Weight Watchers reveals the calorie delusion
Ever wondered why it seems like you watch the number of calories in your food meticulously, always choosing the lower calorie options and sticking faithfully to your recommended daily calorie amount, yet you don’t lose weight?
You may be suffering from the calorie delusion. What is the delusion? Thinking that the number of calories you believe you are eating and the number of calories you think that you are spending are accurate.
The fact is, while the idea of calories in and calories out sounds simple, there’s a world of nuance and details below the surface.
Do you think you know how many calories your body needs on a daily basis by reading about them? Wrong. Do you believe the treadmill when it says you burnt 300 calories? That’s a mistake. When you eat food with a label that says it contains 200 calories, is that what your body has to work with? Wrong again! Do you think you know how many calories you are eating in a take-away just by looking at it? Think again.
Weight-loss scientists understand that what a person thinks they are doing to cut calories and lose weight and what is actually happening are two different things. In fact, experts know that the difference between perception and reality is often “out” by about 25%.
Weight Watchers has always been committed to taking the most credible, evidence based science and using it to help people lose weight as effectively as possible. Keeping to that mission, the company has taken the latest science to create an innovative, accurate and effective weight loss programme - the new ProPoints plan.
For example, the new plan more accurately measures the calories in food. Scientific research shows once you have consumed a food, there is a different amount of energy available to your body and this is the true calorific value of the food.
Independent nutritionist Dr Geoffrey Livesey explains, “Processing and digesting a food takes energy and different nutrients take different amounts of energy to digest and metabolise. These energy costs can be quite significant and can lower the energy your body extracts from a food item by anywhere between 5 and 25 per cent.”
The calorie-contributing nutrients also impact how satisfied you are after eating a food. The new ProPoints plan accounts for that too by unconsciously guiding you to those foods that provide the greatest eating satisfaction. The revelation of these unrealised energy costs and their effect on hunger has an impact for people wanting to lose weight or stay the same.
“Counting calories from food labels to lose weight is like judging a book by its cover - you’re not getting the whole story” says Zoe Hellman, Company Dietician for Weight Watchers.
The ProPoints plan is the biggest innovation from the world’s leading provider of weight management services in 15 years, a simple plan that does not ask consumers to look at calories at all. Weight Watchers has distilled the complicated and multifaceted science on how your body reacts to the different macronutrients (protein, carbohydrates, fat and fibre) in food to create its most liveable plan yet; one that allows you the freedom to eat what you like, to enjoy your social life, and encourages you to make satisfying, healthier choices and still lose weight.
“Weight Watchers is at the leading edge of the most robust and complex nutritional science, and yet through creating the ProPoints plan, we are making working with your body to lose weight a simple way of life” says Zoe Hellman.
Dr Livesey agrees, “People need to be given the right information to make the right choices, following the latest scientific understanding. Because, if you are not following the science, you’re following something else.”
The Science Behind The Weight Watchers ProPoints Plan
Calories have been around for nearly 200 years and were first described in 1824 as a unit of energy for driving steam engines. In the late 1800s, work by a chemist called Atwater, led to a system that burned samples of different macronutrients to measure the heat - or energy (calorie) reading for each. With a few modifications, this is still the basis of today’s calorie values for food around the world.
“Our bodies aren’t simple burners that use up all components of food the same way,” says Karen Miller-Kovach, Chief Scientific Officer for Weight Watchers International.
She explains that all nutrients in food have an ‘energy conversion cost’. “The types of nutrients in the food affect the effort our body has to use to process it. Processing food uses energy from the food itself. So the harder it is to process a particular nutrient, the more energy you use doing so, therefore the less energy there is available from that food for the body to use or store. New ProPoints values take this into account.”
The progression of the energy conversion cost of nutrients runs parallel to the feelings of eating satisfaction that nutrients provide. This means that the higher the energy conversion cost of a food, the lower its ProPoints value and the more eating satisfaction it provides. Protein and fibre-rich carbohydrates are harder work for the body to process and provide a greater feeling of fullness than fat and carbohydrates without fibre.
ProPoints Plan
‘Filling & Healthy Foods’ are another key element of the new ProPoints plan. By identifying those foods that are particularly, compared to similar foods, lower in energy density (which means they are bulky, yet have fewer calories compared to their weight, and will give longer lasting levels of satisfaction) people can feel fuller for longer and be more in control of what they eat.
“Our bodies and brains do not rely solely on the calories in the food we eat. We also adjust our eating based on the volume or weight of food, which is another reason why watching calories can be a delusion on a weight loss plan,” says Karen Miller-Kovach. She continues, “Eating filling and healthy foods allows you to consume a similar volume of food, feeling fuller for longer, for a lower calorie intake. This helps to create an energy deficit which is fundamental for successful weight loss.”
Filling and healthy foods are also great choices for healthy weight loss, as they are nutritionally superior, being higher in fibre and/or lower in salt, sugar and saturated fat.
Weight Watchers has applied for patents relating to the scientific discoveries that underpin the ProPoints plan.
The Weight Watchers ProPoints Plan Explained
The ProPoints plan is a completely new programme from Weight Watchers based on the very best science.
All food and drink has a new ProPoints value, calculated in a very different way to the world renowned Points Weight-Loss System. ProPoints values take into account the amount of protein, carbohydrate, fat and fibre in a given portion. The result is a more accurate nutritional approach, a plan that takes into account the key elements in food and how each one is processed by your body. It more accurately reflects the real value of food and its impact on your weight loss.
Each person attending a Weight Watchers meeting or following the plan online will be given a personal daily ProPoints allowance, which takes into account their gender, age, weight and height. The minimum daily ProPoints allowance is 29.
A new innovation with the ProPoints plan is that all fruits have a ProPoints value of zero.
“We want to help people make healthier choices, and we know it’s easier to snack on fruit when you are on the go in a busy day. So we have calculated the daily allowances to allow people to eat fruit without using up any ProPoints values. Most vegetables also have a ProPoints value of zero, so we’ve made it easier than ever before to take in your five a day,” says Zoe Hellman, Weight Watchers Company Dietitian.
In addition to your personal daily ProPoints allowance, everyone is given an additional 49 ProPoints values as a weekly allowance, to be used however they choose.
“We like to call the weekly allowance the ‘real living’ allowance. It’s there to give people the flexibility to include social occasions and special events, to let you indulge in your favourite food, manage unexpected invitations or simply to treat yourself, without undermining your weight loss” explains Zoe. “It’s really important for long term weight loss success that you don’t feel deprived and can stay satisfied as you are losing weight,” Zoe continues.
In simple terms, the daily and weekly ProPoints allowances combined create a ProPoints budget. The plan is designed to lead to a healthy and sustainable weight loss of up to 2lbs a week.
The new ProPoints plan doesn’t just focus on the food you eat. Getting active is a core aspect of the Weight Watcher philosophy and key to its worldwide success is the motivation and support that helps guide people to make achievable, sustainable behaviour changes.
The new ProPoints plan is available in the UK from 7th November 2010 and can be followed in meetings or completely online at: weightwatchers.co.uk
