Weight Watchers (Points) v. Lose It!

As promised, here's my personal (opinion) review of the original Weight Watchers Points system vs. the Lose It! website.  Basically, I'll give you a quick explanation of what each are, why I chose them to lose weight, and what my, personal results were.  I thought it was interesting and wanted to share.

Ok, so here's the story.  A quick, not-to-detailed description of me.  I've been an overweight person basically since I was about 4 or 5.  I did WW in 7th grade, but it didn't really stick.  I gained what I lost, sadly.  In HS, I lost about 10 pounds my senior year, due to school, play practice, and working at a local retail store at the holidays.  It was college that killed me.  I gained 35 pounds.  It was not pretty.  I hit up Weight Watchers and lost about 25 of the 35 pounds (1999).  Then I gave eDiets a try (2000-2001) as I lost weight for my wedding.  Over the next 10 years, I gained weight, lost weight, gained weight, lost weight, gained weight and am now on the downward cycle of it all.  I tried the PointsPlus system that was released in December, but after the three month package I had ran out, I didn't have the funding to keep it going.  I tried to stick to the old program for the next few months, with limited success.  Then in mid-June I found Lose It!  Rather than giving all foods a point value, I just counted calories.  I in-put the calories I ate at each meal and snack and tracked my exercise.  I thought it was a great way to jump-start my weight loss efforts as I was a tad bit tired of the WW system.  I'll let you know what I thought about it below.  :-)

Weight Watchers Points

From weightwatchers.com,"In the early 60's, Weight Watchers founder Jean Nidetch began inviting friends into her Queens home once a week, to discuss how best to lose weight. Weight Watchers has always believed that dieting is just one part of long-term weight management. A healthy body results from a healthy lifestyle - which means mental, emotional and physical health. Weight Watchers does not tell you what you can or can't eat. We provide information, knowledge, tools and motivation to help you make the decisions that are right for you about nutrition and exercise. We help you to make healthy eating decisions, and we encourage you to enjoy yourself by becoming more active. To provide motivation, mutual support, encouragement and instruction from our leaders."

Originally, the program I joined had you checking off boxes for basically the food pyramid basics.  You had boxes for 2 proteins, 5 fruits/vegetables, 8 waters, etc.  You had some flexibility with extra calories for splurges, but the idea was to follow the food pyramid.  In 1997, responding to changes in the weight loss industry, WW introduced the 1-2-3 Success program, which was the first to assign a points value to foods.  No longer were you concentrating on calories, but you were given a range of "points" you could have during the day.  The new members book listed the most common foods and you were given a Points Finder for checking the points value on the foods you bought. Points values were based on comparing calories, fat, and fiber. In 2010, Weight Watchers revamped their program again, renaming 1-2-3 Success (which most people referred to as Points) as PointsPlus.  This program added considering protein and carbohydrates to the equation, with the idea that a more rounded consideration made for a better idea of what you were taking in.  It also made most fruits zero points, which would encourage people to eat fruits rather than low-calorie/low-fat snacks that people had been eating. 

Why I chose Weight Watchers

When I was a kid, I had little choice.  Mom signed me up and basically made the food and kept us on tract.  Somewhere along the line, she stopped doing the program and with it, I stopped as well.  Being 12 years old doesn't give one too much control over what is eaten.

After I graduated college and wanted to lose weight, I went back to Weight Watchers.  I did so because A. I had success with it before and B. I liked that you ate real food.  I'm not a fan of the programs that are all pre-packaged and you then have to re-learn how to eat when you reach goal.  Let me work it out as I go along, choosing what foods I want to eat each week rather than eating what frozen meal comes in the mail.  When I joined in 1999, I lost 25 pounds, 10 pounds shy of losing the college 35 (I'm making up the name, but it was my "freshman 15" gone wrong).  I got a little distracted and stopped going to meetings.  I didn't gain too much back when I decided to give eDiets a try.  The reason?  Price.  I was working at a non-profit (making very little money), renting a townhouse with a friend, going to grad school, and saving/spending for a wedding.  eDiets fit my budget much better than WW did at the time.  I proceeded to lose with eDiets (before it partnered with all those other programs) and lost an additional 25ish pounds.

After the wedding, in 2001, I proceeded to gain weight (again).  I didn't gain it all back, but I did gain that 25 pounds I lost with eDiets.  So, back to WW I went.  I figured it worked before, why not try again?  I did great and lost that 25 pounds in 6 months.  Then we moved and I stopped caring.  And...I gained it back.  Ugh.  When my friend said she was getting married in Vegas, I decided I had to lose weight.  I hit WW, set a 30 pound goal, and off I went.  By the time her wedding rolled around, I lost 27 pounds.  But, after her wedding, I gained some of it back, but not as much as I usually gained.

When the program upgraded to PointsPlus, I was unsure of it.  I had heard polarizing reviews - you either LOVED it or you HATED it.  After accepting a job offer, I decided to sign up for the three month program.  I lost some weight, but I just wasn't feeling it.  When the three months expired, I no longer worked there, so I stopped.  I went back to WW Points.  I didn't lose a ton over the following few months, but I didn't really gain.

Lose It!

From the Lost It! website, "Lose It! uses proven principles of weight loss (tracking and peer support) to help people manage their weight and improve their health. Originally created for the iPhone in 2008 (and downloaded by more than 5 million people), Lose It! is now also available on the web."  Lose It! bases your weight loss efforts on an in-put of calories.  They begin the process by going through screens asking you how much you wish to lose, some personal information (height/weight/etc.), and how many pounds a week you wish to lose.  Throughout the process, the idea is to get an idea of who you are and find a plan that works for you.  When you chose how many pounds a week you want, you have several options to chose from, each one varying in the amount of calories you can have to reach your goal.

Daily, you in-put what you eat.  You can either chose from their selection of foods (which include brand names and restaurants) or create your own if you know the calorie count.  As you add food, the site subtracts the calories from your daily total, telling you how many you've consumed and how many you have left for the day.  There is also a place for you to add in exercise you do, which then gets taken into account on your calorie count. 

As you progress, you are rewarded with various badges congratulating you on your progress.  You can also see various statistics on your progress - how many days you were under calories, how many days you were over, your most common foods, most common exercises.  The statistics can be pretty darn interesting.

Why I chose Lose It!

Simple, I was bored with WW.  I know that sounds dumb, but I was.  I also saw that Lose It! was free and totally different from what I had been doing with WW.  I liked the idea of just checking the calories on something and going with that.  I'd never done that.  In all the time I had been doing varies diets, I had never just counted calories.  Strange I suppose, but there it is.  I thought it had to be simpler than WW and it was free.  So, it was new, free, different.  What the heck I thought.  See what happens.

My personal results

Alright, down to brass tacks (whatever that means!).  I noticed that in three weeks of Lose it! I lost 2 pounds. On the option page of how much a week I wanted to lose, I selected 1.5 pounds a week.  I lost 1 pound my first week (but to be fair it was only Monday through Friday, not a full week), so I figured week 2 would make up for it.  Nope.  Another 1 pound.  Then I stayed the same.  So, three weeks and 2 pounds.  I felt very disappointed.  Overall, I felt that I was under more days than over (and according to my stats page, I was under on 19 days over on 2).  I was averaging about 2,000 calories burned through exercise a week. So, I was puzzled as to why I wasn't losing as they were saying I should.

So, I decided to try comparing the WW plan with the Lose It! plan.  I wanted to see if I would run out of points (WW) before I ran out of calories (Lose It!).  I rarely use exercise points/calories to make up for food during the day, so I kept with my normal way of doing things.  What I found out was, I would run out of Points before I ran out of calories.  I would usually have between 150-300 calories left at the end of the day, after I ran out of Points.  I was perplexed.  I know a healthy weight loss per week is between 1.5-2 pounds and I had selected 1.5 pounds on Lose It! per week.  How could I get that if I had more calories left over once WW said I was done?

So, what happened?  The first week of comparison had me down 2.8 pounds.  I chose to stop eating when either WW or Lose It! ran out.  Every day, WW ran out before Lose It!  It was strange.  So, I decided to do the comparison a second week.  The loss wasn't as big as comparison week 1, but I still managed 1.2 pounds.  I was happy.  But again, I ran out of Points before I ran out of calories.  Apparently, the number of calories Lose It! said I could eat per day really wouldn't have allowed me to lose 1.5 pounds a week.

And with that, I've decided to go back to WW.  It makes sense to me to do so.  I'm not doing the PointsPlus program.  I'm sticking with the original because I have the most resources for it and I feel most comfortable using it.  I'm glad I tried something new.  I really enjoyed my two week comparison honestly.  I also discovered that I kinda like seeing how many calories I burn per workout session, so while I do count Activity Points, I also write down how many actual calories I burn.  Week 1 I didn't keep track, but last week I did.  I earned 25 Activity Points and burned 3,236 calories.  :-)  Working on Week 3, keeping track of Points and Calories - 20 points and 2,572 calories. 

I don't know how helpful this is to you, but I thought it an interesting experiment and since this is my little spot on the net, I decided to share.  :-)