I'm Watching What I Eat (2022)

[TastyReuben]

Perhaps your zero points food would be different if you'd happily eat 5 jacket potatoes and had actually told them that? I don't know, I'm only guessing.

Yes, as Windigo says, you can customize that a bit. The very first thing you do with WW is take a little assessment, and based on your responses, you can add a food that’s normally one with points to your zero point food list. Some foods, however, are zero points regardless.

That’s why MrsT gets zero points on potatoes, because she loves them and couldn’t exist without them, so the potato itself is always zero for her, but that’s gets compensated for elsewhere in her plan, and of course, any butter, cream, cheese, oil added to a potato…that counts for points, so it’s not a matter of, “Hey, give me a plate of that potato gratin; it’s zero points!”

because my eating disorder voice is instantly telling me ' see you can't do this'

Yeah, well tell that voice from me to STFU, because you’ve done this before and you’re doing it again!

If you need some success stories…my mom struggled mightily with her weight after having six kids. She was very small, and she was always able to lose the weight until she had me, the last one.

She was as big as 200lbs at one time, and she’s barely 5’1”, so that’s some weight.

She tried every crackpot diet when I was a kid, since it was the ‘70’s, that included taking up smoking for a time (in secret) and gobbling diet pills (legal speed) like candy.

Nothing worked until she got on WW. I don’t know how they did it back then, with points or whatever, but she actually went in to meetings with others and weighed in there.

The reason it worked for her, even back then, was that it didn’t really deny her anything, she just had to eat more of the good stuff and less of the bad stuff. She still, to this day, will use a piece of bread to wipe the bacon/sausage fat from a skillet and eat that. If you can lose and maintain weight on a plan that lets you do that, it must have something going for it.

My SIL (MrsT’s sis), she’s done it for years and years, and she’s been able to maintain her weight. She was never very overweight, but she follows their plan and treats it like a permanent lifestyle change. That way, she’s not constantly putting on and losing the same 15 pounds. I think it says something that she’s maintained a very trim figure for a couple of decades now, and she still pays her monthly fee to be a member, still follows her food plan, still tracks her food (though that’s much easier for her now), and is very happy with it. She’s the one who convinced MrsT to finally give it a shot.

You got this!

 

[Windigo]

I didn't say you will fail, I said you've tried that before and wasn't successful and I explained why failure is a common occurrence which you yourself confirmed. I also mentioned that it made the situation worse by reducing ones metabolism which means when gaining that weight back, which you did, it will now take less calories than before you started to get back to the exact weight you were, which I called a viscous cycle.

Engaging in a diet and food culture environment like weight watchers that promotes good and bad and free foods and those accomplishments on a point system is probably not the best place for people with eating disorders to be engaged in because it can be triggering and a very, very slippery slope. imo.

Losing weight by restriction is and has never been a successful solution and I attempted to get the conversation started by mentioning that it's a body and brain signaling problem that is well researched and that the possibility that getting our hormones, mainly insulin, back on track will and does make weight loss easier to stick with and control food intake and vastly improve health markers for the majority that engage in it, but that went nowhere. I don't like to see people as victims and was just trying to help, unsuccessfully. I do hope you find a solution.

Thank you for explaining

However, what I meant with ' worked for me' is ' kept the pounds of forever' . I've been extremely succesful losing weight, I have have lost more than 50 lbs multiple times. But the trouble is: I have a-typical bulimia ( no purging but restriction and binge cycles which I just recently was told by my doctor is bulimia and not binge eating disorder. Peope with BED never restrict, and I do off and on) and when I restrict too much I gain everything back after a while due to the binge phase. Plus I messed up my body with that cycle, so by now losing weight is harder.

So the fact that WW helps me to not overdo the restriction and keep the weight off ( and I have for over a year) is a MAJOR change. That's why I am trying to go further with it now. By allowing inbuilt indulge, WW skips the guilty feelings I otherwise get from seeing calories or not knowing if I am doing ' well'.
I appreciate your concern though, but I am afraid that losing weight with an eating disorder is always problematic.. But my weight is too

So in short I can have my baked potato and eat it too, while still losing and without feeling guilty

Those of you who know me a bit better, you'll reckognize this in my behaviour on here over time as well. I don't purge but I have in the past excercised with extreme zeal (ie more than 3 hours a day) to lose weight. Atypical Bulimia Nervosa: Signs and Symptoms

 

[Windigo]

Yes, as Windigo says, you can customize that a bit. The very first thing you do with WW is take a little assessment, and based on your responses, you can add a food that’s normally one with points to your zero point food list. Some foods, however, are zero points regardless.

That’s why MrsT gets zero points on potatoes, because she loves them and couldn’t exist without them, so the potato itself is always zero for her, but that’s gets compensated for elsewhere in her plan, and of course, any butter, cream, cheese, oil added to a potato…that counts for points, so it’s not a matter of, “Hey, give me a plate of that potato gratin; it’s zero points!”


Yeah, well tell that voice from me to STFU, because you’ve done this before and you’re doing it again!

If you need some success stories…my mom struggled mightily with her weight after having six kids. She was very small, and she was always able to lose the weight until she had me, the last one.

She was as big as 200lbs at one time, and she’s barely 5’1”, so that’s some weight.

She tried every crackpot diet when I was a kid, since it was the ‘70’s, that included taking up smoking for a time (in secret) and gobbling diet pills (legal speed) like candy.

Nothing worked until she got on WW. I don’t know how they did it back then, with points or whatever, but she actually went in to meetings with others and weighed in there.

The reason it worked for her, even back then, was that it didn’t really deny her anything, she just had to eat more of the good stuff and less of the bad stuff. She still, to this day, will use a piece of bread to wipe the bacon/sausage fat from a skillet and eat that. If you can lose and maintain weight on a plan that lets you do that, it must have something going for it.

My SIL (MrsT’s sis), she’s done it for years and years, and she’s been able to maintain her weight. She was never very overweight, but she follows their plan and treats it like a permanent lifestyle change. That way, she’s not constantly putting on and losing the same 15 pounds. I think it says something that she’s maintained a very trim figure for a couple of decades now, and she still pays her monthly fee to be a member, still follows her food plan, still tracks her food (though that’s much easier for her now), and is very happy with it. She’s the one who convinced MrsT to finally give it a shot.

You got this!

I seem to have a lot in common with MRS T Potatoes are on my list for that reason too.

 

[Windigo]

Yes, as Windigo says, you can customize that a bit. The very first thing you do with WW is take a little assessment, and based on your responses, you can add a food that’s normally one with points to your zero point food list. Some foods, however, are zero points regardless.

Oh and to add to that to explain the system: you can't choose unhealthy foods as zero pointers. WW lets you choose of a selected list of healthy items, and then determines which ones fit you best. So you can't choose ice cream or cheese or butter as a zero, which I consider such a shame and no wine is not on that list either

 

[Morning Glory]

I feel like a stuck gramophone record (sorry) but I'm still not understanding why I wouldn't be eating tons of calories on a WW diet.

If I can eat yoghurt and Dijon mustard and presumably some other condiments like soy sauce (?) plus herbs (?) for zero points then I have a wonderful dressing for baked potatoes or potato salad or to make dipping sauces for hard-boiled eggs and so on. This means I could eat say 2 eggs a day as snacks (160 calories) plus a large baked potato with a yoghurt dressing as another snack or side dish (280 cals) yet score zero. That's 440 cals so far. As well as this, I could have a 75 g portion of pasta for lunch, say (260 cals). I could have this with an avgolemono sauce, which is simply egg and lemon and some clear stock (100 cals). Maybe a few tablespoonfuls of clear stock racks up points but I doubt it. I can eat a green side salad with the pasta with a vinegar, yoghurt, mustard and garlic dressing (approx. 20 cals)

So now I've racked up 820 cals yet still scored zero points! I have all my points for other foods on top of this, which will surely exceed the 180 cals I have left if I was following a 1000 calorie daily diet.

The above is only an example. I understand there are quite a few zero foods so I wouldn't be eating the same every day.

 

[TastyReuben]

I feel like a stuck gramophone record (sorry) but I'm still not understanding why I wouldn't be eating tons of calories on a WW diet.

Yogurt, even fat-free yogurt, isn't zero points (unless it's one you can choose as a zero point food, so maybe it is for Windigo, and maybe it would be for you). Soy sauce, depending on how much you have, isn't point free, either. That pasta, if it's whole wheat, would be points, and it would be more points if it's white pasta. I don't know about the stock, but a stock cube, whether it be beef, veg, or chicken is points.

But again (and sorry if I sound like a broken record in return), you seem to be approaching this from the point of "How can I cheat the system?" - keep in mind, most of the people who join WW probably want to lose weight, so they're going to try and follow the suggestions of the program, at least at the beginning. They're not going to sign up and turn right around and say, "Right...now how can I manipulate this on a massive scale to maximize my food intake and minimize my points?"

In just the 2+ weeks MrsT has been on it, and yes, in the interest of full disclosure, she's grumbling quite a bit, but she's sticking to it, I can already see that she's eating less overall, and she knows it as well, as she's getting full on less food. Not only is that a good obvious incentive, as she has noticed and remarked herself that she's eating less food, it's also a good incentive just because she gets full (on less food), so she stops eating at that point.

Granted, some people won't do that, but show me anything in any walk of life that works the same for everyone, right?

 

[Windigo]

Yogurt, even fat-free yogurt, isn't zero points (unless it's one you can choose as a zero point food, so maybe it is for Windigo, and maybe it would be for you). Soy sauce, depending on how much you have, isn't point free, either. That pasta, if it's whole wheat, would be points, and it would be more points if it's white pasta. I don't know about the stock, but a stock cube, whether it be beef, veg, or chicken is points.

But again (and sorry if I sound like a broken record in return), you seem to be approaching this from the point of "How can I cheat the system?" - keep in mind, most of the people who join WW probably want to lose weight, so they're going to try and follow the suggestions of the program, at least at the beginning. They're not going to sign up and turn right around and say, "Right...now how can I manipulate this on a massive scale to maximize my food intake and minimize my points?"

In just the 2+ weeks MrsT has been on it, and yes, in the interest of full disclosure, she's grumbling quite a bit, but she's sticking to it, I can already see that she's eating less overall, and she knows it as well, as she's getting full on less food. Not only is that a good obvious incentive, as she has noticed and remarked herself that she's eating less food, it's also a good incentive just because she gets full (on less food), so she stops eating at that point.

Granted, some people won't do that, but show me anything in any walk of life that works the same for everyone, right?

Yeah.. I have to be careful not to undereat on WW. my BMR ( basic metabolic rate, calculated by the hospital RD) is 1850, and if I don't eat enough zero food items I end up eating approx 1400 cals on WW which is too low for me. Eating under bmr is starvation. That has happened before, that's how I know..

Fat free yoghurt , milk and cottage cheese are zero for me indeed. But not dairy with any fat.

 

[Windigo]

I feel like a stuck gramophone record (sorry) but I'm still not understanding why I wouldn't be eating tons of calories on a WW diet.

If I can eat yoghurt and Dijon mustard and presumably some other condiments like soy sauce (?) plus herbs (?) for zero points then I have a wonderful dressing for baked potatoes or potato salad or to make dipping sauces for hard-boiled eggs and so on. This means I could eat say 2 eggs a day as snacks (160 calories) plus a large baked potato with a yoghurt dressing as another snack or side dish (280 cals) yet score zero. That's 440 cals so far. As well as this, I could have a 75 g portion of pasta for lunch, say (260 cals). I could have this with an avgolemono sauce, which is simply egg and lemon and some clear stock (100 cals). Maybe a few tablespoonfuls of clear stock racks up points but I doubt it. I can eat a green side salad with the pasta with a vinegar, yoghurt, mustard and garlic dressing (approx. 20 cals)

So now I've racked up 820 cals yet still scored zero points! I have all my points for other foods on top of this, which will surely exceed the 180 cals I have left if I was following a 1000 calorie daily diet.

The above is only an example. I understand there are quite a few zero foods so I wouldn't be eating the same every day.

Don't give me any ideas but seriously, no.. I clearly work very differently than you do. I 've done my best, I am out of explanations! Different strokes for different folks..

 

[Morning Glory]

Yogurt, even fat-free yogurt, isn't zero points (unless it's one you can choose as a zero point food, so maybe it is for @Windigo, and maybe it would be for you). Soy sauce, depending on how much you have, isn't point free, either. That pasta, if it's whole wheat, would be points, and it would be more points if it's white pasta. I don't know about the stock, but a stock cube, whether it be beef, veg, or chicken is points.

But again (and sorry if I sound like a broken record in return), you seem to be approaching this from the point of "How can I cheat the system?" - keep in mind, most of the people who join WW probably want to lose weight, so they're going to try and follow the suggestions of the program, at least at the beginning. They're not going to sign up and turn right around and say, "Right...now how can I manipulate this on a massive scale to maximize my food intake and minimize my points?"

Its not that I am trying to cheat the system. I'm beginning to be aware that it would never work for me because I already eat all the so called 'healthy' food and have no desire to eat fatty foods, cakes, chocolates or all the other things that most people seem to like. The system assumes that people signing up eat 'unhealthy' food. The way that WW defines 'unhealthy' seems to be foods with high fat or sugar content. I simply don't eat those things anyway - but believe me even without alcohol or those 'unhealthy' foods I can put on weight. So for me WW would never work. It wouldn't be because I was trying to cheat. It would be because I would be allowed loads of the food I like!

For those who crave the high fat/high sugar foods I can absolutely understand that the diet could work as they would be unlikely to over eat the 'zero' items.

BTW, I only mentioned wholewheat pasta as zero because it is for Windigo.

 

[TastyReuben]

I think I’m going to put on weight because I’m eating up MrsT’s residuals.

For example, I made a “healthy” wine punch today - which is lo-cal fruit juice and wine (ratio 3:1) and a load of fruit.

That means I’m sitting here looking at a bottle of wine that’s 3/4 full, and (not being funny), I don’t like leaving wine until the next day, so now I’m drinking all that wine!

 

[TastyReuben]

…and yes, I’ve had too much to drink, as I’ve just referred to WW as “Wine Weightchers” in a conversation with my SIL just now.

 

[caseydog]

I feel like a stuck gramophone record (sorry) but I'm still not understanding why I wouldn't be eating tons of calories on a WW diet.

If that is your goal, then I guarantee you will achieve it. If you want to beat the system, then you will.

CD

 

[Morning Glory]

If that is your goal, then I guarantee you will achieve it. If you want to beat the system, then you will.

CD

Nah - I'm not trying to beat the system. I was trying to understand it. I think I now realise what that system is about. See above post. I was genuinely puzzled to start with but I get it now. It just wouldn't work for me that's all because I like all those 'healthy' foods and would over eat them!

 

[Windigo]

Its not that I am trying to cheat the system. I'm beginning to be aware that it would never work for me because I already eat all the so called 'healthy' food and have no desire to eat fatty foods, cakes, chocolates or all the other things that most people seem to like. The system assumes that people signing up eat 'unhealthy' food. The way that WW defines 'unhealthy' seems to be foods with high fat or sugar content. I simply don't eat those things anyway - but believe me even without alcohol or those 'unhealthy' foods I can put on weight. So for me WW would never work. It wouldn't be because I was trying to cheat. It would be because I would be allowed loads of the food I like!

For those who crave the high fat/high sugar foods I can absolutely understand that the diet could work as they would be unlikely to over eat the 'zero' items.

BTW, I only mentioned wholewheat pasta as zero because it is for Windigo.

Yeah well those high calorie foods you mention are for me what alcohol is to you.. Something I want to have all the time. So that's why this works for me. I don't want to eat piles of baked potatoes with low fat yoghurt. I don't have endless appetite either, I just like creamy and fatty and sweet and salty things which WW forces me to eat less of.

And yeah you're correct Morning Glory for me wholewheat pasta is zero, but apparently not for missT. Everyone gets their own plan.
My zero's are: potatoes/sweet potatoes/plantains, wholewheat pasta, eggs, fat free dairy and cottage cheese, chicken and turkey white meat, fruit, and vegetables.

 

[TastyReuben]

…and yes, I weighed myself this morning. I’ve put on two pounds since MrsT started WW!