Episode 53: Weight Watchers Isn't Fooling Anyone
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Episode 53
Participant #1:
Hello, everybody. Welcome back to a brand new episode of the Upbeat Dietitians podcast. Hello, everyone. Today we are talking about one of my personal favorite topics, and we're going to be talking about another diet diet review. So today we're going to be talking about Weight Watchers. And I'm sure you've heard of Weight Watchers or it's common modern name, WW.
Participant #1:
But today we're going to talk about kind of what, wait, structures is how it works. As always, we always go over pros and cons and then we'll give you our final thoughts. You've been here for a while. You know, the structure. If not, thanks for checking in. We're excited you're here. And let's get into it. So Weight Watchers has been around for about mental math, 60 years, decades. Yeah, that's crazy. A long time crazy. And it's a very popular weight loss program. But we kind of wonder why is this popular? Is it because it works? Do people get stuck in the cycle of gaining weight, losing weight, gaining weight, losing weight, like a lot of chronic dieters? And how can we kind of figure this out? So Disclaimer. We always like to add these in here if you like WW and it works for you. Awesome. We love that for you. We're glad you feel good, you're happy. Your body, you do you we're just going to kind of break down. What WW? I also hang up going forward, are you going to call WW or weight loss? I decided I was thinking that earlier. I was like, what am I don't like saying WW? Yeah, maybe I like Weight Watchers. I feel like Weight Watchers is just something I've known it as. Yeah, but I also don't want to get slandered. Okay, jumping ahead here, they rebranded to take the word weight out of their name. All over the website. It still says lose weight, lose weight. Here's how you lose weight, lose weight, lose weight, lose weight. So the word weight is everywhere. We can just call it weight. Watching WW does not roll off the tongue. Well, no, but yeah, we're going to break it down. We watchers how it works, pros and cons, all that fun stuff just to give you kind of before one more from a dietitian perspective, what's going on there? Yeah, I think I get asked about Weight Watchers, like, at least once a week. But more than that, it's been around forever. You guys all know what it is. You get assigned like a number of points that you get to eat you have earned, and then certain foods are assigned points. And then if you stay within your points, then the whole idea is that you should lose weight. It's just another way of creating a calorie deficit because obviously they're not going to give you enough points that you are eating too many calories. That just wouldn't work for weight loss. So all it is just a fancy way of putting you in a calorie deficit. That's actually more confusing because having knowledge about calories is actually not a bad thing. We just don't need to be like micromanaging our calorie intake. But anyway, like, I kind of already said they did a rebrand and I think it was 2018. So they changed from Weight Watchers to Wellness That Works or WW. And the whole point was to get away from the whole it's a diet thing. But spoiler alert, still a diet because the whole thing is about weight loss and you're counting stuff and your intake is limited. There's a million red flags that say it's a diet. And I actually saw it today. I was on their website that on the top with their little logo. It says WW and it says Wellness that works next to it. But it also says weight loss that works. So I don't know if they change like what WW means. But it didn't use to say that because I had recorded a YouTube video on this before and I don't remember it saying that weight loss that works piece. But who knows? I could have stopped remembering it. Right. But what was the point of the rebrand if you're still going to be doing this, maybe just since the main logo doesn't have it anymore. Yeah, that's a big thing because I know I think around here I've seen a couple of their centers and it has the WW on it, even though everyone know. I don't think I've talked to anyone that has said Wellness that Works or weight loss that Works. They've also Weight Watchers. Yeah. No one calls it WW. They are branding themselves too well. I know they were Weight Watchers for like 50 years, almost 60 years. It also might be something that takes time where people will. That's true. Forget it. But if they keep talking. Yeah, let's get into it. Let's get into it. Hannah already talked about the first point. Kind of one of the biggest problems with Weight Watchers is the point system. They preach, eat what you love. Nothing is off limit unless it's outside of your points for that day, which is very easy to do. Yeah. And they say just really kind of preaching nothing's off limits. Just track your food, stick to a budget, and eat zero point foods, which we're going to get into, which is very fun. But they kind of really argue that no food is off limits. But there are also arbitrary point values that you must stick to in order to be successful because you are given this money and you can eat whatever you want as long as you stick within that limit. So maybe I want. I think I was talking to someone who wanted a piece of cake or something, and they were like, it's not even worth the point. I've heard that so many times. Not worth the point. So all you do is base food on this number of points. And I know people who can rattle off how many points any suit has, but they just know. They just know cake is that many points. Bacon is that many points. They're constantly calculating throughout the day. It's just, you know how they say, Shoot, I'm going to say this wrong. Same person or same thing, different font. It's the same thing. It's just a different way to calorie count. It's a little different because there are technically zero foods which aren't even zero calorie foods. But no, still, it's this whole interest. It's an algorithm. Yeah. Since people say it's not worth the calories and they feel guilt when they eat them, which is reinforcing. Like, eat those foods that don't have any points because you can eat as many as them, but limit your higher point foods because those aren't as good and you can't have an unlimited amount of that. But I was reading like a blog on this, and they were giving me the example of if you go to McDonald's and get like a sandwich for breakfast, like a sandwich or like a coffee, that's like 17 points. If you have like 22 for the day, like, you get your breakfast and that's it. Even though that sandwich. Yeah, sure, it's McDonald's, whatever. But it probably had like 3400 calories. You had a coffee if you add sugar to it's. Another point. But that's your whole day just for a breakfast that isn't even I don't even want to say good and bad. Obviously it's not good or bad, but nothing outrageous. Yeah. So it's so easy to blow it. And then when you do blow it, you feel guilty because of this arbitrary number that has its hold on you. Yeah, but don't worry, guys, you can add points now. They're always changing, which will get to why that's a cons, because it's never making any sense, like what the rules are. But with their most newest update, you can now add points to whatever point value you're given by doing healthy habits, like eating non starchy veggies, drinking water, and my favorite, being physically active. So you can earn your food if you do exercise or your veggies, you could eat more if you've earned it, which just teaches people it really kind of deter what our perception of those different healthful habits are, because then people pair exercise with earning food. And when they don't exercise, they feel like they can't eat more food even if their appetite is higher or if they don't have a vegetable, they feel like they can't use as much. But when they do, maybe they ignore. They see it kind of as like a reward system where I eat my vegetables. So now I can eat more. Even though vegetables by itself are fine to eat, you don't need to eat them to earn something else. Right. We said that in the last episode. Well, not in order for me to what you're hearing. But in our set point weight episode, we talked about how if you eat veggies because you just like to eat veggies, you might find that they actually taste kind of good sometimes. And you actually like them if you're not only using them as a punishment or because there's zero points and you can just have this feeling of like faux fullness. Exactly. Let's talk about the zero point food some more. Because that's also changed recently. I did not know it has changed. Yeah. So now it is not the same for everybody. They have different plans and different plans have different zero point foods. So, like, for example, if you have diabetes, you have different zero point foods than someone who doesn't have diabetes. Yeah. So zero point foods, like sugar free options. Exactly. They don't tell you. I was like trying to Google it. And you can't find, like, maybe you can on the website. It's not there. I bet there's some blog out there. I'm actually going to do this live. I'll work with you.
Participant #1:
Okay. There's a different categories. And I forget who gets what. Because you can be in the green group, the blue group, or the purple group. Let's see what kitchenprove.com. Wait, one of these says we watch. His website says chicken, fish, and avocado or zero point foods. So they have like a list that are universally zero point. But they also have ones, I believe, based on your plan, if you're green, blue or purple. Oh, the page called Diabetes, the Diabetes Tailored personal points program. So, like, the green plan is most generous with 30 points, but it has the most limited zero point foods. So only reason you get more points is because you have to eat less zero point foods. And then the blue plan is the new name for what used to be called freestyle. Oh, my gosh. They're like rebranding all the time. That's like their moderate plan of like a minimum 23 points and a generous free food list of 200 plus. And then the purple plan is the most, like, smallest points of a minimum of 16, which is the, like, nothing. Holy cow. And then an enormous list of 300 plus free foods. So basically, you take an assessment and then an algorithm gives you one of these three plans, and then you get your certain number of points, and then you get a list of, like, what foods are free or zero points. Right. And they're supposed to be tailored to the user, but they're not. They're just based on algorithm. So if you, for example, didn't like any of the free foods in the blue group, you're out of luck. You're eating food that have points. But I think the biggest beef I have with the whole point thing is they don't actually teach you about anything. But just because you know that an Apple is how many points, maybe it's their points. I don't know as a bad example, but just because, you know, a certain food is X number of points does not actually teach you about what's the nutrient composition of that food is. There enough protein in that to keep me satisfied. How many calories are in that? And I don't think we always need to be micromanaging calories and proteins and fats and all that. But it can be educational to know those types of things. So you know how it can make you feel. Like if you don't eat enough protein in the day, you might notice you don't feel very well. But if you have no idea what to even have protein. So all you've ever learned about is from Weight Watchers, you never make that correlation there. Yeah. And it kind of just teaches you that your body needs this money or needs this money number of points of food to kind of run and that it doesn't really tell you kind of how to pair snacking together. It's a little bit more satisfying or components to really kind of incorporate or whatever. Because I could probably make a day of eating with Weight Watcher points that's all like fruit or all protein or something like that, and that would not be beneficial to me. I don't know the extent of their education or whatnot. I do know there are coaches I don't know what the coaches teach, but just kind of insinuating that food equates to some type of point value is not helpful for the long run. Right. It doesn't actually teach you, and it also can really discourage you from actually listening to your hunger and fullness cues and, like, actually figuring out how to apply, like, what I call the satisfaction factor. Because food has to be more than just, like, physically. Nourishing. And like, filling it off. Like satisfy you. Like if you just eat boiled chicken breast every day, you're not ever going to actually feel satisfied. Will you feel full? Yeah, obviously it's like just straight up protein, but you wouldn't feel satisfied. And so you would likely end up overeating or binge eating later. So even if you fill up on these zero point foods, you get a ton of volume. You're not actually ever going to feel that mental satisfaction. You don't ever learn about hunger and fullness cues. You just learn how it's like, this is how many I get in the day. Yeah. Cool. Well, don't worry. It's going to get even more confusing. They also have rollover points.
Participant #1:
They do everything else except for this one. The base of this one is like, say you have gone over on your points today. That's okay. But you have to eat less tomorrow. You can just use your points from tomorrow to feed yourself today because that's how it works. Yeah. It also assumes that our bodies need the same every single day, which is not. That's also why I don't like calorie counting, because it's simply an estimate. There's no way to know for sure in this get a moment how many calories you're actually burning. Yeah, unless you're jumping into, like, a Bod pot or something every single day right after exercise, you're like, what do I need for today? Right? Because we all have access to those body composition or the BMR calculator super advanced machine. I would hate that. Oh, my gosh, I overeat one day and tomorrow is going to suck. I have to not eat dinner or something like that. Yeah, I know someone who is not on Weight Watchers, but she does gosh, I'm going to get mad at talking about it. She does one low carb day and then one, like, regular carb day, and she's like, I don't know why, but I'm always craving carbs. I'm like, Why don't you do just, like, moderate carbs every day rather than one day of none? One day of, like you call normalmoderate, but you end up binge eating on carbs. You didn't have them the day before. It's kind of like the same thing. If you are planning on having a day where you're going to be under fueled, your brain is going to recognize that and likely lead to you over consuming in an anticipatory fashion. It's just so dumb. Our bodies are so much more complex than just a number of points. Exactly. Yeah. And another big problem with the really going after this point system is if people save their points for the end of the day or if there's a special occasion, they're like, I'm going out to eat. I know I'm going to eat a little bit more. I'm going to eat as little as possible throughout the day so I can enjoy myself. Or maybe they're like, oh, I'll be really good throughout the day. So that way at dinner, I could have a dessert maybe, or I could eat a little bit more. And it really forces you to fixate on that number and that point system because you're constantly thinking about, how many points do I have left? How many points is this meal? Is this snack? Can I afford to eat this? Do I need to skip this snack? Should I ignore this hunger queue so that I can eat dinner? But yeah, our calories. As Hannah said, our calorie needs change based off your physical activity levels that you have going on that day. And this is why we are not a fan of calories or point tracking systems. Yeah, you're not a robot that only needs X number of calories every day. Also why I hate calorie deficit. Well, I don't hate calorie deficits. I hate what it's become very romanticized. People are like, just go to a calorie deficit. Just being a calorie deficit. Oh, you live in a larger body. You must have never heard of a calorie deficit. Let me inform you on what that is and tell you exactly why I think you should do that'll, fix all your problems, even though you never asked. I just saw that you were fat. And so I said you should do that. Yeah.
Participant #1:
Okay. Well, we've got one last beef with not really the point system, but the whole system in general on the bottom of their website and like in different places. It says this one is not really related to Weight Watchers, really, but just like bashing on doctors, I think more. So it says, get started with the number one doctor recommended weight loss program today. And I guess I don't want to bash some doctors because there's some really great doctors out there. But there's some great ones. We don't like that Advertisement, though. No, because these are the same doctors, I'm guessing, who my patients and my clients and my people on TikTok always tell me about that, told them to lose weight just because they have a BMI over 24. These are the same doctors who are fatphobic and always pushing a weight loss on people who come in because they sprained their ankle. Yeah. And just because the doctor says you should do something, it's actually going to be a good fit for you. Like, unless your doctor unless you express weight as a concern to your doctor and you guys have a good conversation about it, talk about maybe what you've been doing, then they can maybe talk about what to do for weight loss. But it shouldn't be Weight Watchers. It should be referring to a dietitian who actually can discuss nutrition and exercise with you. But yeah, there's just too many doctors pushing things like Weight Watchers keto, noon, 1200 calorie diets without getting any information on what that patient's needs actually are. Yeah, this falls a lot under our thin privilege and fat phobia episode two as well. We're not saying that all doctors are bad. If you're a doctor and you're upset that we're telling you to stop telling everyone to lose weight even if you haven't heard the whole story, then we're upset with you. But there should just be more referrals to dietitians. It's not just kind of I've either heard eat less or I've heard do Weight Watchers, do noon, do keto. I've even had patients who are seeing me a dietitian and their doctor will just try to exist, not see my notes in their chart and give them alternative advice, even though they're seeing me a dietitian already. We exist. We want to help you with your health. We probably won't have you do Weight Watchers. We'll have some actual realistic advice for you rather than just eat less than 24 points in a day. Yes. Something we didn't talk about on here. I'm just thinking of this now is what happens when you lose the weight. How do we maintain that? Because then people stop doing it and they stop tracking all their points and they don't know how to eat. All they see is food as a point. That's why it's been around for 60 years, because people do it, they lose the weight, they can't maintain it. They come right back. That's how they have been in business for that long and how they afforded to have Oprah as their spokesperson, because people are dependent on it and don't actually learn so they can go off and do things on their own. When you see a dietitian, it sometimes can be expensive. You're paying out of pocket. But the goal is to see the dietitian for like three months, six months, a year, and never see us again. Yeah. You're set for lights? Yeah. I'm trying to keep you around. No, we like it. Yeah. We want to teach you the basics on nutrition or to your personalized situation, what you have going on. Of course, if something changes, like maybe you have some type of cardiovascular development or diabetes development or something changes that would warrant a nutrition intervention, then we'd love to see you again, but we're not trying to keep you in a loop of how you improve. It's not no longer realistic. You're not going to maintain that without our help. Yes. We give you the tools you need so you don't need us ever again. Yeah. We don't want you to be dependent on us. And that's the difference between a dietitian and a diet. Okay. Do we have any other final thoughts on this? I guess we have one positive, but it's not really a positive. It's kind of like a backwards positive. I was going to say our only positive we had written down was that the zero point foods are tailored to the user, whereas previously they were the same for everyone. But like we already said, they're not really that tailored just based on an algorithm. Yeah, they're a little more tailored. A little. They tried to get away from the diet thing, but they're still doing weight loss. So limits and earning your food and saving up for events. Yeah. Okay. Final thoughts. Final thoughts. So they're changing all the time, which again, is why they always can count on you coming back. So you don't actually learn and they're always going to be changing. So you have to keep up with it. They rely on you coming back until they stay in business forever and ever and ever. Food is more than just points. It's more than just points. Food is like calories. Food is macronutrients and micronutrients. Food is emotional. Food is cultural. It's more than just calories or more than just points and calories. Kind of like how new and academia say they're not a diet, they're a lifestyle. Weight Watchers is the same way. It's 100% a diet. And again, wrapping up here, they just make a calorie restriction look different or cooler or sexier. So you feel like you aren't restricting, but you're only allowed so much food. So the truth is you're still going to likely be under fueling and not be able to maintain any weight that you actually lose. Yay. Another diet review. You guys literally always know what we're going to talk about in these. If you're listening all the way to this, thank you. But I don't know why you just did. You already knew what we're going to say. Thanks for sticking around. Stick around for the bonus questions. That's true. That's the best part. If you get up here. Hey, welcome back. Yeah. Not dietitian approved. No. Work with a dietitian directly, even if your goal is weight loss. Like, I don't do that. But there are plenty of weight loss diet we'll refer. You ask us. Yeah. We're not anti weight loss. We just don't do it. We don't like talking about intentional weight loss. Other goals for us to focus on. There are other dietitians that specialize in it. Yeah, exactly. We refer to them. Yeah. And they will teach you how to not do Weight Watchers.
Participant #1:
Cool. Let's talk about our bonus question. So I don't think I have an answer to this. So I want you to go first, Hannah. But the question is, what is your least favorite food? We always talk about what the best one is or what our favorite one is. But what is your least favorite?
Participant #1:
Nothing. That's not weird. Like, I eat most normal or common foods. I'm not picky at all. I have preferences, of course, but I eat most things, so all I can think of is, like, weird stuff. Like things that have eyes or like bugs or I guess like a not weird one. Like super spicy stuff. I don't like anything spicy because I can't handle it because I'm a baby. But in terms of normal foods, I'm thinking of, like, Ross. Like, he doesn't like sun dried tomatoes. It's like a typical kind of, like normal food. I don't have that kind of thing where I don't like something like that. So I guess my answer is like spicy stuff because I'm defaulting to that. Okay. I think mine is gooey cheese foods. That's so bizarre. That's so bizarre to me. I don't like lasagna. I like the concept of lasagna. I would eat lasagna if I had no cheese in it. I'd love that. Noodles and meat sauce. I'd eat that. That's spaghetti. But when it hurts me. So that's always my also default, like, anything that hurts me. I'm not the biggest fan of, but it freaks me out. That's how I do it. I think it's a texture thing. I think mine are also more text related. I think it's sashimi. I don't love that because the texture because it just freaks me out. I only like it if it's really high quality. If it's like at a buffet. Sushimi. No, it's like a nice Asian restaurant. I would love some good high quality, but I get textures. Weird. Yeah. Gooey things and things that are super soft and they just like melt. I'm like I love me like melted cheese, like a Bree wheel off. I like Bree but I don't like when they heat it up in the oven. Then I'm like, no. Okay. Well, I don't know how it is. I know. And I'll try to eat spicy stuff. I like try. I just can't. I went to Hawaii recently and I ate poke, like probably one of the most high quality raw fish I'll ever have access to and I could tell it was high quality and fresh and I just couldn't get over the texture. I wish I could like you, but I can't, right? I wish I like spicy stuff. I really want to. There's so many good things that are spicy that I can't enjoy. It might be one of those things. I convinced myself to like kale after a couple of years. So maybe I'll just keep like, exposure therapy myself or I just force myself to mentally told myself I'm like this is good. And then eventually I liked it. But also I'm not getting the best quality here in Illinois. No, we have the worst seafood in the Midwest. A big bummer. Well, that was not super thrilling. But now you guys know early favorite foods. Yeah. And maybe in a couple of years we'll like them. Yeah, that's true. I'll keep trying. You hot. These aren't bad foods. No, they're just our personal preferences. Yeah. Thank you guys so much for tuning in to another episode of the podcast. Love you all. Xoxo we will see you next week. X Oxo the gossip eat girls. Xoxo I don't like tudg. Girls favorite tudbuds. We're just going to stick with that neutral term. I like that one. Our favorite tudbuds. Okay. Bye. All right. Bye.
