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?

I've lost over 8 stone in the last 18 months on WW, I don't use any of their products apart from the odd chocolate bar, I cook from scratch and rarely use low fat anything, I'd rather have less of the full fat stuff. I also make sure I have some healthy oil every day.

Oh and I agree with the OP about feeling the rage at group members calling it Slimmers World. They can't all be illiterate.

The fact they refer to treats as 'syns' is daft. I syn is apparently equal to 20 calories so basically you can have 300 calories a day in chocolate/wine/pastry, in addition to your fruit/veg/lean meat. I've noticed that Mullerlite yoghurts are no longer free and they've obviously fallen out with Kingsmill because their bread thins are no longer recommended, although they remain less than 100 calories.

Calorie counting is the way forward. Eat what you fancy but account for everything and don't get sucked into the free pasta/rice/pulses nonsense.

My workmate regularly loses a stone a year on SW then puts it all back on and loses it again. She's never actually dropped below 15 stone for longer than a month or two.

Oh goodness yes. Some of the meals are nice but a lot is common sense. Like using low fat meat and veg. But the obsession with cauliflower rice and fucking spiralised veg got tiresome. After a meeting where the leader called me out for not being "committed" enough (i said i was struggling to get to the session after a 14 HR day at work) and that maybe that was why I'd only lost 1/2 lb that week I decided it wasn't for me. I quite like looking at #slimmingworld on Instagram for a laugh at the ridiculous concoctions people make.

I think a lot of people, myself included, would benefit from promoting better self-esteem and dealing with the reason they are overeating while teaching people how to live healthier lifestyles. Such as making exercise more accessible and friendly and teaching people portion control and how to cook on a budget. I was so shocked when I got a portion plate a few years, it really is terrible how most of us don’t know what is considered a normal portion.

Counting syns and obsessing over food is not healthy! No matter your weight.

Yes, what us it with cauliflower rice and cauliflower pizza bases? The very thought makes me want to spew.

I’m 2.5 stone down and I think it’s great. I don’t recognise these descriptions tbh.

People who love SW are the same people who post their weight loss update every week 🙄
‘I’ve lost 1/2 a pound!’... so you’ve had a poo?

Some of the recipes are OK - I have substituted some of my usual ones for theirs, and the idea of a big breakfast is a good one, but I didn't bother with actually joining, just googled the recipes. Some of it didn't look too good like shop bought curry sauce mixes, when I prefer to make my own, but you can take what you like from it. The meetings did not appeal one bit!

Do have a look at Beyond Chocolate- really helpful insights and certainly no talk of diets!

I find it quite shocking that in these days of supposedly enlightened knowledge about the damage that sugar can do that SW advocate unlimited fruit. How can that be good for anyone? And all that carb-heavy pasta and cous-cous ffs.
Let's not even go there with 'quark' - the singlemost revolting foodstuff known to humankind!

Bottom line is it's a cult - it's not that different to MLM. People want to belong to something. Be interesting to know how many SW attendees are repeat joiners - quite a few I bet!

The whole diet industry is a massive con, they can only make money of people put the weight back on so they promote unrealistic life styles to ensure customers lose the weight, then regain it to keep them coming back and back and back again.

A case in point is a friend of mine who joined some form of slimming club every January. She also has a book shelf in her hall that contains nothing but slimming books and DVDS dating from the F plan diet and Jane Fonda aerobics to the present day. Every year she would lose a stone or so before Easter, then relax the regime, start sneaking ‘treats’ in and be bigger than ever the following January. 18 months ago she had a massive heart attack and in the shock of that she started a proper healthy eating plan, low fat, cooking from scratch, loads of fruit and veg, nothing faddy, alcohol and desserts on special occasions only. She also started walking places instead of driving and is now slimmer and fitter than I have ever known her and all without a penny spent at any sort of club.

I really don’t like slimming world, that awful clapathon at every meeting even when someone puts weight on. It’s grim. Team RH for me all the way.

Jengnr

Do you think it it’s sustainable in the long term? When you hit your goal weight are you planning to live the rest of your life eating some sort of SW based plan or will you leave?

i also love the idea that gaining 6lb in a week can in some way be down to ‘not eating enough’.

full disclosure: i lost almost 3 stone with SW after i had my daughter. that was in 2000, and it was red or green and nowt in between. i went again a few years back and it made no sense at all. how can ‘eat what you want, fatties: science will save you’ be a thing? how can unlimited red or green food at the same time (also known as ‘food’) be any good at all?

but only a fiver a week! oh, and the cost of a bottle of wine and a giant kebab on weigh-in night, as a prize for sitting through the dullest hour imaginable. and that hour spent with a background soundtrack of people putting their shoes, cardigans, belts, glasses and earrings back on, like a self-help group based just after Security in a busy airport.

balls to it.

SW on instagram is laughable. Huge plates of muck being created. All beige.

Squatter I hate to bring it up but if you’re cooking healthily from scratch and eating sensible portions, within your calorie allowance, (I’m assuming you’re partaking in a decent amount of exercise too), losing the weight has nothing to do with WW. It’s all you, doing all the things you should be doing. WW can’t take any of that credit. Congratulations

A friend of mine has been going for years and lost about a stone
The concept reminds me of 'fat fighters' sketches from little Britain.
It's too carb heavy if you're diabetic.

I did it for 8 weeks and realised it is a colossal waste of money. I lost 5 stone post pregnancy some years ago just by calorie counting 1200 calories a day. That's all you have to do.

I know of a previous finalist in their national biggest loser awards, who lost over 15 stone, but strangely their bariatric surgery was never mentioned. Just SW.....

I lost 4st on it and have pretty much kept it off for 2 years following the general principles.

But like anything you have to apply it to real life. Any eating plan has to fit your life, not the other way round. I couldn't do it where it encompasses my whole life but I don't think it's designed to do that.

I have never used frylight. I use oil. If I use a lot, I syn it but generally I don't.

I saw a SW recipe for Bailey's that was made from egg and instant coffee. Blgh! Just have the Bailey's and enjoy but don't have a MacDonalds the next day. Or do, but accept the inevitable weight gain.

For me it offers a good guide. I have little self control so need some "rules" and SW is the most practical and easy for me. It also makes sense (mostly) to me.

Some of it doesn't make sense e.g. one blended banana must be synned but eating one is free? So I just use my common sense. One banana is one banana.

I have to admit the reclassification of foods eg Muller lights does undermine the whole principle. I also hate the term "syns" (I know they say it's about synergy ratger than naughtiness but it's not a coincidence and it is parronising).

I don't go to meetings anymore but each group is different.

I think any eating plan has to be tweaked to your life. WW wouldn't work for me. MFP was just a pain. SW is easy (for me).

I lasted 4 weeks before I found it all a pain in the arse, switched to calorie counting via MFP and proceeded to lose nearly 2 stone in 3 months (my goal) I kept going to get weighed as I stupidly bought a course. The consultant was so irritating, texting me every week I maintained (which would ALWAYS be the week of my period with a big loss the next, I explained this to her but she gleefully text me to ask "what's wrong" when I didn't lose) I was only a size 12 so wasn't huge and her bombarding me was quite unhealthy I think. She text me recently to say I had to be kicked out the Facebook group as I hadn't been in a couple of months (target member) I gleefully told her I'd maintained my weight and wouldn't need to return.

“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”

You can use oil if you want though, it just has to be counted... oh and fry light has perfectly fine ingredients, if you actually bother to read them.

“Diet fanta and coke are staple ingredients in loads of main meals”

One, it’s an ingredient in one recipe... unless you mean things like gammon cooked in coke, which is not a slimming world idea anyway.

“£20+ to join”

£5 not £20... also you only pay for missed weeks if you don’t let them know you’re not going.

Now slimming world might not be for you and that’s fair enough, but given half your reasons aren’t true, it’s a bit of an odd thing to post about tbh.

And they cNnot tell you the science behind how they work out a Syn because there is no science behind it.

20 calories per ‘syn’, unless the item contains ‘free’ foods, in which case the calories in the free food is deducted and then it’s 1 syn for every 20 remaining calories.

Oh god, yeah star week! 😂

There are people who just cheat it and wonder why it doesn't work. I also agree it's not the right plan for people who can't manage portion size.