Her Weigh-In (6/4/2013)

Hello again! Happy Tuesday and Weigh-In Day for me! Here are the results...

Weigh-In: -2.1
Yay!!!! This makes me very happy. :) Here's hoping that I can continue on this path.

I talked in last week's post about how I have switched from WW to myfitnesspal. I am still loving the switch and am so grateful that I made that choice. Here's what I have found to be true -

Weight Watchers chooses Points Plus values based on four criteria - 

Source

Then based on your age and current weight, they determine how many points you get each day. Everyone gets a separate set of points for the week that can be used whenever/how you choose. Sounds good right? Well, let's do a comparison...

A typical day on WW would have me running over my daily points and needing some weekly points. Each workout would only provide between 3 and 5 additional points for the day. (For those who are not on WW, the nutrition bar I ate to give me energy for a workout is 5 points so I was working off what I ate so I could work out. A vicious cycle!) I put my normal day into myfitnesspal (remember, that would have had me over my points) and found out that I had eaten only 1,490 calories that day. With my workout, my total caloric count was 1,094. Wow!! No wonder I am always hungry at the end of the day.

Another example --- According to Weight Watchers, a lunch of a WW friendly pasta dish, carrots, and 1 tbsp of Fat Free Ranch Dip was 12 points. Sounds like a lot right? Well, I put that whole meal into myfitnesspal and it is only 488 calories. Seeing that shocked me to the core. Those two numbers seem like polar opposites. How can 488 calories be 12 points?!?!

Source

A final example -- My workout of 30 minutes of cardio and a few strength machines used to get me 5 WW points (that's not even half of my lunch). I had a hard time wanting to go to the gym when I wasn't even going to work off half of my lunch. When I put in the same information to myfitnesspal it said I had burned 527 calories. That means I worked off my lunch and then some. That's motivation right there!

I'm not saying that WW is a flawed system. It works for millions each day and it worked for me for a while. What I am saying is that with the issues I talked about above, I decided that the program was not for me anymore. Counting calories is proving to be much easier and more motivational. 

Have you tried myfitnesspal? What did you think?

Happy Losing,