The 180 Degree Weight Watchers Point System
By Brock Cusick
I’m sure everyone is familiar with Weight Watchers – a diet and weight loss system where dieters are allotted a number of “points” per day and can eat whatever they want as long as they don’t exceed their point value. This concept is fundamentally sound, but very poorly executed by Weight Watchers. As a public service I have decided to produce a 180 version of the Weight Watchers System to empower the easily marketed to achieve true weight loss and health.
Behold!! The 180 Weight-loss Point System! (WoPS)
The first thing we do is pull a 180 on the point system itself, and turn it 180 degrees around. Instead of having a point value which you have to stay under, the WoPS has a point value which you must meet or exceed every day. If you don’t achieve 180 points each day Matt Stone will come to your house and quote random non sequiturs from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990) or reenact scenes from a randomly selected Arnold Schwarzenegger movie until you beg for mercy. (“Kowabonga!” … “Why can’t I fall in with people who have condos?” .. “I let him go.”)
To further make sure that the WoPS doesn’t bring a knife to a weight-losing gun fight, we will re-arrange the point value of commonly encountered foods. If you encounter a food not on this list just figure out which food it’s closest to.
FATS
Butter, Coconut Oil, Tallow, Lard (1 T)10 pts
Coconut Milk, Olive or Macadamia Oil (1 T)5 pts
Corn, Vegetable, Canola or Soybean Oil (1 drop)-20 pts*
PROTEINS
Beef, Lamb, preservative-free Sausage (1 handful)20 pts
Chicken, Fish, Alligator (1/2 a Bowie Knife)15 pts
Quinoa or Properly combined whole-protein plant sources (e.g., rice & beans) (1 cup)10 pts
Milk, Yogurt, Cheese (1 cup or slice)5 pts
Eggs (ea.)5 pts
Anything marketed by Drs. Atkins or Eades as a “high protein meal replacement bar/shake.”-50 pts**
VEGGIES
Raw vegetables5 pts
Fermented Vegetables10 pts
Lightly Sautéed Vegetables15 pts
Any vegetables boiled to the point where the water turns green and/or the vegetables are “floppy”-20 pts***
CARBS
Potato (baked or mashed)10 pts
Sourdough Bread (1 slice)5 pts
Brown Rice (1/2 cup)10 pts
White Rice (1/2 cup)5 pts
Fresh Fruit (1 handful)3 pts
Anything containing sugar, sucrose, high fructose corn syrup, crystalline fructose or fair trade organic evaporated cane juice from authentically ethnic countries ridden with poverty. (Any amount)-1 bazillion pts****
*And Matt Stone comes to your house and beats you with a stick.
** And Matt Stone sends Tony Milkshake and Freddy Two-fingers to your house to teach you a lesson.
*** And … nothing. Eating vegetables like this is punishment enough that you’ll never do it again.
**** And Matt Stone sends Count Rugen, The Six-Fingered Man, to your house to inject one live hornet into your nasal cavity for every gram of the offending substance that you consumed.
And there you have it folks! Anyone who follows this plan is sure to achieve excellent health, as long as you avoid getting hornets shoved up your nose.
Wow, I could so follow this plan.
ReplyDeleteExcept I might have a problem with the hornets...
Quinoa or Properly combined whole-protein plant sources over milk, cheese, yogurt, and eggs huh?
ReplyDeletesame here.. milk and egg protein, that low... even though they have the highest biological value... don't make no sense!
ReplyDeletetroy
Matt how much red meat do you eat in a week?
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with kirk and troy about the milk/egg/cheese issue. It makes no sense.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of protein, as Troy observed, eggs, milk and cheese have the highest biological value of protein. So why on earth, under the protein section, would "properly combined whole-protein plant sources" have more points? It borders on being asinine.
Moreover, eggs, milk and cheese also have the added benefit of providing some tasty fats in a decent SFA/PUFA ratio along with the protein. In the end it is clear there is no reason not to give them equal points (if we must give points) as beef, lamb, etc.
That said, I know that this was mostly intended to be satirical. However, if we are going to do satire, at least lets keep it in perspective.
"In the end it is clear there is no reason not to give them equal points (if we must give points) as beef, lamb, etc."
ReplyDeleteThis would have been a lot clearer if I had written:
In the end it is clear that they should have points--if we must give points--equal to beef, lamb, etc.
Hey guys,
ReplyDeleteObviously this is one of those half-in-jest posts, and one I dashed off pretty quick. I mean, if I'd given it more than 5 minutes I might have distinguished between whole raw milk and skim milk (the latter would earn you a slap from Aurora), and I wouldn't have forgotten bacon! I am disgraced!
But an important point in both the humor and the "real" point values is the portion size. Note that one cup of quinoa or rice & beans is quite a lot, while the egg point value is per egg. Same with milk and cheese - 8 fl.oz. and 1 slice isn't a whole lot of either of those either. You can rack up an easy 35 pts. with a 3-egg cheese omelet and a tall glass of milk.
P.S. Elizabeth, I like the profile pic! You have good taste in books.
Thanks, Brock. :)
ReplyDeleteHi Brock,
ReplyDeleteActually your post was very entertaining! I got so caught up in the milk/egg/cheese thing that I forgot to say that I actually found it to be pretty clever and witty overall.
My apologies it I came across as too critical! That really wasn't my intent.
And you're right about the relative quantities and volume of the various items. In my defense, though,
I somehow read it all as being one cup; i.e. the eggs, cheese, milk and plants all as being measured by the same volume: a cup. Let that be a lesson to me: read closely before I speak!
Pretty cool blog you've got here. Thank you for it. I like such topics and anything that is connected to this matter. BTW, try to add some pics :).
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteGosh, even my beloved bacon might earn me a hornet up my nose since most of them seem to contain sugar in some amount. I can find bacon without sugar, but it always has nitrites. And I can find bacon without nitrites but it always has sugar. So far never found one that lacks both.
ReplyDeleteSo far I've gone with the nitrite-free one as being the lesser of evils. I figure the amount of sugar in bacon can't be *that* much. Of course better yet to just get plain unprocessed pork belly. That's good too but not always easy to find, though Cole's store up at the farm has a yummy local supply if it, too bad it's not more easily accessible!
But in the meantime I'll go with my Wellshire Farms center-cut dry-rubbed bacon, and if Count Rugen tries to come after me all I can say is "Prepare to die!"
Brock's mom
I've gone with sugar over nitrites on the bacon front. Just call me ol' hornet nose Allan.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, it's Burn's Night, Lads and Lassies! Eat yer Haggis!
Oh and as for over cooking veggies: I totally pwned Swiss Chard yesterday by stewing it for an over in a casserole with two pieces of bacon and some shallot. It looked like overcooked spinach but DAMN was it tasty. The boy gobbled it up, once he got past the eww factor of how it looked.
ReplyDeleteYep. Ya gotta obliterate those bitter greens before the magic happens. Hell, I've even been known to eat turnip greens at Cracker Barrel in a pinch.
ReplyDeleteJust eat the bacon. I eat no-nitrate bacon myself. Not tons of it, but plenty. When the nutrition facts say grams of carbohydrate... 0, you can't really sweat that.