Yes, Jean. I figured. Money = Motivation

And on topic...

I agree that WW will eventually have to come up with a "new improved" plan that uses the word KETO. IMHO, Keto is just a fancy way of framing Low carbohydrate, although I understand there are details of KETO practice that involve measuring. Me? I never want to go back to counting stuff: calories, points, "macros" or percentages.

I did notice that the list Calianna provided didn't have Reese's Peanut Butter cups on it. It's an "old" list? Also not on the list: anything conspicuously sugary, like cupcakes, granola bars, Girl Scout Cookies. I believe that sugar addiction is a serious issue for a lot of people--not solved by moderation. I also believe that eating fresh foods only (meat, vegetables) would go a long way to helping people manage their nutrition. So, making these foods affordable and available is an important social issue.

End of sermon.

Yeah, those are the zero points foods, absolutely free on their plan, which means that if you take the list at face value, you can gorge on as many beans and as much fruit as you like! And then wonder why you're not losing weight...

Anything else you consume (other than plain water) will require you to use your points. I'm sure that their points calculators and apps will provide point allocations for things like take out pizza.

Packaged food (including WW brand Smart Ones items) are only limited by how many points they're worth, since you only get so many points to use daily, plus a few extra points each week. (to use for celebratory treats, or if you prefer, to be divided up during the week) Apparently it's a complicated formula too - and every time they come out with a new incarnation of WW, they generally lower the number of points allocated to each member (based on how much free food they have to choose from, combined with such things as current weight and age).

The worst part about it is that the points are not purely calorie based. Supposedly, each point is worth approximately 50 calories, but if those calories come from fat, a point is only worth about 20-30 calories, depending on whether or not it contains saturated fat.

From LiveStrong:
Since 3 tsp = 1 Tbsp, that means that 1 Tbsp of olive oil is only 3 points, whereas 1 Tbsp of butter is 5 points. In other words, the diet is rigged to make sure you eat as few fat calories as possible, particularly avoiding as many saturated fat calories as possible.


ETA: Olive oil has 120 calories per Tbsp, so 40 calories of olive oil only costs 1 point. Butter has 100 calories per Tbsp, so butter you only get 20 calories of butter for 1 point.

About 10-12 years ago I followed Weight Watchers' core plan, which was an eat-all-you-want whole-foods plan, with no tracking or counting, with a long list of whole foods. If you went off the list, you counted your allowed points for the day (which for me was 7). So on a typical day I had 1-2 cups of oatmeal, a cup or two of rice or pasta, a cup or two of beans (many times canned baked beans with sauce and brown sugar), starch starch starch. I seldom worried about getting down any vegetables. I ate apples for snacks. I did lose weight, 21 lb over four months, but the weight came back and then some as soon as I quit. I also felt lousy, constantly lethargic and hungry. No surprise there.

It seems obvious to me that WW's intent is to lure and entice folks into the program with a "freestyle" approach, which seems to be a spinoff from the old core plan, convincing themselves and their customers that certain foods are self-limiting by virtue of having fiber and being filling. That's not even a half truth.

Those are the zero point foods - the ones they claim you can eat as much as you like, all day long.



My guess is that they're counting on the fact that most people want more taste titillating foods - the reeses cups, cupcakes, and girl scout cookies that you mentioned, so thats where your points allocation comes in - you use your points for foods that are not on the free list.



I have a friend who has used WW off an on a few times. During one incarnation of WW several years ago (when there was no zero point list, and all foods had points allocations), she said that she could eat a Snickers bar if she wanted, but then she couldn't eat anything else the rest of the day.

This is the Points system I first learned about. From my friends who have been on/off/on/off WW any number of times. It always works. Then...they don't do it and it stops working. Funny thing.

I never liked the idea that as your weight drops (or your age increases) you LOSE points. How rewarding is that?? I hate to admit that the older I get, the less I need to eat. But what I get to eat is all goodness. With fat. For dinner tonight I'm making meatballs with mozzarella and spinach from a DietDoctor recipe. It will look and taste decadent!

P. S. Perhaps the issue of "Do calories count?" is not yet resolved. But Good Calories/Bad Calories was a life-changer for me, and I still refer to it, or to the subsequent digest version Why We Get Fat and what to do about it.

Sounds like Oprah might have sold her WW shares, just before they plummeted. Hope she doesn't end up like Martha Stewart.

To some extent, it makes sense - if your body is smaller, it's not going to take quite as many calories to support it. If you're older, and your metabolism is slowing down due to age, or your activity level is not as high as when you were young, you probably also won't expend quite as many calories as you did when you were young.



On the other hand, it's not 100% about calories in/calories out. As many of us have noticed, we can take in a lot more LC calories and lose (or at least not gain), whereas if we ate that many carby calories, we'd start gaining again.

I like Dr. Fung's Calorie Restriction as Primary (CRAP). Because it doesn't say calorie don't mattter, it just addresses the idea of hitting calories head on. There are driving factors that cause us to eat more calories than we burn, we need to address the driving factors, not the end behaviour.

This.

We have a nutritionist on staff at work (grocery store), and after the first of the year, they took away the huge tray of freshly baked bagels (cream cheese was also provided) and boxes of mark-down cakes, cookies, and donuts that were in the break room, replacing them with fruit. The nutritionist put up a sign above these baskets of fruit, urging everyone to have a HEALTHY snack, because fruit is sooo nutritious, has so many vitamins in it, and the fiber in fruit would make you feel fuller, longer! To give it even more of a nutrition boost, they also provided a big jar of peanut butter (store brand, with hydrogenated oils and sugar added) to have with your apples, clementines, and bananas!



I just shake my head at that - really, bagels or cookies, cakes, and donuts vs fruit and peanut butter. It's just sugar, and starch that quickly converts to sugar, plus fats from the cream cheese, and hydrogenated oils used in the other baked goods vs sugar (mostly fructose) from the fruit, plus hydrogenated oils and sugars in the PB. Pretty much the same thing, as far as I'm concerned.

That is exactly right! Sugar is sugar no matter what package it's in....

No offense to anyone but there use to be a lady on here who would fast, then she would break the fast with lots of fruit. She just couldn't understand that it is nothing but sugar which was driving her blood sugar to a spike after every fast. So much better in my eyes to keep BS on a constant level with NO spikes.

Also interesting if Mindy Grossman sold any of her over $30 million in equity and options. Unlikely, during the drop from $100 per share, she should have been prohibited by SEC blackout period rules, but interesting question. She had suffered quite a reversal of fortunes even before the earnings call, though she can console herself with the almost $2 mln. she gets in cash comp annually.

Doesn't look like insider trading is a problem for WW, but there has been a class action lawsuit filed against them. Disclaimer: These things get filed all the time when a stock starts tanking after a big run-up. The charge in this particular lawsuit is that the principals deliberately hid the company's declining projections.

I personally don't think this lawsuit is going anywhere, but I figured I'd keep the thread updated. Here's a bit from the plaintiff's press release:


Edited to add: Weight Watchers (WTW) closed today at 20.93

Oprah sold some 2 mln shares a year ago at 62 before the start of the run-up, likely a logical thing to do with her portfolio. CEO Grossman bought 12,000 shares on March 1 after this crash because she is so confident in WW's LT prospects. Dream on, but not a huge amount compared to the options she exercised earlier. But the fund SA Westend that bought shares around 20 and sold 6 mln shares at 76, were amazingly clever folks indeed. https://www.insider-monitor.com/trading/cik105319.html The 25% drop off the high in 6 weeks could have triggered a sell for them...a logical rule to have in place for a fund... but no blame for the class action folks for trying

I'm critical of FB, except when I find little tidbits of information not yet available. This appears to be a screenshot of a Test Marketing survey for WW. It starts "Here is a description of a program that COULD be offered by WW" There is nothing on any WW official page, so this could be a hoax, but check out WWFatBurn

Is Mindy's bold new weight loss program...the Atkins Diet?