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?

That was pretty manipulative of you.

Slimming World groups can offer a lot more than an eating plan, it may have been a way for your client to make really good friends in the long term.

I think you made a big mistake.

@slashlover It was the sugar free this and reduced sugar that. My daughter reminded me the other day that I got dreadfully I'll the last time I did SW.

Never again. I've been praying to God Jesus and all the prophets to "kill me now" 🙁

Mullerlite yogurts - the devil's work right there.

The only reduced sugar thing I have was switching sugar to sweetener for my coffee.

Maybe you should PM the OP for her miracle diet?

I think you used the woman you 'care' for for your own ends and that is unpleasant at best and abuse at worst.

Don't eat mullerlight (veggie)

BTW, just read my last post and it makes me sound a bit like a GF and I didn't mean to be. Not every diet will work for every person and that's fine.

This was all about you. Don't dress it up in 'I felt so good because they were all asking her for advice for the first time' - because it was YOUR ADVICE, and YOUR smug determination to disrupt the meeting. Own it, ffs.

I know lots of people that are fans of Slimming World.

If it makes people assess their weight issues and lose weight, I can’t be too frothy about it. Some people need the motivation of a group and ‘syns’.

However, I suspect the OP’s scene is an imaginary one.

So you put the person you are supposed to be helping advocating and caring for in a vulnerable position where she could be riduculed over a fucking fitbit well done you

As usual MrsJayy has it spot on. As an autistic woman you make me sick OP.

I understand that you went to SW with your friend and thought it was rubbish. She then went on to lose weight using a sensible method.

What I cant understand is why you went back? Surely it would make more sense to stick to your method and use the SW time slot for some exercise?

So let me get this straight - you both paid for a Slimming world meeting (and presumably to join) which, I know from experience isn't cheap just so you could tell them you aren't doing Slimming World at all?

Well done ... I guess.

I wonder how much control the OP has over her clients food. If she helps with meal planning, shopping, preparation etc then it seems like she has deliberately misinterpreted the SW plan therefore causing it to fail.

Muller light isn't veggie?

Oh no that will teach me not to read labels. No more of those for me then :-( which is a shame I loved the raspberry doughnut flavour.

I agree with the SW consultant. You used your friend's additional needs to, in your own words, cause trouble. Pretty tacky.

Do you have a book coming out?

I have mixed feelings about this. I think it’s a very cunty thing to do to go to a slimming group, have everyone be happy for your weight loss only to turn around and completely demotivate them and humiliate the group leader by explaining their method doesn’t work. However I don’t see people’s point about her charge being exploited, or left out of the group or whatever - if SW wasn’t working for her she shouldn’t be at the group anyway. I just think it was generally a shit thing to do.

She was exploited because OP let it all happen and knew it was coming. The best course of action would have been just not returning to slimming world, instead of OPs so called friend (don’t think it’s a very good friendship if OP doesn’t guide her away from humiliating herself but anyway) standing up and saying what she did.

As OP is paid to be her friend you could (and I would) argue that she’d failed in her duty of care. The way she writes it’s like she’s amused that this girl/woman did it and she (OP) got some kind of kick out of it.

We (autistic people) don’t exist to amuse NTs. It happens more often than you’d think and unless you know how it feels then take it from me, it feels shit.

i don’t understand why you went back?! if you showed her ‘your’ diet, and she had done really well on it, why didn’t you just be happy for her and carry on with it? you sound very strange.

I find it ironic that someone who's supposed to be a "carer" clearly didn't care one jot about the effect this whole thing could have had on her victim, had the girl been met with hostility and anger.

You just loaded her up, and sent her off to fire your bullets for you, didn't you?

A public meltdown would have been fun, wouldn't it?

OP, give up your job. Go find yourself something that's more suitable to your temperament.

Slaughterhouse worker, perhaps.

Good for you!! Slimming world is a massive con! In my first meeting I was sold 3 books, a load of crappy bars found out the leader had had weight loss surgery and that the clients had been going for years without any of them reaching target .... Sat in the toilet with a couple of them trying to do a poo before weigh in, depressing! If they had all gone for a long walk for an hour they would all have been better off!!

Everyone is different in a weight loss journey. What works for one doesn't work for others. I've lost 4.5st on slimming world after completely cheating myself on MyFitnessPal and only losing 10lbs in 6 months.

You should have tried to support your client in her choices. Instead I suspect you have just made people in the class feel bad for her with you and your wooden spoon.

In future think carefully about your choices which are for your own satisfaction and not about supporting your client and being used for your fun.

I think you've behaved terribly to be honest. Just because Slimming World didn't work for your client (because she's basically eaten silly amounts of pasta) doesn't mean that it doesn't work for others.
Then to let her go into the class and basically tell the class leader that's she's telling people the wrong information, just because YOU deem it to not be a good weight loss plan, beggars belief really.
I've followed SW in the past and it DOES work. You're just trying to make yourself look as if you know best - and guess what? You probably don't.
Did it make you feel good about yourself to use your client in this way?!

Good for you!

Only it wasn’t OP was it? She wound up this girl she’s paid to care for and sent her in to do it didn’t she?

@TrudeauGirl Muller light isn't veggie

Just checked the website and apparently that one is, although it's the only one. The rest all have gelatine in them.

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.

Why is it that every poster who's egging on the OP conveniently forgets to acknowledge that the OP used a vulnerable person in order to make her startling revelation?

The fact is, SW is a very broad diet plan that encourages intake of 150ish calories from specific calcium rich foods, 150ish from specific fibre rich foods, a maximum of 300 calories from calorie dense junk foods or high fat foods and the remainder of your intake from foods with low or very low calorie density. How crap a person makes that plan is up to them. It isn't for everyone because certain elements of it can be twisted to fit a shitty diet. Each to their own in terms of how we lose weight best but even taking out the element of using a vulnerable person, the OP still comes across bloody badly.