From: shagan@gandalf.rutgers.edu (Susan R. Hagan)
Newsgroups: alt.support.diet
Subject: Re: ww exchanges?
Keywords: need exchange info
Date: 28 Jan 93 19:16:52 GMT
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.

lol@cisco.com (Lol Grant) writes:

>In article <1993Jan25.121322.62532@watson.ibm.com> kehleyr@vnet.ibm.com writes:
>>In article <1jpva2INNdeh@jethro.Corp.Sun.COM>, elef@smarmy.Eng.Sun.COM (i'm the baby, gotta love me!) writes:

>So floaters are really equivalent to the optional calories. I suspect

The difference is that you can't count floaters for goodies like wine
or chocolate or frozen yogurt.  They are only for extra exchanges
from 5 of the 6 groups.

>WW does it this way to encourage using their own diet products, which
>are, after all, a multi million dollar industry. If they lump it all
>in as optional calories, it's easier to eat non-exchange counted
>foods. In all fairness, I suppose it is easier working with exchanges
>than with calories.

Its much easier to count exchanges.  Also, I don't think they do this
to encourage the purchase of their products.  The instructions are
spelled out very plainly as to how to make your own calculations.

The reason for the floaters is to allow you to personalize your diet.
Some people need more protein than others, so you can have them 
through the floaters.  Some days you want a little extra milk, etc.

>In the miscellaneous section of your food lists, you should find the
>calorie equivalents of the proteins (70), breads (80), milks (90) and
>fruits (60), making a floater average out at about 75 calories.

If you need to know how many calories are in a floater, this will do,
but you aren't supposed to add floaters to your diet until Week 3.

>There's no reason not to convert between the two as needed.

I disagree.  If you run out of optional calories, you can't eat
21 floaters worth of ice cream and call them floaters.

>>In week 3 of WW, you'll get "Personal Selections" - these used to 
>>be called floaters.

>I believe that this is the "old" plan.  Originally, you didn't get
>additional selections until the 3rd week.  In an attempt to simplify
>all the choices people had to make in the beginning.

Read it again.  That is what she said.  You get them in week 3.

>It was a stupid idea and they stopped doing it this way (at least in
>the plan I was on, just last year). The reason it was stupid is that
>in the first few weeks not only do you lose the most weight with the
>least effort (so the last thing you need is a more restrictive diet)
>but it's also the period when they lost the most people, because
>starting a new diet regime is such tough going, so again it's exactly
>the wrong time to make the diet extra restrictive. I don't know for a
>fact that this is their reasoning, but they *have* stopped doing it
>this way in the latest plans.

This is what they do now.  In week one, you get the basic plan.  No
floaters.  You do get 700 optional calories, but thats it.

In week 2 you get, what they call, the "Eat More/Eat Less" plan where
you can have between 4-6 Proteins instead of 5 and 5-7 breads instead
of 6.

In week 3, they go back to the basic plan and give you 21 floaters
for the week.

-- 
Susan R. Hagan (shagan@gandalf.rutgers.edu) 
Publications Coordinator - User Services
Rutgers University Computing Services
Newsgroups: alt.support.diet