Hi everyone, I am thinking about joining Weight Watchers but I was wondering if I could be successful with it since I don't want any MSG/autolyzed yeast or artificial sweeteners in my food. Do the Weight Watchers recipes and plan in general push these types of ingredients?

I really prefer the diet delivery programs and I was in fact on Nutrisystem a couple years ago - but at that time I wasn't aware that just about all of their food contains MSG. So now I am looking at Weight Watchers. What does everyone think?

Thanks!

You can eat as organically and choose to eat food that is as natural as possible on Weight Watchers (many do). You choose what you actually eat, Weight Watchers provides the guidelines...as far as food choices (if you're on Core) or how to count points for whatever you're eating (Flex & Core), and they give you 8 Healthy Guidelines to follow.

You can definitely eat the foods that you need to on WW while watching your points. Cheree has it right!

I agree with what the others have said. With the Weight Watchers program, you are free to choose the foods that you want to eat. You don't have to eat the Smart Ones frozen meals or the snacks that WW markets. Those are strictly there for convienience if you want them.

I myself feel better (and it's much easier to track points) when you cook it yourself and stick to as natural as possible.

Welcome and much success to you!

Thanks to everyone for their replies. I think I would like to give Weight Watchers at home a go. I lost 25 lbs. on Nutrisystem a couple years ago, but put it all back on. I have about 65 pounds to lose and I need to get started on something to make it happen.

I have 2 children also, so I'm wondering if they can eat the Weight Watchers recipes as well? Do you all who are on WW cook one meal for your entire family or do you cook WW stuff separately for yourself and something else for the rest of the gang? My kids are 5 and 6 and they are very picky

Thanks again

I am a bit of a picky eater myself, and I don't think too many kids would notice much of a difference. I really like the ketchup/diet coke BBQ chicken, and it tastes quite authentic believe it or not. I also love to make the chicken chili, which they might think is kind of cool. Depending on what your kids like, you can make a small substitution that they may not even notice that will make it better for you to eat, say using fat free/low fat yogurt in a recipe instead of regular yogurt. Bake the french fries instead of frying them. Put more vegetables in your stir fry. Use low-sodium or low-fat soy sauce on your rice. Have fun making mini pizzas out of English muffins instead of typical pizza dough. Little things like that can make a big difference and I bet your kids don't even notice most of the changes

I think the great thing to understand about WW is that it's a WAY OF LIFE. It teaches you to eat/cook with healthier options.

Healthier can be taken in so many ways. I'm a very "CLEAN" eater as much as possible. I like my food fresh, unprocessed, without chemicals. On a budget, most things you can't get that way (meat and dairy all have chemicals in them and produce is covered with them), but I prefer not to add chemicals ontop of my chemicals. So 99% of what I eat is fresh, and as close to it's original state as possible.

You eat how YOU want to eat. For some people that's diet soda, frozen dinners and sugar free jello. For me it's fresh chicken breast, flavorful seasonal roasted veggies and strawberries. For my mother in law to be, it's lower fat margarine (yuck!), smaller portion sizes of instant potatoes (yuck!) and whatever frozen meat processed meats she gets on sale.

With that being said, I feed everyone on the same meal. When we have children, they will eat the same way to. In fact, collectively (and without trying except for me), the household has lost about 50 pounds because of it. There's no reason that healthier foods can't be tasty, and what a good message that sends to family members, that you want them to be healthy and live longer too!

Hope this helped at all.

I do WW online because I'm not a fan of meetings, though I did try them.

Yes, thank you, tormentated. That actually helped a lot. After reading over everyone's replies to my post, I am definitely going to go with WW. I will be signing up this weekend and then I'm sure I will be around these boards more often. Thanks again!

I wish you tons of luck Mustang! I think you'll enjoy it as much as everyone else.

It's sure made 'dieting' fun rather than miserable! It was a little difficult at first since we had to of course teach ourselves to eat a certain way, but on a budget. At first we spent more than we should have trying different foods, but we've found things we absolutely love.

Certain whole grain breads that we love, low carb wraps, different yogurts, etc.

The thing that we love about it the most is that we aren't deprived of anything that we love. We still have Pizza every few weeks because we -love- pizza. We just get thin crust, with about half the cheese now. My fiance still gets Slurpee's from 7-11 (he's addicted), but instead of getting a 44 ounce every day (a whopping 11 points!), he now only gets a 20 ounce once or twice a week. We both love popcorn - so now instead of loading it down with melted butter, we have it mostly dry with garlic salt! YUM!

I'm really excited for you. I hope you enjoy it as much as we have. I think the key to WW is learning to live with the foods that you love, because that's what your lifestyle is. Taking things away entirely just doesn't make sense for long term sucess.

Let us know when you've joined! I'll be looking forward to hearing from you.

I know that everyone has basically answered your question but I wanted to add that I, personally, haven't really tried any of the WW recipes. I just follow the points guidelines and cook whatever I want to. Then I portion it for myself to make sure my points are in line. My family is now doing without having cookies, ice cream and chips in the house because of my lifestyle change but that's about it. I remember my old WW coach said it best. You can make it work with whatever you want to eat. If you want to use your points on beer and pizza, go ahead. You aren't going to be too healthy for it but it will still work.