Ex Slimming World Disordered Eating Recovery #2 Underestimating Our Desire To Eat Pasta

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InkHeart said:
www.bbc.co.uk

Do slimming clubs work?

In church and community halls people gather with the hope of achieving their target weight, but are slimming clubs really effective?
www.bbc.co.uk

This article says that after 5 years, only 16% of SW dieters weigh less than they did when starting.
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When you think about it, they make you reliant on their rules for weightloss "success" so as soon as you deviate from the plan you gain weight, and so the cycle of dependency starts. It's very manipulative. They don't teach anyone anything about nutrition, they gatekeep it under phrases like "syns" and "Hex b" which means nothing in the real world, so you think you can't cope without them and get scared of trying anything else.

It's literally a cult 😳
 
I made two attempts at it, joining that is. First time, about 15 years ago. I couldn't take to the leader. It all seemed very disorganised to me. She had what seemed like her entire family with her including a little fellow about 6/7 who kept going over to her while she was weighing people. I never went back.

Made another attempt some years later. Nice leader, but OMG the meetings were interminable. I lasted about two weeks. Went to WW which worked for me, I liked the leader, and best of all the meetings were short. 😁

I know someone who joined recently enough. I can't say anything though. Long story.
 
The first time I got to target I was given a little book which had hints and tips on maintaining. I’ll never forget one of them was to a lid overweight friends as they’ll lead you astray. I told my friend (tongue in cheek) that I couldn’t spend time with her anymore. It also discouraged you from watching tv. It was full of howlers, I wish I’d kept it to show how bad it was.
 
Can anyone tell me if WW is as bad as slimming world? I don't really hear many people talk about it? Just wondered if it had as many crazy rules and stuff
 
CrimsonCountess said:
Can anyone tell me if WW is as bad as slimming world? I don't really hear many people talk about it? Just wondered if it had as many crazy rules and stuff
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I did it for about a month, I found it super restrictive even though on paper it is less so than SW. I was absolutely starving all the time. This was about 4 years ago and I was on the blue plan, basically fruit and veg with the exception of potatoes were okay to have without measuring as well as lean meat like chicken breast, turkey mince plus think all fish was too. Everything else you can to count as points.
 
uokhun92 said:
I did it for about a month, I found it super restrictive even though on paper it is less so than SW. I was absolutely starving all the time. This was about 4 years ago and I was on the blue plan, basically fruit and veg with the exception of potatoes were okay to have without measuring as well as lean meat like chicken breast, turkey mince plus think all fish was too. Everything else you can to count as points.
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I thought the same and it was quite difficult if you didn’t have a lot to lose.
 
CrimsonCountess said:
Can anyone tell me if WW is as bad as slimming world? I don't really hear many people talk about it? Just wondered if it had as many crazy rules and stuff
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I haven't tried it for a while and I know they keep tweaking their plan but it used to be at its root calorie counting and instead of calories you counted points and each food was assigned a different point.
So veg and lean meat would quite low points, with some 0 points. But pasta, potatoes and rice are not 0 points.

Each member also got a different amount of points so some people would have what you would think is far too many and others that would struggle with their amount when nearer their weight goal.

At one point the brought out a sort of secondary plan that was very similar to SW but I don't think they do that anymore.

They also push their own brand food products they have in supermarkets.

With weightwatchers there is slightly more freedom in what you can eat.
For example a mcdonalds is off limits on SW due to syns but if you have enough points on WW you could have one, but you would have less points for rest of week..so in that sense they teach you moderation.

But in my opinion WW offers nothing you can't do yourself on a CC app for much less cost.

They're moving towards a more online model. Like SW they are closing alot of groups but aren't looking to to replace them unlike SW. Pre pandemic there were 4 WW groups in my town now there is one that is once a week.

One thing that does stand out on WW is they don't allow fat consultants your job depends on you remaining at target weight....or it used to at least, a rule like that would probably kick up a stink with how things are in 2023.
 
Take me back to my disordered eating 5 years ago and ive had bloody cooked this 😆
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I know this is a sw thread, I did it for years even during my pregnancy was completely fed up scared to eat much when at goal but yesterday I went to a ww class with my mum. I cc and I find I have soo much freedom! Yesterday I bought some latte sachets they are 60 cals a cup but scanned as 3 points and so my mum wouldn't drink it 😭 she only gets 23 a day, I added up my how many points I'd eaten compared to calories. I'd had over 80+ points but only 1600 odd cals and we've both lost the same amount if weight yet I'm eating pretty much normally compared to to her boring dull eating. Just makes me sad 😔! I used to restrict so much then get weighed and binge all day but now I just carry on as normal as I still eat my kit kat chunky chocolate bar, my crisps I don't feel like im dieting. I also made that stupid syn free rice pudding 😂 so glad to be out that horrible cult!
 
I think I've finally seen the light. I've attended sw for 4 years losing a little over 2 stone. I kept it off during covid and would just text my weight as didn't want the faff of zoom group. I didnt have a massive amount to lose. I've had a lot going on in my personal life with health issue wit myself and close family so I've been up and down about half a stone for the last few months. I find myself being really restrictive leading up to weigh days and then completely losing the run of myself. I've always liked the leader, lovely woman but she's so ingrained in the cult of it all...there's no support around the binging, only send me a food diary and I'll look at it. I haven't been back in 4weeks. I'm eating well and I've started CC last week with nutracheck and walking. 3 lb gone. I feel great, I don't have guilt attached if I want a proper chocolate bar with my cuppa....it's so much more freeing. I've realised that I've had a terrible attitude to food the last few years and need to leave the guilt behind me and enjoy my food again without fear. Good luck to everyone!!
 
InkHeart said:
Did anyone ever make that Diet Coke chicken? Literally just boil chicken in Diet Coke until it's all dried up and sticky around the chicken. It was meant to taste like a Chinese takeaway, but it tasted of nothing at all 😂
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Yes! And Fanta chicken and all sorts of crap. Any fakeaway with sticky in the title, like sticky chilli chicken, inevitably either used a can of coke or tit loads of sweetener and just tasted like chemicals.
 
This morning I rolled out of bed and decided to catch an early film at the cinema. Rushed out the door without anything to eat and drink, so I grabbed a large iced latte and caramel cake slice from Starbucks. It was around 600 cals but it didn't matter at all because I've still got over 1050 for the rest of the day. Which is loads if you're savy. If I was still on SW I'd have been panicking that I'd ruined my diet, so I may as well continue eating shite! It really puts it into perspective how stupid syns are and all that crap. No need for it at all.

If you're reading this and thinking about joining again- don't do it you don't need it 👌
 
brinnle said:
Calorie counting is so easy to do. Download myfitnesspal and log everything you eat. You can literally scan the packaging
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It's very easy if you live on a prepacked food diet. When I tried it I found I spent more time weighing and entering in to mfp than I did cooking and eating my meals! I also found mfp had a lot of variance in calories for the same items.

What also put me off at the time was watching a documentary on diets and they did scientific studies on the various calorie counting apps and their accuracy and some were shocking. Not just the food ones either, the ones most of us know about but so many people take as fact, the smart watch calories burned readings! If you are one of those who eats back calories consumed this can be the difference between losing and gaining weight.

I will put it out there for the criticism here. I am on Slimming World and to be honest I'm quite shocked by what I'm reading in some of these posts as I hear nothing like most of these things in my groups I attend. I do hear the odd "smart swap" meal come up and wonder why they're baking lasagne sheets to make doritos when they could just eat a packet of doritos for example. I've also made it very clear in group that weetabix is a breakfast cereal and not an ingredient to make cakes or biscuits out of and it doesn't matter what you do to them, it tastes awful!
 
-Dave- said:
It's very easy if you live on a prepacked food diet. When I tried it I found I spent more time weighing and entering in to mfp than I did cooking and eating my meals! I also found mfp had a lot of variance in calories for the same items.

What also put me off at the time was watching a documentary on diets and they did scientific studies on the various calorie counting apps and their accuracy and some were shocking. Not just the food ones either, the ones most of us know about but so many people take as fact, the smart watch calories burned readings! If you are one of those who eats back calories consumed this can be the difference between losing and gaining weight.

I will put it out there for the criticism here. I am on Slimming World and to be honest I'm quite shocked by what I'm reading in some of these posts as I hear nothing like most of these things in my groups I attend. I do hear the odd "smart swap" meal come up and wonder why they're baking lasagne sheets to make doritos when they could just eat a packet of doritos for example. I've also made it very clear in group that weetabix is a breakfast cereal and not an ingredient to make cakes or biscuits out of and it doesn't matter what you do to them, it tastes awful!
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Hmm I don’t know about this. I’ve done it successfully and after a few weeks you pretty much learn what a “portion” is and therefore how many calories you have. Obviously, it’s not an exact science but knowing you’re roughly eating xx00 calories a day is better than having no clue at all. To me it adds maybe 2 minutes to dinner prep chucking things onto the scale first rather than straight into the pan/bowl.

In terms of eating back calories, just don’t do it! This means you’ll definitely be in a calorie deficit. I pay 0 attention to what my watch says I’ve burnt.
 
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Greencatfysh said:
Hmm I don’t know about this. I’ve done it successfully and after a few weeks you pretty much learn what a “portion” is and therefore how many calories you have. Obviously, it’s not an exact science but knowing you’re roughly eating xx00 calories a day is better that having no clue at all. To me it adds maybe 2 minutes to dinner prep chucking things onto the scale first rather than straight into the pan/bowl.

In terms of eating back calories, just don’t do it! This means you’ll definitely be in a calorie deficit. I pay 0 attention to what my watch says I’ve burnt.
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I have mentioned this to slimming world groups I have gone to when they question me on my success. When I started SW I tried many different meals and ended up finding out a core group of meals I enjoy and I put these in mfp. I then got a rough idea of how many calories my meals were. When I was on plan and gaining weight I would put my meals in mfp and try to work out what was going wrong and it turns out eating a bucket of fruit and muller light isn't free and I think I was adding close to 3500 calories per week on purely because I could and it was free. A few gasps when the word calorie was mentioned obviously...

I did the calorie counting for a while though and I just got frustrated with the weighing side of things. It's just a personality thing for me, it wound me up, I gave up! I'm never going to argue the method doesn't work though, it's a scientific fact it works. I've just found that program and it says the calories on the packaging of the food will be off by 10% either side as per guidelines as they obviously can't be specific per package. I guess that's never going to be a real issue in the long run as most of these packages will be 400-800 calories so worst case is you're overeating by 80 calories on one which isn't going to see weight gain.

The people I know who were eating back calories were doing a few gym sessions and cardio and according to their watches burning 1500-2500 calories a day! they were eating back 50-75% of that and obviously not losing weight.

My friend who has done it very well has been quite strict on his weighing once a month and not eating back calories burned. I think that's mentally the place to get to.
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www.bbc.co.uk

BBC One - The Truth About..., Calories

Dr Chris van Tulleken shows how we can all be healthier by eating smarter.
www.bbc.co.uk www.bbc.co.uk

This was the program.
 
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I think Slimming world damages peoples relationship with food, reading the above comments, I can relate to it and the swaps are sometimes ridiculous.

In my opinion, the award side of slimming world is equally as dangerous. There was a woman who was going to the gym in our group and she was training regularly, she gained weight as muscle and the consultant took her target award from her. She had the nerve to message my pregnant daughter and said if she rejoins before giving birth she could win group awards postpartum which will help herself esteem. She refused to go back on principal after that.

Their awarding system and their social media ambassadors are shocking as is their approach to what a good, balanced and healthy life style should look like.
 
If you want to live a life of restriction whilst kidding yourself you’re not restricted at all when you’re tucking into your 8948473th steak and salad on a meal out (counting a few syns for any oil possibly used on the steak, of course!) whilst everyone else is enjoying whatever TF they want then by all means do SW.

If you want to actually have a handle on nutritional value, the fact it’s okay to eat more indulgent foods in moderation and not be scared to go out to eat anywhere other than Nando’s, Harvester or Subway then calorie counting is definitely the way forward!
 
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