Weight Watchers

[Bubba Grizz]

The family decided to point this year not just to lose weight but to eat better. Does anyone have any favorite recipes that are weight watcher friendly? Please provide points per serving if possible.

[Funkmasterr]

No offense, but you shouldn't need a bullshit diet and point system to eat right, it's really not that difficult. Good luck though!

[Bubba Grizz]

No worries. I agree with you. We aren't actually paying to do this. My wife did it before and still had all the books and stuff so we are doing this on our own. So far we are doing really well with it and have lost weight. We are just trying to get to the point where we are doing it out of habit instead of following the guidelines. Until then, the guidelines help keep us honest with ourselves. We journal all the food we eat now as well.

[Sylvus]

The following is not at all Weight Watchers related, but I did lose 80 lbs in about 4 months a while back, and I'll give you some of my tips:

Track everything. It sounds like you are, but I found http://www.myfitnesspal.com/ to be really easy and they have mobile apps and all that. Once you've done it for a month or two, you won't need to bother anymore.

Buy a food scale, measure out actual servings per the label of what you're eating or look up produce/meat/etc. on http://nutritiondata.self.com/. If you're cooking for the family, multiply out the servings before you cook. My biggest problem stemmed from my grandpa encouraging me to be in the "clean your plate club" when I was a kid. What was probably good advice in The Depression made me just keep eating until it was all gone.

Eat often. Eat at least 5 times a day... breakfast/lunch/dinner and throw in a couple snacks in between. My goto snacks are something with protein and a fruit/veggie. Most days I'll do some combo of string cheese/yogurt/hardboiled egg/(raw/unsalted) nuts and banana/apple/clementines/carrots/broccoli. I usually do those because they are super easy to throw in my lunch bag every morning. If you're putting food in your body that often, you won't feel like you need to eat the crap that (I'm assuming) you used to eat.

Eat vegetables. Seriously, I meticulously tracked my workouts and food and everything, and by far my biggest weeks of loss were when I ate more servings of vegetables. I kind of hate raw veggies, so I'd often measure out a serving of hummus or something to dip raw carrots/broccoli/etc into. The good thing about veggies is you can literally go nuts and eat as many of them as you want and it'll fill you up and have very few calories. Eat them raw, steam them, throw them on pan, drizzle with olive oil and season with salt/pepper and roast them at 400 for 12-17 minutes. Have at it!

Be more active. Seriously, all you really even need to do is walk. For the first 40 or so lbs I lost, I would jump on a treadmill and walk for an hour. Start off at a pace that's just a little faster than you'd normally walk, and go for as long as you can. Shoot for getting up to an hour. Once you can do that, add incline variation to it. I liked to walk level for 10 minutes, then spend the next 10 minutes increasing the incline by 2 every 2 minutes, then reset and repeat. Doing that at 4-4.5mph and weighing over 300lbs, I'd easily burn 1000-1200 calories (according to the machine) in an hour. Once the weight started coming off, I started running/biking/etc.

Cheat once a week. Don't pay attention to any of that crap one night a week. Order a pizza or go out to get a burger or whatever. It'll help keep you sane (or at least it did for me), and it's not going to set you back if you're staying honest the rest of the week.

Most of those take a minimal amount of effort until you get used to them, after that, you can eyeball things that you need to do. I ate a lot of boneless, skinless chicken breast and pretty much replaced all of my beef with extra-lean ground turkey. This is a pretty good rub for chicken that makes it tolerable, I also started growing to love hot sauces a lot more (and supposedly, spicy food makes your brain tell your belly it's full faster). I think I got a good amount of recipes from Cookinglight.com too.

Oh, and I refused to stop drinking, so I switched from drinking 15 shitty beers when I'd go out to just having one or two good ones with more alcohol in them and/or vodka and soda.

Maybe this was all common sense, maybe it'll help you out, either way good luck!

[Leonaerd]

Lots of protein, plenty of fat, and carbs when you're active. Cut portions after a few weeks if you're not progressing fast enough for your liking.

No need to overthink.

Best diet foods are steak, chicken, fish, seafood, and vegetables.

Check out Paleo.

Even fruit is loaded with carbs. Keep it simple and avoid that unhealthy practice of turning carbs into fat.

[Spang]

The best diet foods are plant-based.

[Funkmasterr]

Well I wish I could say I didn't see that coming a fucking parsec away.

[Canelek]

Well I wish I could say I didn't see that coming a fucking parsec away.

No shit!

(bonus points for using parsec)

[Leonaerd]

The best diet foods are plant-based.

Carbs and barely any protein. This kills the diet.

It's funny when my vegetarian friends can't seem to lose that belly, hard as they try.

[Spang]

The best diet foods are plant-based.

Carbs and barely any protein.

Are you saying that a plant-based diet has barely any protein? Because if that's what you're saying, you're wrong.

[Show]

[Canelek]

Canned and frozen Monsanto Farms-sourced food...yeah, your opinion totally matters.

Bubba - Kudos! Sylvus outlines a solid plan there. Good luck sir!

[Leonaerd]

The best diet foods are plant-based.

Carbs and barely any protein.

Are you saying that a plant-based diet has barely any protein? Because if that's what you're saying, you're wrong.

[Show]

When I want nourishment, I make 6 cups of millet. You win.

[Chidoro]

[Bubba Grizz]

Awesome! Thanks guys! Question for Sylvus, did you keep the weight off?

[Spang]

Sylvus suggested you eat vegetables; don't listen to him.

[Sylvus]

I did pretty well for a year, year-and-a-half, and then my wife got pregnant and I went back to school. Full time job + 9 credits of school + pregnant wife cravings = Sylvus' loss of focus on fitness and making too many excuses. But school is done (4.0 semester, graduated, yay!) and the baby is here and I just started my regimen back up this week (eating my afternoon snack right now!). The good news is that I now have the tools and know exactly what I need to do; I plan on being lower than my lowest before summer is here.

Sylvus suggested you eat vegetables; don't listen to him.

Sylvus suggested that you eat lots vegetables in conjunction with lean proteins and dairy. Balance is a good thing, and while you can get protein from plants, I prefer chicken, egg whites and whey protein.

[Spang]

Sylvus suggested that you eat lots vegetables in conjunction with lean proteins and dairy.

I support a lot of your plan, actually, especially the lots of vegetables part.

[Leonaerd]

Just replace every 4 ounces of meat with 6 cups of millet and you're doing great!

[Canelek]

Balance is the key!

Ever talk to a gym-nut about their diet? Several I have spoken with treat food solely as fuel they "consume". How sad, to take away pleasure from eating. People are so crazy about things when they can be perfectly healthy with moderation.

Life without pizza and bacon? Someone who would suggest that to me would kindly be told to vigorously go fuck themselves.

Duck Confit? Yes please, and do not forget to get the skin nice and crispy.

[Spang]

You can still consume pizza whilst being vegan.

[Funkmasterr]

To each their own, anything that restrictive doesn't work for me. I lost damn near 100 pounds and all I did was eat well Monday through Friday (chicken, lean meats, veggies). Weekends I eat mostly what I want. I didn't cut back on liquor, although I did all but cut sugar from my diet. I didn't measure portions or any of that jive.

Second part was running. I started off running a mile a day, and by the end I'd run 7-10 miles a day. It just takes a little discipline. It would be harder to make time to do shit my way with a wife/kids though.

[Canelek]

You can still consume pizza whilst being vegan.

Pizza is not pizza without real cheese and meatses. And it is called eating. Consuming is for robots, vehicles and people with no souls.

[Funkmasterr]

You can still consume pizza whilst being vegan.

Pizza is not pizza without real cheese and meatses. And it is called eating. Consuming is for robots, vehicles and people with no souls.

+1

[Aabidano]

Sylvus had a lot of good suggestions. Initially at least, count everything. Really everything, not just almost everything. Balanced diet and moderation. Fats are not an enemy, neither are carbs unless you're mostly stationary.

Staying away from heavily processed food does help but you don't need to get carried away with it. Box/bag mashed taters vs. fresh are a great example, box taters at dinner are essentially instant lard on your butt by morning.

Being active - can't stress that one enough. Moderation again 3, 30 minute walks a week is a good place to start.

Anyone that talks of purification, detoxifying, PH levels, etc... can safely be ignored as a kook. Some of them might be latter day geniuses but I'm not willing to spend the cycles to find out

[Canelek]

Plenty of loonies out there. When I was researching which juicer to buy, I ran across several "raw diet" and vegan message boards where all folks drink is juice. Claims of over the top cures and "healing by detoxifying" are at best outlandish.

That said, the health benefits of taking in fantastic supplemental nutrition are fairly obvious.

AND DON'T FORGET THE MEATS!

[Bubba Grizz]

Well it has been 3 weeks (21 days) and I am down 11lbs so far. I kind of owe some of that to the kidney stones though. I am drinking water like fish in hopes of passing the stone shards so I have been eating a bit less. Still documenting all the food I eat and watching my WW Points.

We had a nice slow cooker recipe for a type of chicken stroganoff.

Easy Chicken Stroganoff
Ingredients
2 Tbs. Low-fat butter or margarine
1 pkg. dry Italian dressing
1 can 98% fat-free cream of Chicken soup
1 pkg. low-fat cream cheese
2 Tbs. minced garlic
3 or 4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 pkg. frozen veggie (we used broccoli)

Cooking Instructions
Cut the chicken breasts into small pieces
Combine butter, chicken, garlic and Italian dressing in crock pot
Cook for 5 hours on low
After 5 hours, add cream cheese, chicken soup & veggies
Cook for another 1/2 hour then serve!

One cup roughly 3 points. Very yummy served over noodles, rice, or toast.

We enjoyed this but the chicked was a bit dry. We are going to revamp the cooking instructions part to possibly do this all in one big skillet instead of a slow cooker.

[miir]

A co-worker did Weight Watchers and lost around 40 lbs.
He barely even changed his diet. He just ate smaller portions and cut down on fried and fatty processed foods.

[Aslanna]

Buy a food scale, measure out actual servings per the label of what you're eating or look up produce/meat/etc. on http://nutritiondata.self.com/. If you're cooking for the family, multiply out the servings before you cook.

This was the one kitchen gadget I didn't really think I needed but after two years I find I use it almost every day. And that's not even specifically for dieting purposes it's just good to use to portion out stuff rather than just eyeballing it. This comes in handy as I cook for 1 (sad, I know!) so it's easy to divide stuff I make into 2 or 3 equal servings.