To think slimming world is a mugs game?

[TheWorldIsMine]

Been doing sw for around 3 months. Yes I lost weight which is great but after a few weeks you start to realise how unsustainable the whole thing is. Constant pushing of "fat free" yogurts - full of god knows what sugars and crap to make up the taste? A breakfast of two sugar caked cereal bars which wouldn't fill a toddler up?
At one class a girl was asked what she saves her syns for. She replied "chocolate and alcohol" which was applauded - sorry but it what world is it seen as a good thing to substitute proper good with chocolate and alcohol???

Then there is the constant "ooo how many syns does each of these biscuits have in them? Ooo I could eat three Nice biscuits but only two ginger biscuits ... decisions!

I once took a fat Fred yogurt into work and a colleague looked sxpetrenrly concerned and told me I'd bought the wrong yogurts. I said "it's fat free" to which she replied "yeah but you're supposed to get muller lights ... " what a load of 'endorsed' bollocks!!!

It comes to something when a nutritious homemade fruit smoothie is classed as 20+ syns yet a chocolate cereal bar is encouraged as "healthy extra".

I can't understand the massive following they have! You may lose weight in the short term but I've never known anyone keep it off for more than a year unless they sack it off and switch to eating healthy instead.

[BarbaraofSeville]

Slimming World is healthy eating.

Muller lights and hifi bars are not compulsory and it is perfectly possible to do the plan without either ever passing your lips.

What you are supposed to eat is fresh home cooked food made with plenty of vegetables and lean meat or fish, with a small amount of dairy and bread or cereal, and a very limited amount of junk, which is included because most people don’t want to not be able to ever have some chocolate or a glass of wine.

For breakfast you could equally have an omelette with mushrooms, spinach and tomatoes – just because some people choose to eat weird chemical yogurts and toddler sized cereal bars doesn’t mean that it’s the only way to follow the plan.

[BarbaraofSeville]

Smoothies are high syn because it is very easy to ingest a lot of calories in the form of pureed fruit, which is full of sugar. Just because something is healthy, doesn't mean that you can gorge yourself with tonnes of it without affecting your weight.

[MommaGee]

What Barbara said. The idea s home cooking and fresh food not frozen junk and take out. They include an allowance for crap so you learn to have crap in moderation, not abstain for a year then fall off the wagon

[ItMustBeBedtimeSurely]

I agree. I suppose it's technically possible to eat a nutritious diet on slimming world ( although there's plenty of evidence that low fat isn't great long term), but I don't know anyone who does. It's all artificial sweeteners and spooky butter substitutes as far as I can see.

[ParadiseCity]

I have a colleague who keeps losing then gaining etc, she doesn't really understand what healthy eating is or what portion sizes should be. 'It's free!!!!!' So despite YEARS of slimming world nothing has changed for her. And I have heard about every fecking tasteless yoghurt going.

On the other hand if you can cook and not rely on the marketed stuff, it's probably great.

[harderandharder2breathe]

You don't have to have processed crap though

A smoothie is syns because it's not the same as eating fresh fruit (which is free) because of the volume

It's very easy to do slimming world without processed foods! Eat lots of fruit and veg, healthy carbs, and lean meat or fish.

For breakfast you can have whole meal today or cereal such as wheetabix as your healthy extras or fruit salad, omelette etc which are free foods.

Yabu and lazy

[StStrattersOfMN]

DD2 and a friend do SW, they've lost nearly 7 stone between them. It's healthy, encourages a good balanced diet, and is sustainable. It teaches you to view food differently, and to portion control properly.

If you think a smoothie is healthy, you really don't understand about eating correctly. Smoothies and juicers and not at all healthy, and are usually incredibly high in sugar, plus you lose the fibre.

[StStrattersOfMN]

Oh, and neither of them have ever bought the yoghurts or bars.

[Sparlklesilverglitter]

I've never done it myself as I just don't see the appeal but 2 ladies from work have done it one had great success she lost about 6 stone and her lunches always looked tasty but the other one was in to "free" food I think she was in a false Mine set that free food some how meant free of calories and she was sit eating crap along with fat free yoghurts and she has never lost the weight and is still attending slimming world.

I think like any diet it just depends on the person.

[VivienneWestwoodsKnickers]

It might be your group, because none I've been to are so focused on brands. Quite the opposite in fact. Most of the sessions do deteriorate into AA meetings though, which I find hilarious.

Maybe try another group?

[WhatsGoingOnEh]

I know what you mean. I'm SW at the moment and it's not teaching me a THING about healthy eating. Unlimited pasta?? Unlimited white rice??? Fat-free chemical-stuffed yogurts...

But the chocolate and alcohol thing (which me me laugh) isn't about substituting bad stuff. You're allowed up to 15 Syns a day ON TOP of healthy stuff. Are you really expecting people to eat a head of cauliflower for their "syns"?

A quick way to calculate Syns is 20 calories = 1 syn. So you're allowed only 300 "bad" calories a day. That's not very much at all.

But I know what you mean. I think their Red/Green Days were better than the EE bollocks.

[EatTheCake]

My sister has lost a fair bit of weight with them recently and she's never eaten a low fat chemical yoghurt. The plan worked really well for her

My work colleague just saves syns for choclate and eat fat free chemical yogurt, she's been going to slimming world for years and has never got any slimmer

I struggled to loss weight after my last baby at age 48, so I did look in to it but it wouldn't be for me.
I don't do fat free bollocks
I don't want a false security of "free" food
And I've now lost my stubborn baby weight my way, maybe your like me OP and you'd be better off with a diet healthy eating plan

[WhatsGoingOnEh]

It teaches you ... to portion control properly.

Do you think so? How? I'm on SW and there's no portion control at all except for the Healthy A and B choices. None of the actual main, allowed food is portion-controlled.

[BarbaraofSeville]

I've done Slimming World without spooky butter or artificial sweeteners. I like it because you don't have to count and measure every damn thing that you eat and there's always something 'proper' that you can make quickly and easily to eat if hungry (eg a tomato omelette).

It's not even necessary to follow the plan that closely - the main thing is to radically cut down the amount of crisps/chocolate/alcohol/cake/sugary drinks if you previously overate that sort of stuff. Most of the success probably lies in just that.

I just use normal oil in a spray bottle, to use as little oil as possible and don't count it.
Cook with lean meat and fish and vegetables/salad.
Limit bread as per the plan.
Not be so strict on dairy. I never had any low fat yogurt, cottage cheese or quark, just use normal milk and the only yogurt I eat is full fat Greek - just don't eat tonnes of it. Longley Farm full fat cottage cheese is the only edible kind, so use that. Don't eat ,loads of normal cheese, but one or two of their portions is fine.
Don't feel the need to stuff yourself because you can - the unlimited bit is just so you don't get hungry and fill up on crap.
Eat plenty of veg/salad, drink loads of water and eat normal meal sized amounts of normal low fat home cooked food. it doesn't have to that low fat either, as there is fat in eggs, which are unlimited and I eat at least a dozen a week, plus the allowed cheese and nuts too - quite a few opportunities to eat healthy fats.

[BarbaraofSeville]

The people who are living on hifi bars, mug shots and muller lights will be the ones that don’t cook and probably lived on fast food and frozen crap when they weren’t going to Slimming World. If that’s what you’re used to, it’s a big leap to go to cooking from fresh, so allowing certain types of processed foods also facilitates people who aren’t going to be making their own food all the time.

[TheWorldIsMine]

I don't expect people to eat a head of cauliflower as a treat but take for example - olive oil. It's extremely good for you yet on sw it's about 6 syns a tea spoon and instead people use a crappy spray stuff instead to save their syns for chocolate! Ridiculous.

And yeah don't even get me started of the greedy fucker talk "top mountains of spaghetti with bolognese" or "shove piles of rice down your throat and wash it down with a chemical yogurt".

And in all honesty, the majority of the recipes are gross and all tend to taste the same. I followed joe wicks lean in 15 for a while and the difference in taste was amazing. No chrmical substitutes with him, just proper food in sensible portions.

[TheWayYouLookTonight]

I think it depends what your food weaknesses are that caused you to get overweight in the first place. It's clearly aimed at people with sugar addiction, allowing them just enough to stop them falling off the wagon completely.
My problem was never sugary food such as biscuits and chocolate, so I don't feel the need to spend my syns on them I spend them on wine instead. My problem apart from the wine is portion control (I simply eat too much), so my SW losses are really slow as I'm still eating too much, just of different things!

I agree with ParadiseCity that the greater your cooking ability, the easier it is to avoid all the processed frankenfoods. I've never touched muller lights or cereal bars whilst on the plan. I only do SW online though so don't know what gets pushed at meetings!

I do really struggle with the fact that fruit has syns if you stew or puree it, as I get bored of raw fruit, but do understand that it releases all the sugars so that your body processes them much quicker.

I think the restrictions on bread (and its crazy high syn values) will be what ultimately knocks me off the wagon.

[Keepingupwiththejonesys]

As with any diet you have to use some common sense. I have never personally done slimming world but have a friends who lost 5 Stone doing it. She's noe been the same healthy weight (give or take a few lbs) for 7 months since as she still follows the plan. Yes, pasta etc is 'free' but anyone with half a.brain cell knows you can't just eat as much as you want and still lose weight. My friend normally had ether fruit and yogurt or porridge for breakfast, dome kind of salad or homemade soup for dinner and a homecooked meal like lasagne or stew for tea. She snacks on fruit between with the odd treat. Seems a very healthy diet to me.

I personally prefer using mfp and doing a calorie controlled diet. Say I was allowed 1700 calories in a day I wouldnt go and eat 1700 calories worth of chocolate though would I? Yes I'd be 'allowed' but its common sense not to

[kelper]

Some friends of mine are doing slimming world and they eat way more than I do, huge amounts of "free foods" and those bars.
One of them is losing weight, and the other isn't, and has got really downhearted about it. But she's always eating ready meals and fat free things that are full of chemicals, where as my other friend is making soups and meals from scratch, so perhaps thats the difference, if you're a person who doesnt eat fresh food to start with, you wont lose. And those are the people SW want to keep as they'll be members for longer and spend more cynical face on

[BarbaraofSeville]

A quick way to calculate Syns is 20 calories = 1 syn. So you're allowed only 300 "bad" calories a day. That's not very much at all

Which is exactly the point and how you lose weight, as well as eating until you are no longer hungry but not stupidly stuffed, ie portion control.

It is very easy to eat a lot more bad stuff than 300 calories a day, so by limiting to this amount, it can represent a significant reduction, if you put on weight by eating whole packets of biscuits, cake and coffee at Costa, whole takeaways, sharing bags of crisps or sweets, more than the odd glass or two of wine, etc etc.

There was a thread a couple of days ago where someone expressed surprise that takeaways were so large, and how could anyone eat a whole one. Many people agreed with the OP, but there were plenty of posters who saw nothing wrong with eating a whole takeaway to themselves, sometimes with sides as well as a main and rice, despite it being a very large and calorific meal.

That and things like snacks of coffee and cake while out shopping, in addition to full meals, can explain why people become overweight. A costa coffee and cake can easily be 600 calories, more if you have a large drink, or have syrup in it.

[loobyloo1234]

YABU. You don't have to eat fat free yoghurts or cereal bars?

I find it more about cooking things fresh, not snacking on bad things and generally just watching what you are eating. Going for the healthy option in restaurants etc

Maybe WW is more for you - you get to eat a lot of fresh air on that one

[Temporaryname137]

I've never done it for the reasons you set out - unlimited pasta and high sugar low fat seems counter-intuitive to me. Mind you, I'm still fat, so it's not as if my way is working brilliantly either!

That being said, I do know a few people who swear by it, and lost a lot of weight on it. Horses for courses maybe.

[TheresAlwaysTimeForTea]

I wouldn't say it's a mugs game but I think classifying pasta, rice and potatoes as free can lead to oversized portions and a bit of a distortion on carbs. It works really well for a lot of people though so there must be something to it!

[yummycake123]

YABU. You don''t have to eat endless amounts of Mullerlights or HiFi bars (I've been doing SW for 2.5 months and have never had a Hi-Fi bar, and have Mullerlights occasionaly; you can have other yogurts, not just Mullerlights). Some people will always go for the easy option, but that doesn't mean that SW is rubbish. Smoothies/fruit have lots of sugar anyway, so I try to limit fruit to two portions a day and try to have more veggies.
I think if followed properly, it's a good sustainable plan. It gives you flexibility to have some "syns". My only criticism is that it doesn't teach people portion control/moderation. Some people take the concept of "free food" too far, and stuff themselves with potatoes, rice and pasta (all "free")...and then wonder why they aren't losing weight!

[VoodooPeople]

Don't think I can add anything to what's already been said re: individual choice to eat healthy food or splurge syns on unhealthy food.

Then again I've never done any of these slimming programmes. I guess it's better than Lighter Life or other types of meal replacement/fasting shite. At least SW encourages 'proper' meals.