Saturday, July 28, 2007

Calories

Sometimes we post just for reference purposes. Here's a site that shows calories for various foods.

In WW, one converts this data to "points" using a little slide rule that you obtain in the program. WW involves the adoption of a plan where you track your "points" every day. You can eat whatever you want, provided that you do not exceed the total daily points that you allocate to your particular weight loss or maintenance program. So WW is not about denying yourself certain foods (go for it Lindsay!); it's about "portion control", that is, limiting the amount of those foods. A person, then, could be a "meat and potatoes" type, and still be successful.

On the other hand, "low [calorie] density" foods tend to fill you up faster and have relatively fewer points per serviing. An apple, for example, would be one point. A large toll house cookie might be 5 or six points. If one's daily points target is, say, 22 per day (with 36 reserve points per week), one would probably want to eat the apple most days - but now and then go for the cookie.

You also can add "activity" points to your daily routine in WW. For example, right now I am trying to return to my "goal weight" of 155 and that means I am on a 22 points per day program. But I usually walk 2 miles when I get up each morning. That will give me one activity point, according to another little slide rule you get from WW, so I would have 23 points to burn that day.

I mentioned having 36 reserve or "flex" points per week. Flex points are extra points you can use if you need to on a given day. If each week I keep within my daily 22 points, plus the activity points, plus my weekly flex points, then I should lose an average of 1 pound a week. This is the "flex plan".

You carry around a little "tracker" to record what you eat and the points you charge yourself. It sounds a little complicated, but it's not, once you get in the swing of it.

There is an alternate WW system one can adopt. This one is the "core plan". On this one, you can eat pretty much unlimited amounts of certain "core" foods. As to "non-core" foods, you limit daily portions according to the point system. With this system, you don't have to "track", that is write down in your diary, the core foods that you eat. (For example, steak is not a core food, but potatoes - not fried potatoes - are.) Some people seem to do better on the "core plan" than on the "flex plan".

2 comments:

Lindsay said...

Since I am kind of an "everything in moderation" sort of gal, I like this plan. I'll probably do WW after I'm through having kids. In the meantime, my attitude is pretty much, "why bother?"

Paul Stokes said...

With being a mom, you will be entitled to a lot more "activity points" than the single one I get each day for walking 2 miles!