5 Things to Know About Weight Watchers’ New Plan

Weight Watchers is betting that it can reverse its long decline and win back some of its 20 million lapsed members by changing how it helps people lose weight. The company is replacing its eating plan with a new program called “Beyond the Scale,” which includes revamped food guidelines, more emphasis on fitness and new motivational tools to “find and fuel inner strength.”

• 1 Push to Eat Smarter, Be Kinder

  The new “SmartPoints” eating plan favors eating more lean protein, fruits and vegetables and less sugar and saturated fat. But members will no longer keep tabs on their BMI in their meeting booklets.

• 2 New Scorecard

  
  
  
  Under the new plan, bacon, butter and fast-food cheeseburgers now have more “points,” the value that users count when budgeting their daily food consumption. Lean flank steak, shrimp and chicken breasts count for fewer points. Values for wine, peanut butter and turkey sandwiches stay the same.

• 3 Exercise for the sake of it

  Members will get personalized fitness goals, and exercise no longer translates directly into earning more food points. A new app suggests 1-15 minute workouts, such as office heel raises.

• 4 Eat Well, Feel Well

  Inner-strength training includes learning nonfood coping skills, tips on finding life balance and ways to feel good independent of what the scale says.

• 5 Oprah is Doing it, Too

  Oprah Winfrey said she stuck to her Weight Watchers plan and still enjoyed her Thanksgiving meal at New York’s Rainbow Room restaurant, overstepping her point allowance by only three or four points. “It was one of the best Thanksgiving meals I ever had, and I did not overeat,” she said. “First time that’s ever happened.”
  
  
  
  
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