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! 😩

That sounds like a starvation diet Iwishihadamargarita It's extremely low calorie and unsustainable over any period of time.

OP it made me sad to see what you're eating 🙁 typical slimming world, loads of food and probably none of it even close to what you actually want to eat. They're masters at telling you you need to prep prep prep and you darent even get an egg and cress sandwich from tesco last you syn! Wholemeal bread is insisted upon and white bread demonized even though theres very little calorie difference. And God forbid If you want weetabix for breakfast and a pitta and chicken for your tea! No, much better to have weetabix and then a massive roast with potatoes instead. No portion control and I knew a woman who stirred a mulller shite through her pasta and added blueberries for a bloody dessert. Swap sugar for sweetener, butter for spreads, if mayo for light versions, and buying prepared jars of sweet n sour sauce are so high that you go without or buy their ready meals. Which are again watery as fuck but they're syn free. And you keep going because you're overweight and desperate to lose and maybe white bred gone forever is a price you have to pay? Tryst me diet clubs, with the slimmer of the week stuff, just foster unhealthy over and under eating. I mean how is it ok to encourage people to complete to lose more weight that week? Or to laugh gaily when members tell you've they've starved all day to get a pound off for weigh day. Or that halo ice cream is only 12 syns so eat the whole pot if you like!
For a lot of calories, I'm sure that wasnt actually enjoyable op. Bacon and egg on toast, and JP wnd salad no butter, and ready meal and sw chips. Snacking on soup because it's free. Youd have been better off cutting out the bacon and having a dab of butter on your toast, having soup for lunch with a bread roll or a nice salad or something you actually enjoy, and homemade pasta bake or curry or stir fry or whatever with loads of veg, and hummus and veg to snack on. Less calories and a lot more fucking enjoyable I bet!
Please please don't restrict yourself. I know all about denial and rebelling and binging and obsessing over food and its fucking miserable. Atm I eat when hungry, stop when satisfied, eat mainly nutritious home cooked meals with lots and fruit and veg and try and snack nutritionally too. If I want chocolate I will have it, and I'm trying to train myself out of good/vs bad food. I'm finding that I'm not actually craving the chocolate and that now.

Today's been smoothie and cereal bar, chicken and salad wrap, hummus and carrot, will have chilli and rice for tea and wine. May or may not have chocolate. But I know that when on a diet I'd be telling myself I couldn't have it and so I would want it more

Slimming World does work - but it's not magic! Where they say you can eat 'unlimited' amounts you have to take this with a pinch of salt and consider how much you need to lose and how much you eat currently.

So , for example, if you are 20 stone and currently eat a mega takeaway with a bucket of fried chicken and fries, then, yes you will lose weight on unlimited amounts of the food allowed by slimming world as your plate of food still has fewer calories. At some point in your weight loss journey you would need to reduce your portion sizes though

If you are currently weighing 11 stone and want to get to 9 1/2 stone then, no, you cannot eat a plate of unlimited pasta with a baked potato on top and expect to lose weight.

The key thing is that you must have one third of your plate as speed food. That is 1/3 of a normal size plate, not piling your plate with pasta and having the salad in the side. The idea is that you replace 1/3 of your normal food with low calorie veg or salad

A lot can depend on how good your consultant is. Some consultants goi along with the rhetoric you can eat what you like and encourage you to make cake from chickpeas
A good consultant would point out to you that your lunch is actually two meals and that you need to eat some protein , so, makes potato, baked beans and salad or pasta n sauce with quorn pieces and salad.

I think SW does work and if followed properly is the basis of a healthy diet.

It's effectively sophisticated MLM. They are literally in every church hall, community centre, pub back room. There's 100's per square mile!
So, not all the consultants are as, let's say, clever enough, to really understand. But they've shelled out a fortune for a franchise. So they sell.
My last one was the loveliest person but, by her own admission, not the brightest button. Couldnt see any difference between quinoa and quorn and told someone to syn chia seeds as ciabatta bread bread they were basically the same!
The behemoth has no interest in controlling the quality they just want the cash.

“If someone could explain how foods can be syn-free, I'd really appreciate it”

Couldn’t give you whatever formula they use cause I haven’t a clue... but the free foods are ones that are low in calories for their size and are most likely to fill you up and harder to overeat in the form they are usually used.

Calories aren’t calories - things like chicken breast, broccoli and rice are going to fill you up and are infinitely better for you than the same calories in chocolate.

Slimming world does work (am living proof!). But you're eating too many carbs. Potato and pasta? Nope!

@PermanentCobOn

WW's all the way for me. Done it about 5 times over 22 years and it drops off and the journey turns me into a major health freak.

If it worked, though, and was sustainable long term, surely you'd only have to do it once.

Calories aren’t calories - things like chicken breast, broccoli and rice are going to fill you up and are infinitely better for you than the same calories in chocolate.

You learn this much faster by calorie counting instead though. When you realise that your share bag of chocolate equates to the same as your chicken salad, it eventually clicks that it’s called a ‘share bag’ for a reason....

@tabulahrasa

“If someone could explain how foods can be syn-free, I'd really appreciate it”

Couldn’t give you whatever formula they use cause I haven’t a clue... but the free foods are ones that are low in calories for their size and are most likely to fill you up and harder to overeat in the form they are usually used.

Calories aren’t calories - things like chicken breast, broccoli and rice are going to fill you up and are infinitely better for you than the same calories in chocolate.

There is no formula unless it includes whatever foods sw are going to release next.

This is mostly what rebelfit rants about.,..

It works if your definition of working is that you follow it, eat random combinations and quantities of food, whether you want it or not (see spraying potatoes in processed oil, cooking chicken in diet coke, eating a whole bag of pasta-with a match box sized peice of cheese). Your consultant will analyse what you (and everyone!) has done wrong at 'group'-and if you eaten cake at your daughters 21st you've only yourself to blame. You'll buy exclusive SW bars sawdust like and only containing artificial anything that someone said if you blindfold yourself and hold your nose turning 3 times clockwise - will taste just like fruit and nut. On weigh in day you'll eat air until after group when you'll eat 5 billion calories out of deprived relief. You'll hate yourself if you touch pizza though especially - whisper it- stuffed crust. Don't get me started on the SW ready meals, run from the sausages, just run. When you've stopped doing it you'll regain the weight and your consultant will text you sadly to ask when you're coming back. You'll rejoin and keep losing and gaining the same 10llbs and only blame your own 'greed' (also known as hunger) and not ever question that maybe it's the diet plan with it's pseudoscience syn bollocks that's flawed.

Or maybe that's just me 😂

taco don't forget the roulades that look like rotting feet and the weirdos who spray toast with fry light buttery... 😂

I don't think SW is the worst plan in the world (it does encourage fresh vegetables, fruits and salad, cooking from scratch and so on) but a lot of members do try and twist certain parts of it or cheat it. An no, I'm not a member but I did briefly look at it when I wanted to lose some weight last year so I have a basic idea about it.

However, a lot of talk around diets and food on MN in somewhat depressing. People are quick to vilify SW but all this talk of 'carbs are bad' and 'fruit has SUGAR' is ridiculous. Carbs are not the devil, neither is fruit. Fruit is bloody good for you and contains lots of nutrients. You must need to mindful of portion sizes (for most stuff!) And everything in moderation. I generally go by the palm of your hand=portion size thing.

Carbs are not evil. And yes, I eat carbs for most meals. They keep me satisfied and full, alongside full fat foods. I bloody love carbs and couldn't imagine life without freshly baked bread or homemade chips! And yes, I lose weight eating carbs, as well as maintaining and currently a size 8-10. It's perfectly possible to lose weight while eating carbs as long as within calorie allowance.

Calorie count and eat unprocessed foods. Cook from scratch. It will help you learn more about food
Exercise.

Its the basic stuff that works. The rest is marketing. There's some great free calorie counting apps.

Also OP I do believe genetically we are all different and what works for one person may or may not work for someone else. Writing down everything you eat is definitely helpful even if you're not calorie counting as it makes you think twice about what you're actually eating.

I have recently read that calories don't count for everything.
I have used the lockdown to try out different 'diets'.
I spent 4 weeks eating 1200kcals and exercising and didn't loose weight.
I was then told I was eating too few calories so I bumped it up to 1400kcals and I put on 5lbs in 2 weeks!
So I cut my calorie intake down to 800kcals for 3 weeks and lost 1/2lb so I wasn't much better off eating 800kcals than 1200kcals.

I am now trying low carb (the complete opposite of SW) but you have to eat lots more calories than I am used to, eat full fat foods like cream and cheese and cut out most fruits (which is the opposite of everything I have ever done). I only started this week and will give it 2 weeks to see how I go.

“You learn this much faster by calorie counting instead though. When you realise that your share bag of chocolate equates to the same as your chicken salad, it eventually clicks that it’s called a ‘share bag’ for a reason....”

You don’t meet many slimming world members that actually need to learn that though, most of them could reel off the rough calorie value of pretty much anything you ask them... they’re there because they don’t want to count calories.

People that are happy to count the calories of an apple or broccoli instead of using them on something more exciting tend to do that and not end up at slimming world.

“This is mostly what rebelfit rants about.,..”

I’m aware, I’ve seen his really misleading rants, well I’m assuming he’s deliberately misleading rather than actually that ignorant.

@tabulahrasa

“You learn this much faster by calorie counting instead though. When you realise that your share bag of chocolate equates to the same as your chicken salad, it eventually clicks that it’s called a ‘share bag’ for a reason....”

You don’t meet many slimming world members that actually need to learn that though, most of them could reel off the rough calorie value of pretty much anything you ask them... they’re there because they don’t want to count calories.

People that are happy to count the calories of an apple or broccoli instead of using them on something more exciting tend to do that and not end up at slimming world.

“This is mostly what rebelfit rants about.,..”

I’m aware, I’ve seen his really misleading rants, well I’m assuming he’s deliberately misleading rather than actually that ignorant.

They're not misleading at all... Sw on the other hand are

“They're not misleading at all... Sw on the other hand are”

They’re very misleading about slimming world, all that pretending to not understand why bananas are treated differently depending on what state they’re in

All that ranting about the diet industry while making a living in that industry and trying to convince people he’s not?

Nope, if I was going to use my fitness pal to track my food I’d just use it instead of paying him to use someone else’s database...

@tabulahrasa

“They're not misleading at all... Sw on the other hand are”

They’re very misleading about slimming world, all that pretending to not understand why bananas are treated differently depending on what state they’re in

All that ranting about the diet industry while making a living in that industry and trying to convince people he’s not?

Nope, if I was going to use my fitness pal to track my food I’d just use it instead of paying him to use someone else’s database...

I don't pay him....you don't to pay him to get the principles.

@tabulahrasa

“They're not misleading at all... Sw on the other hand are”

They’re very misleading about slimming world, all that pretending to not understand why bananas are treated differently depending on what state they’re in

All that ranting about the diet industry while making a living in that industry and trying to convince people he’s not?

Nope, if I was going to use my fitness pal to track my food I’d just use it instead of paying him to use someone else’s database...

He also isn't in the diet industry, he's a PT... He's into fitness the name sort of gives it away 🙄🙄

I lost 8.5 stone on SW by following the Green plan. The diet was easy to follow but the meetings were so crap. The 'consultant' was fat, the bloke who took over was even fatter and when he went on holiday, the person who stood in for him was also very large. Not exactly a good advert for the product they're trying to sell. They looked nothing like their 'after' pictures at all.

“He also isn't in the diet industry, he's a PT... He's into fitness the name sort of gives it away 🙄🙄“

So he’s personally training all those people signed up on Facebook?...Sure he is...

OP I think you're eating too much, sorry. Slimming world won't retrain your appetite, it will just make it even bigger, then you'll crack and put on even more. It's their business plan. Download one of the calorie counter apps and try to retrain your appetite so you eat less and food gets to be less important.

OP I think you're eating too much, sorry. Slimming world won't retrain your appetite, it will just make it even bigger, then you'll crack and put on even more. It's their business plan. Download one of the calorie counter apps and try to retrain your appetite so you eat less and food gets to be less important.

Go to Facebook and check out Team RH. They’ll tell you why SW isn’t a good idea.

I joined slimming world in February, I had been diagnosed with gallstones and knew I needed to go on a low fat diet and wanted some guidance and thought I might benefit from the support. I quickly realised the group thing wasn’t for me so bought some scales and stuck to the plan using the app until my 12 week advanced payment had expired. I have lost two stones and am at my healthy bmi and feel great. The message I took was to mostly cook from scratch, forget bread, cake and crisps and fill up on fresh fruit, veg and fat free yoghurt. I choose not to eat many processed foods except tins of soup for convenience and variety sometimes at work. You do have to be sensible and not think you can eat unlimited free food as all food has calories but the system definitely worked for me and hasn’t been a hardship (you can still have a few drinks and I bought a brilliant milk frother to make my own semi skimmed cappuccinos). Although I didn’t take to the group sessions I have lost the weight I needed to at a healthy rate of around 2lbs per week.