The Pros and Cons of Weight Watchers

**This post contains Amazon affiliate links and other affiliate links. I will receive a small percentage of the sale, at no additional cost to you, if you purchase through my link. Thanks for your support!

WW is a great program, and I’m really sick of it getting a bad rap. It has helped thousands of women lose weight. You aren’t stupid if you use WW to lose weight. In fact, used properly, I don’t even consider WW a diet. Some people need a system like this to lose weight and make healthy habits, and that is ok!

While I love the program, I’ve always realized there were shortcomings with it. I have recently switched to Noom and it has really highlighted the cons of WW for me. While it is fresh in my mind, I thought it was the right time to write about the pros and cons of WW. (Sidenote: you can try a Noom trial if interested by clicking here.)

*Before We Go Any Further, Let Me Explain Something.

Nothing is more confusing than the weight loss world. There is a mind-blowing amount of conflicting information out there, when it is actually quite simple. The “secret” to weight loss is nothing more than consistently being in a calorie deficit. How you achieve that deficit is completely up to you, and the options are endless.

Take it from me, someone who has tried and failed a lot of diets, that the least miserable way to create a sustainable calorie deficit is by incorporating the foods you love into your diet. But how do you manage that and successfully lose weight? By creating a plan, and becoming the author of your own diet.

Would you believe me if I said you can lose weight, right now, and enjoy the process?

My goal is simple: I want to help you create a weight loss system that is completely personalized. Let me take the confusion of weight loss out of the equation, and set you on a consistent path to weight loss success. But not just any path, not mine or anyone else’s, your own path.

The one you create will be unique to you, and that’s why it works. Let’s get you started today. Don’t wait until after the holidays, or for the New Year. Start changing your life now. Sign up for my FREE weight loss course and find out just how much you’re capable of.

Now, onto what you are here for…

I will absolutely always recommend WW as a highly effective weight loss program. Currently, my best friend is successfully losing weight on the program. However, if it is simply a system you use to achieve weight loss without changing your habits, you will have a high risk of gaining all your weight back when you leave the program. That would be worse than not losing anything in my opinion. Let me elaborate below about the pros and cons of WW to help you make an informed decision whether it is the right choice for you.

But first…What is WW?

In case you don’t know, WW (formerly Weight Watchers) assigns a point value to food and you get a daily allotment of points. The healthier the food is, the lower the point value. You want to try to stay within your point range to achieve weight loss.

Weight Watchers recently changed their program to offer three plans: the green plan, blue plan, and purple plan. You get to choose the weight loss plan you would like to follow, and you can switch between them to find what works best for you!

There are two differences between the three plans. Basically it boils down to this: the more zero-point foods you are offered, the less daily points you will have. On the purple plan I get only 16 daily points, but 300+ free foods. (For reference: I’m 35, 160 lbs, a woman, and not breastfeeding). With the blue plan (which is basically the freestyle program they have used for two-ish years) I would have 23 daily points and a list of 200+ zero-point foods. Finally on the green plan, I would have 30 daily points and 100+ free foods (this system is similar to smart points).

Now that you have a basic understanding of the program, let’s get into the pros and cons of it!

(Before you begin another diet, I suggest reading this book. It has changed my life, and it has helped me to finally be able to succeed. I needed to deal with the root of the problem and find ways to cope before I could truly succeed at any program.)

WW pros

1. FLEXIBLE POINTS

You can have a bad day without feeling like you’ve blown your diet. On WW you have weekly points as well as daily points. The weekly points are extras that you can save for the days you know will be harder to stay within your point range. You can also acquire up to 4 extra weekly points per day by having up to 4 unused points at the end of your day. These extra points are called “roll-over points.”

What this means is, you can plan for a night out with friends by saving extra points throughout the week for a splurge. The weekly points are also great because you can eat more on days you are more hungry and eat less on days you aren’t as hungry without blowing it. Instead of daily goals, you have weekly goals, and you will still lose weight. It’s amazing!

I really like focusing on weekly goals with weekly weigh-ins. Stepping on the scale every day can take all the enjoyment out of life for me. If I eat bad and weigh high the next day, it can get me down and zap my motivation. It is freeing to focus on the weeks instead of the days.

2. Helps CHANGE YOUR HABITS

WW encourages you to change your habits. The zero point foods are all healthy. When you are hungry, you have a huge list of zero point foods to fill you up. I used to think, “Well a banana is 100 calories and so is this 100 calorie snack bag of popcorn, so I’ll have the popcorn.” The healthier choice is the banana, but when I count calories, I am always going to choose popcorn over fruit.

The zero point foods work to help you make the healthier choice every time because the unhealthy things have large points attached. On WW I ask myself, “Is it worth it?” before I eat it. It usually isn’t, so I will go with the healthier option. After a while on the program, reaching for fruit as a snack becomes a habit.

3. IT ENCOURAGES YOU TO BE ACTIVE

You can earn “activity points” that you can save up and use throughout the week. This encourages even the mildest of activity such as walking. It also encourages me to be active on the days after I have made bad choices. This can help me get my points back into the positive, and I manage to pull my week together and lose weight.

4. YOU CAN MAKE A FUN GAME OUT OF IT

“How many points does this have?” “What healthy swaps can I make to maximize my points?” Believe it or not, it is actually really fun to figure out how you can get the biggest bang for your buck.

5. THE FINANCIAL INVESTMENT KEEPS YOU INVESTED

It costs enough that you will be motivated to stick with it! Sometimes I feel foolish if I invest in something and then don’t use it. That’s what keeps me going; I have to get my money’s worth!

6. THE SUPPORT SYSTEM

Between online coaches, town meetings, and Instagram, you can always find someone who can encourage you to keep going. Everyone is on the same journey, using the same system, so they understand your struggle. The community is one of the best weight loss communities out there.

7. YOU WILL LOSE WEIGHT

It works, period. Every single time I follow the program exactly how it should be followed, no matter what version of the program it has changed to, I lose weight. A while back I followed the program precisely and lost almost 8 pounds in a month, see? Knowing a program will work keeps me going and trying. I trust the system.

8. THE APP MAKES IT EASY TO TRACK

There is a bar-code scanner that is complete with a large database to help make tracking your points as easy as possible.

9. YOU CAN TURN A BAD DAY AROUND

If you have a bad day, all hope is not lost. You can exercise and eat better the rest of the week to get yourself back within your point range. It is really nice to have all the safety nets on WW so you feel like you always have a fighting chance to turn your week around. One bad day won’t necessarily make you throw in the towel for the week. I know that with counting calories, a bad day will easily turn into a bad week.

10. YOU CAN FOLLOW ANY DIET ON THIS PROGRAM

Your diet is simply the foods that make up what you eat. So if you are following Keto, you can do WW and be Keto. I am currently using a Whole-Food Plant-Based Diet for the health of our family. However, I gained weight when I switched our diet to WFPB. When I started following WW, I lost almost 8 pounds in a month!

11. You will save money

If you don’t start buying the WW products and processed foods, you will save money following the program. The program encourages you to eat whole, real foods. You will find yourself making more things from scratch, which saves money.

Even if you don’t do that, you will find you don’t want to eat out at fancy restaurants that often because they are too hard to track. My friend who is doing WW right now, realized how she isn’t as prone to eat out using the program. This will actually save hundreds of dollars and you will lose weight in the process. Win-Win.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B09JKQ4g5Tb/

WW Cons

1. IT CAN ENCOURAGE PIGGING OUT OR BINGE EATING

Since you can save points, you can eat responsibly five days a week and then binge on the last two. You might still be able to lose weight in this cycle, but it isn’t a healthy habit. Once you get off the program and aren’t monitoring your food as closely, a habit like this will likely lead to weight gain. Plus, is that anyway to live long term? Hungry for five days and then excess for a day or two? I don’t think so.

2. IT COSTS MONEY

It might make you more invested, or maybe you will get frustrated by the restrictions of the program and end up just wasting your money because you refuse to follow the rules. Seriously though, if you don’t believe the program will work and follow it exactly, just save your money and don’t even start. You must believe it will work and then put in the work to see results. If you just halfheartedly want to see if you can lose weight tracking, start with MyFitnessPal since it is free.

3. YOUR POINTS CAN BE GONE WHEN YOU HAVE ACTUALLY EATEN UNDER 1200 CALORIES

When you eat something decadent on WW, you can blow your day (because that item has been assigned like 20 points) and you feel like a failure because you have no points left and you’re hungry! In this hunger and feeling of failure situation, you can always redeem yourself by eating zero point foods.

I never did because of the mental part of it all. I get discouraged and think, “I can’t eat more because then I will get fat.” You have to really trust that the system works, and eat the free foods in this situation. That one high point item only had 600 calories, so eating chicken breasts the rest of the day and fruits and vegetables would have probably brought your daily calories to 1500. You have to be able to stay out of that defeatist mentality.

If you would’ve just logged the calories, you would see your day wasn’t blown. When people feel like they have blown a day, they end up throwing the rest of the day away. It takes a lot of trust in the program to overcome this cycle. (If you can trust it, you will lose).

4. YOU CAN BECOME OBLIVIOUS TO THE NUTRITIONAL VALUE OF FRUITS, VEGGIES, AND HEALTHY PROTEINS BECAUSE IT IS FREE

It’s odd, but because those foods have no points, they started to have less priority to be in my diet. I know it can have the opposite effect, which it did for me sometimes, but I’m mentioning this because it also happened to me. When I started logging those in calories and choosing them to fuel my body, I felt more in control and full and healthy. I created a healthy connection to the food I was eating.

5. WW CAN CREATE A DISCONNECT WITH THE NUTRITION OF FOOD

This isn’t science, it is just my experience. I think it is all about calories in, calories out. I know there are many people who will argue with this, the keto people, the high fat/low carb people. Sure, there is way more science than I know about, but from what I have seen with weight loss in all the people who are successful is that they have minded their calories.

On WW, I had no idea how many calories I had eaten. I had eaten all my points and was still hungry. I could fill that hunger with zero point foods, but you know how that goes. When I know the calories I have eaten, I understand so much more about the hunger or fullness I am feeling.

6. WHEN YOU HAVE ONE OF THOSE WEEKS WHERE YOU JUST WANT TO EAT BAD, IT CAN BE IMPOSSIBLE TO SUCCEED WITH WW

Maybe you are a less intense person than me. I either have self-control or don’t. I don’t just want a slice of cake, I want the whole dang cake. With counting calories, I could not eat the whole cake, but I could probably eat 4-5 pieces and call it a day and move on to eating fine tomorrow.

For some reason the large amount of points assigned to a giant piece of cake would really mess with me. I’d end up in the hole, even with the safety nets and then been discouraged the rest of the week.

Whereas when logging calories, I would see that I ate too much for the one day, and the next day I would get a clean slate. Everyday is separated from the last day with calories, but on WW everyday works together to make a week. This can either work to your advantage or disadvantage.

Near the end, it was a disadvantage for me to have the week work together. Maybe it will work for you, but by the time I switched to counting calories, blowing a day and moving forward was working much better for me.

7. THE BAD FOODS HAVE VERY HIGH POINT VALUES ASSIGNED

This is beginning to be the theme of the cons, but it’s true. The unhealthy foods are just penalized too greatly and I believe it enhances a bad view of foods. What I have learned is that there is no bad food or good food, it’s just food. Calories are calories. When you label food as food, you abolish the guilt. Not having the food guilt frees you.

The goal is to have a healthy relationship with the unhealthy food so that you can enjoy it, and choose to eat the healthy food because it makes you feel better. That is the ultimate goal, not weight loss. Will food being penalized so greatly help you reach that goal?

My Personal Experience with WW

I have used WW as my primary tool of weight loss for 10 years. That’s how I know the great things along with the short comings of the program so well! I used it before my first baby and then after each of my three pregnancies. After each pregnancy, I lost all or most of my baby weight with the program.

To be honest, I will never join again

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t because it might work for you. The thing is, I have come so far with the mental aspect of weight loss. I have achieved food freedom AND scale freedom. I’m down 65 pounds total now and easily maintaining.

Based off what I have learned about weight loss, I have created a system to be used in conjunction with a calorie tracking app. Check it out before you commit to WW, because it might just be the thing you have needed all along.

Weight Watchers after my pregnancies

When I lost weight after my first kid, I used the program to lose weight, not change habits. I simply played the game, and guess what? After I got off the program I quickly gained 10 pounds. That’s how I realized it would not change my habits if I didn’t use the program properly. Then I got pregnant.

I used it after my second kid, this time I lost 25 pounds in a year. The problem I had with the program this time was that I kept rebelling against the rules. That’s how I discovered the problem with hating how harshly the bad food was penalized. Then I got pregnant and had my last baby 4 years ago.

The program worked!

This was when the program finally clicked for me. I started to make healthy swaps. Not only that, but the healthy swaps were just as satisfying as the unhealthy foods from my past. I started to enjoy 2 ingredient dough pizza with light cheese instead of the grease laden pizza from the store. Once I started to enjoy the healthy alternatives, my habits FINALLY changed.

I still had my moments with WW, which is why the weight I lost took 3.5 years to get off, but with the program I made healthy habits for long term success. In that time, I went off and on WW several times and each time I maintained my weight loss!

Now I am maintaining a 50 pound weight loss easily, and trying to lose about 20 more. I’m off the program right now and I’m checking out Noom, because mentally I’m more on the con side of the program than the pros right now. If Noom works, I’ll never go back to WW. But I know, and all my friends know, it’s a possibility I’ll get back on the program. When I choose to play the game, lay off the junk, and commit fully, I ALWAYS lose weight.

Should I join WW?

Only you can answer that. How you are with junk food and restrictions? I can’t tell you if you will have success. I can tell you that if you play along you will lose weight, but whether or not you do that is entirely up to you. The last thing I want is for you to see me and say, “It worked for her, it’ll work for me!” It might, but it might not. It all comes down to your personality, and only you know that.

Hopefully this will help give you insight to the possible shortcomings of the program before you spend the money. The money you spend is such a low amount that if you are completely unsure if it will work, just try it! All you have to lose is 20 bucks at most, and if it works, it’s more than worth the investment.

Whatever you do, I hope you do something, because you deserve the change you are looking for. I’m rooting for you, no matter what route you take lose weight.

The Pros and Cons of Weight Watchers