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You seem to have a pretty good handle on what it takes to lose weight, Big mama, from what you write. People don't realize that it doesn't matter what "diet" you go on, it all comes down to the fact that all "diets" are based on the fundamental Energy Balance Equation. Simply stated, if you take in more energy in a day than you use up, the excess energy is stored in reserves - read fat. If you take in less energy than you use up, then reserves are used and you lose weight.
That's a fundamental law that can't be violated. As I said, all diets are based on that fact. Only they have different ways of stating that fact to sell books and diet plans. Atkins will tell you that carbohydrates cause you to gain weight. They don't. Excess calories do. Cut out carbs and you automatically have a low calorie diet. Other people will make wacko claims that tell you to eat right for your blood type or to eat different types of calories during the day (there aren't different types of calories - a calorie is a meaure of heat), or talk about negative calories and other strange claims to confuse you and make what they're selling sound like a new miracle cure. There aren't any "miracle" cures. Simply consume less energy than you use up. That's the only way to lose weight.
Of course, people like the structured environment of Weight Watchers or in this case, WL4I's, because everything is planned out for them. Of course you will lose weight on these plans. They're low calorie. Just look at the sample meal plans given above.
The problem is they are not sustainable. I just looked at the WL4I diet for Day 4 for instance: Meal #1: Fruit Salad Meal #2: Chicken Meal #3: Mixed Salad with Dressing Meal #4: Tuna Salad . Realistically, how long can you live on such a diet?
If you're happy to lose weight this way and you're getting results, fine. Don't let me dissuade you. But do you really realize what's going on? Not to pick on WL4I's, but it's the one discussed in this thread. People talk about losing 20 lbs on this diet. The question is, 20 lbs of what? It's certainly not fat. As any diet of this type, a lot of the weight is water, a fair amount is lean tissue and some fat.
You say "so what?". Well, here's the problem. Say 5 lbs of that 20 lbs lost was lean tissue. Muscle is metabolically active tissue that burns in the order of 30 - 50 calories a day for each pound you have. It burns calories even at rest. When you lose muscle, your metabolism slows. Now if you lost 5 lbs of muscle that means you would be able to assimilate only some 250 calories a day less than before you went on the diet.
When you finally gave up starving the weight off and even went back to eating "normal" food, and even ate just as much as before the diet, you would store 250 extra calories a day as fat and gain a pound of fat every 2 weeks. (3500 calories divided by 250). That's why calorie cutting diets are ultimately doomed to fail.
It's not just my saying so. The National Weight Control Registry has the results of almost 5000 successful dieters on file. They've lost on average over 60 lbs. and maintained that loss for over 6 years. None of them did it by starving the weight off. Less than one half of one percent did it going the low carb route. The majority lost weight with a high carb diet, moderate protein, moderate fat and plenty of exercise.
As I said, it matters little to me that you want to lose weight this route. I'm simply making you aware of what's going on behind the scenes. Certainly you can lose weight on the WL4I plan - or any other plan for that matter. Losing weight is the easy part. Keeping it off is the hard part. Ask yourself how you plan on doing that once you've lost precious lean tissue and slowed your metabolism in the process?
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