So when I went along to my meeting on Saturday, I got my fancy schmancy new ProPoints book. According to the Leader "everything" we need to know would be in the book and she even brought in a days worth of her food (it was gross, it had been sitting all week!) to show just how much you can eat in a day. I planned to sit down and go through all the stuff on Saturday so that when I went shopping on Sunday I could have pre-planned all my meals so that I knew where I was at. I had a terrible week last week and I am blaming it on how I was stupidly feeling about the new plan. Scared it wouldn't work so sabotaging myself. Anyway, it didn't quite work out like that.
I did have a quick read of the stuff on Saturday. None of the science behind it, but the general info about foodstuffs and what the points allowances were. You basically now are allocated a daily and a weekly points allowance. My daily allowance is 29 and my weekly is 49 (everyone's weekly allowance is the same). You can no longer "save" points for treats etc, that's what your weekly allowance is for. The points value of all foods have changed - mostly increased. Fruit is now zero points, but other things, such as baked potatoes have leaped (10-14 points without filling I've heard - glad I don't bother with them!). I also know one of my staples (and yes this is probably why now they're trying to promote healthy eating) Weight Watchers oven chips have leapt from 4pts for 240g to 12pts!
First of all, I am on the minimum daily allowance of 29. Now, being that I haven't read the "science" behind it, it may well be explained in there, but my first impression is "I have at least three stone still to lose, possibly five, so how can I possibly be on the lowest points allowance?". Straight off the bat - without having to read any "science" - on the old plan I could see that as I lost weight, my points allowance reduced therefore allowing me to continue to lose weight at a healthy rate. I cannot see how I can have the same points allowance as some 8 stone chick looking to lose a bit of weight for Christmas / Wedding / Holidays. BUT like I say, I've not read the whole science shit so it might well be explained in there.
Secondly all over the website people are complaining about not being able to eat their 29 points a day. I don't think I'm going to have that issue. Today I had toast and coffee for breakfast, soup and a roll for lunch, a packet of crisps and a coffee for a snack and a small tin of Mac cheese with toast for dinner and I'm over points already. On the Discover plan I can guarantee I'd have had points left over on that.
Thirdly there doesn't seem to be much hard and fast information available - apparently food stuffs are still wrong on the tracker and on the website some people are saying you should be eating all of your daily points, and whatever you want of your weekly, some people are saying you should eat most of your daily points and some of your weekly and others are saying you should eat all of your daily points and all of your weekly! WTF Weight Watchers, get some frickin' FAQs up on your site!
Like I say, I planned to plan out my meals for the week and stick to them as best I could however on Sunday I was ill so I didn't get to the supermarket and had to rely on my fiance to get my food in. My head was all over the place so I just told him to get some of my old Discover Plan staples so I'm just having to muddle through as best I can.
Overall my first impressions of the plan aren't favourable, but I really want to like it. I like that they're trying to encourage you to choose foods that are good for you rather than foods that are convenient / low points, however I do think they will lose people in their droves. It's much harder now to pick up something in the supermarket and know whether its going to be something you'd want to include in your diet - on the Discover plan you knew if something was high in calories and/or high in sat fats it would also be high in points. Hell, sometimes from experience you could guess the points! There ain't no chance of that with their carb/fibre/fat/protein combo!
I don't think this week will go particularly well for me, due to the lack of planning but I'm not going to give up on it right away. I will give it a week or two, although I was really hoping to be in the 10s by 1st January although that looks hugely unlikely now.
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