Thoraiya DyerWeight Watchers Meals: Lean, Or Just Half A Meal?
May 14th 2008 01:18
The last thing I want to do is disparage Weight Watchers, or anyone else with a goal to reduce our nationwide obesity problem. I have bought Weight Watchers’ frozen meals recently, however, and it seemed – perhaps this is a little cynical – that there wasn’t anything particularly special about the food itself.
Nothing special, EXCEPT that the bowl of pasta was ludicrously small.
I was still hungry, so I ate two Weight Watcher’s meals. They were nice, but by eating two of them I suspected I was wrecking the whole point of buying them in the first place.
Yes, it seemed to me that the main thing that had been changed about the meals was the portion size. That is, instead of giving me a super duper low calorie meal, they had just given me half of what I would normally eat.
Of course, I felt compelled to whip the old calculator out and see for myself.
What would I normally eat for lunch? Two big tuna and salad sandwiches would fill me up just fine. And they would cost a lot less than two bowls of Weight Watcher’s pasta.
Turns out that 4 slices of sourdough bread, two little tins of tuna in springwater, four lettuce leaves and four tomato slices adds up to 2482kJ.
That’s groovy. As a female between 19 and 50 years old with a currently not-very-active lifestyle, my daily allowance is 9000kJ Really Long Link ).
Those sandwiches also happen to weigh in at 418g, giving me that satisfying, heavy feel in my engorged stomach. Important, as far as I’m concerned, to stop me prowling through the snack drawers like a scavenging vulture.
How about that bowl of Weight Watchers pasta?
“Tuna Bake – frozen bowl” Really Long Link recommended as a lunch or dinner, contains 1330 kJ of energy.
Well, that’s only half as many kilojoules as my two sandwiches. Seems like I was right after all.
If I want my home-made lunch to be as lean as a Weight Watcher’s meal, all I have to do is cut it in half!
One tuna sandwich = 1241kJ = similar to the bowl of pasta.
No wonder I ate two of them. And going for the extra large potions wouldn’t have helped: “Peppered Beef – NEW large size!” comes in at 1150kJ.
How large is it? A whopping 350g, 30g more than the regular size. Yikes. Still not as large as my two sandwiches. Not as large as a tin of SPC tomato and cheese spaghetti, either, which amounts to 1369kJ yet weighs a comfortable, grumbly-stomach-settling 425g ( Really Long Link ).
One final experiment, as I’ve noticed Weight Watchers also makes a pizza.
“BBQ Special Pizza” weighs 220g and contains 1950kJ. It has chicken, lean ham, reduced fat mozzarella, onion and BBQ sauce.
Using the Pizza Hut Nutrition Calculator Really Long Link ), if we make a pizza with those same ingredients (well, with normal mozzarella, normal ham, red onions and chicken), we get one slice = a 101g serving with 840kJ.
Let me get this straight. Two slices of Pizza Hut pizza (202g, 1680kJ) equals less calories than a 220g Weight Watcher’s Pizza?
Looks like the helpful saying, “eat what you like, but eat less of it,” is applicable here. Weight watchers meals might be attractively packaged, but what they are essentially doing is giving you less to cram in your mouth. If you have enough willpower to order a Pizza Hut pizza, eat ONLY two slices and then give the rest to a friend, you can lose weight without spending quite so much money.
If you don’t have the willpower, however, you can sign up here: Really Long Link
Because eating half a meal is difficult, and being around like-minded people probably offers a greater chance of success.
Nothing special, EXCEPT that the bowl of pasta was ludicrously small.
I was still hungry, so I ate two Weight Watcher’s meals. They were nice, but by eating two of them I suspected I was wrecking the whole point of buying them in the first place.
Yes, it seemed to me that the main thing that had been changed about the meals was the portion size. That is, instead of giving me a super duper low calorie meal, they had just given me half of what I would normally eat.
Of course, I felt compelled to whip the old calculator out and see for myself.
What would I normally eat for lunch? Two big tuna and salad sandwiches would fill me up just fine. And they would cost a lot less than two bowls of Weight Watcher’s pasta.
Turns out that 4 slices of sourdough bread, two little tins of tuna in springwater, four lettuce leaves and four tomato slices adds up to 2482kJ.
That’s groovy. As a female between 19 and 50 years old with a currently not-very-active lifestyle, my daily allowance is 9000kJ Really Long Link ).
Those sandwiches also happen to weigh in at 418g, giving me that satisfying, heavy feel in my engorged stomach. Important, as far as I’m concerned, to stop me prowling through the snack drawers like a scavenging vulture.
How about that bowl of Weight Watchers pasta?
“Tuna Bake – frozen bowl” Really Long Link recommended as a lunch or dinner, contains 1330 kJ of energy.
Well, that’s only half as many kilojoules as my two sandwiches. Seems like I was right after all.
If I want my home-made lunch to be as lean as a Weight Watcher’s meal, all I have to do is cut it in half!
One tuna sandwich = 1241kJ = similar to the bowl of pasta.
No wonder I ate two of them. And going for the extra large potions wouldn’t have helped: “Peppered Beef – NEW large size!” comes in at 1150kJ.
How large is it? A whopping 350g, 30g more than the regular size. Yikes. Still not as large as my two sandwiches. Not as large as a tin of SPC tomato and cheese spaghetti, either, which amounts to 1369kJ yet weighs a comfortable, grumbly-stomach-settling 425g ( Really Long Link ).
One final experiment, as I’ve noticed Weight Watchers also makes a pizza.
“BBQ Special Pizza” weighs 220g and contains 1950kJ. It has chicken, lean ham, reduced fat mozzarella, onion and BBQ sauce.
Using the Pizza Hut Nutrition Calculator Really Long Link ), if we make a pizza with those same ingredients (well, with normal mozzarella, normal ham, red onions and chicken), we get one slice = a 101g serving with 840kJ.
Let me get this straight. Two slices of Pizza Hut pizza (202g, 1680kJ) equals less calories than a 220g Weight Watcher’s Pizza?
Looks like the helpful saying, “eat what you like, but eat less of it,” is applicable here. Weight watchers meals might be attractively packaged, but what they are essentially doing is giving you less to cram in your mouth. If you have enough willpower to order a Pizza Hut pizza, eat ONLY two slices and then give the rest to a friend, you can lose weight without spending quite so much money.
If you don’t have the willpower, however, you can sign up here: Really Long Link
Because eating half a meal is difficult, and being around like-minded people probably offers a greater chance of success.
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