Is Slimming World a MLM?

[Ihatesundays]

Just out of interest.
Someone I used to work with has given up a very well paid job to do Slimming World full time, the mention of Team Leader pricked my ears up!

Can you really make a good living from it...?

110% mlm and pyramid scheme. Any weight loss is down to you making changes which led to lesser calories.
Fat free diet basically.

I did it online and went from 13.2 to 11.11 st. It set the basis for me. Allowed me to fill up in fruit and veg and make family meals.

Once I regained some will power I moved on to ww as I plateaued with sw and got fed up with not being able to just grab a sandwich outside.

With ww I went from 11.11 to 10.3 and then also plateaued until I started doing pilates and some weight training which got me down to 9.8 st.
Sw was the only diet that I could stick to in the beginning. Before that i had tried WW twice and failed, slimfast and failed, myfitnesspal and failed.

It taught me about filling foods and in the beginning when I was constantly hungry I needed to be able to stuff my face with fruit. Now I am way more balanced.
The whole journey took two years, I was with sw for 4 months.

I dont think it is an MLM. The diet does work but is of the traditional low fat variety and I prefer a lower carb diet along with intermittent fasting. I think you need to get used to the fact that you should be hungry come mealtimes and people use the free food aspect of SW to eat all day. It doesn't challenge the other aspects of an unhealthy relationship with food to enable you to make sustainable long term changes.

While some meals can be odd I think a lot is down to members trying to bend the rules. I knew a consultant and she said people were obsessed with trying to make "cheat" food out of the unlimited free food. Like making crisps out of lasagne sheets baked in frylight and weetabix cake. I believe the advice changed to say you had to have a certain amount of fruit or veg with things like pasta for example to try and prevent this.

@Sibello SW isn’t MLM as there’s no downline structure, no “join my team” element.

Yes I could have made changes to my diet alone, but I’d already tried that several times this year and nothing had worked. I found it hard to have no plan to follow and just ‘eat healthily’ because I was really restricting myself then I would binge after two weeks of dieting. I had no support around me, all my friends are slim and my DH is slim even though he eats crap every day. It’s hard to restrict yourself when your DH has a treat cupboard and comes home to stuff his face on crisps, biscuits, chocolate and sweets twice throughout the day! (I’m at home with toddler DS). So it’s been great having the support of people in a similar boat! And I’ve gone from size 12 to size 10 in 6 weeks eating lots of healthy food. I’ve had to pay to attend for 6 weeks but now it will be free because I’m at target. My DH and toddler eat the same meals as I do (apart from my DHs snacking!) so I think it’s been successful. I really don’t understand why people are always putting slimming world down when it does actually work. It’s taught me that just because I’ve had a bad day I can get back on it the next day and no damage has been done. Whereas before I’d just give up completely and eat all the crappy food I did before.

My consultant gave up her job to be a full time team leader and she loves it and is doing great. She also has 2 kids and is sensible enough not to give up a full ttinee job if it didn't work.

So for anyone saying it doesn't work as a diet is so wrong! My husband and I did it after my first son and we both lost 3 stone each in 6 months. We've starting again after another ba y and I've already lost a stone and a half..... They obviously aren't doing it right

“Any weight loss is down to you making changes which led to lesser calories.”

Well yes, that’s how any sustainable way of losing weight works. There’s no magic involved, just a plan people can work with and support.

But it’s not a pyramid scheme as I understand them at all, I earn money from members coming to my group oh and a tiny bit of commission from sales of bars and recipe books, that’s hardly anything though.

“While some meals can be odd I think a lot is down to members trying to bend the rules.”

Yep.

Lost 2.5stone on sw this year, never felt like a cult to me. The meetings are a big long winded so I don’t often stay but it’s mostly sharing tips and recipes and encouragement. I don’t understand the comments about Muller light though? I don’t think anyone has ever mentioned a muller light and I’ve been doing this since March and not had one anyway it’s working for me and I don’t actually feel like I’m on a diet. I’m just eating better, not less.

Slimming world helps people everywhere to lose weight. You examine and work on your eating habits. I list 3 stone. Lots of people loose weight.

A friend of mine does it and she doesn't make much profit at all.
She does enjoy it though but is starting to struggle financially.

A couple of my friends did SW and lost lots of weight, and have kept it off still.

They both became Team Leaders, which you have to buy into the franchise to be. I believe they had to pay between £1-2k to do this.

They had to work so hard, and it's not just the groups they had to attend, they had to post leaflets (which they had to write out, and when it's hundreds of leaflets it took hours) through doors on the weekends and find new places to hold meetings. They had targets to hit regarding keeping a minimum number of members coming each week, and also were pushed to sell the food products and books, which they got a small commission for.

Neither are doing it still now, and both have gone back to their full-time jobs.
Both were working part-time at the time, and I think SW sell it as something you can fit in around your kids, but the reality is that you have to do lots of work behind the scenes plus go to the groups.

I used to go to SW. My consultant held three meetings every Thursday in the church hall. 11.00am, 3.30pm, 5.30pm. The 11am was the only session where you didn't have to queue for half an hour or more for the weekly weigh-in. She would regularly have 50+ people at each session at something like a fiver a time, plus commission on the Slimming World products and books she sold and the new registrations (think it costs a tenner to join). My guess is that she easily cleared £500 a day and my guess would be that 30-40% of that was cash. (Momentary pause to consider the tax advantages of having a significant cash income that HMRC would find it difficult to prove).

She was very put out when I walked in for the first time, looked around at the crowd and said to her 'Wow, you've got a good business going here' because punters aren't supposed to see it as a business.

She had the same set-up a few miles down the road on another day of the week. Where I live, if you earn £1000 for a two-day week you're doing very well.

I think the Muller lights stem from the fact that they used to be free on SW, and people would eat several a day when in fact, they're full of junk, just not the sort that makes you put on weight. The cynic in me thinks there was some sort of paid partnership there, as it cooled off significantly last year and they now need to synned. I think as a foundation its good, the idea of speed foods, thinking about what you eat etc is good; but when they made blueberries syn free because they had changed significantly that was it for me. If it works for people though and people can make a living out of being a consultant then good for them though.

The group I used to was packed too and the SW had about 3/4 groups i wonder how much money she actually to keep though ?

“SW sell it as something you can fit in around your kids, but the reality is that you have to do lots of work behind the scenes plus go to the groups.”

Yes, there is a lot more to it than just turning up to the groups.

It’s not as child friendly or flexible as they sell it on, but, it’s not badly paid for the hours you do. I include things like leafleting and training meetings as work hours, slimming world don’t - which is why they put it as 10-20 hours a week and most consultants class it as more than that.

“My guess is that she easily cleared £500 a day”

At least 50% of that goes to slimming world, more in less busy groups.

“and my guess would be that 30-40% of that was cash. (Momentary pause to consider the tax advantages of having a significant cash income that HMRC would find it difficult to prove). “

It’s all logged, I mean in theory you could not declare income, but you’d not get away with it, there are computerised records held by you and slimming world of who has gone through and what they’ve paid, it’s all very traceable.

It is not an MLM but a flawed way to lose weight.

Download Myfitness Pal
Calculate your BMR
Keep Calories below this

Simple, calorie deficit = lose weights.

No food is free? Everything that passes your lips has a calorific value.

SW is part of the weight loss industry, which has as its business model the fact that the majority of us who lose weight will then put it back on again. Rinse and repeat, endlessly. The much-missed Victoria Wood did a great documentary on it once but it’s not a secret.

Peer support is proven to help weight loss. Many people benefit from a plan to support their eating as they are lost in all the advice/bad information etc. To lose weight and keep it off forever means changing all the things you do that have made you overweight (if this is possible, given that the reasons people become overweight are so complex and not entirely in our own control much of the time) and sustaining that change. Some people do manage to do this with the support of SW and similar programmes: the majority of us don’t, and will return over and over. Leaders know this.

SW to me was too full of very prescriptive meals of processed food with specific values. I disagreed with the fact that a wholemeal pitta had the same syn value as, say, a small chocolate bar. It all felt too much like a scheme and not sustainable at all. Clearly they have changed their model but the crap about blueberries above makes me think it’s still not for me.

“It is not an MLM but a flawed way to lose weight”

It’s not flawed, it’s a calorie controlled diet, it just does it by making things that are very calorie dense very restricted.

“which has as its business model the fact that the majority of us who lose weight will then put it back on again.”

As an industry as a whole yes, but on an individual group level the business model is, get people to lose weight, they bring in new people and support them.

“SW to me was too full of very prescriptive meals of processed food with specific values“

Sadly, some people do work it like that, it should be about fresh ingredients and cooking from scratch, that’s when it works best for people.

@thatdamnwoman sounds very much like the set up my old SW lady had. Not in S.Yorks are you?

on an individual group level the business model is, get people to lose weight, they bring in new people and support them.

In part, but the ‘free’ target membership also ensures that people are more likely to return as paying customers when they put weight back on, and also more likely to continue buying your branded goods and merchandise.

Different things will work for different people and it’s about finding something that works for you (if anything does). So much will depend on why you are overweight. No mass market schemes address any emotional or deeper psychological reasons for weight gain. Very few of us will ever know if our biological make up is contributing to weight gain and, while society continues to fat shame and/or mock and dismiss the very idea that people might be overweight for more complicated reasons than calorie intake - this thread being one of a million examples on MN alone - the weight loss industry will continue to thrive on our battle with weight.

Bring on the fat free SW snack bars for all.

No. I kept looking around for smaller groups where there wasn't such a huge queue but of course the smaller groups didn't survive for long and then everyone who'd been going to them had to go to one of this woman's groups. She was a real businesswoman and judging from all the holidays she took (her holidays were a regular source of conversation) she was doing very nicely out of it.

“but the ‘free’ target membership also ensures that people are more likely to return as paying customers when they put weight back on,”

They’re not supposed to leave and put weight back on, the free target membership is to encourage them to keep coming and maintain.

There’s actually no financial benefit to the target membership if they leave and put weight back on and then return over walking in as a brand new member.

I’m absolutely not saying people don’t return, but that’s not who consultants are advertising to attract.

Weight loss of any method has a pretty high longterm failure rate, for all the reason you mention, but that’s not what slimming world groups are run for, we want the target members in group at target because that’s what attracts new members and what keeps them going.

“Different things will work for different people“

Absolutely. What you’ve got to bear in mind with slimming world though is that consultants are members first, so we are biased about it because it’s what worked for us.

“I kept looking around for smaller groups where there wasn't such a huge queue“

Just don’t queue, lol. When I go as a member, I get there for 5 minutes before the end of weigh in, even when it’s busy there’s no real queue by then.

@Swname - Sorry but I have to disagree.

It is flawed in the fact that it ignores the fundamentals of thermodynamics and science.

Telling someone that they have can 'free' foods such as pasta, potatoes etc and not include it in their daily input calculations is ignoring the basics of how the human body works.

A calorie controlled eating plan is what we should all work towards, however, in doing so, one needs to understand that EVERY item of food (even if it has deemed to be free of calories by SW) has a calorific value.

To lose weight, you need to use more energy than is put in. This could be via exercise (so you can eat more calories than your BMR) or consuming more than your BMR.

To state otherwise, is not an opinion, it is scientifically and factually incorrect.

The next level of what % of fats, proteins and carbs to have, time restricted eating, fasting etc is one that could be debated and different people respond differently. This is up for debate on its effectiveness.

However, following a model that ignores fact and science is in fool hardy.

PS. Do not get me started on the meals

A 'Free' Slimming world curry has 385 calories in it, yet in essence one could consume this and not take into consideration the KJ's?

“It is flawed in the fact that it ignores the fundamentals of thermodynamics and science.“

It doesn’t, your understanding of it may be that, but free food isn’t free of calories, nowhere does it state it is.

It controls calorie input by being very very restrictive on foods that are calorie dense, so there’s then more leeway on things that lower in calorie density.

It’s about creating a calorie deficit without having to log and count everything that’s eaten.