Why I Love the Weight Watchers System

I should clarify.  I am not officially on Weight Watchers.  I use their calculations for points and track everything in a spreadsheet.  

I love the WW system for several reasons:

• Some people seem to naturally know how much is too much food.  I have never been one of them. WW gives me a framework for deciding how much to eat every day.  
• I never knew that 3 mounds of mashed potatoes (~ 3 cups) was not “1 serving”.  Calculating points makes me very aware of standard serving sizes.
• What? I can’t eat McDonald’s for lunch AND Wendy’s for dinner? Using points encourages me to eat lower point meals before or after a high point meal.  *See anecdote below
• Adding points to 25 is a lot easier than tracking calories to 1500 in a day, especially with my (self-diagnosed) dyslexia.

Other good elements of the official program:

• Accountability – Weekly meetings give you an opportunity to talk about how the week went and receive encouragement that helps you keep going.  I have a friend that’s been through WW, and I made her my accountability partner just by bringing up the topic whenever we happen to be together, which is often because our kids play really well together.
• Official Weekly Weigh-ins – This helps keep you off the scale all day every day and alleviates stress.  After the first couple of weeks, I realized my weight fluctuates during the day and throughout the week.  But only the official weekly weight counts, so I stopped obsessing all week when it didn’t really matter.  I picked a day of the week to always take my official weight, and that’s the only number that I keep in my records.
• Tips and Recipes – Again, this is where my friend substituted for the official program.  She is really great because she helped me brainstorm foods I like (have I mentioned I’m *cough* kinda picky…?)  and helped me figure out how they could work within WW.  I’m guessing WW recipes wouldn’t be too helpful to me, because I don’t like cooking and I don’t like to try new foods.  I know, this is something I need to work on still.

* One of the first weeks I was serious about my weight loss, my mother-in-law came for a visit.  It came time for supper on the first day of the week, and I had used all my points earlier when we had eaten out for lunch.  I was hungry again, but I didn’t want to blow my diet so early in the week, so I decided to be creative. My mother-in-law still teases me about this “meal”:  

     ½ can of green beans (0 points)

     Mustard (0 points) spread over 2 slices of bread (½ point) then rolled up

     16 oz of tea sweetened with Splenda (0 points)

In my defense, the mustard rolls were a snack my brother Phil created when we were kids, so it was a sweet memory for me.