By Carey Rossi on January 13, 2011 in
Weight loss resolve getting you down? This might cheer you up: Weight Watchers lets you eat all the fruit you want. Despite all the grumblings about their new point system, this change may help you take the hunger edge off your dieting, sweetly.
Vegetables are already a point-free food, but this change of fruit freebies is a point of contention inside and outside the best reviewed diet plan. Weight Watchers’ chief scientific officer is quoted in The Washington Post as saying that she had to be “assured six times over that it was the right thing to do” from a weight management perspective. What convinced her? Clinical trials data showing that people who were able to eat as much fruit as they wanted did not consume too many extra calories.
But she isn’t the only one to be skeptical of fruit’s free role in the successful weight loss program. Many nutritionists see fruit as not providing enough nutritional boost for the high caloric punch. Some argue that it doesn’t provide enough vitamins, minerals, fiber and all important, protein; while others disagree (except for the last nutrient). But when Americans fall woefully short on the amount of fruits and vegetables they eat, wouldn’t it be prudent to promote eating produce? Apparently, Weight Watchers thinks so since the freebie-fresh-fruit points were implemented just after Thanksgiving 2010. So grab that apple, banana and kiwi to snack on (sorry, fruit juices and dried and canned fruits don’t apply to the discount) and spend your points on the things that whet your appetite and your foodie soul.
See how Weight Watchers compares to other diet plans in our Weight Loss Program report.