Healthy weight loss
First, any approach developed by Weight Watchers must provide healthy weight loss, which means:
- Produce a rate of weight loss of up to two pounds per week (after the first 3 weeks, during which losses may be greater due to water loss).
- Guide food choices that not only reduce calories, but meet current scientific recommendations for nutritional completeness and reduced disease risk.
- Construct an activity plan that provides the full range of weight- and health-related benefits that exercise offers.
- Be sustainable. Healthy weight loss is weight loss that lasts, so it is necessary to look beyond losing the excess weight and address keeping it off.
Fits into your life
Second, any Weight Watchers approach must be realistic, practical and livable. It must also be flexible enough so that people can apply the approaches that work well for them. That means encouraging the achievement of realistic goals. For example, we do not recommend that a person with a lot of weight to lose begin with a weight-loss goal that defines "ultimate success." Rather, we start with our "5% or 10% goal" or losing 5% or 10% of body weight (e.g., a 5% goal for someone who is 200 pounds is 10 pounds and a 10% goal would be 20 pounds). A weight loss of 5% to 10% translates into significant health benefits. Likewise, pacing weight loss and following a system that encourages food and activity choices that are livable and sustainable in the real world is key. Weight Watchers is designed on the premise that weight management
needs to fit into your life, not be your life.
Informed choices
Third, Weight Watchers believes in imparting knowledge. At Weight Watchers, people learn not only what to do, but why. This knowledge brings understanding and with understanding comes the confidence needed to make informed choices and live by them.
A holistic view
Finally, the Weight Watchers approach must be comprehensive. Sustained weight loss comes from taking a holistic view of all its components – food, exercise, behavior and a supportive atmosphere.
Momentum Plan
The Momentum plan is based on Weight Watchers patented POINTS® Food System that helps you evaluate the weight-loss impact of foods. Every food has a POINTS value – a small, easy to remember number (e.g, 1, 2, 3). The number is based on the calories, grams of total fat and grams of dietary fiber of a specific portion of the food. The system does not require exact weighing and measuring, but instead encourages people to focus on the bigger picture by building awareness of the food choices they make and eating reasonable portions.
The POINTS formula gently guides food choices by encouraging selection of healthy foods with a lower energy density because that's where you get the most food for a given POINTS value. Based on a person's current weight, height, gender, age and level of daily activity, a POINTS Target is established, that is the total of POINTS values for the day. Choosing foods to meet the Target ensures a healthful rate of weight loss. On the Momentum plan, we teach you how to be stay aware of your food choices by tracking what you eat – a proven method to enhance weight-loss success.
This plan also encourages the selection of Filling Foods to help keep you satisfied longer. The Filling Foods are a list of foods comprised from all the food groups: fruits and vegetables; grains and starches; lean meats, fish and poultry: eggs, and dairy products. We pre-selected these foods because they provide eating satisfaction and fill you up without the empty calories. They are low in energy density and have a low potential for overeating based on our research.
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