Weight Watchers FlexPoints - Diet Plan Outline

Weight Watchers Flex Points is a commercial weight loss program that focuses on balanced low fat nutrition, exercise and group counseling. Its latest diet creation is called "FlexPoints" and is based on its successfull "Winning Points Plan." Every item of food has a points value based on its nutritional content. You may eat as you like as long as you stay within your daily allotment of points. Each week you have 35 reserve points or flex points to use for unplanned activities or cravings. This new program is basically the same as the old, but uses the points in a slightly different manner. To assist the dieter in their lifestyle changes all members are encouraged to attend group discussion and counseling sessions, mostly in person, at local Weight Watchers centers.

Weight Watchers programs have historically been good programs, but they are increasingly relying on gimmicks and slick marketing. The new "FlexPoints" plan is basically the "Winning Points Plan" with re-freshed marketing. They advertise aggressively, trying to convince overweight people that they can lose weight without sacrificing the foods they love. The points-based plans control portion size by allowing calories that should be consummed on healthy food with very small portions of potentially unhealthy food. This strategy can give the dieter a false sense of the real nutritional changes they need to make in their lives for long-term success. If one seriously wants to lose weight and keep it off in the long-term, they need to think more comprehensively about the foods they eat. Long-term group therapy impedes the development of self-reliance and self-discipline, which is clearly the most important in long-term weight loss.

But Weight Watchers is one of the good guys in this industry of pill pushers and unscrupulous "experts." The program costs around $45 dollars a month, which makes it more expensive than our favorite program eDiets, which shares the basics of WW without the gimmicks and inconvenient counseling sessions.