canary52

Tori, I love your playful spirit!!!

BTW I think your tag line should be mini goal March 3rd, was it? Success!!! And even if it fluctuates you DID it. And you will succeed in your longterm goals too, girl, especially since you LIKE logging. There is a lot you can teach me, my dear!!!

Kathy13118

WW is really just fitday with a rented space, a leader, and a group of fellow dieters. For me, the WW scale is the only scale I trust. Besides eating fewer calories than you burn, the greatest message I get from WW is one that is rarely articulated: 'If you keep on doing what you have been doing, you'll get what you have always got!' You have to change the number of calories going in and how you burn those calories. In basic ways - no loopholes, no gimmicks - and be able to live the rest of your life with those changes. You hope the rest of your life is going to be a long time, so those changes have to be very workable, very flexible, and taste good enough, too!

RunbikeSki

I think Mary hit on one of the things people have the most trouble with: taking responsibility for themselves. "it isn't my fault it's the high fructose corn syrup", "it's not my fault, all we have is fast food around the place I work", "it's not my fault, diet food is too expensive". I'm sure you all have heard the excuses. (See Mike's Hey Fattie... thread)

I once got snippy enough with an "oh I couldn't possibly do that!" person that I retorted, "then you will stay fat forever" (not my kindest moment )

Rubystars

I don't like weight watchers because it disguises the fact that people need to count calories. I think that's why so many people will go on weight watchers and lose weight then get off of it and gain weight back. They need to realize it's about calories.

Points are an artificial system. I also read on another thread on this site that Weight Watchers is now allowing many fruits and vegetables, including bananas, to have zero points. If you eat 5 bananas, that's at least 500 calories, the same goes for apples. If you gorge on bananas and apples all day thinking they're zero points, you will be even more fat and wonder why and probably fall into a self-esteem pit. They're not calorie free and Weight Watchers has no right to make them seem that way.

I also think it's idiotic to charge someone for something they could be doing themselves if they learned how to keep track of calories (even if it's on paper).

Kumochi

My co-worker has bought the new WW points tracker and I am going to have her get me one to help me track on the go for an approximate. She has mentioned that fruits and veggies are free and I can see lots of room for abuse there. I think they are trying to move to a healthier diet as some of the low calorie but no nutrition things that used to be low in points are now higher. For me -- anything will work if I do it and keep doing it. But most things end up reducing your calorie intake. I'm still looking for the way to make it a lifestyle change than will last. Mary

Rubystars

I think it's ridiculous to approximate calories when fit day gives you the chance to log things in by ounces or grams so you know calories more precisely. I weighed the edible part of a large orange earlier and it came to 114 calories, more than the entry for "large orange" in the database which is an approximation. Even calories from fruits and vegetables can make you fat if you gorge on them. One large orange on the fit day database is 86.5 calories. That much of a differences makes weighing things on a food scale a necessity if you're actually serious about calorie counting.

Kumochi

I'm looking for a way to journal during the times I'm not near my computer. The WW toy just gives you a running total so I've decided it would not help me. I don't think fitday has an app for the blackberry yet. It's to hard to see the full program on the tiny screen. Mary

Rubystars

If you can plan ahead (I know this is not always possible) you can log things in ahead of time. I do this for when I take my lunch to work, it's already logged in so I don't have to go without logging it even though I don't have non-business related internet access at work.

canary52

Planning ahead does help. And so does logging. I'll be honest and say that I get overwhelmed sometimes and don't want to log. I just want to eat "naturally." But I am an emotional eater with health problems so I do need to watch what I eat. I am very food sensitive, have high bp and borderline cholesterol and when I lose a bit, my numbers get better. When I eat better, it helps with my fibromyalgia. Trouble is, when I am in a fibro flare, I just find it hard to cook, log, etc. And when I try to exercise in a flare, I wind up bedridden for a couple of days.

I lost some weight recently (from meds) and then gained it all back (couldn't tolerate the meds.) But I also ate more. I take full responsibilty for this. The ironic thing is that when I got a bit heavier, people kept telling me how skinny I looked and asking me how I did it, telling me not to lose any more. Maybe it was the clothing I was wearing IDK, maybe illness and other factors made me look a bit drawn. IDK. Anyway after telling them stuff they didn't want to hear like I try tracking my food and don't eat sugar, try to watch carbs, etc, I finally told them I was on the "stress diet" - that I had lost weight due to stress. That shut them up, believe me. Nobody wants to be on that diet!!!

If telling people about Fitday doesn't work, maybe don't tell them. I'm not saying lie, I'm just suggesting that maybe we don't have to explain ourselves. When people are ready to hear the truth, they will.

Kathy13118

I still go to WW and do fitday, also. One thing I have to point out is that calories are not the main topic in WW (behavioral techniques, finding ways to avoid overeating those calories is). However, WW is upfront about points being calories, however weighted to encourage fresh unprocessed foods with more emphasis on filling low-density foods. This doesn't mean you can't eat high-density caloric foods, just that you know they are!

I went to WW in the very early days (my early days, at least) when you checked off items from food groups, even a certain number of glasses of water! Even then, the message was that calories underly the WW philosophy. The 'eat less and move more' message is more contemporary to WW - for a long time, the message seemed to be that 'Well, just eat less and that's enough of an effort that you will see good results...' In, I'd say the last 10 years, exercise has been slowly introduced. It's enough of the WW platform now that you can 'earn' some more points to spend at meals just because your exercise level is high enough to warrant that.

What's really shocking, to most people, is what WW will tell you about how many calories, really, you must expend to be able to 'eat extra calories/points. At one meeting, our WW group leader explained how much you could eat after walking the length of a football field. I don't think it was worth a medium-sized apple! Calories are certainly mentioned and stressed. But what stumps most people is their own behavioral patterns when presented with some delicious calorie-rich temptation. And especially some blindness about portion sizes that to me is the most difficult obstacle to 'seeing calories on the plate.'