chook
Epic Member
Posts: 327 
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Post by chook on Jul 28, 2019 6:56:16 GMT
About a month or 2 ago, WW released a new range of refrigerated meals here in Australia. Twice the price as the frozen meal range, and of the 2 varieties I tried....absolute rubbish and not worth the money; very watery and bland.
Yesterday I spotted one new WW frozen meal as a ânew productâ. Totally different re-branding on the box and big label as to how many calories the meal contained. I had to turn the box over and there in the tiniest of print was the Smart Points value. It always used to be the opposite with the frozen meals range with Points values highly visible on the front, calories in a tiny nutritional panel on the back.
WW meals were never marketed like this so just wondering if more changes are about to come sooner than expected.
As a side note, the meal was quite nice, advertised as a good source of protein. It was a chilli con carne and assume it was beef based, but struggled to find meat solids in the main part of the meal, and had to check the box for the ingredients list. The beef was either missing or ground extremely fine.
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Post by finreporter on Jul 28, 2019 7:08:32 GMT
Interesting! I wonder if they will start using calorie counting as a main part of the plan and maybe introduce a maximum calorie limit similar to a points target.
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Post by fullmahina on Jul 28, 2019 11:03:16 GMT
It may be an attempt to broaden their appeal beyond people who are looking for WW points values. All of us here are familiar with the points systems but for those who may be looking simply to curb calories the points system is a foreign language. Many frozen meals now have NI prominently displayed in little boxes on the front of the packaging, particularly calories, fat, sodium, and protein. Even the ones that are pretty bad in terms of those nutrients will display the numbers (some of the sodium counts on frozen meals are truly frightening!). Those little boxes are the first thing I look for when I am shopping. There is a maximum calorie and sodium count that I will accept and if the item goes beyond that limit I pass on it.
There is a huge disconnect between the present points system and calorie counts and it is no doubt disturbing to many, including me. I have a hard time wrapping my head around anything that doesn't seem connected to hard data and where there are so many "HUH??" moments when tallying up daily counts. When I double track points and calories the disconnect is often glaring. I can't be the only one who is not comfortable with Freestyle for these reasons.
There is also a bit of resentment when I know that a food is a "good" food (nuts, healthy fats, whole grains, etc) but I am dinged for it in FS points.
WW has always tried to keep Points programs proprietary---with every new tweak there seems to be an attempt to make the points values more difficult to determine without having access to WW material or the app and with Freestyle they've gone over the edge, IMHO. It remains to be seen how WW will change but it's clear that they need to change drastically in order to survive. Give people options and choices and be more user-friendly. Make more SENSE.
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Post by DotRen on Jul 28, 2019 11:56:04 GMT
fullmahina, that would be smart marketing on their part since a lot of WW people have dropped WW over freestyle and are using itrackbites instead for the older programs.
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Post by Jennifer on Jul 28, 2019 12:48:26 GMT
I think broaden, include, expand may be exactly why.
Interesting.
The calorie thing doesn't bother me at all, I know I read a lot here about double tracking, and how calories and points have no correlation.
I understood the explanation of points very clearly... calories are only 1 part of the equation. Calories aren't the be all end all of a food.
That said, I SURE hope WW doesn't go to a plan where we're calorie counting, we'd be going back to the dark ages, letting go of all they've been preaching about not all calories are the same and our bodies are smarter than that.. it knows the difference between 100 calories of banana and 100 calories of chocolate.
I remember early on in Freestyle, one of the coaches said ww surveyed past/current members and there was an overwhelming amount of complaints about tracking, people didn't want to have to track everything they put in their mouths, Freestyle was born out of those complaints.
Now we're going full circle, it seems not tracking is not good now and not only do people want to track everything but track every detail about every food.
Proof... they will N.E.V.E.R. make people happy.
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Post by zazzles on Jul 28, 2019 15:32:43 GMT
When WW announced the rebranding plan, they clearly stated their intention to be widening the appeal of membership beyond those who wanted/needed to lose weight. They thought they were going to convince people that there was value in joining and attending meetings or tracking food intake beyond weight loss. It seems like that aspect of the rebranding plan failed; not only didnât that target population show up at meetings but large numbers of established members quit.
My belief is that making the SmartPoints value of foods and recipes less prominent on printed packaging/materials was intentional so as to lessen the âproprietaryâ look of stuff. Although WW foods sold in meeting locations and online still contain the number in a blue circle with SmartPoints below it, the location has changed to be on the side or back of the product. And the recipes on the weekly handouts have a tiny blue circle with white number but NO indication that it is the SmartPoints value.
So, for me, any new packaging in grocery stores that calls out selected nutritional information on the front doesnât suggest anything about a program change. Moreover, it seems more like a competitive thing because brandds like Lean Cuisine all select NI prominently displayed on the front of packages.
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Post by borntexan on Jul 28, 2019 15:48:13 GMT
I disagree with calorie counting will be going back to the dark ages. In MFP you look up a food and you find be the calories
Just like WW you may find many entries for the same food
Having said that I agree no one diet fits all as we all no. If FS worked for me I would be happy with it also.
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Post by finreporter on Jul 28, 2019 18:02:08 GMT
Calorie counting is not going back to the dark ages. In fact it's very current and what all the free food tracking apps use. And those plans are far more popular these days than WW whose financials clearly tell us they're sinking and have been for years now.
I do agree not all calories are created equally because clearly our bodies respond differently to simple sugars vs complex carbohydrates vs protein etc. but calorie counting still works whether you choose to have a whole pantry worth of processed food or a fridge full of fresh meats and produce. If I eat 800 calories a day I'm going to lose weight no matter what makes up those calories because that is a huge calorie deficit for me.
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Post by finreporter on Jul 28, 2019 18:05:16 GMT
Fullmahina I agree how unsettling the points calories disconnect is. Having made goal and lifetime on momentum where it was consistently 1 point for every 50 calories, that made sense to me. I double tracked most of the time I did freestyle and it was always wildly off. Maybe I just didn't eat "the right foods" for it to work out for me.
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Post by Jennifer on Jul 28, 2019 20:25:29 GMT
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