SW is just a weird fucking cult

[Dayzedandconfuzed]

I've literally had enough of people talking about Slimming World (or Slimmers' World shudder).

It's bullshit.

It has the odd decent recipe but generally advocates for really unhealthy food habits and weird restrictions and replacements.

My main issues with it are -

Emphasis on classifying foods as 'free' or 'speed' and don't even get me STARTED on syns.

It makes members act like fucking zombies who talk in halfspeak jargon. HexBEasySp what the actual fucking fuck?

To make anything you need to use FryLight which is a heinous invention. Rapeseed or olive oil spray is 2 cal per spray and is an actual raw ingredient, not some industrial airport lubricant with added flavourings.

The amount of shit you're encouraged to add to your diet. Diet fanta and coke are staple ingredients in loads of main meals which are touted as family friendly, as are spends and other sweeteners.

It is a fucking RIP OFF. £20+ to join, £5 per week and fines if you miss a sesh. I went to a meeting twice a few years back and the group leader still adds me in group chats when attendance gets low cos he's clearly missing the $$$ now that nobody is buying his fucking HiFi bars.

I just don't see that this works. I don't know anyone who has consistently kept weight off with it - most people tend to become either yo yo dieters or shadow ED sufferers.

Why is this still a popular industry that people keep funding even though we logically know it doesn't work?

Before you just scroll past - * please ❤️ read *

You might see one of these leaflets coming through your door within the next few days; as our team of consultants try to reach out to people in the local community, that need our help & don’t yet know about us. I promise you they really are delivered with such genuine passion, care & love ❤️ We know exactly how miserable being overweight & unhappy about your weight can feel. We understand. We don’t want anyone to feel that way & most importantly, we don’t want anybody to feel alone ❤️ We get it - losing weight can seem impossible. But with the unique support that we offer, we know that we truly do have the answer to shedding that real pain & guilt a lot of people experience FOR LIFE ❤️ So, if one of these leaflets lands on your door mat - please know it’s so much more than just a leaflet. It really could be the thing that changes or even saves someone’s life, so we will keep on posting them xxxx

This is what I woke up to this morning on all the local towns facebook groups in the area!

I totally agree. Any eating plan that advocates sweeteners is not healthy.

Have you done sw then OP?

It's totally a cult!
Although that rebelfit is no better.
Used to follow them and participate until I called them out on some bad behaviours. At which point he totally humiliated me on social media and used what I'd said as one if his rants encouraging everyone to do the same. Nasty nasty man. He's local to me so I'm sure I'll see him in RL. I'll either run away crying or shout at him for putting my MH in the worst place it's ever been. Probably the former.

I would have words for that Facebook message. One would start with f and the other one would be off.

I lost 5 stone with SW & have kept it off for 4 years now.
I have never ever been to group or made a cake with weetabix however i do my own weigh in once a week at home.
What works for some doesnt work for others i guess.

I have thought about doing SW in the past but couldn't get my head around the plan or the constant in your face of 'you can eat so much'. Quark is thrown around a lot (not literally and everything seems to have it in. I honestly don't know how quark and an options hot chocolate sachet can be nice for a dessert or even healthy for you? It's bizarre.

I remember one woman telling another off on a Facebook group because this woman dared to mash her banana and she therefore had to syn it. Silly rules like that are not what I'm looking for on a healthy eating plan. I also don't get the obsession for muller lights, they taste awful and are full of crap.. Yet SW acted as if they were the God of yogurts.

I ended up losing the weight from cutting out alcohol & healthy eating my own way.

I think their new "friend" at SW is Heinz as their soups have all fallen in syns...

I have attended slimming world and I have never seen an overweight consultant....

The plan doesn't work for me because, I struggle with binge eating and can't get my head around limiting.

"Please know it's so much more than just a leaflet" picturing Rowan Atkinson in Love Actually saying this now.

My friend has spent hundreds if not a couple of thousand on the cambridge diet and yes she has lost 18lbs but she has been on it for six months! Cant wait until she actually eats properly again and realises that the loss is not sustainable when you eat actual food

If your friend has only lost 18lbs in 6 months on the Cambridge diet then she hasn't been following it properly and has been eating normal food on the side. I've not done it but with the few calories you eat on Cambridge, it would be impossible for her to have only lost 18lbs in 6 months without cheating.

I think it's like any diet, it works for a limited time then becomes unsustainable. I just lost 1.5st in 6 weeks on it but this is the 4th time I've done it and I always pile it all back on eventually. And some of the frankenfood concoctions made by other members are just hideous.
A lot of the SW ethos is easy to mock, but I'm honestly not sure what the secret is to long-term sustainable weight loss/maintenance.

@Groovee ah right, can tell. I haven't been for a while then, didn't know they'd gone altogether! Extra Easy was an option as well when. I was there but you had the choice of green or red as well.

The comments about a consultant suggesting that weight gain has been caused because of exercise and to scale back...actually there is a massive amount of truth to this as damaged muscles need and hold onto water to recover. It’s just a way of telling someone new to exercise to take it steady.

No problem if this was the case. My issue was with consultants telling people they had gained muscle as they had exercised that week. When that just would not be the case in such a short time. I find it damaging and a lie.

The reason I stopped going and it's the reason I stoped weighing myself is I was doing lots of exercise at the same time ( I still do ) . My clothes fitted better I dropped inches but it didn't show on the scales my consultant couldn't explain it. Other people in group admittedly a lot bigger would loose half a stone without even doing any exercise.
Now I never weigh myself I go by my clothes and measure myself.

On Instagram so many slimming worlders eat like normal people most of the day then have a ‘syn tray’ at night that is just loaded with shit
I so often want to comment that if they just had 1 or 2 proper biscuits instead of 75 plus a hot chocolate, ice lolly, hi fi bar and shitty cardboard crisps every day then they wouldn’t need to be paying bloody slimming world

I initially wanted to spring to SW’s defence having lost 3 stone with them since May and feeling so much better! I haven’t had a single Muller yoghurt - they’re not compulsory.

I do get the ‘cult’ thing though, have just had a leaflet through my door for them and remember our (slim) consultant asking if people would take leaflets for their street.

I’ve happily delivered leaflets at 6am at Election time but I’m buggered if I’d do it for free for SW.

I did WW for the first time in 2001; lost 21lbs and kept it off for the guts of 10 years.

When I went back to lose a bit before my wedding, I couldn’t stand the meetings anymore. All they seemed to be about were how to make “WW friendly” cakes (with about 75 ingredients always including several sweeteners) and how to drink alcohol and still lose weight. It just seemed less and less about making healthy choices.

After putting on far too much weight during pregnancy I tried SW online. The main premise of the diet is sensible - eat more vegetables, fruits, lean meat. Cook for yourself rather than using processed meals.

But then there is the loaded marketing; the HiFi bars, the Müllerlights, the Echo Falls. This is added to by social media where people post all the “synned ” chocolate they eat before bed. It’s a total paradox.

A close relative of mine developed Type-2 diabetes in 2014. She went from a size 22 to a size 12 in about 18 months. How? Cutting out processed foods, limiting snacks and eating 3 meals a day. She’s a total inspiration. No syns, no Freddos, no HiFi bars.

Moving more is important too but I average 13,000 steps per day and I’m still fat because I eat too much.

SW doesn’t address the “why” of being overweight and that’s why it often doesn’t sustain weight loss. Along with WW, it’s making someone a lot of money though!

I hated sw, the consultant was as big as a house and then she would have a go about you gaining 1lb! The meetings were boring, took way too long and were just listening to other people's weigh in results.

One of our group worked nights and found it hard to eat dinner when she got in at 3am. Our consultant would not drop this and just kept saying how she wasn't dedicated enough to the programme. It was really uncomfortable and the last time I actually went.

I still get weekly messages about group, during the Black Friday period she sent one titled 'Don't be black this Friday', she really needs to read back her 'inspirational' texts before she sends them out.

SW can be a useful crutch, just kick it away when you can.
Some of the recipes are good, my copy of the Little Book of Soups is in frequent use. Several meals in other recent SW books have been enjoyed by the whole family.
I may rejoin ... Or weigh myself weekly and put a fiver in a jar!!

Works for me.
Obviously Mumsnet is a cult.

I know a couple of women who have lost a shitload of weight doing SW, BUT these women were morbidly obese when they started. I think when you're that overweight and your eating habits are so poor, the likes of SW and WW can 'trick' your body into thinking you've made radically healthy lifestyle changes, and the weight does seem to fall off these people. The fact of the matter is, however, you're merely swapping high sugar diets for artificially sweetened ones. Even the 'good' fats that a healthy diet requires are a big no-no, so all your body ends up doing is chewing up your fat reserves. On the surface, that may sound great for weight loss, but it's not sustainable - or particularly healthy. If you've been guzzling several litres of full fat pop and chomping through lots of chocolate and crisps on a daily basis, you're bound to see drastic weight loss results doing SW, at least initially. But that doesn't mean it's a healthy diet plan.

I remember looking into SW a couple of years back. I was absolutely horrified by the amount of processed CRAP their plans pushed as 'healthy' alternatives. All the ready meals and snack bars ...

I really wish some
Of you fools would not comment on something you obviously know nothing about , the slimming world I know promotes healthy home cooking , fruit , veg and lean meat.

Inspector

@Tim720 - exactly!
Some are seriously missing the point that it really isn't about processed crap at all, and fresh fruit, meat, fish, home cooking, proper food.
There's no doubt that some do SW eating nothing but processed crap and ready meals, but that's not all it is at all.
If that's what people take away from it, there's no wonder it doesn't work for them properly or they can't get on with it.