Slimming World and My Fitness Pal

i have done just about every plan going! my best advise is if your starting slimming world forget calorie counting! the reason slimming world is a good plan is beaucase you dont have to mess around measuring weighing counting calories! if you ahev been counting calories for a while now you will know an average portion when your full ect...putting calories in here while doing this plan will become too over complicated and porbably put you off....you may gain for the first week or 2 but then should come off the way that i think SW works is becuase its very low fat so your kind of cutting a food group out same as you would atkins with carbs,...go with an open mind try it couple of weeks WITHOUT CALORIE COUNTING (i know its hard) and see how you get on..good luck xx

It tells you you can eat as many free foods as you want, but when you put them into my fitness Pal, you will most likely go over!

Yeah, that's because there are no "free" foods. Fruits, vegetables, and whatever other "free" foods this plan says you can have still have calories.

This, honestly there are some people at my SW class who devour huge ammounts of these "free foods" and don't understand why they don't lose.

I agree with Lauren. Both SW and WW seem to be saying out loud 'eat all this free food and lose weight' but are whispering 'but of course only eat until you are satisfied'. I don't have a 'satisfied' button which is why I have been overweight/dieting for most of my life. For the last year with MFP, I have accepted that I need to keep a proper check on what I am eating then it works and I have achieved target. Staying there is still hard work but for me can only be done by keeping a firm control of what I eat. No such thing as a 'free' lunch - as they say !!

i think SW works is becuase its very low fat so your kind of cutting a food group out

No. Fat does not make you fat.

I did slimming world for a long time and lost the same stone over and over again. I have trouble understanding how fruit and veg can be a 'free food', let alone heaving piles of pasta.

It's great for recipe ideas but in terms of weight loss, it makes no sense. Also, MFP is free. :flowerforyou:

But the support and incentives for losing weight are worth the £5 a week for me, not to mention their online recipe database.

Its perfectly possible to lose the weight for free I just find SW helps me personally

I've done both. I agree with people here about how slimming world works - it's a lowish fat diet, and the free foods are generally things that you have to prepare so you don't tend to snack on high-calorie foods. Obviously, you can overeat on it, but it's not so likely - for instance if you want a biscuit after tea, it's easy to eat one or two right away, but if you wanted more pasta or rice, you'd have to cook it up and you're less likely to do that. I found that the free foods weren't foods I tend to overeat on, so it did work in that I lost some weight. Personally, though, I didn't like the diet. I found I ate less of the healthy food I normally ate (oats, nuts, etc.) and I became less likely to have homemade food because it was more of a faff to count the sins. Homemade yoghurt was replaced with Muller Light, etc. I also don't like eating low fat.

I do think that part of the point is that you DON'T have to count calories, but I agree with the poster above that you've got to do what works for you. I mix up MFP with another diet at the moment - sometimes I count calories and sometimes I don't, but I do need to have SOME awareness of portion size. My TDEE is relatively small now that I've lost the weight, so I know I couldn't just let rip and eat big plates of pasta.

I tend to use SW principles, e.g. if I'm making a meal, I try and make it 'syn free' by using spray oil, fat and sugar free fromage frais/quark, lots of veg and meat, etc, or if I'm having a yoghurt I'll go for a muller light or something. I love syn free recipes as they are really tasty and pretty good for you. But I wouldn't fork out to actually go to a Slimming World, and also I don't trust myself with eating 'unlimited' amounts of food (especially pasta and potatoes)!

Hi ive just stopped Sw I was eating far too much beans, pasta, meat, all have calories I don't care how free they are even fruit and veg has calories if counted. The food is boring after a while same old stuff. Now i'm back here again counting calories you then realize how much you do eat. Plus side you can have anything as long as its within your calorie limit. NO PORTION CONTROL with slimming world I didn't loose.