Discussion Point from Last night wat do you think

[malaika]

Brilliant post Elizabeth.

I can only speak for myself but when I cut back on a lot of the free foods, like muller lights, grapes and bananas, which I ate a lot of, my weight loss did speed up.
I now only eat when I am hungry and not because it's a meal time, and I stop when I am comfortably full, and never stuffed.
It works for me, and I know stuffing on a lot of free food, for the sake of it doesn't!

 

[maypole]

What an interesting post. I think exercise has a fair bit to do with it as well. For example I like my food so I eat big portions. I did slimming world about 7 years ago & was very active in my job at the time so I used to lose 3lb to 4lb a week but now I work in an office so am sat down all day so my weight loss is very slow so I am tying to be more active now to speed it up. I am also more aware of speed foods now as before I ate about 4 bananas a day & now I have one. I believe free food makes you prepare meals from scratch as well which is a good thing. In my time I have done weight watchers & found to portions small & was often hungry but saying that I now think twice for example when I am making sin free chips & do I really need an over following plate of chips when I already have beans & quorn sausages.

Oh how can anyone afford to eat 5 muller lights a day as they are expensive unless they are super duper offers?

 

[ronniejacobs]

oooh so pleased i started this post.
I know i eat more now than i used to and i know that if i have stuck to plan and not eaten loads of free food during week e.g if we are cost cutting or got nothing in i dont tend to lose much.

the idea of free food is that its low density foods which will fill you up for longer. When i go away once a year we do not really stick to the diet and i end up craving salads and healthy food when i get back so it must be doing something right.

I love this diet as i dont see it as a diet, it is ideal for people like me who have a bloomin huge appetite but i am generally a greedy person. Always have been

 

[Queenie24]

I think there is something to be said for listening to your body. Learning to 'hear' the messages that your full and to stop eating. But in the long run, as others have said, surely it's better to eat more healthy foods rather than junk foods which generally aren't all that filling.
As long as your losing weight at a sensible rate you don't need to look at portion sizes unless your weight loss is being effected.

Q

 

[JosieDelonge]

I think a lot of this is common sense. We know what we should be eating and what we should eat less of. We know we should be moving more than we are.

I don't think anyone should be eating till they feel sick, even if it's labelled 'free'.

As already stated, it is about portion control. Maybe instead of 6 mullers they could find something else to snack on that is free but not so repetitive?

(back to work now so no time to elaborate!)

 

[zombiecakes]

I think the purpose of the 'free foods' is mainly psychological. It's been demonstrated time and again that if you say to people 'you can't have that' they immediately want to eat as much of it as they can. This is why many conventional diets fail.

Research has shown though that the reverse is also true. If you tell people they can have as much of something as they want, they don't tend to binge as you might expect, they tend to eat until they're satisfied and then stop. It's this research that influenced the way SW was set up.

I think it's genius. I'm convinced it was the concept of free foods that got me out of a chronic 20-year bingeing habit. That's an example of what a wonderful bit of psychology it is.

It's not a 'magic formula' that will make you lose weight even if you eat ridiculous portions, though some people seem to treat it as such. Ultimately, to lose weight you need to take in less calories than your body is using up. Your body doesn't say 'oh, this is SLIMMING WORLD FOOD, I won't bother counting that as energy, it's FREE!!'

Look at it this way: to gain 1lb of fat per week, you only need to consume an extra 500 calories a day over and above what you need. To put that in perspective, that's a small portion of rice or pasta, a jacket potato with a small tin of beans, a sandwich .... it's really not much at all. Your body will gain weight from that extra 500 calories whether it comes from SW 'free foods' or a big bowl of ice-cream. Your body doesn't differentiate between them, it just thinks 'oh good, 500 extra calories, I'll lay that down as fat'.

It's down to us to teach ourselves portion control - to take this liberating concept of 'free foods' and use it wisely. If we do, we'll lose weight and keep it off. The SW plan is such a fantastic opportunity to learn to eat healthily and sensibly for life. But only if we use it well.

Brilliant post!

I don't tend to binge on free foods because i KNOW i can eat them. If i was told i could only have limited fruit/veg etc i'd be raiding the cupboard and unable to stick to the diet!

 

[Toola-Roola]

I tend not to think about "free" food.

I've been doing SW for 12 weeks and today is probably the first time I am eating lots of them at once. Just had a punnet of grapes but its better than the alternative of chocolate digestives that are sat in front of me which is the past I probably would have munched on.

I think varying your diet is the key and as someone else mentioned, not eating 20 chicken breasts just because you can. Stop when you are full.

Foe me, SW is teaching me reach for something healthy when you are hungry rather than the junk.

 

[JosieDelonge]

Besides being about portion control, it’s about variety to keep your body healthy. Trying foods you’ve never eaten before.

There are 4 pages of free and superfree foods in the book, whichever day you’re following, so there is no reason not to find alternatives to snack on rather than 6 yogurts over one day. Plus think of the money you can save cos they’re not cheap!

Eating the same thing also slows down your losses. I’ve heard many times in my class and on here – people advising to eat new foods to kick start the metabolism again.

I haven’t found a difference in my appetite as such. I think I ate more before SW because it was unhealthy food that doesn’t fill you up. I’m now feeling much comfortable using vegetables or salad as the main component of a meal, and then adding the free foods to it.

I enjoy picking at slices of ham from the fridge cos it feels naughty. I’ve never felt the need to binge on free foods though. I haven’t changed my portion sizes either. I’ve never eaten 2 chicken breasts as part of a meal or 2 jacket potatoes so why would I start now? It’s usually 1 of each and a side salad or vegetables to fill me up.

A lot of my issues never used to be eating too much. It was eating the wrong thing. Also I am now aware that I used to and occasionally still do eat from boredom or tiredness or stress. I’m trying to just eat when I’m hungry.

As I’ve already said, it’s a mixture of common sense and portion control. If you’re feeling bloated then you’re eating too much, regardless of whether it’s “allowed” or not. IMO, more than 2 yogurts a day is excessive but if that’s what works, then who am I to judge?

Good thread by the way!

 

[Claireybella]

Someone said earlier that they were greedy and if it was free food, then why not? Well, I agree, I was greedy beforehand, hence my weight! So if I'm being greedy with free foods, then surely that's better than being greedy with choccy, fast foods etc.

I have noticed that I do tend to only eat 3 times a day now - breakfast, lunch and dinner, whereas before, I'd eat all the time. I sometimes have a Mullerlight or fruit about 9pm.

It's funny cos we had the same sort of talk at my class on Monday, as a newbie said she couldn't believe that she was eating so much, but still loosing weight, and admitted that with any other diet before, you are conditioned to think that being on a diet meant that you had to be hungry, and I had to agree. I love not being hungry anymore, and able to leave food on my plate, cos I'm full!

 

[abigail09]

i think in the days before slimming world i would binge in meals because i used to think, ok im going to be good today and just have my 3 meals and NO SNACKS so i would have 3 big meals but as long as something was eaten at meal time it would still count e.g. bread, side orders, extra chips etc. it didnt seem to have any more cals because it was still the meal which made me sooooooooooo greedy when i waseating and ravenous when i wasnt coz i wasnt having a sustained blood sugar level throughout the day by having massive peaks and massive downs.

free food for me is brilliant, today i had breakfast, felt a bit peckish an hour later had some melon, had a small lunch coz iwasnt that hungry, a bit later some fruit, went out came home, had corn on the cob, went to slimmingworld and got weighed, had an apple and came home to my tea and now having my syns in a bit of choccy as im writing this!! so ive been well within my syn limit and i havent been hungry at all all day yet feel like i havent stopped eating. i never feel like i have to stuff myself silly incase im hungry later on coz now i know if im hungry there is limitless stuff to graze on.

if someone was to suggest to me that i should only have 3 small meals a day and 2 small snacks or whatever they were to suggest i would be eating and i know subconciously i would be thinking OMG I NEED TO BE FULL NOW OR ILL BE HUNGRY LATER!! and that would just send me off on a binge.

so basically i love the way free food is free, and i dont think anyone should make suggestions as i feel it would be counterproductive to the way slimming world already works