slimming world

What is slimming world? I've never heard of it.

Yas. It's a great plan and easy to do.

I have lost almost 50lbs altogether.

Thanks Luann, and congrats on a great weightloss, did u exercise much ?

Yes I also exercise a couple of times a week at a bootcamp, but alot of the ladies at my group don't exercise and achieve great weight loss.

Slimming World is the group that most doctors will advise you to join if you are overweight. It is NOT a diet and just teachs you how to eat healthy and fulfilling meals and snacks

I must admit that I don't like Slimming World. I went there as support to a friend of mine who had a lot to lose, as did I (but I wouldn't have chosen to pay for any such group if it hadn't been for my friend). Now, my friend loves it and has lost weight pretty well, and I've no doubt that it works for lots of people. I've lost weight as well, though I've never really followed their plan to be honest (kept quiet about that in the meetings).

The reasons why I personally don't think it's suitable for me is that it's got long lists of "free foods" that you're supposed to be able to eat unlimited amounts of. That's just not a helpful thing for anyone with binge eating tendencies, no matter what those foods are.The free foods list includes (at least in their Extra Easy program) loads of stuff that I'd consider totally empty calories: pasta, potatoes, all fruit no matter how sugary. I know plenty of people are perfectly happy not worrying about their carbs at all, but that certainly wouldn't work for me.

More generally, I know SW is supposed to be a long term "lifestyle change" that supports real food and healthy eating... However, at least in the group I went to they were pretty much constantly talking about this or that low low fat pseudo-food product, all kinds of processed stuff I wouldn't really even call food; although again I'm sure this wouldn't bother everyone.

Another thing they boasted was how with their plan there was "no need to count calories", which apparently is hard and awkward. But you do need to count your "syn-points"... (now, I know it stands for synergy or something, but it sounds like "sin", and I gotta say as ex-ed I also had an issue with that... food's not evil or sinful no matter what it is). So you'll still need to count, only you can't just rely on the simple nutritional information available on every packaging and free everywhere online; you have to get the information on SW website.

I went to the group for a good few months. I can see it was probably a good source of peer support for many people. The group even had a couple of target members who had lost loads on the plan, so like I said, I've no doubt it CAN work. Most people though, seem to go on and off the diet constantly, putting on weight, coming to the group to confess their sins and then stick to "yummy" recipes likes boiling lean meat in diet coke for a few weeks to lose it again, just to put it back on again. Maybe that was a particularly bad group, I don't know, but I wasn't impressed...

Sorry for the rant... heh.

Oh and I agree, it encourages you to eat a lot of substitutes to real food, they love low fat yoghurt which is packed with aspartame and their coaches aren't as nutritionally trained as I would like. I went to 3 different groups over the years, none of them really had the first clue about nutrition. They practically encouraged people to live on salad and then use their syns on biscuits/chocolate rather than encouraging a healthy diet and using the syns for healthy fats.

They helped me a lot but I feel better educated these days.