Weight Watchers Point Plan & Calculator - the Pros & Cons of the Weight Watchers Point System

Weight Watchers Points Program is commercially successful, however with such weight loss tools it is important for participants to get a good idea of the program and how it works. This article provides a brief point view of the Pros & Cons of the Weight Watchers Point System that allows anyone to obtain an overview about how the program works and the benefits it can off. Hopefully this will help you make the decision whether or not Weight Watchers Point System is for you.

Weight Watchers Point System
The Pros:

- Weight Watchers Programs balance a nutritional diet, with counselling and exercise, which are the keys to both healthy weight loss and healthy living.

- The programs nutritional values never leaves dieters feeling hungry or lethargic, it maintains the body’s metabolism rate and avoids creating fat stores within the body (starvation leads to fat stores).

- A very nutritional diet program with recipes and meals being provided to members that are directly related to the Weight Watchers Point System. Dieters are able to keep these materials themselves.
- One of the few major programs to offer face-to-face support.

- It is also a flexible program that can be conducted online through help forums for meetings, or not attending meetings all together and simply using the program tools such as the Weight Watchers Online Point Calculator.

- The Points program doesn’t just provide dieters with a solid diet program, but also avoids pill pushing and starvation techniques, and educates the dieter on potion control and the nutritional value certain foods have.

- The Weight Watchers Point System takes the worry out of weight loss as dieters have a freedom of choice within their diet as no foods are “off-limit” and its flexibility enures everyday use no matter what type of schedule the member has.

- An incredible number of positive testimonials and commercial success that is based just as much on results as successful marketing.


Weight Watchers Point System
The Cons:

- The Weight Watchers Point System heavily relies on gimmicks to sell the product. Whether it is the Weight Watchers Points, Weight Watchers Point Chart, and Weight Watchers Point Calculator etc. These devices are aggressively marketed to prospective dieters in attempt to make the process appear easy.

- Advertising also convinces overweight people that they can lose weight without sacrificing the foods they love. The truth however is that through the Weight Watchers Point System, and Weight Watchers Point Calculator, dieters are only able to eat tiny portions of the unhealthy food to fit within the point schedule.

- From various studies, on average only 5% of dieters maintain weight loss beyond five years from starting the program and in these cases it has usually been achieved via long-term therapy that can be expensive.

- The use of therapy and meeting attendance within the Weight Watchers Program can potentially prevent development of self-discipline and reliance.

- There have been a number of testimonials reporting the meetings within the Weight Watchers Program as annoying and expensive, and that a competitive nature is fostered.

- Dieters have also reported becoming obsessed with food within he program due to the extensive focus on managing points within the Weight Watchers Point System.

In concluding it is clear that the Weight Watchers Points plans offer both positives and negatives for the dieter. Understanding these aspects, as well as conducting an honest self-analysis of yourself is critical to identifying whether or the plan is for you. Most of the negative aspects of the Weight Watchers Points System can be mitigated through the use of tools and support such as the Weight Watchers Point Calculator, and Weight Watchers Point Chart etc. However the conclusion drawn by Dr. Stanley Heshka, author of the Weight Watchers Program study within the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) is a must to consider for any prospective Weight Watch Dieters:

"…while Weight Watchers and similar programs may work for some people, they clearly don't work for everyone. Programs have the best chances of working if they feel natural to the people following them, otherwise the weight loss is too difficult to maintain. It works as long as you stay with it."

SOURCE: Journal of the American Medical Association 2003;289:1792-1798,1833-1836.