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! 😩

Slimming world is utter nonsense.

There is no such thing as “free food” calories are calories and your body doesn’t follow whatever “syn” value slimming world decide to make it that week, depending on what branded product they’re trying to sell. People only lose on SW because they’re in a calorie deficit then 95pc spend years going up and down because they eat as much pasta as they want but are trained to see mashed banana as the devil. You’re clearly not in a calorie deficit so won't lose.

Follow “rebel fit” on Facebook and you’ll see how utter nonsense SW is.

Track your calories, cut that, and if after a couple weeks you lose nothing cut them further.

It doesn’t work for me.

I don’t think it works for very short or very hungry people & I am both.

I can’t be told you can have unlimited potatoes for example & that I need to self regulate when I am full. I love spuds. 🥔

SW was great while I was really 'on it' but I've never been bigger than when I stopped doing it. It's not sustainable and it's not healthy. Calorie deficit and excersise is the only healthy way. One thing I did take from SW was learning what they call 'speed foods' which are the things I now go to first for a snack if I want to loose weight.

So you've tried it for a week and decided it doesn't work! You can't expect instant results with diet and exercise.

I'd be in a diabetic coma with all those carbs!

I did SW years ago (the green plan) and put 4lbs on the first week from eating way too much free food.

It's far easier to do intermittent fasting (I do 16:8), and go lower carb (not low, it's too restrictive). I have one serving per day of starchy carbs ie seeded bread, a pitta bread or wholegrain rice. The rest of my food intake is protein and veggies. Keeps my diabetes well under control and I reliably lose 2/3 lb a week.

P.s. That is loads of food.

Lasagna AND chips That is not a diet.

Make sure you fill your plate with speed

That would definitely get the weight off

That is a lot of food even by slimming world standards.
Your eating 3 main meals a day plus “lunches” as a snack. Soup is not a snack.

Give your honestly completed food diary to your consultant and see what they say.

@insomniasucks

But SW says you can eat as much free food as you like. So it's a con then?

It’s not a con, but “free” still has calories.

My friend did SW and lost 1lb the first week and 13 the next!

I lost a couple of stone on SW and then got stuck. I changed to calorie counting and have shifted some more weight. It’s surprising how many calories are in free and speed food, especially if you are having big portions.

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.

Thats a massive amount of food! Much more than I would eat even when I wasnt watching my weight. I’m not surprised you havent lost weight if thats your daily food intake.

As others have said, even if its ‘free’ food it still has calories in it

It is indeed a con OP. Slimming World is a business, if it gave good advice and everyone lost weight and kept it off. Then you wouldn't be paying them every week.
They want you to be struggling and frustrated so you will still attend the weekly meetings looking for the answers.

I can’t believe the amount of people telling you you’re eating too much. I was told not only is it free food, but You also need to eat more to get your metabolism going.
It’s not a 1 stick of celery a day diet.
Sadly, like every weight loss plan it doesn’t work for everyone though. I was talking to someone who wasn’t losing weight on it, after weeks and weeks and even her consultant said. She didn’t think it was working for her.
Yet one women lost 20lbs in one week!!!. Speaking from personal experience my mum lost a good few stone with SW and kept it off.

I've never found slimming world works for me. That does seem like loads of food.

I've found the only diet that really works for me is calorie counting, with about 1350 calories a day and exercise to burn 100-400 calories extra a day (depends on the day) and then one weekend day I have an eat what I want day but still track it (in my fitness Pal) and stay under 2000.

The problem for me with slimming world is being able to eat as much as you like of some things - if I had a good idea of when to stop eating or portion sizes I wouldn't be so overweight would I!

You don't need to eat processed crap on slimming world. I didn't before and I certainly don't now. Everything is cooked from scratch. Not brought from there food range.

Follow “rebel fit” on Facebook and you’ll see how utter nonsense SW is

Viewed objectively, Rebel Fit correlates with SW to about 98%. Both advocate eating healthy food in sensible amounts most of the time and recognises that people like to have the occasional treat.

Anything I've seen about Rebel Fit seems to have an awful lot of recommendations to eat fast food . It would appear that both can be followed in various ways depending on how much you want to interpret the guidance to suit your own preferences. In both cases however, they're still a calorie controlled diet combined with encouragement to be active.

The main difference being that SW focuses on allowing people to eat from a wide list of less calorie dense foods without counting or measuring, but RF requires you to count absolutely everything you eat and drink, which is tedious beyond belief unless you eat a very packaged and/or repetitive diet.

I didn’t get on with SW having successfully lost 3 stone with WW before (also way too complicated now). I have now hit quite a scary weight for my small height so have decided to lose again. I started last week and lost 3/4 pounds and I am going to keep doing this, I also lost some weight and felt mug healthier when I did this before.

Breakfast: porridge or two boiled eggs with tomatoes

Lunch: ratatouille or two boiled eggs (if I haven’t had for breakfast)

Dinner: whatever we are having. We eat a lot of stuff with rice so I eat from a bowl rather than a plate for less food but still fee full.

I dont believe in cutting out any food group, but the basic premise is you only eat carbs with one meal, so if I was having fish for dinner I might have it with salad and have a slice of whole meal toast cut up on top of to ratatouille or have pitta and taramasalata for lunch with an egg.

Snacking was one of my worst things so I have just stopped and have a herbal tea in the evening or cutting up some fruit. In the afternoon I have no more than 2 biscuits if I fancy them, but after a week they tasted really sweet.

Hi OP. Diets definitely do work! I’ve never done SW before. I have done protein world before and it does work I did it along the gym 3 times a week for an hour a session.
I also have dieted generally and lost weight too. Keep going!! A weeks not very much time.

It worked really well for a friend of mine but she did a full lifestyle change as well. It didn't work for me as I was obsessing constantly about syns and free foods and what I could and couldn't have. The only thing that works for me is doing something like OMAD. We're all different!

I do SW and it works for me. My group isnt based on eating like shit and tweaking it to make it seem like your are being healthier.

1/3 speed with every meal works if you dont eat 2/3 rubbish on the side.

I wouldnt eat that many carbs in one day so if I am having pasta for lunch I would have grilled chicken or fish with veg/salad for dinner.

You still need portion control but it gives you a wide range of food to eat. Want chocolate have it..just dont eat six bars at one time.

I dont use frylight, I dont buy any of the branded products which arent actually supposed to form part of your daily diet day in day out.

You also should be drinking loads of water and increasing your excersise.

OP, you need to learn to cook.

It's all processed packet food, so much pasta and potatoes.

Get some recipe books, the libraries are open again and have plenty of diet style books and look for clean eating, low sugar style recipes. Make food with lots of vegetables, (not potato) beans, lentils, etc.

What you describe wouldn’t work for me either. I’m 53 and I’ve found that too many carbs and not drinking enough water stall any kind of weight loss altogether. You don’t mention what you drink, in terms of the extra calories you might be consuming that way but also, as others have said, perhaps you’re not drinking nearly enough water?

I found the Michael Moseley books good, the Eight Week Blood Sugar Diet, it was pretty healthy and I lost 8kg which I’ve kept off for 18 months so far after years of messing around with calorie counting and WW/SW.

I think weight loss is mainly about what you eat but some sort of extra activity is also a boost to weight loss (apart from other health benefits), even just getting off the bus one stop earlier and walking home the last mile or a 15 minute online class - anything extra will help if you’re not doing anything right now.

This gamification of eating (free foods/speed foods/syns) really disconnects people from reality. Spending time understanding when you’re eating in terms of what’s in it and what it does to your body would be time better spent than totting up syns.

Ive lost weight on slimming world. Ditch the pasta and other carbs up the vegetables and salad.
I didnt like the happy clappy meetings though so gave up and piles back on.

@insomniasucks

So it isn't free food then? I'm an all or nothing kinda gal and can eat for England. To tell me I can eat as much of certain foods that I want is false advertising. I think I'm going to calorie count from now on. Exercise alone doesn't make you lose weight, like a previous poster said, it just makes you strong, it's a calorie deficit that's the key.

I'm not bashing SW at all, a lot of my friends rave about it, but I need more restrictions.

It is free food - but your veg/salad is supposed to replace at least 1/3 of your portion... yours is quite clearly as well as not instead.

You’re also supposed to eat until you’re comfortably full, not stuffed.