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?

Oh I'm having a good chuckle at this thread.
I recognise all that's been said having joined and rejoined several times over the years. What really made me decide never to go again was when the "consultant" used a clickety clackety hand on a stick to clap during the meetings at members weekly losses.

I know 3 people who have done SW very successfully, it's not my cup of tea personally, but if it works for them then great. Some people overeat for emotional reasons and so I can see why that culty clappy environment helps them.

Getting more active just isn't the answer if you are 4 stone overweight, you do need to diet for any kind of significant weight loss. Sticking to new eating habits long term is hard but that is true whatever system you use

I agree

Biggest head fuck for me was that they allowed you to drink DIET COKE?

What the shit!

My mum has been going for nearly 30 years.

She still weighs the same as when she started, and if you ask her to explain the diet, she's utterly clueless.

I've lost 3 stone cutting out sugar and watching the rest of my carb intake. I eat small regular meals, and make sure I walk lots with the dogs. It's not rocket science.

It is a pile of shit tbh, I went for a month, lost 2lb. The meetings were just odd, a load of middle age women wondering why they had not lost any weight that week and lying about what they had or hadn’t eaten.

I used my money to join the gym instead and lost the weight much quicker and changed my life style.

Most of the food you are told is “free” or low in syns are foods full of sweeteners and artificial ingredients, how can that be good for you?

Diet Coke, Fanta, sugar free yoghurts full of sweeteners, cereal bars etc..

Just eat fruit, veg, meat and fish, limit your carbs and cut out sugar. It’s not rocket science.

I have never been to SW but one friend has lost 14st and her DM 6st over the past two years by attending meetings.
They are intelligent women and basically did calorie counting and upped their activity level. They would say that the discipline of weekly weigh-ins at SW were vital to their success. Surely that is a huge part of what you are paying for?

#swbodymagic

If I see that once more on social media I will commit murder, I swear it

Never done SW. The thought of calling food syns just makes me cringe!
Lost 5 stone with WW but have put some back on due to ditching it when I got to goal and working in a nightclub made it hard to do.
I 've joined again and am a stone lighter since September but tbh it's mostly due to extra walking and tracking calories on Samsung health app.
I go to meetings so I m accountable to the scales.
Ww is trying to move away from the sugary diet food crap and embrace this holistic approach but come on, let's get real, we all pay in the hope of that loss on the scales despite them now celebrating non scale victories.
Take it with a pinch of (lo) salt and adapt to what suits you.

I honestly think that these slimming groups are a waste of money Sw and Ww . I've done both lost weight but it's like a obsession what to eat and drink it's no way to live . I exercise and only eat when hungry if I fancy a chocolate bar I have a chocolate bar I've lost weight and feel tons better . It's my pet peeve when you know someone on those groups who say I can't eat that don't know how many syns points etc . If it works for others great but I guarantee soon as you stop going you will put the weight back on as they are not teaching you about eating sensibly and exercise. I thought it was madnesses that some would loose ££ but not do 1 bit of exercise. It's a con.

Withoit wanting to sound like a cult member - they do emphasise physical activity and you get awards for that too.

But yeah, the diet coke thing is odd. In one group I went to the refreshments were tea, coffee and various diet drinks. It was such a pain to actually just get a glass of water.

2 chubby cubs do SW friendly meals but it's proper food. They are the right level of cynical about it. They are very sweary and without sounding bitchy they aren't tiny (although I've no idea how large they were to begin with). No frylight in sight and v. V. Limited use of diet drinks or campfire stew!

The only people I know who actually lost weight doing SW (for more than a couple of months) are those who already knew exactly what they needed to do and so just completely ignored SW’s stupid rules and advice and did their own thing. They literally just went for the accountability of the weigh in.

I get the appeal of that 5-10 years ago, but these days there’s so many groups and apps and so on that you can join for free. Just get some online friends to be accountable to. If you feel like you’ll be tempted to lie, get a scale that automatically uploads your data.

I’ve lost 5st in the last 12 months on SW. I’ve done calorie counting, 5:2 and keto in the past but this seems to be working for me. The principles underneath the jargon are common sense: Eat mostly fruit, veg and lean meat. Limit carbs and fat by increasing veg and protein on your plate. Limit things with sugar and higher fat content. Eat until you are full and don’t obsess about weighing and measuring.

I haven’t touched a muller light yoghurt and I can’t abide quark. I don’t use frylight (normal spray oil works just the same). It’s just made me think about what I’m eating and the lack of weighing and measuring (which you have to do with calorie counting) has been freeing.

I find the weekly ‘accountability’ helpful to keep me motivated.

I guess if you don’t like it then don’t do it? But no need to be snarky about it. Seems unnecessary.

Obviously #swbodymagic never appears as a single hashtag. Oh no. It must be accompanied by twenty billion others

Oh I love 2 chubby cubs, their menus are brilliant, very easy to follow and they are great guys.

I don't even know how people follow it. Maybe the book explains it better, but I couldn't work out the whole hex a, hex b speed and free thing. It didn't make much sense but to them it does somehow.

Oh and they insist you must use all of your syns. Why? Surely it's better to use as little as possible? But no, the reason you didn't lose weight is because you didn't eat chocolate.

Ha! Ugh... anything cultish drives my head in. Having said that many years ago you could get their magazine here in scandinavia and I used to buy and read them. Always struggled with weight and even height being 6 ft.. lot for a woman. And always this 2 or 1 st to lose apart from the time I had ED. Support is good, cult not so much! I guess slimming help is always lucrative! Although we all know the trick...

There was a post about this a few weeks ago, saying It was a cult and I absolutely agree with you. I was on it for over a year, I've lost 4 stone and a lot of money in the process! Included getting sucked in buying Spicentice and jd Seasonings! Then I found out that the codes I was using was actually earning the person giving it - commission! Fuck that. The spices also tasted shit (JD Seasonings sausage casserole tasted vile and Spicentice katsu Curry was disgusting as well! I'd rather go Wagamama for the proper thing).

Although I gained 7lb back, but I've maintained for months now. I have learned to be happy in my own skin, eat proper homemade food with olive oil (woo), and to just use common sense! No more counting syns! Ever!

It must be good because my friend has been going for ten years.
Oh wait, she still looks the same weight wise as she did ten years ago....

This is an interesting thread. I first went to slimming world after I had my dd and I did really well and lost 3st 4lb. Then it just started yo-yoing. The consultant isn't really that interested as long as you're paying your fiver a week. Since then I have steadily put weight on and have been wondering whether to go back but last time I went I didn't lose anything so thought maybe it's me but I'm not sure.

@Santaclarita they suggest you use all your syns because if you don't you might feel like you are depriving yourself and go completely off track. So a Freddo a day might stop you from eating a family sized dairy milk in one go. A little bit of what you fancy...

I’ve always said this about both WW and SW. I lost seven stone in a year about three years back and I did it without any particular diet, I just stopped eating shit and exercised a lot. A friend of mine yo-yo’s a lot and her favourite diet is SW. I still remember her informing me how many calories the banana I was eating had whilst she was eating some SW crap snack. That’s the point really, it’s encouraged with diets like that to basically eat shit as long as it’s ‘low fat’ shit. Who even knows what the ingredients are...

I guess if you don’t like it then don’t do it? But no need to be snarky about it. Seems unnecessary.

But people snark about what they generally don’t like just as the people who really like it go on and on about it.

Personally I feel like I was mugged after being told how easy and welcoming it is. I saw that most of the women needed help on why they are over eating and SW meetings don’t do this. They are charging them to be weighed, not offering sustainable advice,

The few things I hated about SW as well (forgot to add):

frylight: smelt like shit and ruined my pans
passata: using passata for every meal!
syn calculator: searching for it manually
grocery shopping: EXPENSIVE!

I know a girl who actually goes to about 4 different places to get her shopping! And she goes proper every day/every other day to buy shit that's low in syns or a hexA/B. I've no idea how she affords it as she doesn't even work! Just an absolute CON!!!

Oh and fucking Margaret Miles-Bramwell (founder of SW), is not exactly slim herself so what the hell? Even she probably knows it isn't a sustainable diet/lifestyle plan but it's all about the ££££.

@OutPinked the HiFi bars and the like are nonsense, I'll agree but if your friend was telling you the calories in a banana, it wouldn't be linked with SW.