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! 😩

@DevilsSpawn the first example of a sw diet you posted is more like what I'd eat so didn't lose much. Agree I think that people who lose are restricted calories consciously or not.

Even though it says you can have as much free food as you want, that’s not true, you have to have some self control. But then if everyone had self control we wouldn’t all be on a diet.

Even though it says you can have as much free food as you want, that’s not true, you have to have some self control.

What is the sense in SW having ‘free’ foods then? What’s the point?
Free implies that you can have as much as you want, not good for people that are prone to bingeing.

With free foods though you are supposed to have a proportionate amount of speed food, so if you have a mound of pasta you are supposed to have a mound of veg too; only what a lot of people do is just have the mound of pasta.

Free is more about not having to measure it and eating whatever you need to make you comfortably full, not stuffed.

There's no point specifying suitable portion sizes because they vary so much due to size and activity levels.

You could have a 10 stone 5' office worker or a 20 stone 6' manual worker, who should naturally adjust their portion sizes accordingly.

The manual worker is likely to eat quite a lot more, but they are likely to still lose weight, because their body burns a lot more calories. If the meal is made from free foods, the calories eaten are likely to lead to a calorie deficit, that would allow weight loss.

No-one is suggesting that the food is calorie free, just that the low calorie density should mean that fewer calories are consumed than what the body burns.

With free foods though you are supposed to have a proportionate amount of speed food, so if you have a mound of pasta you are supposed to have a mound of veg too; only what a lot of people do is just have the mound of pasta.

But the mound of pasta will have the same amount of calories whether is has veg beside it or not.
So by adding veg (ie extra calories) it’s supposed to help you lose weight? Erm.....
Is there any science behind their claim that certain foods speed up weight loss? Or is it the same science behind ‘syns’?

“What is the sense in SW having ‘free’ foods then? What’s the point?”

Because you don’t have to weigh or measure them, so you can pay attention to your actual appetite and you’re not having to account for every bit of food you have - only the things that are more likely to interfere with your weight.

There aren’t many people in the world overweight because they just have the odd extra potato or banana.

“But the mound of pasta will have the same amount of calories whether is has veg beside it or not.”

The veg isn’t supposed to be extra, it’s supposed to be instead of.

No, the idea is that because you are supposed to weigh your free foods in proportion to veg etc, you won't have as much because you won't want to sit and eat 500g of brocoli, therefore you won't weigh out 500g of pasta if you're adhering to the guidance. I think slimming world is a load of rubbish, but in fairness to it, many of the issues are because people don't actually stick to the plan, or do what they can to try and find ways around the 'rules'.

I've never done Slimming World, but that looks a HUGE amount of food OP! And very carb-heavy.

I'm also dieting at the mo, and my eating for today is:

Breakfast - One hard-boiled egg, one banana and a 200ml glass of orange juice.
Snack - coffee with a sweetener and a dash of milk, 2 bourbon biscuits.
Lunch - Piece of cheese/a babybel and a cup-a-soup.
Dinner - Rice, half a chicken breast, and some other vegetable.
Supper - small bowl of icecream or an apple.

@zingally

I've never done Slimming World, but that looks a HUGE amount of food OP! And very carb-heavy.

I'm also dieting at the mo, and my eating for today is:

Breakfast - One hard-boiled egg, one banana and a 200ml glass of orange juice.
Snack - coffee with a sweetener and a dash of milk, 2 bourbon biscuits.
Lunch - Piece of cheese/a babybel and a cup-a-soup.
Dinner - Rice, half a chicken breast, and some other vegetable.
Supper - small bowl of icecream or an apple.

Whereas I think that's nowhere near enough, I'd be starving if I only ate that.

It's also a lot of sugar (banana, orange juice, bourbon, ice cream / apple) and nowhere near enough protein (1 egg, half a chicken breast and a babybel)

@zingally

I've never done Slimming World, but that looks a HUGE amount of food OP! And very carb-heavy.

I'm also dieting at the mo, and my eating for today is:

Breakfast - One hard-boiled egg, one banana and a 200ml glass of orange juice.
Snack - coffee with a sweetener and a dash of milk, 2 bourbon biscuits.
Lunch - Piece of cheese/a babybel and a cup-a-soup.
Dinner - Rice, half a chicken breast, and some other vegetable.
Supper - small bowl of icecream or an apple.

As PP said, this is really lacking in nutrients. It’s also really boring and you can’t live like this.

A ‘diet’ should really be a way of eating for life. So it should be tasty, nutritious and varied and allow for extras on occasion.

Working out your TDEE will give you an idea of how many calories you can eat to lose or maintain weight.

Yesterday, I ate less than 1500 calories. I exercise a lot, so I can eat about 1600 to lose and 2100 to maintain. I’m happy with my weight as is, but aiming to lose a couple of lbs so I aim to eat less than 1500 most days, but don’t fret if I have a takeaway or whatever.

Yesterday I had:

Breakfast:
Porridge made with 35g whole rolled oats, water and 15g flaxseed. Generous amount of strawberries, blueberries, raspberries on top. Big coffee with semi skinned milk. 318 cals

Lunch:
Big bowl of salad made with baby leaf lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, red pepper, olives, beetroot, sweetcorn, two boiled eggs, dressing. 322 cals

Snack
Diet protein shake. I eat a mostly veggie diet, so have these to get some extra protein in. They stop me snacking on junk too. 91 cals

Dinner:
I had a saffron polenta bake, which was made with polenta, kale, tomatoes, feta, kale and pine nuts. Cooked with some olive oil. 392 cals

After dinner:
Wispa bar 141 cals

Total 1263 cals

That was a light day for me, and normally I would have a much bigger dinner. If I’m feeling hungry, I just have larger portions and count it. I don’t snack too much but I will have a snack if I’m hungry, I try to make a good choice, fruit or nuts etc. But if I’m offered something like a cake or crisps and I really fancy it, I’ll just have it and count it.

I used to just eat anything and everything, but have learned over time to be a bit more mindful and to think about how much I’ll enjoy something before I eat it.

Doing lots of exercise really helps lose weight, I think, because I’m much keener to fuel my body well and look after it. If I’m hungry before a work out, I know I’ll perform better if I have a banana than a bag of crisps and that has been really motivating for me.

Please stop putting fruit and biscuits together and stating they have to much sugar, the banana sugar is very different from the sugar found in a banana & will again be different depending on how ripe the banana is. It’s really not helpful to lump the two together as if they are the same, they aren’t

nutritionfacts.org/2016/08/09/what-about-all-the-sugar-in-fruit/

the banana sugar is very different from the sugar found in a banana & will again be different depending on how ripe the banana is

I’m not sure that your body actually knows this. It deals with the sugars in the same way. It’s the same as carbohydrates.

Are they nutritionally equal? No. That’s a different matter though.

inthe

did you read the link?

in the

basically our bodies do know the difference and its processed (for want of a better word) differently

www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/325550

hopefully this explains why they don't have the same affect on the body

I've lost around 2 stone doing slimming world (the timescale is a bit confusing as I was pregnant in the middle so obviously didnt lose weight, but was right back to my pre pregnancy weight after birth and 12 weeks later my pre-preg jeans are literally falling down).

Anyway I have never eaten:
Muller light
Hi fi bar
Slimming world ready meal
Granulated sweetner
Pasta n sauce / mugshot
From the replies on here you would think these are the only foods allowed on SW!

The things which made a difference to me were:

• weighing out breakfast cereal rather than just heaping the bowl full
• cooking meals from scratch rather than using jars of sauce or frozen processed food
• limiting treats like chocolate where I would previously have shared a big bag of maltesers with DH, now i have one funsize bag of maltesers.

Could I have made these changes without SW - of course. But the plan helped me to identify the areas I was most going wrong and to change those things.

Eating pasta as a jacket potato topping because you "cant have cheese" is ridiculous and not part of the plan. You can have cheese but you limit the amount or count it from your syns so then have less chocolate later. You can eat normal meals on SW it doesnt have to be weird tweaks or diet food or cheesecake made from quark and ryvita

twilight

SlimmingWorld plan is to replace at least 1/3 of food on plate with speed (veg or salad) not eat a great big plate of pasta and have a side salad. By doing this is automatically cuts higher calorie food you eat.

[quote ivykaty44]Please stop putting fruit and biscuits together and stating they have to much sugar, the banana sugar is very different from the sugar found in a banana & will again be different depending on how ripe the banana is. It’s really not helpful to lump the two together as if they are the same, they aren’t

nutritionfacts.org/2016/08/09/what-about-all-the-sugar-in-fruit/[/quote]
I didn't say they had too much sugar, I said there was a lot sugar containing foods in her daily food. There's a difference.... And yes I know the body can process fruit sugar differently to sucrose but it's still sugar and it's still bad for your teeth etc

zingally I’d be starving on that and if you did SlimmingWorld would be over syns - orange juice, cup a soup, biscuits and ice cream all syns.
Contrary to what many people think on here SlimmingWorld encourages real food - the processed and sugary stuff is limited (syns)
I got 5 stone off eating normal healthy food. And have kept it off. I’ve only done the current plan which came in jan 2019 but it very much puts emphasis on eating to appetite and healthy choices. It’s all over the books. People who did it in past of aren’t really doing it but think they are because their Aunty or hairdresser says you can eat mounds of pasta aren’t.

claireb707

sorry I hadn't seen the part about dental problems and fruit sugar in your original post

🙄 that's because they weren't in there....

Fructose may be better for you than sucrose or glucose (both of which are found in bananas by the way) but the fact remains sugar is still not great for you in general and having large quantities in your daily food intake will still counteract any benefits from the fruit.

What did you eat before you started, If you did eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we diet, it will have counteracted the first week.