In one cornerrrrr... calorie counting! And in the other cornerrrrr Points Plus. It'll be quite a showdown!
First off, as I shared in my previous post I counted points plus for years and have a sentimental attachment to the program. Please remember that I did not follow the plan 100% because I never really aimed for all of the healthy guidelines. I don't believe that sticking to the guidelines helps you at all with your weight loss. Or at least I don't believe in including 2 tsp of healthy oil into my diet everyday will. But there are other benefits to that, but I digress.
I believe that Points Plus is absolutely great when you are first starting out on your weight loss journey and you do not want to restrict yourself. There are two types of programs they offer with your membership of around $20 a months plus the initiation fee, if it's applicable at the start of your journey with them. The first in the much beloved points program in which you use points to track your food. The points are based on fat, carbohydrates, fiber, and protein. You can eat as many fruits and vegetables as you wish. You are required to fit into your points 2-3 servings of dairy depending on weight, age, and whether or not you are breastfeeding, 5-8 servings of fruits and veggies, 2 teaspoons of healthy oil, a multivitamin, and at least 30 minutes of exercise per day. It seems a little demanding. On the lowest points you can be given (I believe it's 27 now), 6 of those points would have to go towards healthy guidelines leaving you with 21 daily points and your 49 weekly points. The points sound reasonable until you realize that a Whopper Jr is 8 points and you can forget about the fries unless you want to dip into your weekly points.
The weekly points are another troubling thing. Understand that 1200 calories is the lowest someone should keep their calories. However just because your points are kept at 27 doesn't mean your sticking to 1200 calories. Several times I have tracked both points and calories. Very rarely do they come out the same. I usually eat less than the amount of points that I am given when following a 1200 calorie intake. So this leaves to question about the 49 weekly points you are given. I've never spend my whole allowance, but most people recommend that you eat all of your points, even the ones that you earn through exercise. Wouldn't this be more like a maintain?
Their second program is a lot more reasonable. You eat as much as you want off the list of power foods which includes your 2 teaspoons of oil with not point cost. You receive 7 additional points a day in order to eat items that are not included on the power foods list PLUS 49 weekly points. This is more reasonable, but if you have trouble with portion control this could be a disastrous.
Even though Weight Watchers has developed a fabulous program that is easy to follow, most claim that weight loss is a simple equation of calories in and calories out. The process is simple. Either using a calorie counting app on your phone/computer or writing your food intake down on paper you add everything you ate up and subtract that with the calories you expand during exercise to get your net calories. There are many places of the web that can help you count calories. Many people enjoy using MyFitnessPal(MFP), but there is also FitDay and Sparkpeople just to name a few, They do the math for you so you don't have to. By far I believe that MFP has one of the best food databases out there surpassing the Weight Watchers database, which is controlled by them. Users can add their own food which can sometimes get confusing because of those foods being custom. For example, you'll see a Whopper Jr. then you'll see another Whopper Jr. that is lower in calories than the first. In this case the user probably opted out of the mayo. Your calories burned during exercise is also calculated for you, but it doesn't take into consideration if you were to walk up a hill (this is also a issue with WW). However, it is always good to bear in mind that any calories that you track are an estimation at best. This is not just because companies can be about 20% higher or lower in the calories they claim, but because the technology to really determine calories is not there yet.
The amount of calories that you can consume is based on your height, age, activity level, gender, and how much weight you need to loss. Weight Watchers uses the sort of the same formula but bases it on age, gender, height, and weight. The least anyone should eat, as mentioned before, is 1200 calories.
Even though Weight Watchers is very flexible and allows you to eat anything as long as you stay with in your points, you often find yourself very restricted because of how they factor in each macro-nutrient. A serving of almonds becomes 5 points instead of 160 calories. So if you are eating 27 points a day 5 points is a lot to spend on almond which are full of good fat and minerals. But a 150 calorie piece of fruit which is high in sugar (like bananas or mango) become free. In calorie counting and calorie is a calorie and it's up to you to choose the right thing to eat. Somehow I feel less restriction with calorie counting than I did with Weight Watchers probably because eating fast food is demonized by many of the followers. I'll get into this topic with another post but not all fast food is bad. If you can fit it within your calories you can eat it even if you have to walk 30 minutes to help burn some of the calories.
To make this a fair fight, keep in mind that I've lost 100 lbs following Weight Watchers. But by following Weight Watcher for so long you learn how to cheat the system. When you're weighing out peanut butter 14 grams is 2 points while 15 grams is 3. An ounce of cheese is 3 pts but half an ounce is 1. This is the dark side that to be successful you should never know about.
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