Weight Watchers to Launch Low-Carb Foods

[Demi]

Have just come across this news report in the UK:


The company behind Weight Watchers slimming clubs has responded to the success of the rival Atkins diet by announcing plans to launch its own low-carbohydrate food products.

The Atkins regime has taken the UK by storm where an estimated three million people are said to have lost weight by following the low-carb, high protein regime.

Weight Watchers, which launched its points-based dieting system in the UK nearly 35 years ago, already sells a range of branded food and drink products in shops.

The company has now decided to add the first low-carbohydrate products to its range in the form of four frozen ready-made meals.

The decision follows the UK launch in December last year of a food and drink range aimed specially at following of the Atkins diet.

Atkins Nutritionals, the company behind the Atkins products, has built up a multi-million dollar industry in the US and Canada.

Weight Watchers, founded in the US in the 1960s by Jean Nidetch and Al Lippert, claims to have helped millions of men and women to lose weight.

It holds more than 6,000 weekly meetings in the UK with approximately 120,000 regularly members who follow its system of applying points for different food and drink.

The company already sells 17 ready made meals, manufactured under licence by food giant Heinz.

The four low-carb products, due to go in sale in the autumn, are: Tuscan chicken and sweetcorn and green beans, chicken in a garlic and lemon sauce with carrots and broccoli, chicken in a red wine sauce with green beans and carrots, and chicken in a mushroom and herb sauce with carrots and broccoli.

Weight Watchers said in a statement: “ Weight Watchers Points programme remains unchanged as does its message of a healthy, balanced diet including all food groups, as being the only way to achieving and maintaining weight loss.

“Weight Watchers from Heinz, as the brand leader in healthy frozen ready meals, developed these additions to the range in light of increased consumer preference of reducing carbohydrate intake.

“The new meals still follow the Weight Watchers approach; allowing people to eat what they want within the Points values system, without cutting out any food groups.”

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=3025784

[HoserLC]

Oh how the mighty have fallen...

[LilaCotton]

Weight Watchers Points programme remains unchanged as does its message of a healthy, balanced diet including all food groups, as being the only way to achieving and maintaining weight loss.

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

[Angeline]

This is so hypocritical and cheesy ! They are launching low-carb products to cash in, while at the same thing decrying low-carb itself ? How greedy and self-serving is that ?? I have lost whatever respect I ever had for them (which wasn't all that much anyway).

[reversengr]

This message is also on the boxes of their frozen foods, one of which I just pulled out of my freezer (my wife was doing weight watchers - and quite successfully, I must add).

I guess now Weightwatchers want to make sure they cash in on the "craze."

The truth about carbs and their role in long-term, healthy weight loss
By Weight Watchers | 10/21/2003

No doubt you've heard something recently about carbohydrates and their role in diet and weight loss. With a long history of providing science-based weight-loss programs that are safe, healthy, and focused on the long term, you can count on Weight Watchers to give you sound information.

No- and low-carb diets may be the latest "craze" in weight loss, but they've taken the sound idea of cutting back on empty calories and hijacked it into extreme, flawed thinking. The pseudo- science that's making the rounds says things like "only carbs can turn to fat," "how many calories you eat has nothing to do with what you weigh," and "carbs are bad for your health."

Sounds possible, but it's not true. Fact is, any calories eaten beyond what your body burns are stored as body fat.

So how do some people lose weight by following a no- or low-carb diet? A scientific review published in the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association* answers the question: People following these extreme diets ate fewer calories.1 Being told to eat unrestricted amounts of one type of food doesn't even begin to make up for what's been cut.......

Complete article, with other links, here:
http://www.weightwatchers.com/util/art/index_art.aspx?tabnum=1&art_id=10811

[GEMMA70]

is it possible to do weight watchers and a low carb diet

[MyJourney]

is it possible to do weight watchers and a low carb diet

There was some post I read last night on someone attempting to do WW and Atkins.

I dont see how since any food that contains fat in it costs like 10 billion WW points.



I think this WW BS is so hypocritical. Whatever *shrugs* I wont be the one buying these ww meals.

[Kristine]

:lol:

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em!

[LilaCotton]

There was some post I read last night on someone attempting to do WW and Atkins.

No, they weren't attempting to do WW AND Atkins--they had simply developed themselves a similar point system based on what they should be eating on Atkins so they would not go overboard on some of their foods. :)

[MyJourney]

They devised a totally new point system for low carb foods? Or they took the amount of WW points they were given from WW and just ate akins approved foods based on the points they were originally given?


If they devised their own point system I would be curious how they came to figure out how many points to give to each food.

Either way it still sounds confusing to me.

[Angeline]

Wouldn't be that hard would it. Just get a list of carb values, and then make a point system based how many carbs you are allowed and how many grams of carb in on each food on the list. After you spend a week or so doing that, you realize that all you are doing is counting grams of carbs and you smack yourself in the head :)

[CindySue48]

Wouldn't be that hard would it. Just get a list of carb values, and then make a point system based how many carbs you are allowed and how many grams of carb in on each food on the list. After you spend a week or so doing that, you realize that all you are doing is counting grams of carbs and you smack yourself in the head :)

This is one of the arguements against LC that I always laugh at. They say it's too confusing for people to count carbs.....but they can count fat.....and they can count points! If they can count one, why can't they couth the other?

At least fats and carbs are listed on the labels.....for WW points you have to either memorize the list....or bring it with you every place you go! :confused: :confused:

[Nancy LC]

Methinks they talk out of both sides of their mouths.

[kath310]

My mother tried to do LC & WW at the same time and got so frustrated trying to count 2 sets of numbers (carbs & points) ....now she can't understand why I'm having such success at lc! I'm only counting carbs!!! :)

[ItsTheWooo]

Conclusion? Weight watchers will sell anything. There is no scientific consistency regarding their nutritional beliefs because they are only interested in following the lucrative diet fads of the day, and netting as many pocketbooks as they can. This, of course, means weight watchers long term effectiveness amounts to nothing more than chance.

The big slimming companies are almost like a phony psychic. People go to psychics, they know it's BS in the back of their minds, but they really don't care. When it comes down to it people aren't buying the advice itself, they are buying false hope. Just as a psychic sells reassurance and false hope to those who are in need of it, weight watchers sells false hopes & dreams of being popular, glamorous, attractive, etc. The actual product delivered by weight watchers doesn't work, but they continue to stay in business because people need hope that they can get thin. This need for hope is the only reason WW's coffer stays full, and why people fall off of WW only to return to it again, and again, and again. It's sad.

[ItsTheWooo]

My mother tried to do LC & WW at the same time and got so frustrated trying to count 2 sets of numbers (carbs & points) ....now she can't understand why I'm having such success at lc! I'm only counting carbs!!! :)

Isn't the points system designed in such a way that calories from fat are more heavily penalized than calories from carbs and protein? How is it possible to do both LC (which is by its nature a high fat diet) and the points system? I imagine you would be starving yourself.

God only knows why fat in of itself came to be looked at as a dieting liability, assuming equal calorie counts between foods (like ounce of cheese vs a large sweet rice cake - both about 90 cals). I guess starving to be thin is considered a virtue? Heh.

[Paulie-M]

I had a friend who tried to do 2 weeks on WW and then 2 weeks on Atkins and alternating them. It didn't really work, swings and roundabouts.