL you have given it a full 110% effort and that may take a few weeks to a month if you have been eating ultralow (ie., 20 TPs a day is ultra low bare minimum) or fad dieting, etc. Give it at least 3 weeks before you say you can't. I'm going to post an article called "Why The Scale Lies" and it will provided you insight on weight fluctuations:

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.


Where is your protein, where is your healthy fats. Turkey is not 0 points unless you are eating maybe only a slice same way with bologna and then the slice would have to be fatfree. Where are your veggies.

Do you have 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

yes i have been drinking lots of water. also since i am in high school and also work i dont have much time to cook and my mom is not quite sure what to make. so i usually eat lean cuisine, soups, um tonight i had a potato. i also buy snack liks special k bars, fat free chips, or weight watcher muffins ice cream etc. i do get in enough fruit each day and i have been eating very healthy. the problem i think is that i have always been a healthy eater so unlike some people who had been eating bad and get on this diet and instantly lose i dont. i just want to get off this diet im tired of paying each week to lose nothing. i also work out and walk. i walked quite a few miles one day and lost weight but ive already gained it all back. and yes i know i shouldnt get on the scale, but when i dont i know im not losing b/c my pants dont feel any looser. i just dont understand what i am doing wrong.

You know pre packaged foods are very high in sodium.It helps to plan ahead so you can have more foods in their natural state.Make sure your portions are correct.Blaming any diet is easy i suggest you look harder at what you are doing instead.

Hello emarie

I've been through this before -it's very frustrating!

Let's see . . . bologna and other deli meats, lean cuisines and low fat chips may contain a lot of salt. Also things like instant oatmeal, cereal snack bars and 100 calorie snack packs often replace fat with sugar (fructose, corn syrup, molasses or other types of sugars) so you may wan't to check the labels on those products in case you are consuming sugar that you are not aware of - there is even sugar in many commercial spaghetti sauces. Everything else on your list seems okay.

If you are staying within your points maybe increasing your exercise would help.

Also if you have less to lose then it seems that it takes longer to see results. I had 25 lbs to lose and the first few weeks showed no loss while others in my meeting that had 50lbs + to lose seemed to lose 4-7 lbs the first week or two before they evened out to 1 to 2 lbs per week. I didn not have a dramatic weight loss but slowly lost 1 - 2lbs per week with a few plateaus that were hard to get over.

I increased my exercise and my water intake, cut down on salt, sugar, tea and coffee and that seemed to help.

1) Most of what you are eating is either (as stated in several posts before but I'll repeat) full of sodium which can cause water retention, 1) the snacks such as bars, fat free chips, W/W muffins, ice cream are not 'healthy' but are 'diet friendly' foods. They are also simple carbs which also tend to make a person retain water. 3) If your mom doesn't know what to cook sit down with her and help plan what you need, want and what will be not only healthy for you but her and the whole rest of the family.

Eating healthy is more than just watching the caloric intake. I know I am sound self rightous and lecturing but it is also getting in complex carbs, veggies, fruits, healthy oils, dairy and protein. Most of which your journals are lacking in.

Daily losses or gains are not true losses or gains. When you first start an exercise program or even make a change to a current one your muscles tend to retain water to help repair and rebuild. Additionally when you exercise you need to eat more.

You need to do the program 100% which by reading what you are and aren't doing you really aren't doing the program. You are trying to place blame on the program. A diet program (anyone be it W/W, SBD, Atkins, or calorie counting) isn't what fails it is us (the person doing it) that fails.

I posted an ANALYZE THE PROGRAM post which you only responded to a few things:

1) Where are you eating in your points? You are only eating 20 points a day because you said any day you eat more than 20 you gain. You CANNOT judge it on a daily basis. As I have stated before in this post you need to give it a full 3-4 weeks before you say you cannot use your points which include Daily/Target, Activity and Flex.

2) What are you spending your points on? You answered that -- mainly processed junk that is sodium and sugar laden. Start eating real foods. Where are you 2 healthy fats a day and are you actually getting in enough dairy? I see you put 1 point down for yogurt either you are doing a 1/2 serving as most yogurts are 2-4 points unless it is the W/W ones. As a teen you need 3 servings of dairy a day. I beleive unless they changed it you only need to count points for 2 of those servings and the third one is a freebie but you may wanna ask your leader to verify if that is still true since I am not a teen.

3) You answered and said you are drinking enough water.

4) Are you eating a lot of processed foods? Yep you answered that and yes you are... You even admitted that.

5) Exercising? Yes you said you were. You should evaluate what you are doing. Do a combination of cardio and strength/weight training.

6) Journaling? I didn't see a response to this at all. Make sure that you journal every little bite or taste that you have. You may be not realizing that you are taking in more than you think.

7) Calulating points? Are you sure you are calculating correctly? You didn't answer that.

Don't blame the diet as fitbyforty said you need to take the responsibility and do the program.

Finally you never answered about the 8 Great Health Guidelines. Did you read them, do you understand them?

Reading your materials with your mum and helping her with the meal planning and groceries would certainly help both you and your mum. Maybe you can surf the net together for some lower fat versions of simple family meals.

Weight watchers friendly meals can be good for the whole family and they won't necessarily feel like they are on a "diet".

If you like pasta try adding extra veggies into the sauce and serving salad as a side or starter to the meal. Your family can eat what they want and you can measure out your portions and use low-fat salad dressing. If your mom makes meat loaf then have two reasonable size slices, 1/2 cup mash potatoes, loads of vegetables and skip the gravy. These are just a couple of examples of ways to make normal food fit into your plan.

For lunches take some leftovers from dinner, a salad and fruit or a sandwich with whole grain bread, lettuce, lean deli meat and mustard instead of mayonnaise. Snacks could include baby carrots with hummous or low fat dressing, low fat granola bars, fruit and low fat cheese, etc.

There is a great ww recipe area here in the 3fc ww forums and these threads may be helpful to you.

for snacks:
http://www.3fatchicks.com/forum/showthread.php?t=55634

for lunches:
http://www.3fatchicks.com/forum/showthread.php?t=79192

for family dinners:
http://www.3fatchicks.com/forum/showthread.php?t=79194

yes i have been journaling everything i eat. but you see its hard to stay away from lunch meat, low fat bars etc this is because im in high school and have a job. i am constantly on the run and dont have time to prepare meals for myself. but at the same time for lunch i have my veggies, yogurts, fruits. the only time i have bagged snacks is usually after school which will be like 100 calorie bags with an apple. then for dinner ill have like a lean cuisine.

emarie - if you prefer eating the lean cuisines for dinner try looking for similar meals in a different brand that has less sodium. I think there are WW ones available in the U.S. as well as Michaelina. Not sure but Green Giant and Bird's Eye may have them too.