slimming world or weightwatchers? or something else?

[Poolpurchaser]

I'm very over weight and I know I need to lose it for health reasons and for my own sense of well being.

I'm just not sure what's the best way to do it. I did SW before a while back and lost a lot of weight but my group leader was a bit useless and there was a lot of emphasis on filling up with pasta and those awful quiches that smell like sick. I lost weight but always felt I was on a diet so when I stopped I regained it all.

I do think the general principle worked for me so am considering going back to it. I like the group idea, albeit Id want to try a different group and leader. I also like the accountability of weighing in. If I do restart I also intend to be more aware of portion control this time too as again that was never discussed.

I honestly don't have the discipline or time to sit and count calories. However a couple of friends have done WW successfully and say they prefer it to SW, however they only had 1-2st to lose.

I'm not sure if there is a better alternative. I cant eat much fat. Anything cooked with butter or oil gives me bad heart burn, so I try to avoid that. I am trying to reduce my carbs and increase my meat/fish and veg and will do this whatever I end up doing.

What would you try if you were me?

I like sW but I don't go to meetings or buy any of their weird ready meal nonsense. Or quark. You can fuck off with your quark.

I don't know how you felt like you were on a diet doing it as you can honestly eat so much. Don't worry about portion control at first- start eating the right things and make sure you're not left hungry.

Once you're losing weight you won't feel the need to eat as much and you can deal with the portion control as you go.

I've lost 3 stone this year loosely following Slimming World. I still break it and eat what I want when I go out for dinner etc but largely I am making better food decisions led by the guidelines of the SW plan.

Slimmingeats website is great for recipes.

You need to have the inclination to count calories/weigh things if you want to lose weight and maintain it. The moment you come off any sort of diet or programme, the weight comes back.

Get My Fitness Pal, see how many calories you’re eating now, then modify your diet and exercise plans accordingly. I know you’re saying you can’t be bothered or don’t have time to calorie count but if you’re serious about losing weight and maintaining a healthy lifestyle, then it’s something you’re going to have to find time for, at least until you get a hang of portion control.

I lost almost 4st after years and years of trying ‘diets’ and gaining it all back. Kept it off nearly 5 years now and in that time become a regular marathon runner! It works.

I punted calories my whole adult life, I've struggled with weight loss and hunger and feeling deprived/guilty. Several years ago I tried LCHF/Keto and dropped 2 stone without counting calories, feeling hungry or paying any fees to a club. My weight is stable (and controlled) and I eat nice food without feeling guilty, hungry or tired.

Punted?? Ugh. Counted.

This explains why Slimming World and Weight Watchers are not successful long term.
www.fatgirlphd.com/category/the-scale/

I honestly cannot count calories. I don't have the time or the discipline. I couldn't tell you how many calories there are in anything I eat and I don't want to learn.

What appeals about SW and WW is that I don't have to sit with a notebook adding up how many grams of ham or chicken or potato or cucumber or whatever I've had. Doing that is less appealing than staying this fat forever.

The reason SW felt like a diet was because it was food I didn't like. Quark, cottage cheese, jelly, yoghurt. Those overnight oat things I ate for 6 months and hated. I lost 5st but it felt enforced; I liked some of the curries etc but a lot of the stuff wasn't me.

I honestly don't have the discipline or time to sit and count calories

The basics of weight loss and healthy eating long term is an understanding of calories in verses calories out.

You don't have to count calories long term. Just diligently initially to understand the calorific value of what you consume. In time you'll become a better judge of the approx calories in meals according to what's in them and your portion.

WW and SW both rely on the basics that you need a calorie deficit to lose weight. But they shield you from actually knowing (or understanding) the calorific value of what you eat.

So instead of having a healthy understanding of the food you eat, you become reliant on a subscription to tell you. It's like lazy learning. Just do the learning yourself, it is very easy.

It might be worth your while looking at the WW No Count plan. The basics are explained on the WW website.

Agree totally with you @fatedestiny

Until you’re willing to learn (or face up to?) calories in food then you won’t lose weight and keep it off in a healthy and sustainable manner. Stop looking for short cuts. Weight loss is hard work; if you really can’t be arsed to educate yourself about nutrition then you need to just accept the weight you are.

All you need to think of it as is burning more fuel than you take in.

Crossed post.

I honestly cannot count calories. I don't have the time or the discipline. I couldn't tell you how many calories there are in anything I eat and I don't want to learn

OK. Then start with the basics of healthy eating.

I assume you know the kinds of foods that are good for you and healthy? Vegetables, lean meat, some (but not too much) fruit, pulses, whole grains like rice and oats.

I assume you know the kinds if foods that are not good for you - sugar or foods with sugar in, processed foods (pasta and bread are processed foods), too many carbs.... the list is too long.

So just change what you eat to be all healthy stuff and not unhealthy.

If you want to sometimes eat unhealthy food, you need to have an understanding of the calories in that in order to make sure you keep a calorie deficit to lose weight. So if you absolutely won't learn about calories in your food, gives you good reason to only eat the healthy stuff and none of the unhealthy stuff.

Make sure at least half your plate is filled with veg that grows above ground, every meal. Then the other half is lean meat or vegetarian protein sources, whole grains and nothing processed.

I use my fitness pal. Zap the bar code on your food , it does the calorie counting for you. I've lost 2st 8lb

I'm far too shy to go to meetings etc so SW and WW never appealed to me. It's all down to finding what works for you. I like My Fitness Pal. You type in what you've eaten and it calculates the calories, carbs etc etc for you. I realised I was quite low on protein, which needed fixed. It's also very rewarding to put in any exercise you do (hoovering counts!) and see the calories burned coming out of your daily total. Also, it stopped me snacking, which has been the best thing. If I can't be bothered to type in the snack and what I had then I don't eat it. Simples. It was also very good for tracking glasses of water. Notice I said WAS. I'm not using it at the moment but I really should be again as I have put on some weight following a back injury last year. Best of luck following whatever works for you xxx

The only thing I eat off your list is yoghurt Pool and that's because I like it.

There are genuinely a billion options for things for you to eat out there. I get the calorie thing- I have a mental block towards it. It's bloody boring.

I use a lot of Slimming world recipes for my main meals/prepared lunches etc and eat what i want. I don't eat things I don't like.

Breakfast is maybe a boiled egg, fruit, yoghurt...maybe a pastry for a treat a couple of times a week.

Lunch is always salad (I do love salad) with either chicken or prawns. I get the little packages of them from m&s in the 3 for 7. There's usually some oil in it which would count as a syn- but I'm not fussed- it's 100% better than what I was eating before anyway.

Dinner is very varied. Curries, roasts, mexican, japanese... literally can make a version of anything. And I'll have a takeaway about once a week and not worry about it.

Rather than sticking rigidly to a 'diet plan' just make better choices and stick to them.

I'm just not convinced by Slimming World, in the long term taking people who over eat and giving them lists of foods they could gorge on if they wanted and still loose weight isn't going to do much to repair their relationship with food. I think it could change your shopping and cooking habits, but not so much your eating habits. They would surely eat blueberries and Muller Light when they are bored, fill up on pasta as pp mentioned, rather than learning it's ok not to fill right up.
Hunger is a natural part of the eating cycle, so to me the 'never feel hunger' diets are the fad diets, they perpetuate the fear of hunger with their message. When you're bored of those foods, or are not in control of the menu what will have changed?

How fat are you OP?

I don’t know if you’ve seen my thread but it’s kind of the corollary to this one asking what slim people eat.

I’m VERY fat - I’ve just lost 3 stone with another 7-9 to go depending on how I look (no idea - never been remotely that light).

I’m on a VLCD as directed by my doctor for some heath conditions. Lots of people will tell you different things about lifestyle changes etc but it’s kind of irrelevant if you need to lose the weight of two slim people and your health is adversely affected.

If you want to PM me I can tell you more - I’m not selling it, it’s not MLM etc so don’t worry! I just don’t want to detail your thread but happy to share.

Low carb (not necessarily Keto - look at low carb in the uk on Facebook, it explains it well). More exercise. Start with walking, every day. See where that takes you.

I'm very over weight and I know I need to lose it... What would you try if you were me?

I was 17st 8.5 on 1st January 2018. Week 31 of the year so far and I've lost 6st 6 so far (Just over a stone to go to healthy BMI).

I didn't start with calorie counting. I started with eating healthily. Not some of the time, all of the time. Every day, every meal.

● No snacking - ever. I eat at set meal times only.
● No processed food at all - so no sugary bought stuff, nothing like cakes, biscuits, bars, cereals, ready meals, no pre-made anything.
● No potatoes, no bread, no pasta (but I'm not anti carbs, I eat healthy whole grains like rice and oats)
● Two meals a day (I didn't have breakfast). My meals are big portions but they are all healthy.
● 3 or 4 full veg portions in each of my two meals (not just different types of veg, full NHS described portions of each)

I then started running. Walking became C25K which became a daily 5k run which became alternating between 10k and 5k each day.

I now needed more calories to enable me your run. But I wanted healthy calories. That was when I started calorie counting (on my fitbit app). It helped me to add in extra healthy and filling calories without compromising on the healthy eating.

It taught me a better understanding of calories in verses calories out. It also taught me about watching the micronutrients in my food (fat, carbs, protein) and how these affect my energy levels, ability to run and full feelings.

But I didn't start off with calorie counting. You don't need to either. Just fully embrace a healthy lifestyle and the rest will come.

Among my friends the people who have lost weight and kept it off did slimming world. I lost over 3 stone and found it easy. However, I think I was lucky in that I enjoy cooking, the group I went to was really nice and helpful and I was ready to lose weight. I've never tried quark or over night oats, never had any of their ready meals etc. I followed the plan really quite loosely, so measured out a portion of cereal once, saw that I was previously having way too much so adjusted and didn't bother measuring again. I abandoned the plan on nights out etc, but did generally make better choices. I also found the premise of a third of your plate being veg helpful as a rough guide.

I haven't rtft yet but wanted to recommend the blog "eat like a normal person" - is really interesting and helps change your mindset about food and diets. Also your heartburn comment reminded me about some things I've been reading recently about gut health. "The clever guys diet" by Michael Mosley is eye opening and talks a lot about how eating for our gut health can lead to weightloss and helps with lots of digestive issues. This book is also really informative and has loads of info at the beginning about eating to help with different digestive issues (eg reflux) www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01N2QJHBW/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

Personally I'm trying to move away from the idea of doing things like sw or weight watchers. They make me too focussed on what I'm eating, I don't like viewing foods as sinful (and I don't care that syns apparently now means synergy, whatever sw, you keep trying to tell us that), I think the most important thing you can do is to cut out crap, cook healthy meals from scratch, load up on fruits and veggies and watch portion sizes. And if you want cake, eat some and enjoy it, then move on without guilt.

God I need to proof read, sorry for the typos

It sounds like you're doing incredibly well FATE but but yours is a radical lifestyle change (don't want to call it a crash diet!), you must be very, very disciplined to carry on with it. I think, for most people, cutting out so much would be very difficult , I know I couldn't eat only twice in 24 hours for any period of time. Similarly I wouldn't ever want to input everything I ever eat into an app. Op, you could well get 100 responses on here with 100 different 'what worked for me' stories. Slimming world helped me lose weight, other people go once and hate it. I think the main factor is you and your commitment and motivation. I don't want to be fat and I certainly don't want my kids to be and they are more likely to be as long as they have an over weight parent. I found that really motivating which, coupled with sw which I found easy meant that losing weight wasn't that traumatic or hard for me.

What do you think would help you most?

I've now lost almost 8 stone doing WW and a mix of counting/no count, and I've found it pretty easy really

You don't need to log food or count long term. I've only been doing it for less than 2 months and already I know how many calories I've had through the day or in a meal without needing an app to tell me.

Mostly I just need to calorie count if it's a new meal or thing I'm eating and I've no clue on the calories or portion size for it. As is life with 4 young children, mostly we eat repeats of the same 10-15 or so favourite meals. So there's not vast amounts of constant variety. I know the calorie and macronutrient content of them all now.

InDubiousBattle - it's a complete lifestyle change for the whole family. We are all really loving it and enjoying it so I can't see any reason to change.

I have breakfast now, after my daily run, because I need it. I just didn't when I was morbidly obese and trying to lose weight. Because frankly, I had plenty enough fat storage there to mean I didn't need the extra calories. Now I'm approaching BMI 25, I have less excess.

SW and WW are both cults, go into any meeting and you’ll see it’s full of overweight people full of excuses about why they haven’t lost weight, they design the diets so that it’s not possible for most people to follow it long term so you yo-yo and keep going back to them and paying £5 per week.

If you’re serious about losing weight then you need to learn about calories and eating correct portion sizes, the my fitness pal app is great, you just need a small set of kitchen scales.

I do already exercise although not as much as when I lost weight as I am too heavy to run currently. I work long hours (up to 10 hours a day 5 days a week) plus a lot of travelling so I have to be quite flexible with food. I can't eat all meals before 6 as some people I know do, because I'm normally still at work then. Also I often have to join working lunches so have to roll with whatever is served. We don't have anywhere to prepare or store food or keep it cool either, which is a further limitation. It doesn't make it impossible but it just limits what I can eat and when. I'm also trying to drink more water but that's hard when you can be stuck in a meeting for 3 hours at a time.

I do appreciate that some people are disciplined enough to manage their diet themselves. I need the routine of s weekly weigh in. Otherwise I kid myself I'm fine. Which is what I've done since I stopped SW and now am fat again.

So some kind of class is what I have to do. But if I do return to SW I'm going to focus on the eating veg side of it rather than the nasty quiches, Muller yogs and scan bran. And once I feel I've established a balanced healthy diet I'll work on portion control. I was fairly average size in my youth (mainly because I only ate 1 proper meal a day, lunch was a bowl of undressed salad or fruit) so I have eaten much less than I do now. I do also accept that hunger is to be expected, and that doesn't bother me, but I want to be eating stuff I like rather than forcing myself to eat flaming Quark- so this time I will definitely approach it differently.