Starling Fitness: Daily writings on Fitness, Diet, and Health

Weight Watchers started a brand new plan yesterday called PointsPlus. Rather than allow their precious plan information to leak a tad early, they opted to disable their iPhone app completely. For the last two days, I haven’t been able to use my Weight Watchers iPhone app to record my food. Rather than allow me to use the old program they have COMPLETELY disabled my program.

Sorry, Weight Watchers. I really love your meetings and my leader, but your corporate decisions have been so shortsighted that you consistently let me down. What is the matter with you folks at a corporate level? Why aren’t you more like the local leaders and staff?

I revamped my Edibles app on my iPhone and it’s logging my food and exercise just fine, by the way.

Here’s how to do it: How To Use Edibles with Weight Watchers PointsPlus

Update 12-02-10:

I have now downloaded the new app, but it requires me to “update my account” on their website. I’ve checked my address and looked at my status, but the entire website seems to have forgotten who I am and that I’ve been a member for YEARS.

An email to tech support resulted in an automated response with a promise of an answer within 24 hours. I am almost finishing my first week on the PointsPlus program and I’m seriously UNIMPRESSED with how they transitioned my iPhone app and eTools account.

Weight Watchers is launching a new program. In the UK, it’s called ProPoints, but in the States, they are calling it PointsPlus. The old Points system has been completely changed, which will change how you’ll calculate the new points on your Edibles program.

According to Wikipedia, the new PointsPlus formula is as follows:

Where pp is the PointsPlus value, p is the amount of protein, c is the amount of carbohydrates, f is the amount of total fat and b is the amount of fiber, all in grams. This formula is an empirical match to the Weight Watchers calculators and may not be exact; Weight Watchers has not published their actual formula.

This formula is pretty convoluted and very difficult to enter into the Edibles Calculator, so Mike converted it for me. This is how I entered it into my Edibles Calculator:

Even if you’re using the Weight Watchers iPhone app, there may be a few days WEEKS when you won’t be able to track using your phone because the app won’t be available as soon as the program starts.

• Weight Watchers: The new program and your iPhone App

The App may not be available for a day or two after the new program launches. We appreciate your patience during this time. You can use the website for tracking, and everything else you usually do on your phone.

You might just want to try out Edibles to see if it works better than the official Weight Watcher app.

• Edibles – Diet Journal

Update 12-02-10: Due to differences in food labeling in the US vs. the UK, the PointsPlus formula is vastly different than the ProPoints formula. I changed this entry to reflect the proper formula for the United States.

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