I lost 6.5 stone on SW in 11 months. Nearly 18 months after I’ve left SW, most of that is back on.
So SW is a low fat diet. Which means you are buying low fat products, usually containing more additives, sweeteners and other chemical shit to make it taste nice. This is why avocados are synned but muller lights were free (have a small syn value).
It does have some redeeming qualities, if you look hard enough. For example, encouraging a third of your plate to be speed food - this is fruit and vegetables that are low in calories and high in satiety. The rule of thumb is that every plate should have a third speed food on it. What people didn’t get was the third speed, you were meant to take something away - like pasta - and replace it with speed food, so cut down the pasta and put a side of salad on your spaghetti bolognese. Or that sometimes you didn’t actually need speed food and piling it on is just unnecessary calories - if you want a cheese omelette, have a cheese omelette you don’t need to add a salad or a tin of tomatoes or other speed foods (unless you are hungry and want them).
SW encourages the overeating of ‘free’ foods like pasta and rice. Look at SW on Instagram and you’ll see the size of portions that most members are having. It also encourages tweaks with free food. When I was there, there was a weight watcher wrap that was a healthy extra B (so you get one free of this every day) and people would make a ‘pizza’ out of it. It’s not pizza, not even close. But you trick yourself and members (and Facebook groups and threads and Instagram) will encourage you and you’ll get swept up in the madness.
What SW doesn’t teach you is the value of calories. So a little bag of chocolate buttons will be about 100 calories, nothing to tip you over the scales in a day really, but be about 5 syns (you had 15 per day). If you want some chocolate, have a little bag of buttons. SW will tell you not to use those syns unless you really, really, really want them and to eat free or speed foods instead. So you’ll eat a banana (100 calories), have an apple (50 calories), have muller light yogurt (100 calories and 0.5 syn), 2 boiled eggs (120 calories). You still won’t feel satisfied so you’ll have the little bag of buttons anyway (100 calories and 5 syns). However, then you feel like you have failed because you couldn’t say no to the chocolate, so you’re sad and have another pack, then you think fuck it and have a G&T and stop counting syns. You think you’ve messed the week up now so order a pizza, and have a share size bag of chocolate... Had you realised the value of calories and how many burnt calories it takes to lose a pound (3,500 calories over the week) you’d have just had the chocolate and been content, with SW you ate an extra 300+ calories you didn’t need, felt bad and then ended up going way over the calories you needed.
In my group they clung to the myth that muscle was heavier than fat, so working out you’d get heavier. 1lb of muscle weighs the same as 1lb of fat, you will not get heavier by working out. However, 1lb of muscle is denser than 1lb of fat, so it is smaller than fat. However, that myth meant that people were discouraged from exercising by the consultant. The most exercise someone would do is walk for about 40 minutes, once.
As I said, I did well on SW whilst I did it. The group weigh works well to hold you accountable but the food system is not healthy long term. I spent a number of months using the scales and accountability but counting calories with my fitness pal. The problem came when I stayed to group and everyone wanted to know what I’d eaten (because people cling to your success and will try to mimic your weeks exactly). However, I’d eat honey, avocado, full fat yogurt - things that were synned and people didn’t want to syn (I didn’t syn those things) and in those weeks I was eating about 300 syns but maintaining my calories. I was miserable on SW. It really messed with my head and it’s why I’ve put so much of it back on so quickly because the restriction was so obsessive. When I would eat out, I would ask for a steak and jacket potato, no butter, as it’s free on SW. That gets old quick though. I didn’t like having dessert or wine if we’d gone out because even if I’d saved all my syns, I couldn’t work out how many syns something was. I would go to chain restaurants and have the dessert that I could find in the syn database, not the dessert I wanted. For my birthday, I went to pizza express because I could work out the syns for that. I saved my syns all week, had the tomatoes for a starter because garlic bread would have been too much, a pizza and a dessert. That was it for the week. I couldn’t even let myself go for a week, probably because I knew if I did give up control as it’s so restrictive it’s hard to get it back.
If I were you, I’d continue with the gym. Get that established as a habitat. As you get stronger, fitter, you’ll want to get fitter still and so then start looking at diet. Look at my fitness pal. It’s a pain to start with, as all diets are while you get your head around it. Set your deficit quite high so you take it really slow. If you take it slow you’re less likely to restrict yourself too much and the weight will more likely stay off. SW works for a quick weight loss if you’re disciplined but it’s going to mess you up long term.