@Marian, I’m still pretty new to WW but what you’re saying is exactly what confuses me about Freestyle. I am eating primarily off the free list and other low point foods. Today is my weigh in day and I lost 1.6 this week which is good for me. But I don’t get a blue dot on my tracker very often and it’s because I leave so many points unused. Last night I had 18 points available for dinner and 55 weekly points unused. I had chicken, vegetables, beer and pudding (with cool whip!) and still had 6 points left for the day. There was nothing else I could possibly use those points for.
I’ve heard several times that it’s best to use all your points but I just don’t see how that’s true on Freestyle. I would be gaining if I used my points.
@GRITS80 I wouldn’t force yourself to use all or most of your points as long as it is working for you and you are losing weight. If at some point you find you plateau, you might want to try bumping up your point/calorie consumption. Sounds counterintuitive but one’s body will sometimes hold onto weight if it isn’t getting enough calories. I’ve read that it is nature’s way of keeping people alive through periods of famine.
I get 23 points per day, with an additional 28 weekly points.
I try, if possible, to leave one or two points on the table each night. If that means 2 ginger snaps (my favorite night time treat, with tea) instead of 3, it’s OK. If I’m really hungry-- though I seldom am-- I’ll have the 3rd.
I think that coming close to your points, without actually hitting them, is fine. But if I could comfortably live on red peppers and apples, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t need to be in WW in the first place. Consistently coming in way below your point limit is probably begging to fall off the wagon.
But, again, I’m not the point police. I’m trying to find what works best for me.
@bjkmom It sounds like you are learning a lot about what works for you and what doesn’t. I’m thinking paying attention & the resultant awareness will go a long way towards your success.
I’ve been following this thread and am de-lurking now that I decided to give WW another try. I’ve done WW many times in the past (both online and in person) but I liked the sound of the new program.
H’s work paid for him to do a video-course program called Naturally Slim, and I ended up watching almost all the videos with him. We both lost a lot of weight using what we learned there (about 40 lbs for me and 45 lbs for him), but I’ve hit a stubborn plateau and my BMI is still solidly in the overweight range. It’s still a great victory for me because I’ve been stable at this weight for months instead of regaining weight as I always have in the past, but it has become clear that I need to do some different things to drop into the normal BMI range.
Reading here about the restructured WW program made me wonder if I could combine what I learned from Naturally Slim with the new WW to have a better long-term result. So yesterday I signed up for a month of WW online. I’m going to see if the tracking and increased focus on veggies/fruit/lean protein can help me bust through this plateau without triggering my binge eating disorder. Naturally Slim and Intuitive Eating have helped me immensely on that front; I no longer have “trigger foods” and going to a restaurant or grocery store or party are no longer white-knuckle experiences for me. The kitchen can be full of chips, candy and ice cream and I won’t overeat any of those things. I’m not constantly thinking about food. I actually can’t remember the last time I had a true binge episode; at least a year or more ago anyway. I think I’m ready to track my food and steer myself toward more of the WW zero-point options without getting obsessed about the number on the scale as I have in the past. Wish me luck!
I’m interested in hearing more about how you can have chips or candy in the house and not overeat them, if you feel like sharing.
I wouldn’t say I binge eat, but if I have certain foods in the house (chips, cookies, candy, brownies), I will wander into the kitchen frequently, and have another serving. Then another. Then another.
I work from home part of the time, and it’s best if I keep those types of snack foods or desserts out of the house, or I will overeat them and (easily) rack up the calories.
In fact, last Sunday, I brought home my leftovers from the hiking club’s picnic and I tossed the opened bag of chips in the trash rather than bring them into the house.
Because of this thread I went back to WW yesterday. I feel very motivated to get healthy and to try to age in a healthy way. I want to look good and feel good. I am a lifetime member and I have had great success with WW in the past. Unfortunately, I have gained the lost weight many times. (I’ll blame some of it on ten years on battling stage 4 cancer). I think the key to keeping the weight off in regards to WW is to stay with their maintenance program by attending meetings and getting weighed in even when you think you don’t need to anymore. I like the diet a lot this time because this might the best way for me to eliminate or at least cut down on sugar. I love that fruit has no points. Back in the day, an apple and a low fat twinkie would have the same number of points.
@bjkmom I agree with your approach. I believe the best way to stay on this diet long term, and ideally forever doing maintenance, is to eat in a way that you could see yourself eating for the rest of your life. I think it’s best to stay with your habits maybe tweaked a bit. I know I wouldn’t stay with eating zero point soup and two point dessert made with crazy artificial ingredients over the long haul.
@Midwest67, it was a very long process to repair my relationship with food. Naturally Slim refers frequently to people they term “true thins”. I’m sure you know some, everybody does. My son is one. He eats when he’s hungry, stops when he’s full, doesn’t label or fear any food, enjoys a wide variety of food, and doesn’t yo-yo in weight. It might be “breakfast time” but if he isn’t hungry he doesn’t feel a need to eat just because the clock says he should. He can unwrap a candy bar, enjoy a third of it, realize he’s satisfied, save the rest for later, and completely forget about it sitting in the pantry for days. Some meals or days he’s extra hungry and eats a lot, and he does so without a speck of guilt or worry. Some days he’s not hungry and might just eat one light meal the whole day, and he doesn’t worry about that either. He’s just really in tune with his hunger signals and he doesn’t think of any foods as “bad” or “junk”. He could come upon his very favorite treat and if he isn’t hungry at that particular time he won’t eat any of it.
Naturally Slim and Intuitive Eating offer a lot of support and pathways to help people become more like “true thins”. It’s too much to get into here but a few examples:
Figure out your hunger level and eat at the right hunger level, which is surprisingly difficult for some people (it was for me). Level 1 is thinking about food. Level 2 is the very first physical hunger feeling (empty feeling stomach, maybe a small amount of stomach growling). Level 3 is when leftovers actually become appealing. Level 4 is ravenous. Naturally Slim teaches you to eat at Level 3. When I do that successfully, food tastes so much better and I truly enjoy my meal even if it's just some leftover pizza.
Eat tediously slowly, using a timer if necessary, and really taste each bite of food. The most eye-opening thing about this, for me, was discovering that I don't actually like some foods I thought I loved. For example my favorite breakfast place makes a crispy potato dish that I used to LOVE. When I ate them slowly, taking a long time to chew each bite, I realized that after the initial salty crunch I actually didn't like the texture or taste of the potatoes anymore. I'm a lot pickier about French fries now; only certain restaurants make them with the right "taste profile" so that I enjoy eating them slowly. Same with potato chips, only certain brands and flavors appeal to me. Double Stuf Oreos, which I used to consider a major trigger food, taste bad to me now. Fresh Krispy Kreme donuts do still taste great to me, but once I've slowly eaten one I usually don't want anymore. So I do still eat and enjoy treat foods (or "play foods" in Intuitive Eating lingo) but my palate is a lot more discerning than it used to be, and I don't feel powerless over those foods.
3.Eat your favorite food first. Don’t try to fill up on salad or otherwise save your favorite for last, because you are more likely to overeat. If your meal consists of pasta, chicken, and salad and the chicken is your favorite, eat that first. Say the salad is your second preference, so you move to the salad second. You might find yourself beginning to feel a little full before finishing the salad, so you can decide if you prefer to leave some salad in order to have room for the pasta or if you prefer to save all the pasta for later. Since the pasta was your least favorite part of the meal it’s easier to stop eating because you already got to eat your favorite item, the chicken. Combined with very slow eating this makes meals really satisfying.
This is a really simplified sample of a long process that involves a lot more, but if you’re interested in further research just Google Naturally Slim and Intuitive Eating. Both helped me so much with the binge eating issues, and with trusting myself around all foods. I think the concepts are compatible with the new version of WW though. All three encourage food journals, which I had resisted until now and which I think WW can help with. Intuitive Eating isn’t focused on weight loss but Naturally Slim is. I also like the recipes on WW. I can’t wait to try a white chicken chili recipe I found last night!
This can be a huge challenge, especially if you live with others. They have the right to have the foods they want in the house even if those foods are triggers for overeating for you.
What I do is mentally label such foods as belonging to my husband. I never eat even a single bite. That would be stealing. I have to think of it as theft to prevent me from doing it. If I allowed myself to eat even a little (and counted the WW points), I would end up eating all of it. This happened once with a jar of peanut butter. Now, all peanut butter in the house is “his.” So are ice cream, pizza, cookies, and candy. He’s entitled to have these things in the house if he wants them, and I will even buy them for him at the grocery store. But I have to stay away from them completely.
Congrats @traveler98 - Your post has me really curious about the Naturally Slim program. I’ve had binge issues for years. Thanks for your detailed post. People like your son fascinate me. I can’t imagine doing many of the things he does. (Like forget the rest of a candy bar! Or passing on a favorite treat.)
@psychmomma I used to be so envious of my son and another good friend of mine who was similarly comfortable around food. But some of those behaviors can be learned, and it took me a long time but now I do have a much healthier relationship with food. I do think the WW tracking will help me though, and food journaling/tracking is something a “true thin” really never needs to do.
My biological family, H and kids tend toward true thin, so weight has really not been one of our issues, but it is very interesting to read and understand because we have many loved ones struggling with weight issues.
Lifetime member of Weight Watchers here, but I’ve fallen off the wagon. Happy to start reading this thread and get back to healthy eating with correct portion control.
I’m a binge eater, I’ll even binge on good food, and because I absolutely cannot under any circumstances have trigger foods (ice cream, any kind of cookie) in the house, the food in the house is as ‘clean’ as can be.
As I had mentioned up thread, over the past year or so I let 11 pounds creep back on. I’m back on track, I’m not feeling stuffed into my clothes, and am not even really looking at the scale right now (although I do my weekly weigh in at the meeting), because to me there are many forms of success and a major one for me is how I feel. Tracking my intake is my best friend for staying on plan. I cannot be trusted otherwise.
What I’m trying to figure out is online how to “smart point” out foods that aren’t listed. On the old points program we had a cool calculator of sorts to use. I miss that.
@justaMom in the upper right corner of the food tracker is a “create” button that lets you calculate the points value.
One-pot white chicken chili recipe for the win! I cooked it this morning for tonight’s dinner and it smelled so good I decided to have it for my first meal as well. Yum! It was great straight after cooking, and like most chili I’m sure it will be even better after it sits for a long time. Next time I’ll probably use dried beans instead of the canned beans the recipe calls for and I might leave some pepper seeds instead of completely deseeding them, but otherwise I don’t think it needs any tweaks.
SmartPoints calculators still exist. You can buy them from WW.
But the SmartPoints numbers they generate for some foods will be too high.
The calculator takes its information from the food’s nutrition label. It doesn’t know what the food consists of. If the food doesn’t include any zero point ingredients, the calculation will be accurate. So, for example, if I use my calculator (yes, I have one) to calculate the point value of cottage cheese or all-beef hot dogs, the value that comes up will be correct.
But the calculator won’t give you an accurate value for any product that includes a zero point ingredient, such as fish, white meat chicken, beans, or vegetables.
If you want to see how this works out, use the calculator to determine the point values of several Lean Cuisine entrees in the supermarket, and then look up those same entrees online in the WW database. (I suggest Lean Cuisine because all of their products seem to be in the database.) Sometimes the values will be the same. Other times, the calculated value will be higher than the database value because the database value has been corrected for zero point ingredients.
