WeightWatchers

As with many women I am no stranger to dietary regimes aimed at losing weight.  At one point in my life I lost 25% of my body weight.  Mainly through willpower, with a little help from a site called WeightLossResources.co.uk  That was an excellent site based on calorie counting.  The best part of the site was the forum community.  Always happy to help and great for tips to help you along.  The second best part was their insistence that you could not go down to silly levels of restriction on what you ate.  Unfortunately sticking to a safe level, without enough exercise was my downfall.  I'm very short and that means a smaller amount calories for me than most.  I couldn't lose more than a tiny amount per week without going beyond their 'safe levels'.  There was no accounting for height.

A couple of months ago I bumped into a friend I hadn't seen for a while.  I never thought she had weight to lose in the first place.  Apparently though she'd lost 1 1/2 stone.  As a group we were chatting about it and she'd done it online with WeightWatchers.  I liked the online idea but the WeightWatchers bit put me off.  Further into the discussion I learned that it had changed.  The 'points system' had been revolutionised.  Towards healthier eating rather than just restrictions.  The best bit I heard was that you could eat as much fruit and veg as you wanted.

I went home and looked it up.  Various newspaper reports gave their take on it.  Apparently the 'points' are now calculated differently.  Rather than just taking into account the calories, fat, etc they look at how your body digests the type of food group you're consuming.  The new version of Points is ProPoints.  It seems to me to be geared against Carb's as well as fat.  Bread, potatoes, etc seem quite high in ProPoints.  That means I just eat less bread at one sitting.  Apparently under the old system a Banana was the same points value as a Curly Wurly.  Guess what, this meant people picked the Curly Wurly.  Now a banana has no ProPoints value, it's free.

I've found I can still eat what I want.  Just a little less.  Portion control has been key.  With much less sugary snacks in my life.  The best bit is I can eat enough to still have the energy to go running.  Running is the only exercise I've found that gives back a fair number of ProPoints.  It's a good job it's my main exercise!  I am eating loads more fruit & veg.  Obviously you can't eat fruit all day long and not expect it to have an effect.  I'm eating a fair amount though on top of my ProPoints allowance and I'm still losing.  I'll always be wary of too many bananas.  I save them for a post run snack.

For the first couple of weeks I was getting to know the programme.  I had a few misjudgements on portion size and the like.  It's an easy system to use though.  There's a great App that means I'm never in the dark about what I'm eating if I've got 3G or wi-fi.  There are restaurant guides to average points for if you're eating out.  Overall I'm impressed.  I haven't spent any time on the forums really.  They seem quite new and I'm not feeling the need to chat with others.  They are there though and people are helping each other out.  I think that side of things will grow quite a bit.

Weeks two and three I had the opposite problem.  I'd found enough food low in ProPoints to ensure I never never reached my allotted amount.  I wasn't eating enough.  So I went out and bought some nice snacks to fill the gaps.  I think now I have it sussed.

I get 29 ProPoints a day that I cannot 'rollover' from one day to the next.  On top of that I have 49 weekly ProPoints for use whenever I feel like a treat or if I go out for a meal.  When I run, I get more ProPoints that can be rolled over.  Running is great for wine enabling ProPoints :-)

In the six weeks I've stuck to the plan my skin's improved and I've lost 7lbs.  Before I started the plan I was running but eating more than I'd earnt in compensation.  The Structure of this and the focus on healthy and filling foods has given just what I need to get healthy.  Without miserably starving myself for a fortnight, then splurging only to try again a month later.  This is by far the healthiest, most sensible of the big name diet plans I've seen.  Hopefully more will push towards this kind of lifestyle rather than limiting your food groups or starving yourself.

I'm hoping to use this to get me to a healthy weight and keep me there.  I'm too old to keep promising myself I'll get on it tomorrow.