Weightwatchers - does it work?

There is a good recipe site for WW inspired recipes that don't have anything to do with processed foods:

www.skinnytaste.com

I use some of those recipes, even though I don't do WW.

Could have just been my meetings?  Entirely possible.  In the US, there was less of a push on the products, but the UK meetings I felt like they talked about the snack food a lot.

That said, they were happy to talk about the old Core plan as well, and good recipes.

Could have just been my meetings?  Entirely possible.  In the US, there was less of a push on the products, but the UK meetings I felt like they talked about the snack food a lot.

I think it depends on the group leader. I've had bad ones (i.e., those who push 'fake' food) in both countries, and good ones (i.e., ones who stress eating 'real' food) in both countries.

I have looked into that Sparkpeople and I might try that since its free.

I can look back and see that I have had bad eating habits...and most of it I attribute to boredom or emotional stress...but no more!  For excercise I plan on the elipptical 45 mints every other day then the other days bike around the block (roughly 3 miles) to break thigns up a bit.  That HAS to do something if im eating healthy.

I think it depends on the group leader. I've had bad ones (i.e., those who push 'fake' food) in both countries, and good ones (i.e., ones who stress eating 'real' food) in both countries.

Could be.  I found in the Slimmingworld meetings and the WW meetings here, there was more product push, but again, could have just been my meetings.

Do the leaders or centers get a bonus for the amount of product they sell I wonder?

Come to think of it I did have one leader one time in Atlanta do nothing but talk about ready made foods and fast food. 

I go to meetings right next to a Fresh Market, live in a city dedicated to local food and farmer's markets and it's a "healthy" place so..that might make a huge difference.

Maybe?  I imagine there has to be some bonus incentive to get the stuff sold, otherwise why bother mentioning it? 

In the US, one didn't hawk the food nearly as much as she did the measuring spoons, randomly!  Meanwhile, that's something you can very easily get at the supermarket - 2 blocks away! 

I did like the smoothie mix, though. 

Do the leaders or centers get a bonus for the amount of product they sell I wonder?

I don't know, but my favourite group leader (who retired, much to my dismay) was in the UK. She loved to cook and would get really cross at people who ate ready meals! She used to do cooking demos for us, and she used real everything - right down to butter instead of marge.

Another free online suggestion- myfitnesspal.com. There are actually a couple of UKYers (besides me, I mean) on there. Someone on here showed it to me. I think it's easier to use than sparkpeople. It remembers stuff you input better and is just over all easier to navigate. I never got those points we were getting for doing stuff on sparkpeople. There's also an iphone and android app to use along with the site. All free. I've lost 8lbs on there since the beginning of the summer.

First time on WW (in UK) was huge success. I almost couldn't stop losing weight! Then had to join again in US and it was harder (maybe because of program change). 3rd time (in US) was hopeless -- just kept gaining and losing the same 3 lbs!
The trouble is that stuff happens and it is hard to keep it up when your life is going crazy.

I did ok with WW for a while. I just got so tired of keeping track of the points. When I first did the meetings, I was in Uni town and loads of girls were there using the points system to allow themselves to drink more but not gain weight. My second experience with a meeting, un in Kendal, was a leader who talked the first half of the meeting about what a portion of oatmeal (porridge) should look like and the second half about different ways to make water palatable. More .

Since then, I've used the points charts and books to try to regulate my portions at home but now I'm looking at other things like Michael Pollan and Geneen Roth.

Yeah, I meant to say- I tried WW once. It was  WW at work program with a few local schools and it met way early in the morning before school at another school (so I would get caught in traffic to work after and often had to leave early to get to work on time.) They pimped products every time, spent the first half weighing everyone in and then sort of discussing who lost what after that for the second half. Boring and not much help. I don't think I lost more than a pound or two. I found the points were way too low to keep up with me running, etc.

I found the points were way too low to keep up with me running, etc.

I don't know about the US plan, but the UK plan gives you more points based on how much exercise you do. So if you were running a lot, you should have earned a ton of extra points!

Another free online suggestion- myfitnesspal.com. There are actually a couple of UKYers (besides me, I mean) on there. Someone on here showed it to me. I think it's easier to use than sparkpeople. It remembers stuff you input better and is just over all easier to navigate. I never got those points we were getting for doing stuff on sparkpeople. There's also an iphone and android app to use along with the site. All free. I've lost 8lbs on there since the beginning of the summer.

I don't worry about the points on Spark People, I don't even care about that. I haven't had any troubles with it, but mainly I like it for the recipe calculator, which I use a lot. Does myfitnesspal.com have a recipe calculator? On Spark People, you just put in all of the ingredients and how much, etc., then you can divide that by the number of portions to figure out the nutritional info for each serving. But I'd be willing to try another site if it had a way to do that.

I signed up for Spark People a month or two ago, but I found the appearance & features of the website just too busy & visually overwhelming.  Haven't been back since.

When I was around 24-25, I was nearly at my goal weight using Weight Watchers (attending meetings) - but I finally got just too stressed & obsessed with counting points (called 'exchanges' back then in the olden days), worrying about my next meal & my next & my next, etc to the point it seemed that thinking about food was taking over my whole life.  I mean I always liked my food before that, but I wasn't thinking about food all the time when I wasn't doing Weight Watchers.  So I stopped.

Then life happened, and I gained it all back.