Weight Watchers for weight loss?

Weight Watchers for weight loss?
By Chris Walker Fitness Professional
100% Hardcore Truth

Weight Watchers has been around for a long time, they use a point system that teaches you how to make good food choices. Weight Watchers has a few good things going, they encourage, about six meals at regular intervals. They encourage good food combinations, lean proteins, starchy carbohydrates and fibrous carbohydrates but when you break it all down behind all the points it's still calorie deprivation. The women involved in Weight Watchers still return time and again to gather around the scale to see if they lost any weight. They offer each other moral support and celebrate the loss of a few pounds. I haven't seen Weight Watchers to be a permanent solution for weight loss, in fact if you visit the what's new section of my website you'll find a settlement document from FTC regarding Weight Watchers and fraudulent claims. You know, I disagree with the whole point system and here's why. I counseled this lady on nutrition and I was trying to educate her on food and making good choices but all she kept on talking about are theses points. She was unable to make good food choices without her reference to points. She didn't really understand what she was doing when it came to eating. She didn't understand how to combine a simple meal without the point system she was somewhat dependant on Weight Watchers.....hmmm does the giant weight loss chain foster an environment of dependency. I don't think Weight Watchers is all that bad, meaning I don't cringe in my seat when someone says I'm on the Weight Watchers program. I just fail to see Weight Watchers as a permanent weight loss solution. Calorie deprivation leads to a slowed metabolism and a slowed metabolism perpetuates weight gain. If you participated in the Weight Watchers program and managed to keep the weight off, fantastic, but the only thing that will bring permanent weight loss is synergy. Good nutrition, a concern for muscle and a moderate amount of aerobics.

Weight Watchers history

Back 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. Today, that group of friends has grown to millions of women and men around the world who use the products and services of Weight Watchers to lose unwanted pounds. Weight Watchers has been around for over 40 years. In the early Weight Watchers program the diet was marketed as a lifestyle change claiming that you can eat anything, proteins, fats, carbohydrates, sugar, as long as you follow the point system although it was still calorie deprivation it wasn't as drastic as other diets. The new Weight Watchers program has since modified their approach, perhaps making it a little better but dieters participating in the program still fail to see a permanent pay off.

The Point System

To understand the point system let's first look at the origin of the point system. When Weight Watchers first began it created an "exchange" system you were allotted a certain number of fruit exchange, a certain number of bread exchange and so on per day. The exchanges were based on portion control that limited the amount of calories one ingested daily. The program still encouraged you to eat real food. The Weight Watchers program grew in popularity and they decided to introduce weight watchers foods to increase profit margins. Now you were paying for support as well as food. The exchange system allowed for snacking as well as long as you met the daily exchange requirement. The exchange system has since been replaced with "points", the same concept. Every food item is now given a certain number of points based on it's protein, fat, fiber content and so on. There are different programs you can choose from within the point system, so you can choose which point system will work for you.

Conclusion

Weight Watchers sees approximately 600,000 people per week, that being said if this was a permanent weight loss solution we would have seen a dent in our obesity percentage. The fact of the matter is the premise of Weight Watchers is still based on calorie restriction, which leads to a slowed metabolism. Weight Watchers may have helped some people but the majority of it's customers are repeat business. People who blamed themselves because they felt they couldn't stick to the diet, but nobody can stick to a deprivation diet because your body is intelligent and will force you to eat food for it's survival. Like I said before I don't cringe at the mention of Weight Watchers but I'm failing to see their point system as a long term solution. The only solution Ladies and gentlemen is synergy.