Pros

It is often misunderstood that skipping a meal here or there will help you lose weight, but alas just the opposite is the truth. Skipping a meal makes your body go into a starvation mode, thus making the bodys metabolism slow down. A slow metabolism means that the bodys ability to burn fat is impaired so when a person does eat the fat contained in that food is stored instead of burned. The idea of Weight Watchers is to eat more food that is nutritious for you, rather than less food that is bad for you. Taking into consideration the other two areas of Weight Watchers that are just as important as the actual food area, you will begin to see how Weight Watchers is above and beyond the other diet plans out there. Not many other diet plans will take counseling and exercise and make them necessary to succeed in weight loss.

For some people, counseling is not always something that they need or even want. Some people would rather work at weight loss themselves for various reasons, maybe embarrassment, or maybe they are easily self motivated.

Weight Watchers is one of the good guys in this industry of pill pushers and unscrupulous "experts." The Winning Points Plan does an effective job of teaching portion control and educates the dieter on what nutritional value certain foods have. It is the program to choose if you feel you need face-to-face support. Another great aspect of the diet is that some restaurants have actually adapted the Weight Watchers diet into their menu and provide foods that have actual Weight Watcher Points assigned to them. Applebees has gone to great lengths to make sure that the food they make is precisely how Weight Watchers intends it to be made down to the last ounce.

There really isnt any other weight loss program out there that gives the freedom to eat what you like, and even operate the diet on a busy and tight schedule.

Cons

Weight Watchers really seems to go a little overboard when trying to convince people to start using their materials to help lose weight. The gimmicks involved in trying to persuade potential dieters that they need this plan to help them lose weight are near laughable. Using celebrities who probably havent ever even tried Weight Watchers to get people excited about the diet is most certainly back handed. The plan says that you can lose weight without giving up the foods that you love, but only limiting those fatty and unhealthy foods to a small portion. This allows the dieter to feel a false sense of security, and they dont actually change their eating habits at all, but only altering them to fit into a plan that will allow those people, who dont have much self control to slip up once in a while, thus allowing the dieter to never really lose any weight.

If one seriously wants to lose weight and keep it off, they need to think more comprehensively about the foods they eat without the confusing point scheme. The program also does not put a priority on exercise - which is essential for long term health and weight control. Another staggering statistic about people on Weight Watchers is that on average only 5% of dieters succeed beyond 5 years in keeping off the weight. This is achieved through long term therapy which can become very expensive and can potentially prevent the development of self-reliance and self-discipline. There are mixed reviews of the support meetings that Weight Watchers claims is the basis of their diet plan. Some have said that the meetings are expensive and outright annoying, thus having an opposite affect as designed. Some also say that the meetings create a competitive atmosphere making some people uncomfortable and standoffish.

Dr. Catherine DeAngelis, editor in chief of JAMA best describes the Weight Watchers program, "while Weight Watchers and similar programs may work for some people, they clearly don't work for everyone. Programs have the best chances of working if they feel natural to the people following them, otherwise the weight loss is too difficult to maintain. It works as long as you stay with it."