To not be convinced that Slimming World works?

[firstnightwemet]

A woman I work with constantly bangs on about it. I dared to have a protein shake for my lunch and got told to throw it away and that SW is the way forward.

I've known this woman over a year and she's the exact same weight. No judgment at all but surely if you're raving about how great something is then there should be results?

Every woman but one I've known who has done SW or WW has lost and put back on.

My dsis and a number of my colleagues do SW or WW and insist that it absolutely works yet the same people join up twice a year - once approaching Christmas and then coming into the summertime. They don't seem to see the contradiction!

In reality I think they probably work for lots of people with a short term goal i.e. Slim into a dress for upcoming wedding, look good on the beach in a bikini and so on, fair enough if that's all the customer is aiming for but for most they're not a long term fix largely because they are very hard to stick with for more than a few months

Admittedly I've not used them but certainly from what I've heard and read there doesn't seem to be a great focus on nutrition so I don't buy the "lifestyle" change line at all. Unless people have enough willpower to ignore the shite convenience food they peddle and cook healthy meals from scratch, they will struggle to maintain any weighloss. If most of their customers actually did have the time, knowledge and willpower to do that they probably wouldn't be in need of their services in the first place.

Realistically their business model depends on customers having some success and maintaining that for a shortish period, then gradually regaining the lots weight and returning because SW or WW "always works for me"!

Doodlebug5 - do you mind if I ask how you got to be having breakfast at Macondalds every day and did you used to think everyone eat like that?
It's good that SW works for you, but I would have thought that dieting by yourself would be easier for you as you were starting from such a high-calorie diet. Not criticising, just wondering.

Runny low fat often = full of sugar. Which is probably why.

When I did WW many years ago. Certain things were the same points. I.e the lighter rice pudding was the same propoints as a full fat one.

Ear slightly less, move a little more and you'll slowly see results. Apparently losing weight at too fast a rate can cause other health problems in itself. One of my WW mates reached her goal weight, ended up in hospital with kidney problems really poorly, the docs told her she'd simply lost too much.

Everything in moderation. Even moderation.

Surely everyone could just save themselves the money and the hassle and follow some basic rules.
Cook from fresh as much as poss
Half the plate veg
Booze once a week max
Avoid bread as much as poss
Move lots
Junk once a week max

Dont get me wrong, I need to follow my own rules. But chucking money away every week for someone to tell me the above whilst also peddaling their syn free branded shite seems ridic.

Own your own food behaviours. I try. And sometimes I fail. But its all on me.

" Unless people have enough willpower to ignore the shite convenience food they peddle and cook healthy meals from scratch, they will struggle to maintain any weighloss. "

I actually think the opposite. If you tell people the only way to lose weight is to always cook from scratch, they're far less likely to stick to that than if you tell them you can have a little bit of different types of food and if you don't always have time to cook it's OK to have some processed food sometimes.

I am not a fan of diet clubs such as WW and SW as another post said they are businesses. Let's face it if they truly worked ie on mindset also you wouldn't see the same people going back time and time again. They are there to make money at the end of the day. We all know it's not rocket science. Eat too many calories adds weight. The trouble is as we all know changing habits long term and sticking to it is hard. Sw and ww just leave you a lot lighter in pocket.

Slimming world is a change of lifestyle.

Any 'diet' is going to fail if you lose 3 stone by healthy eating and exercise then revert to shovelling chips, wine, chocolate and takeaways down your gullet the moment to reach your target weight.

In the main, people with weight problems have poor eating habits - my self included. Oddly since I stopped walking past the fridge and nibbling cheese, having cheese on toast or buttered crumpets as a 'go to food' and eating more fruit instead, the weight has dropped off.

3.5 stone since January.

When I reach my target weight, am I going to revert to my cheese fetish. No. Will I allow my self to get fat again? Highly unlikely. Will I continue to attend the group? Quite likely. Why? because It's quite a giggle and once you get to target its free.

Incidentally - I have an acquaintance who keeps telling me to stop with my ""faddy diet"" (that would be banana and berries for breakfast, cous cous salad for lunch and big meaty stir fry at night) and go to meal replacement shakes and pills. These apparently are the way forward. The only pounds she's lost are to the dodgy company that rubs their hands in glee marketing this stuff to the gullible.

No one drags anyone to Slimming World or any other self help group. Why The Smug Bitches on this forum always seek to undermine others achievements is beyond me.

Quite a lot of the women in my family have been doing slimming world at least since I was a teenager 12 years ago. They're all the same size as they were when they started. I got really annoyed when one of the women started bringing her 13 year old daughter. That was 3 years ago and she is more overweight now than she was then.

I never understood how you can get a syn free whole banana and eat thus mashing it with your teeth but mashing that same banana first came with a whole host of syns. It just seemed daft on wee points like that. I tried it, became obsessed with following it, was persistently hungry but never went off plan and lost nothing. Waste of money.

There is a great thread on the My Fitness Pal forum where people are talking about having lost substantial amounts of weight, it was interesting to see that a number of them found people asked how they did it and didn't really want to hear that the answer was basically eat less move more .

Agree about losing at a sensible rate , I'm aiming at 2lbs a week as have a lot to lose. It used to really bother me at SW meetings when people were asked how much they wanted to lose the next week and said 3, 4, 5 pounds and that was written down as a target. I accept that might have been the individual Consultant though.

The other thing I had issue with SW is consultants who had lost loads of weight and put a fair bit back on so were having to lose again whilst leading groups- came across 3 over the years. It doesn't inspire much confidence in the plan resulting in long term weight maintenance.

I yoyo'd with SW and WW for years and ended up fatter than I was to begin with, just like every single other person I knew there and still bump into occasionally in town. I literally don't know anyone who has lost and kept it off. Even the most evangelical SWer who lost 8 stone is now back where she was and bigger. The only success stories are ones I've read in magazines, and I wonder how many would still be at their target weight if there was a five or ten year follow up.

It worked when I stuck with it, but the need for will power never went away, and I'm afraid for me, and most people tbh, that's what makes diets like this unsustainable, and brings out legions of people criticising us for being weak, when actually a low fat diet just doesn't work for many people, plus the whole diet cult doesn't sort out the mental issues which are the root cause of so many people's weight problems.

I've found low carbing and on the whole it means I don't need will power, I eat smaller meals, I'm not hungry and craving carbs all the time. I still have the issue that I'm still me and certain situations cause chocolate to fall into my mouth , but it's much more straight forward, less faddy and ultimately more likely for someone like me to sustain this long term.

Gwen I'm not suggesting always cook from scratch nor do I think people shouldn't have a treat and I'm honestly not trying to do that thing of "Oh it's so easy, all you have to do is blah, blah". I guess my point is that these businesses know that people are more likely to buy into something that's portrayed as being relatively easy and convenient but the reality is they also know that a high percentage of their customers won't be able to maintain the weight loss and hey presto: repeat business!

It works for me but I'm not evangelical about it. A few years ago I lost over 3 stone following it but a combination of ill health and a divorce meant I slipped back into bad eating habits and the weight crept back on. I rejoined 6(ish) weeks ago and have lost 12lb so far.

I've tried WW, 5:2, MFP but SW genuinely is the only one I can truly stick to. But there were people in my old group who put on weight week by week and genuinely didn't seem to understand if they are their own body weight in chocolate each week they weren't going to lose weight.

Different things work for different people, but banging on about it is tedious for everyone.

Stilldriving

Calm yourself if it works for you great. Other people are not being smug just giving their experience or observation.

Gwen - no I don't think that everyone has them but I know people see them as a treat I see it as a normal breakfast that's why I need to change my mindset. I used to calorie control but it wasn't normal. I'd wedge in three mars bars and eat nothing for the rest of the day. I just have no ability to control myself around crap food. I follow slimming world as it encourages me to eat fruit and yoghurt and cereal but then I know I can only eat one mars bar a day (like a normal person) and not the whole four pack plus half of a cake. People laugh and say oh those cakes are supposed to feed 6 and I can eat a third of it... well I'm more of the laugh and eat the whole lot plus another two bars. And the whole don't buy them their not in the house doesn't work I go on secret food binging and will go to Morrisons in the evening and buy it all. Leaving my card at home also not an option. I just need to change my mindset to a normal person. I tried weight watchers and the same happened. X number of points a day... 3 twixs and a twirl and nothing else.

Just trying to explain for the likes of me yes it is a complete lifestyle change

If SW and WW really cared about weight loss and not profit they'd a) offer their 'formulas' for free and b) they certainly wouldn't have their own branded tables often full of snacks on the tables in the meeting halls, for a price, why not offer these treats for free? After all, you're already paying for the membership right?

The recent they dont offer their formulas for free or reveal them is because the science behind them is incredibly simple. Due to being really poorly I've put on weight due to being on enough steroids on a regular basis to KO an Elephant.
The only advice I have been given by the professionals looking after me is the above. Eat less, move more.

Add message | Report | Message poster FlyingElbows Sun 30-Apr-17 10:36:59
Is RebelFit that bloke who gets right out his pram about how exploitative SW is while simultaneously selling his "expertise" as a personal trainer? That's hilarious. He's obsessed, it's ridiculous. If it's not him there's another one.
To be fair he offers good advice FOC. You don't have to follow a programme. Sure he is a pt and you can buy into a specific programmebut it is not compulsory. His rants make perfect sense especially the ones about children, in particular girls putting on weight through puberty and the positive message that goes with it.

I struggle with the SW ethos when I see people saying they can have unlimited pasta ( highly processed white carb) , mug shots, hi Fi bars and the like but, as someone mentioned, an Avacado is the food of the devil. I just see work colleagues 'going on the plan' handing money every week, buying crap, coming off the plan. Putting even more weight on than before and starting the process again.

Oh and when I hear my colleagues talk about 'body magic' with a straight face makes me want to howl!

The diet industry is built on the fact that almost everyone who manages to lose weight puts back on (and then some).

Unless you stick to the regimen every day of your life, you will not lose and keep it off.

My parents and dbro have all done SW and put the weight back on. They became very judgy and quite smug about what I was eating and how I should be eating the SW way

Dbro even pushed me into going to SW with him, even though I was cutting out sugar and managed lose 1/2 a stone in 3 weeks just by doing that alone.

I tried it for a while and the leader told someone off who had gained weight for eating too much avocado that week . I wasn't impressed and went back to going sugar-free and having full fat products.

I never understood how you can get a syn free whole banana and eat thus mashing it with your teeth but mashing that same banana first came with a whole host of syns. It just seemed daft on wee points like that

I think I posted on here a couple of years ago on a similar thread about a colleague going on about how bad bananas are, that she wasn't buying them anymore, that she had told that they were no longer having bananas as they are just so bad. She and a group of colleagues were going to lunchtime WW sessions at the time. She and another colleague then shared a large bag of jelly babies through the afternoon because those were "free". An intelligent, educated woman. The mind boggles!

Teabagtits it's the way it's processed, from my understanding, and I'm happy to be corrected, the mashing produces more sugars hence the higher points and or syns.

A doctor on biggest loser once said that if all a person ate was oranges all day, they'd still put on weight if he was simply eating too much of them.

As an Ex WW. I think the whole foods having higher points can have an adverse effect. You learn to avoid those foods because of the higher values, if you take out an entire food group, it's just another way of depriving yourself without actually doing any or the actual ridiculous diets out there like the VLCDs. On that note, there was a tense exchange on my twitter last week when a person was doing an 800cal diet and their friend sensibly pointed out that that is in no way sustainable.

Just eat what you like but in moderation and exercise. We're a long time dead after all.

It works for me, I'm not actually a member any more, but follow the system loosely and am gradually losing weight. It works for me because once you've established portion sizes for the things you need to eat in moderation there's no weighing, measuring or recording. You don't have to use Muller Lights etc. I've tried MFP and WW and just became obsessed with eating to the limit of calories or points etc, think about food all the time. SW means you don't really have to think about it, just eat sensibly.

I only know the old plan when they had green and red days.

Red day = meat/fish/veg but low carbs.
Green day = vegetarian/low fat but unlimited potatoes/pasta/rice (you find you can't eat that much pasta anyway).

You're allowed a set amount of treats a day. That's where the jelly babies would come in.

It does work in terms of losing pounds.

But you have to stick to it. That's the catch. And going forward follow the general ethos - either have vegetarian and carbs, or have meat/fish and low carbs.

Personally I find Myfitnesspal the best. Eat what you like - but record what you eat and stick to a calorie allowance. If you want to exceed it, do some exercise to compensate. It fits better with today's lifestyles.

I tried an SW meeting a few years ago. The leader was obese.