Daily Weight Watchers Points after Weightloss

March 19, 2007 7:53 PM

How many weight watchers points should I eat daily to maintain my weight, not loose any more?

I've done weight watchers for quite some time and have lost 50 lbs. I did it without attending meetings or being a member, so I don't have a lot of information about it aside from the formula. I have a table for how many points each weight range should eat in a day in order to loose weight, but I'm wondering if there is such a table for maintaining weight. For instance, right now I'm eating 24 points a day (I weigh 200 lbs). How many should I eat to keep myself at 200? My wife and I are both doing it, so if anyone has the whole table, it would be greatly appreciated.

posted by jwiener to Society & Culture (14 answers total)

There is no longer a table of points values that correspond with your weight, they have replaced it with a quiz. The quiz takes into account whether you are male/female, your height, your weight, your activity level, and whether you are trying to lose or maintain.

To get the quiz, you could go to a meeting for 1 week to get the Week 1 materials that has the information, or look for it on ebay. Alternately, I am sure you can find the quiz to find out your points target on popular WW sites like Dotti's Weight Loss Zone or Health Discovery. Just search their forums for the new Points quiz.
posted by tastybrains at 8:06 PM on March 19, 2007

I lost a great deal of weight by doing WW on my own. I believe 1 point = 50 calories -- that was probably on Dotti's WLZ. There's some adjustment for eating fruits and veggies and fibre -- not sure anyone has hacked that.

However, you might want to increase points slowly. Your metabolism may have changed. If you need, say, 2000 calories to maintain, it might be too much to jump to 40 points a day.
posted by acoutu at 8:15 PM on March 19, 2007

I got to LTM last year, and I think I remember that during the Maintenance phase you're supposed to increase your points by 4-5. (In other words, the points they quote you at the first meeting are to lose weight. You should definitely eat more than that to stay the same.)

The Points don't equate exactly to calories. There's some allowance for saturated fat and fiber as well. Fortunately the formula is patented and, thus, is available online.

I'm not sure if you'll find somebody to give you the whole table online. For one, I think WW probably cracks down on that stuff pretty heavily. And also, those that pay for meetings might be annoyed at being asked to subsidise those who don't... :)
posted by web-goddess at 8:28 PM on March 19, 2007

Yes, roughly 50 calories to a point. I think WW aims at a 1-2 lb per week loss, which work out to a 500-1000 calories deficit per day. If you add 10 points to the upper end of your daily points range, that should be a good maintenance number. According to my chart, your range is 22-29, so 39 would be the maintenance, which is 1950 calories.

(I stopped paying for WW before I got to maintenance, so I don't really know their maintenance plan. Personally my natural eating pattern is only a bit over my base rate, so I only gain weight over long periods and counting the points during maintenance is not worth the effort -- I'd rather just go back on the real plan again every few months.)
posted by smackfu at 8:29 PM on March 19, 2007

Plug in your stats here. If one point is 50 calories you can figure accordingly. Congrats on the weight loss!
posted by LoriFLA at 8:38 PM on March 19, 2007

Nb. I avoided including a link to a calorie calculator because I don't understand the disclaimer about fat burning calories for obese people. See LoriFLA's link right above.
posted by acoutu at 9:11 PM on March 19, 2007

Good point. IANAD but just in logical terms, the disclaimer in LoriFLA's link seems to be saying the higher your bodily percentage of fat cells, the higher your chance for inaccurate results using that page's estimate. (In other words: given that only some of a body's fat cells burn calories, calorie needs will not increase proportionately with weight because fat cells increase disproportionately with weight.)
posted by sparrows at 12:28 AM on March 20, 2007

also, those that pay for meetings might be annoyed at being asked to subsidise those who don't...

I don't get that statement (though I admit I'm no economics whizz) - WeightWatchers doesn't incur any cost because jwiener and his spouse are losing weight on their own, so what exactly would these paying members be subsidising?

Perhaps those who pay for meetings can comfort themselves with the thought that the jwieners of the world miss out on the group support, which as far as I can see is the main benefit to WW. Otherwise WW basically offers moderate ideas freely available from public health organisations: eat less, move more.
posted by Pigpen at 12:47 AM on March 20, 2007

Apologies for the derail. It's just that technically the meeting fees aren't just to cover the "group support"; it's also the fee for getting the printed material. You're actually supposed to pay even if you don't go to a meeting. (In my experience, no leader actually enforces this.) And while I don't want to get into any argument about copyright or anything, it's just that I'd be kind of annoyed if I paid my AUD $17 dues for all the material and then somebody on the Internet expected me to share it with them for free. As tastybrains pointed out above, the basic starting information is all provided at the first meeting, so really you'd only have to go to one to get it. (Or buy a book on eBay.) And you're right, nothing they're teaching is especially groundbreaking. Anybody in the world can count calories. I dunno; it just makes me feel like an idiot to think that I've gone to the expense of following the rules when everybody else just bypasses them. (And I don't mean to call out jwiener or anything; I just wanted to explain why s/he might not find other WW people very forthcoming with the info...)
posted by web-goddess at 4:04 AM on March 20, 2007

derail #2: when did they switch to a quiz to calculate points? I stopped going to meetings in October '06, and they were still using the weight = points method back then.
posted by Lucinda at 5:05 AM on March 20, 2007

I joined with my wife recently. As far as I know all the printed material (I don't have it in front of me) regards losing weight. The quiz left out the question of whether you want to lose or maintain. However, the online E-tools quiz for calculating your points did mention the maintain question. You could purchase one month of the online E-tools and you'd have access to the quiz (I think it's like $10 or something). Alternately since I have Etools as part of my monthly WW subscription and I really don't hold a grudge against those that go it alone, you may email me if you'd like any specifics plugged into the online calculator.
posted by genial at 5:31 AM on March 20, 2007

derail #2: when did they switch to a quiz to calculate points? I stopped going to meetings in October '06, and they were still using the weight = points method back then.

They launched this in early December '06
posted by tastybrains at 5:57 AM on March 20, 2007

I was a WW leader for almost 10 years- did night meetings a few times per week.

On maintenance, you're instructed to add 2-4 points per day in the first three weeks to see how you maintain the weight. It takes about 6-8 weeks to really tinker and figure this out. Keep in mind that there always seems to be a certain amount of inertia at work despite the numbers. People tend to keep losing weight initially before things "catch up."

Also, try to maintain your current level of activity, or at least a sustainable amount of activity. Many people after losing weight simply go back on the couch and sit all the time, which eventually decreases their need for calories and starts the whole weight gain/loss cycle over again.

I don't work for WW anymore, so i'm not biased when I say this: it's worth joining for a short time to become a lifetime member. Lifetimers have access forever to current materials, which is nice when you fall off the wagon.

Good luck, and congratulations on your weight loss! It's an impressive accomplishment.

flakypastry (lost 85 pounds 16 years ago and kept it off!)
posted by Flakypastry at 6:55 AM on March 20, 2007

Response by poster: wow, such a wonderful response... Thanks!
posted by jwiener at 10:20 PM on March 20, 2007