All change at Weight Watchers HQ

So those little monkeys over at Weight Watchers have decided to change the plan again, just a few years on from the “Pro Points” re-vamp.  Instead of being professional, points are now smart.  Smart points.  SPs (not to be confused with the other SP – Sneaky Peak).

I haven’t looked at the new plan in vast amounts of details, but here are the headlines:

The calculator now seems to require a lot more information.  The points are initially calculated on calorie content but then can vary one way or the other based on the nutritional profile.  High protein content will bring the points down while high sugar and high saturated fat will shoot them up.

The points allowance has been recalculated – and the majority of people seem to have ended up with fewer points overall.

Some of the foods that I looked at – i.e. the ones that were saved in my favourites, hadn’t changed very much.  The most noticeable differences were the fact that skimmed milk has increased in points (presumably because of the natural sugars) and items of confectionary have also become higher – a KitKat, for example, used to be 6pps but is 9sps.  Foods high in saturated fat have also increased – butter has doubled, and olive oil also appears higher.  Which makes such treats much harder to build in to the plan.

All in all, I’m feeling rather ambivalent.  Change can, of course, be a good thing when it is done for the right reasons but WW has always been about flexibility and moderation and this feels like a bit of a move away from that.  And I always found that the pro point system yielded good results for me without feeling overly punitive.   A bit of chocolate after dinner, a knob of butter stirred through the mashed potatoes – these are the things that help me stick to a plan long term.  My current thinking is to pick up again with pro points in the new year, using a homemade, Excel based tracker and see how that goes which will have the added bonus of not costing me £5 a month to be an online subscriber.

If anyone out there has started on SP I’d be intrigued to know how you are finding it!