Hello & Happy Sunday everyone! I am Kelly and this is Weight Watchers Virtual Workshop #398 brought to you by If You Have an Egg.com. Today is Sunday, January 19th and if you were not able to join us LIVE, just visit https://www.youtube.com/@ifyouhaveanegg to watch (or listen!) whenever you can!
If you are new or returning to our LIVE workshop please give us a shoutout so we can all welcome you…we are glad you are here!
This week we begin the new 2025 format for chats, let me know if you like the things I left out (or if you even noticed they were gone), want anything back in, can think of any other changes, etc. I’ve been chatting with many of you for feedback and this is our inaugural run with what you suggested!
This week over on the If You Have an Egg Facebook Group, our Focus Leader Julie will be chatting about this week’s focus topic “Tracking”. Join us and don’t forget to comment to join in the fun! If you aren’t already a member of the group simply visit the group here and remember to answer those 3 questions so I can let you in 🙂
According to the official FDA website, Prevention Magazine and other trustworthy news sources, Red Dye #3 is officially on the food and drug administration no no list. Aside from cancer concerns, good ole #3 has long been linked to other issues like hyperactivity and behavioral issues in children. From what I’ve read products like toaster pastries, baking decorations, ice cream cones, soft candy and gummies, meal replacement drinks and even baby food will end its use but any product on the shelf or in your home will likely not be recalled. For a complete list of those foods you can read more at Prevention.com
This week’s Good Egg Award goes to Ann from Knoxville who has crossed her 50 pounds lost mark! Great job Ann! Stay tuned this week over in our If You Have an Egg Facebook group for information on how you could be next week’s Good Egg Award recipient!
This week at Weight Watchers we discussed The Great Tracking Debate! It shouldn’t come as any surprise that when surveyed members cited tracking as the #1 contributor to overall weight loss success. I’ve been doing some form of the Weight Watchers program for nearly 30 years now (wow, I’m really showing my age huh?) and we’ve tracked in every way imaginable.
- Paper trackers with elaborate lists and details of food consumed. All checked and returned to you marked up with a smiley (or a frowny) from your leader
- Little dots or squares to fill in and make sure you got enough, or in some cases only “this much”d
- Sliders to find points and portions of the most limited list you can imagine
- And finally digital in app tracking! We are going to explore that more in the second half
Did you know?
If you have a streak going in your app and miss a day, you can go back exactly ONE DAY and still not lose your streak. But if you skip that second one you’ll head straight back to zero
Question for the Group: How about you?
What’s your favorite way to track?
- Track Your Meals ahead
- Track while you are eating
- Back-Track (tracking after the fact)
How often do you track?
- Once a day
- Once a week
- Every meal?
Do you track your zero point foods?
Remember, it’s not as important to be perfect with your tracking it’s most important to track consistently! That might mean tracking one meal a day on the days you can control and nothing on the weekend. Or tracking all of your meals the day before. We will even talk about a neat concept called split tracking in the second half. Opening your app and tracking something, anything is the most important habit of all 🙂
Who can tell us a STAR goal they have for tracking this week? Remember it needs to be:
S-pecific so you will know if you did it
T-ruly doable in a week’s time
A-ctionable meaning you will DO something and not not do something
R-elevant to your journey!
Topic: Trackin’ Hackin’
In this second half we are going to take a simple meal and track it X different ways. Lots of tips and tricks coming, hang on tight!
Method #1 – single item lookup (with or without the scanner as applicable)
Method #2 – “Same as yesterday?” if it’s an item or meal you eat frequently (like I’m eating this for lunch 3 days this week) when you click on that meal it will pop up “Same as yesterday?”. Simply click the + sign and track it! If you need to make a minor change like cucumbers instead of carrots it’s fastest to go ahead and click “same as yesterday” and then swipe to delete carrots and add cucumbers rather than retype all that in
Method #3 – “Frequently Tracked” list – similar to the “same as yesterday” feature, you will also start to develop some habits of frequently eaten foods at certain meals. You can use that list and scroll through, then just tap the + icons on the items you want to add. Again, you can always go back and add additional things if they do not already appear in that list yet
Method #4 – Quick Add Tracking – now for this particular method you need to have some idea of how many points a food or meal is before you get too carried away. I happen to know the items on this plate are 8 points (for me because I have mine switched to Living with Diabetes, yours may only be 5 points if fruit is zero for you). So to Quick Add I would simply go to that meal LUNCH → click the + symbol in the upper left corner → click Quick Add → and type in my food name and estimated points
Method #5 – Create A Meal Tracking – there are gobs of you who eat pretty much the same thing for at least a meal or two a day and could track it blindfolded. What if I told you the app has that blindfold?? The first time has a couple of extra steps to get the items added and then it’s a snap! Go to that meal LUNCH → click the + symbol in the upper left corner → click Add a Meal → and then type a name and add all the components of that meal. If it’s one you think you will eat frequently go ahead and click that little flag before you click track. Now to find that meal simply go to your icon in the very upper left corner to get the drop down menu → My Food (or if you clicked the little banner just click on Saved) → toggle over to Meals → either scroll and find your saved meal or type the name in the search bar → and choose which meal and which day you’d like to track it to!
Method #6 – Camera Scanner Tracking – now this one is experimental so we will be testing the Weight Watchers app’s intelligence. It’s a good thing it’s still a non-sentient AI so we can’t hurt its feelings right? Ok, so. We have this plate we’ve been tracking and re-tracking in all these different methods but you’re tired and it’s been a long day and you just don’t know what any of the points are for any of these things so you’re gonna try the brand new, barely out of the box yet camera on your WW app. Let’s give her a go live and see how she does ok?
Method #7 – Split Tracking – this one is a little tricksy but I know at least two people who swear by this and say it gets easier if you don’t try to over think it. Both of these people are 100% most points of the day eaten at dinner. They are also both very hard on themselves when they’ve gone a little over during the day and realize it’s a zero point food dinner for them…again. And they both are also very prone to be disappointed, throw in the daily towel, and not track dinner and go to bed. Not good for the attitude or the tracking streak right? If this sounds like you I’m going to show you this little gem that Gwen taught us a couple of years ago. I do not personally use this method so I asked her to show us again last Tuesday. Be prepared to have your mind blown!
1st – figure out what you are having for dinner today, you may even be eating it now
2nd – do NOT track it as dinner today. I know, sounds crazy right
3rd – instead track your dinner on TOMORROW’s dinner (example: today is Sunday but I would track tonight’s dinner on Monday)
4th – track breakfast and lunch as normal the next day but dinner is already tracked (from the night before)
5th – repeat the next day (example: tomorrow is Monday and I would track that dinner on Tuesday instead of Monday)
Here’s the mind blowing part…it’s the same number of points per day. You aren’t cheating any system or borrowing points from tomorrow for today. BUT…now you can clearly see how many points you have left for that 24 hour period called a “day” because the higher point meal was already tracked and now you can plan how to fit just breakfast and lunch around the points you used. Make sense? Isn’t it genius???
