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.

I do SW and never have muller lights or the hifi bars...I use my syns for olive oil, sauces etc for when I'm cooking... I've lost 2.5 stone so far slowly but is been great for me.

"also 'star' week, why not just say period?"

It's a star (asterisk) on the tablet, it's not officially called that, lol

Another person here doing slimming world without hifi bars or artificial sweetners (they don't do great things for my digestive system).

I've lost nearly six stone. Its given me a second chance, a new lease of life.

No diet plan is perfect, but it's a tonne better than the junk I used to eat.

It helped me learn to view food as fuel rather than good or bad, because no food is banned. To remember that as with so many things in life it's about balance. That for the meat or potatoes or rice on my plate it's good to make sure it's balance with a good proportion of food that is high in nutrients but not energy dense.

Slimming world have a vested interest in you failing. You fail they make money

Where's the op gone anyway?

I've never heard of star week or * week is that a thing?
I mean I know it can affect weight loss but are we meant to declare it?

if you eat virtually no fat, sugar & refined carbs you will lose weight on SW. People who live on muller lights/ mug shots & SW bars will struggle. You have to cook. From scratch. Every single meal
I AM JUST SO SICK OF COOKING!
I want pizza & chocolate & curry. I also want M&S ready meals.

Lol Elodie I had that exact rant yesterday. Dh was having nachos for lunch. I really resented trying to decide what to make, and then cook it. I wanted nachos so badly. (in the end I had a kinda bbq pork and bean sauce over homemade chips. It was lovely)

I have been doing it for about 10 weeks now. I haven't lost as much as I would like, but that's because I am so crap at speed foods. I fell in to the trap of big plates of pasta. I lost hardly anything.

Last 4 weeks I have made a bigger effort to think about speed foods, and this week I am on a speed mission to really up my vegetable and fruit. I am on a tight budget so I have to make good use of my freezer!

It worked really well for me. Lost 3 stone and have kept it off for coming up to two years now. I have some of the nasty chemically yoghurts but don't use all my syns, no where close.

For me it made me realise how much convince junk I was using and thinking I was being good. Spag Bol that's ok, except fresh pasta (with added oil to keep it fresh), tinned sauces (loaded with extra sugar). Now we eat nothing pre made, everything is cooked from scratch, we have hugely increased the amount of fruit and veg we have. Our meals are much more balanced and healthy.

I do think there is a bit too much encouragement to use sweeteners etc, but you have to apply some common sense when following any plan. The plan does work, if you are prepared to make changes

Slimming world isn't healthy eating. Never will I trust a diet that gives no syns for super noodles but lots for avocado. What message is that sending out

Doing SW. Losing slowly but surely. Still use olive oil and try to avoid eating chemicals.

I tried slimming world and hated it. Always felt tired, hungry and bloated. Quit sugar and processed food and now I eat fat, protein and minimal carbs (always from veg) love it. My take is - if it's working for you and you feel great, do it. If not, find a diet that makes you feel nourished and happy and you won't feel like you're dieting.

hello but it can be healthy eating.... as many here testify to!

Don't follow it then. But don't belittle others for trying to make a positive change in their lives.

helloitsme super noodles have more syns per 100g than avocado. (Unless you get the super low fat ones which taste even worse than the normal ones)

Just a question for those who have done SW.....

Once you've lost the weight, has it stayed off?

I have done SW three times in about 20 years. My adult weight hasn't varied that much, probably from 10.5 to 12 stone, and I feel best under 11 stone. I'm 5 foot 7. I currently weigh just over 11.5 stone so could stand to lose half a stone or so.

I mostly follow the principles of lots off lean meat, fish, veg, eggs etc but eat full fat dairy and quite a lot of that. I almost never eat fruit, juice or fizzy pop and never have anything with artificial sweeteners in. Minimal extra fat in cooking, mostly cooked from scratch but probably have one takeaway a week and one ready meal, pizza or fish fingers type meal. I mostly drink tea, coffee and water and moderate alcohol at weekends.

My portion sizes are probably smaller than average - the takeaway will last 2 meals and a chicken definitely does 6-8 portions for me. The attraction of the sw way of eating for me is minimal counting and measuring not large portions.

I also quite like the low carb way of eating but I don't like that if you're trying to lose weight you can't really have any high carb food ever without fucking it up totally for days. It's also impossible if you go to meetings etc where a buffet is provided, which I usually have to do about twice a month. Usually, unless you start pulling the filling out of sandwiches and eating the garnish, there is nothing low carb to eat.

I gain weight because I eat too much crap like cake, crisps or chocolate, which I have several times a week. At least once or twice a week I will eat a whole sharing bag of crisps or packet of biscuits, because I have no discipline and seem to get away with it more than most. A lot of people overeating like this would be much more overweight. This is the reason why people gain weight between diets, it's not the diet itself, it's going back to overeating in the way that made them gain weight in the first place. if you continued with the sw maintenance plan, which is more healthy but fatty stuff and still controlling the junk, you would maintain easily. At the last sw group I went to, there were several members that had done this for years.

My friend was slimmer of the year- actual poster girl- and lost 10 stone on sw but has since put it all back on and more. She is addicted to sugar and SW doesn't break the addiction but feeds it.

Can you please explain how SW feeds a sugar addiction, hun?. If you wanted to follow the plan and totally avoid bread, pasta, sweet foods, whether sugared or artificially sweetened you could.

There are no compulsory sweet or carb foods, except vegetables, which I don't think anyone can have a problem with. Even syns are optional and can be used on fat and avocado if you like.

I found SW to be Bollocks. It's like a cult.
I now eat full fat, I have a slice of toast with real butter in the morning with some fruit, full fat cheese, ordinary cuts of meat etc.
I'm eating a hell of a lot less as a result and I've lost half a stone.
I think there's a backlash against artificial chemical crap food happening and it can only be good imo.

I have kept the weight off.

With everything though it's down To the individual. If you get to target and then go back to how you ate before then of course you will put weight back on. If you stay sensible and follow the basic principles of SW then it will stay off.

There is a reason the sw offers free lifetime membership to Target members and that is because they know it's important that you still stay on top of things.

YANBU

I completely agree with you, OP. The same goes for wegght watchers, which is why so many put the weight back on and end up having to return. There are people who have done Slimming World on and off for years and keep yo-yoing.

People say you don't HAVE to eat the yogurts and that free food does not REALLY mean free food because you still have to exercise portion control. The point is that the plan tells you that a Muller Light is a better bet than cooking with olive oil or eating an avocado. Even the smoothie thing I don't agree with. Yes, a shop-bought smoothie is full of pasteurised sugar and half of it from apple juice, but the same is not true of a bunch of fruit and veg whizzed up in a nutribullet. Infinitely better than hifi bars, flumps, spray-oil, diet fizzy drinks and muller lights, all of which the diet does allow and even encourage. Yes, you don't have to follow it, but what's the point if you're ignoring their suggestions? You could be doing any other diet.

My experience of weight watchers was interesting. There was a weigh in where we queued to be weighed and have it noted down. There was a morbidly obese man behind a table, selling various WW products, including crisps, biscuits and chocolate bars. Lots of people bought stuff and were munching away as we sat down.

The leader, who was visibly overweight herself, explained that she had started out at 19st, got down to 10 on WW but had 'been bad' and regained some so was still on the journey with the rest of us. This was fine, I can totally understand that. She then recommended that if we were struggling, we should replace all of our meals with supermarket ready meals because they have the points printed on the packet and we can really make sure we don't stray off plan.

She said that sometimes she blows her entire 49 extra pro-points on alcohol in one night. She said she works in a supermarket and many times, the doughnuts are too tempting and 'whoops, I blew two weeks of points in ten minutes'. I can understand the value of realising that everyone is fallible, but it can be quite hard when you are seeking guidance and the message is that binge eating is OK/normal.

This was WW- i stopped going after a couple of weeks of hearing that ready meals were great and that i should 'fill up' on diet coke. I have also tried SW, which to be fair wasn't that much better. There wasn't the pushing of products and the leader seemed more in control (although was also overweight herself), but the talk about chocolate and sweets, yet pushing fat free food instead of healthy home-cooked food was similar. I didn't last long there either.

I think WW and SL have a similar record of success in terms of weight loss, so neither is 'better' than the other. Both of them seek to complicate the calories in vs calories out, making people having to add up and convert points/syns. This means that long-term many will give up. And the lack of portion control thing is unhelpful. If you in fact ARE supposed to exercise control, shouldn't the diet tell you to do that rather than suggesting you do the complete opposite?

I agree with sirzy. Getting to target doesn't mean you can go back to not following the plan. I'm nearly two years at target and still follow the plan, I'm just less strict with myself.

As with all of these things it can be as healthy or not as you choose to make it. I use my syns on olive oil, avocado's and eating out, not on chocolate and crisps. I don't use any of the chemical sprays because they are hideous! And would rather syn some sugar occasionally than have sweetener. For me it was having some support and a basic plan to adapt that worked.

If it doesn't work for you, that's fine find something that does. But just because it doesn't work for you doesn't mean it's bad.

I think there is lots of talk in groups about drinking and using syns for chocolate etc because that's where most people fall down. If you say I'm not drinking or I'm not eating chocolate it's unsustainable for most people, which is why SW and ww allowing syns/points works. But as with everything it needs some common sense and not abusing the system with how can I ran as much chocolate in within this plan as possible.

I stand by what I said. Examples of how mind boggling ridiculous sw is:

You can't have a homemade fruit smoothie for breakfast as it contains too much sugar - yet feel free to grab yourself a bowl of coco shreddies.

Extra virgin olive oil (which is very, very good for you) will cost you around 6 syns. Instead, help yourself to a can of "oil substitute spray" which contains none of the goodness of olive oil but so many chemicals you can actually taste them!!!

Then there's all the "hacks" - people making spring rolls with lasagne sheets for fucks sake - looks disgusting, tastes disgusting and you know what, swapping that spring roll with a proper one will NOT make you put on weight - eating 10 of them well ... but thankfully your 'lasagne sheet monstrosities" are "free" so you can eat 10 of them with no ill effects, right? Right.

Just to add, the leader at my group looked anorexic, not slim. I'm 5ft 10 and weight 10st 11lbs. So not actually overweight as such. I told her I wanted to get down to 9st. She didn't bat an eyelid and said it was more than doable.

When I got home I realised 9st would actually make me underweight. Still, as long as they're getting paid eh?

SW do NOT care about your health. They care about your money.