I joined Weight Watchers in March of 2018. I thought it was nonsense to assign point values to food: there was no accounting for calories. For example, a 54 calorie mini candy bar is 3 points, but a 95 calorie banana is 0 points. I have 23 points allowed during the day, with an extra 42 per week that I can distribute however I want, so it's really 29 points a day. In other words, I can have 10 mini candy bars and exceed my point total, or eat an unlimited number of bananas.
It didn't make sense, but I followed it. The first week, I lost 5 pounds. The second week, I lost 3 pounds. Over the course of a few months, I lost 25 pounds. This is weight I've been working out obsessively to burn away, but nothing worked before. I'm down to my high school weight now.
It occurred to me that the point values are assigned to steer your behavior. You're encouraged to eat fresh fruits and vegetables, and you're discouraged from eating candies, by the way the points are assigned. And, 5 years later, I've kept the weight off, though there are the occasional bumps of a few pounds.
The food I've shared on this forum is all stuff that I've made. I've stopped putting reduced calorie ingredients like light butter in recipes, even though it's what I'm using, because the recipe is the same. Having a dietary framework hasn't stopped me from enjoying the food I eat. The biggest issues are when I go out to eat, but you can still do this if you watch what you eat the rest of the time, and if you exercise.
I used to go to my company's fitness center pre-COVID; I've instead been making my dogs happy by taking them for walks just about every day of the year. The more active you are, the more your metabolism increases:
How to Boost Your Metabolism With Exercise
I really think this is more important than it is to stick to a diet, but the point isn't which factor is more important. The point is that if I do them together, good things happen. Getting started with exercise is the hardest thing, but it gets easier with time.
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