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! 😩

The single biggest thing people miss about SW is that a third to gal must be speed foods so veg or salad. You've eaten a silly amount of food there. Nobody needs 3 eggs plus toast. 3 eggs plus the mushrooms and tomatoes is maybe ok but really it's calories deficit you need. It's not a con but nor does it promote a sensible appetite. I see pictures on my SW group (I don't follow plan just get weighed there) of stupidlu sized meals- what you had for breakfast plus 5 rashers of back for example and it doesn't work like that. If you overeat as I do, it's the proportion of veg/ salad that's important. And it's for life. Or it goes back on because your "normal" eating is what made you gain weight. Mine too by the way. I'm following Noom now to understand why I over eat. It's very revealing

The sw consultants I've had really don't push portion control. The 3rd of a plate bit is glossed over. They sell it on the gluttony aspect! And they never encouraged exercise. You can't monetize that!

I just wouldn’t lose weight eating as much carbs as I want. The only thing I remember from a SW group meeting was the fact that ‘you don’t need to do any exercise’ , and ‘avocados are bad’. Plus a lot of stuff about artificial sweeteners and muller lights. I never went back.

I think the percentages on the plate are derived from the Zone diet which was popular for a while. I lost 2 stone using the principle of half the plate being veg and salad, one third protein and one third carbs. I also watched the Food Doctor on TV a lot and between them they gave me the impetus to do it.

I can’t however seem to get back into the groove.

I liked some things, definitely. The focus on building meals around carbs and eating tons of fruits and veg is good. But I agree the huge portions, no oil and the sugary yogurts are not. Some of the freebie low syn good can be unhealthy-mug shots-but on the whole wm carbs are encouraged instead. I moved on, but it was a reasonable stepping stone for he.

Me not he.

It’s just crap food with absolutely no nutritional value whatsoever.

Of course it's got nutritional value, that's a really hyperbole claim. I wouldn't consider it healthy eating, but it's got carbohydrate, protein, salt and fat, all of which are nutrients that our bodies need. There's even a little fibre in there.

I've just read the ingredients and I was pleasantly surprised to read that there's not as much crap in there as I thought.

The main problem with it is that it's mainly simple carbohydrate, and a day heavy in those will leave anybody tired, hungry and gaining adipose tissue.

They are clueless as regards nutrition. I have never been able to face eating a Muller light yohpghurt again.

YABU - I lost 4 1/2 pounds my first week and 2 stone overall in 12 weeks.

@insomniasucks

Hi, I haven’t read the full thread, but I’m a veggie and wanted to help. I use MyFitnessPal like so many others have suggested and I see you said you’re going to try. It really helps give an understanding of what you are eating.

For speed/lazy/‘junk’ nights, I use meat substitutes. Vivera is a brand that makes some great veggie meatballs etc, to throw in a homemade tomato sauce, low cals good protein, fills you up. I love their kebab ‘meat‘ with brown rice, Greek salad, chilli sauce and a pitta. Bean burgers not in a bun with corn on the cob and homemade wedges are great ‘junk’ food too. Veggie sausages and mash (Made with creme fraiche) with loads of steamed veg too. Just count the calories and have an appropriate sized portion.

For home cooking, Anna Jones, is fab. She has loads of free recipes in the Guardian and some great books. She isn’t a diet chef, but she uses different grains and pulses and veg to make interesting, modern, veggie, healthy and really filling foods. It takes you away from the traditional British idea of lasagne, shepherds pie etc. into a different way of eating and makes veggie food more exciting. Again, just count the cals.

Another one I love is a ‘Buddha bowl’. They were dead trendy a few years ago and there are loads of ideas floating around online, but basically it’s meant to be a big balanced bowl of food groups; a grain, a protein and veg. Type Veggie Buddha bowl into Pinterest or google to have a look.

Free food means it’s free to eat without counting weighing and measuring. Use your judgement for a sensible portion size that you will eat and feel comfortably full. Not stuffed and just eat because it is there.

Weigh and measure your healthy extras and syns. Pay attention to portion sizes. Stop when full, snack on fruit and veg, 1/3 speed free food every meal.

It is simple and it does work.

OP, did you have the plan explained to you by a proper consultant? Or have you just got the packs online and trying to do it alone?

I only ask because I don’t think you really understand the plan and this is causing you some issues. I lost 2.5 stone 6 years ago on slimming world, kept it off until I had my children.

Just made an enquiry to rejoin with my local consultant to rejoin as it works for me and the only thing that works. The principles and the plan and the structure.

I have never been able to face eating a Muller light yohpghurt again

I never understand why people feel the need to make comments like this.

Muller light yogurts are just one of dozens/hundreds of different foods that you are allowed to eat on the plan. If you don't like them, don't eat them, choose something else.

You're also allowed bananas and aubergines, but would you feel compelled to eat them when you didn't like them, just because it's allowed?

SW is just a way of reducing calorie intake without going hungry or needing to count or measure most food and drink consumed, both of which are difficulties faced by many people when trying to lose weight.

It's not a magic spell that only works if followed prescriptively using their suggested foods and amounts. The recommended portion sizes are designed to satisfy a range of appetites, including people who have become very overweight through prolonged consumption of large portions. If a ready meal is too large, don't eat it all, stop when you are full.

It's like people are deliberately misinterpreting the plan in an attempt to prove that it doesn't work, or is a con.

What doesn't seem to have been mentioned is that SW offer lifetime membership and support for free, to anyone who reaches their goal weight and sticks to it within a few pounds. They only have to continue eating normal healthy foods and not go mad on junk to do that. How is that unsustainable or different to other healthy eating/weight management methods?

Diets fail because people go back to the eating habits that made them overweight in the first place, not because diets are inherently bad. That would apply to all diets.

@Viviennemary but why did you eat the miller lights? They aren’t essential to the sw plan mind you ate them because you ate them ffs.

So SW doesn’t work because when people stop they put on weight.....no shit. All diets are the same, when you stop doing them they don’t work 😂

In defence of the Muller hater - they DID form the basis of every single flipping group session - from freezing them, to making weird concoctions to using them instead of coconut milk in curry! They were on every facebook post in the groups, they were promoted endlessly and mentioned by brand in every welcome meeting! And new flavours were on Iceland SW promos and were in the mags. Literally shoved down your throat!
Until the media started to call it out and they were suddenly not free any more!
Don't let their clever marketing suck you in. When you start to feel evangelical about it, slow down and think! It's a huge marketing machine!

Haha Muller lights are gross, I remember at meetings and social media posts by cover stars etc they used to eat them or make weird things with them like they're going out of fashion, rank.

Even worse were the Ferrero rocher made with albran. Leader brought some for us to try once. Absolutely vile. Feel ill even thinking about them.

It's a money making racket built on really poor nutritionally advice.,

I have a FB friend who is a SW consultant. Her weight has yo yoed for the last 30 years at least and her FB posts are a mixture of pictures of her "healthy" SW meals and memes about how wonderful it is to be a curvy woman

@Doggodogington Exactly. "Diets don't work" is one of the most bewildering mantras that's always chanted on here. "As soon as I stopped it I regained everything I gained it all back and more." Well, yeah, you went back to eating more calories than you burned, that's how it works It would be like people saying "saving money doesn't work, I didn't buy any extras for two months and saved £200, but then I stopped doing that and now I'm more in debt than ever before, it's a con."

I think - or I hope - that what people often mean is that some diets cannot (easily) be sustained forever and so they "don't work" in that they don't educate people into a sustainable way of eating. But I fear most people just parrot "diets don't work" because they cannot accept that they need to control their food intake for the rest of their lives if they want to control their weight. Which is fair enough, since several millennia of evolution have conditioned us to seek and eat food constantly, but the availability of food supply hasn't affected the laws of thermodynamics.

no, we 'parrot' that diets don't work because commercial ones ALWAYS fail, that's the business model. A diet that works is one where the excess weight stays off. It's called 'eating the right amount of the right food' and requires no clubs, books or instagram.

Well yes @mencken that is the basica of it ok a nutshell but let's be honest if it were that easy no one would be overweight, would they!

Haven’t read all of the 22 pages of replies but bloody hell OP, that’s an enormous amount of food in 1 day!

2 eggs on 1 slice of toast and a cup of tea/ coffee for breakfast.

Personally I’d skip lunch or just have salad with chopped apple on top, again with a cup of tea/ coffee

And then pretty much whatever you like for dinner (within reason, no takeaways every night) and then that’s it for the day.

When I want to lose weight I eat breakfast and then nothing til my dinner at 6.30/7pm and then that’s it. I eat what I want for dinner and make sure it satisfies me but there’s absolutely no snacking, just breakfast and dinner. The first few times of doing this, I was understandably hungry between breakfast and dinner (though to be fair breakfast fills me up until midday/ 1pm so it’s only 4-5 hours I have to feel hungry for and a cup of tea and lots of water helps with that) but after the first couple of days it really does become easier.

People are SO scared of feeling hungry. Why? A rumbling stomach for a few hours WONT kill you, and after a couple of days your stomach shrinks so you don’t need as much food as before and don’t feel as hungry.

I wouldn’t do the above if I was hardcore exercising btw, I would eat a small and sensible lunch, but I bloody loathe exercise and would rather cut down on food and keep myself busy so I don’t think about it 3-5 days a week to loose/ maintain weight.

So to sum up OP, you’re eating far too much to loose weight. You don’t need pasta and jacket potato for lunch. One will suffice. The more you eat the more you feel like you need to eat so always have less, not more!

Slimming world (and all other moneterized diet plans) are a con imo.

Taking SW as an example. They have been going approx 50 years. They have approx 900,000 members right now, plus the countless others that follow at home without membership. So millions and millions over the years have done it, plus all the countless other groups with similar plans/membership numbers.
If it worked for any significant percentage, by which I meant people lost the weight permanently, there wouldn’t dnt be any overweight people left!!!

Diets do work if you stick to them but once you are down to your goal weight it is the coming off them that doesn’t.

It becomes about weighing yourself each day and monitoring what you eat and how much you exercise to keep to that weight until you find the ideal sustainable calories and exercise program to maintain the weight which could take as long again as getting the weight off did.

“If it worked for any significant percentage, by which I meant people lost the weight permanently, there wouldn’t dnt be any overweight people left!!!“

I think you underestimate how many overweight people there are...