This is a beautifully illustrated book with 125 recipes that conform to the Weight Watchers (WW) diet plan. But even if you are using a different program, the recipes can be a valuable addition to your diet. It’s not just about WW, but includes all sorts of cooking and nutritional information, much of it interspersed throughout the book.
For example, there are two full pages about eggs. Many terms are defined, such as cage-free, free-range, pasture-raised, and USDA organic. Methods of cooking are similarly explained: poach, fry, scramble, and hard boil. Helpful hints like how to tell if an egg is fresh and how to peel a boiled egg are also included (1).
The recipes are clear and very easy to follow. They include QR codes for those who are using the WW app for easy tracking. The points would be calculated for you automatically. The following data are given for each recipe: serving size, calories, total fat grams, saturated fat grams, sodium in milligrams, total carbohydrate grams, sugar grams, fiber grams, and protein grams (1).
The WW Personal Points Cookbook begins with a brief description of the plan and food prep tips. There are some great ideas for creating flavorful dishes that are healthy. Zero points foods are also explained, but you’d have to check to see how that might work with your WW plan (assuming you are using the Weight Watchers program). (Note that this is a cookbook – it does not go over the entire WW diet.)
Then the book goes into recipes in the following categories:
- Breakfast
- Simple Snacks
- Vegetarian
- Poultry
- Seafood
- Beef & Pork
- Sweets
The final chapter is called Build a Meal. It includes very clever explanations of how to cook the building blocks of a meal, such as grains, sauces, proteins, and vegetables. You pick and choose among the options to create a fit that works for you and those you cook for. It helps to have the options all laid out for well balanced meals.
And speaking of well balanced, that’s what this book is designed for – balance. The ideas here will be best for those of us using plans like Weight Watchers, the Mayo Clinic Diet, the Mediterranean Diet, the DASH Diet, the MIND Diet, and any sort of generalized caloric deficit diet. There will be some ideas that are usable with other plans, but the focus of this book is a traditional, balanced diet.
I chose to prepare Whipped Feta Dip, which is such a useful and easily modified recipe. As you may have gathered, I exercise a lot so I’m always looking for ways to sneak more protein into my diet. For a 2 tablespoon serving of dip to have 4 grams of protein is amazing! With just 65 calories, I can see thinning this down and turning it into sauces and dressings as well. The protein is supplemented by adding tofu to the feta cheese. I omitted the olive oil, so it’s actually even lower in calories. Some may also be impressed by the 0 carb count. We gobbled this up with assorted veggies and store bought pita chips. (There is also a recipe for whole wheat pita chips included in this book.)
I’d recommend this book for anyone looking for healthy recipes, regardless of your plan. It’s ideal for balanced diets, but as you can see from my dip, many of the recipes can work for those limiting carbohydrates as well. Finding a variety of recipes that will work for you will make it easier to maintain a healthy weight.
(1). The WW Personal Points Cookbook. WW International. 2021.
Maintain Weight Loss 