To have encouraged the woman I care for to cause some trouble?

[SlashsSnake]

Basically I am employed by a family to be a friend to their daughter who has additional needs.

The daughter wanted to lose weight and told me she'd like to join slimming world. I went along with her and she joined up. First meeting was horrendous, all this bollocks about "unlimited pasta" and free foods, making cakes with weetabix, avocado having shot loads of "syns" but a sugar loaded cereal bar being free ... I told my friend that it was a load of shit designed to con people out of money. She wanted to try it. 3 weeks in shed lost a total of 1lb as she'd been living on pasta basically.

I challenged her to follow my diet for 2 weeks (basically based on MFP and Fitbit). 2 weeks later she'd lost 7lbs. She was ecstatic. I told her we should now go back to SW and tell them how she'd lost weight. She was excited about this as it would mean helping the others.

Do last night we went to meeting, the woman cheered and whooped at the massive weight loss and during the meeting she was asked what she'd been eating.

So she recounted things like "cheese omelette for breakfast, mackerel on toast with a packet of crisps for lunch, chicken curry, rice and bahjis for dinner, a chocolate bar on the night" etc etc

Everyone went quiet and someone asked if she'd been counting her syns. My friend said "no ive been counting calories because they actually exist whereas suns don't" (autistic so can be rather blunt). The leader then went on about how sticking to plan will ensure long term weight loss and crash diets don't help. I stepped in and explained that she'd been wearing a Fitbit for two weeks and her calories, although some days high) was always less than what she was burning and scientifically, that is the only true way to lose weight. The other group members started asking questions, the leader tried to move onto someone else but they all were more interested in my friend at this point. After the group the leader asked me if I'd purposely come to the meeting to cause trouble and did I realise I was exploiting my friends learning difficulties by recruiting her to cause trouble. My friend loved every minute of it, for the first time in her life, people were asking HER for advise. Her confidence is sky high. So WIBU to encourage my friend to stir the shit a bit?

I've had ZERO success with all the slimming groups
You make you point by leaving and not buying their products
Not sure what you were hoping to achieve? why not set up your own support group using your methods, be prepared for when someone comes to disrupt and humiliate you though....

You absolute arsehole. You are employed to CARE for that woman not use her in your pathetic attempt to discredit a diet - fuck what you think, fuck what happened with the weight loss you absolutely should not have gone back there after the diet wasn't followed. That stinks of you causing trouble rather than the young woman needing to be there (she didn't do the diet, she didn't need to go, she didn't need to pay for a weight loss class).

By the way, SW isn't about the eating pasta so of course she only lost a tiny amount if that's all she lost.

I have a relative who has carers who we employ to help her live an independent life. I think it's great when people listen to her and value what she thinks and says - but I'd never take her into a room full of people who have gathered for a purpose and make her discredit them. Any carer who did that would be sacked by us and reported to social services.

Find another job, you are not the type of person a vulnerable person needs around them.

You have over-stepped boundaries in more than one way. Quite apart from the shit stirring at the group your whole behaviour over the diet is inappropriate. It's one thing to accompany your "friend" to a popular diet programme with an outside teacher - you can keep an eye on what they are doing and speak to her family if you think the group is a problem. It is quite a different thing for you to start giving her diet advice and to put yourself in charge of her diet programme without their knowledge.

So, did you consult her parents about changing your "friend's" diet from SW to your own diet? Has she consulted her own doctor? 7lb in two weeks is a high weight loss, is not sustainable for most people and for other people it could lead to under-eating. Does she have a target weight? You do know that many people with autism can easily get obsessed, are you sure she will be able to stop dieting?

(I have put the word "friends" in scare quotes because you are not friends on an equal footing. you are a paid befriender of a vulnerable adult, and you have responsibilities towards her and also towards your employers that ordinary friends do not have.)

As an autistic woman with autistic children: I don't mind the giving of an alternative, I don't mind you supporting her in going to the groups.

You shouldn't have stepped into the conversation to discuss the 'one true way' - you were there to support her, not to talk for her - and you certainly in absolutely no way should take her back for the purpose of causing trouble or stirring things up. Seriously, if her social needs are such that she needs a paid companion then as the paid companion you should act like a friend and not put her into antagonizing situations for kicks. Do you have any idea how overwhelming to the point of physically painful it can be for some autistic people when we're put in that kind of situation? You really should if you're acting as a social carer for an autistic person.

Also, calories are a unit of measure. Syns are a unit of measure specific to this programme. Both exist as something people use to measure food. That one is pretty universal and one is specialized doesn't change that. If you were the one who told her that, then maybe you have your own rigid thinking issues to work on.

Hi OP, I think what you have done is brilliant. As you said it has helped her confidence and also teaching her how to manage her weight.

Ok so maybe you also tried to prove a point to SW but you did give her a chance to try SW which was not working and showed her a better way.

Personally just like you I find SW a con.

Instead of wasting her time and your time going to a slimming club why don't you use the time you are paid to be with her and find an activity you could both enjoy and that would encourage her to be more active? A walking group, yoga, bums and tums, swimming etc. you are not helping by taking her to a group that will probably end up confusing her about nutrition and be a negative experience.

OP, you are right about Slimming World in some aspects.

Did you consider this though

1. SW leaders are employees, not bigwigs in jobs who earn a set salary. Her money comes from the members who attend her class. She has to keep in touch with them weekly, support them and run social medias etc to build a relationship so that they keep coming. Next week she may have a lot less members.
2. People who are losing weight are already WELL AWARE of calories and extra calories burned from exercise. They may not WANT to log every calorie as it is time consuming and prefer to follow a plan
3. By "going back" to show them all how wrong they are, you actually just looked like a smug prick and did this to suit yourself and your own beliefs.

No one is MADE go to SW, they choose to just as you choose to use MFP. If you stick to proper SW (not the unhealthy version people seem to go to ) for the same length of time as MFP then you would probably lose as much.
Pasta for a week is not SW.

You have used, exploited and taken advantage of a vulnerable person in your care. You deserve to lose your job for this.

^^ This in spades

Wow. OP, did you by any chance try to get into drama school and failed?

Why would you deliberately do something so antagonistic? Did it occur to you that your employer (and she IS your employer, by proxy) might not get a positive reaction from the confrontation?

Did you even consider how she'd deal with it, had it not been greeted with breathless gasps of awe as you both arrived to set the poor deluded fools free from the tyranny of making their own fucking choices?

I don't do SW but I know it works for a LOT of people, it also doesn't work for some. It's not your place, you patronising git, to "enlighten" the rest of the population to the "truth".

Honestly, I'd have punched you right in the mouth. That SW leader deserves a medal for being as circumspect and mellow as she was.

I think you used her to score points against SW. I am very uncomfortable with the approach you took. You have effectively engineered a socially vulnerable person you were supposed to support becoming alienated from a possible support group to prove your point.

Come back OP!!

If one of my son's (he's also autistic) carer's/buddies did that with him,I'd have created such a stink about it. I'd want them to be at least on a final warning from work and kept well away from vulnerable adults/young people! In my mind,yes you were being VERY unreasonable!

SlashsSnake. Why did you feel the need to go back? You did not like the way they operate, fair enough, but you have no right to go back and tell others what they should and should not do. You seen to have a rather high opinion of yourself. Not only that, you use a vaunerable person who you are employed to protect to further your own campaign against SW.

OP I think what you did was great, why shouldn't she challenge people who are basically trying to con her, Slimming world is a crock of shit and nutritionally people are doing themselves a great disservice as when it comes to growing older that's where the health deficits will be seen and that's when its too late.

Regardless of my views on slimming world etc, what you done was way over stepping the mark. Unbelievable.......

You sound like a know it all, if I'm honest.

As a Support Worker/Carer you should be supporting her interests, beliefs and goals - not influencing her decision based on what YOU like to do.

If you used my vulnerable daughter as a pawn like this you would never be allowed near her again.

Wow, massive overstepping of boundaries. You exploited the person you are supposed to be caring for to push a personal agenda.

So you went back to the meeting to what? Gloat? Try and convince members to leave and join your new diet program? I don't understand the motive at all.

I hate all those companies and their crappy, not nutritious fake food. But guess what, I don't buy it or join them!

I don't like the way SW refer to 'Syns'. It's as if they are encouraging you to think of food as sinful and you are only allowed to sin so many times in a day.
That is an unhealthy attitude to food right there.

Pretty poor show OP using her like that. What was the point in going back to class and gloating like that? I'd have kicked you out if I was the class leader.

As it happens, SW most definitely doesn't work for me. Ok I've lost a stone in 2 weeks but that's because everything they suggested I eat gave me the runs! When I texted my group leader to explain why I hadn't been back (because I've been shitting my brains out!), she says she can't wait for me to come back and get my first stone award! No chance am I going back! I'd be getting that award under false pretences

What is wrong with you?

Ok so maybe you also tried to prove a point to SW but you did give her a chance to try SW which was not working and showed her a better way.

But OP didn't. If all the friend ate was pasta then the plan was not being followed correctly. Everything that was mentioned in the post is SW friendly food is part of the plan.

I don't like the way SW refer to 'Syns'.

Stands for synergy, as in you have to follow all 3 parts of the plan.

Ok I've lost a stone in 2 weeks but that's because everything they suggested I eat gave me the runs!

What are you eating? Lean meat/fruit and veg/rice/pasta/etc. should not be causing that.

Oh finally!! I 100% agree with you!! when I went to SW everyone was overweight inc the leader- i eat healthy and wanted to go to drop about 7lb. Oh my gosh, i don't eat carbs in the night and couldn't believe how pasta and other high carb foods were FREE! No i agree with you, and your friend is ovb happy and learning how to eat healthy with normal sized portions!!!!!