New diet plan lists ‘core’ foods

If the idea of eating unlimited amounts of food without counting calories or grams of anything sounds appealing, listen up. Carefully.

Weight Watchers, which prides itself on the use of “points” to help members make food choices, limit portion size and control calorie intake, has just launched a program called the Core Plan. It’s designed to reach the overweight person who is tired of measuring, recording and otherwise tracking food.

Although it isn’t a low-carb plan, Core takes a chapter from those popular regimens: It relies on lists of “core” foods that, if used as the center of an eating plan, will help people consume fewer calories without counting calories or measuring portions. To match the weekly one- to two-pound weight loss generally achieved with traditional Weight Watchers diets, adherents must stick entirely with foods on the lists and get plenty of so-called lifestyle exercise, such as taking the stairs or walking around the block.

Core doesn’t replace Weight Watchers’ flexible point system. It’s simply an alternative to that well-established program, now offered at 46,000 weekly groups in 30 countries. The Flex Point system assigns a number to each food portion and has participants stay at or below a certain total daily to lose weight. For instance, a chicken breast without the skin counts for three of the 24 points allowed each day for a dieter weighing 175 to 200 pounds.

The new program is aimed at those who don’t “place a high value on (being able to eat) anything and everything, but say that there are too many food choices,” said Weight Watchers chief scientific officer Karen Miller-Kovach. “They would rather have a smaller universe of food. The idea of eating from a list of foods and not having to measure portions or count calories appeals to them.”

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