Calorie Counting vs. Weight Watchers Points

skittley80

New member
Hi all,

I've been struggling with my weight now for a few years and over the last few weeks I've been watching the scale go up and up. Monday morning I got on the scale and I was in amaze that I had allowed myself to get up to 216 pounds. I've never been this much before. I made a committment to myself at that point that I was going to get my weight under control and get my body back that I used to have. I've very proud of myself in that I have stuck to it so far this week. I've exercised and ate right and counted my calories. I plan to take things week to week and hope that I don't fall off the bandwagon.

Anyway, my reason for posting is because I'm confused about whether to do weight watchers or to count calories. I signed up for the free 7 day trial of weight watchers online and I did an experiement yesterday. The total calories I ate were 1580 which is right where I think I need to be. But on the weight watchers website, it said my points for the day should be 27 but I had 35 which is way too much. So which is more accurate and which would I see better results with?

Here are my stats if anyone is interested:
29 years old, 5'5", I was 216 pounds on Monday, just checked today and I'm 213.8, woohoo!!

Thanks so much for the help.
 
Calories are always more accurate. They're the foundational metric to any diet.

Any other "plan" simply manipulates calories in a roundabout sort of way. Atkins does so with carbs (reducing/eliminating carbs almost guarantees a reduction in calories), WW does so with points (control points, control calories).... on and on it goes.

It's not the deficit of points that causes fat loss... it's the deficit in calories.

That said, if you enjoy WW and feel comfortable with the program... there's nothing wrong with following it.
 
I think I like counting calories better so that I pay more attention to the carbs/fat/protein.. Was just curious about why by counting calories I was right on, but with weight watchers I overate
 
Yeah, I'm with Steve. I much prefer calorie counting to any of the other options - and I've tried all of them, pretty much. :)

WW uses a fairly complicated (and actually patented) formula to calculate points from calories/fat/fiber. But it's never going to be 100% accurate and there are certain foods that are healthy fats or higher in protein that badly skew the points system.

One thing that cued me off to this was the idea of WW Zero points soup. I don't know if they still do this, but they used to have a recipe for a veggie soup that they said was "zero points" and you could eat as much of it as you wanted. Now, the truth is that it is an EXTREMELY low calorie soup ... but it's not zero calories. And I realized that it was possible to play mind games with myself over points ... and then wind up cheating myself out of weight loss.

There are a lot of people who do really well on WW and I don't have any problem at all with that. The program itself does try to encourage healthy eating habits and I think that's important.

I just know that for me, I want to be more precise and more in control of what I'm eating and how I'm accounting for it. It's too easy for me to psyche myself out otherwise.
 
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