1st week & a 3lb gain ��

[Swift25]

I'm doing SW at home , following the book , cutting out sugar from my tea and replacing with sweetener. (I loved my teas with sugar )thought I was following the plan quite well and been quite strict with myself to make the correct choices . Looked up syn values , made sure I weighed out cereal etc
I weighed in today with a gain of 3lb ????

If you're having tea and cereal...have you been measuring your milk?

Have you had a third speed foods and have you had enough to drink?

They're often where people go wrong.

What time of the month is it for you?

Just go gluten free or all organic or something. it's really hard to have too many calories when your food is extremely expensive and geared towards health nuts. Also, if your trying to loose weight you really shouldn't be eating cereal. Only eat wholefoods like eggs, yoghurt or muesli for breakfast. Processed foods will make you fat. Most cereals for example will contain extraordinary amounts of salt (increase water weight, sugar-extra calories and various wierdly hydrogenated oil things that will just kill you in the long run). A cheap, whole and completely yummy alternative to cereal is to make you own muesli, all you need is some rolled oats, some nuts and some fruit/dried fruit (never have more than a table spoon per bowl). Do not be tempted to sweeten it with honey or to buy granola-you might as well eat a doughnut

Dina I'm sorry but that is awful advice - you have no idea what sort of cereal the OP is having and foods that are organic or gluten free can actually be even worse than their normal counterparts

Swift - gaining weight in your first week isn't unusual - just double check that you are counting properly and keep it at it - if it would help then maybe post an example day of what you have been eating - keep at it, it will be worth it!

All processed cereal, or processed for for that matter is really bad for you, whole foods is the only way to go. As for the specialty foods it's a question of getting op to eat less, if she likes sugary tea then she must have problems with this kind of thing. When I started eating high quality foods I went off the sugary things all together, you just don't need that top up. Eating high quality food will always be better than dieting on cheap processed foods.

Hey, wholefoods are always the best option but it is often very unrealistic to cut out everything that is not - I know how hard it can be sometimes :) and gluten free being healthier is a myth ... I live with someone who has a gluten free diet and it does not make you thinner! My advise is to make sure you fill up on superspeed veggies and fruit and eat plenty of wholemeal carbs (keep you fuller for longer). I think it can be hard to accept that we should eat enough of these to fill you after being told in diet after diet that they should be restricted. Either you still subconsciously limit them or you eat too many in the first week - but stick at it as I found I began to self regulate the amount so I was satisfied without even knowing it and you need less of all the other stuff:) I have given myself the rule that I can't eat anything unless 1/3 of it is superspeed (fruit or veg) and sometimes it means I feel I am eating more (for example having an apple and a nectarine with breakfast where I would noramally eat just muesli) but it really stops me eating the wrong things later. In my opinion slimming world is all about filling and healthy foods with a little bit of flexibility with syns (terrible name!) to allow for the fact we live in a tempting world and are not all saints :) x

Also I agree with Blondie - organic does not mean good for you just because it says organic.
You could In theory get organic, wholewheat, gluten free doughnuts but they would still be full of sugar and fat (they would probably taste gross though!) !

Thankyou for your advice

The cereal I have is from my HEB 35g which I weigh
My milk allowance I use half from my HEA , the rest goes in my cup of teas .
My day last week was as follows -

So breakfast is 35g grape nuts , 75ml whole milk, topped up with banana , pear , strawberries , blueberries and raspberries

Snack later on in the day if hungry would be banana

Lunch - cold pasta with ham , tomatoes , cucumber and a spoonful of fat free cottage cheese

Muller fat free yogurt with raspberries

Evening meal - cous cous , spinach , broccoli and salmon

If peckish later 4 cream crackers (which I syn) with 2 low fat laughing cow cheese triangles

I'm drinking tea and water in between meals

I'm going to restart SW on Wednesday night after having dd2 who is 8mo now.

It has worked brilliantly for me in the past but last time I tried it I was in the early stages of pg and gave up! I also struggled with the EE plan so will see how it goes this time. I'd consider reverting to red and green days if it doesn't work.

Your sample day above sounds ok to me? Sure someone more savvy than me will be along soon though.

Reading over your day again, there sound like a lot of carbs. I know that pasta and couscous are free on EE but I know I could eat both (and cereal and crackers) in one day and get away with it like some folk could.

couldn't

Yes I agree it is a lot of carbs but they seem to fill me up

What do you suggest as a substitute for the pasta and cous cous ? I could do jacket potato but then that's another carb ??

I find that my weight fluctuates by up to 3lb on a daily basis. It's very early days - try not to be disheartened - you should see a downward trend over the weeks.

Could you try cauliflower rice? Tesco now have it in pots in the veg section.

You didn't do 'The Last Supper' before starting SW did you? I have been known to do this and subsequently the loss in the first week has only been small. Keep at it and it will come off!

give it another week, while your body adjusts to the new way of eating.

A couple of things I've spotted

Firstly I would suggest no more than 1 banana a day as they are higher in calories
Grape nuts are quite sugary - could you try gradually moving to an alternative?
Could you swap the whole milk for semi skimmed?

Thankyou for your comments

I'm new to this so will listen to everyone's advise and try different ways

The grape nuts are listed in the HEB list so I presumed they were fine and I'm weighing out the 35g
The whole milk I have 75ml , to me it's not much when it says I'm allowed 175ml and the milk I have in tea is literally a half a tsp

A question I'd like to ask please - if it's free can you eat as much as you like ??!!

Yes you can eat as much as you like...but that's with a third speed foods as well.

Honestly, unless you're having huge portions of raspberries or cucumber - that's what I'd tweak a bit, more speed foods.

Free foods you can eat as much of until you are full.

What was the syn value of your crackers and cheese?

Hey I agree morse speed foods with carbs and ensure carbs are wholemeal then you will need less over time

Also check you scales! Mine at home are really dodgy and change all the time according to whic tile they are placed on! That's one of the main reasons I go to meetings! You could always take yourself off to boots weekly and weigh on their scales and then collect the printouts as a record!

Menu looks fine Hun, just stick at it.. More than likely to just be a blip on the scales, re carbs - if you like them and they're on plan then have them, I use to do mainly green days (lots of pasta, rice, potatoes) and lost 6 stone x

Looks OK to me too, apart from quite a lot of fruit, which does have sugar and calories in it. But it is free and some is superfree, so should be OK.

No secret eating? - biscuit you forgot to count, or a nibble off your DCs leftovers etc?

I would recommend sticking with it as it does work if you follow the plan properly - weight varies quite a lot day to day due to water retention, amount of food eaten and what is in your digestive system etc so it could just be that you are currently 'heavy' and you could find in a few days that you have mysteriously lost 5 pounds.