Weight Watchers Points Plus

A little more than a year ago, Weight Watchers International rolled out a new iteration of its internationally successful diet program to customers in the United States. Up until then, the U.S. was still on the Momentum plan – an evolved version of Flex and Core merged into a single philosophy and offering a similar choice of either Tracking points or using a Simply Filling technique that involved eating from a list of Power Foods and not having to count points. Weight Watchers members who lost most or all of their weight on Flex Points or Core found the transition to Momentum quite easy, since nothing about the plan actually changed except certain terminology. Weight Watchers had patented a formula for attributing Points values to every food, based on its number of calories, grams of fat and grams of fiber.

The new plan, which had already been tested in Europe over several months, finally made its way to the United States under the name PointsPlus. The factors involved in finding these new PointsPlus values changed from calories, fat, and fiber to fat, carbs, fiber, and protein. The old Points values could no longer be supported using the Online Tracker or newer versions of the Points Calculator, and all cookbooks changed over to reflect changes in PointsPlus.

One of the biggest changes to the plan was the liberation of fruit to Zero Points status—all fruit on the new plan is free, as are most vegetables (namely, the non-starchy kinds.) Corn, potatoes, beans, and peas all have PointsPlus values assigned to them, but most other vegetables are free. Despite criticism for encouraging people to eat sugary fruits "as much as you like, within reason," Weight Watchers insists that no one has ever become obese or overweight from eating too many fresh fruits and vegetables. Many people were seeing appreciable results on the new program. Some, however, found that the changeover was so radical a detour from the old program that they were now faced with stubborn pounds that were no longer melting off so easily. Some long time members even complained of gaining weight while following the new program strictly.

"It doesn't make sense to tell people they can just eat all the fruit they want and not gain weight," said Joanne Daly, a Weight Watchers Lifetime Member who has been on plan for the past six years. She’s seen all its various forms. "And yet, " she continued, "that’s exactly what is working now with PointsPlus 2012. Millions of people are finding that the new plan tweaks have helped ramp up their weight loss, and we haven't had to sacrifice our free fruit to do it."

Last year, the lowest number of daily points a member could have was 29, but in PointsPlus 2012, those points can be adjusted down to a minimum of 26 points for people on the lighter end of things. People who have lots more points to eat daily now have some flexibility in finding a daily points target that really works for them, rather than sticking to the absolute number generated at sign up. It gives a person 3 points to subtract at a time, until the right weight loss rate is achieved.

So, if you have been curious about Weight Watchers’ 2012 plan changes, I hope this was helpful.

About the author: Melonie McLaurin enjoys writing about health, dieting, and fitness, and promoting Georgia home security systems from ADT, available in every state but Hawaii and Alaska.

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