How do slimming world and ww work?

[WhyamIdoingthis99]

Just interested in the concepts, thanks.

I did lose weight on slimming world a few years ago by following the basic concept but the main thing for me was the fact of getting weighed and seeing it coming down on a card. I actually found the meeting bit of listening to the minutiae of peoples weekly troughing monumentally depressing- so I stopped that. Like others above the amount of processed chemical tasting rubbish some people were consuming as part of it was depressing. I would seriously rather not have a mugshot at all than have them for the sake of it. I personally felt it would be more helpful to have a bit of general chit chat for many of the people there , or a bit of beauty/fashion ideas chat etc - than obsessing about syns .

The bottom line is that you need to be in a calorie deficit. Even on keto and intermittent fasting, which I am a fan of, unless I eat less calories than I need I don't lose weight. It's easier to eat less on some diets because they either regulate your appetite and blood sugar or because psychologically you don't feel deprived.
Whichever way you dress it at the end it's calories in calories out.

The concept of SW isn’t too bad. You fill up on free foods which are low cals and fat, plus a third of your plate is always speed food so fruit or veg. This should make it easy to effortlessly get into a calorie deficit. BUT. The groups can be so hit and miss. Too many consultants are caught in the weighing and losing cycles themselves and not properly promoting the plan leading to tweaks and people looking for an easy way to lose more. I do know people who’ve lost 7-10 stone and kept it off but they’ve also made huge lifestyle changes beyond just doing sw.

WW used to be better. Essentially you were calorie counting but with points. OK, so you can just do that at home, although some people like having a support group. However they seem to have needlessly complicated things now with different colour plans and free food like on SW so it seems a bit shit.

Free food is meat, potatoes, pasta, rice etc.

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

From two separate posters on this thread, who are fans of SW. How do these statements fit with, “but you can’t eat as much pasta as you like!” ? What is a free food, if you can’t “eat as much of it as you like”?

I’ve never done SW but I used to drive my mother to a class, years ago. She would eat the most awful crap but I think that that was on her, not SW! The class she attended seemed to attract people who didn’t want to improve their diets or retrain their appetites. No, they wanted ways to keep on eating sweet stuff and snacks but were prepared to put up with vegetables etc in order to be a bit thinner for a holiday. I’m sure that there are other attendees who are more sensible though!

The plan is 1/3 plate ‘speed’ food (most fruit & veg) so not just a plate of free food eg a plate of pasta isn’t on plan.

The new pack 2022 very much emphasises not overeating and eating until satisfied.

Between meals if hungry they recommend speed (fruit or veg) first. Lots of emphasis on protein too in new pack.

Trouble is lots don’t follow it - they do a cobbled version based on Facebook or what their auntie’s hairdresser said.

So “free” is a misnomer, right?

Actually I did hear someone complaining that SW didn’t work because she was eating 10+bananas a day (!! How?) and she’d been told that fruit was free and it wasn’t fair that she wasn’t losing pounds etc.

I thought, in what universe could you eat ten bananas a day on top of three meals and the calories not count? How dim would you have to be?

To be fair, some people do just need a set of absolute rules to follow. Whilst it may not be healthy, if it keeps them happy then who are we to judge.

Ten Bananas a day?!

Free doesn't mean 'eat more than you need'. It means 'no need to count'.

You count high energy foods like fats, refined carbs and sugars.

You build your meals around healthy extras, protein and speed. Free foods to fill up on.

Syns brighten up your meals (sauces, butter) or add a treat like wine or chocolate.

Couldn’t agree more. They are businesses and want to keep your custom. Each time you “fail,” you end up at a higher weight than your original starting weight, you go back to them, lose some weight, get fed up with it, stop dieting and put on even more weight on continuous repeat.

I wasn't a fan of SW - telling me I can have unlimited pasta and potatoes was never going to work (I caveat this with I haven't looked at the diet in a really long time so things may have changed)

WW worked as a kick start for me. It is basically calorie controlled but felt less daunting to begin with, don't ask me why. Most importantly, with weighing everything to fit the 'points' without thinking about calculating calories, I really got to understand portion sizes which is central for me.

As I made progress and became more aware, I became less reliant on it but spurred on by the results. Now I cook fresh, low calorie balanced meals and make better choices when out.

I know how many calories I should be aiming for at my current weight and roughly what that looks like for me each day / meal. And I learnt how to balance it over the week so that I still have snacks, pizza, ice cream, chocolate but less regularly and have continued to loose and maintain all year. Next year I will move more to get the last few pounds

And yes, it might have been just as easy to figure this out by myself but for some reason I couldn't.

They make you hate yourself if you don't lose. Ignoring normal monthly variations, constipation, the effect of exercise and resistance training, or any perfectly normal causes of the scales not reading downwards.

The target star chart shows the same large weightloss aim for somebody with a bmi of 25 as for one of 50. So a healthy target of 6lb looks like a failure on the chart.

The cultlike nature of meetings is very much used by MLMs.

They encourage you to keep going, no charge, while you remain at target weight.

There are members who I wonder why they bother. The diet doesn't do it for you, turning up to classes doesn't do it. You have to actually make changes, to go without some things you are used to eating too much of.

You use the diet plan to show you what a balanced diet looks like, then restructure your eating to make it work. For me, avoiding alcohol is a quick and easy win. For others, it's not having a biscuit with every cup of tea. Maybe choosing between toast and cereal at breakfast. I don't have to count on a day to day basis because I know what's a maintenance diet now.

When treats are involved, I know how to minimise the impact, and where I can make cuts to keep in balance. I can have lunch out and eat anything I really want. Come dinner, I need to eat mainly speed and protein to balance out the rich lunch I've had.

Not in the ones I've been to. What do you mean about the target star chart?

Everyone gets an award for losing 10% of their body weight. That's because it has a big impact on health. It's an NHS number, from somewhere.
It took me longer to reach 10% than someone that's less obese. They'd get there quicker, and get the reward quicker.

I don't think sw makes sense. I did lose 3st 4lb on it but put a lot of it back on.

SW don’t tell you how much to lose or require you to be a healthy bmi at target. If you are happy at a size 16 and want to maintain there you can. At target it’s a 6lb window (3lb each side of target weight) to recognise people fluctuate.

Free doesn't mean 'eat more than you need'. It means 'no need to count'.

Sorry, I still don’t get it. Either pasta is free or it is not. If people are on SW it’s likely that they have been ‘eating more than they need’ for some time. So they won’t know how much they ‘need’ unless it’s limited and they are required to count it.

If you have 1/3 veg on plate it automatically limits your portion of pasta - see photo I posted above. Eat until satisfied not stuffed. Don’t pile food on.
What sw don’t say is have 50g or 75g or whatever.
If you are following a slimming world recipe then yes there will be a recommended weight of pasta and how many it serves.
You get a pack of info & app which explains plan when you join.

There's lots of twaddle but I've never seen a star chart! Is that just one group?? There's no target chart in any I've been to.

I think it's very much group dependent. Mines normal people who like to cook real food. Absolutely no hating at all. And no cult MLM recruitment either. None of us eat lots of mug shots or Mullers. We need accountability not to eat too much crap though. The focus on veg & fruit is really positive.

Some of the terminology is nonsense though. And a lot of the hate is from people who did it years back.

There ARE people who eat huge amounts of pasta and still lose weight. But its not encouraged - you're encouraged to balance your portions. Otherwise you end up gaining huge amounts if you start eating that much fatty stuff again.

I struggled with SW in the past because it didn't address my overeating. But now, they do. And they're much more focussed on exercise too than they used to be.

Lower fat, lower sugar, more veg, more movement is the basic premise.

Do they tell you what size plate to use, too? Come on, even you must see that calling pasta ‘free’ then saying, ‘but only eat as much as you need, don’t pile it on your plate’ would be confusing to people doing the diet. Better to formally limit it rather than calling it ‘free’ with a few vague caveats.

Although that would take away from SW’s USP, I suppose! Which, according to people I know who have done it, is ‘you can eat lots of the free food’.

Everyone’s appetite and calorie needs are different though?
If you say 50g then a 25 stone bloke will be starving.
With 1/3 veg on plate you physically can’t fit on a massive portion of pasta.
People can choose whatever works best for them. All I can say is for me it worked. And I don’t eat muller lights!

Doesn't confuse anyone I know in real life, tbh. If it's not a diet you need then that's fine. Don't do it!

I presume normally slim people also don't weigh their pasta?

I agree.

If everyone has different calorie needs then why limit anything? It makes zero sense. I realise that people doing SW are very invested in defending it, but come on!

1. Slim people aren’t joining SW though, are they? The people joining eat too much. They are the group who can’t judge appropriate portions and hence need clear guidance. Which SW isn’t offering if they are calling pasta ‘free’ but attaching non-specific caveats.
2. No, I’m not planning on doing SW thanks, but I don’t need permission from you or anybody else to discuss it.