Thread: Common SW misconceptions put right.

Just thought i'd put in one place a lot of the same points and questions that have been made recently. Feel free to add more!

Cutting back on syns won't always help boost your losses. Many people who increase their syns to 15 a day then have greater losses. Syns are an important part of the plan and cutting them out is not a short-cut to target.

Cooking/mashing fruit is not ok (even if you were only going to eat one anyway). It's not just about the one piece of fruit you were going to eat, it's also how it fills you up and affects your metabolism and appetite later in the day.

Too much fruit will not slow your losses. The official line from SW is that fruit can be enjoyed as a free food, provided you stop eating when you are full.

The 1/3 superfree food is important and not optional on EE. The SW guidance says that you must fill 1/3 of your plate with superfree, not that it's better if you do, or you'll have better losses if you do - the 1/3 superfree is an integral part of the EE plan and is the key to making it work.

Only the Healthy Extras listed on the website and in the book are allowed. If it's not listed then it doesn't have enough nutrients and fibre to be considered a healthy extra, so having something similar is not the same as having a healthy extra, and should therefore be synned.

Muscle does not weigh more than fat, and you cannot build muscle after a few workouts. It takes a very long time, and intensive weight lifting workouts to build muscle, so if you STS or have a small gain after starting exercise it will likely be water assisting the muscle repair and not weight gain. Also, 1lb of fat weighs the same as 1lb of muscle.

Everyone does not have big losses in their first week. A lot of people do, but a lot of people also start slowly, it bears no relation to their long term success of the plan, as things usually balance out over the following few weeks.

STS for a few weeks does not mean the plan isn't working. Our weight fluctuates naturally anyway, so sometimes it can take a couple of weeks for the scales to show a loss. It takes 3500 calories EXTRA a week to gain 1lb of fat, so if you've been good and still sts or gained, stick with the plan as it will show sooner or later.

Losing weight quickly does not mean it goes back on quicker. It doesn't matter how fast you lose weight, or what diet you follow, the only way weight returns is if you consume more calories than you burn off, so returning to the eating habits that made you gain weight before, will do exactly the same again.

nicely said ^_^. Though the syns thing if i can work them into a meal then so be it but i'm not going to use it for the sake of using it when i dont need to. The most i;ve used in a day was 10 and that was yesterday and today has been 5 and i know 5-15 is reasonable.

Thanks for this, as being new to SW, I found this really helpful

Free foods are not completely unlimited! You can't eat Mugshots and Muller Lights all day every day, and then be surprised to STS. I'm putting this one up as it seems apt, while I sit trying to force down the last few mouthfuls of my MAHUSIVE pasta carbonara. You still have to exercise portion control, it's just down to your own judgement of when you are 'full' rather than having amounts and weights set out by the plan.

This should be sticky.....very helpful

Great thread :-)

Fab thread. Well put together.

Great thread - I've been guilty of saying that mashing a banana wont make a difference but basically - theres the plan, it works if you follow it properly. I'm sure the people at SW dont put these rules in place just to pee us off!!

Originally Posted by jen3

Great thread - I've been guilty of saying that mashing a banana wont make a difference but basically - theres the plan, it works if you follow it properly. I'm sure the people at SW dont put these rules in place just to pee us off!!

Lol yes. That should be a rule too!

SW do not make rules up just to pee us off. If your favourite food is high syn or not a healthy extra, or not a free food, it's for a reason other than to annoy you.

'I don't need to weigh or measure my healthy extras'.....Always measure/weigh your Healthy Extras.
It's so easy to go over what you're allowed as a healthy extra when you start to guess it because you are used to it. Added up every day over the week makes a difference. I always measure and weigh my milk & cheese even though i could guess it right i still do it.

I can eat as much as i like.
Actually you can't. You eat your meals and snack on veg/fruit if you have to. You cant eat free foods for the whole day and wonder why you aren't loosing or putting on! There is some portion control with sw, always fill your plate with lots of veg to fill you up and get used to not having loads of free food in your plate.
I always have a massive salad, or LOADS of veg with my dinner and not a big amount of free food and i feel full. People assume on sw you spend the whole day eating mountains of pasta and a whole chicken lol

Great thread by the way, should be a sticky

The one about extra easy and the 1/3 rule is very relevant. Lots of people at my group do extra easy because it means they eat what they want - in the main.

Not many of them eat the 1/3 as it is not their nosh of choice

Fab thread! The bit about staying the same for a few weeks was just what I needed to read, as I am going through that now xx

Excellent thread have made it a sticky

Excellent thread here hun
xxx