Understanding Weight Watchers Set Points: A Simple Guide

With Weight Watchers, you must calculate the POINTS value of a food by inputting the food's calories, fat, and fiber. Unfortunately, it can be difficult to do that when you don't have the nutritional label in front of you, at a restaurant or friend's house. The new SetPOINTS system assigns a POINTS value to filling foods (those that contain high amounts of water and fiber), thus allowing you to track daily POINTS without complicated calculations.

Portion Size

• When using SetPOINTS, try to eat a sensible portion of food until you are satisfied.

Tracking

• Count the SetPOINTS towards your daily POINTS target and weekly allowance. If you have Activity POINTS, you can swap them out as normal with your SetPOINTS.

Categories

• If you eat more than one food in a SetPOINTS category, such as steak and shrimp, count the SetPOINTS value twice.

Lean Protein

• Lean proteins, which include eggs, chicken, beans, tofu, pork, and beef, have a SetPOINTS value of 5.

Grains and Starchy Veggies

• Barley, corn, whole wheat pasta, potatoes, rice, and other grains and starchy vegetables have a SetPOINTS value of 6.

Fruit

• Fresh, frozen, and canned (without sugar) fruits have a SetPOINTS value of 2.