It is with some discomfort that I post this article about dieting with Weight Watchers. It’s hard to talk about weight gain and loss. Yet many us of struggle with it. It can be embarrassing and a real knock to self-esteem when you feel like you’re carrying extra pounds. I’ve fought my weight for many years. Everyone has their own journey, and I know mine is not as hard or long as others. But I thought I’d be honest about it. We started this blog to talk about the issues that fill our day, and how we search to fill our lives with style and grace. And a healthy weight is certainly a part of my daily endeavors.
So many diets out there, and I’ve tried several. I’ve had the most success with Weight Watchers. I know it’s not the answer for everyone. I’ve been following Weight Watchers off and on for about 15 years. When we first tried it, I lost 30 pounds and my husband lost 40. Weight Watchers isn’t perfect, or a guarantee of permanent weight loss — since my 30-pound loss, I’ve been gaining and losing the same 10 pounds for years. When the pants get tight and the muffin top reappears (like now), I hop back on Weight Watchers and start the path back to a better weight.
If it’s not perfect, why am I writing about it? Because Weight Watchers is easier, more flexible, and more accessible I thought it would be.
So, what’s Weight Watchers really like?
You don’t have to attend Weight Watchers meetings.
For years I resisted Weight Watchers because I thought I’d have to attend weekly meetings with public weigh-ins. I had no interest in attending meetings.
And let me interject that I know several people who find the meetings tremendously helpful. They say they are inspiring and motivating. I admit that my reluctance is based on ignorance, as I’ve never tried a meeting. My point is that the meetings didn’t appeal to me, and so I didn’t think Weight Watchers was for me.
You do not need to ever attend a meeting to fully participate and successfully lose weight.
No packaged food to buy; you can cook or eat out.
Although Weight Watchers does manufacture some food products that you might see in the grocery store, the diet does not require or even encourage you to eat those products. You can buy any ingredients you want, from any store. Or you can go to restaurants.
Your culinary choices are literally limitless.
Love beef? You can have it. Need bread? Have some. Like to have a glass of wine? Go for it. Want to snack on a cookie? Make it a good one. You can even have McDonald’s French fries.
There are no menu lists, or days of only eating tomatoes or cabbage soup. Nor is there a list of prohibited foods. You choose what you want to eat. You don’t have to skip your favorite food, but you might have to cut back on something else.
You have a number of food points each day. You decide how to fill those points. If you want cookies and fries, you’ve got room for a limited amount.
You can do it all online (or in the Weight Watchers app).
The Weight Watchers app is terrific. You track your food online; everything you eat or drink goes into the app. It automatically tells you how many points that food choice is.
You can look up general food, like whole wheat bread (2 points for 1 slice). Or you can be more specific, like “Daves Killer Bread 100% Whole wheat organic bread (3 points for 1 slice). You find your item, put in the amount and track it for the day.
If you’re in the grocery store eyeing those flour tortillas for some chicken fajitas, you can scan the bar code on your app, and it will tell you how many points that item is. I pull the app out in the grocery store all the time, and it influences what I decide to buy.
You can eat out.
The app has over 400 restaurants, with their menu items and how many points they are. Of course you aren’t limited to the restaurants in the app, but if you do eat at any of those, the app makes it very easy to know how many points you’ve consumed. Here are a couple of random pages from the restaurant selections:
Craving Taco Bell? (And aren’t we all?) Here’s the first page of items from Taco Bell, with the points:
You can have days where you eat more.
You get points for each day. In addition to those points, you get weekly points, which is a chunk of points to be used throughout the week as you see fit. I’ve noticed recently that if I don’t use all my points each day, I get a carryover to the next day.
I wear a Fitbit to count my steps each day. The Weight Watcher app syncs with my Fitbit, so my steps and exercise are automatically entered into Weight Watchers calculations, and I get extra points for exercise.
Zero-point foods. Hundreds of them.
Everything you consume has a points value and counts towards your daily allowance. But there are hundreds of zero-point foods: eggs, chicken breast, turkey breast, all seafood that I can think of (crab, shrimp, salmon, tuna, cod, etc.), every vegetable except potatoes, beans, and every fruit (including watermelon and banana).
You’ve got to count the oil you use to cook with, or the cheese you sprinkle on, or the breading you put on those baked chicken breasts. But you can eat so many things that are zero points.
I became a better cook because of Weight Watchers.
I used to cook with lots of butter, olive oil and cheese. Those items are “expensive” in terms of points. So I had to learn how to create great flavor without those point-heavy additives. Citrus, peppers, herbs, spices, and creative cooking methods (roasted veggies, anyone?) are just as good, if not better.
Weight Watchers encourages a diet that is sustainable for life.
I don’t know about you, but I couldn’t live life without carbs, or wine, or starchy fruits or vegetables. Weight Watchers doesn’t put you on a restrictive plan that isn’t sustainable as a life-style. It incorporates the foods you love and want, so you learn how to eat them responsibly. So when you stop counting points, you aren’t thrown into a remarkably different diet. You’ve been eating reasonable and accessible food that you prepare yourself (as opposed to receive in the mail, or buy in packaged form).
The Cons:
Although I’ve found Weight Watchers to be the best weight loss tool for me, there are definitely some cons. Some of these are probably the case with any diet plan.
You ARE on a diet, and have to restrict what you eat.
Even though you make the decision what to eat, you can’t eat everything and anything you want, all the time. That definitely stinks.
Some foods are very “expensive.”
While fruit and veggies and chicken breast and fish are basically “free,” occasionally I make a big misstep and eat something that is very rich in terms of points.
For example, I love First Watch. I recently ate their Market Veggie sandwich, certain I was making a good choice — because it’s veggies, and because First Watch seems so healthy. Yikes! That awesome sandwich was 27 points — more than my allocation for the full day.
The weight loss can be maddeningly slow.
I find that I lose about a pound a week. When I lost 30 pounds, it took me about 30 weeks.
That feels really slow, especially when I hear from friends doing cleanse diets or other trendy diets. They’ll tell me they’re losing 5 pounds per week, or more. They also usually say that a good portion of that will come back quickly as soon as they start to eat real food again.
Weight Watchers’ loss is relatively slow, but it seems to be a real loss of weight — not just water weight or bloat.
My conclusions: dieting is hard.
No matter what diet you choose, they’re all difficult. I love eating good food. I love cooking for friends and family, sitting down around a table, pouring the wine. I love eating out, and trying things I wouldn’t make at home. I love traveling and sampling the local specialties. I do not enjoy depriving myself.
Any diet is challenging. Whether you choose Weight Watchers or any other safe diet, I wish you luck and fortitude and patience.
And if you know of a creative way to serve chicken breast, again, let me know.
For some of our diet-friendly recipes, please see:
- Easy, Fresh & Healthy Bowl
- Chicken gyros with tzatziki
- Chicken Fajitas
- Low-Carb Cauliflower Fried Rice
