Free food- how much is too much?!

Poppet12

Gold Member
Hello all
Ive been following sw ee at home with reasonable success- I understand the plan (mostly!) but need to find out more about 'free' food.
For instance, for tonights tea I had sw chips, chilli with lean minced beef and loads of veg (kidney beans, onions, mushrooms, peppers) with a tomato, cucumber and celery salad.
My oh rather snidely said "pff I thought you were on a diet, you never would have had such a plateful of chips!".
Admittedly I probably wouldn't, but then I would usually dodge the salad and smother it in cheese/sour cream too! Am I alone in feeling greedy or is the normal for a relative newbie?!
TIA
Rosie x
 
Lots of people would be astonished if they knew I was following SW (I'm not *on a diet*!) and they saw my food.

Yes, you had a plateful of chips. But they weren't cooked in fat and you also filled up on Superfrees - onions, mushrooms, peppers, cucmbers, tomato and celery (not kidney beans, they're not Superfree as they're synned on Red days). Sounds like you've got the hang of this very well :D

Tell him "Yes, I've lost X amount eating this well. Thank you!" your OH will have to eat his words. Make sure you cook them with Frylite ;)

Edited to add - here's a picture of one of my dinners (Green day, so no Superfrees in it but I did have some fruit afterwards). One HEXA of cheese, 2 syns of HP sauce. Total comfort food!
IMG_1315.jpg
 
Lots of people would be astonished if they knew I was following SW (I'm not *on a diet*!) and they saw my food.

Yes, you had a plateful of chips. But they weren't cooked in fat and you also filled up on Superfrees - onions, mushrooms, peppers, cucmbers, tomato and celery (not kidney beans, they're not Superfree as they're synned on Red days). Sounds like you've got the hang of this very well :D

Tell him "Yes, I've lost X amount eating this well. Thank you!" your OH will have to eat his words. Make sure you cook them with Frylite ;)

Edited to add - here's a picture of one of my dinners (Green day, so no Superfrees in it but I did have some fruit afterwards). One HEXA of cheese, 2 syns of HP sauce. Total comfort food!
View attachment 129072

That looks delish...I just wanted to flag up for any newbies though that the superfree is for all three plans now and not just Extra Easy although on a green day you probably consume more over the course of the day anyway.
 
If I'm making a huge meal (which I tend to do when I'm really hungry) I always make sure to eat the superfree on my plate first and the free food last. That way I'm filling up on the superfree and if I have overdone it on the free food then it will be that that gets left when I'm full rather than the super free food.

Technically there is no such thing as too much (it is free food after all) but a certain amount of common sense and understanding your body's signals needs to be taken into account. If you are full stop eating. If you wouldn't pile your plate that high if you were not on a diet then don't do it now. When I do SW chips I always looks at the potatoes I'm peeling and think "How many would I have if I was making roast potatoes?", then I only use that amount to make chips.
 
That looks delish...I just wanted to flag up for any newbies though that the superfree is for all three plans now and not just Extra Easy although on a green day you probably consume more over the course of the day anyway.

Thank you! I didn't know that! You're right that I'd already eaten a small field's worth of salad that day anyway, so pretty confident the third had been achieved!

Makes a lot of sense to do it all the time - the Superfree as the bulk of a meal is what fills me up without piling on the calories (shhh! Don't mention calories!) :)
 
Haha the OTHER dirty C word!!
 
I think there can def be too much free food after all it's a simple matter of calories in versus calories out whether those calories come from syns or free food. learn to listen to your body, are you eating because you are truly hungry? or is if for some other reason - comfort, celebration, habit, boredom? or just because it's free and you can? it's a question of using some common sense really xx
 
Thanks for all your comments! I'm not a comfort/boredom kind of eater, I think its because in theory I can ;) I dont eat til im sick or uncomfortable, I just keep going until I feel full- I suppose some days that takes more than others! I just wondered if anyone else felt really bad. Like many say though, sw doesn't feel like a diet.
I think sometimes I get superfree and speed food mixed up- need to watch this to ensure my third superfree! I was a vegetarian for over 6 years so tend to prefer my meals bulked out/revolving round veg anyway which is handy!
Im down 3kg so can't be doing too badly :D xx
 
I think the principle is eat until you feel full/satisfied and that's what everyone loves about this diet. I think if you needed two plates for your dinner then maybe it would be too much free food ;).

If you're getting slightly confused over the free and superfree, it's worth listing them and pinning them up somewhere in the kitchen, so it's handy to see when you are preparing your food. :D
 
I once had a consultant who used to say "Free food does not mean eating till you want to throw up!". Like others have said, it's common sense and stop when you feel full.
 
I once had a consultant who used to say "Free food does not mean eating till you want to throw up!". Like others have said, it's common sense and stop when you feel full.

Totally agree with this!

Someone posted on our group FB that she had eaten 13 Mullerlights that day, and was that ok? I was horrified by some of the responses that told her, yes as they were free she could eat as many as she liked! Surely, like others have said, common sense has to kick in at somepoint? Apart from anything else I don't know why anyone would want to eat 13 in one day :D
 
Totally agree with this! Someone posted on our group FB that she had eaten 13 Mullerlights that day, and was that ok? I was horrified by some of the responses that told her, yes as they were free she could eat as many as she liked! Surely, like others have said, common sense has to kick in at somepoint? Apart from anything else I don't know why anyone would want to eat 13 in one day :D

Yikes! I rarely get through 2 in a day - always have one with breakfast if I have cereal (so I don't have to use any milk) and occasionally will have one with fruit as a pudding. I cannot imagine eating 13 in a week, let alone a day :)
 
That's over 1000kcal. Just on yoghurt. I bet she had stomach ache. I know we are not supposed to count kcal but at a risk of sounding like the proverbial stuck round musical thingy surely to god its just common sense. Energy in exceeding energy out = weight gain. Energy out exceeding energy in = weight loss. All diets (even the seemingly faddy ones) work on this principle they just all have different ways of achieving it.
 
When I did SW several years ago, before Extra Easy I used to do Green Days 90% of the time. After a while I struggled to lose weight and I asked the consultant if I could be eating too much pasta and was told that it was a free food and I could eat as much as I wanted.

At the time she told me I wasn't losing because the yoghurts I was eating were not free (even though the calories were similar to Mullerlight)

This time I am taking account of portion size and working the plan to improve what I eat, and not snack on mullerlight and mugshots just because I can.
 
I think if you eat till you're satisfied and not too stuffed then you're ok, that woman who ate 13 yogurts in a day is pushing it to the limit which isn't what the plan is about. She would've blamed slimming world if she put on weight that week as well!
I think free and superfree take the guilt and pressure out of dieting but don't think you can eat all day if you're not hungry just for the sake of it x
 
Hello all
Ive been following sw ee at home with reasonable success- I understand the plan (mostly!) but need to find out more about 'free' food.
For instance, for tonights tea I had sw chips, chilli with lean minced beef and loads of veg (kidney beans, onions, mushrooms, peppers) with a tomato, cucumber and celery salad.
My oh rather snidely said "pff I thought you were on a diet, you never would have had such a plateful of chips!".
Admittedly I probably wouldn't, but then I would usually dodge the salad and smother it in cheese/sour cream too! Am I alone in feeling greedy or is the normal for a relative newbie?!
TIA
Rosie x

If you dont add fat and sugar to your food, you can eat an awful lot before you exceed your daily requirements.
 
I experience the same thing! Me and my mum are following the Extra Easy plan and the other day we had a 'fry-up' for breakfast (LF sausages, lean bacon, beans, tomatoes, mushrooms all fried with frylight and then loads of fruit afterwards (like a fruit salad)) and my dad said that surely that isn't right and we can't be losing weight eating "all this food"! Ha! I lost 7lbs this week so :p to you dad! :D
 
I think the key is thinking making sure you don't keep eating when you're full. I've found my appetite has reduced slightly as I've lost weight. But I still think like a fat person and almost pile my plate high out of habit. So I'm trying to stop myself and think like a 'naturally' slim but well eating friend. They don't keep eating when they're full.

Also so my slim mates wouldn't typically snack on free food. I between meals they might eat fruit or a biscuit if they're hungry ( but unlike pre SW me, they wouldn't eat biscuits all day, so treats would probably easily fit into syn allowance). I've never yet seen my slim mates snacking on pasta, bacon or chicken wings. So I try to not snack on mugshots or leftovers, because I personally think it's not the way the average human is designed to eat and for me, it would add unnecessary calories and stall weight loss. I reckon 3 filling and satisfying meals per day, plus snacks that are snacks, not mini meals, makes EE work wonders
 
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