Spring into Summer 2012 with Slimming World

lfcgurly

Minnie-the-Minx wrote: »

I must admit I'm struggling a bit with SW.

I was so happy on week 1 with a 4lb loss but since then it has been 0, 0, .5, 1, .5, .5 so a total loss of 6.5 lbs in 7 weeks which is painfully slow. I have about 2 stone to lose - well, one and a half now.

My group leader is trying so hard and assures me that everyone loses with SW - it's just a case of finding out which version of it works best for me.

We have tried reducing my syns from 15 to 10 to 5 to 5 but not wine which I must admit made me feel a bit depressed and deprived and still resulted in a .5 loss.

This week's suggestion is to try Original instead of EE so that is what I'm doing - with my fingers firmly crossed of course.

I don't do much in the way of exercise so think I may need to do something there to give me a boost.

I don't want to give up on this because I need to lose the weight and I also enjoy the healthier way I am now eating but it is getting harder and harder to believe that this is the answer for me.

Some people just don't lose quickly. I've been on SW now for over 3 months. In that time, I've never lost more than about 1.5 lbs in a week. I started off with 30 lbs. to lose and at the moment I have 22 lbs. left to lose. Not because I cheat or anything, but because that's just how my body works. I retain water multiple times a month and so the scale goes back up.

However, they say that losing slowly is a sign that you can keep it off long term. It's also meant to be healthier overall.
Plus, those of us that started out with less to lose will get there more slowly. People who lose 5-10 lbs. their first week and keep seeing 3-5 lb. losses each week usually had more to lose from the beginning and that will slow down as they approach target.

Anyway, my point in all this is that you have to have a longer term outlook for SW. It's more about knowing that you're eating the way you should and ensuring your body is getting what it needs. Really, any weight loss is a bonus in my book. I feel way better overall now that I'm not always eating processed junk.

So hang in their Minnie (BTW, that's my dogs name so I almost feel like I'm addressing this to her. ) because there is a light at the end of the tunnel, even if it takes some of us longer to get to it. Oh, and I've read cutting down syns isn't usually the best way to increase losses. It doesn't seem to matter too much for most folks if you have 5 or 10 a day.

gunsandbanjos

Minnie-the-Minx wrote: »

I must admit I'm struggling a bit with SW.

I was so happy on week 1 with a 4lb loss but since then it has been 0, 0, .5, 1, .5, .5 so a total loss of 6.5 lbs in 7 weeks which is painfully slow. I have about 2 stone to lose - well, one and a half now.

My group leader is trying so hard and assures me that everyone loses with SW - it's just a case of finding out which version of it works best for me.

We have tried reducing my syns from 15 to 10 to 5 to 5 but not wine which I must admit made me feel a bit depressed and deprived and still resulted in a .5 loss.

This week's suggestion is to try Original instead of EE so that is what I'm doing - with my fingers firmly crossed of course.

I don't do much in the way of exercise so think I may need to do something there to give me a boost.

I don't want to give up on this because I need to lose the weight and I also enjoy the healthier way I am now eating but it is getting harder and harder to believe that this is the answer for me.

Some people are slow losers, and you dont have that much to lose.
I would definitely try either red or green or mix to max plans as generally they give better losses than EE.

Flat_Eric

rachbc wrote: »

I suspect my refried beans are utterly inauthentic but basically I tip a can of kidney beans into a pan - draining off some but not all the liquid, add a bit of cumin, coriander, garlic and chiptole paste (or smoked paprika), then whizz with the stick blender and warm through - can add some lime juice in they are a bit thick and some fresh coriander. Lovely cold as dip too

This sounds yummy!

kjmtidea wrote: »

Hello :j I have read the first and last page but can't read the other 123 pages, I would be here all night :rotfl:. I am thinking about joining slimming world, I am rubbish at eating properly and losing weight but slimming world doesn't really seem like a diet - more like eating healthy food and getting back to 'normal'?

I am torn between going to the meetings or joining online, can anyone recommend one or the other? It seems a little complicated but I guess you just get the hang of it after a while, I am thinking about dragging my partner along with me too!

I definitely recommend the meetings over online membership. You get lots of support, ideas and motivation. I really enjoy my weekly fix of image therapy.

rainbowfairydust wrote: »

Dont give up FE. Dont beat yourself up for it. The best thing you can do is keep trying & do what you can. So what if you have a week where you eat more syns. Its just a week which in the grand scheme of things is nothing.. take small steps to get back to the 15 syn daily allowance. Ok it might not happen overnight but it WILL happen at some point.

I think as long as you are still eating reasonably healthily then an extra choc or 2 wont matter so much. However if you are consuming pizza/kebabs/oodles of toast (my downfall ) with NOTHING healthy then that is a problem and i would suggest going to see your SW consultant (do you attend the groups?? sorry cant remember?:o). If you dont then write yourself a food diary for a week with everything you have eaten and then start cutting back bit by bit rather than in one fell swoop..

The hardest thing for me to deal with is having the balance of sweets/chocolate to healthy nutritious food right and also having to deal with the feelings of guilt if anything i deem as "bad for me" passes my lips.

I dont know about anyone else but i find when i am losing weight i become obsessed with food and thinking about food. I was obsessing this way this morning before work ( its cookie friday today which means the kitchen has several bags of bakery cookies & flapjacks waiting to be eaten ) and i dont want to spend my life avoiding treats.

Avoidance is the reason why i think i have failed at diets in the past. I go without , one bad day & all goes wrong & it continues to spiral with it ending up that i put on a lot of pounds in a short space of time.
I will no doubt end up having a cookie today and i am trying to come to terms with it because"this is ok and because its not an everyday occurrence".

Sorry for going off track a bit there..the point i want to make is just keep going & do what you can. *hugs*

Thank you for your lovely post.

gunsandbanjos wrote: »

For the fajitas I know it sounds crap but get a big whole iceberg lettuce leaf and use it as a wrap. It is surprisingly good!

Sorry to hear your news CH27, comfort eating won't make the news less bad or your memories less painful. All it will do is make you feel bad about yourself afterwards. Look at this as the one thing you can control and focus on it, 1 day at a time.

Thats a fab idea for the fajitas. I love fajitas and usually have just the one wrap. A chinese dish I had once was lettuce leaves with a minced pork filling.

rachbc wrote: »

I'm being rubbish today - out this evening and instead of thinking I will eat really well tody to make up for it I have gone the oppostive and though sod it lets blow the whole day - 8 sys lready whcih is so unlike me.

Had a lovely free chickpea and spinach curry for lunch then spoiled it with a mini crunchie and a meringue! Doh - should have saved those syns for 2 glasses of wine!

Working from home doesn't help - normally I don;t take my purse to work so I can't buy goodies - but here they are freely available!

Think I might Express next week - so with anything not free do you count the highest syn value?

I do this all the time! Instead of sticking to superfree all day, I munch naughty treats and then still have my meal out (when I have what I want!)

Lil_Me wrote: »

Been a little AWOL recently. I got to target just over a year ago, managed to keep it up for 6 months, then went out of target range and got too busy/stressed at work to be able to keep up with the meetings and I let myself go a little since I don't have scales at home.

Sooooooo I'm rejoining on Monday! A different group to the one I went to before, I'm a little embarrassed and I found that my consultant wasn't as supportive as I needed her to be once I got to target. Very much a case of not worth her time as I wasn't paying anymore. Anyway, I think I have put on around about 3/4 stone from my target but will find out for sure on Monday.

I have also updated the SW recipe thread opening post to keep everything in check hehe.

So hi everyone!

Starting weight - April 2010 - 12st 1lb
Target weight - April 2011 - 9st 0lb
Current weight - May 2012 - ???

Its a funny thing this target business. When I was at target, my consultant would never have much to say to me. It was kind of – you are at target – you don't need my help. Other members have said that (of being at target) that they actually need more help than when they were trying to lose the weight. I don't know why consultants are like this? Yes you are not paying anymore but still ?

Minnie-the-Minx wrote: »

I must admit I'm struggling a bit with SW.

I was so happy on week 1 with a 4lb loss but since then it has been 0, 0, .5, 1, .5, .5 so a total loss of 6.5 lbs in 7 weeks which is painfully slow. I have about 2 stone to lose - well, one and a half now.

My group leader is trying so hard and assures me that everyone loses with SW - it's just a case of finding out which version of it works best for me.

We have tried reducing my syns from 15 to 10 to 5 to 5 but not wine which I must admit made me feel a bit depressed and deprived and still resulted in a .5 loss.

This week's suggestion is to try Original instead of EE so that is what I'm doing - with my fingers firmly crossed of course.

I don't do much in the way of exercise so think I may need to do something there to give me a boost.

I don't want to give up on this because I need to lose the weight and I also enjoy the healthier way I am now eating but it is getting harder and harder to believe that this is the answer for me.

Have you done any food diaries for your consultant ??? Did you want to post some of your menus on here ??

CH27

I stayed strong & didn't comfort eat yesterday:j

Today will be EE

B. Fruit & fibre with milk HEA & B
2 satsuma

L. Bacon, eggs, mushrooms, tomatoes & baked beans
Apple

D. Chicken biryani 4syns
Raspberries

S. Milky option 2syns
Curlywurly 6syns

Total 12 syns.

kandfs_mam

Afternoon all,

I've been shopping with the family and as per the kids request wew ended up in McDs for lunch where I polished my halo and had a black coffee and now I'm home and starving so I've hoovered up 2 hard boiled eggs, a pear and an alpen light bar (1/2 HEB) while I've got a SW quiche cooking (made with pasta n sauce) - it smells lush.

I'm going to try to avoid the vino this weekend again to try to get a loss on the scales on Monday morning. It's 8 weeks on Monday until we go on holiday and I would like to be well over the 3st hurdle by then - I know I've only 4lb to go to my 3st but I have 2 big weekends coming up between now and then which I would imagine will be a gain both weeks.

evilsquid1603

Flat_Eric wrote: »

[
Its a funny thing this target business. When I was at target, my consultant would never have much to say to me. It was kind of – you are at target – you don't need my help. Other members have said that (of being at target) that they actually need more help than when they were trying to lose the weight. I don't know why consultants are like this? Yes you are not paying anymore but still ?

tbh, its like SW themselves haven't got a plan for maintaining apart from "eat more HE!". when i was at target. i maintained by letting go of some little things so HE weren't measured and i stopped measuring things like butter and ketchup and had a few things fried in oil. tbh, i did keep loosing and gaining the same few pounds and the weeks i "maintained" were the weeks when id been lax and had been out for a meal and drinks or had a few really naughty treats.

i was basically left to it though. there was no need to ask me "what did you do?" because it wasn't what the rest of the group needed to hear and "what meals did you eat?" every single week just got boring. i felt like i got nothing out of going anymore so i just stopped. they say we're welcome back for life but there is literally nothing to go back to class for apart from getting weighed and if you have mates there you want to see. all the groups I've been to have only one or two target members still attending, and they are recent targets, I've never seen a long term target member keep going, even just appearing once a month.

doelani

Wen shopping and was really good, instead of fish and chips we had soup :T. Then spent an hour on tesco to by a few things lol took so long as was busy trying to find low fat spread lol

Then off to butcher to get syn free sausages and ended spending £20 on Syn free meat pack lol. A least plenty of choice for dinner lol

Flat_Eric

I have munched my SW chips (along with ham and eggs) and now I'm looking forward to a night in front of the box with the BGT final and my cross stitch.:j

Menu wise, over my syns but happy with how things have gone. Breakfast was a cereal bar (too many syns), lunch was pasta n sauce (1.5 syns) served with fried (in frylight) pepper and sweet onion. post lunch - strawberries (they were yummy).

dinner sw chips, ham (HEB), eggs. other heb was hi fi peanut bar. (afternoon snack) Only had one HEA (for milk)

Will be having wine syns tonight - but do hope to resist the crunchie on the kitchen side.... pleased to say though that I resisted the temptations of the naughty treats in the shop when i visited it this morning.:T Think I will prep more strawberries to munch so that I avoid chocolate munchies....

maman

evilsquid1603 wrote: »

tbh, its like SW themselves haven't got a plan for maintaining apart from "eat more HE!". when i was at target. i maintained by letting go of some little things so HE weren't measured and i stopped measuring things like butter and ketchup and had a few things fried in oil. tbh, i did keep loosing and gaining the same few pounds and the weeks i "maintained" were the weeks when id been lax and had been out for a meal and drinks or had a few really naughty treats.

i was basically left to it though. there was no need to ask me "what did you do?" because it wasn't what the rest of the group needed to hear and "what meals did you eat?" every single week just got boring. i felt like i got nothing out of going anymore so i just stopped. they say we're welcome back for life but there is literally nothing to go back to class for apart from getting weighed and if you have mates there you want to see. all the groups I've been to have only one or two target members still attending, and they are recent targets, I've never seen a long term target member keep going, even just appearing once a month.

You're so right evilsquid, maybe this book they're bringing out is to try and keep target members with them. I've been going to my group regularly as a target member for almost a year now but I'm definitely only one of a very few. I go because I have made some good friends there. Many of them have been going as long as me but they've either stopped and restarted or they don't seem to be able to focus properly (self sabotage with extra syns or they just 'play' at it or they don't seem to quite grasp the plan properly and no amount of advice seems to help). I have a theory that the 3lbs tolerance is probably what many of us fluctuate through anyway across a month/year it's just that most people (not on SW) don't weigh every week. I know I'm probably one of a minority that have tended to slip under but no matter whether it's under or over if they can keep you there paying your £5 then it's all money in the bank for SW. I think it's a golden rule in business that it's easier to keep your existing customers than get new ones. So if the recession is having an effect on recruitment then focusing on existing (target) members makes sound business sense.

I am a SW convert in that losing weight has had a huge effect on how I feel about myself and I'd recommend it to anyone (and do!). Also it's got to be a positive thing if it stops target members putting the weight back on again. That doesn't stop me thinking through their business plan and being cynical, that's just me!:rotfl:

evilsquid1603

maman wrote: »

You're so right evilsquid, maybe this book they're bringing out is to try and keep target members with them. I've been going to my group regularly as a target member for almost a year now but I'm definitely only one of a very few. I go because I have made some good friends there. Many of them have been going as long as me but they've either stopped and restarted or they don't seem to be able to focus properly (self sabotage with extra syns or they just 'play' at it or they don't seem to quite grasp the plan properly and no amount of advice seems to help). I have a theory that the 3lbs tolerance is probably what many of us fluctuate through anyway across a month/year it's just that most people (not on SW) don't weigh every week. I know I'm probably one of a minority that have tended to slip under but no matter whether it's under or over if they can keep you there paying your £5 then it's all money in the bank for SW. I think it's a golden rule in business that it's easier to keep your existing customers than get new ones. So if the recession is having an effect on recruitment then focusing on existing (target) members makes sound business sense.

I am a SW convert in that losing weight has had a huge effect on how I feel about myself and I'd recommend it to anyone (and do!). Also it's got to be a positive thing if it stops target members putting the weight back on again. That doesn't stop me thinking through their business plan and being cynical, that's just me!:rotfl:

i think you're right and it is a big business plan. i mean, every target member will prob be giving them at least one week in january after all the xmas food, especially those at the top of the 3 pounds up who might slightly go over. add on at least one for a summer holiday, one for a big birthday, one for a weekend away, one for being really ill and loosing the weight and going under one week, it all adds up to paying for at least one month a year!

i would have kept on going but they need to either find a way to incorporate target members more or do something separate for them. i could have used a chat on how to maintain but you do feel as because you aren't paying for it its all centred on the ones who will.

they do seem to tolerate the ones who just don't take it seriously as well. its like as long as you pay, whatever version of SW you want is ok for you. my last one had people admitting they went home, did SW for two days and then gave up because they didn't understand it and it was hard and they wanted a cake and an easy life, and that just got glossed over. ones admitting they were going home via the chippy would get a tut and a "how many syns in one fish girls?" at most. it was only if it got stupid and the consultant had a room full of us all saying wed been out that week and had chippy and we didn't care coz chocolate cake and booze was nice that we got a "you realise this weight won't just magically drop off if you come to class and pay me £4.95, don't you?" lecture.