Weight Watchers new program

August 22, 2004 · Comments

It’s August 22nd and I can officially talk about it without worrying about losing my job!

“Weight Watchers”:http://www.weightwatchers.com new program, named “Turnaround™” was introduced today. If you follow these things, you may read that Weight Watchers is caving into the carb-free craze. That was my first reaction too when they told us about it last Spring. To be honest, I didn’t even try the new food plan until mid-June. I’ve been following it ever since and I have to be honest…in the 3.5 years since I reached goal weight this is the easiest it has ever been to maintain the loss.

In short, Weight Watchers now has two food plans to choose from. They have found that there are two types of dieters…the “counters” and the “cutters.” Weight Watchers has always been for the counters. You wrote down every bite you put in your mouth and when you were out of whatever allotment you were given of whatever food (or points) then you couldn’t eat any more. Weight Watchers used to have a limited food list but over the past few years, no food was taboo as long as it was measured and counted. That worked for a lot of people (myself included) but there are some that just can’t work in the tracking portion of the plan into their lives.

Then came the carb craze. Despite what you may hear or think, Weight Watchers is *not* getting on with the fad. But at its essence, there are parts of the Atkins and South Beach diets that Weight Watchers believes makes sense. The foods advocated by both programs are good, wholesome foods lacking added sugar and processed ingredients. Atkins didn’t think of low-carb donuts and ice cream when he wrote the book, I’m sure.

The new WW program gives you a choice of two food plans. One is the old Flex plan where you have a certain allotment of points to eat per day and you can eat any food or combination of food to get to that total. The new plan, for the “cutters”, is called the “Core Plan.” You can eat from a limited food list of wholesome, basic, low-fat foods but there is no stated limited on quantity. That doesn’t mean that you can sit down and have 30 fat-free yogurts at a sitting. Food still has calories and calories still make you gain weight. Period. But I didn’t get fat eating 10 oz. of plain fish for dinner instead of 6 oz. I didn’t get fat eating an extra apple for snack. The key isn’t that you can eat as much as you want, you can eat as much as you need to feel satisfied. Take a smaller portion to start, and when you’re done with it and if you’re still genuinely hungry, take a little more. Aim to feel satisfied, but not stuffed. If you want something that’s not on the core list, or contains even a single ingredient not on the core list, then you have to count its points towards your weekly allotment of 35 points. I like having 2 or 3 points worth of light ice cream after dinner so that’s a given for me. Bread is not on the core list, but you can have it if you count the points. Healthy carbs like fruit, whole-wheat pasta, brown rice, potatoes and couscous are on the core list (although some items are limited to once per day).

If you’re going on vacation or feel that there’s a week here or there that the core plan won’t work, then switch to the flex plan for that week. Or stick with the flex plan and try the core plan here and there. Whatever works best for your lifestyle along with some sort of activity.

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