You are going to end up very fat if you follow the weight watchers diet - here's why

Hi everyone,

Yesterday I skipped the weight watchers meeting. It's not the first time that I skip this meeting. After starting to follow the nutritarian diet I no longer feel the need to know what my weight is. When asked in weight watchers about my diet I always said that it's about healthy stuff - I don't care much about the weight. Actually I am losing weight too fast!! In fact I wish I could be healthy without losing my weight so fast!!!

I am also sort of 'helping' a friend and on a weekly basis we weigh our self. It's not for me - I don't care about my weight. I am in a total different league - I care about my health. I care about my glucose level way more than I care about my weight. I care about my longevity and stress level. So when he whats-apps me and tells me that this week he won't come to the weighing because he gained 1 kilogram instead of losing 2... - I mean obviously he's not committed and he can't pursue his diet because it's not full of nutrients.

Yes, I have been sitting there in weight watchers and looking at the poor women discussing how they fight the hunger. How they need something sweet and I hear the coach telling them that she eats ice cream every night and it is OK because she calculated the points. And I am thinking to myself - wow these women are struggling with something that they will never win. No way they are going to win this war - even if they lose 20 Kgs, they will go back to where they were. No force in the world shall help them. I am admiring some of them - how stubborn they are, they plan, they know the points of this and of that, so given the weight watchers program flexibility they now optimize such as to avoid hunger and how to get that sweet food and all that. Here in this picture you can see one food type that these women are consuming and it is perfectly "all right" to eat this trash. It's... "something for the soul" - that sweet time of the day where they sit there and munch on this trash. And I am saying that this is something for their FAT WAIST. It contains low calories and it tastes good and all that - yea it contains zero nutrition, all sorts of taste enhancing materials and they are bad for their health. But this is how these women are optimizing their well being without crossing the PointsPlus limit....

But they will fail eventually - it only takes time. I mean I failed, I went all the way down from 125 Kg to 86 Kgs with weight watchers and I maintained it for 1.5 years before I gave it all up and I started this round weighing 139.6 Kg!!!! They will fail, and they will fail miserably. And you know why? Because their body is hungry!!!! hungry for REAL food, for REAL NUTRITION. Here, take a look at this picture here - this is REAL food - this is REAL NUTRITION.

The food that they eat has such low nutritional value that they need to eat 4000 calories in order to give the body what it needs - which means they consume tons of calories. The trick is to eat 2000 calories or for these small women 1200 calories and still get whatever nutrients the body needs. I don't dare to even raise this issue during those roundup meetings. It's like saying that I am a Jew in the middle of a Ku-Klux-Klan meeting. I mean - no body will understand - they will think it's too harsh, too extreme but truth is that it's not. I have to make an effort to eat 3 meals a day... I am not hungry at all - I forgot what hunger is - because my body is getting now all the nutrients that it needs with so less calories. 

If only for once they give a chance to a truly healthy diet, then they will feel great, look great and they will forget about their weight - it shall go down so fast they wouldn't have a chance to remember how much they weigh.

Sincerely,

Aviel.

Reverse Engineering the weight watchers PointsPlus

Hi there folks,

Weight Watchers have this PointsPlus system. Each food is given PointsPlus and the idea is that when you sum up all the PointsPlus that you "ate" during the day - you should not cross a specific limit.

How do you know how many PointsPlus is each food? Each new member get a small book containing all the points of all common foods. So for example - this is how you know that a medium Avocado costs you 4 PointsPlus.

But what about products that are not listed in that book? What if you go to the grocery store and you see a new product and you want to know how many PointsPlus are in 100 grams of this product?

Well this is a huge shooshoo thing - Weight watchers used to provide their customers with a paper 'points calculator' but not any more. If you want to know how many PointsPlus then you have to send mail to your coach and she replies with the number of PointsPlus... Or you could use a pirate android application that tells you how many PointsPlus per 100 grams of a product...

So for example - if you encounter a food product that has 5 grams of fat, 2 grams carb, 3 grams protein and 0.8 grams fiber then you input this into the android application and then you get that the worth of this in term of PointsPlus is 2 :

I tried some numbers on this app - and you know the drill, 4 linear equations for 4 variables...

And we get 

PointsPlus = 0.26 * Fat + 0.11 * Carbs + 0.095 * Proteins - 0.08 * Fiber  

Let's decipher this equation.... if we multiply it by 40 then we get

PointsPlus * 40 = 10.4 * Fat + 4.4 * Carbs + 3.8 * Proteins - 3.2 * Fiber

Which is not that far away from

Calories = 9 calories/g * Fat + 4 calories/g * Carbs + 4 calories/g * Proteins - 3.2 calories/g * Fiber

So PointsPlus is not that different from Calories divided by 40....

It's just that weight watchers "punish" their customers by 10% tax on eating fat + carbs and give them a 10% discount for eating calories and make sure to appreciate those customers that consume lots of fiber.

So how do we simplify life for weight watchers customers - give them some simple formula that they can use?

Fat / 4 + (Carbs + Proteins - Fiber) / 10

And even simpler version (but less accurate) is: 

Calories / 40

Nice eh?

Aviel.

Lost 20.6 KGs in 7 weeks.

Hi there,

Weight watchers combined with being a nutritarian vegan... - 

First week lost 5.5 Kgs.

Second week lost 2.1 Kgs

Third week lost 2.2 Kgs

Fourth week lost 1.7 Kgs

Fifth week lost 2.1 Kgs

Sixth week skipped weight watchers.

Seventh week lost 7 Kgs in two weeks. (vegan)

I feel good, I am never hungry, I have no diabetes and I enjoy my vacation,

Aviel.

Lost only 2.1 Kilograms this week

I am a bit disappointed.

I am comparing this second week vs. two previous diet with weight watchers. I think I lost 2.5 Kilograms on the first diet and 3 Kilograms. on the second one - on the same week - second week for the diet.

And here I am losing only 2.1 Kilograms.

How come?

Maybe I added lean muscle mass?

The first reaction of the gym coach was that this should be a result of me adding lean muscle. Oh really? Is that so? I remember that this was the excuse of my wife when she didn't lose weight on the second week of the first diet - 'I gained lean muscle mass' - yea right....

If you eat lots of healthy calories and you train like crazy then you will add between 7 and 12 Kilograms of lead body mass. That's 250 grams per week at most.  

But that's if you eat like a pro and train like a pro.

I don't eat much - I am on a diet remember so I would say that in one week I gain between 50 to 100 grams of lean muscle mass...

Maybe I was focusing too much on REAL healthy food?

While losing weight is important for me cause I want to get rid of the diabetes & hypertension risks, still - a very important goal that I have is to eat GOOD food, HEALTHY food. and it means instead of eating that diet bread, I eat whole wheat bread and instead of eating 0.5% yogurts - I eat 4.5% and I eat humus and tachini and nuts and almonds. Everything is measured yes - but I eat this stuff... Maybe weight watchers didn't take this into account? Maybe I eat too much fat after all?

Maybe.

Maybe weight watcher program is flawed?

Well maybe... - I mean I was told that at my weight, my height & my age I should eat 56 points per day. They have this table that explains how many points I can add provided that I do sports. Well every day I spend 40 minutes average intensity activity which gives me 5 points and I do 20 minutes of high intensity activity which credits me additional 7 points.

So in total I am supposed to eat 59 + 5 + 7 = 71 points.

And I eat only 42.1 points.

So how come I lose only 2.1 Kilograms on my second week?

I think that it's because of the weight watchers program. It's flawed! if you eat all your points then you are gonna find yourself stuck at the same weight.

In the future I intend to quantify this and really go into the details but right now this is the best answer I can give.

Aviel.

Yayyy weight watchers gave me a star !!!

Now this feaking unbelivable,

According to weight watchers I lost 5Kg !!  And therefore I deserve a star !!!

Here's the proof

But reality is that I measured myself

Last week I was 139.6

This week I am 135.4

I lost 4.2 Kg

But since weight watchers couldn't measure me last week  - it was decided to stick to my measurement and to give me a star.

Aviel.

Planning according to Weight Watchers Points Plus

I spent several hours reading the weight watchers system and planning accordingly.

The way it works is as follows - Everything that you eat costs you points. For example if you drink one glass of 1% fat milk then it costs you 2.5 points. Another example, if you eat double Hamburger of around 150 g then it costs you 17 points.

Now according to your weight and age weight watchers provide you with the number of points that you can eat per day.

Vegetables cost 0 points.

The first 3 fruits that you eat per day cost you 0 points.

In addition, in case of emergency where you have to eat outside and you eat a lot and exaggerate, then weight watchers give you 49 points to spend.

In addition - if you do sports then you can credit yourself with more points.

Now since I weigh around 140 Kg - the weight watchers coach told me that I can eat 59 points. She was shocked when she read that number to me... - she said it's too much. Again - these people are used to deal with small women. So she kind of suggested that I eat 35-45 points. Anyway - the most basic thing that I need to know - I don't know.

So I took the old plan and arranged myself a weekly plan of around 42 points. 

Let me describe a typical day according to this plan

Early Morning (~6 a.m)

• 2 table spoons of oat mixed with cinnamon & flax.

Breakfast (~7:45 a.m)

• 1 slice of whole wheat bread
• 1 egg
• 200 g 3% yogurt
• 100 g 1% Cottage Cheese
• Big Salad with no salt, no pepper, no oil
• 10 Olives

Snack (~10:00 a.m.)

• One slice of whole wheat bread.
• One tea spoon peanuts butter or one tbsp Humus or one tbsp raw techina or half Avocado
• 10 gr walnuts or 6 pieces of Brazil nuts or 24 almonds

Lunch (~12:00 noon)

• 1 glass of cooked fool beans or lentils or peas.
• 1 glass of cooked full rice or pasta made of whole wheat or wheat groats.
• 1 egg or 1 soy shnitzel.
• Huge Salad with all 5 colors.

Snack (~16:00 afternoon)

• 3 plums or 2 big bananas or 3 apples or 3 peaches or 24 grapes or 1.5 cups of chopped mango

Dinner (~19:00 afternoon)

• 1 big salad
• 1 tsp olives oil
• 250 g 0.5% cottage cheese.
• 1 slice of whole wheat bread.
• 1 egg

few points here -

• I eat 6 meals per day - I should never be hungry.
• I am vegetarian since I was 7.5 years old.
• The 10 olives provides the oil that one need in order to digest the vitamins that we have in the salad. Unfortunately it contains lots of salt. I may have to look for an alternative.
• Even though I am diabetics - I decided to eat fruits cause weight watchers strongly recommended them. I selected fruits with low glycemic index.
• I know that building a plan according to weight watchers is not accurate and I do it only at the beginning - later I shall revert to relying directly on the USDA data base.

That's it,

Aviel.

Turns out I weigh too much for Weight Watchers

So yesterday I had my first visit to weight watchers. I climbed up the stairs, all sweating and poofing and introduced myself. I asked Lital, the secretary there if she thinks I should lose weight and her reply was 'now what do YOU think?'

Then Vilma the coach tried to see how much I weigh... - turns out I was more than 135 Kg - that's the maximum that she could measure !!! She was so appologetic and I was very amused as you can see - 

Later when I read through the beautiful colored brochures I found out that we should split our goal into small chunks - the first goal is to lose 5% and the second goal is to lose 5 Kg.... - which made me laugh again - indeed if you are a woman that weighs 70 Kg then your 5% goal comes after losing 3.5 Kg and your second goal comes after losing 5 Kg - that's fine. But if you are a big man like me weighing close to 140Kg then your first goal comes after losing 7 Kg and your second goal .... the one that comes with losing 5Kg... that one should come first! 

So first conclusion is that weight watchers are not for very fat and big people :)

Then we had a discussion about flexibility and I found it to be very inspiring. We are in this weight watchers for the long run and there's gonna be ups and downs. We are going to skip our Gym, we are going to be injured in the knee, we are going to eat an oily pita bread in some party - but that shouldn't be the end of our road to weight loss. We should be flexible. We should do it the WAZE way - that is if something goes wrong - there are always other alternatives. And it's a clear message to me - After I reached my weight watchers goal years ago I noticed that I am adding weight. And then I told myself, if I added 1Kg then I am out of the program. No!! it shouldn't be like this - I may add weight but then I should keep on coming to those sessions and be part of this weight watchers thing no matter what - for good and for bed - no singular event should break it. It's a commitment for life.

Then I went to the Gym in the office and weighed myself... - 139.6 Kg - so that should be the starting point.

So there you go - this is the starting point - 139.6 Kg.

Aviel.