Weight Watchers Points


Many people have developed software utilities, spreadsheets, etc. for assisting Weight Watchers members track their daily points. To the best of my knowledge, nobody has tried to make any money from these; they were developed strictly as a service to other Weight Watchers members to assist them in sticking with the program.

 

Unfortunately, the Weight Watchers legal staff does not understand that the existence of this software only serves to enhance member’s Weight Watchers experience, which obviously primarily benefits Weight Watchers, rather than the software author. As a result of this, most utilities have been withdrawn from distribution under threats of litigation from Weight Watchers.

 

If you would like to implement your own spreadsheet or other utility, and don’t want to wade through a maze of patent documents (since the points formula is the subject of a U.S. patent, it’s publicly available) you can use the following formula:

 

 

 

 

Where:

p = Points

c = Calories

f = Fat Grams

r = Dietary fiber Grams

 

(Note: min{r, 4} equals the number of grams of dietary fiber or 4, whichever is smaller. In other words, only the first 4 grams of fiber "count.")

The full patent document is available from the U.S. Patent Office website (the patent number is 6040531). Alternatively, I’ve extracted the relevant page which contains the formula.

 

For some additional information on the Weight Watchers program, check out my Weight Watchers Tips.


 

 

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