Common SW misconceptions put right.

[lass321]

Hi Polly , I think when people were talking about free food allowance it is to do with calculating syns in compound foods, ie making allowance for the free food in the meal. So a cod in butter sauce will have x calories, but some of those calories will be fish so free and you would syn the remaining calories using the 20 cal = 1 syn rule. So no cod in butter sauce for me lol.

 

[Pollywotsit]

Oh, sorry..I thought it was the confusion that sometimes arises about how much FREE and SUPERFREE you can have (note to me, read the post properly!!) lol ..I've cut all that out. For fish my favourite is Haddock with a big knob of better...quick meal in a boil in bag...sigh......I cook my own now, and surprisingly enough I like it!xx

 

[cande]

Just been reading through this thread, very helpful x

 

[GalVeg]

Helpful thread

 

[fifi90]

Really good thread! I'm new to SW and this has been really useful because there is so much on the internet that conflicts with what consultants say etc, so thank you! x

 

[Sallybear]

This is a really interesting thread, I have spent most of the evening reading all the way through. There is still some conflict between what some people and others think and have been told, but essentially to win on this plan, get to love veg more. Find more and more interesting ways to eat different veg and make that the mainstay of any meal, rather than a big steak or chicken breast with other stuff, I use my meats and fish as almost a topper to beautiful steamed veg and it's filling and it's working. A great thread, will come back here often I reckon.

 

[ACH]

Very good thread..

I agree with what you're all saying...free doesn't mean unlimited I take it to mean don't need to measure and restrict myself to a tiny amount of pasta but what I need to feel satisfied. I know someone who had 6 muller lights a day and threw a paddy because they put a 1lb on that week. It's not difficult really is it.

also, the whole tweaking business frustrates me like nothing else. Smash this chickpea that. Why would I want to make a cake from smash? Firstly I'd rather syn a normal cake and feel like I've actually enjoyed a proper use of syns and secondly I think it's quite dangerous in terms of why were all dieting in the first place. We've obviously got relationship issues with food, so trying to substitute the things that make us overweight with weird things like smash isn't repairing or promoting a healthy outlook to food!

 

[ShrinkingC]

Very helpful!!

 

[lishaa]

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.

I don't know if anyone else has commented on this but of course 1lb of muscle is weighs the same as 1lb of fat - they both weigh 1lb DURRR. But the AMOUNT of fat that weighs 1 lb is far larger than the amount of muscle that weighs 1lb if that makes sense.

Sorry to sound a ***** it's just one of those things that annoys me haha.

 

[lishaa]

'Tweaks' are NOT free'

(we had a great discussion about this at group after a lot of members were following incorrect SW recipes found on the net)
Uses Smash as a pizza base/gravy thickener etc. is syns!
Using cous cous as bread crumbs - SYNS

Being naughty with your foods like this might not make a difference in just one week but overtime they will add up.
Slimming world isn't all about finding ways to 'cheat the system' & quite frankly, there's no need seeing as you can eat whatever you want but you just have to syn it

 

[lishaa]

Starving yourself will NOT help

My best SW advice is to stop depriving yourself, use your SF & free foods to eat until you're full. When you let yourself get to hungry your blood sugar will drop and you will be in the biscuit tin quick as lightning.
Don't let anyone tell you 'you can't eat all that & lose weight' because yes you can! (as long as you're not being ridiculous about it obviously).

 

[burnsie]

Helpful/interesting thread for a newbie like me...

 

[Rugger]

A quick question that relates to the 1/3rd superfree foods, is that 1/3 weight or 1/3 volume? I only ask as lettuce weighs almost nothing.

 

[lishaa]

A quick question that relates to the 1/3rd superfree foods, is that 1/3 weight or 1/3 volume? I only ask as lettuce weighs almost nothing.

It's a third of the meal not the weight
You don't have to weigh free/superfree foods

 

[Pollywotsit]

The one thing that still "gets" to me is the syn thing. I never have the full amount of syns (not including Christmas!)and I can only give you an example...I started the same day as my friend, in fact she talked me into it...
The first week in June, we BOTH weighed 15 stones 10 lbs......she always insists on having ALL her syns...usually chocolate, popcorn, crisps etc......I have NO willpower, so I don't even buy things that tempt me. Sometimes I've had a Hi Fi, for 3 syns, because she went on at me so much, 't lose weight if I didn't stick to ALL the plan, 100%. I use my syns, when I have salad cream, or "proper " gravy........first week in January, she weighs 13 stones 13 lbs, and I weigh 12stones 7.5lbs. I still believe that syns don't actually add to your diet,I believe you have them so that you don't feel deprived of things that you like, and that helps you to stay on the diet. I couldn't have a nice meal with no gravy, I PREFER a salad with proper salad cream...although I can eat it without, but I don't really enjoy it. If I have a small bar of chocolate, or an ice cream, it doesn't seem to affect me at all, but if I had them every day of the week, I'm sure it would. This is just MY opinion, but as far as I can see, syns aren't an obligation, they just add calories to what you've already eaten xx
I think I wrote about syns in the same way as I replied to this thread months ago..I'm still of the same opinion xx

 

[willfitskinnyjeans]

I agree that's exactly what there there for. Sw Is a business they need repeat customers they need ppl to loose enough weight but to not loose sight and knowing that ppl need "treats" to stay on track they offer these in a very restricted moderation

from fat to skinny jeans

 

[Gwella]

The one thing that still "gets" to me is the syn thing. I never have the full amount of syns (not including Christmas!)and I can only give you an example...I started the same day as my friend, in fact she talked me into it...
The first week in June, we BOTH weighed 15 stones 10 lbs......she always insists on having ALL her syns...usually chocolate, popcorn, crisps etc......I have NO willpower, so I don't even buy things that tempt me. Sometimes I've had a Hi Fi, for 3 syns, because she went on at me so much, 't lose weight if I didn't stick to ALL the plan, 100%. I use my syns, when I have salad cream, or "proper " gravy........first week in January, she weighs 13 stones 13 lbs, and I weigh 12stones 7.5lbs. I still believe that syns don't actually add to your diet,I believe you have them so that you don't feel deprived of things that you like, and that helps you to stay on the diet. I couldn't have a nice meal with no gravy, I PREFER a salad with proper salad cream...although I can eat it without, but I don't really enjoy it. If I have a small bar of chocolate, or an ice cream, it doesn't seem to affect me at all, but if I had them every day of the week, I'm sure it would. This is just MY opinion, but as far as I can see, syns aren't an obligation, they just add calories to what you've already eaten xx
I think I wrote about syns in the same way as I replied to this thread months ago..I'm still of the same opinion xx

If it works for you that's great. I think the times when it's genuinely risky to not have your syns are a) if this causes you to fall off plan completely and b) if you aren't getting enough calories from other sources.
I've read that it's not generally advisable to drop your daily calorie intake below 1200 (if you're a woman) and not generally advisable to have a calorie deficit of more than 1000 per day (what that means will vary a lot depending on your size; generally it equates to 2lb fat loss a week, though of course water and fibre can help you lose non-fat weight too). So for some people, the syns are important to keep them in a healthy range, particularly if they are used to getting a lot of their energy from not-so-healthy products and therefore not having a lot of other carbs etc.
Also, I myself prefer to use my syns occasionally for things like avocado, olives, extra cheese - I feel as a pescetarian I would be missing out on some important nutrients without those. Other people have observed that if they use syns on these healthy things other than just loads of sugar, they lose better, same as you suggest.
Oh and finally, people on here will often point out that a free Mullerlight yoghurt is 100calories. If you fancied a fuller fat yoghurt without sweeteners, that'd be a good example of using syns in a way that might even be better for you!

 

[NotsofattyPatty]

The one thing that still "gets" to me is the syn thing. I never have the full amount of syns (not including Christmas!)and I can only give you an example...I started the same day as my friend, in fact she talked me into it... The first week in June, we BOTH weighed 15 stones 10 lbs......she always insists on having ALL her syns...usually chocolate, popcorn, crisps etc......I have NO willpower, so I don't even buy things that tempt me. Sometimes I've had a Hi Fi, for 3 syns, because she went on at me so much, 't lose weight if I didn't stick to ALL the plan, 100%. I use my syns, when I have salad cream, or "proper " gravy........first week in January, she weighs 13 stones 13 lbs, and I weigh 12stones 7.5lbs. I still believe that syns don't actually add to your diet,I believe you have them so that you don't feel deprived of things that you like, and that helps you to stay on the diet. I couldn't have a nice meal with no gravy, I PREFER a salad with proper salad cream...although I can eat it without, but I don't really enjoy it. If I have a small bar of chocolate, or an ice cream, it doesn't seem to affect me at all, but if I had them every day of the week, I'm sure it would. This is just MY opinion, but as far as I can see, syns aren't an obligation, they just add calories to what you've already eaten xx I think I wrote about syns in the same way as I replied to this thread months ago..I'm still of the same opinion xx

More and more 'experts' are now saying that sugar and not fat is the main cause of the growing obesity problem. If this is the case, then maybe the real reason Polly has lost more weight than her friend isn't so much because she's used fewer Syns and therefore had fewer calories, but because she used Syns on 'good' things i.e things without sugar.

(Great loss by the way Polly - well done!)

 

[neraksarrab]

More and more 'experts' are now saying that sugar and not fat is the main cause of the growing obesity problem. If this is the case, then maybe the real reason Polly has lost more weight than her friend isn't so much because she's used fewer Syns and therefore had fewer calories, but because she used Syns on 'good' things i.e things without sugar.

(Great loss by the way Polly - well done!)

I've just started on SW, primarily as a healthy eating plan, but also to drop a couple of stone on the way too. I'm confused about the whole syn thing and fat free - loads of food & drinks are fat free but full of sugar & carbs, ie, beer & coke/fizzy drinks. How can having a sugary syn be better than missing it out? Like Polly i'm not really into sweet things, so it won't be an issue cutting out sweets, chocolates, cakes etc...

 

[NotsofattyPatty]

I've just started on SW, primarily as a healthy eating plan, but also to drop a couple of stone on the way too. I'm confused about the whole syn thing and fat free - loads of food & drinks are fat free but full of sugar & carbs, ie, beer & coke/fizzy drinks. How can having a sugary syn be better than missing it out? Like Polly i'm not really into sweet things, so it won't be an issue cutting out sweets, chocolates, cakes etc...

The SW plan ensures the bulk of your diet is healthy by encouraging you to eat 'free' foods, 'Superfree' foods and Healthy Extras which are (nearly) all healthy and give the necessary calcium, vitamins and fibre. ( I say 'nearly' all healthy as you could argue that the use of sugar-free sodas/squashes and yogurts laced with sweetener is not healthy, but the fact is that they are better for you weight-wise and for your teeth than the sugar-loaded ones. They are optional - if you don't want them, you don't have to have them),

The Syns allow you have whatever you like so that you don't feel deprived and therefore are more likely to stick to the plan. If you don't like sweets or chocolates etc, you might choose to use them for alcohol or sugary soft drinks to make having a social life easier. If you only want to have 'healthy' things perhaps you'd prefer to have some olives or nuts, some ketchup or mayonnaise, some dried or tinned fruit or fruit juice, full-fat yogurts, or just more bread and cheese with a little butter.

Basically, what I'm saying is pick the things you want and make the plan work for you. Good luck.