No Food- or how I lost 2 stone on the Weight Watchers Diet!
Written: Jan 27 '04
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Pros: 2 stone in 4 months, and I ate what I liked.
Cons: Admitting you're on Weight Watchers to my mates.
The Bottom Line: 2 stone in 4 months and I ate what I liked.
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| carl_lazarevic's Full Review: Weight Watchers Winning Points |
Starting this review I feel the need to make a little disclaimer, I was never fat, Dave Shhhh, I was never one of those guys that Jerry Springer needs to higher a construction crew because my gut was bigger than the door frame. However there is something that I should confess, it's not an easy thing to say, but, hang on let me just start from the beginning...
Hello, my name is Carl and I'm a kebabaholic. Those wonderful meat products served in chip shops across the country, served on a piece of Pita bread, with Salad, Chilli Sauce and absolutely dripping in fat. They're the greatest food on Earth. Unfortunately the old expression is just a little misleading, a Kebab a day doesn't keep the Dr. Away. (what are you talking about Apples for?) In fact they expand the old waistline exponentially, and little old me wasn't prepared to stay slightly over weight forever, which is when I asked my mother for some low fat cook books, and instead she roped me into some new fangled diet that she uses, namely the Weight Watchers program.
How does this diet work?
The Weight watchers diet works on a points basis, meaning that as so many claim but ultimately fail to deliver, you really can eat whatever you like. You will have a daily points limit chosen based around your height, weight, sex and age, and then this daily allowance goes down as you lose weight until you reach your goal weight. For me, I started with a daily allowance of 30 points and moved down just once to 28 points before my goal weight was achieved. These points are worked out on the basis of an equation involving the number of calories with the number of saturated fats. Now I'm unsure what the actual equation is, I suspect they would rather you buy their products then figure this stuff out for yourself, but to give you some idea what you are looking at, a fatty food like a regular lamb kebab will come in at 9 points, much to my surprise both a single slice of Mccains pizza and a mars bar had the same fat content, where as fruits will usually be half a point each and vegetables are completely points free.
What kind of support do you get?
Weight Watchers is a very support oriented program, and so when I was on it I did receive a lot of support when I went up, with people explaining to me why my weight had gone up even though I had visibly lost weight, and the things I should avoid doing before being weighed. Of course, my mother is in charge of the program so I kind of have to say that, she'd kill me otherwise, but from my observations other people got the same attention, even having her going to their homes if they needed support.
From Weight Watchers themselves you get a wealth of products, including cookbooks, a free diagram that works out the points for you, or a calculator which does this more accurately for £15. They offer little guidebooks which explain different things such as how many bonus points you can get exercising, and which exercises do what. These books feature charts for working out a healthy days food, and even suggested weeks. I myself just took it a day at a time as I'm a terrible planner, but needless to say the support was there throughout all aspects of the diet.
Food Products
As well as food you make yourself, or order out, Weight Watchers also provide their own brands of food. For me personally I live off microwaveable ready meals, so the Weight Watchers brands were invaluable. These come with the low fat ingredients, have the points value on the box and generally make the diet as easy as eating a meal.
They also provide sweets, such as cake slices and CHEESECAKE!!! They offer little bars, and remember that a mars bar is 9 points so a chocolate bar at 1.5 points is an amazing deal, and each of these tastes absolutely great. Coconut flavour, cranberry flavour, chocolate flavour, mixed fruit flavour and so many more, so your taste buds will never grow bored. Also there 0.5 points a pack, Fruitees brand of sweets are invaluable.
Look, forget all that stuff. Did it work?
This diet worked extremely well. Like I said there were a few weeks where my weight would rise even though I'd followed the diet, but this was because of various reasons. I'd been working out and muscle weighs more than fat, I had eaten Chinese food and the salt holds water for over a week, things like that were always responsible and the weight was inevitably gone the next week. At the end of the day I lost 2 stone in just under 4 months, and I still had a kebab at least once a week, I ate out at all you can eat restaurants and was still able to take back the extra weight before weighing day, so this diet was a spectacular success and I heartily recommend it to everyone.
Tips
Snackerjacks-These rice cakes come in Chocolate flavour, toffee flavour, cheesy flavour, cinnamon flavour and so on, and come in either large cakes at half a point each, or mini cakes that are half a point a pack. Invaluable.
Avoid foods you are unsure about, and check the points on everything you eat. Plus make sure you either buy Weight watchers Pizza, or make your own. The rest are BAD!!!
Avoid dinner with David Seaman and his chocolate covered shortbread cakes. ;) Kidding, he was very annoyed when I ate his cake, and has not spoken to me since.
Remember to enjoy your food, don't tie yourself down to rabbit food. Variety is the spice of life.
Recommended:
Yes
Food Variety Restrictions You eat any food you want
Restrictiveness of Portions Several hearty portions
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Epinions.com ID:
carl_lazarevic
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Member: Carl Lazarevic
Location: UK-(pure blood Brummie)
Reviews written: 228
Trusted by: 210 members
About Me:
Walk down the right back alley in Sin City and you can find anything.
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