Why am I not losing weight?

[readysetcake]

Been on SW for 6 weeks. Apart from 5 days spread throughout this 6 weeks (family events) I’ve stuck to the plan like glue. I’ve been watching my portion sizes and trying to load up my plate with speed food. I’m trying not to eat too much pasta, rice etc. Average around 8 syns a day (some days only have a few, some days the full 15). I do tend to save my syns for a bit of chocolate or a G@T rather than having syns in my meals. Is this where I’m going wrong? I’ve lost 5lb in 6 weeks. It’s so depressing.

Typical day

Breakfast: boiled eggs on whole meal (heb)
Apple
2xTea (hea)

Lunch
Vegetable cous cous
Coffee (hea)

Dinner
Chicken curry
SW chips
Salad

Chocolate (5)
Yogurt with strawberries and honey (1)

Total syns = 6

Do I need to cut carbs completely? I feel like that will make it a hard diet to follow. I have 2st 1lb to target of 9st (I’m 5ft3).

5lbs in 6 weeks isn't too bad. Depends how much you have to lose of course, but if you keep that rate up that's a lot over a year!

Are you being totally honest with yourself about every little thing that passes your lips? Not suggesting you're lying but I know what I'm like when cooking kids tea (leftover hoover ) or tasting when cooking. Are you counting cooking oils, butter on toast, ketchup with your eggs etc. I'd be looking to up your speed food so breakfast add spinach or mushrooms, lunch add roast veg on the side, dinner is the salad on your plate not a side dish. Try dropping the daily chocolate and maybe try hifi bars or alpen light.
Might just be that you'll be a slow burner but you will get there eventually but hopefully one of these ideas might help.

I think some people are more sensitive to carbs than others maybe? Maybe it’s a height thing, because I’m the same height as you and just cannot lose weight if I’m eating starchy carbs - so the bread, cous cous, rice, pasta and potatoes would have to go.

It has to be portion sizes, SW works on calories even though it purports not to. The honey, cous cous, milk in the tea etc, how much are you having? Even if you go a little over the sw allowance for those things, the cals will add up over a week.

That’s the thing, I’ve been militant about weighing things and cut out oil from cooking completely. If I have spread on toast I weigh out 5g and syn it. I’ve even resisted eating crumbs of grated cheese from my kids meals for example as I know extra calories can creep up. That is what is so frustrating. I hate milky tea so I doubt I have my hea allowance in days I use it for tea and I always over estimate syns when I’m not sure how big my portion is.

I think I probably need to cut carbs if I want a fast loss. I only want to lose just over half a stone quickly to get back into pre pregnancy clothes and then I can lose the rest slowly but surely.

Just so unfair that some people can lose 3/4 pounds a week or more on this diet and I can’t! I’ve a blood test on Friday to check my thyroid medication is right. Maybe it’s that (clutches at straws).

It's because you're still taking in more calories than you're using up. Try fitting in some kind of exercise daily and see if that helps

I think that's quite good progress considering you've had days off in between - it's almost 1lb a week which is a great maintained weight loss. I'd say try measuring your milk, don't estimate syns - weigh it, use the app/website to check them. And eat more speed.
Also can't remember if you've said but drink a lot of water too.

Thanks for all your advice everyone

I have started exercise last week. Hips are still painful from birth so can’t do too much unfortunately. But I’m trying.

Think I need to up the speed and just be more patient. Something I’m not very good at!!

The first thing you need to remember is e retime is different. My friend can lose 5lbs easily while I struggle to get 2lbs.

I munch a lot of speed foods during the day. I have cut back on my carbs so pasta is a fistful. Rice I only have red rice now. But potatoes are my main love.

I change my healthy extras each day and try the same with my syns.

How old is your baby? Are you breastfeeding?

Hi, I've been on my diet for about 6 weeks too and have lost 11lbs (weigh in tomorrow). I feel it is starting to slow down though. I'm not a big fruit or vegetable person myself and a total chocoholic so perhaps my diary might help? Here's a typical one:

B: wheetabix with milk and tea (HEa)
L: home made vegetable soup, diet coke, apple, low syn popcorn (4 syns)
D: M&S skinny burgers with low syn McCain chips (4 syns for 200g)
Evening Snacks: two chocolate pearl cakes from the skinny bakery (4 syns) and diet coke

Taking me to 8 syns for the day

I find instagram a great resource for recipes and snack ideas. Check out the skinny bakery, and the skinny food co (amazing sauces and syrups). they also have websites.

For meat options - try iceland's SW range, M&S skinny range. Look at muscle food, protein food shop, joe's sausages and the skinni range from west coast foods

I reckon my weight loss is starting to slow down now so I think I need to up my exercise. Do you exercise?

@sunshineNdaisies I would try adding more speed food to your day - berries with breakfast, salad with your dinner, try SW homemade chips instead of McCain's, drop one of your sweet treats for something like melon or blueberries.

OP did you say you are eating 5 chocolates a day? There is your answer.

Eating sweet things always stops weight loss. Even if it's sugar free. I was on Atkins once and even using too much of stevia at 0 calories was sure to stop people losing. It's something about the body's reaction to sweetness.

That's absolutely not true. That's what your syns are for, things like chocolate. I used to save mine up for a small kitkat with a cup of tea at the end of the day and it never once stopped me losing weight. 5lbs in 6 weeks is actually perfectly normal.. roughly1lb a week is a good, steady weight loss. Yes, sometimes people lose more quickly, sometimes they have spectacular weight loss, but in truth is not about how quickly you lose, it's about can you maintain that loss and still live an acceptably comfortable life? I really would not worry, be kind to yourself, and just keep going, doing what you are doing..as someone said roughly 1lb a week translates to roughly 52 pounds in a year..which is 3 1/2 stone..that's not to be dismissed as unimpressive, trust me.

Granted I’m doing WW old Pro Points, but I eat chocolate almost every day (none yesterday because we had a dominos ) I’ve lost 1st 9.5lb in 12 weeks. So the not having sweet stuff as a blanket is total crap. That may be the case for you, but not for everyone.

One small kitkat absolutely, but not 5 chocolates in one day...

I've lost over 5st on SW and had sweet things nearly every day! So I don't believe it's that.

I also read it as 5 syns for the chocolate.

I could eat just 5 chocolate bars a day and still lose weight, because if the calorific content is still less than I am burning, weight loss happens. It is not advisable or healthy and yes the trans fats, palm oil, sugar etc will eventually take its toll on your body, but the energy it gives the body vs the energy you burn are really the most important thing on a short term goal diet like SW/WW. High fat foods are generally always high calorie also, even the good fats, which is why SW limits both.

The higher muscle ratio you have will also affect your energy output which is why some people lose 7lb a week but eat loads, you eat less but lose less. Same with men, they have great loses because they have more muscle so they burn more calories. It’s costs more calories to run a muscle than it does the same weight in fat. So if you have a high body fat percentage, the weight is easy to lose and difficult to keep off because you will always have to eat a low cal/low fat diet. Increasing your muscle means you can have more to eat because you burn more energy, even while resting.

Cardio is not good for muscle building, it will initially burn calories on the day of exercise but does nothing for your long term weight loss because it doesn’t give you additional muscle, which as I said, means you burn more calories even when you are sitting down.

Hi readysetcake I am in the same boat as you. I joined SW 2 weeks ago, lost 2lb then 1.5lb but only managed that by reducing the food I was ‘allowed’ on SW and plugging everything I eat into MyFitnessPal to check my calories are within 1200-1400 per day. Slimming world works by making a set of rules whereby you are encouraged/manipulated into eating low-calorie dense food. They work on the assumption that for most dieters, doing this will create enough of a calorie deficit to burn fat and lose weight. This seems to work very well for many, especially very overweight people who are used to eating calorie dense food. You and I may fall into a different category, as people with a BMI if 27 who don’t have too much weight to lose.

In order to make sure I lose, I have been sticking to the rules 100%, but also:
Making my free carb portions very small, only eating speed fruit for occasional snack between meals, always doing the 1/3 plate SF rule & using small dinner plates. I admire / envy those who get a 3-4lb loss a week eating big portions of rice and pasta and having free yoghurts, mugshots etc between meals. I will never lose like that as I would be consuming too many calories to create the deficit. Good luck!

If the 5 chocolates fall within your allocated syn total (and presumably they do since OP is trying very hard and must be sticking to the plan) then it makes no difference if it's 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 chocolates that make up your daily syns. It just has to fit within the plan.

AmIUnderstandingThisCorrectly
This is a misunderstanding. The OP isn’t eating 5 chocolates a day. She never said she was. She’s having 5 syns worth of chocolate, which isn’t much at all.

I'm just making the point to that it doesn't matter what the OP's chocolate intake comprises of ( 1 chocolate worth 5 syns, or 5 chocolates worth x number of syns), as long as it falls within her allotted syn intake. Various people have said she should be cutting out chocolate, or that 1 small kit Kat is acceptable, but 5 chocolates are not. Both are false. All that matters is that OP doesn't exceed her syn allocation. How she spends it is irrelevant in terms of pure weight loss.

I did wonder that @iamyourequal i have just joined slimming world last week and at weigh in today i had lost 5/12 lb but iam sifnificantly larger than the op and i need to lose 6/7 stonr

Well done AamdC what a fabulous week1. You must be really pleased. You will surely get your first 1/2 stone off by week 2! Are you enjoying the plan? What do you think of it? It’s taken me a while to get into the swing of it. I keep forgetting that if I have porridge for breakfast I can’t have a sandwich for lunch (not wasting syns on lunch!). Much planning needed on work days.

It took a few days, and remembering to have speed food is a bit of bind , im finding it surprisingly hard to stick to my daily bread limit i didnt realise i ate so much of it! But im getting there fingers crossed for next week