To think that Slimming World just doesn't work

[insomniasucks]

Ok, so I have been following SW for a week and have lost nothing! Exactly the same weight as last week. What am I doing wrong or does SW not suit everyone. Here is a typical SW day for me:-

Breakfast: 3 eggs scrambled in Frylight, tomatoes and mushrooms fried in Frylight, slice of wholemeal bread from a small loaf (HexB), cup of tea with milk from allowance (HexA)

Lunch: Batchelors Pasta N Sauce Cheese & Broccoli made with water (2.5 syns), jacket potato and a huge salad (lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes, beetroot, onions) balsamic vinegar

Dinner: Either syn free Quorn lasagne with HexA 30g cheddar cheese, salad and maybe syn free chips cooked in Airfryer or syn free Quorn curry and rice, or jacket potato with salad, or roast Quorn dinner with Frylight potatoes and loads of steamed vegetables

Snacks: Fruit, syn free homemade soup made with loads of speed veg, sometimes homemade crisps in AirFryer, Fage yoghurt with frozen fruit

Help! 😩

I use an app called LoseIt! I told it I wanted to lose 1.5 lbs per week and it tells me what my calorie allowance is. It communicates with my Fitbit so I can earn extra calories. As I put in the foods I’ve eaten, it calculated my fat, protein, sodium, carb, etc intake. I’ve lost 33 lbs and am within a pound of my goal. I actually ended up losing a little under a pound a week. If I eat too much at lunch, I adjust my evening meal to stay in my calorie range. And if I don’t eat enough, I adjust my snacks. It all comes down to the numbers for me.

Fry light IS free

Thats a lot of food.I can't lose on that amount

@ChicCroissant

You're not doing this through a group though, are you? Otherwise you'd know about the healthy choices and have a set amount of syns per day.

My DH is doing SW, he's lost a lot of weight on it so I know a little about it.

Presumably if a third of your plate is the speed food, you are still eating the same amount - or more - of the speed food than pasta?

I think you are doing your own interpretation of SW!

Yep a third of my plate is always speed food.

I didn't lose any the first or second week of slimming world but then I had steady losses every week after that. I lost just under 2 stone in 6 months. I found it very helpful but you need to also be sensible yourself for it to work

“Yep a third of my plate is always speed food.”

So you’d have normally eaten 5 eggs for breakfast?....

@StuffThem

Diets don't work. This study has the lowest of all the figures I see, most are much higher.

newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/Dieting-Does-Not-Work-UCLA-Researchers-7832

If slimming world worked long term, their sessions would be PACKED with members at and maintaining target. Some people do lose weight and keep it off - most don't.

Best advice - read up about why diets don't work. Address the reasons why you're overeating. That's much harder, but much more sustainable.
I did slimming world on and off for years. I reached target twice. I put it all on and then more, much more.

Slimming world taught me to overeat. I'm not exaggerating. The official guidance and in your handbook you'll have the hunger scale but how much of your consultant's time is ever spent on making sure you're only eating when hungry and listening to your body's satiety signals?

I'm having consultations with a nutritionalist now. I'm finding what they're suggesting infinitely more sensible, healthy and sustainable than slimming world. They're more interested in me eating (high quality, healthy) protein and fats and getting my carbs from vegetables than portion sizes or free foods. I've already done a couple of courses with a specialist who helped me work out why I was overeating and address the reasons why and set up better listening to my body and healthier strategies.

Fry light, artificial sweetner, muller light yoghurts and green days full of pasta, potatoes and rice - I've done it all, extensively. It's not the answer. I hope you find what works sustainably for you 💛

THIS. Diets don't work (long term) and they damage your health, metabolism and lead to weight GAIN in the long term.

I'm frequently amazed by the amount of diet chat on MN... it's almost as though there is a powerful diet industry that has something to gain from most women not knowing that diets are damaging and ineffective

Look up intuitive eating. Susie Orbach, Paul McKenna etc - it's all the same message - eat when you're hungry, stop when you're full, taste every mouthful. Enjoy moving your body. That's it - and you can have a healthy and joyful relationship to food instead of this INCREDIBLY depressing diet chat that makes me want to gouge my eyes out tbh

@QuimReaper

It's what's allowed.

Again OP (sorry for the multiple posts) this is classic. You sound almost like you think losing weight with slimming world is a question of following the rules and then being rewarded, like it's a video game or something.

I do like following rules.

It's been a week.

I lost weight quickly, by sticking to SW fat free and eating loads, but if you are eating carbs, there has to be no fat at all, for it to work. It is not a healthy way to eat, and as soon as you diverge from the diet, the weight goes back on. I think low carb is better.

@Turkeydrumstick

It’s about finding the diet that works for you. Slimming world reduces your calories intake by reducing your fat content. I found my portions were massive on slimming world because the food isn’t satisfying- carbs don’t fill me. I cut sugar, reduced my carbs and upped my fat content. I eat much less but am fuller because a higher fat diet works for me.

This is what I need to do.

But if I gave up the carbs, there wouldn't be much else to eat as I'm a veggie.

Replace your carbs with protein. Eggs, beans, lentils, nuts, tofu, quinoa, green vegetables. Do they still put the P next to high protein items in the free food products section of the book?

This.

But also... lentils, quinoa, beans and quorn are fairly carby in themselves. So OP could try for example a 3 bean chilli without the rice or potato.

If you can work red days as a vegetarian, I'd be impressed, and you'd probably lose weight.

You'd be more satiated and lose weight more sustainably if you ate eg. Poached egg and avocado with spinach topped with toasted seeds for breakfast, houmous (made properly with oil) and carrot, cucumber and red pepper crudités for lunch, and a tofu or tempeh stir fry with stir fry veg and a peanut satay sauce, hold the rice for dinner. That's too high fat to achieve on slimming world, but trying to be satiated without fat is likely why there's so much carb in there.

@hadtojoin

I was also suspicious of their scales. Some weeks almost all of us had stayed the same or gained weight, ( dispite what our own scales said) then the next week most of us had lost. One of the local leaders was actually sacked for altering the scales.

A third of your plate should be vegetables. It’s not a huge plate of pasta and a huge salad, for example. I use some of the SlimmingWorld principles; I serve out my meal and ensure at least a third is my veg.

@slashlover

Then SW need to be clearer.

If you're having lasagne and chips or a roast and chips then are you 100% sure you are having 1/3 veg? That's a LOT of vegetables.

It's a small portion of lasagne and about 10 chips. The speed food definitely covers a third of my plate, if not more.

@SomewhereInbetween1

Sounds like SW have conned you and they should be ashamed. It is unhealthy for foods to be packaged as "good" or "bad" just cutting back a little but still allowing yourself some of what you enjoy should mean you begin to see progress. All or nothing diets rarely work on the longtime, your body needs carbs, and fats and sugar, just load up on veg first! 🙂

Good tip! Thank you.

@insomniasucks if you're really worried about diabetes then you seriously need to cut down on the carbs.

I get that it's harder as you're a veggie, but it's really possible.

Rose Elliott has written a whole veggie low carb diet plan (with recipe book to go with it).

Not only are you eating far too much overall, you're also eating too many carbs - which means I'd put money on you being hungry all the time!

@Viviennemary

It doesn't work for everyone. The amount of carbs you are eating is reaĺly high. I got bloated and got indigestion on the SW diet.Hated it.

I wouldn't normally eat so many carbs.

@insomniasucks

Ok, so I have been following SW for a week and have lost nothing! Exactly the same weight as last week. What am I doing wrong or does SW not suit everyone. Here is a typical SW day for me:-

Breakfast: 3 eggs scrambled in Frylight, tomatoes and mushrooms fried in Frylight, slice of wholemeal bread from a small loaf (HexB), cup of tea with milk from allowance (HexA)

Lunch: Batchelors Pasta N Sauce Cheese & Broccoli made with water (2.5 syns), jacket potato and a huge salad (lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes, beetroot, onions) balsamic vinegar

Dinner: Either syn free Quorn lasagne with HexA 30g cheddar cheese, salad and maybe syn free chips cooked in Airfryer or syn free Quorn curry and rice, or jacket potato with salad, or roast Quorn dinner with Frylight potatoes and loads of steamed vegetables

Snacks: Fruit, syn free homemade soup made with loads of speed veg, sometimes homemade crisps in AirFryer, Fage yoghurt with frozen fruit

Help! 😩

First off a quick tally on calories for that days is around 1400 before any snacks or milk for tea is included. You say you have fruit as a snack which although good for you it is full of sugar and therefore calories. You are having a packet of pasta which made even with just water will have 400 calories plus a baked potato which will be at least 150 -200 plain. An apple, a banana and a small handfull of grapes will easily add another 200 - 250 calories. Fage yogurt even the 0% fat one has 54 calories per 100g so a small portion of that with some frozen fruit will add another 100. Add mil for tea/coffe etc and there is another 75 So even on a day where you are only having 3 meals plus a couple of bits of fruit you could easily be on at least 1700 calories so unless you have a huge amount to lose ie 6+ stone chances re you are eating too many calories. Slimming world I know does not use calories but the plan is worked out based on calories as are most. They just package it up and sell it to members as something new and different. Something being syn free or from your healthy extra or, whatever other catchy phrase any particular diet group may use does not mean that you can eat unlimited quantities. Even your healthy syn free veg soup will have at least 50 - 75 calories for a fairly small portion. Added to that the fact that a fair amount of what you are eating is highly processed, the quorn meals and the pasta packets etc then it is not surprising that you are struggling to lose any weight.

@JinglingHellsBells

Bloody hell- your 'snacks' are almost as much as my entire day's food!

why are you eating so MUCH??

I don't have all of those snacks in one day! If I have fruit for breakfast then I'll have a mug of speed soup mid morning. Some days I'm hungrier than others.

I don't buy into these "diet plans" because, even if they do work, if the food you're eating on them isn't the food you/your family typically buy then you won't stick to it long-term. I lost 3 stone as a teen and am now losing my baby weight and the way I always do it is by eating what I normally would, but reducing calories. Fruit and veg are a great way to fill up on fewer calories. Half your plate should be fruit or veg and then add in extras. I have found reducing sugar helps curb appetite. No refined carbs after lunch helps keep off bloating. I aim for 1200 cals a day and that keeps up a consistent weight loss. One "treat" dinner a week but not takeway. There are also some great low calorie recipes on BBC Good Food. Good luck!

@ICouldBeTheOne

Lol at the people saying 'eat more syns', yes, that's why OP isn't weight on large amounts of food, needs more 'treats'!

I don't believe those diets work and that sounds like a LOT of food for,
one day. Whenever I need to lose a few wounds I go as low carb as I can manage and only eat within an 8 hour window. No potatoes, no bread, no rice, no pasta. Lots of veg, fruit, cheese, chicken, avocados, basically, high fat, high veg, high protein and low low low carb. You'll feel fuller for longer. Works for me.

Skimming through the thread, it has already been said, but you are probably eating too many carbs although they are “allowed” on Slimming World. You do need more protein, for me at least eating too many carbs makes me hungrier. I have tried SW in the past, and it was too much food for me to lose on, not one plan suits everyone.
Currently doing WW, & there is now more focus on the lower in carbs, & higher in protein a food is the lower smart points (WW’s counting system) it is. Since middle of Feb I have lost just over 2 stone, regularly losing 1lb to 2lb a week, with a few stay the same.

''syns', 'green days' , 'red days'...sounds like you are paying to create a 'relationship with food' which is a great way to an eating disorder.

normal mental health means food is tasty fuel. Not something that rules you 24/7.