Oh my, there are so many comments I could make on this article about Oprah, Weight Watchers and Beyond the Scale I don't know where to start 
Weight Watchers’ Plan: Don’t Call It a ‘Diet’
http://www.wsj.com/articles/weight-...diet-1449441791
Quote:
Weight Watchers’ Plan: Don’t Call It a ‘Diet’
To win back members, company pushes lifestyle change rather than just dieting; gains Oprah Winfrey’s support
By ELLEN BYRON
Weight Watchers no longer wants to sell diets.
Instead, the 52-year-old company is betting that it can reverse its long decline—and win back some of its 20 million lapsed members—by changing how it helps people lose weight. It is also banking on the star power of one its newest members: Oprah Winfrey.
“We may be the greatest diet company on the planet but the consumer isn’t thinking strictly in diet terms anymore,” said James Chambers, CEO of Weight Watchers International Inc. “They aren’t thinking of diet and deprivation as the path they want to take; they’re thinking much more holistically.”
Weight Watchers is replacing its eating plan with a new program called “Beyond the Scale.” The effort includes revamped food guidelines, more emphasis on fitness and new motivational tools to “find and fuel inner strength,” the company says. The word “diet” is deliberately omitted, executives say.
Weight Watchers needs an overhaul. The company has posted 11 consecutive quarters of revenue declines and is plagued by an onslaught of free smartphone apps that count calories and track fitness. At the end of its most recent quarter, it had just 2.6 million active subscribers, down from more than 4 million in 2013.
Weight Watchers’ share price has more than tripled since it disclosed in October that Ms. Winfrey had invested in the company and joined its board. Yet its current market capitalization of $1.6 billion is still 75% below its high of $6.2 billion, which was set in May 2011.
Over the years, the company’s attempts to add new participants—like targeting men and younger dieters—didn’t gain traction. So this time, Weight Watchers decided to focus on its core base—middle-aged women—especially those who have already tried and quit the program. “It’ll only take a small percentage to return to make a meaningful impact,” Chief Financial Officer Nicholas Hotchkin told investors last month.
Membership is the largest source of revenue for the company, accounting for about 80% of the $1.48 billion it pulled in last fiscal year. And members who pay $44.95 a month to attend meetings are the most valuable. Online members pay about half as much.
The company had been working on overhauling its dieting formula to adjust to changing consumer tastes and updated nutritional guidelines last winter, when a marketing campaign in the key New Year’s dieting season flopped and technical glitches turned away potential members.
Executives then realized that the company needed bigger changes. Researchers were dispatched to conduct interviews with consumers in their homes. They found that Americans still want to lose weight but they don’t want to give up too much. “They want a lifestyle shift versus a short-term fix,” said Debra Benovitz, the company’s senior vice president of global consumer insights.
At the same time as its eating plan was being overhauled, Weight Watchers’ head of marketing reached out to Ms. Winfrey’s agent, Ari Emanuel, in late June. Top executives, including Mr. Chambers, met with her in August to discuss the new program and a possible deal.
For years, Ms. Winfrey had been resistant to the Weight Watchers diet. A perennial public dieter, she had never tried Weight Watchers, which she associated with her mother’s generation. She was thinking of starting her own diet program, but instead decided to link up with an existing operation. “I learned from building a [television] network from scratch that if you can find something that’s already working, then join that,” she said in an interview.
After initial discussions, she said she wanted to try the new eating plan Weight Watchers was testing before moving forward. “I didn’t know if it would work because I’ve tried and failed so many times” on other diets, she said. It worked and Ms. Winfrey agreed to buy a 10% stake in the company and lend her fame to a brand that was wilting.
The deal needed to include a board seat, she said. “I definitely want to participate in any kind of decisions that are going to be made in the future, and not just be an adviser but look at how we can make the program better,” Ms. Winfrey said.
She said she speaks with Mr. Chambers once a week or so, discussing marketing and program details. She recently filmed an ad campaign in her backyard that will begin later this month, she said.
So far, Ms. Winfrey has made money and lost more than 20 pounds. The $43 million she invested in Weight Watchers, plus an options award the company gave her, have paper gains of nearly $200 million.
Her support will add needed firepower to Weight Watchers’ latest attempt to remake itself and draw new members. Its “Beyond the Scale” plan gives users other goals to reach aside from weight loss, including personalized fitness targets and a new app that suggests exercises lasting one to 15 minutes. The new food plan “nudges” members to eat more lean protein and fruits and vegetables, and less sugar and saturated fat.
The company is adopting a new meeting format, too. Weekly meetings will still have weigh-ins, but will focus more on support among members rather than lectures. The booklets members use to track their progress no longer include a body-mass index chart, highlighting plans for “me time” instead.
Jenn Johnson, a therapist in Hopatcong, N.J., is the kind of lapsed member that Weight Watchers is hoping to snare. Ms. Johnson, 37 years old, was a member 10 years ago but quit after reaching her weight-loss goal for her wedding. Having regained those pounds, she came back to Weight Watchers in June in a company research group to test the new plan.
She has since lost 20 pounds. “Now, the endgame is about being healthier, having more energy and being around longer for my kids,” Ms. Johnson said.
Weight Watchers executives debated whether a new, more holistic lifestyle program called for changing the name of the company.
Ultimately, they resolved to keep their name but will increasingly use the initials “WW” when marketing the new program.
Write to Ellen Byron at ellen.byron~wsj.com
|
Another story had her comment about being fed-up with No Carb (because she likes them! and is addicted to them  ) http://abcnews.go.com/Health/weight...ory?id=35584563
Found some details of plan here:
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-rele...-300188665.html
Quote:
Eating healthier with new SmartPoints
Counting calories and the PointsPlus system focused only on the weight loss part of the equation. In its strongest stance ever on eating healthier foods, Weight Watchers is changing the PointsPlus system and launching SmartPoints. The new SmartPoints plan makes healthy eating simple by translating complex nutritional information into one simple number. The new plan nudges members toward a pattern of eating that includes more lean protein, fruits and vegetables, and less sugar and saturated fat. All fresh fruits and most vegetables are zero SmartPoints.
|
Wasn't the unlimited fruit and low saturated fat what lost many members when they switched to PointsPlus?? Went crazy with hunger with no limit on fructose and little fat to balance it. |