Valtor,

You are giving an example of a person who low-carbs and goes to WW. Do you have to count points if you are low-carbing? If you are losing weight - because, of course, you are, since this forum is about how if you ration carbs, you will lose weight - why would you even bother to pay attention to points? No one asks you how many points you had today. For one thing, if you're a large person, they give you more points than a smaller person, depending on age, height, gender, etc.

They also give you 35 points a week to 'blow,' over and above your daily points. Some people use those to add and 'pad' what they eat during the day. Some people blow them at a restaurant meal, when they order a very rich dessert. No one knows and no one asks and no one cares. That's the point. If you aren't losing weight with what you are doing, then it is the stuff to discuss and at that time (you would never experience this because you would be losing weight on Atkins, right?), you'd have to show what you ate and what the accurate measures were of what you ate. 'I had a sandwich' would be, for example, not something that's accurate. 'I had a turkey sandwich' is not any more accurate. 'I had 3 oz. of turkey on two slices of whole wheat bread with 2 tbsp. of mayonnaise and lettuce' would be accurate. And it would have a point value.


'I ate prime rib until I felt stuffed' wouldn't have a point value. It's not the prime rib that is the problem, it's that it's not being accurate about what you are actually putting in your mouth. WW will tell you that the only person who has to deal with the effects of what you put in your mouth is you. You have that motivation to be aware. No one else. Who cares?

Thank you for the answer. So then points are skewed toward low-fat more than low-calories? Personally I think it's the simplicity and the support that gives value to a system like WW, otherwise regarding the points per se, you might as well count calories and eat whatever you want.

Merpig,

You wrote:
'I don't know how the system works now - and unless you actually join WW there is no way to get that information as far as I know.'

There are numerous websites that post WW points for foods and recipes, etc. If you know what your point value is - and you can just get a ball-park figure by looking at various websites but 25 points is not a bad place to start - there is a lot on the web already.

In fact, this website will calculate your point limit for YOU:
http://www.ehow.com/how_4871046_cal...ers-points.html



Or just ask a WW friend to lend you her booklet; most people look stuff up on the WW website if they have some weird situation like a visit to an Indian restaurant. The booklet is kind of basic because it's small and easy to carry.

Ask a WW friend for a little slide ruler thingie. If you come across something that you sense might be difficult to find in a basic booklet or online, the little thingie asks you to line up protein grams of the food, fat grams, and fiber grams and it gives you the points. This requires you to actually look at the nutritional data that is on everything today. But if you can't get a thingie, even that is online. WW is not hiding all this stuff like it's some magic tool:

http://www.webmilhouse.com/pointcalc.php

I put in 250 cal. 10 gms. fat, and 4 gms. fiber. That is 5 points. Out of 25? That's a lot, I think. I'd have to figure out other foods that wouldn't have me zooming up to the limit. So I'm guessing vegetables would fill it out. And I don't even know what my original food was! Just playing with that thing.

http://www.wikiweightwatcher.com/

That website has tons of restaurant foods and regular food. A rice cake has 2 points, I see! A Burger King Bacon Cheeseburger is 8.5 points. But - I get to eat the bun. Go to vegetables and you will see they are all free - including potatoes - unless it's FRENCH FRIED - and then it's 2 points.

(For somebody who doesn't count points, I'm learning a lot. Thanks!)

Note; I went half a year before I bothered to even ask what my points should be. Only to find out that a WW booklet had a few questions that allowed you to determine your points... who knew?)

If you find that you're not losing with 25 points, then go a lower number. You decide. It's all your personal action and your decisions, so the need to focus on what you do never goes away. Which is real life, with any diet.

Every restaurant you'd ever want to visit!
http://www.dwlz.com/restaurants.html

My personal favorite because the recipes are very good:

http://www.ehow.com/how_2058466_cal...ers-points.html

Valtor,

I couldn't even tell you what the points are skewed toward. I think there's a value for fiber built into it, and I have no problem with that. I think I might if I had digestive issues with fiber but there is still plenty of freedom to eat other low-point items without that benefit.

Eating a plate of steamed vegetables without butter - some people could do it and it would be filling. I'm not even saying it wouldn't be delicious, with just some fresh herbs, salt and pepper and maybe a squirt of lemon juice. But that's not the way people think about eating their vegetables. Of course, if you want a huge plate of steamed vegetables and there are 0 points when you are done, then you might try it.

'So then points are skewed toward low-fat more than low-calories?'

Since a gram of fat is 9 calories and a gram of either protein or carbs is 5, I can see how you would want to keep the fat content of your meals low if you want to eat more food and stay below your limit. That's what happens when people count calories - they start 'budgeting.' WW makes it easier to budget and allows a wide variety of foods.

Reminds me a little of the problems people have with money.

'I don't have any organization like WW to monitor my progress and make me "official" enough for the NWLR/NWCR to accept my data. And I imagine this is true of *most* low carbers.'

Merpig, I've already stressed several times that WW never monitors your food, but the monitoring of your progress is also confidential. Unless you ask a leader for help with a problem that you are having, and she will help you with one-on-one counseling after a meeting, she doesn't follow your progress. If you don't want to be congratulated for your weight loss, you can ask not to be publicly congratulated. Your progress is known to you. Your leader knows the progress of the group because she reports the success of her group to her boss. She is not doing well if her group is not losing weight!

I'm pretty sure that NWLR does NOT require you to be a member of Weight Watchers to join their registry as an Atkins or low-carb dieter. Think about that: it doesn't even make sense.

If you think monitoring your own food intake and keeping records is a WW gimmick that other people buy into and require, I can say unequivocally that it is not. For one thing, dietary studies are conducted using food diaries. People don't just give a general account of their success to researchers - it is crap science. Call WW scientific. They require that you measure - if you are going to be discussing a problem. They ADVISE you to measure because, from scientific studies, it's been shown that what people think they eat is different from what they actually do eat. Just writing down what they eat often causes dieters to lose weight, simply because they are conscious of the food and its value. Studies have shown this time and again. It's not necessary. It's not a gimmick. It's a weight loss technique that has been proven to be successful.

So that's why WW has used it.

But aside from that, NWLR would like to 'take your word' for everything and not want to see what you eat when they collect dietary data and produce studies? No. Nope.

'And probably most low carb dieters, as well as dieters of any sort, just do it in the privacy of their homes, so don't have any sort of scientifically acceptable statistics to show for it.'

I think you are talking about a survey, not a study. Westman just did the survey and gleaned some data from it to produce a study. But studies usually involve a lot more thought. A group of scientists may want to compare the micronutrient content of various weight-reducing diets. They don't go to low-carb forums. Why would they? They are going to choose people who volunteer to be in the study (for various reasons, sometimes financial), randomly assign them to groups, give them diets to follow. Measure components of their blood, urine and breath all along the way... this is a study you will often find. People on a low-carb forum - who by the way, fall off the diet and get back on the diet, have bad days and good days, etc. - are not the stuff of studies. People in studies are the stuff of studies!

Westman's 'study,' which was meant to serve to calm doctors' anxieties about the low-carb diet (looking suspiciously like any other diet) did go to a low-carb forum but that is a real exception. He wasn't trying to find out if these people get more vitamin C in their diet than vegetarians. (He'd need vegetarians to do that!)

'If the NWLR will only accept candidates who have documented weight loss and *diet* type for the weight loss then low carbers will never be accurately represented there.'

I don't even know what NWLR asks for. I just know that ANY kind of organization doing something like that would have to have something to show the diet has a characteristic and that the person actually ATE that kind of diet (the purpose of a food diary - even if it's only reported by phone and only three times during a study...). Hey, I'm on the Baskin-Robbins diet. I've been on it for 2 years and lost 130 pounds. What do I eat? Ice cream. You don't believe me? Why not? Is it the only think I eat? Yeah, why? Trust me. It works.

I'm not disagreeing with you. What you are saying is 100% true. And I don't trust for a minute those sorts of questionnaires were people are asked how many times in the last month or 6 months or whatever they ate "X". Talk about inaccuracy! Unless I'm faithfully tracking my intake in My Plan I can barely remember what I ate two days ago, let alone over the last month or 6.

So I can't blame someone who doesn't want to accept that sort of data. I'm only saying that probably *most* low carbers don't have that sort of data so would not be represented in any serious tracking program. Heck, I've been low carb for almost 5 years now - but I could certainly never fill out any sort of questionaire that was every CLOSE to accurate over how much of "X" I ate during that time frame.

Merpig,

It's not that low-carbers have to have that data already. I mistakenly thought you were saying that requiring people to monitor or report what they eat was something gimmicky or WW-like. It's just scientific studies require it. So when I was perusing 'Internet diet,' I found this and I thought it was interesting. The people who sign up to be followed don't have to have something done already. But it does require more than just people on the Internet never having to be identified by other than their online name and the information they give online:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20459807

You can read the entire study - its plan - which is presented in an article that can be downloaded as a PDF (upper right hand corner icon).

This is French and will last for 10 years. It takes 5 years for them to recruit 500,000 volunteers who have to complete baseline data.

The questionnaires will be submitted online. But, not unlike some other countries (I'm thinking of Denmark), there is a tremendous amount of information online.

'Surveillance of health events will be implemented via questionnaires on hospitalisation and use of medication, and linkage with a national database on vital statistics. Biochemical samples and clinical examination will be collected in a subsample of volunteers.'

From the PDF:

'Indeed, the use of internet offers a unique opportunity
for gaining access to a vast sample of volunteers. France
ranks in first place among European countries in use of
the internet . In November 2009, 34.7 million French
citizens (about 65% of the population over 11) had been
connected to the internet during the previous month
irrespective of the connection site (home, work, public or
private location) . One French internet user out of 4
is over 55 years of age and 29% of users belong to low
socio-professional categories . Thus, the profile of
internet users would reflect an accurate representation of
the different age groups (especially seniors), socio-professional
categories and regions. Indeed, the use of internet
offers the possibility of automatically gaining access to
immense samples of volunteers as well as gradually collecting,
saving and processing huge amounts of information
at reduced logistic burdens and costs.'

The reasoning behind the emphasis on vegetables in the Westman study (too bad the study is one of those you have to pay for !)

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/...8?dopt=Abstract

Before I lost my 70 pounds (was 250) I did WW, I was allowed 27 points or something like that. I never lost anything unless I ate nothing more than 17 points. I passed out twice. That had never happened to me before.

My meetings were mostly about all the great pre-packaged crap I could buy at Walmart...(personally I do not eat crap in a bag)

I found Paleo...lost 70 pounds..and have kept it all off give or take 10 pounds.

Cured my diabetes, high blood pressure, metabolism, asthma, arthritus, and LOVIN life!

Eat what your ancestors eat....it does a body good.

Danger, y0u Robinson! Danger!

Hey, yOu! Paleo works for you. Great! In the meantime, I just got confirmation from another WW on this forum that fruit has zero points on the new plan. I can't believe it! Fruit?

(Don't know why you passed out. I'm not blaming WW.)

By the way, over at the WW forum (there are WW who do the program just online), there's a thread running through their forum: some kid is doing a paper on Atkins for a class. Why she came to WW online to get her material, I'll never know. Yeah, there are lots of former Atkins and low-carb dieters who bounce back into WW and it's entertaining reading.

I don't know why the person didn't just come straight here to get the information about Atkins! Perhaps she thought there would be some bias. She didn't escape that by going to the WW forum! They've been there, done that.

maybe she went looking for bias.

We all do it when we want to see something in writing supporting our own views. I know I tend to read stuff that support LC vs LF. My sister reads stuff that supports her views on LF vs LC.

We've agreed not to talk about it because we just fight. I've come to believe that LF might not be so bad for some people. I know a few that just feel gross doing LC and feel great doing LF. I don't understand it but it seems to work for them.

For me, LC is the only way that I feel 'normal'. LF makes me feel sick, fat and slow-brained.
I think it all comes down to letting our bodies make the decision for us, instead of trying to force the body to follow the will of the mind. My body tells me very clearly that LC is what it needs. My friends body tells her clearly that LF is what she needs. Who am I to argue with her body?