The Journey: FitPoints

Oh how Weight Watchers has changed. I first joined in 2013, and it has completely changed since then. Some of that is because of Oprah’s endorsement, but some of it is because Weight Watchers has realized that things needed to change and has really stepped up their game.

BTW – I am not an affiliate of Weight Watchers. I don’t get paid by them for talking them up. I just want to share things I am learning to maybe encourage you to start a weight loss journey like me.

Before the Beyond the Scale program launched, Weight Watchers had Activity Points. These were things you were able to earn for working out or hitting your daily step goal. They could be converted to food and used before your weekly points were used.

It was hard to sync your Fitbit to start earning Activity Points and you never knew when you started earning them. It wasn’t very easy to navigate and I found that I had to manually input my Activity into the app or online.

Now Weight Watchers has changed Activity Points to FitPoints. The concept is generally the same, except that you can easily (and seamlessly) sync your Fitbit to Weight Watchers and it will auto-calculate your steps and any activity you start doing.

A photo posted by Dash Of Herbs (@dashofherbs) on Jun 14, 2016 at 5:56pm PDT

So, what are FitPoints?

FitPoints are the points you earn for activity you do. This could be walking, or actual exercising…any type of exercise where you are moving will earn you FitPoints. Since I sync my Fitbit to Weight Watchers, I don’t have to manually do anything.

As long as I sync my Fitbit through the Fitbit app, it will send the data to Weight Watchers and calculate my FitPoints. Every 1,000 steps is 1 FitPoint. Some ladies (and men) have a weekly FitPoints goal of 120. I’m not there yet, but I’d love to be. I like having a goal that is attainable for working out, but not outrageous for my current level of exercise.

[clickToTweet tweet=”Curious about what’s new at Weight Watchers? I’m uncovering FitPoints today” quote=”Curious about what’s new at Weight Watchers? I’m uncovering FitPoints today”]

How does Weight Watchers determine your FitPoints goal?

When you start Beyond the Scale and join Weight Watchers, you take an assessment. This is where Weight Watchers can figure out what your current lifestyle is like and what your original FitPoints goal should be.

Mine was set so low because I replied that I work at a desk for most of the day and am sitting almost all day long. They take that information and set you with a goal. But again, if you crush it for 2 weeks in a row, they will automatically suggest a higher FitPoints goal for you.

I plan on crushing it even more – not just from getting steps in, but from working out as well – to get my goal even higher. I am so motivated by the members who have FitPoints goals in the 100’s. It’s so inspiring to see that.

Want to know the coolest thing about FitPoints?

The Weight Watchers app will recommend a new FitPoints goal to reach each week after you crush it for 2 weeks straight. In the beginning, my FitPoints goal was 7 (this was REALLY low and I crushed it just by doing my normal walking around – no exercising).

I manually upped it last week to 14 FitPoints and I still crushed it. So today, during my weigh in, it suggested I up it again to 21 FitPoints (I am currently above my 21 FitPoints goal as of right now, so it will probably go up higher in 2 weeks time).

Can FitPoints be converted to SmartPoints?

The short answer to this is yes. They can be converted to SmartPoints which you can then use to eat things. This has to be done manually and is not an automatic setting like it was before. I personally don’t convert my FitPoints to food because I don’t feel that I need to do that yet. If I start earning 100 FitPoints in a week, then maybe I will change my tune because I will be burning more calories than I was previously, but for now I don’t want to convert them. But, it can be done.

Hopefully this explains a little bit more about FitPoints and how they translate to Weight Watchers. Next week, I will be talking about the workout apps that Weight Watchers launched to help you get those FitPoints in.

Goals and Accomplishments:

Let’s change gears a bit and talk about some goals and accomplishments from this week. Since last weekend was Father’s Day weekend, we had a cookout at our house which was awesome. We also headed to Jeremy’s sister’s house on Saturday to celebrate, which also meant we were cooking out 2 nights in a row.

I managed to not eat any buns (for hamburgers and the hotdogs) and I tracked everything. Saturday was harder because there was macaroni and cheese and chips. But again, I tracked and kept up with everything.

Sunday was another day of cheeseburger and hot dog sans bun. I made these carrot cake cupcakes with cream cheese icing, which sent me into my weekly points, but that’s ok (the 8 SmartPoints was worth it). It’s not every day that I get to indulge and it was still so fun to eat and cook for everyone. There was even a water balloon fight and a squirt gun fight…so much fun.