WeightWatchers Diet Review (2024)

Overview

WW, formerly known as WeightWatchers, is great option for people looking for a lifestyle change as opposed to a short-term crash diet. WW lets you eat the foods you love and still lose weight, but that’s just one of the many healthy diet and lifestyle perks that WW delivers.

Here’s everything you need to know about WW—and whether the program might be a good fit for you.

WeightWatchers at a Glance

Summary:

• Efficacy: If used properly, WW is an effective diet tool. The plan can also help reshape a person’s relationship with dieting and exercise in general, potentially improving one’s lifestyle.
• Cost: Although the most expensive plan option guarantees face-to-face workshops with a price tag of $6.92 a week. The least expensive plan costs $3.38 a week and delivers plenty of tools to help you achieve your weight loss goals, including the mobile app tracker.
• Support: 24/7 access to one-on-one support consultants for everything from meal planning and goal setting to tech-related issues. The highest plan tier includes in-person support workshops.

Highlights of the Program:

• The WW program places a lot of importance on exercise and teaches that healthy living isn’t just about what you eat, but also about staying active.
• Meal plans are easy to follow, as the app allows you to input all the foods you’ve consumed throughout the day and offers you a comprehensive view of your situation at all times.
• Unlike some other diets, WW doesn’t require you to purchase a slew of branded products or make frequent, specialty grocery runs, making it that much easier to follow and manage on a budget.
• Handy mobile app is included on every WW plan and lets you customize health details and goals and track your eating and exercise daily, wherever you are.

How Does WeightWatchers Work?

After downloading the free WW app, you’re asked to sign up for one of three plans based on how much access to WW consultants you want. You’re then asked for some personal details, including your current weight, your target weight, whether you’re breastfeeding and whether your goal is to just eat healthy or eat healthy and lose weight.

The experience gets even more personalized based on your responses. You’re then asked to share how often you eat dairy, eggs, fruits, vegetables and more throughout the week. You’re asked to choose which of the following is most important to you: having more culinary options, measuring and tracking all that you eat, having a long list of go-to foods or actually limiting the measuring and tracking of the food throughout the day.

Based on your answers, you’re matched with a specific plan and number of permissible points per day. Every plan also includes zero-point foods you’re allowed to eat in whatever quantities you want. On the purple plan, these foods include fruits, eggs, non-starchy vegetables, chicken, fish, beans, tofu, fat-free plain yogurt, potatoes, whole wheat pasta and grains. People on the blue plan have a smaller variety of zero-point foods to choose from—fruits, vegetables and lean proteins are still included, but whole grains aren’t. The green plan, on the other hand, only allows for unlimited fruits and vegetables.

After you receive your plan assignment, the app navigates to a tracking page where you input your daily food consumption, your exercise regimen and your general sleep routine—all aspects that contribute to your diet. Throughout the WW program, you constantly refer to that page to monitor how many food points you have left in a day.

The calculation of points is made easy by the app, as subscribers can scan a product’s label and the system automatically shares a point value for that food. If you’re eating a food without a label, you can still find it by typing the food name manually into the app.

What Foods Do You Eat On WeightWatchers?

The diet features foods that you can easily find at just about any grocery store. Unlike some other weight loss plans, WW doesn’t require you to purchase a bunch of branded products, although a ton are available if that’s your preference.

Of course, healthier foods tend to be more expensive than unhealthy ones, but the money you spend buying groceries on a WW plan isn’t necessarily more than other dieting platforms. WW is a realistic program that can be followed easily if you devote yourself to buying only healthy, whole and natural foods at the grocery store—which is why the diet doesn’t feel restrictive overall.

The best aspect of the diet is your ability to eat “regular” foods, therefore rendering the program a sustainable one in the long run by allowing you to shop for fresh produce, meats, grains and more at virtually any grocery store.

The absence of specialty foods also makes WW an easy-to-follow guide for folks with dietary restrictions (vegan, kosher, dairy-free, etc.). Virtually all types of food are permissible as long as they are properly accounted for in your daily points.

How Much Does WW Cost?

WW offers three plans:

1. Digital: $3.38 a week

• Access to the app, which includes your weekly progress report, recipe ideas, on-demand workouts and meal planning tools
• Access to a 24/7 coach via chat

2. Digital 360: $4.61 a week

• Access to the app, which includes your weekly progress report, recipe ideas, on-demand workouts and meal planning tools
• Direct access to 360 Coaches: As opposed to the coach chat mentioned above, which connects you to a different coach each session, this plan pairs you with the same coach every time you reach out.
• Access to live and on-demand wellness experiences, such as meditation sessions and cooking demonstrations

3. Unlimited workshops + Digital: $6.92 a week

• Access to the app, which includes your weekly progress report, recipe ideas, on-demand workouts and meal planning tools
• Access to an unlimited number of in-person workshops where you complete a weigh-in before joining group talks focused on best practices and recipe ideas, among other topics
• Access to live and on-demand wellness experiences
• All plans charge your credit card automatically on a monthly basis unless you manually unsubscribe, which is fairly easy to do on the app or WW website

Cons of WW

Some find the app hard to use

Some users comment that the mobile app interface is hard to navigate.

In-person workshops on the top-tier plan only

In-person workshops are useful and guarantee a sense of community throughout the weight loss journey. But for some, the benefits may not justify the higher cost of the top-tier plan. If you’re on a budget, the on-demand coaching that’s available on the lower-cost plans can keep you on-track, plus save you a bit of money each week.

Bottom Line

WW is more than a diet plan, it’s a system that helps you lose weight and develop habits for an active, healthy lifestyle long-term. As with any weight loss or healthy eating program, there’s an adjustment period and times where you need to boost your motivation. This is where WW’s coaching support system, handy app tracker and tasty recipe options come in handy. It’s hard to get bored on the WW meal plan, and easy to keep yourself going by setting—and reaching—mini-goals along the way.

WW is definitely one to consider if your goal is weight loss through sustainable lifestyle change. But if it’s a quick crash diet that you’re after, WW may not be the best fit.