Slimming World - is it all Mueller Lite Yoghurts and Heinz Macaroni?

[ZZMum]

I need to lost 1.5 stone and am not doing it by my prefered option of eating healtily - would appear I am just maintaining so need more of a structure, hence looking for a plan.

SW was mentioned to be by a friend but before I fork out to join just want to undersdtand what it is based on - years ago I remember working with a woman who seemed to mainline mueller lite yoghrts and tins of sloppy as they were "free" - could not bare either so not sure this is plan for me if it is based around this processed food - can any one let me know what the basic principles are so I can see if it would suit me - and if it worked for them!

Thanks

Check out WW as well.

The food on Slimming World is brilliant and it is easy to lose weight. I gave up because I couldn't live without bread, but most of the recipes are gorgeous and fresh. There was one made with fresh spinach and chilli which was so good I still cook it all the time and served it at a big family party the other day. It tastes really creamy but is free on green, if the parmesan is used as a healthy extra.

And there are loads of lovely recipes - chargrilled meat and veg kebabs, homemade veggie chilli etc. There's a lot of cooking fresh veg. It's definitely not all processed foods.

all ths free food is nonsense in my opinion....it can be taken too far and gives the wrong message...i.e eat as much as you like of certain foods

i was with sw few years ago,but modified it a bit,lost some

i prefer to low carb these days...

right interesting that you all gave it up!! I do think low carb would suit me so I guess if the SW plan has no bread that could work ...

TBB - do you mind me asking how if you found you lost more doing low carb than SW?

slimming world just seemed so faddy,at least low carbing means you can eat out,work it round the family. no weighing out etc

I'm doing SW at the moment and losing about 2lbs a week.

Their newer plan is called extra easy. Basically there are some things that are free - fruit, veg, lean meat, fish, poultry, etc, as well as pasta, rice, couscous and potatoes.

Then you get choose 2 healthy extras each day - stuff like milk, cheese and grains. This includes 2 slices wholemeal bread - so if you wanted to, you could still have a sandwich every day.

Then everything else has a "syn" value. People get worked up about it being called syns but it's just another name for points that someone donkeys years ago would be funny. Everything else has these syn points, and you're meant to aim for 5-15 syns a day. So that covers things like cakes, chocolates, sauces - everything really. So if you wanted more bread, you could also take it out of there.

For me, at the moment, it's working fine. I've lost lots of weight with Atkins before but I put it all back on again because, bottom line, I always struggled to cut out carbs. Interesting that someone else felt SW was more faddy than low carbing - I think it's a personal taste thing as this time round I felt the exact opposite - I just couldn't be bothered to buy and cook separate stuff just for me - on this my whole family eat what I do, but I just modify a bit - so for example we just had jacket potatoes, beans and veggie sausages, but I grated some full fat cheese on theirs and some reduced fat cheese on mine.

I know it sounds like bollocks but I genuinely don't feel like I'm dieting on this and, like I said, I'm losing about 2lbs a week. And in the last few weeks I've been away on a conference eating catered food, had my birthday and been out for several meals including a curry AND eaten my way through some Easter egg! So I've just found it allows me to continue with normal life and still lose. Which is what I needed at the moment, something easy. It's a bit slower than Atkins - 2lbs a week rather than 4 - but for me it's working.

There's a SW support thread on here if you look for it if you want to take it further. Really, I think the key is to work out what sort of head space you're in and go for something that works with that.

Good luck

Casserole has explained it beautifully and it does work. I have lost 2 stone and not found it very difficult at all. I just streamlined my usual recipes to fit in with it. I find it good as you can have so many free foods whereas with WW everything has to be pointed pretty much and I got too hungry.

The idea behind SW is that the 'free' foods are ones which are lower in calories, but will fill you up for longer thereby making it less likely you will be able to overeat on them. The healthy extras are there to give a balanced diet and the syns, to allow you those little things you crave, but in moderation.

If you choose the original plan rather than the green or extra easy, you can basically follow a low carb diet but without all the faffing over points etc and still have the option of about four slices of bread a day if you want it.

Its incredibly straight forward and as Casserole says, there is no need to cook separately from the rest of the family.

HTH

I just came back to add this - I always struggled doing Atkins in spring /summer, as I always wanted to eat lots of fruit and yoghurts and fresh fruity type stuff which of course you can't. So I found Atkins easier to do in winter. That only just occured to me when I went down and opened my fridge and was accosted by gorgeous piles of fruit (Tesco shop got delivered last night and I forgot, was expecting a much sorrier sight!!) I'm going to make some fruit fools later if anyone's interested, with strawberries, mango, apricots and Quark

ANYWAY. I'll stop now But that thought just came to me so I thought I'd pop back and share. I'm meant to be revising so I'm easily distractible!