Weight Watchers Diet

So going on an extreme diet isn't going to work so I've decided to rather look at changing our eating habit to something more healthy.

I love the idea that I can eat anything in moderation as long as I track the points. What are "points"?

According to dietchoices.com the Weight Watchers Diet is:

In a Nutshell

The Weight Watchers Points system is a patented way to quantify foods to help dieters keep track of how much they are eating. Earlier systems used calories, fat, saturated fat, and fiber in various formulas to come up with numbers that more-or-less reflected the energy value of foods, but were smaller and easier to handle than calories.

Now Weight Watchers is introducting a new Points system called ProPoints in the U.K. and other parts of Europe where it has first been introduced, and PointsPlus in the United States. With ProPoints Weight Watchers is using all the macronutrients (protein, carbohydrate and fat) plus dietary fiber to come up with a number that not only depends on food energy (calories), but also takes the satiety (or fillingness) of food into account. Of course, they said the same thing about at least some of the earlier Points systems, so cynics might think the refurb is more down to patents that are about to expire coupled with a need for a new marketing peg. And of course, all the books and calculators and scales that Weight Watchers has sold in the past are instantly obsolete.

Details of the Plan

You'll have to join Weight Watchers to get the full skinny, but broadly speaking some of the changes have leaked out.

According to Weight Watchers, protein and fiber require more energy to digest than fat or fiber, so the new points favor (give lower ProPoint values to) protein and fiber. Although this is true, we think the differences are not so great to be much help in weight loss.

In addition, the ProPoints system gives you both a daily budget and a weekly budget of Points, which allow you to splurge on the occasional special meal. However, we'd note that the practical effect of this is that your daily budget is simply reduced to make room for the weekly ProPoints. The advantage seems to be that psychologically dieters tend to get too close to their daily budget and a safety net budget helps to keep them in line.

Another effect of the new plan is that plain, unseasoned, unsweetened fruits and vegetables are generally not restricted. So you can chow down on these without pulling out the reference books or the calculators. This helps with the practical side of sticking to a diet, as long as you like veggies and fruit, which you should. So in this sense the new system may encourage veg-averse dieters to give them a try just because they are easier to deal with in the ProPoints system.

I signed up to the US weight watchers (the South African version is SO behind the times, they haven't updated the program in 20 years while the US and UK have magazines, cookbooks, products and informative websites) I also use their very interactive application on my iPad. This is suppose to teach you to make better choices. I've signed up for 3 months so let's see how it goes.

****For the WeightWatchers PrPoint values of sandwiches etc please look in the comment section***