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Newbie Needing Help!

#1

cmk79 , 03-08-2010 12:36 AM

Okay, so I signed up yesterday for WW online, but I have no idea how to use it!I was under the impression that it was very simple to use and you just type in what you ate and it'll calculate the points for you.But apparently that's not the case.Will someone please help me and teach how to use the site?Thanks!

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#2

luvmyfam , 03-17-2010 02:09 AM

Quote:
Originally Posted by OompaLoompa709
Okay, so I signed up yesterday for WW online, but I have no idea how to use it!I was under the impression that it was very simple to use and you just type in what you ate and it'll calculate the points for you.But apparently that's not the case.Will someone please help me and teach how to use the site?Thanks!
I signed up for WW Online back in mid-November, but didn't start really using it/looking at it until I think February. It's going fairly well since I've actually been using it.

I can try to help you out -- what have you tried? Have you figured anything out? There's a tutorial on your page after you sign in, which takes you through the steps.

After you sign in, look up underneath the "Weight Watchers Online" graphic. There's something that says "My Plan." Click on that. That will pull up your page. On the left hand side of that is your list of tools... Points Tracker, Weight Tracker, etc. To enter your daily foods and get the points, click on Points Tracker. That should load up your daily Plan Manager, where you should see your "daily tracking area," which lists "Morning, Midday, Evening, Anytime." Each section has a thing that says "add food." Click on that, then enter what food you're looking for. Most of the time, that pulls up a list of items that you could be looking for. You just click on what you need, choose how many servings you had, and go. The food lists surprisingly do not include some brands that I consider to be national brands, for example Orville Redenbacher & Ronzoni.

In the instances where you can't find what you want, there is a button at the bottom that says "Create New Food." If you have to choose that option, you'll need the nutrition facts from the package of whatever it is you can't find. That will calculate the points for it, will give you the option to add it to your tracker. In the case of foods like meats that might not come up, I've had to go to a place like "The Daily Plate" or "FitDay" to find a nutritional break-down. Difficulty there is that much of the time those facts are created using grams instead of ounces, so unless you're in a metric-using country, you might have to look a little further. Once you have that nutritional data, though, you take that and plug that info into the "create new food" feature.

If you already know the points of something, say, a recipe, then there is also a place at the bottom of your daily food tracker area to plug in the points and give that food a name. On the left of your main page is an area where you can just calculate out the points of something if you want.

You add foods to each mealtime using any of these features. When you do that, it will give you a subtotal of what you used for that meal, and at the bottom of each day, it will show you how many points you have left. That info also displays at the top of your food tracker, and on the left of your page. It's not updated instantly, except in your food tracker. The other two areas seem to update at specific times.

I'm not sure if this is any help to you. I hope you're able to figure it out. I absolutely love WW Online. It's so much easier to figure out points based on how much of a serving I had than when I was having to sit there and cut down calories/fat/fiber if I had more or less than one serving. If I've only had 1/2 cup of cottage cheese, I can adjust that when I'm putting my information in, and it calculates it for me.

Good Luck!

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#3

cmk79 , 03-20-2010 05:34 PM

Thanks.I've since figured out how to use it.But I still don't know what to do when I eat something and it's not listed on the site.Any suggestions?

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#4

luvmyfam , 03-21-2010 12:35 AM

If it's something that has a nutrition facts label on it, I just work out the points from that and "create a new food" from the info. Sometimes I have had to look elsewhere for the nutritional information, though. I've had pretty good luck googling "________ nutrition facts." The info usually comes up through thedailyplate.com or fitday.com.

Now, sometimes, I'm kind of having to guess. We splurged tonight and ate at Cracker Barrel. While I'm glad to see some CB items showing up on various nutrion facts sites, not everything does. I kind of had to guess and put info together based on what I COULD find, because I couldn't find info for what I ate.

What sort of things are you having a hard time finding?

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#5

cmk79 , 03-22-2010 01:56 AM

I can't find points for some foods that are made at home.

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#6

geoblewis , 03-22-2010 12:27 PM

When you go into the Points Tracker window, on the left sidebar there's a feature called Recipe Builder. If you click on that, a new window opens and you can build a recipe. Give your recipe a name at the top, then add ingredients just like you add foods to the Points Tracker.

Once all your ingredients have been added, at the bottom of the window, click Save. The window will advance to a page from which you can edit it and add it just like the Points Tracker. If it's a recipe you often use, you can add it to your Favorites as well.

With anything new, there is a learning curve, but you'll figure it out.

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#7

cmk79 , 03-29-2010 01:40 PM

Ok,thanks.I'll try that.

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#8

staceyonfire , 04-27-2010 01:15 AM

You can also add an item that isn't listed. And it will always be in your database. Like if you don't find pillsbury pizza dough, you can click something like "add new item" and it will let you punch in nutritionals on it. Then you save and can add that so next time you calculate a recipe it will be there. I had a bear of a time using it when I first joined. I get a cool newsletter with great recipes if you are interested and she calculates points for everything. It is shrinkingonabudget. I guess you will have to figure the rest out since we can't post that here.

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#9

cmk79 , 04-28-2010 04:11 PM

Ok,thanks.

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