I never had an interest in Weight Watchers (WW) because all I could think of was “rah, rah” meetings that I wanted no part of. I sold Tupperware before and still shudder at the required meetings we attended and how we had to stand up and sing our Tupperware song! Bad memories…
As I’ve written, I got introduced to Weight Watchers by having success on The Wendie Plan. As mentioned in that post, I did keep my weight loss for over a year but my back went out for a long time period and between being laid up and depressed, I lost my good eating motivation and started gaining it back. As I get older, I gain back what was lost and a little more and keep hitting new highs when I let it go on too long.
I once again did some studying on dieting on the Internet and found some good Weight Watcher forums. I decided to try Weight Watchers Flex Plan. I had learned how to count points on The Wendie Plan and still had many of my free Point counters and excel sheets from then.
The Plan
Depending on your current weight, you eat a certain amount of points per day and have an additional 35 points per week that you can use however you want (spread them out, add them to one special day, etc.). And there were those that didn’t use these bonus points at all.
You also had the option of figuring out points available depending on how much you worked out and these extra points had to be eaten the same day of your work out. Again, some people did not eat their “activity points.” I ate every point available.
I learned a bit on The Wendie Plan. Weight Watchers figures lower average calorie intake per day than I can eat to lose. In other words, I started at a higher than recommended points allowance because I wanted to be able to eat as much as I could for as long as possible while still losing at least 1/2 pound a week. I felt that the calories on The Wendie Plan just weren’t enough and that is another reason it was difficult to maintain. I had eaten pretty low calories for the couple months up to reaching goal that as soon as I started upping that for maintenance I started gaining.
I realize maintenance requires some fine tuning, but I think with many diets you are simply lowering your metabolism and once you reach goal you need to keep it revved up, especially when adding more calories. Sometimes it just takes patience.
Because of that experience I decided to work WW for me. I was always in the lowest points range for WW. Here’s the different ranges using your current weight:
Less than 150 pounds = 20 Points
150 to 174 pounds = 22 Points
175 to 199 pounds = 24 Points
200 to 224 pounds = 26 Points
225 to 250 pounds = 28 Points
250 to 275 pounds = 30 Points
275 to 300 pounds = 31 Points
300 to 325 pounds = 32 Points
325 to 350 pounds = 33 Points
Over 350 pounds = 34 Points
And don’t forget your additional 35 points per week plus activity points (more about those in a later post).
How I Did It
I did not join my local Weight Watchers Group. I found the best WW forum online called Bootcamp Buddies. This was a group that did not put up with going off plan. They didn’t like whining or excuses. If you are serious about losing, this is the forum to be on. I haven’t been an active member for quite some time so I’m not sure if they’re as strict as they used to be. They are very supportive and these are real, everyday people trying to lose weight or maintain.
The other forum I was part of, although it was more difficult to use (when I was there I couldn’t believe that WW couldn’t figure out a better forum for their own site) was the WW forum you can visit here. Maybe they’ve improved over the years although with a quick look it doesn’t appear too different. You do not have to be a paying member to join the forum community.
According to WW, I should have started at 20 points a day (approximately 1,000 calories) with the addtional 35 points added in however I wanted. I felt that was too low and would keep me hungry and unable to maintain easily. So I started at 28 points a day. I was less than 150 lbs. but was starting at a range suggested for a person weighing 225-250 lbs. I believe I was on this range for at least 4 weeks before my weight started slowing down, might have been longer. Keep in mind, 28 points averages to around 1400 calories a day, which many other diets recommend as a starting guide. This allows for moderate weight loss without feeling too deprived. Of course, with the additional bonus points it was actually higher than that. I was lucky enough to be able to lose some on that higher range.
Once my weight loss started slowing I then dropped to the next points range which was 26 daily points plus the 35 bonus points. I kept going lower when my weight started to slow or stop. It’s too bad I can’t remember how low I had to go before reaching goal.
I Reached Goal Without Paying A Dime
I found all kinds of free resources online so didn’t have to purchase anything. I’ll post free WW resources later. I got all my motivation from the free forums. You can get any questions answered just by reading through these forums and if you can’t find an answer then join and post your question. It is forum etiquette that you try to find the answer first - all good forums have a search feature.
So Why Am I Still Dieting?
My memory is fuzzy but I don’t think I was able to maintain for very long after using The Flex Plan. I don’t know if it was the back going out again or what. So soon after I started gaining I went full fledged Weight Watchers.
