help to understand how this can work please

ok so I know sw doesnt do calories but I dont understand how I can eat all this free food and still lose weight....for instance, do I have a chicken breast 450cals for 300g as a snack tonite as it is free or a bag of crisps 130cals per bag as this is a syn...do you see what I mean.? at the end of the day it is all about putting in less than you use

what makes something a syn?

ilovedogs said:

ok so I know sw doesnt do calories but I dont understand how I can eat all this free food and still lose weight....for instance, do I have a chicken breast 450cals for 300g as a snack tonite as it is free or a bag of crisps 130cals per bag as this is a syn...do you see what I mean.? at the end of the day it is all about putting in less than you use what makes something a syn?

Click to expand...

Free food is very low in fat and sugars, crisps are high in both which makes them syns.

Sent from my iPhone using MiniMins

but calorie wise the chicken is much worse

It's more about using your calories wisely, I.e a chicken breast will make you feel fuller and stay fuller for longer than a bag of crisps will, so if you had the crisps it may be lower calories but you would need to eat in a shorter time and eat add more calories. . On the sw website there us an article on the science behind sw that explains it in more details

so as a snack in the eve...which one should I go with

Chicken!

It depends if you have had all your syns, chicken, if you have enough for crisps and you fancy them crisps

ilovedogs said:

ok so I know sw doesnt do calories but I dont understand how I can eat all this free food and still lose weight....for instance, do I have a chicken breast 450cals for 300g as a snack tonite as it is free or a bag of crisps 130cals per bag as this is a syn...do you see what I mean.? at the end of the day it is all about putting in less than you use

what makes something a syn?

Click to expand...

SW is still a calorie controlled diet even though we don't need to count calories. This might help explain it better than we can

Lifelong healthy eating

But basically not all calories are the same. What we call free foods are those that fill you up for longer relative to their calorie content. So you eat less overall, reduce your calories intake and lose weight

Thank you but what if i eat so much of the free foods like chicken n stuff to go way over a decent calorie amount...do you understand what i mean? I tend to never get full so i could easily overeat on free stuff like meat

Well I've lost 6 stone by overrating then? You need to stop thinking of calories, and think healthy food, and yes you shouldn't just eat free food, you should fill up meals with super free foods which keep you fuller longer, therefore you may not want the chicken. But whatever way a snack of chicken with salad will always be better than processed rubbish. You have to put your faith in following the plan.

That one big chicken breast ! The big ones i get are around 170g ish which is just over 200cals

ilovedogs said:

Thank you but what if i eat so much of the free foods like chicken n stuff to go way over a decent calorie amount...do you understand what i mean? I tend to never get full so i could easily overeat on free stuff like meat

Click to expand...

If you follow the SW recommendation of having one third of each meal being superfree fruit and veg you are unlikely to overeat. It helps with portion control and fills you up for very few calories x

http://www.slimmingeats.com/blog/the-benefits-of-superfree-foods#.UqLouMRS3wU

PatchworkPuss said:

If you follow the SW recommendation of having one third of each meal being superfree fruit and veg you are unlikely to overeat. It helps with portion control and fills you up for very few calories x

The benefits of superfree foods | Slimming Eats - Slimming World Recipes

Click to expand...

Yes - many people emphasise that this isn't a RULE, but it really will boost your success if 1/3 is superfree. And you should aim to go for superfree as your first choice for your snacks too. An odd chicken breast as a snack won't hurt and it might even be ok if you are sticking to lots of superfree at mealtimes. But if you kept choosing it as a snack as opposed to something superfree like fruit, it might slow your losses down a little.

Ultimately though chicken breast is very filling and if it's what you're craving, go for it. To get the same satisfaction from crisps, you'd have to eat several packets (unless of course it's a craving rather than actual hunger, in which case, if you have the syns, go for it!) Also remember that chicken breast is high protein, which is good for building muscle if you also exercise, which in the long run will speed up your metabolism. It is also a slow-release energy, whereas the crisps will be fast-release, cause your blood sugar to peak and then drop again.

SW isn't about calorie counting but this only works if you commit and follow the plan properly. You can have a chicken breast as a snack but you need to have 1/3 superfree with that. This probably means that the breast you may want to have doesn't need to be as big.

On EE (and ideally the other plans too) all free food should be eaten with 1/3 superfree whether as a meal or snacks.

So don't try to calorie count, eat what you need to but try to be conscious of when you are full and stop then and keep a food diary so that you can discuss with your consultant (or here if you aren't going to group) if things are not going the way you expected/hoped. This plan really does work (from someone who has spent ALL her life being overweight (and steadily gaining weight over the long term) and overeating and has finally found a long term way of losing weight and keeping it off) if you stick to it but occasionally needs a bit of tweaking in the early stages (as it's easy to make small but significant errors in the early days without realising it).

Best of luck

Gail

ilovedogs said:

Thank you but what if i eat so much of the free foods like chicken n stuff to go way over a decent calorie amount...do you understand what i mean? I tend to never get full so i could easily overeat on free stuff like meat

Click to expand...

Actually, you probably won't go over what would be your max calorie intake. You don't just eat a 1lb of chicken, you eat super free food as well, a third of your plate should be made up of it.

Meats fill you up and keep you feeling full. Yes, it is calories, it's always calories. But if you eat three packets of crisps you'll be no less hungry twenty minutes later, eat a pound of chicken, some fried mushrooms, onions and peppers, though and you will be feeling full for hours.

i followed the plan religiously for a long time. I went about 140 days on the bounce keeping to the plan, and I ate big gigantic portions. Every now and then I would use myfitnesspal to see what I was eating, it rarely went over 1600 cals, and more often bounced around 1400.

I understand it like this -

you have your three main meals a day (some people have a few small meals instead) which should have 1/3 superfree on there for maximum results. These should keep you relatively full and not needing to snack on a whole chicken breast.

if you want to snack, try snacking on superfree foods. Also, healthy extras and syns are there to be used to by all means snack on a packet of crisps if that's what you want to use your syns on.