In Part I, we looked at the history of dieting, the concept of calories, and the limitations of “ideal weight” formulas. That left us with some practical questions. How do we estimate our energy needs? What happens when we count points instead of calories? And which approach is easier to live with when there is pizza on the table?
For this showdown, I used the most conveniently available subject: myself. This is the story of a short experiment I carried out in 2014, comparing calorie counting with the Weight Watchers PointsPlus system available at the time. The apps, prices, and program rules have changed since then. The numbers below describe that historical experiment, not a current program or a recommended eating plan.
I am not a physician or a registered dietitian. I like math, but even good math depends on good measurements and sensible assumptions. As it turns out, that distinction is central to this story.
The subject: me, in 2014
When I wrote the original article, I was 36 years old, 1.85 m tall, and weighed approximately 193 lb, or 87.54 kg. The height-based formulas discussed in Part I produced an average estimate of about 78.54 kg, with a spread of roughly 3.74 kg. Those numbers looked satisfyingly precise, but they were not a personalized medical recommendation.
At that height and weight, my BMI was about 25.6, just above the standard adult “healthy weight” category. A BMI from 18.5 to less than 25 corresponds to roughly 63.3 kg to just under 85.6 kg at 1.85 m. That is a screening range, not an instruction to aim for its lower end. BMI does not measure body composition or determine whether a particular weight-loss goal is appropriate.
My personal goal at the time was to lose about 10 kg, or 22 lb. I wanted an approach that would help me change my habits without requiring me to become a different person every time I opened the refrigerator. For the background on those weight estimates, see Part I; the CDC adult BMI calculator provides a separate screening estimate.
Why these two approaches?
I enjoy dessert. I like pasta. I am also quite capable of appreciating bread with butter. A plan built around a long list of forbidden foods was not especially appealing to me. Calorie counting and PointsPlus both seemed to offer flexibility: I could make room for foods I enjoyed while keeping track of the overall pattern.
That does not mean replacing a balanced meal with a cookie is a good nutritional exchange just because the numbers fit. Nor should exercise become a punishment required to “earn” an ice cream. What appealed to me was the possibility of including treats without abandoning the plan altogether.
I also needed to separate personal preference from medical necessity. A gluten-free diet is important for people with celiac disease and certain other conditions; it is not automatically a better weight-loss plan for everyone else. Likewise, low-carb, vegetarian, and vegan eating patterns can be nutritionally adequate when appropriately planned. My preference for one approach does not make the alternatives inherently unbalanced.
Estimating energy needs: BMR is only the beginning
Even when we are resting, the body is busy. The heart keeps beating, organs continue working, and cells maintain the processes that keep us alive. Basal metabolic rate, or BMR, describes energy expenditure under specific resting, fasting conditions. It is not our total daily energy requirement, and it is not simply “the energy needed in a coma,” as I originally described it.
There are several equations for estimating resting energy expenditure. Harris–Benedict is a well-known historical approach; the Mifflin–St Jeor equation is another commonly used option. Neither produces a direct measurement of someone’s metabolism. Age, body composition, health, and individual differences affect how closely an estimate matches reality.
The original article used the revised Harris–Benedict equations shown below. Here, W is weight in kilograms, H is height in centimeters, and A is age in years. The sex-specific categories reflect the equations’ original development:
- Men: estimated resting expenditure = 88.362 + (13.397 × W) + (4.799 × H) − (5.677 × A).
- Women: estimated resting expenditure = 447.593 + (9.247 × W) + (3.098 × H) − (4.330 × A).
These equations give an estimate in kcal per day. With my 2014 measurements, the result was approximately 1,945 kcal/day. To estimate total daily energy expenditure, online calculators often multiply a resting estimate by a rough activity factor:
- Mostly sedentary: approximately 1.2.
- Lightly active: approximately 1.375.
- Moderately active: approximately 1.55.
- Very active: approximately 1.725.
- Exceptionally active: approximately 1.9.
Those categories are shortcuts, not precise measurements, and the number of workouts per week does not describe everything about someone’s activity. A physically demanding job and a desk job can produce very different days, even if both people go to the gym three times a week.
Using a factor of 1.2 gave me an estimated maintenance intake of about 2,333 kcal/day. That corrects the inconsistent totals in the original text. The useful conclusion is “somewhere around this level,” not that my body required exactly 2,333 calories every day. The NIDDK Body Weight Planner offers a more detailed way to explore estimated energy needs and changes over time.
What PointsPlus was trying to do
Weight Watchers PointsPlus assigned foods a points value using information about protein, carbohydrate, fat, and fiber. Many fruits and non-starchy vegetables had zero points under the program’s rules, while other foods still counted toward the daily allowance. This was intended to make some everyday choices more attractive without asking users to track every calorie.
Consider an apple and a small cookie. If we look only at energy, their numbers might be similar, depending on their size. But the foods differ in volume, fiber, and other characteristics. A points system can reflect some of those differences in its scoring. “Zero points” does not mean “zero calories,” however, and it does not make the body’s energy balance disappear.
In my account at the time, the program assigned me 41 daily points, along with a 49-point weekly allowance. That weekly allowance was part of the program’s flexibility. My original claim that using all the weekly points would automatically mean maintaining rather than losing weight was not justified. Daily and weekly allowances are not a universal conversion into maintenance calories.
The figures in this article belong to the historical PointsPlus system. They should not be mixed with the rules or food scores of a later Weight Watchers program. Points are a program-specific tracking tool, not a fixed scientific unit of food energy.
How I ran the experiment
I recorded the same week of eating in two systems. For calories, I used MyFitnessPal; for points, I used the official Weight Watchers app. I also used Pacer to estimate activity and transfer that information into my calorie log, then entered the activity in Weight Watchers manually. The app features and subscription arrangements described in 2014 are not a reliable guide to what those services offer today.
I selected a very aggressive calorie goal: 1,300 net kcal/day. In the original log, “net” meant food calories minus the app’s estimate of exercise calories. I also reduced the assigned Weight Watchers target from 41 to 38 daily points and cut the weekly allowance from 49 to 39 points. Those were my own changes, not the standard program rules.
Looking back, I would not present those choices as instructions to copy. Cutting the targets did not make the comparison fairer, because the two systems were not calibrated to represent identical diets or energy deficits. A suitable intake needs to support nutrition and daily functioning, not simply produce the fastest possible change on the scale.
I tried to record food carefully and corrected portions when I found mistakes. Still, food databases, portion estimates, restaurant meals, and activity apps all introduce uncertainty. Pacer estimated calories burned; it did not measure them precisely. If an app’s baseline already includes some activity, adding that same activity again can also count it twice.
Another correction concerns the macronutrient example in my original article. I listed 91 g of protein, 271 g of carbohydrate, and 65 g of fat. Using the rough 4–4–9 factors gives 2,033 kcal, not 2,222 kcal. Fiber also needs separate consideration because it does not all provide 4 kcal per gram. Those amounts were a reference I used for the comparison, not a personalized USDA prescription.
The calorie log
The stacked bars above zero show my recorded food calories, divided among carbohydrate, protein, and fat. The blue bars below zero show estimated exercise expenditure. The number above each daily bar is the resulting net intake. To the right are the weekly average and the comparison levels I chose at the time.
The chart shows an average net intake of about 1,379 kcal/day, above my self-imposed 1,300-calorie target. Monday and Wednesday fell below that target. The “suggested” comparison bar is 1,800 kcal, while the stricter target is 1,300; these are different benchmarks and should not be described as though they were the same recommendation.
The graph is useful as a record of what I logged. It is not evidence that a net target of 1,300 calories is appropriate for someone else—or that subtracting every calorie reported by an exercise app produces an accurate deficit.
The points log
The points chart uses a similar layout. Green and red together show the daily food points; red highlights the portion above the daily target. Blue bars represent estimated activity points. I exceeded my modified daily target on Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday.
There is an inconsistency in the original account worth correcting: Saturday’s charted food total is 22 points, not the 18 stated in the text. The weekly food totals add to 266 points, or 38 per day on average. The chart’s displayed average of 37 is therefore inconsistent with those daily labels. I have retained the original chart as the historical record and am identifying the discrepancy rather than silently changing its data.
The comparison bars also fold in weekly allowances, so they should not be mistaken for the daily targets alone. My modified allowance of 38 points a day plus 39 for the week averages about 43.6 points a day; the original 41 plus 49 averages 48. These totals describe the budgets I was using, not a proven maintenance threshold.
Pizza, beer, and the World Cup
Two days stood out: Tuesday and Sunday. The 2014 FIFA World Cup was on, and I watched the semifinal and final with friends, pizza, and beer. The calorie chart shows net totals of approximately 1,476 and 1,402 kcal, respectively. The corresponding PointsPlus totals were 50 and 59.
At first glance, that seemed odd. The net calorie numbers were not dramatically above my strict target, yet the points totals were much higher. Part of the explanation is that the systems score food differently. Another important detail is that these calorie figures already subtract estimated exercise, whereas 50 and 59 are food-point totals before subtracting activity points. Comparing them directly mixes different measures.
Saturday told the other side of the story. I ate plenty of vegetables and fruit, and my points total was much lower than on the pizza-and-beer days. That was a useful observation about how the scoring influenced my choices. It was not definitive proof that one system created a healthier lifestyle or that calorie counting could not encourage similar choices.
Calorie tracking tells us about energy. It does not, by itself, tell us whether we are getting enough protein, fiber, vitamins, or minerals. A points score is not a complete nutritional assessment either. Both approaches need some attention to the foods behind the numbers.
Did I lose weight?
Yes—the scale moved downward over the recorded week. But there is a major limitation to the showdown: I logged the same meals in both systems at the same time. There were not two separate diet periods, and there was no control group. Any weight change belonged to the overall pattern of eating and activity that week, not independently to one app or the other.
The first charted weight was 192.4 lb, and the final one was 190.8 lb: a recorded decrease of 1.6 lb. Thursday’s lower reading did not mean I had suddenly lost nearly three pounds of body fat. Water balance, glycogen, food in the digestive tract, and bowel movements can all influence short-term weight.
The next graph compares the recorded change with the prediction I made from my calorie estimates. By the end of the week, the two were strikingly close. As a scientist, I like it when a graph behaves itself. But this was not a controlled validation of the calculation. Short-term fluid changes and uncertainty in both intake and expenditure could easily produce agreement—or disagreement.
The takeaway is much narrower than my original enthusiasm suggested: my logged eating and activity coincided with a short-term drop in scale weight. One week cannot establish long-term effectiveness, prove which tracking method is better, or predict exactly how quickly future weight loss will happen.
Looking beyond the totals
The final chart shows the recorded average distribution of energy: approximately 53% from carbohydrate, 18% from protein, and 29% from fat. Those proportions help describe the log, but they do not tell the whole story. Two meals can have similar macronutrient percentages and very different ingredients, fiber content, and portions.
Fat provides more energy per gram than protein or digestible carbohydrate, so portions matter. But a higher fat percentage does not automatically mean a poor diet. The types of fat and the overall eating pattern matter too. Olive oil, nuts, and seeds are useful sources of unsaturated fats. Butter can have a place in cooking, but it should not be described as nutritionally interchangeable with olive oil: it is higher in saturated fat.
Who won the showdown?
For me, PointsPlus offered a useful nudge toward fruits and vegetables and gave me a framework I found easier to follow. Calorie tracking made the energy side more visible. That is a personal observation about the tools, not a head-to-head clinical result. I changed both sets of targets, used both systems together, and followed them for too short a period to declare a universal winner.
The best part of tracking was noticing patterns: which meals left me satisfied, which portions I underestimated, and how social occasions changed my choices. Those observations could be useful whether I used a paid program, an app, or a notebook.
I still want a way of eating that leaves room for pasta, dessert, and a meal with friends. The goal is to build habits that support health and remain manageable after the first burst of motivation fades. A sensible plan should help us eat well and live our lives. It should not turn every meal into an exam we are afraid to fail.
Sources and further reading
- Roza and Shizgal (1984): reevaluation of the Harris–Benedict equation.
- Mifflin and colleagues (1990): an equation for resting energy expenditure.
- NIDDK Body Weight Planner and choosing a weight-loss program.
- CDC: BMI and its limitations.
- Historical Weight Watchers PointsPlus calculator manual: weekly allowance.
- American Heart Association: cooking oils and replacing saturated fats.
Originally published July 23, 2014. Revised October 30, 2026, for clarity, formatting, arithmetic, and scientific context. Personal measurements, program details, and data charts describe the original 2014 experiment.