Watch your weight ... and your wallet!
Written: Mar 31 '02 (Updated Aug 13 '02)
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Pros: comprehensive nutritional information, good reward system, big community, good reference
Cons: should be common sense, main focus on food, only available online, proprietary point system
The Bottom Line: Frankly, a common sense program with good tools (points, reference, community). Lacking in the long-term department though. Afterall it's the same basic principle as any other diet. Check out www.chasefreedom.com!
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| theuerkorn's Full Review: Weight Watchers Winning Points |
Warning! This review is rather graphic and not recommended to the blue-eyed disciple of the powerful Double-W religion. You may be offended. I don't take any responsibility for any resulting critical thoughts you might have. ;-)
Anyway, I started to write a bashing note on WeightWatchers and as I thought about it, it became clear to me that the product and my criticism are actually 2 different things. So I try to turn around and make this an actually objective review.
Comprehensive Heavy Weight
Weight Watchers is one of the most successful programs ever to lose weight. Not knowing the statistics, one can easily assume that without being completely off. Followers and popularity in this case are measures for success.
Weight Watchers is all about "...information, knowledge, tools and motivation to help you make the decisions that are right for you about nutrition and exercise." The community is one of the strongest assets: "To provide motivation, mutual support, and encouragement and instruction from our leaders, Weight Watchers organizes group meetings around the world. Meeting members often become meeting Leaders and Receptionists - sharing the story of their personal success with others." Which certainly makes it easy, but still no 'piece of cake'.
Basic principles of Weight Watchers:
- Providing you with the knowledge of WW's (proven) POINTS plan.
- Guiding you to make positive behavioral changes in your life.
- Inspiring you with WW's belief in your power to succeed.
- Motivating you every step of the way.
Founded in the early 60's by Jean Nidetch, Weight Watchers grew to one of the most recognized and best-known programs out there. With the new spokeswoman 'Duchess Of York' Fergie, it seemed to have received an even stronger boost.
To me that's surprising since all she is actually known for in Europe, is her extravagant life style and the accumulated debt in the 90's. (Sorry I am a little biased here.)
Lots of Common Sense packaged in good tools
The actual program has been printed in several books and probably even more versions. It is all about an active life style and to eat right. Eating right is certainly something we as a society don't know how to do anymore. How else can one explain 80% of American being overweight in 2002.
Weight Watchers is trying to help putting that sense back into your life. Judging from the statistics with limited success, but I don't consider it the program's fault. That blame should go to all the 'super-sized anything'. But that's not what we are discussing here anyway.
WW provides the customer with many tools in order to help fighting the daily battle against nutrition overdose and physical immobility. Everything is based on the fact that in order to lose weight the intake needs to be less that the minimum energy required to maintain a body's composition. While the requirement can be raised with workout, the intake control can be rather 'painful'. After we have discussed that, let's look into the tools provided.
With your subscription at www.weightwatchers.com you will have access to the Journal, WeightTracker, Meal Plans, Receipies and the famous Points Calulator.
The latter is what sets WW apart from other programs. Assigning points to servings is nothing else than converting calories, fiber and fat percentage into comparable and easy to comprehend units. The actual advantage, however, is not the system but the vast available knowledge base where many dishes and food groups are identified.
The Journal keeps track of your progress and motivates further participation by outlining the milestones and rewarding with little stars and tips. It also monitors the opposite trend and links immediately to tips on how to avoid panicking if the weight should go up. (This section is actually called Weight Tracker.) Besides the food intake it also records vital basics like workout and your daily dose of vegetables and water (milk). Lots of good (though common) sense in times when all kinds of magic potions are advertised.
Meal Plans does what the name suggests and helps to plan your food throughout the day. By providing a plan, it takes the guess work how much one can eat in order to achieve a goal. A good selection of Recipes helps you to fight boredom on the kitchen table.
Last but very important is the Community feature, basically a board where members can post questions or stories and discuss issues with other members that know what you are going thru. This may be the biggest argument for the web-based solution.
However, only being available online it has certain limitations if you are on the road or not online all the time. Of course it secures the subscription principle and with it continuous income for WW.
So what's the grapevine?
Well, frankly another issue triggered this. I am using my Palm powered handheld for many things and one issue I have with the Weight Watchers (WW) programs has been solved by an eager programmer who did convert most of the online tools into a small little tool called WWCalc1.0. (Mobile and very reasonably priced.)
So far so good, but apparently big WW has one purpose that is different from what's suggested by the name. Right, it's to make MONEY. (Realistically, that's one thing all companies have in common.) Anyway, the little tool got the big company's attention and was obviously identified as a thread, since the mentioned tool has recently been forced off distribution channels, like Palmgear.com.
WWCalc1.0 filled in nicely where the weight loss giant failed to provide. Yet, latter must have felt threatened to loose income. Which may be legitimate since considering millions of customers should gross several hundred million $$$ a year. I am not proposing for WW to give it up, but one could expect a little more cooperation to serve customers.
In case you want to read about the whole 'tragedy' please visit www.cyberlizard.com. I am aware what Copy Right infringements are about, but in this case it filled in other than compete with products offered by WW.
Weight, ... er ... thumbs up or down?
It's a tough thing to come up with a verdict on something like the WeightWatcher program. It's comprehensive, yet expensive. It sports a great selection of tools, yet they are mostly commons sense.
The major advantages that I can identify are being part of a community, exchanging tips and tricks. The whole community part of Weight Watchers is probably why I would conditionally recommend it. Also it's one stop shopping for all your needs if you're determined to loose weight.
It tries hard to give you that precious motivation in order to help you sticking to it. However, it may help but of course is no guaranty either. Motivation is the key, and WW has a reasonable system, but is not bullet proof.
For those who are determined (!) to loose weight (and who isn't these days), check out the Windows software called WeightByDate from www.provariant.com. It costs you a single fee of $22 (basic) or $40 (pro) respectively. The tools are very similar to WW, shy the community feature and points system. However, it sports many links to comprehensive websites. And it nicely shows the relationship between intake calories and burned calories and their result on your weight. (Something WW does not ... on purpose though, since they want you to stay with the program.)
Similar functionality to WeightByDate but with more statistical information can be found in (Windows) shareware called WeightCommander (visit www.weightcommander.com for details). One very useful feature there is the 7 day moving average and alarms for identified problem days (in case your weight always goes up on or after the weekend).
Overall, I think the initial fee of $60 and following $15/months may be worth it, if they help you to fulfill your dream. However, after 3 or 6 months one should be able to figure out the principle (nutrition etc.) and save some money (cancel subscription).
And WW may actually sharpen your common sense. I mean the 'little' detail of everyday's food traps. For instance, a can of normal beverage (cola etc.) has about 120 cal., and how many of those does the average person drink per day? I don't know about you, but I gulp down about 5 per day, which would make this already about 1/5 of my daily allowance (if I would not go for diet ...).
Other examples are common pitfalls as the dressing on an otherwise very healthy salad or vegetables that are fried, or low-fat items that are just as high in calories as their 'fatty' siblings. Or the popular appetizers that actually would make for a full meal, even worse the ones that are refilled constantly, and not to forget all-you-can-eat buffets. Or the plain thought that working out gains you the right to eat more.
For me, the only thing that works is heavy workout (min. 5x per week) and a reasonable diet. Either one by itself never got me anywhere.
So, sharpen your senses, and WW may actually just do that. For the ones, that only need little guidance, the packing slips for most weight loss pills actually contain good ideas on what to look for. (i.e. Dexatrim has a very down-to-earth approach) Forget about the pills, but the tips are good.
Btw, I just recently heard about the so-called S.M.A.R.T. Technique, a refreshingly different program that addresses the important psychological portion of loosing weight and keeping it off. (The advertisement is just as 'optimistic' as any other program, but it finally acknowledges the fact that our habits and eating pattern pose the biggest thread to weight loss.)
In other words, any diet that does not change you behaviour long-term is only worth a year or two until one slumps back into the same pattern that got you where you started from. (WeightWatchers does not efficiently address this issue.)
In a nutshell
Forgive me if I am negative about the program, or at least it may seem like I am. I know it helped many people (at least short term) and has even more followers. I do recognize certain advantages though. Let me summarize my criteria very short ...
You should consider WW if ...
+ You need a well established guide.
+ Being part of a community boosts your motivation.
+ You are looking for low-cal recipies.
+ You are looking for a diet to live by.
+ You are wondering which food is good for you.
+ You are looking for a well organized website.
+ Working out is not an option for you.
You can skip WW if ...
- You can add up calories on your own.
- You can motivate yourself to workout.
- You are in a physical condition to do 5 - 6 workouts per week.
- You understand that only workout and diet together work.
- You understand that inactivity and overeating are your worst enemies.
- You rather spend money on healthy food than a program.
- You can stop to think of food as a reward or stress management.
- You don't want to go online for each update.
- You don't want a proprietary point system.
My main issue with WW is, that has been proven that no diet that restricts your intake without 'rewiring' your brain to new eating habits is successful long-term. WW in fact rewards you for being good (banking points) with ... guess what ... right ... food (use of extra points). A questionable reward system, since it may be what got you to be on the heavy side to begin with.
So while I am low in my rating, WW it's still better than doing nothing. (That's why I am actually recommending it.) For a better overview of diets check out www.chasefreedom.com (It seems unbiased, but they are advertising ediets.com as the better mouse trap.)
Recommended:
Yes
Approximate Monthly Cost (US$) 14.95
Food Variety Restrictions A wide variety of allowed foods
Restrictiveness of Portions Few small portions
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