Weight Watchers: Too Much Math, Too Little Food

WEIGHT WATCHERS—a popular point-tallying system that enforces
portion control by having you log the amount of food you eat every
day—works for many people. Those who overeat can benefit by
tracking what they consume and being conscious of reducing calories.
But this program has its flaws. First, I don’t know many
people who have the time or long-term discipline to measure foods
and count calories on a daily basis. Second, Weight Watchers
doesn’t guarantee nutritional balance. You could count your points
so that you eat nothing but junk if you skimped during other parts
of the day. In theory, you could eat your day’s worth of points at one
or two meals—and that would slow down your metabolism and
might actually make you gain weight. Calorie counting, as I’ll explain
in the next few sections, is only one component of a successful
weight-control program. Third, and most important, a lot of people
don’t like the support group atmosphere of Weight Watchers.