Weight Watchers just rolled out its new Simple Start program. I’m giving it a spin for the next two weeks.

I’m convinced that eating healthy on the road is possible. It just takes a bit of effort and planning. To help me out, I decided to give Weight Watcher’s new Simple Start program a try over the holidays.

It’s a 2-week starter plan where you choose from a list of meals and snacks suggested by Weight Watchers. The meals focus on power foods – vegetables, veggies, and lean meats.  Power foods fill you up faster and help you stay full over time. So the program doesn’t focus too much on tracking or portions (except for healthy oils and the indulgence foods that made the list).

Minor Concerns With Simple Start
As for portions, the program is geared towards a 10-inch plate, 12-oz bowl and a 12-oz glass. These are your guides and not the standard measuring.

Hmmmm…that’s nice, but I’m going to stick to measuring. It’s a good habit I got into and I don’t want to break it after two weeks of this program.

Simple Start provide meal and snack options to choose from. I plan to avoid the high carb meals.

The other area I’m concerned with is amount of high-carb whole grains, pastas and breads in many of the meal options. Yes, I’m doing Weight Watchers, but I’m also counting my carbs. Carbs trigger a rise in insulin, which in turn stores the fat in cells. Since pasta, breads and most grains are trigger foods for me, I’m avoiding them, unless I eat them right after a muscle workout.

Even then, I’m limiting my choices to steel-cut oatmeal, quinoa, bulgur or barley. No rice. And absolutely no pasta.

Indulgence Points
The only points I’ll track are the “indulgence” foods. Little things like chocolate or wine. On Simple Start you’re allowed just 7 points of indulgence foods. Any extra food I eat or if I swap out ingredients in the recipes for items not on the approved list are counted towards those 7 points.

Basically Weight Watchers took the 49 weekly allowance points and broke them up across a week.

This is a toughy!  I use regular cheese and butter on the PointsPlus plan. I’d rather spend my points on the real stuff. It helps me feel satiated. Low fat foods, loaded with carbs, don’t fill me up. A big no-no for me.

I’ll need to watch my cheese intake for the next couple of weeks.

Simple Start App
The program includes an app. While I’ve set up my log in, I haven’t explored it just yet. I begin Simple Start on Saturday so I’ll start playing with the app later in the week. I’ve got too many things to do before our trip and getting sidetracked by another app won’t help.

Initial Thoughts
After sitting through the meeting where our leader went over the new program, I must admit I had serious misgivings about it.

I get the need to make a weight loss program as easy as possible for people, but not so easy that it requires no thought.

Losing weight is hard work. If it wasn’t no one would talk about an obesity epidemic in our country.

But weight loss is 95% mental. I don’t mean will power (there is no such thing). There is a huge learning curve to losing weight. You need to know why portion control is important, recognize that not all calories are equal, and grasp why we get fat in the first place.

Tracking what you eat is a big part of that earning curve.

Since I’ve had a few days to look over the Simple Start materials, I’m a little more open to the idea.

• It’s designed as a starter program. If it helps someone take those first steps on their weight loss journey, that’s a very good thing.
• If you’re stuck on a plateau, this is a great little shock to the system to give your body the push it needs.
• If you are looking for a super easy program to help you drop the pounds, I’m sure this fits the bill. But will you keep it off? Hmmmm.

I’m giving Simple Start a try. I’ll post reviews of the recipes as I go along and of the program at the end of my 2-weeks.

Who knows, Simple Start might make me a believer.