How do slimming world and ww work?

[WhyamIdoingthis99]

Just interested in the concepts, thanks.

Avoid high fat high sugar food- to put you into a calorie deficit.

More effort, more restrictive and more expensive than just counting calories

They work by brainwashing, I hope, that's the only thing that would work for me.

Nope, sorry! I don’t care who goes to SW. I can’t resist rubbishing an ill-conceived argument though.

You said 'free pasta' would stop people losing weight, and unlimited eating was why people get fat in the first place.

No, I didn’t. I questioned why pasta was labelled as ‘free’ when it isn’t. At which point posters started showing me photographs of plates and announcing that despite being ‘free’, SW members are expected to use their judgment for pasta to decide when they have had “as much as they need”.

I noted that people join slimming clubs because they can’t judge how much food they need, and that the labelling of pasta as “free” suggests that SW’s USP of, as you put it, “feeling allowed to eat as much as you like of a whole range of foods” has been rather cynically applied when a food that isn’t really “free” is labelled as if it were.

That so many members are rushing to defend SW with variants on “but they tell you to eat vegetables as well!” and stating the flipping obvious (“you won’t get fat if you eat too much broccoli!” and, from you, “When you are full of nutritious, high protein, high fibre foods, you are less inclined to get into sugar spikes and crashes, and hanker for calorie dense high fat food like cheese”) as if they were newly-minted pieces of wisdom available only to SW members, makes it sound more cult-like. If that’s what works for you, fine, but let’s not pretend that it’s a long term sustainable way of living when you are off the plan. In real life you need portion control.

Really? 9 groups a day 5 days a week- each group lasts about an hour?

I'm the first person to condone diets, especially if you suffer from an eating disorder, particularly binge eating disorder, but I actually quite like Slimming World, I did it online abroad where there isn't such a thing as Miller lights yogurts or SW ready meals etc. It's a very good way of learning to eat properly, unless of course you don't understand the concept of portion control and think that eating 3 bowls of pasta in one sitting is a good approach to take, and is following the plan. We all need to take a bit of responsibility for ourselves but it's easier to blame SW if you don't lose weight. It's basically telling you to fill up on veg, fruit, rice, pasta, lentils, beans etc. Add flavour with herbs and spices. Use oils sparingly, cut out processed crap. Limit fast food/sweets/chocolate to just 300 (or is 200?) calories a day. I never went to a group, I never made all the shit food that the crazy group members rave about. I literally ate an extreamly healthy diet. 3 meals a day and a few snacks. I never counted full fat yogurts as syns, and I never measured my milk I teas etc. I often rank a few glasses of wine a few nights a week. I adapted it to suit my life and lost almost 2 stone. I still weigh less than before starting and I still use the recipes I have as they are tasty and suit life style. I think deep down we all know what we need to do but we don't want to do it. At the moment I'm not following any plan I'm just trying my best to eat what I fancy but not to go crazy.

It works for some, not for others. I did SW and loved it - the principles are extremely easy in theory, but for someone like me who always reached for unhealthy snacks it gave me some accountability - do I really want/need that chocolate bar? I want to go out later and have a gin/tonic so I'll put that down and save my syns for later. Some days I had very few syns because I didn't need or want them, and recognised I was more of a boredom eater who could happily survive on 3 meals a day - if 95% of them were homecooked, I'd lose weight. And my partner (who has never needed to lose weight) happily ate the meals too.

It changed my thinking completely around convenience sauces - even low calorie ones are full of sugar. Much easier and cheaper to buy chopped tomatoes and herbs. My food shop cost less!

I lost over 3 stone and during it starting running again - 4-5 times a week and I smashed my half marathon PB time by over 10 minutes the week after getting to target. I had so much energy - on days I was training, I would up my rice/pasta/couscous intake and general portion sizes without fear I would put weight on and it worked a treat. When not running, I would eat less.

I struggled with my consultant as he was pushing the convenience foods - but that didn't put me off and I never ate Muller lights/cup noodles or their ready meals as more expensive than making your own. Success on SW just takes common sense.

I did WW a few years ago, lost 6 stone and have kept it off, I've never eaten a WW product

How did you make it work? I find it baffling. Free foods and points but no recipes!

Easily to be honest, I'd just adapt 'normal' recipes and use the foods I had on my 'free' list so for example Bolognese would be turkey breast mince, tomatoes, garlic, red peppers, herbs etc., and I'd have wholewheat pasta - 0 points. I made my own chips. cottage pies, chillis, burgers, fish cakes etc.

I think there's a version of WW that is very similar to SW. Eat as much as you want of lean meat, fish, eggs, fruit, veg, pulses, rice/pasta etc (but watch the proportions obvs), fat free dairy and then controlled amounts of higher fat/sugar foods.

Both organisations do publish lots of recipes on their websites, magazines and cook books, but most recipes can be easily adapted to fit the plan, so you just cook what you like.

So you can just make normal recipes but use spray oil/tiniest amount you can manage and make sure there's plenty of veg in, which there is for most curries, stews, chilli type meals, and if not, swap some of the meat for extra veg like mushrooms or peppers.

If there's a teaspoon or two of oil in a meal for 4, it's only an extra tiny amount more calories, so fairly insignificant. You can also stop onions etc burning by also adding a splash of water or stock after you've fried it for a few minutes.

Yes because it’s a totally different thing.
Some people are overweight because what they do eat and drink is high calorie often without knowing. People are genuinely shocked by how many cals in wine, coffee shop drinks, mayo, pastries etc. The whole low fat thing and people thinking it’s low calorie when it’s high calorie as it has added sugar instead.

This is true but nowhere does it say eat as much as you want of some foods, common sense should tell you that this isn't possible. I remember a woman in my meeting who gained weight in the first week, she couldn't understand why, when she'd stuck to 0 point foods, she'd gained. It turned out that she'd been making 0 point chips and eating them between meals.

I stuck to the recommended portion sizes and always tried to make sure my plate was quarter carbs, quarter protein and half veg, and ate until satisfied but not stuffed. I tried to not snack between meals but when I did it was on free foods like a hard boiled egg, a slice of chicken or I'd use a couple of my weekly points for something not on the list like a biscuit etc. Most of my weekly points were used on things to enhance meals, like a bit of butter in a jacket or a sauce that had milk or cream in it

Sorry, my first sentence sounds a bit harsh, not at what you've written but it seemed a lot of people lacked the common sense to not eat piles of the free foods!

TFH, my first sentence wasn't accurate, it's not 'eat as much as you want' if you want to eat until you are stuffed, rather than just a normal sized meal.

The 'free food' concept is free from weighing/measuring/counting, not 'free to stuff yourself morning, noon and night'. There's a difference - it frees people from having to calorie count, which is extremely tedious unless you eat a repetitive and packaged diet where you are just adding up the numbers from a few packs of food, rather than taking a number of basic ingredients, finding the calorie counts, adding them all up and then working out how much is in the fraction you eat. For every meal, three+ times a day.

Plus as already covered, multiple times, snacking on chips, even the SW version, is not the plan, because potatoes fall into the same category as pasta - only free if balanced with veg/salad, to reduce the calorie density of the overall meal.

I'd rather have a KitKat tbh for the extra 30cals and lack of utter shite in it.

Skinny Crunch 73cals
Ingredients
Oligofructose, Rice Flour, Chocolate (15%) [Sugar, Cocoa Mass, Cocoa Butter, Emulsifier (Soya Lecithin), Natural Vanilla Flavouring], Oats (8%), Bulking Agent (Polydextrose), Humectant (Glycerine), Sugar, Palm Oil, Fat Reduced Cocoa Powder, Fortified Wheat Flour (Wheat Flour, Calcium Carbonate, Niacin, Iron, Thiamin), Mint Flavoured Sugar Nibs (3%) [Sugar, Cocoa Butter, Colouring Food (Concentrates of Spirulina, Safflower, Lemon, Apple), Natural Flavouring], Glucose Syrup, Emulsifier (Soya Lecithin), Salt, Malted Barley Flour, Whey Powder (Milk), Natural Flavouring, Skimmed Milk Powder, Rapeseed Oil

KitKat (2 finger) 104 cals

Ingredients
Sugar, Wheat Flour (contains Calcium, Iron, Thiamin and Niacin), Milk Powders (Whole and Skimmed), Cocoa Mass, Cocoa Butter, Vegetable Fats (Palm, Shea, Mango Kernel, Sal), Lactose and Proteins from Whey (Milk), Whey Powder (Milk), Butterfat (Milk), Emulsifier (Lecithins), Yeast, Raising Agent (Sodium Bicarbonate), Natural Flavourings

Totally different to what? Give it up. You’re determined to defend everything that SW does, even the things that are illogical. Here’s an example from the past few posts, both from SW members:

The idea is to feel 'allowed' to eat as much as you like of a whole range of foods, so you don't feel deprived and hungry.

but nowhere does it say eat as much as you want of some foods, common sense should tell you that this isn't possible.

Show me how those statements reconcile.

The foods that fall into each category are clearly set out with the logic explained.

A meal containing basic ingredients is low in energy density and filling and people are less likely to binge on those sorts of foods.

While we all know that many people will eat a lot of calories of biscuits etc without being full.

It's not perfect and not a magic spell that has to be followed exactly to work. It's just calorie deficit without having to count or be hungry, which is what causes a lot of people to fail at weight loss attempts.

Of course lots who go to sw are overweight. Not saying they aren’t but if you’re never been I think you would be surprised.
Consultants aren’t raking in money. It’s a self employed job lots fell by the wayside in Covid. Some are awful - I’ve had stand ins I wouldn’t go back to. Some are sensible.
It’s got far more online these days - app, podcasts, blog, exercises. Not just ‘Pam’ in a church hall.
What’s the alternative if you want in person support? Two thirds of my age group are overweight or obese.
In my mid 40s I got from a size 20 to a 10/12 in 8 months. I’m one that goes all year and looks the same but I’m healthy and maintaining.
I eat healthy normal food, cook from scratch.
It’s not for everyone. You have to find what works for you. But I do hate the sneering. There’s no shame in trying to do something about your weight.

A few years ago I lost 2 stone on SW then fell off the wagon. It worked... but it is just a diet like any other diet.

It worked because I cut out the crap in order to stay within the daily allowed points. It also made me think about what I was eating. 3 points for a sausage or a bag of mini haribo, what was more filling? I ate proper larger meals that filled me up, ate less crap and lost weight.

However, I could have just eaten more proper meals and cut out the crap without having to spend £5 a week and attend a meeting.

I ate less crisps/chocolate/cheese and ate more chicken, potatoes and carrots and the weight fell off. So just common sense really.

Some people need the regimental approach though to make themselves do it.

I have seen people spend a fortune on extreme diets like 1-2-1 and then put all the weight back on after spending hundreds of pounds to get skinny.

Who is ‘sneering at’ or ‘shaming’ people trying to do something about their weight? Not one person on this thread.

The question posed by the OP was how Slimming World and WW work. Posters have shared their opinions on the methods used by both organisations. That is how threads work. Please point to one post in which people trying to lose weight sensibly have been shamed or sneered at.

You said people join as they eat too much. I read this as you meant too much food by volume - lots of snacking, too big portions. We had been discussing pasta portion size.
I and another poster said not necessarily - some people eat/drink a small volume of high calorie food.
You then clarified by ‘eat too much’ you mean eat too many calories. Of course I agree that eating too many cals leads to weight gain.
If you are wondering if Slimming world is a good fit for you then there’s a free 7 day plan via website, 7 day plan in any sw magazine and the podcast is free to listen to massive back catalogue.
If you join a group you get a pack, new member talk and app.
Food that isn’t weighed or counted is split into free food (eg lean protein, pasta, eggs) and speed food (veg and most fruit)
Plan says fill at least 1/3 of plate with speed food and choose speed food if hungry between meals. It’s how it works you are eating volume so not hungry but big chunk of your daily food is now low calorie fruit & veg.
It doesn’t say anywhere it’s an all you can eat buffet of free food.
Not a consultant. Don’t work for sw. Don’t care if you do it or not. Hate the myths about it and implication people who do it could just easily lose weight on their own - some can - I personally needed real life group in person support.

Pump you full of sweetness and artificial crap… make you eat ultra processed food not good fats…processed short. If that’s not sneering at sw I don’t know what is.

Shite not short

You said people join as they eat too much. I read this as you meant too much food by volume - lots of snacking, too big portions. We had been discussing pasta portion size.

I and another poster said not necessarily - some people eat/drink a small volume of high calorie food.

You then clarified by ‘eat too much’ you mean eat too many calories. Of course I agree that eating too many cals leads to weight gain.

All this time to get to the flaming obvious. Eat too much, become overweight, join a slimming club.

It doesn’t say anywhere it’s an all you can eat buffet of free food.

Nobody suggested that. Are you being wilfully obtuse? The point was, if SW are labelling a food - pasta - as “free” then it seems rather disingenuous when in fact members are expected to limit their portions of it. One of the criticisms levelled at Slimming World is that it is not a sustainable way of eating in the long term and that it doesn’t teach portion control. That is a good example.

Can you tell the difference between ‘criticising Slimming World’s methods’ and ‘sneering at and shaming people trying to lose weight’?

I expect that the latter sounds more dramatic to you, but nobody has done that, have they?