Is Slimming World a healthy way to lose weight?

[Whitefeather01]

Just that really. Is it healthy? Sustainable? Is the food nice?

YABU - No, not healthy or sustainable.
YANBU - Yes to the above

Going by the pictures under the slimming world hashtag on Instagram, absolutely not. I’d gain weight if I ate what they ate.

I don’t think so. It doesn’t teach portion control or nutrition. It’s too low fat to be sustainable.

Some people seem to get on with it.

It’s very carb heavy if you’re vegetarian too

No

It is appalling for your health

I've not done SW but I've lost 9 stone on WW, cooking from scratch and not eating any of their products apart from the odd cereal bar

It’s totally unsustainable. You literally buy into a premise and they know that you feel you’ll need to keep paying for sessions to succeed. You need to learn what’s healthy and what’s not for you and totally revolutionise you’re lifestyle and diet. That means eating well and exercising.

Diet will work a bit on its own, but you cannot out-train a shit diet.

I keep my diet simple with a low saturated fat Mediterranean diet and with exercise, lost a lot of weight. And it’s stayed off. But I had to change my whole ethos.

Please don’t buy into something for convenience.

You'll lose weight on it but it's hard to stick too and they tell you to use all your syns up each day on chocolate but an avocado isn't healthy apparently

By hard to stick to its easy to cheat.

It depends what you eat.

I eat a quarter protein, quarter carbs and the other half veg. My snacks are fruits etc. Used to go out for a skinny latte every day and have a cup of tea with a penguin or similar at home most days too. Not remotely anything like the things people tell you on here SW is.

I am just about to stop doing SW after 5 years due to the way they've treated their consultants (this is the latest in a long line of shitty things). They're doing "virtual" meetings through Zoom which are the reduced rate of £2.50 a week (normally £4.99) as their consultants are self employed so have no money coming in. Except they are taking 50p of the money from the consultants so they're left with £2. I don't know much about business matters but a quick google tells me SW is worth £15.5m so it seems petty to take this just to get their share. If you don't comply and pay they'll remove your access to the app

Interesting, thank you!

I tried it and it promoted a very unhealthy relationship with food. It teaches you that certain foods are bad and certain foods are good when in reality no food is bad or good on its own and you need to look at the bigger picture.

Their habit of telling people to stop exercising to help weight loss through loss of muscle mass is unhealthy too.

Most of their consultants are overweight, I think that tells you how sustainable it is long term.

I've done it at least 5 times and lost 1-2 stone each time. It's much easier if you smoke.

For anyone that enjoys eating, I would recommend a low carb diet, which is what I mostly stick to now.

I think one of the issues is as soon as you stop following it religiously then the weight goes back on. I've followed it and did lose weight... But I couldn't sustain it.

It can certainly be effective. I lost around 4 stone. However, it's almost like a cult with all their buzzwords and propaganda.
I dont think the diet is nutritionally beneficial for MOST people. They are quite happy for you to eat 5 müllerlight a day, but olive oil is the devil incarnate.
If you want to prioritize health, you can do it far more effectively at home without paying £20+ a month for meetings.

I joined SW a couple of years ago, and have been in and off following the plan. I did lose weight on it and if family circumstances hadn’t happened I do think I would have gotten to my target weight. It worked for me, however, last year I arranged to get a PT and I told her I was going to SW. she said to do whatever it takes to help my eating but it would eventually stop working. She set up my fitness pal and worked out my macros for me. It made me look at my carbs, protein, sugar, calories etc. I remember being in the shop and I wanted to Buy an Uncle Bens microwave bag rice, and I checked the SW app to see if it was “free”. It wasn’t and I noticed another rice that was free, but when I checked the calories, etc the one I had originally picked up was much more healthier than the one that was “free” on SW (confused).

Another thing that confused me with SW was you can eat a banana, so you can slice it up and put it on a sandwich and when you eat the banana it will be mashed up with your teeth biting into it BUT if you mash the banana onto the sandwich then eat it, you have to syn it........(Really confused) .

I have done it in the past and just find the recipes so disgusting. Everything involves sweeteners or quark or some other horrible addition you wouldn't normally eat. I found it really depressing using those types of ingredients to make poor imitations of food I previously enjoyed. Macaroni cheese with quark was like vomit. I'd rather be chunky.

I found it very healthy. Half your plate full of veg, a good quality protein, limited bread and dairy. They encourage daily exercise too.

People focus on the 'unlimited pasta' thing, but if half of your plate is veg, and you have a decent amount of lean protein on the there, how much room is left for pasta?

Avocado's are high in fat, it is good fat, but it is fat. They don't say don't eat that but eat chocolate instead. Utter bollocks. They say eat it but syn it.

It doesn't address over eating per say. They encourage eating until you are satisfied, but eat the right foods.

They do not say eat all your sysn a day, but between 5-15.

It is a good diet if you have a lot of weight to lose and encourages variety.

Oh, I also never buy quark or their bars 😁

Some of the recipes are okay, some are a bit questionable.

People balk at the use of sweetener yet have been using high amounts of sugar, salt and fat so far to be in a position where they are considering diet plans like SW.

It's about being sensible.

I'm not sure why it's being called unsustainable or unhealthy?

It's literally eat as much carbs, veg, fruit, meat, eggs and fat free dairy as you want and limit how much fat you add to your diet.

Never done slimming world per se but I eat basically as one would on slimming world with no thought and I'm a healthy weight and eat well. Know lots of people who have told me all about their new slimming world diet and it's literally just how people ought to be eating anyway 🙈

@Whitefeather01 I was listening to a really interesting podcast about research a Brazilian researcher did into how a diet high in ultra-processed food is a major factor causing obesity. I found it really compelling.

www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2020/mar/06/how-ultra-processed-food-took-over-your-shopping-basket-podcast

Worth a listen.

As @UnfinishedSymphon says, cooking healthy meals from scratch is a good plan and might be a real game-changer for you (if you don’t do this already). I personally don’t think you need to buy into something like SW or WW to lose weight.

I lost one and a half stones so happy with that but I dont agree with all the artificial sweeteners, etc. I just stick to a low carb diet now. I guess you have to look at it as a way of shedding weight as it's better to be a healthy weight than not iyswim

Wubbawubba it’s deemed unsustainable because 95% of people gain back all the weight and/or more within a couple of years. It’s deemed unhealthy because it doesn’t address binge eating habits, in fact it perpetuates the binge/purge cycle. And yes, I did SW, got to target, gained back all the weight and more within 18 months.

OP have a look at Rebelfit, he’s trying to help people move away from dieting and is particularly critical of SW.

I was just waiting for someone to mention the banana thing its to stop people blending bananas or any fruit and drinking it as it is not as filling and will lead to over eating of the fruit.

I follow sw sucessfully but it is true when you stop you pile it on again as you haven learnt nothing about portion control or calorie content of food which is key to weight loss.

The good thing about any slimming club is the accountability of getting weighed if that works for you of course.

Honestly I think you would be better off counting cals and having high protein, moderate fats and moderate carbs.

Nutracheck is a much better app than my fitness pal as its based on english foods and measurements and theres no random member added foods like there is on mfp.

*followed