Wegman's PointsPlus Food Court

Hi Gang,

This was done to you all by Jerry from Columbia that did the work of finding out all the

PointsPlus values of the Food Court at Wegman's, Sue from Sunday in Frederick who manage to put this for me in Word and Excel so I could listed here and then when I failed again today Becky from Saturday morning in Frederick taught me how to make a picture of Sue's documents and VOILA here you have finally the information.  As I always say: "APART WE ARE SMART BUT TOGETHER WE ARE BRILLIANT".

Click on the images to enlarge.

 

Enjoy it.  Diana

 

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Your questions about free fruits, answered

I know that many of you have been wondering why when we put recipes in recipe builder they are counting fruits points plus and why. I found this article in WW.com and hopefully will enlighten you. It all makes sense. Please read it.

Your questions about fruit, answered
Article By: Elly Trickett McNerney

Why does fruit count in recipes? Are there other times I need to count it? And how much is too much? Don’t worry — we’ve got some answers for you.



Fresh fruit is definitely having its moment in the spotlight, ever since Weight Watchers awarded it all a PointsPlus™ value of zero! But with great freedom comes great responsibility, and we know some of you are anxious that you get it “right."Here, we answer some of your common questions:

When I add fruit to the recipes I create in the Recipe Builder, it counts PointsPlus values for it! I thought fruit was zero?
Just as we've always done with 0 PointsPlus value vegetables, 0 PointsPlus value fresh fruits contribute toward the total PointsPlus values of a recipe, whether it's a Weight Watchers recipe or one you build yourself in the Recipe Builder.

The technical explanation is that because recipes are calculated based on the total grams of fat, fiber, protein and carbs for all their ingredients. As one poster on the Message Boards, DANI_THE_GECKO, sagely points out: “The recipe builder only knows that you input nutritional information. It does not know if it's fruit, green beans or heavy cream."

But why do we do it this way? There are a couple of very good reasons why we count fruits and veggies in our recipes:

•Our recipes often appear in articles and magazines nationally, so we need to provide the calories and nutrient content, as many recipes published elsewhere do.
•Once vegetables and fruit are elements in a prepared recipe, the experience of eating them changes. Few people overeat carrots — but they might overeat carrot cake.

If your “recipe" is truly just a few pieces of fruit, then you might want to record it in your Tracker as separate items or as a “meal" — the latter looks at each item separately and then adds up all the PointsPlus values. Because all the items have 0 PointsPlus values, the total will also be zero.

Are there situations when I need to count PointsPlus values for fruit?
No, not for fresh fruit. Yes, fruit does have calories, and it contains fiber and other nutrients. But we’re assuming that you’ll eat a certain amount of fresh and other unsweetened fruit (veggies, too) each day, and have taken that into account when giving you your daily PointsPlus Target.

All fruit is 0 PointsPlus values when it's fresh, unsweetened frozen, canned in its juice and drained, or with artificial sweeteners. What if you peel it? Yep — as long as it’s unadorned, it’s still zero. (Again, same for veggies.)

You do need to count PointsPlus values when there's added sugar, such as fruit in syrup or in juice, or when there's less water content, as with dried fruit.

I’ve heard that cooking fruit increases its sugar content. Is that true? Does cooked fruit really have a PointsPlus value?
No, the sugar content doesn’t increase when fruit is cooked. However, during the cooking process, there is water loss, so you will have more fruit for a given volume. In other words, a half cup of cooked pears will contain more fruit than a half cup of raw pears.

How much 0 PointsPlus values fruit is too much?
We’ll say it again: Yes, fruits and vegetables aren’t magically calorie-free just by dint of us making most of them free of PointsPlus values. We took this step to encourage people to eat more fruits and vegetables; foods that are nutritious, satisfying and help to encourage you to make healthy, lasting choices that will lead to weight loss.

If you’re concerned that you’re eating “too much fruit," ask yourself if you’re enjoying what you’re eating, or if you’re honestly stuffing yourself with bananas because they’re “free." Or maybe you’re blending pounds of berries and bananas with ice into big-gulp smoothies.

If you’re using fruit and veggies as a way to stuff yourself in lieu of stuffing yourself with less healthy foods, then it’s possible that you may be reaching the point of “too much." If you’re eating more than you used to, but you’re using them for healthy snacks, to bulk up your meals or as a tide-me-over when you’re down to the last few PointsPlus values for the day or week, then you’re probably OK.

The bottom line? Let your hunger, and your weight loss, be your guide.

Cheat sheet to Power Food list

A handy cheat sheet to how the old Filling Foods list translates to the new Weight Watchers Power Foods list.



By now, you have probably heard or read about the Weight Watchers Power Foods. These replace the Filling Foods — except, not exactly. More on that later.

First, the basics. Power Foods are determined by the energy density of a food as well as the nutrient content of a serving of food. We combined foods into categories, for example beef, cookies, yogurt, and ranked all the foods in each category using a proprietary formula tailored to the category. (Some categories, such as cookies, do not have any items that make the cut.) The foods that rose to the top of the list — based on the lowest energy density, as well as being low in fat, saturated fat, sugar, sodium, (depending on category) and/or fiber — are determined to be Power Foods. They are the healthiest and most filling choices within a specific category of foods. These foods were assigned the green pyramid to identify them as Power Foods.

A great many of the Filling Foods have stayed on the Power Foods list, along with a few exciting new ones. And some didn’t make it. There were some foods that, while they have healthy properties, they didn’t meet all the criteria we set for Weight Watchers Power Foods. Avocados, for example, may have lots of healthy fats in them, but the fact remains that they are simply still high in saturated fat. And many canned vegetable soups no longer make the grade because of the high amount of sodium they contain. (Of course, this doesn’t mean you can no longer eat them!)

So, here’s a handy cheat sheet to what’s in and what’s out in the Weight Watchers Power Foods list.

What’s in — new on the Power Foods list

Bread
Light breads (whole-grain varieties are preferred) are now Power Foods. They were added to the list after the aforementioned analysis, and our tests of the new Plan showed that eating these breads didn’t have a negative effect on weight loss.

More pasta varieties
Pasta is normally made from wheat, but increasingly available are varieties made from other grains such as rye, spelt and kamut. These are now Weight Watchers Power Foods.

Fat-free yogurt (artificially sweetened)
Yogurt’s a delicious way of getting in some of your dairy servings, and we’ve made the fat-free, artificially sweetened varieties a Weight Watchers Power Food.

What’s out — Filling Foods that aren’t Power Foods

Avocado

Canadian bacon

Beef — porterhouse steak, T-bone steak, tongue

Cereal — puffed, shredded wheat

Chicken — canned

Chicken livers

Fish — including cooked eel, herring, mackerel, farmed salmon and pompano. Also lox (smoked salmon) and sardines canned in tomato sauce

Lamb — cooked, trimmed leg and loin, also cooked ground lamb

Milk — fat-free evaporated

Plantain — baked or boiled

Pork — including cooked and trimmed leg and loin, plus cooked lean sirloin

Pudding — fat-free, sugar-free, various types

Soup — many canned or instant soups including black bean, lentil, Manhattan clam chowder, split pea, tomato and vegetable beef.

Soy cheese

Sun-dried tomatoes

Textured vegetable protein

Turkey — 93% ground, cooked, plus regular, cooked

Veal — cooked leg, trimmed

Veggie burger — black bean

Why change a great program?

Why change a great program? article by David Kirchhoff, Weight Watchers CEO

We first launched the POINTS® program in 1997, and it marked a whole new era for Weight Watchers. The POINTS program took a major step forward in helping our members by providing a tool to guide healthy choices in an infinite array of eating environments. Counting POINTS values provided critical help to our members in:

Learning better food choices
Learning proper portion size
Keeping track of those hidden bites, licks and tastes throughout the day
Maintaining an energy deficit
Research has shown that budgeting and keeping track of our food and exercise is a critical part of developing healthier habits and lifestyle change. The currency of the original POINTS formula was based primarily on calories with a penalty for fat and a bonus for fiber. During its 13 years, many, many, many people had terrific success following it. So why change such a great program?

We asked ourselves that very question about three years ago. The simple answer is that understanding about weight loss has grown significantly over the past 10 years. Further, we have grown to learn even more about the difficulty in making healthy choices and achieving sustained weight loss in a food environment that seems to conspire against us. This so-called “obesogenic” environment is one in which we find ourselves surrounded by multiplying food choices in the grocery store and in restaurants. Too many of these choices seem to entice us to excess sugars, fat and sodium as well as ever-increasing portions. All of this began to suggest that we needed a better set of tools to help us cope in our daily world.

Some of the recent areas of advancement in understanding include:

Conversion cost. It has been known for decades that the body has to work harder to process some foods more than others. For example, protein and carbohydrates rich in fiber take much more work to process than refined carbohydrates and fats. This means that some foods leave our bodies with fewer calories to use for fuel. While the knowledge has been there for years, weight-loss diets have traditionally been based simply on calories.
Energy density and satiety. Research has shown that we tend to eat the same volume of food each day. Eating foods that have a low energy density (e.g., relatively few calories per volume of food) leads to having a greater feeling of fullness and satisfaction. Furthermore, research has also shown that some nutrients, particularly protein and fiber, provide greater satiety than others, such as sugars and fat.
Complexity of choice. It’s easy to feel a little overwhelmed each day by the horde of messages, often seemingly conflicting, about the latest nutrition fad. Watch out for saturated fats! Watch your sodium! Carbs are bad! No wait, all fat is bad! Our lives move too fast to think about all of this stuff too much. It would be far better if there were a food plan that did the homework for us.
Knowing all of the above was reason enough for us to recognize the need to give the POINTS program a long awaited refresh. However, the best reason I can think of is this: Empty calories. The bottom line is that an energy deficit is still at the heart of weight loss. The issue is that calorie-counting has become unhelpful. When we have a 100-calorie apple in one hand and a 100-calorie pack of cookies in the other, and we view them as being “the same” because the calories are the same, it says everything that needs to be said about the limitations of just using calories in guiding food choices. We needed a program that recognized that calories are most definitely not created equal. We knew that counting, budgeting and planning still made fundamental sense, but we wanted a better and more accurate currency. We wanted a POINTS formula that was much more “opinionated” about food choices beyond just calories.

Introducing the PointsPlus program

Our new PointsPlus program is by far our biggest advancement since the launch of the POINTS program 13 years ago. It has a completely new formula, a new set of food rules and nutrition guides built into a simple, easy-to-use plan.

Philosophically, the PointsPlus program is allowing us to step in front and into the future. We are taking a stand for unprocessed food. We are taking a stand for fruits and vegetables. We still recognize the need for a lot of flexibility and some indulgences, but just in a much smarter way. It’s a modern approach that gives us all the ammunition we need to survive and thrive in an often unforgiving food environment. It allows us a way of making choices that will leave us feeling satisfied, more energetic, more in control and give us the edge to lose weight and maintain that loss in a healthier, more sustainable lifestyle.

I totally understand that some of you will be excited and eager while others will be stressed and anxious. Change is hard, particularly when you’ve already been having success. But remember, it’s still fundamentally about counting, so it’s not completely different. As well, new PointsPlus values mean a new chance to better understand the choices you are making. It’s an opportunity to dive in and be “new” again. Trust me, you will get the hang of it quickly, and then you will be ready to fly even higher.

For meetings members and Weight Watchers Online subscribers making the transition, here is my advice based on seeing many beta testers of this new program:

Treat it as the all-new program that it is. While the PointsPlus system is still based on counting, the formula underlying it is completely different. This means that most of the values have changed, including your PointsPlus range (which is higher) and the PointsPlus values for most foods (also higher). Avoid the temptation to do a “hybrid” program that uses elements of the old POINTS program and elements of the new PointsPlus program. Trust me, they don’t mix well together.
Enjoy the fact that fruits have a PointsPlus value of 0, but don’t go completely crazy. Only 10 percent of Americans eat the recommended amount of fruit, so most of us are not at risk of eating too much fruit on the new program. However, if you already eat a lot of fruit each day, doubling or tripling that will result in slower weight loss. When in doubt, use common sense, listen to your body’s signals (eat some fruit because you’re truly hungry, not because you can), and avoid mindless grazing (one of my personal pitfalls).
If you are new to Weight Watchers or coming back after a long hiatus, I think you will love — and thrive on — this new program.

Welcome to the future!

Cheers,
David

Welcome to the PointsPlus

Welcome to the PointsPlus™ Program: Now What?

Article By: Elly Trickett McNerney


So, the plan has changed. Don’t panic! Here are 5 things you can do right now to get you started on the right foot.

If you’re reading this, then you’ll already have gone through the process of updating your information on this site to follow the new PointsPlus program. To jog your memory, here are some of the things that you did:

You learned your new daily PointsPlus Target.


You may have re-entered some nutritional information for food items that you created in the PointsPlus Tracker, if you’d tracked them during this current week.


You may also have been asked to enter information for other food items that you have stored in your Favorites.


So, what’s next? These 5 to-dos will help you get started!

1. Understand your new PointsPlus Target
Because there is a new formula for calculating PointsPlus values for food, you also have a new daily PointsPlus Target and weekly PointsPlus Allowance. Don’t spend any time trying to wrap your brain around how your old daily POINTS® Target relates to your new daily PointsPlus Target. The way that PointsPlus values are calculated is completely different to the old POINTS values calculation, so don’t even try to guesstimate.

Everyone will find that they have a higher number to work with every day. A lot of foods have also got a higher number of PointsPlus values attached to them — but not all! Stay tuned for some happy surprises.

2. Take stock in the kitchen
Go through your cupboards and fridge at home, and recalculate the PointsPlus values for foods that you eat often. You can either look on the product’s nutritional labels and use the PointsPlus calculator, or look in Find and Explore for the items by name. Don’t be afraid to deface food packaging with a big ol’ Sharpie — better to have graffiti in your pantry than anxiety in your meal planning.

If you’ve got any food items in the PointsPlus Tracker that you’d created previously, but didn’t need to convert straightaway (they'll have a red exclamation point next to them), now’s a great time to go back and either delete them if you don’t use them anymore, or re-enter the nutritional info so they’re ready to track next time you eat them. If you don’t have the package handy, and if the item isn’t in our Food Tracker, remember that many manufacturers put nutritional info right on their websites.

You’ll find that some of the items in your kitchen — like pasta, rice, beans, starchy vegetables like potatoes, and many packaged foods — have a higher PointsPlus value than POINTS value. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t eat these foods! Don’t forget that your new, higher daily PointsPlus Target is also higher.

That said, you’ll also find that some other items — yogurt, most meats and fish, and cheese — actually have the same number of PointsPlus values as POINTS values. A 3oz. serving of grilled chicken breast has 3 PointsPlus values — that’s how many POINTS values it was, but it’ll eat into your daily Target less! Foods that are higher in protein and fiber, and lower in carbohydrates and fat, will often turn out to be real bargains.

3. Hit the stores
You will likely have learned by now that Weight Watchers Power Foods are nutritious and satisfying foods that work hard to help you lose weight. Foods that are marked with a green triangle are Weight Watchers Power Foods, and you can see the full list of them in Find and Explore.

But don’t just sit there and read it: Go shopping! Load up your cart with these foods — try some new ones, and find some Weight Watchers recipes to make use of them here. As well as the new food items you might try, you may also be pleasantly surprised by some of the items that make their way into your cart: Bread (reduced-calorie, whole-grain is best), fat-free luncheon meats, and light yogurt are all Weight Watchers Power Foods, even though they weren’t Filling Foods.

(On that note, though, do note that a few of the Filling Foods, such as avocados and certain soups, are not Weight Watchers Power Foods.)

4. Buy a new fruit bowl
You’ll need it! All fruit — apples, oranges, strawberries, even bananas and mangoes (yes! Even bananas and mangoes!) — have 0 PointsPlus values. They’re Weight Watchers Power Foods, and they help you meet your Good Health Guidelines. (And most vegetables still have 0 PointsPlus values.)

Yes, fruit contains calories and sugar, but trust us: provided you listen to your hunger signals (and forgo the banana-eating contests), you can eat it and still lose weight.

The key is to use fruit as a particularly delicious “tool.” Eat a filling banana to keep you away from the vending machine between breakfast and lunch. Add some grapes to your salad to bulk it up and add a juicy sweetness for 0 PointsPlus values. Roast some plums or peaches with your chicken for a tangy accompaniment. Have some mango with plain Greek yogurt and honey for a creamy and delicious low PointsPlus values dessert. Or stash an apple in your purse to munch while you rush from place to place. Zero PointsPlus value fruit is, quite simply, awesome.

5. Know where your tools are
Your Plan Manager contains all the tools to discover the PointsPlus values of the food you want to eat, plus a full database of activities that can earn you extra PointsPlus values. You can take, and retake, the tutorial as many times as you need to. Even if you were tracking in the Plan Manager faithfully before, it’s still worth taking the tutorial again so you can refresh your memory of how to look up foods that you may not have had to look up for some time.

Your Plan page contains information we’ve picked out for you according to how long you’ve been following the plan. If you’ve been a subscriber for some months, you can still go back to basics by looking at the info that people in their first few weeks on plan get. Just change your week to get a refresher on some Plan basics.

Finally, the Weight Watchers Community is full of people who are transitioning from the old plan to the new one, just like you. Who knows what nuggets of advice you’ll stumble across?