Weight Watchers success relies heavily on tracking your food and activities through a point tracking system. This may be surprising to those who have heard that Weight Watchers is not a diet plan, but rather a program that teaches members how to have more healthy lifestyles. Yet being aware of the foods you eat is not the same thing as limiting calories for a given time, as you would in a trendy diet.

There are many benefits to tracking your food when working to achieve or maintain a healthy weight. By tracking your food, you gain a better understanding of how many calories you are eating. It also teaches you which foods have more calories than others and which fill you up and provide more nutrients for less calories. Likewise, tracking your exercise gives you a better understanding of how many calories you have burned.

* Choosing Where to Spend Points *

Instead of tracking actual calories, Weight Watchers assigns foods a number of points based on its amounts of calories, fat, and dietary fiber. This makes it easier to track foods and limit yourself to the amount of points in your personalized plan. For example, a woman who is 5' 6" and weighs 180 pounds may have a limit between 22 and 27 points each day.

All foods are not equal. You may have heard the term "empty calories". This refers to foods that have a lot of calories but little nutritional value. They may taste good, but they are not good for you and usually do not fill you up for long. For example, one cup of broccoli contains about 44 calories, while one cup of reduced-fat potato chips contains about 140 calories!

On a Weight Watchers point program, those chips will cost you 4 points and a cup of broccoli will cost you none. If you use up all of your points on high calorie, unhealthy foods, you will be very hungry at the end of the day.

* Exercise for More Points *

Weight Watchers programs also give you activity points for exercise completed. By using their tools and charts to calculate your exercise into activity points, you earn more food points to eat in a day. However, like food, different forms of exercise will earn different amounts of activity points.

When you are not tracking your food, it can be tempting to think "I walked 30 minutes, I deserve this glazed honey bun!" However, once you calculate your activity points, you may find that your 30 minute workout gave you 3 extra points and that honey bun would cost you 6.

Weight Watchers is a successful program because it teaches members how to track their daily food and exercise. To newcomers, the point system may feel intimidating, but it is all part of learning how to maintain an ongoing healthy lifestyle.

Learn more about this author, Susan Quilty.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.

---

Add your voice

Know something about The importance of tracking your food when doing Weight Watchers?
We want to hear your view. Write now!