weight watchers

[ZGzaZ]

hey ladies, my best friend's girlfriend and i are having a fight about her diet...shes on the weight watchers diet, where a point value is for each food and you have a certain # of points to spend in a day. I dont feel like on that diet you get enough food to lose FAT...sure you'll lose weight, as you will with any calorie deficient program....but im talking FAT....she does cardio 4-5 times a week, and thus would need more food. What kinds of things would you tell her? or do you agree with the diet?

 

[makedah]

I hope I don't sound nasty, but why are you and someone else arguing about what SHE eats? Has this woman asked you for advice?

I don't know how many points she gets and how that translates into calories, but folks on WW also get "activity points." This means that if they do a certain amount of exercise, they get more points. I don't know the details of the system.

I wouldn't tell her anything unless she asked for my input. And if she disagreed with what I had to say, then I would let her go on her merry way.

 

[Sassy69]

The relevant question (given that you want to take the time to argue it) is what is her total intake of macrnutrients and is it sufficient to allow her to lose fat, maintain muscle and not just dump some water weight or generally waste away. Also does she have any plans to weight lift in addition to the cardio?

For some people, the organized environment of WW or other diets is what they need to even accomplish a crappy diet. You might suggest she take a look at the BFL book & see if any of it makes any sense to her. The concept of "diet" to the avg person basically maps directly to such "packages" as WW, Jenny Craig, Atkins, etc. But they still miss the whole "lifestyle" concept.

 

[ZGzaZ]

makedah, its a friendly arguement...you dont have to respond to my post, i was just asking for some advice as to what you'd tell a person in her situation.

sassy69 - exactly, I asked her what shes eaten in the past few days, and as far as protein ... shes taken in around 25-30g's a day...not very much to maintain what muscle she has...she doesnt have plans to lift in addition to cardio, but is a very active person with sports and whatnot. Thanks for your input.

 

[circusgirl]

WW is starvation. 20 points a day is about 1000cals. Before I started lifting I did this diet for 3 weeks and I felt like I was going to die, I felt so bad. I'm talking sleeping 14 hours a day...

the activity points are not enough to counterbalance the lack of cals.

WW is designed for people who are obese as a reault of being inactive and crappy diet. It aims to teach people to eat less, and to eat a reasonably healthy diet as defined by the surgeon general.

It works for people who have lots of fat to lose, don't care so much about muscle, and who have been sedentary. It is not, imho, suitable for someone who is quite active, has been active, has lots of muscle or cares about sporting performance/bodybuilding.

The general idea is you eat 1000cals a day below maintenance. To lose 2lbs a week. If you are obese to begin with, most of that will be fat. Alos, if you haven't exercised before, probably the kickstart of doing something will help you hold on to some muscle.

If the woman in question fits the profile of the WW target customer, she'd do well to stay on it (especially for learning to eat healthily, we have a much higher standard of "clean eating" on here, but you have to start somewhere). If she lifts and wants to BB, then.... BFL maybe?

 

[ZGzaZ]

exactly, thank you. The calories are VERY VERY low...and she doesnt quite fit the description, shes about 125lbs, 19-21%BF...I'm just trying to get her some opinions of some fit ladies, because she seems to think that only guys should eat moderate to a lot..

 

[Sassy69]

How about tell her she doesn't need to "lose weight", she needs to learn how to optimize what she's got & she can get a lot better results by takign a better look at her diet & training from a lifestyle standpoint instead of from a "fad diet" standpoint. If she's already very active in sports, you can further tell her that a better lifestyle-oriented diet & training regimen will help improve her body for her sports. If she's being starved she's probably noticing that she has no energy and her sports activities are suffering for it. She really doesn't have to lose fat - she needs to build muscles so the body she has looks better - not like skin hanging on a skeleton (i.e. "skinny fat"). I think people suffer when the get into the commercial definition of a "diet", which completely separates the whole food - body - activity - quality f life interaction into just "food". That whole concept is such a mind fuck its sick.

I had a brief experience w/ WW about 15 yrs ago - my company was sponsoring a local WW group in our building, so I went. I have generally always had an extra 10 lbs on me that would never go away even though I had been training & loved to lift. Never quite got the idea behind the diet - training relationship. So I sat through a couple of these meetings which basically amounted to a bunch of fat women sitting around bitching about what they wish they could eat. Then it occurred to me that I'd much rather spend that time inthe gym across the street. THAT is my problem w/ WW - if its supposed to educate you on nutrition, it fails miserably if it doesn't tie it into a healthy, active lifestyle.

Thus you've been brain fucked.

 

[ZGzaZ]

I appreciate your responses, I mentioned that she weighs 125, shes very short though 5'1 - 5'2 so shes not like a skel like ya said...she looks fine, but im sure like lots of women has a little bit of stomach fat or arm fat they would like to get rid of, and i dont feel this kind of diet is right for that...i see her losing muscle, and retaining her fat and looking like a little smaller version of herself.

 

[Scarlett33]

ZGaZ,

Hi, a good friend of mine has lost 80 lbs on WW since October. Nothing I say will ever convince her that it is not the best diet in the world. She walks 30 min every day and thinks this is a very hard core work-out. I am tempted to tell her that wt lifting and a clean diet will be much better for her, but some people will never believe that wt lifting will give you a beautiful body, not "manly muscles." I say don't waste your breath. I have found that when women ask me what I do, diet and exercise wise, when I start talking wt. training they lose interest real fast. Having said all this, I totally know where you are coming from : )

 

[flexygrl]

Here's my take. I lost 20 pounds on WW. Yes, the 18-23 range is tough, but you can make some very good choices with it. If you do cardio, it can boost up your points by one for every 100 calories burned. If she insists on doing WW, send her this link.

http://healthdiscovery.net/

It's a discussion board, called bootcamp buddies, for the die hard weight watchers. It is very helpful and everything that you asked in your question is covered by this board.

Now, there is another spin to this as well. Two ladies who were doing WW's and who worked out noticed that the more they worked out, the slower they lost weight. So they developed their own plans based around weight watchers.

One is called the wendy plan, and one is called the C.J. Plan.

The CJ plan is for people who really, really work out. It gives you plenty of points to play with, but you have to earn them, hence it forces you to work out.


Some people need structure in order to lose weight. I did. I went from WW's to feeling completely loss to doing CKD. I am one of the ones who needs a map. For me everything has to be black and white.

Anyway, get her on that board if she wants to stick with WW's. A true WW knows that you need a balanced diet. Yes, you get 18-23 points but you should use those points for lots of protein and other good things that your body needs. The ladies on that board know their stuff and they will help her out. Then when she's graduated, like me, send her here!

Wish her luck!