What is Weight Watchers Blue Dot Challenge & How to Join?

What is the meaning of the Weight Watchers Blue Dot and how do you earn one? Here’s how to earn a daily blue dot with the WW program and what it means to join a Blue Dot Challenge.

New! We’ve updated this post for WW app upgrades for October, 2023.

What are WW Blue Dots? — Here’s everything you need to know about WW Blue Dots for weight loss.

Table Of Contents

WW Blue Dot Explained
New for Fall of 2023! How to Find Your Blue Dots in the W W App
How to Earn a WW Blue Dot – WW Healthy Eating Zone
Tips for Earning Your WW Blue Dot
What Can I Eat to Earn a Blue Dot?
Hacks for Weight Watchers Success
Answers to FAQ about WW Blue Dots

WW Blue Dot Explained

What is a WW Blue Dot? On the WW app, the system gives members a Blue Dot for each day they eat within a healthy range of their allotted points.

How do I earn a Blue Dot? You earn a blue dot for each day that you eat within a range around your daily points allowance. The range varies depending on plan but it’s about 10 points below your points target and up to 8 points above it. That’s because WW is counting your daily, weekly and activity points within this calculation.

What is a WW Blue Dot Challenge? Because WW gives members daily blue dots, they have come together (especially on WW Connect) to create Blue Dot Challenges for each other. A challenge is typically centered around earning a blue dot every day for a week or every day for a month.

To find a challenge, in Connect search for the hashtag #bluedotchallenge. You can also find these challenges by search for the same hashtag on Instagram.

How do I join a Blue Dot Weight Loss Challenge? Joining a Blue Dot challenge is as easy as deciding you plan to participate. There’s no need to sign up anywhere.

You can decide for yourself how you’d like to be challenged, or you can join a challenge another member is doing. You might post a comment under their challenge to say, “I’m in!” for accountability. Some challenges will ask you to post a photo every day for extra motivation.

WW Blue Dot — Challenge yourself to earn more blue dots this month than last month.

Want to challenge yourself? Here are some Blue Dot Challenge ideas you can do on your own or with friends:

Earn a blue dot every day this week.
Earn a blue dot every day this month. (This is a toughie! Even as a WW Lifetime member I don’t hit this one often and don’t really feel I need to do so.)
How many blue dots did you earn last month? Motivate yourself to earn 5 more this month to improve gradually.
Challenge yourself to earn a blue dot every weekday and take the weekends off.
Earn 5 blue dots per week.
Challenge yourself to earn a blue dot every day except give yourself grace if the system doesn’t give you a blue dot because you ate quite a few zero point foods. (This might mean you are eating enough calories for weight loss in real, whole food which is a good thing!)

What is WW Connect? WW Connect is a private, members-only social network dedicated to helping you reach your goals. Basically, it’s like the WW version of Instagram. It’s only available on the WW app and only available to current Weight Watchers members.

New for Fall of 2023! How to Find Your Blue Dots in the W W App

Weight Watchers upgraded the up and changed some features. (Changes are rolling out to members. If your app hasn’t updated, it will soon.)

WW app update for blue dot — The WW app has updated and here’s where to find your blue dot.

In the WW app, there are 4 icons at the bottom.

WW app icons — At the bottom of your WW app screen, there are 4 icons. The second icon will take you to the blue dots.

At the bottom of your WW app screen, there are 4 icons, reading left to right:

Calendar – The calendar button takes you to your daily food log and is your main screen.You can also find your weight, activity, and sleep trackers here.
Progress bar – The progress bar is a snapshot of how you are doing on the program overall. It includes days you have tracked, weekly weigh-ins, activity this week compared to last week, daily points budget and blue dots, your overall weight trends, and comparing last week to this week with food tracking.
Cooking – This section is recipes to cook “at home”, your zero point food guide, and restaurant options which is labeled “eating out”.
Community – This takes you to WW connect, which is like the WW community.

You can also find these sections, plus how to find workshops, change your profile and more, on the top of your WW app under the “hamburger” (3 lines) in the top left corner.

How to Earn a WW Blue Dot – WW Healthy Eating Zone

Weight Watchers has created the concept that for every day you eat within a close range of your daily allotted points, you earn a blue dot. This is your WW Healthy Eating Zone.

WW recognizes that you won’t eat the exact same amount of points each day but they want you to eat within a range of that. This helps with not overeating or undereating.

Here’s the Healthy Eating Range to earn a W W dot on the previous WW colors plan:

On Green it’s -10/+8 (so if your Budget is 30, the Healthy Eating Zone would be 20-38)

On Blue, -13/+8 (if your Budget is 23, it be 10-31)

On Purple, -11/+8 (if your Budget is 16, it would be 5-24)

Tips for Earning Your WW Blue Dot

Here are some tips for earning your blue dot and how to use the blue dot system to your advantage.

What didn’t I earn a blue dot? If you didn’t earn a blue dot, it’s because you went over or under your daily points allowance by more than the healthy range WW has chosen. Sometimes I don’t earn a blue dot because I didn’t eat enough points. This can be because I got too busy and didn’t eat enough, which is a good reminder to eat more because under-eating can lead to overeating later. This can also happen when you eat a lot of zero point foods. In this case, even though you didn’t earn a blue dot, you actually did eat enough calories so just don’t worry about it. This happens when you follow the 3 Day WW Zero Point meal plan. I also have it happen quite a bit because I use WW Purple plan currently and there are 300 zero point foods that I often eat. Because I eat a vegetarian, whole food plant-based diet, it’s not unusual for me to have a day of all or mostly zero points. I don’t worry about this at all since I’m eating really healthy!
Use the blue dots to keep you motivated. If your weight loss journey is like mine (losing and maintaining over 100 pounds), the road is a long one. Staying motivated is important, especially if you are around people who don’t eat healthy all the time like you are trying to do. It helps to have fun ways to stay motivated for weight loss.
Join a Blue Dot Challenge on Connect or Instagram. Follow another member who is hosting a blue dot challenge and stay motivated by connecting with a group online.
Set a blue dot challenge for yourself. Don’t use WW connect or Instagram? No problem. Create your own blue dot challenge for yourself. You could even give yourself a reward when you reach it, a new workout outfit or buying a book you would enjoy.
Create a blue dot challenge with fellow WW members. Do you get together with fellow WW members at meetings or online? Create a blue dot challenge for your group.
Pre-track your day. Planning ahead has been absolutely key to my weight loss. I typically pre-track which means that the night before, I plan what I’ll eat the next day and put it right into my app then. This makes me so much more likely to be successful.
Meal plan. On the weekends, plan what you and your family will eat for dinners during the week. If you typically eat out or get fast-food or take out, plan that in too. Don’t make your plan so perfect that you won’t follow it. Look up in the points in advance so you are ready with low-point options you will actually enjoy. Here is a list of easy WW dinner recipes for every night of the week.
Meal prep. On the weekends, do some cooking and portion out meals. This works especially well for lunches. Here are easy WW meal prep lunch ideas. Be sure to save the meal as a favorite so it’s easy to copy and paste into your tracker the next day.
Plan ahead for snacks. Keep low-point healthy snacks on hand that you enjoy. Here are some WW snack options.
Use zero point foods. Learn to use, enjoy and eat zero point foods every single day. Think of them as the bedrock of your diet, with adding pointed foods on top. These whole foods will keep you full and satisfied and they are packed with nutrition.

What Can I Eat to Earn a Blue Dot?

Create WW days that keep you full and are easy to prepare. Try our basic WW meal plan for 7 days, our 7 day EASY meal plan, or our 7 day WW Instant Pot meal plan.

Start every day with a plan for how you will include zero point foods to keep you full and eating plant-based or low fat, high protein foods for wellness. Add the foods you like and enjoy that have points, and finally include a treat or two so you aren’t tempted to go off your plan.

Hacks for Weight Watchers Success

Weight loss isn’t easy and it helps to have strategies to keep the motivation going strong.

Weight Watchers Success Tips — Top 10 WW Success tips – save this photo to your smartphone as a handy reminder!

Here are even more tips from successful WW members about how to lose weight with the program. We’ve listed 40+ ideas that members told us worked best for them to stay on program, stay within their points, and make the weight loss process faster and easier.

Answers to FAQ about WW Blue Dots

Here are answers to frequently asked questions about blue dots.

What does a blue dot mean on Weight Watchers?

A blue dot means that you ate within your Healthy Eating Range of points for that day, which is about -/+ 10 of your daily points target.

How many WW points is a blue dot?

The exact points vary based on your program, but if you eat about 10 points above or below your daily points allowance, you will earn a blue dot for the day.

How do I see my blue dots?

Go into the WW app. At the bottom of the screen, click on the 2nd icon from the left, which looks like a little progress line going up. There you will see your blue dots earned for the month.

What does blue mean on Weight Watchers?

This is a bit confusion but Blue Dots are for everyone, regardless of color plan, and there was (as of 2021) a Blue plan that includes 200 zero point foods and a daily points allowance of about 23 points. The previous WW points system had Green, Blue, and Purple and members can choose which color plan they use. The Blue Dots are for everyone no matter which plan they are following.

Do you get blue dots for activity points?

No, activity points are calculated separately.

Try taking a Blue Dot Challenge to stay motivated and have fun with the program. Think of the blue dots as an optional way to track your progress and keep the weight loss motivation going strong.

Do you use W W blue dots? Share about it in the comments below.