Weight Watchers: My Thoughts Part 2
In Part 1, I addressed bigger picture issues with Weight Watchers. My main argument was that it doesn’t matter if you have a nice support structure and it doesn’t matter if you believe in sensible eating and exercise. If your foundational beliefs about nutrition are misguided and if you do not provide adequate information on resistance training, you are merely building a house on the sand. When hard times come, or when you stop your program, the house you built is washed away.
In this post, I will deal more with specific issues I have with Weight Watchers.
Weight Watchers lists their acceptable macronutrient ranges for adults as follows:
Protein: 10-35% Fat: 20-35% Carbohydrate: 45-65% [1]
An overweight person may acceptably have 65% of their diet coming from carbohydrates? Remember a certain amount of fats are needed for hormonal function, vitamin absorption, building cells, etc. Even if we give our hypothetical 65% carbohydrate client just 20% fat, that only leaves 15% of calories from protein. Keep in mind this is for a calorically restricted diet. 15% of your calories from protein is not going to be enough. Now I realize that they suggest up to 35% for protein, and that is good. However, you will likely not find many people eating that much protein if they think it’s normal or acceptable to get 65% of your calories from carbohydrates.
Let’s use me as an example. I weigh about 175 currently, very light for me. Based on Weight Watchers point calculators [2] I received 37 points for the day. Adding in the 7 flex points you get on the plan, I have a daily maximum of 44 points. Based on averages I gathered from a few sites [3 and 4], this allows me about 2200 calories based on an average of 50 calories per point. Will I lose weight? Sure will. I currently have been losing weight consuming about 2800 calories. Using the percentages that Weight Watchers allows, let’s say I am at 65% carbs, 20% fat and 15% protein. I could end up having 330 calories from protein, or a measly 83 grams! That will not be enough to help me stay full or to maintain my muscle. I will be losing muscle and wondering why I feel weak and why my metabolism is slowing down so much. Someone my size who is engaging in resistance training should be eating double that much protein.
To further make things confusing, Weight Watchers has a list of foods which are zero points [5]. Some of these foods I have no issue with. Please eat lots of blueberries, broccoli, celery and spinach. However, I do not think you should be consuming endless apples, bananas, diet soda, grapes, ketchup, or mangoes. At first the list appears to be simply fruits and vegetables. But as you look closer, you see weird things on the list like diet soda, ketchup, steak sauce, and ice pops. I cannot get on board with those items being zero points.
I mentioned in the beginning that the founder recommended exercise as part of your overall routine. How does Weight Watchers incorporate that now? If you are part of the program, you will receive a personalized activity goal and an app to help remind you to move and track your activity. Being reminded to get up and move is a good thing, having no direction of what to do in terms of exercise is not. You will likely need some direction to learn how to train optimally.
You will also receive FitPoints. As you are more active, you will be able to eat more with your additional points for the day. Sure, I agree with the idea of eating more if you are active but two things concern me. One, I worry that it creates the mind set of “I earned this.” That is an unhealthy relationship with food. Food is not meant to be a reward system for good behavior. It is not a big leap from “I earned this” to the “I deserve this” attitude after a stressful day. Two, the amount you are eating should be goal dependent. If your goal is fat loss, then generally, you are increasing activity in an attempt to burn extra calories. Why would you then proceed to eat extra calories for all of the calories you just burned? It seems a bit like being in a hamster wheel. You are going nowhere fast.
However, in light of how low in actual calories most Weight Watchers diets will end up, I do want people to eat the extra calories on their active days. In fact, I’d probably want them to eat more on their off days too, that’s how low the caloric recommendations are.
Weight Watchers does not require its participants to use their packaged food products which is good, because it should be noted that that quality of their food is questionable. Their food contains corn syrup, aspartame, canola oil, hydrogenated oils, added sugar, MSG and other things [6]. Why is this acceptable? I go days without eating these ingredients. They simply should not be a regular part of anyone’s diet, let alone part of a program that claims to be about healthier living. The list of ingredients on the foods I consume is often one. Eggs, grass fed beef, rice, etc. I attempt to choose foods as close to their natural state as possible. Why, if the goal is to lose weight, would you be adding corn syrup and extra sugar to your products? I understand Weight Watchers wants the food to taste good, but people must get used to foods that are not sweet if they are ever to get a grip on their sweet tooth.
What do you pay for this? You will pay about $55 per month as a base rate [7] for personal coaching plus online support and as far as I could tell, this does not include an exercise plan. $55 to receive misguided, although likely well intentioned, advice. $55 that will leave you without any clue on how to resistance train.
Want someone to help you try to understand why you gained weight, who cares about more than just the number on the scale, who will help you understand nutrition and try to build new healthy habits, and who will provide you with a personalized training plan? Contact me.
http://www.weightwatchers.com/util/art/index_art.aspx?tabnum=1&art_id=20921
http://gnomes22.tripod.com/dailypptarget.html
http://grossgetsfit.com/why-im-quitting-weight-watchers/
http://www.sparkpeople.com/mypage_public_journal_individual.asp?blog_id=6072821
https://www.weightwatchers.com/util/art/index_art.aspx?tabnum=1&art_id=59781
http://www.businessinsider.com/oprah-cant-save-weight-watchers-2015-10
https://www.weightwatchers.com/us/new-weight-watchers-personal-coaching-offering
