Weight Watchers Works for Me – My Weight Loss Journey

People following the Weight Watchers plan can expect to lose 1-2 pounds per week.

So earlier this summer, I was asked to review Weight Watchers’ new 360° program.

I had used Weight Watchers Online 11 years ago to lose 30 pounds, so I knew the program worked for me.  Right now I don’t have a lot of weight to lose, when I started the review, I was about five pounds heavier than my goal weight was back in 2002, and I wanted to get back to that.  Back then I used the online program because I just didn’t have the time to go to weekly meetings.  Now the online program was perfect again because during the three month stretch I was using it as part of the review, we were moving.  But I still wanted a method of accountability to track what I was putting in my mouth and how much I was exercising.

I started this latest journey back in mid-June, and while the Weight Watchers program has changed a bit from the way I counted points the first time I used it, it didn’t take me long to learn the differences and be able to calculate the foods that weren’t in their database.  Using the online tools to track my daily food intake is effortless and efficient.

I can also track my exercise, which can speed up the weight loss or if I’m hungry I can eat a bit of extra food with the ‘points’ I earn .

To be honest, following the Weight Watchers 360° program doesn’t feel like “dieting”, and that’s really the whole point.  Weight Watchers teaches you how to eat.  There are no forbidden foods, so if you want to go out for ice cream on a Saturday night you just budget points for it.  From your weekly allotment or from extra exercising.  You soon begin to realize that you feel more satiated and healthier when you eat lower point natural foods than when you eat junk, but it’s okay to give into your cravings once in a while and indulge a bit too.

I’ve admittedly had a hard time in completely following that bit of advice above.  Because of our move and eating out a lot when we were between residences, a pile of stress over our home closing and some other unforeseen incidences with the home we purchased, I didn’t make the smartest food choices every day.  But the last few weeks I’ve gotten back on track and have stuck to the daily points on a more consistent schedule.

I’m down a total of 1 1/2 pounds since I started.  That’s slow weight loss, but it’s loss none the less.  I know it would have been more if I wouldn’t have stumbled in July/August when we moved.

This is why I like Weight Watchers and why it has worked for me:

Seeing progress:  My goal weight when I did Weight Watchers 11 years ago was 30 pounds less than what I weighed then.  It seemed almost unattainable.  Yet every week when I logged my weight I could see the loss visually on my tracking chart.  Mentally that helps even when the line is moving slowly.  Now it’s moving even slower, but every little dip down shows me that it’s worth it.

Accountability: If I don’t track my food, I eat poorly.  When I’m not logging I either under eat or over eat.   Neither one is good for healthy weight loss.

Points:  Some people like to track calories, and that’s okay, but there’s more to gaining or losing weight than calories.  Fat, protein, fiber all have a place in the grand scheme of things and when you’re making a recipe or eating a food that isn’t in the Weight Watchers database, with their calculator you can easily see how many points it is before you put it in your mouth.

I’ll continue to use Weight Watchers as my go to method for losing weight.  It’s a forgiving enough program that if you fall off the wagon, it’s easy to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start fresh again.    It gives me the encouragement and accountability I need to lose weight in a healthy way and it’s affordable too, as you only pay for the monthly online access that gives you a lot of resources besides the ones I’ve mentioned.  There are no special foods to buy or fancy gym memberships to purchase.

Have you ever used or considered Weight Watchers as a program to lose weight?