How do slimming world and ww work?

[WhyamIdoingthis99]

Just interested in the concepts, thanks.

Yes this.

I'd already given up sugar and processed foods 6 weeks before starting SW so I stick at that,I don't use my syns for sugary stuff. I don't drink either which helps. Tbh I cook all the same meals I did before just without great glugs of olive oil and the weight is falling off me. I'm in this for the long term not a quick fix ,I'm doing it for health reasons. I find it a really easy way to stay on track and monitor what I'm eating.

Obviously as with any food plan once you stop you put weight back on.

Who cares if they label food syns/ points/ treats / naughty foods or whatever ,we all know we shouldn't be eating much of them .

I lost 9 stone and 5 pounds over the last two years. Only a few pounds away from being my healthy BMI now.

I think the awful truth is that you have to suffer for years until you find out what you can stick to/what works for you. I yo-yo dieted, higher in the end each time, for years. My advice if you are only a few pounds/a stone overweight is to NOT diet. Just make one or two small changes.

Unfortunately that wasn’t an option for me as I’d gotten so big my health was suffering.

For me:

SW/WW were always the same. I’d join with best intentions, lose around a stone, then end up quitting as the pressure of the scales/restrictions mentally programmed me to binge eat.

I had a bit of success with calorie counting but gave up that too. I just didn’t have the mental space to weigh/count everything I ate. It put me off eating home cooked foods because it was a faff to count and moved me towards more packaged stuff.

Low carb again was successful, but it made me feel incredibly ill.

I figured out that any prescribed diet just seemed to make me want to rebel/obsess over food.

When I was diagnosed with PCOS and researched it (apparently on some cases women with PCOS actually need 40% less calories a day to maintain than others!) I realised I’d just have to be hungry.

At a large size weight loss surgery is the most effective option. But I really didn’t want to go down that route, so I decided to give it one last go before having surgery.

I just ate one dinner a day, after 5pm. It was a home cooked meal I had with the family, I didn’t worry about the calories but made sure it was tasty, healthy (and had plenty of fibre because I hate being constipated!). It was hard for the first few weeks as I still got hungry in the day, but that quickly tailed off. I also did cardio for 40 mins every day and weight lifted three times a week.

I would do that for a couple of months, lose a lot of weight quickly, then switched to maintaining for around two months to check I could do it. I did that by adding in a protein shake after a workout, or having a lunch (alternating days) and cooking a pudding on the weekends but just having a portion. I also didn’t stress about going out for a meal/special occasions, I’d just adjust the next days eating a bit. When these last few pounds are gone that is what I will be doing again.

It’s what worked for me.You have to find what works for you. Statistically, that is very unlikely to be SW or WW.

Just had my Medichecks blood tests done and everything is great. The exercise meant I kept muscle/shape but I might get some sort of surgery for loose skin, haven’t decided yet.

I wish you the best of luck, it’s a tough slog x

MLM of the dieting world.

You can do SW and have a healthy diet with no UPF and you can’t eat unlimited carbs - that’s never been part of it but is often explained badly in groups. However lots of people do SW and eat really badly as this can also be part of the plan.

I found it really restrictive as it can be so difficult to eat out.

She admits its a scam - unless you're willing to change your eating habits FOREVER, it is not sustainable.

That's true of any diet. It's a permanent change.

Hi this has really resonated with me. My weight journey sounds similar to yours and I'm now nearly 20stone and considering surgery. Are you fasting before your meal or do you have tea/coffee/squash before. I know it's the first bit that will be difficult, the feeling hungry, but I have to get my weight under control I'm so miserable with it all.

I disagree with those saying bollox about the sw system.

It promotes unprocessed foods.
It restricts fats- but promotes 'healthy fats', calling them 'savvy syns'. In other words, you can't eat your fill of avocado and walnuts, but you can have a measured amount.
It promotes balance- more veg and protein, only enough pasta/rice/potato to help you feel full.
It makes sure you eat enough calcium and fibre- both of which many women lack.

It allows processed treat foods as a substitute for the kinds of things people often miss- sweetened yogurts and drinks, cereal bar type things.

It teaches nothing is forbidden, but shows you what a sensible portion of treat foods looks like (ie a serving of crisps or chocolate, rather than both).

A lot of people are really ignorant about nutrition. SW helps educate them about it, in a simplified way. Someone's 'only' weekly treat of a Mac chicken sandwich, fries and a thick shake uses up your entire week's allowance of extras, so you won't be losing weight despite being careful the whole of the rest of the week. A take away can put you in the red calorie wise, despite how hard you worked the rest of the week.

I mean yes, if you're knowledgeable about food and have good eating habits, SW probably looks like a load of unnecessary rules and restrictions. But then you're unlikely to need to be there.

If you could do it on your own with MyFitnessPal or traditional calorie counting, you'd never come to SW. It's an alternative for those that find it helpful.

I'm a knowledgeable, well educated eater, I just find it hard to actually follow my own advice. I was at the point of asking for gastric surgery, but was told I had to do this first. With SW I've lost almost 6 stone, and kept it off for over a year (not paying, but attending weekly). I appreciate the commitment, the friendships etc.

Different things will work for different people.

I think it's awful to slate a system that doesn't work for you, when it might well work for others.

Exactly. Even if you lose weight using MN approved avocados, protein and massive salads, you'll put weight on if you start eating too many calories again, which is more likely if you eat more than a very small amount of cake, crisps, chocolate, chips etc.

And I did a food diary with an nhs nutritionist who said it was spot on for nutrients- just needed some selenium, from sushi or Brazil nuts. Score!

Agree. I'm not delusional, I'm fat because I eat and drink too much and I'm lazy.

I lose weight on WW but I always put it back on because I go back to my bad eating, no one in the world would be slim on the lifestyle I slip back into. The fact I slip back isn't WW fault, it is my response to trauma. Being fat feels safe.

I didn’t have anything to eat before 5 (except during the maintain parts) but I think I drank my own body weight in black coffee/black/green/herbal tea! Don’t think I’ve ever been so hydrated 😂

I bought a glass tea pot (silly I know, but felt like a treat as if never had one before) and ton of different flavours/types of loose leaf tea/herbal tea.

The hunger stopped fairly quickly. Before I’d wake up starving and thinking about food. After a couple of weeks I wouldn’t even start thinking about it or getting hungry until around 4pm.

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Thank you just reading this through.

Personally I have found going gluten free has been very effective because I've eaten far more porridge, oat cakes, hummus, omelettes, jacket potatoes, fruit and veg and chicken and fish- far less sandwiches,toasties, noodles, cakes, biscuits , I've basically had to think harder each meal.

I don't think they do work. Otherwise you wouldn't have people going for years and years and never looking any different.

Well I do SW and have found it to be good - I never buy or eat the bars and although I have been given vouchers for ready meals (they are advertised) but I never have them. I cook from scratch every day. meal plan and I do have to think about it. Although it is becoming more routine and I think about it all less than I did at the beginning. There are free foods - food that you don't have to count. these include, meat, fish, some yoghurts, rice, pasta, vegetables, beans, fruit... you get the point! then you add healthy options from milk/cheese/cereals/breads. Then your syns - this can be added bread or snacks that aren't free food. It can take work at the beginning to familiarise yourself with the diet.

I like some of the recipe books and I like the group. It isn't amazing information - but for £6 a week I think it is alright.

They do work but they're both like any diet. The minute you don't stick to it 100% is when you either stop losing weight or start piling it back on.

"But they aren’t healthy plans really when you look at it. I mean on SW an avocado is a syn. SW also doesn’t teach portion control and do not get me started on processed shite like muller light yoghurts and eating as much pasta as you like"

But.... You can't eat as much pasta as you like... if you actually follow the plan.
And Syns aren't bad things. Despite the wording (which is not helpful!) And members taking it upon themselves to only use Syns for cake and beer.

Avocado is high calorie... And eating too much will prevent weight loss, especially in a plan where not everything is measured.

But this is where SW fails, the consultants and members spout incorrect information and ideas and don't encourage you to use your Syns properly. Far better to spend 6Syns on avocado in your salad than having a more meagre salad and a couple of the dreadful hi-fi bars, or some bloody awful concoction of sweetener laden fat free yoghurt or a bag of crisps which is what the majority of members seem to do.

Something gets lost in translation.

But the problem is, of you looked at any sample of 100,000 people who try to lose weight, most people will fail regardless of methods they try.

It's not entirely fair to say "the plan doesn't work" when actually it's statistically never going to be 100%. No diet plan is guaranteed results, because the person has to be determined to do it and change for life.

Saying that though, SW does fail because people fail to realise as they lose weight they need to eat less. But when you get dimwitted consultant or members who spout shit like "amybe you haven't eaten enough, your body is in starvation mode" or a person that was 17st and has lost 3st by swapping their morning snack of a daily doughnut, sausage roll and red coke with 2x hi-fi bars, 6* Quorn cocktail sausages and a diet coke, but now their BMR has gone down, no-one is telling them to cut the snack down to something like an apple and only have if hungry... The SW consultant should be doing this! But they don't. They just say things like "awwwww, are you tracking your Syns?/ Draw a line under it/ maybe try mixing it up".....

My NHS dietician hates slimming world and I agree.

I found it unnecessarily complicated working out red, green and syns. A single egg mayo sandwich used more than my syns for the day despite it being about 400cals so completely fine if you are just calorie counted. I eat a lot out of the house which is fine when calorie counting but not ok on slimming world.

They promote loads of crap food, you have got to remember it is a business so they team up with brand A when brand B would be just as good. I remember when they took away a type of sausage as being acceptable because the partnership ended despite no changes in the sausage.

They promote filling up on crap like mug shots, muller lights, and Batchelor's packets of flavoured pasta. They tell people to save up their syns for a week and go out and get pissed on them at the weekend.

You have outdated information.

There's no red and green on SW

They absolutely do not encourage filling up on mug shots, and miller lights.... they're all synned.

They don't tell people to save Syns either.

There's no red/green anymore.
The ready meals are actually very unprocessed as these things go- and include the recipe so you can make it at home.

They do use a lot of sweetener- I suppose people struggle to reduce sweet stuff enough.

The number of syns reduces as your BMI reduces. You are also encouraged to assess your syns to see if it's the right level. Some people only lose on 10 Syns a day, others can do the 15. Obviously people eat differently so there's flex in the system.

I don't have any trouble eating out- steak and jacket potato, roast dinner, obviously salads...
the issue is choosing the jacket over the chips!

Lots of negativity but personally for me Slimmingworld been a positive. It’s not unlimited pasta and muller lights.
It’s basically 1/3 plate veg each meal.
Encourages healthy filling options - real food not processed ready made stuff.
Personally I can’t be arsed to weigh and measure everything so it suits me over cc.
As with everything you need to be mindful. You don’t need to eat hi fi, mug shots and muller lights.
I feel better eating this way and lost 5 stone in 8 months.

There's not been red & green for about 10 years! 😉🤣

It's basically a way of making you think before you eat.

I follow it loosely because, unless you're the moron that eats 52 bananas and 3 bags of spuds a day "because you can" its a sensible eating plan these days. Processed foods have syn values so you think before you eat and it encourages cooking well and lots of veg.

There are still some hangovers from the people that use silly amounts of sweetener and eat til they puke but it is absolutely not encouraged. The podcasts and the plan are all about good attitudes to food. Believe me I'm the first to eyeroll at the stupidity of the minging old recipes and people using peas to make pastry!

That's 100% bollocks!

In lots of areas nhs will refer free for 12 weeks to sw if you have an obese (30 plus) bmi.