Weight Watchers vs. Gym Membership

Gah -- when are people going to learn that healthy weight loss requires a two-pronged approach? Yes, you can diet and lose water weight and lean mass, which will result in weight loss. But if you want to keep the weight off, exercise rules!

When you say that the fitness group didn't fare as well as the WW group do I understand you right? Do you really think that loss of lean tissue is better than loss of intra-abdominal fat? I think I'd rather get healthy than skinny...

Thanks for the link to the original article! ^_^

Some interesting items from the article: the dropout rate from the fitness center people was twice that from the weight watchers group (10 as compared to 5, and it was the heavier ones that dropped out). These were quite overweight individuals:
Age 31.7
BodyWeight (kg) 80.2 ± 1.5
Height (cm) 162.9 ± 1.1
BMI 30.2 ± 0.5
Body Fat % 40.4 ± 0.9

I'm mixed on Weight Watchers on the dietary end of things, but I think the accountability aspect of meetings and weigh-ins is so incredibly important to its success. The fitness center participants in the study did not have any counseling, meetings or weigh-ins, so it's not surprising that this group didn't fare as well.

My weight watchers meeting focuses heavily on exercise. When a member gripes about not seeing impressive enough losses the FIRST question my leader asks is "are you exercising?" She promotes activity points as a boost to weight loss, as well as the health benefits. She asks us if the rain (I'm in Ireland) is actaully detrimental to our health in any way and when we reluctantly admit that its not she tells us we have no excuse, so get walking. Maybe I have a particularly good leader, but it was always drilled into me in Weight Watchers that pointing AND exercising go hand in hand if you want to be thin.

...which I am now. Yay for me!

I totally disagree I attend weekly meetings and our consultant regularly advises us on the importance of daily exercise.

I follow WW and I do not go to meetings currently. I also focus on eating more natural and healthy foods rather than just diet foods and I have seen a drastic improvement in my health. I also go to the gym regularly and find that it helps me want to eat healthier and I also do not have to feel so guilty about the little treats I have.

This does not have to be a zero sum argument.

How about attending weight watchers for the emotional support and camaraderie.

Add in some family and/or workplace support. (Go for a walk at lunch with a co-worker, eat healthy meals as a family, etc.)

Start a weight loss blog to get some www support. This approach also helps some people stick to the plan if they know that the entire planet can check in on them and their weight loss progress.

Hire a personal (at the gym or in your home) for a few sessions to get some tips on proper exercise form and fitness program design. Trainers also provide a hefty dose of supplementary confidence. They have seen many, many people, just like you lose the weight. If they can do it, so can you. If they believe, you are more likely to believe it.

http://healthhabits.wordpress.com/2008/07/03/why-personal-trainers-get-results/

You don't even need a gym membership to exercise.

I have used bodyweight / band workouts that have had professional athletes (hockey, basketball, martial arts and football) close to throwing up.

My point is that the weight loss approach that works for me might not work for you and that you will likely need to try different methods, mix, match and combine to find your own perfect mix.

There are lots of free online resources - i.e - http://www.diet-blog.com and my own health/fitness blog - http://healthhabits.wordpress.com

I think that the most valuable aspect of Weight Watchers for me honestly is the weekly meetings/accountability. I'm a little bit of a Weight Watchers hacker in that I allow myself more calories than they suggest per day, and I also am focusing on exercising right from the start (bicycling to and from work). Although the official WW plan does factor in exercise, my personal experience has been that physical activity isn't emphasized as much as Points (calorie) counting during meetings. But, like I said, that's my own individual past experience, and probably depends a lot on who the meeting leader is.

I think the big takeaway is that health improvement requires both diet changes, and exercise. It's not an easy task, but it is extremely important and well worth the effort. It seems to me that exercising would be the best route if you were only to do one, but both together can help improve disease prevention, and physical appearance. So I feel there is a lot of incentive to doing both.

Whenever I have a client or a potential client, we always discuss what they think or know about weight loss and exercise and the relationship between the two.

It's not surprising, many people still don't have a clue when it comes to losing weight, I still hear the same old story of people trying to starve themselves expecting to lose weight, or spending two hours in the gym on the treadmill and various other cardio machines!

Resistance training combined with aerobic training as well as a good diet (obviously not everyone has the same diet, I'm just saying this generally) can work serious wonders!

Many have the misconception that resistance training will not reap any fat loss results - in fact this is totally a false! Your fat burning capacity goes through the roof after training, where as with cardio (i.e. aerobic training) you lose fat during your workout.

My heart really goes out to those people who have very strong will power but no knowledge to complement this strong desire to achieve their goals.

You could hire a personal trainer, though most of them are clueless themeselves (not all)! I guess this is a long journey into the books for those who want to lose weight...or you could talk to me ;)

Hard to dispute the fact that it takes BOTH diet and exercise. As for the study, the gym membership mentioned is Gold's Gym. The study group was given initial instruction on proper exercise techniques and then left to themselves to exercise "a minimum of 3 days per week." The methodology seems a bit sloppy, here. a more accurate study might equate the value of both programs financially. For instance..

How much does someone pay to be on WW for 12 weeks? $12 a meeting? Spend a comparable amount on both study groups, giving the gym members personal training sessions of comparable cost to WW meetings. Who knows, the data probably wouldn't change too much, but at least we'd have a few less variables between the study groups.

As it stands we simply know that between just WW or just a Gold's Gym membership, neither is very efficient. That's not terribly useful (or new) information.

I'm glad you posted this because I'm currently doing WW and I haven't been doing as much exercise as I should be, and I don't want to lose muscle!
So I'm going to be starting my exercise plan today. :)

I think the importance of exercise WHILE doing WW varies depending on your group leader/group members. My parents do WW on and off (don't get me started on THAT one) and their group is very exercise-focused. Most of the members walk/bike/swim and go to Curves in addition to following the WW plan. I always liked the WW plan because they encouraged exercise as in, you could eat more Points if you exercise. I think WW tries to appeal to both exercisers and non-exercisers so that non-exercisers don't feel "intimidated" by the plan. A lot of dieters, especially those that are used to being sedentary or who have had bad experiences with exercise in the past, probably would like to see a weight loss on a program and don't really give a rat's behind whether the weight is lean muscle or fat. I think the best approach to losing weight on WW is to follow the program AND incorporate exercise into your lifestyle, so you can lose fat from your internal organs and maintain lean muscle tissue.

Weight Watchers meetings drove me NUTS!! Instead of focusing on spending points on a balanced diet and correct portions, they spent their time showing everyone how to stretch those points with junk food and desserts. Not once did they focus on healthy meals and snacks, proper portions of the healthy foods or even mention exercise. I asked questions about the healthy stuff and was brushed off.

In the last meeting I attended, the leader measured out potato chips to show us how many we could sneak into our points...

I did WW and a gym membership + running + karate, and now biking and swimming, to lose about 70 pounds. I needed both. I needed the accountability for what I was consuming AND I needed to change my sedentary lifestyle.

It's your LIFE, and it's not just one part. It's not just calories, it's also what you eat. You can eat your WW point requirements and still eat garbage. You can work out tons, but if you don't manage your food, you can still not lose weight.

Weight watchers gave me waaay too few calories for my level of activity. (Point equivalence.) When I went to a nutritionist after following the program, she was horrified. I don't think it's intended for very active women. (I'm a marathon runner.)

Nothing against Weight Watchers, we have it where I work as a weekly meeting and I've seen great things for others. For me, it's not the answer.

They really push their $$$ snacks, and most of them use lots and lots of artificial sweeteners. I wanted to talk about artificial sweeteners in general at a meeting, but the leader perkily kept changing the subject. Plus I kept having to pay the fee, but would not be given another copy of a pamphlet that I had received in a previous session that was being used again.

I also have a problem with how the assign points to some of their items. Almonds get a double whammy, their calories are counted twice because they are a fat, so dieters are discouraged to eat them. A 100-calorie serving is 4 points. Thing is, they are very good for you! So to see people avoid them so they can eat 4 packs of artificially-sweetened "fruities" was disheartening. I liked the fruities, too, but came to realize they were not a very good choice even though they are good for weight loss.

It's harder to lose weight just keeping calories in a food diary and participating in regular exercise, but I really prefer that to the consumer group mentality.

Another option, instead of getting a gym membership, doing Weight Watchers, or both, is to get a personal trainer. I had six sessions with a personal trainer last year, and he not only coached me on fitness and exercises to make me leaner, but he heavily focused on diet and nutrition as well. He counseled me on both equally, and had me keep a food log. I was very surprised, as I went into it thinking we would only be dealing with exercise, but he told me 80% of weight loss comes from diet and only 20% of exercise. I'm not sure that's true but very interesting. The two really do work hand-in-hand, but I think too many people assume it's just one or the other.

Yeah!It's harder to lose weight!

Only you do you best!

Losing weight is very complex nowadays, not only does WW requires time to attend to and also a change in my usual food, it is also very time consuming. The offices I work with are surrounded by fast food restaurants. So as an alternative, I have to prepare my food at home.

The office culture is to have team meeting during lunch, so they pick the orders from one of the fast foods restaurants. I am not ready to say no to a tasty free noodles meal once a while but in general, it makes things hard for me to follow the WW programme.

Right next to my office is a gym, which I am tempted to go to. However, as I read through the replies, only 20% of weight loss is thought to come from exercise.

I have decided to drop the WW programme (but keep it in mind for my intake) and am focussing much more time to activities like jogging, rope skidding (?) and swimming.

I plan to sacrifice 1 hr every day to exercise. Has any one been able to hold on to excersing in the long term or is this just a phase I'm going through which 90% of people stop after x number of months?

I need motivation but am surrounded by people who do not care about what they eat or weigh. Or maybe I should change jobs or offices?

Thanks

Wawa.

It takes a certain kind of person to be able to go to the gym and spend the time needed. I like to work out at home because it saves me time in my busy schedule.

Way to go! How did you keep yourself motivated? Do you exercise with friends? The toughest part must be to decide to stick to it. I will start jogging, rope skidding and swimming alternatively every day. Hopefully I'll find a few buddies to tag along.

A fair percentage of our clients are WW ex-patriots for whom the points program has done nothing. Every person is a little bit different, so the amount of exercise needed to maintain optimum health is always going to differ. I’m inclined to think that the right amount of exercise is the amount that makes you feel healthy. If your on WW and sneaking as many chips into your points allocation as possible while doing no exercise, your not going to feel healthy whether you lose weight or not.

I was a WW member last year, and my leader emphased "moving more" a great deal. I know one of the weekly pamphlets that you get is totally devoted to moving more. Fitness was talked about a great deal in my meetings, but I realize that every leader isn't like that. My leader lost over 100 pounds and she's a big walker/jogger, so she was constantly bringing up getting some type of physical movement in.

I've been using sparkpeople for about a year, which combines exercise and diet. It's been so helpful. Tracking food showed me exactly where my calories and fat intake was out of whack. The motivational articles really help as well.

I sure wish that study had looked at body measurements as well as weight and body fat percentage. My observation has been that exercise, even if it doesn't effect weight, can have an amazing effect on appearance and body size.

Weight Watchers now incorporates excercise as essential to weight loss. I am a lifetime member and it is mentioned at every meeting I have gone to. As part of your weekly good health habits you are encouraged to "earn" extra flex points through excercise and your weekly food "tracker" has checkboxes to keep track of your activity as well. I am biased of course but I feel WW is an excellent well rounded approach that targets both diet and excercise.

WW's rules! I've been a member since January 2, 2008 and I've lost 39.5 lbs! I'm so excited! But one thing my leader does encourage is exercise. It doesn't mean you have to have a gym membership but you do need physical activity in your daily routine. That could be walking, jogging, exercise tape or whatever. Just get the body in motion! Exercise is key. Some people may lose weight without going to the gym, but eventually the weight loss will peak and your body will need more to lose the weight.