Weight Watchers Pro Points

Weight Watchers has never featured on my radar.  Not even when I was losing weight.  Mostly because I hated the idea of meetings and weigh-ins.  I'm a loner when it comes to doing things for myself, I don't want help and not just because I'm proud but because I'm difficult and annoying and fussy.  So, Weight Watchers wasn't something I was ever going to join.

The other problem with Weight Watchers was the proprietary points system that seemed to me to be very restrictive; if it wasn't in the little look-up table, you pretty much couldn't have it as you'd have no idea how many points it would translate to.  Urgh!  Where's my control?  Now, not knowing anything about the advances in Weight Watchers to date I may be behind the times with the look-ups and given what I have in my Pro Points goody bag, I think there may have been an advance there with the Points calculator which allowed you to enter bits of information from the nutritional information of a food and it worked out the points from there.

So, now for the Pro Points system and the changes to the Weight Watchers plan.  This is pretty big, to be honest.  Calories are out of the window.  Points are still in, but in a very different way.  It'll be coming to Weight Watchers meetings from 7th November and the old points system will be no more.

Using 10 years of scientific research into nutrition, Weight Watchers have come up with an impressive new plan which stops using the 100 year old blunt instrument of calories and starts to do something a bit more clever.  It's been tested for over 2 years, including two randomised clinical trails, the results of which were not only general weight loss as expected but there were also improvements in health risk indicators like blood cholesterol.  And I was really glad that when I asked the question "how did the rate of weight loss compare with the old Points system?", the answer that came back was that that comparison was not done at all.  It was never going to be about losing weight faster or more efficiently, it was about doing it in a more informed, flexible and educated way with the emphasis being on foods that are cleaner/less processed and will help to keep people on the wagon as they'll not really get hungry as easily by making food choices that are based not purely on calorie content which can lead to blood sugar spikes and crashes.

It's the biggest Weight Watchers innovation in 15 years and 3 years in the making.  A new weight loss plan that is based on the available energy from food rather than the raw energy in food.  Taking into account the "conversion cost" of macro-nutrient types, the new Pro Points system not only makes more sense in terms of the energy a body is taking in, it also considers the satiety of foods as well.  While the counting of points isn't a departure from the old points system, the introduction of a weekly allowance is new.  As before you get a daily allowance based on weight, age and sex but in addition to that, there's a weekly "back pocket" allowance on top of that which you can dip into daily or save it all up for a splurge on one day if you want to.  The little calculator keeps track of your points on a daily and weekly basis and when you've got to goal you can flip the setting from "loss" to "maintenance" and still use it to help you with the initial bit of maintenance as you ease into your new points allowance, or longer term if you need it.


All of these changes add up to nudging people towards food choices that lead to feeling fuller for longer.  Marks and Spencer have already been using the macro-nutrient approach for their "Fuller For Longer" range, concentrating on protein and fibre in the recipes as they are harder to process - have a higher "conversion cost" - which leads to longer term satiety.  And the idea is that the small changes in food choices you make during the weight loss phase leads to longer term better choices after reaching your goal.  I'd love to say "it's all about informed choices" but then, isn't that always what a proper weight management diet was always about?

It's looking really quite good for getting people to lean towards cleaner foods.  I think that processed foods will generally score high on the Pro Points scale as they tend to have higher proportions of carbohydrate and fat vs protein and fibre.  And although almost all fruit and vegetables are still rated zero on the points system and there is definitely energy to be derived from those, it's still going to help with weight loss, maintenance and healthier choices in the long term.  It's also looking good for starting to get people away from thinking purely in terms of calories which has been at the forefront of bad "diet" foods; foods where the reduction of fat (usually) or carbohydrate (on occasion) is at the cost of the natural state of the ingredients.  And the cool thing for me was the little Pro Points calculator that you just have to enter the protein, fat, carbohydrate and fibre off the label of a food packet and it tells you the points in that food.  The only thing I didn't find out about was the points relating to alcohol - it has zero nutritional value, so it'll be good to know about that bit.

For a mass-market weight loss system, Pro Points really does look like quite a good choice.  It's still not faddy; no only eating green foods on a Tuesday or no carbohydrate after 6pm etc.  It's getting away from calories, which have grated for me for a while now as I'd been thinking about the fact that some guy burning a peanut to heat up some water really bears no relation to how my body processes a peanut.  It's helping lead people to informed choice - helping with leaning towards cleaner food, choosing less processed food in the understanding of satiety and nutritional value.  It's helping change habits for life - more clever choices with food but realistic ones for long term maintenance.  It'll be interesting to see the impact of this on supermarkets and other food industry companies.  Marks and Spencer have already dipped a toe into the land of macro-nutrient based weight management products, let's see what the others do.

Weight Watchers Pro Points demo

I day on Pro Points without dipping in to the weekly "back pocket" points allowance.

 

Edit:- This was the table demo of a typical day's food on the new Pro Points system during the weight loss phase.  3 Meals, 3 snacks and that includes a bottle of beer!

Still not logging

I've not logged my food since 17th September.  The first 2 weeks of that was because I was on holiday, but since I've been back I've stayed off it.

For a control freak like me, this was theoretically hard.  And for the first week or two after the holidays it definitely made me a bit twitchy.  What's kept me going and not freaking out so far has been the fact that my cycling has been very random - one week saw 4x return journeys to work, whereas last week and this week it's been zero for various reasons.  That alone means that the transit food weight is all over the place so I have no idea whether I'm slightly gaining weight or staying stable in the grand scheme of things.  Of course, my clothes fit fine (and given that most of my work clothes are very fitted shift dresses, I'd notice any even slight size change there) .  So.  The plan is to keep going with not logging for at least a total of 3 months to get some good data.  OK, yes, Christmas is in that 3 months, but... I've never really been one for over-doing it particularly around Christmas and seeing as Christmas is pretty much cancelled for me this year (work is a bit nuts) it shouldn't be a particularly difficult eating season at all.  I'm figuring that as long as I put in a minimum of 2x weights sessions per week, aim for 3 and cycle in to work for at least some of the Winter I'll be doing fine.

Now for the fun bit... I'm off to a product launch tomorrow with Weight Watchers.  Anyone else going?  I'll report back, of course, but it'd be great to hook up if any of you guys are also going to be there!

An Evening with James Martin

So, as promised...

I was invited to a private dining event with James Martin at his beautiful house in the countryside on Thursday evening last week.  Me, Mr TOTKat and 20 other people were guests of James Martin for an evening, to partake of his fantastic cooking and take a look at his collection of motorised vehicles.

We were greeted at the gate by James, who shook our hands and showed us into the wing we'd be in for the event - a great conservatory-type part of the house which had a wood-fired pizza oven outside on the enormous patio and a reasonable sized kitchen as part of the large dining room with a mezzanine level (with a billiards table on it and plenty of room to play a game or two as some did between dessert and the coffee course) looking down onto the cooking area.  On the huge wall behind the cooking area was a huge clock face, from head height all the way up to the top of the mezzanine level height, with large brass numbers.  Gorgeous thing!  James introduced the evening and his team to us all and explained that he only does this sort of event once every couple of years, so it really was a special evening ahead of us.

James and his right-hand man Chris prepared an amazing meal from pizza canapes through to slabs of chocolate with dessert; starting with a glass or two of champagne and meeting some of the other people there while one of James' other people (whose name I forget - argh!) handed 'round the little slice of freshly made pizza.  Then at around 8.30pm we sat down for the starter of Arbroath smokie pate on smoked beetroot slices (peeled and boiled for many hours, then sliced thinly and smoked over oak chips) with a twirly crisp of bread and a perfectly cooked quail's egg.  This was served with a really nice Puligny-Montrachet which carried on into the next course of wild Morel risotto with cream Cornish lobster in the shell - half a small lobster with some of the best risotto I've ever had.  James was very clear in pointing out that a good risotto not only had butter, wine and parmesan but it really has to have mascarpone in it too.  I am -so- not arguing and the second helping he was dolloping out for those of us with bottomless stomachs pretty much sealed that thought for me.

Then came the slow roast fillet of beef - done in a water bath at 65C for lots of hours, served with a quite subtle Margaux.  I'm usually one for a much more hefty red but the Margaux was nice for a change and went well with the beef and stood up to the Indian spiced pumpkin pickle and nice fat dollop of mashed potato, heavy with cream and butter.  Fudge-the-dog came in for a bit of company and some beef treats.  He's a lovely old and well behaved slobberer that dog.  Then, I think it was at this point that we went for a look in the garages at the cars, bikes, model planes and all sorts of other vehicles.  James fired up the classic Ferrari 275; what a hell of a racket!  And the 1967 Mustang... RAAARRR!  And we poked about with the teeny Fiat, an R8, a Mini and probably lots lots more, but I was a bit pickled by this point so it's a bit fuzzy.

Back over to the dining room, via a look at one of the other guest's McLaren Mercedes SLR and we finished up with the dish to which James attributes the kick-off of his career - white chocolate and whiskey croissant butter pudding with vanilla ice-cream.  Which was heavenly.  And lots of it, so another course with seconds!  Yay!  Lots of good conversation with the other guests (not so much James himself as our placement on the table meant we weren't in an easily accessible position, though plenty of other guests got lots of time and attention from him and the dog) over the enormous slabs of chocolate with coffee after the dessert and at around 1.30am we decided it was time to make track with the help of Pippa (James' PA), we picked up a signed book as a parting gift from James and got a car back to the hotel and crashed into bed ready for a 6am start to get back into town the next morning to work.

We had a great night and I'm really pleased that we got the opportunity to go and experience the evening's event.  James is a really nice guy, passionate about his food, his cars and his dog.  Saturday Kitchen will never be the same again for me.

Bit busy...

It's been a busy week.  Tuesday at the conference thing and then on Thursday night a really fantastic night.  Dinner at James Martin's house, cooked by him, with a tour of some of his cars and other vehicles.  It was utterly amazing and we're still recovering from it really.  More detail on dinner when I've got less general catching up to do... piles of washing and paperwork beckon!

(ohgod, I just remembered the juke box...)