How To Do Weight Watchers Without Joining

WW (Weight Watchers) is a program that uses a point system to assign each user a certain number of points that they are allowed to eat each day and still lose weight safely.

There are no food restrictions, but similar to the way you need to budget money, you need to budget your points! The latest version of the program is the 2023 Weight Watchers The Points System

How to Qualify for Free Weight Watchers (or Reduced Fees)

The Weight Watchers program is a popular and well-established weight loss and wellness program that aims to help individuals adopt healthier habits.

Sounds great, doesn’t it? It IS great and people are losing tons of weight, even those stubborn last 10 pounds that never seem to go away! So what's the problem?

IT ISN’T CHEAP!

Well, for most people, anyway. The entire program, including weigh-ins, weekly meetings, support groups, the scanner app, and calculator run about $45 a month. It's definitely worth it for those who can afford it, but what should those of us with limited funds do?

Talk to HR

Your Human Resources department might offer discounts or free WW programs as an incentive because it will lower their insurance costs. It's worth asking about at least. Some companies offer in-house or local meetings for free, especially if several employees will sign up at one time.

Call Your Health Insurance Company

For the same reasons that HR will offer free or discounted programs, some health insurance companies will offer the same for WW. Some have rules, such as you need to lose X number of pounds or percentage of body weight to qualify, but it can't hurt to make a call and find out.

Check the WW Website for Deals

While there are no long term programs making WW free, the company often offers 30 day "trials" or deals such as reimbursement of fees if you lose a certain number of pounds in X number of weeks. This is especially true during peak times, such as right before the holidays, during New Years, and just before summer, when many people are inspired to lose weight.

For example WW is currently offering $10/month promotional deals.

So Are There Any Alternative Ways to Get Weight Watchers for Free?

Use This Trial Period Trick

We hear you! Sometimes, it can be a struggle just to pay the bills, let alone afford extras like WW. Here is a way you can get almost the same thing for free by taking advantage of the WW trial periods.

WW offers a 30 day free trail to their program

Once you have signed up you have 30 days to use the program.

I know what you’re thinking … What happens after the 30 days are up?

Follow these steps;

1. Work out the daily points you will need Whilst WW resources are plentiful online, the most important part of the program that you will not be able to gain access to without signing up, is your official daily and weekly points allowance.

So while you initially get allotted points when you sign up, here is a trick where you can unlock the rest of your points up until your goal weight by changing your current weight in the settings.

For example:

Points change approximately every 5-8 pounds or so that you lose. So if you weigh 200 pounds, and want to lose 30 pounds, use the official WW calculator to work out your points allowance for 200lbs, 195lbs, 190lbs, 185lbs … etc. up until you reach that “goal weight” of 170lbs. Then write down those points for reference.

To change your current weight, just go to your "Account > Settings and edit your "Current Weight" in your profile.

2. Cancel before you trial period is up. Worst case scenario, they will charge you for another month. You can cancel after that. You might even find that you like it so much you keep your membership, just like millions of others.

How To Do Weight Watchers Without Actually Joining

If what you really want is to use the WW program without joining (i.e. without paying anything), there are a few ways you can work around this. They aren’t sponsored by Weight Watchers and might be slightly off, but these are extremely close to their program and should work almost the same.

The aim here is to re-create the program that makes WW such a success.

Recreating The WW Program

1. Use THIS Calculator

Following the Weight Watchers program without actually joining is easier than you think. Simply use our calculator. While this isn't the official Weight Watchers calculator, it’s so close you shouldn't notice a difference. The calculator is designed to give you your daily and weekly points allowance just like the WW one.

The next step after you have your daily and weekly points values, is to find foods and recipes within your allotment. A great way to do this is by joining a support group.

2. Lists of Foods Are Every Where If You Know Where to Look

One of the great things about WW is that there are really no forbidden foods. If you want to spend your entire day’s allotment of 23 points on a jelly donut, there is nothing stopping you! The only drawback is that high sugar foods may leave you feeling hungry within the next hour.

Every food and recipe has a point allotment. Very much like budgeting your money, you budget your points. Most people try to get as much food as possible with their available points.

You can find tons of ideas and recipes online, such as:

Although many of these recipes work out exactly how many points per serving, you can use this Food Points Calculator here to figure out the points on foods or recipes that don’t have the Weight Watchers point count.

You can also find the full list of all 200 zero point foods here.

For more healthy recipes that are Weight Watchers friendly, check out these websites:

3. Make Your Own Support Group

One of the big reasons people are so successful on WW is the support community. WW is renowned for their social support program both from life coaches and user groups. Numerous studies indicate that social support is essential for maintaining physical and psychological health (1).

There are meetings where people often make friends, weigh-ins, and a tracking system that work in combination to help people feel accountable, as well as offering ideas and support when you fall on difficult times.

First, tracking your food and exercise is easy with the multitude of free mobile phone apps. You can use Carb Manager, My Fitness Pal, or HealthyWeightCalc.Com to find and track your food consumption and exercise habits.

Here is a list of support groups:

A great motivator is to find a few friends who also share your diet and exercise goals.

How to create your own support group

You can create a support group on Facebook or Messenger where you can talk to each other and share the meals you ate or do a weekly weigh-in.

You can also use friends to motivate you to exercise. It’s easy to brush off exercise if you aren’t accountable to anyone; however, if you make an appointment to meet someone at a park or the gym, you are much more likely to show up.

Michelle, Harold, and Chris are a good example of using friends as a support group. This trio lost 15 pounds, 23.4 pounds, and 19.4 pounds respectively by encouraging one another to drink more water, have weekly weigh-in contests, and offering support for one another. Read about their Weight Watchers story here.

You don’t need to join Weight Watchers to make your own support group on your own!

Just a Note about Exercise

While WW doesn’t push exercise, everyone knows about its benefits. You don’t have to run a marathon to get the benefits, either! Some of the best exercise is completely free:

Yoga (get free DVD’s at the library or watch them online)
Walking
Jogging
Running
Dancing
Hiking

See if your local YMCA or YWCA has free or low cost aerobics classes. Your city might have a sports team or you could start one at work.

Weights cost only a few dollars or you can use bricks or bottles of water as a free alternative. Weight training just twice a week can really boost your metabolism and build muscle, which burns more calories than fat.

There are thousands of exercise videos online. Pick a new one everyday or every week so you don’t become bored.

We love darn near everything about WW except the cost! You can use these substitutes until you have the money to join, or just use them as is and set that money aside for more important things; like a new wardrobe for the new skinny you!

How To Do Weight Watchers Freestyle Without Joining?

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