How does Slimming World work?

[DrivingRound1]

I put on a few pounds over Christmas so I'm calorie counting till they're off. My friend's doing Slimming World and she's been telling me she can have a jacket potato, cheese and beans every day for lunch and it's 'allowed'. It would wipe out over half of my calories if I ate that, but it's one of my favourite meals. Does Slimming World actually work? I've always thought it was a bit of a scam and still do really, but if it works and I can have a jacket potato, cheese and beans for dinner every day and lose weight I'd be tempted to give it a go. If it dies work, how does it?

I went slimming world and tried it for a few months but the classes were so embarrassing, going around each member about their weight loss... and the clapping
I find it a Very odd group, I now attend weight watchers and I love it

My advice is to download My Fitness Pal and start paying attention to and being honest with yourself about what you eat on a daily basis.

MFP (if you haven't used it before) is basically a free online food diary. Super easy to use and was what i used to lose my baby weight. Am doing a post-Christmas 2 month stint on it at the moment to lose the festive flab.

No one needs some elaborate diet plan to lose weight. We all know the basics- lots of veg, smaller portions, lean protein and move around more.

Mfp didn’t work for me, it did at first but then I became complacent and it didn’t work to make me change my eating habits.

It doesn't really matter what you eat or don't eat. Its the regular weighing that does the magic, no one who keeps getting weighed every week puts on 10 stone. The plan is secondary to that.

Tbh I looked at rebelfit and really it's the same thing but with an extra layer of sanctimonious shite about how it's better than ww or SW because it's re-education, it's not. No one needs telling that eating salad is better for you than eating deep fried mars bars, it's the weekly reinforcement that keeps people focussed on it. The reason staying to group/engaging with the Facebook group works is because it makes a competition out of it.

2cats2many
I agree.
And I also believe that actually looking at your own current diet and making changes gradually that work for you, rather than following someone else's programme gives people a better understanding of their bodies, their habits etc.

The cop out for the programmes is 'we work and it only doesn't work if you don't follow our programme.. well done for losing weight now if you don't stick to our set way of maintaining weight then you'll gain it and that'll be your fault for ignoring the masters of slimming world etc'. Whereas if the programmes worked then people would know enough about their bodies and nutrition and be able to sort their own diets long term.

Based on people i know (only one person has managed to keep weight off), part of me thinks people who spend years and years on diet plans are paying for someone else to take responsibility for their choices and to be cringe-worthy applauded for losing the equivalent of a large poo.

I have done sw many times over the years.
My main issue with it is that it doesn't encourage portion control. It may be a bit better on that now, but back in the day they had a saying "the more you eat, the more you lose".

I am 2 1/2 stone heavier than the first time I went to SW 20 odd years ago, so ultimately it didn't work...though I lost a stone or two a couple of times. I now eat low carb. I find low carb, moderate fat is a far better way of controlling my appetite. I don't get anywhere near as hungry when I avoid carbs. After 20 years of SW, cooking with butter, eating real foods like Greek yogurt in it's natural state and not some low fat version with guar gum in, and avoiding sugary treats is a revelation. I am not losing tonnes of weight but neither am I gaining. I do feel like I have finally found a sustainable way to eat.

SW, WW ETC may work but fail in the long run as they do not address the issues that caused the weight in the first place. Most of us just need a bloody good counselling session to discover why we over eat. Fix that job done.

@Imalittleelf are the reduced sugar and salt ones synned or just the full sugar ones? Thanks

@DrivingRound1

I have never had to eat 1200 calories to lose weight and definitely count pasta, rice and baked potatoes as every day foods not treats.

So my slimming world day would be...

Breakfast- toast with marmite and hard boiled eggs, with fruit, or yoghurt with fruit or overnight oats

Lunch- tuna pasta salad with light mayo and lots of veg, or baked potato with beans, cheese and salad or beef and bean chilli, cheese and salad

Snack- coffee and fruit or ham and pickled onions

Dinner- Quorn and veggie stir fry, spaghetti Bolognese, or low syn sausages with mash, veg and synned gravy.

Dessert- fruit yogurt or frozen berries with natural yoghurt

Extra snack- some olives or dark chocolate (suns)

I used to go to slimming world and I lost three stones. I stopped going nearly three years ago and I've kept it off and not followed it at all in that time. While I was doing it I took up running which I have kept up and I'm sure that it's played a big part in keeping the weight off.

I'm lucky that I've always had a good relationship with food. I've never eaten big meals or binged, which I'm sure helps too. It was more my snacks that put the weight on and lack of exercise.

I think part of the problem can be if you binge eat, just replacing it with huge meals of pasta isn't teaching a healthy relationship with food. Also the more you lose the fewer calories you need just to keep you going so if you eat the same amount at 10 stone as you did at 15 it won't work as well.

My MIL lost 6 and a half stones and she still keeps a food diary every day as she is worried if she doesn't she will go back to her old habits. She is much more of a 'foodie' than me and often says 'I can't eat that'. It works for her but I would hate to have to be like that all the time.

Weight loss and keeping it off is a very individual thing really, you have to find what works for you and it's not easy.

It works if you follow the whole SW plan. You can't dip in and out or mix and match. Didn't work for me as I didn't follow it rigidly but it definitely works if you stick to their rules.

I've done sw before 7 years ago and rejoined at beginning of January.
New pack very much emphasises eating in moderation.
I lost 5 1/2 pounds week 1 and found it very do able.
You don't have to have the stuff with artificial sweetner like mueller lights and the hi fi bars, I haven't.
Basic rule is to have at least 1/3 plate salad or veg. That in itself reduces calorie intake.
Then Lean meat or fish. Yes you can have pasta or rice or potato. Plus measured portion of cereal/oats or wholemeal bread and measured portion of cheese.
I've had homemade chilli, omlettes, stirfry, casserole, baked potato with filling. All normal meals.

It works if you follow the whole SW plan. You can't dip in and out or mix and match. Didn't work for me as I didn't follow it rigidly but it definitely works if you stick to their rules
Exactly. It only works if you hand over responsibility for your eating habits to someone else, go to meetings and get clapped, continue to do as you're told, then once they've taken your money you keep doing as you're told because the gods of slimming world said this is maintaining plans.

Not once does anyone address any emotional issues behind their overeating.
Not once does anyone learn portion control outside of what SW say. What is ok and not is dictated by SW (because heaven forbid people had to learn about nutrition and diet and realise that all the information out there is free to use and inform their own diet).
They're money making machines. Designed to either ensure you fail and keep coming back or become dependent on it.

I lost 4 stone on SW. without feeling too much pain. It's essentially a low-fat, low-sugar eating plan. A Syn is just a unit of 20 calories but it makes it sound more mysterious! Speed food doesn't magically speed up weight loss, it's just their term for low-cal veg. The one thing that I couldn't get my head round was that if you mashed your banana it stopped being free...

It’s certainly working for me. I’ve lost 3.5 stone. It’s taken me ages mind because I’m a lush but it’s just a healthy way of eating. Fruit and veg and protein. It was one of the best things I’ve ever done.

Jesus, Maisy - did you have a bad SW experience? I'm sure it depends a lot on the group leader. Ours very much did address emotional overeating if it came up in group, and you could call her any time to have a more private chat.

I'm sure it's not for everyone but if you like a few straightforward rules rather than counting every single calorie it's a good system.

Op clearly if you normally eat a healthy diet you won't lose weight eating jacket potatoes every day. If you used to eat chips every day and now eat jacket potatoes, then yes you probably will.

I could be talking nonsense hete, but the banana thing always gets brought up and I'm certain I have heard this, and well before I started AS so I never had a problem with the banana thing. Firstly, mashed banana breaks down to look much smaller than a whole banana, so there's a risk you'd eat more and bananas are quite calorie dense. Chewing food also stimulates your saliva glands telling your body that you are eating. Mashing a banana into a smoothie for e.g. Doesn't do that. Also, mashing food breaks the fibre down.Having said that, I don't syn cooked fruit because I know why it's synned, again because it's easier to overeat than fresh, so I just make sure I'm eating a palm sized portion.

I've always been in the healthy range for Bmi but sometimes creep up into the upper part of that range. Have joined SW after giving birth to help shift the extra weight. I'm finding it v helpful so far but more as a tool for getting back to my normal range and would not rely on it for long term educating about eating habits. I can see that with some people it could encourage gaming which would render it less effective. One thing that has really challenged my eating habits recently was ordering some recipe boxes. The portion size for 2 people was wayyyy less than me and DH would normally eat for a meal so am now being much stricter with myself in that regard. plus also stopping eating DD4.5's leftover tea as well as my own

Thethiniceofanewday
I don't buy into thay sort of thing but have watched friends time and time and time again spend money on programme after programme, group after group, maybe if I keep the programme but change group it'll be better.
1 has managed to actively change their whole lifestyle. That's it.

I'm hugely hugely cynical about a business claiming their outcome is to remove the need for anyone to use their services. That's poor business. The catch is that most people aren't meant to pass. They're meant to get somewhere and feel success but then stumble and go back. Or they'll need another plan to convince those that have lost weight to stay with a new programme because they've been imbabird so much and are so much into yhe group that they couldn't possibly plan a healthy meal themselves without paying someone to tell them.

It's not just 95% of slimming world dieters who gain the weight back and then some - it's 95% of ALL dieters. Diets don't work - if they did, every SW and WW class would be full of target members.

SW taught me to overeat. I got off the diet cycle but when I was on it, SW did not teach you to eat sensible portion sizes. They did not teach you to feel what your hunger level was and eat according to that. And they did not help you work out why you were overeating in the first place, and how to break that cycle. They paid lip service to each of those things, but I learned far more about sustainable eating habits from getting off the diet cycle and finding a coach who taught me the skills that others take for granted. How to eat intuitively. How to know if you're eating for hunger or emotional reasons. What to do if you're not eating for general hunger.

@bumblebee39

Sorry I was corrected I got muddled. All baked beans on their own are still free.

It's the spaghetti in tomato sauce which are now half a syn for 100g. That includes the little rings.

It's not just 95% of slimming world dieters who gain the weight back and then some - it's 95% of ALL dieters. Diets don't work - if they did, every SW and WW class would be full of target members.
This ^^
But people get really defensive if you suggest that companies with a vested interest in having a long line of people wanting to lose weight might have a model that ensures a reasonable proportion of people don't succeed.
All the people I know who did WW would go on about how WW was better than any other group, their coach this time was better, the plan was better etc... until it wasn't. Then they left for a bit and went to SW and then SW is the best, so much less faddy than ... the group is so much better... until it wasn't. And then they try other diets and go back to WW or SW. They'll get the usual line about "obviously it didn't work because you didn't follow the meal plan we told you to".
It almost has that almost MLM quality of the programme is always right, if you don't manage it then you mustn't have wanted it enough.

OP, it sounds like you're very sensible and doing the right thing! The only thing that impacts weight loss is calories in vs calories out.

Slimming world works by limiting certain foods to create quite a low fat diet. As fat is the macronutrient that carries the most calories per gram (9 compared with 4 for carbs/protein), this aims to creates a calorie deficit. However, it depends on the individual - IME it works for those who have more weight to lose, and you probably don't fit into that category being 10st!

It's a very simplistic way of creating a calorie deficit without counting. So if you've got the hang of counting calories, carry on doing this! 1200 might be a bit low for you, do you know roughly how many cals you burn in a day? Aim for a 500-1000 deficit, it's sustainable and effective. Good luck!

Well, I can only speak of my own experience but SW helped me lose a ton of weight. Being fully aware of calorie deficit, emotion-driven overeating and portion size didn't stop me from becoming a size 20. After 6 months with SW I'm a size 12 and have been for a further 6 months.

Once you're at target it's free to attend, BTW.

I think there's a touch of snobbery in this thread. Get counselling? Find a counsellor you can see for a fiver a week. I'll wait...

Count calories? A lot of people in this country are numerically illiterate. A list of free foods and an app that tells you how many 'Syns' are in a food are less intimidating than having to 'do maths'

It won't be for everyone. It might be for some people on this thread. It would be a shame if the scorn being handed out puts anyone off from finding out for themselves.