Weight Watchers

I joined Weight Watchers here in Sydney in part to meet people but more because I weighed more than I ever had before, especially after all of the wonderful and caring farewell parties people threw for us. I think we had three weeks of parties or dinners every night. I also have managed to put on about five pounds a year for the last several years, in spite of continued exercise.

And for those who say, “why did you need to join?” Thank you so much, I love you too.

For those who don’t know, Weight Watchers works with a system of points. You get so many per day and each food has a value which you subtract from your daily total. Of course in Australia it is referred to as a “points value” (plural on the points).

I’ve had some disagreements with the points assigned to some basic foods. One slice of bread is one point but a tortilla has two points. Now, does that mean that the dieter’s trick of having a wrap instead of a sandwich with two slices of bread is bogus? I’ve seen tortillas made and they are simply flour and water and are cooked without oil. I realize that making up my own points system is not productive but I resent some of these points values.

Other things are measured in strange amounts. Cottage cheese is measured in tablespoons and even when you get low-fat cottage cheese two tablespoons are half a point. So much for another dieter’s classic: the cottage cheese lunch.

In the United States I’m sure that in week two you aren’t given a booklet with 800 food values that includes lamb’s brains (1 set, 145 grams raw=2.5 points), Anzac biscuits (per biscuit=1.5 points), mutton or lamp flaps (this is one item! 100 grams raw, 1 serve=8 points) and, of course, Kangaroo meat (100 grams raw=2 points). I’m so happy to know how many lamb’s brains I can have in a day.

In addition to foods that I will not eat, like lamb’s brains, there are foods I’ve never heard of. In the Ks alone I find kabana sausage (1 sausage, 50 grams=3.5 points), kipper fillet (30 grams, drained=1 point), and kumara (80 grams, fresh, small serve=1 point)

There are exceedingly British foods like crumpets, fruit bun, fruits cake and fruit flan and very tropical fresh fruits like pawpaw, mango, and pineapple.

In some restaurants I find myself looking over the wine list for the mist expensive and cheapest wines, and I’m certain that many of you do as well. Looking through the book for the lowest point items is easy (water, many vegetables, egg white, and marmite) so what are some of the most “expensive” foods?

Battered fish (their words, not mine, 10 points), carrot cake with icing (11.5 points), cheesecake, homemade (17.5 points), and crème brulee (small point, 13.5 points) are listed in the Weight Watchers book. What you really need to do to rack up points is to go out to eat. A serve of Veal parmigiana has 17.5 points and Mexican nachos with chili con carne have 19.5 points. One the positive side, a MacDonald’s cheeseburger is only 5.5 points and a Big Mac is 10.

The absolutely most expensive things I could find were restaurant pasta with boscaiola at 31.5 and Chinese combination omelet at 34 points. To put this in perspective, I get 20 points a day.

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Last revised: October 2003