Weight Watchers Online v.s. SparkPeople

[nina_yyc]

I did WW before DS, lost 15lbs, reached my goal and loved it, and then promptly got pregnant.  I've never lost all the baby weight and need some accountability, but I am cheap.  I set myself up on SparkPeople and manually added 300 calories to the total it gave me to compensate for nursing a toddler.  I really like the idea of tracking things that actually appear on nutrition info, like calories, and not having to calculate points on the fly, but I am a little intimidated by how self-directed it is.  The calorie calculator seemed really simplistic, not taking lifestyle factors into account.  Sure I can research and do it manually, but that's scary...I don't want to go to all the trouble of tracking just to find out I got something wrong and it's not going to work!!

I know how to eat well and I know what I need to eat and what I can get away with.  My problem is portion control and accountability so I don't do dumb stuff like put a couple sugars in my coffee.  (Maybe worth the calories for some folks but always one of the things that threw me off on WW.)

When I did WW one of the major drawbacks was the speed of the site.  It was really slow especially on my work computer and crashed lots.  SparkPeople seems nice and fast and I can track on my phone (Sony Ericsson, so I don't know if the WW app would run.)

Thoughts?

[hopefulfaith]

I was doing Sparkpeople for about a month, and I was really thrown off by how self-directed it was (I need rules!) and how like the old WW it was:  a calorie is a calorie is a calorie, and it doesn't matter if your calories come from ice cream or broccoli, they all added up the same.

So, I joined WW Online yesterday without playing with the site too much, and I'm having a terrible time with it.  Just terrible.  :(  It's slow, I can't find any of the foods I want on there to just enter them in -- for example, I had tea with a friend this morning who served us refrigerator cinnamon rolls -- and I have no idea what their nutritional value is.  It's not in the WW database, so I went to Sparkpeople to find it....it was there, of course, because their database is pretty full -- but I'm so bummed it's not in WW.  :(

I'm thinking about quitting it and just doing a pen/paper tracking.  I am really disappointed.

[nina_yyc]

Been on Sparkpeople for 2 weeks now.  So far so good.  I didn't have a scale when I started so I weighed in at my parents' and then again yesterday on a scale I bought.  I think I've lost about 3lbs which means I'm getting the calorie count about right.  Unless my scale is just 3lbs lighter than theirs LOL.

Agreed that the self-directedness is scary.  I don't think that they consider all calories equal though...you have to get in your range of protein, carbs, and fat which means you effectively need to eat properly, get your veggies in, or you either won't balance out or you'll be really hungry.  I don't know how I would find it if this was my first experience with calorie counting...I remember my first experience on WW there was a lot of sticker shock....two pieces of toast with butter is WHAT?  I also like that it's just a daily target fange rather than the WW 35 'cheat' points...the idea of cheat points added this whole weird moral element for me where I would feel bad for using them and good for hoarding them for a splurge. 

I think I am going to stick with it for at least another 2 weeks and if it works I'll stay until I lose the weight.  The idea of paying money for a slow website is unbelievably grating.  My connection at work is already super slow and my phone isn't truly a smartphone so the Sparkpeople stuff is good for me on the technical/computer side.

[hopefulfaith]

I went to the WW website to try to cancel my subscription this morning and discovered that I wouldn't get a refund for the package-3-month deal thing, only for about $6.95.  I decided it wasn't worth it and thought maybe I would try to give it a week before I opted not to use a paid-for subscription.  I feel sort of stupid for not playing with the site more, but they really don't give you a taste of the online points-thing until you sign up, so...  Anyway.  Hopefully I'll fall in love with it the more I play with it and get used to it, because I've got three months or so to go!

I like Sparkpeople simply because the database was so full of food that I never didn't find what I was looking for - but you're right - I totally had to self-monitor my veggies and protein/carbs, etc., and not just blow all of my daily allowance on a handful of York Peppermint Patties.  :)  Their website is much better than WW, IMO, and I liked their mobile app much better than WW, too.

BTW - congratulations on 3 pounds!  That's fantastic!  :D  Yay, you!