How well does it actually work for you?

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I'm currently doing SW. If I stick to plan 100% I lose 0.5-1lb. If I go off plan a tiny bit (last week I ate all my syns every day and went 1.5 over on one day) I maintain, anything more than one meal off plan and I see a gain of up to 2.5lb.

I've been doing it now since September and I have lost 2.5lb in total. It's embarrassing! My consultant just says that I can see where I have gone "wrong" on the weeks I gain (going out for dinner one night, for example), and that a 1lb loss on a 100% week is a "healthy pace for weight loss"

The problem is I can have 4 weeks on plan and lose, say, 3.5lb, one dinner off plan and I'm back up 2, so I'm losing less than 2lb a month! Christmas scuppered all the weight loss I'd had up until then so I was back to square one after 3 months of hard work.

Do I really have to have no life for a year to get to goal? Then what happens once I am there, popping out for dinner once a week I am just going to put it back on again.

Anyone else experienced such a frustratingly slow weight loss? Consultant checks my diaries (I still hand them in every week even though I've been doing it 5 months!) and she says they are fine, just comments that maybe I should try less syns :(

I really feel for you - I thought my weight loss was slow with SW, but I've lost 1st 5lb ish since July and that's with loads of cheating. I don't count sins particularly, but I just follow the plan loosely. Looking at your typical days, you look like you've been really good. Maybe age is a factor, and the fact that you haven't got stacks to loose? Sorry, not sure what to suggest... but it's been interesting to read the thread.

"I rarely use SW recipes, I find them bland, bland, bland and always watery! What's with all the water?!"

I suspect it's to fill you up on water, lol.

But yeah I find them bland a lot of the time, or have complicated ways of cooking things for no purpose that I can see.

I tried a casserole once where everything was cooked and then put in the oven...after making it I couldn't for the life of me work out why it wasn't either just cook it in the pan completely or put it straight in the oven. Or the chips, why parboil them? They work fine without it.

OP- It might be interesting to take a typical day, weigh it all and input it into a calorie counter like MFP? That will tell you whether the portion size thing is sending you way off.

My first thought with your diary was that it was masses of food. A fried egg roll would be lunch for me, not a snack. So whilst it's all on plan, it might be really adding up on the calories.

I think the chip parboiling thing is to prevent that chewy "skin" you can get on ones just bunged into the over - but if you soak the chips in water for a little while and wash away all the starch I've found that they're fine without parboiling.

I hate the reliance on artificial sweeteners as well - bleugh.

Have you seen? There's ready meals coming out soon which seems a bit contrary to the whole ethos to me [shrug]...oh and bloody PETER ANDRE is the spokesperson! (not enough exclamation marks in the world)

tabulahrasa and buttercup - Interesting that you both say that about WW. I found that SW made me weirdly obsessed. I can't remember what things it was now, but my syn allowance didn't let me have, say two glasses of wine and a chocolate bar one day. So I went mental for about a week because I'd already 'broken' the diet and would start again next weigh in. Whereas with WW I would dust myself down and think "well, you've splurged your weekly points now. Good for the rest of the week".

Sorry for the sidetrack, but I suppose I'm saying that it's all about discovering your own weak spots and which diets tackle them and which either set you off or let you ignore them!

Ah, see I use my syns on a weekly basis rather than a daily one - I'm usually a bit over during the weekends (so for instance Friday night I had about 30 syns) so then I cut right back on them for the rest of the week - as you say, it's all about balance and finding what works for you.

BTW - not a sidetrack at all! I think it's very relevant to the thread - and it might be good for the OP to give WW or CC a try - or low carb or anything really apart from those VLCD ones

Oh the ready meals, yeah I'm a bit hmm about them tbh, I think it's in response to people asking for them, but it still doesn't quite sit right.

Penguins - if I go over my syns one day I just buy some cherries or something and snack on them the next to reign it back in, where when I was counting things (either points or calories) I felt like I couldn't do that because everything counted, lol.

But yes definitely different ways of losing weight suit different people.

Have you looked at the hairy dieters books? The recipes are more like real food than some of the slimming world ones (anything involving quark as a white sauce substitute was yuck) but tweaked to increase amount of veg and lower calories. Not worked out the syns in them as not doing SW at the moment. I really should go back but with a small child and working 4 day would struggle to meal plans and would end up doing badly.
I did loose and stone and a half in a year but I was doing to to get pregnant so asking myself if I wanted that cake/chocolate/ or a baby. Gave up when I got pregnant as was massively craving carbs like bread and I know you can do it during pregnancy but was fed up with plan by then.
When is your meeting? I used to go on a Tuesday and found there was no time to claw anything back if you had a bad weekend.

You don't count fruit on WW so I do that too. Def the psychology is half the battle.

Fruit was pointed when I did it...the only things that weren't were salad vegetables, drinks, oh and probably dust, lol.

I could obviously have eaten low point fruit, made tomato soup and had salad...but in my head I'd blown it and I was going to have to survive on no food, so I would write that week off.

I know WW has changed since I did it, but I like SW, it suits me.

Agreed . That is kinda what I meant. You have to find a plan that suits your life and your mindset. Despite what they say, none are 'the best '. (Though obviously some a just bonkers)

I count Syns down through the week... Usually I blow them all on the weekend and have no syns Monday to Friday. I'm seeing a 1-2lb weight loss per week with this. I daren't change it now, but for me of I ate my 5-15 syns per day... I'm convinced my weight loss would be slower. And Id probably fall off the wagon a lot more. Xx

Oh yes. Syns. I would have a weekly allowance and try and stick to no more than 3/4 on a daily basis to allow for things like ketchup or a recipe that was synned.

Then on a Friday or Saturday night I could have a couple of glasses of wine or gin and tonic without having blown them.

Well I feel like a right pig now with all the comments that my typical food diary was so much food :(

I thought the point of SW was to eat when you are hungry? And not to starve yourself for the sake of not eating very much. Do people really just eat a small brown roll at lunchtime and not feel hungry at all until dinner time?!

Thoroughly depressed by the whole thing.

Please don't feel like that. I didn't mean you were a pig . You eat a very healthy diet. It's just that, if you aren't losing weight, and are eating healthily, the most likely problem is that you are eating too much food to lose weight. If you didn't have weight you wanted to lose, it would be a brilliant maintenance diet.

Out of interest, I just put one of your sample days through the WW points calculator. Depending on portion size, you could be around 33 points a day (which is for me would be my maximum amount if I spread my weekly allowance evenly through the week), a bit under or a fair bit over.

Which suggests that either it's portion size, or weekly treats not in a sample day (e.g wine), or if you want to keep meal portions the same, you might need to shift things like the bread roll and egg to a banana or something?

I don't eat tiny amounts and no, I'd never eat just a roll all day. Though I tend to keep my b choice till supper so I can have toast with it.

I think the issue is probably the fact that you're using all your syns and then also sometimes having a meal out on top of that...that's never going to work.

If you can manage that sort of thing better then there's no problem with losing a pound a week, that's still a stone every 3 months or so.

A pound a week is 52 pounds in a year... I'll go for that!

What about trying to swap your afternoon snack for some fruit? I have been doing sw for just over a year now and have found that it has worked well for me.

I have given up bread completely though, and feeling much better for it too!

What has worked for me is having my A and B choices for breakfast and then having free foods for the rest of the day, with syns along the way. I tend to have a rigidity plan Mon to Fri so there is scope to go astray at weekends.

Your group leader can also help. Have you shown her your weekly diary?

Taking this from a slightly different angle...through slimming world so far you've mastered what you can eat in an average day to maintain/ have a very slight net down.

Its a good starting point. Whilst frustrating that you've not seen the loses that others have its all a learning process about your body and metabolism. My DH can eat literally double me. He does almost no exercise, whilst I walk masses. We've both lost weight at the same rate and are approximately the same distance from our goals.

The big next step forward is the either/ or question. For example if you swapped your healthy b snack roll with fried egg for a small slice of toasted wholemeal with egg/ beans/ spaghetti hoops and your evening snack for a hifi light bar you'd be halving your syns.

So it comes to the weekend/ your meal out and you're down 35plus syns over the week which mean that large glass of wine and pizza (especially if you don't eat it all) have a much smaller impact. I quite like the pizza express legra pizza (the ones with the middle replaced with salad). I'd choose a bigger one if I wasn't battling my weight or if its a particularly special meal out but for a nice change meal out thats a better option and i don't feel hungry afterwards. So your previous gain would more likely be a maintain and on weeks without the meal out your 1/2lb loss might be 1-2lb instead.

You could vary things and try other swaps. I quite like mini milks which are 1.5syn as a frozen treat but some days I have a magnum instead. I try not to have a sort of minimum food list or habitual eating pattern, which is hard because I am a creature of habit. The snack size curly whirlys are far fewer syns (obviously smaller) but some days that might just hit the spot.

Another popular one is souping it up. A big bowl of thick soup is warming and filling. Even if its variety to your snacks a big bowl of veg soup would leave your b choice for incorporation into a meal. I love soup but once or twice a week is enough for me.

Do you meal plan? If you did you could plan in your coconut milk as part of your syns, 40g grated lighter mature cheddar does cover a portion of hunters chicken pretty well for your a choice, garlic bread isn't so awful if you can stick to one slice - you can buy the frozen individual slices for when the urge takes you but you'd need to syn it up.

I make pizza dough with the DC and do a crispy thin garlic mozerella type bread which I cut into slithers of 1 syn each (plus cheese from healthy A) so i can grab three or four out the freezer to dunk in my spag bol/ lasagne. Thats if the DC don't pinch it whilst its cooling on the side before it makes it to the freezer.

I don't think your a pig and i do think you should be able to eat good portions at not feel hungry doing slimming world. My observation of your typical day is that you have meals plus healthy extras plus snacks. Its kind of taking the eating philosophy toward my interpretation of its boundaries. I used to treat my healthy extras as additions to meals. Now I try to incorporate them (except half my B choice which is my bedtime hifi light snack).

You really don't need to starve yourself or be hungry to make this work but you do need to identify points of compromise/ that balance for yourself that pushes you to 1lb plus losses.

I've been on and off the SW wagon for about 8 years now. Everytime I stop going I put the weight back on, plus about half a stone.

Quite a few people I know who have done it say that they don't lose weight if they eat too many bananas and Muller Light yogurts. Maybe because of the sugar? I don't know but maybe try cutting down on those?

I don't think your typical day is a lot of food. Today I've had:

Tea with sugar (1 Syn)
Fruit and Fibre and milk (all measured healthy a and b)
Melon
Scrambled egg, beans, mushrooms, bacon.
More Melon
Chocolate Shortbread Biscuit (6 syns) and a tea with sugar (1 syn)
Lots of water

I'm just about to snack now so will probably have fruit or a Fage yogurt (2.5 syns). Dinner will be chicken fajitas with salad, peppers, onions and mushrooms. No wrap though, I might have a jacket potato too. About an hour after dinner I will still be hungry, so will start rummaging through the cupboards for more food.

There is a lot of sugar in my daily food. I'm going to go down to half a teaspoon of sugar.

I guess I will have to start measuring portions to keep them small. I will give up the b choice afternoon snack and hope that the lack of bread makes a difference. My consultant was all you have to do the complete plan you have to use your syns and your healthy extras. Well that isn't working is it?!

So my plan going forward.

Breakfast coffee and banana

Mid morning snack fruit or carrot sticks

Lunch salad, fish or lean meat, small potato or 1-2 tbsp pasta or cous cous.

Mid afternoon coffee

Dinners stay the same - usually chilli rice and veg, spicy chicken rice and veg, something and chips and salad or veg.

Will stick to 5 syns or less a day. Will stop drinking any alcohol, (I didn't drink for the whole of Jan and it wasn't too hard. Made no difference to weight loss mind you). Will just drink lots and lots of water.

Will keep you all posted...

Well after everything I said last week, I really, really worked the plan and lost 3lbs.