Discussion Point from Last night wat do you think

[ronniejacobs]

One of the members in our meeting last night was saying that SW makes you greedy. She loves the diet (as do i) but says because we are told lots of stuff is free we take it as a license to stuff our faces.

I tend to agree, i think nothing of going in the kitchen and whilst i am wiating for kettle to boil polish off a couple of pickled cucumbers, or half a packet of seafood sticks - cos its free.

I do feel i am greedy in comparision to my other half. It was a really good discussion in image therapy so i thought i would post a thread here

Any thoughts guys?

 

[soccermom]

I'm not sure whether it has made me greedy, but I have to say I have never been fond of the way they say unlimited when they discuss some food.

Some people at my group take it to the extreme one lady mentioned she was eating 6 mueller yoghurts and 5 bananas a day on top of her food.

I would much rather be told yes its a free food but thats not an excuse to challenge yourself to eat as much of it as you can

I love doing SW but thats my only small gripe.

 

[MadameLaMinx]

I think that we are naturally greedy anyway, but the difference is we can meet that greed need by filling up on healthy things, rather than unhealthy things.

If you have a look at the weightwatchers forum, one of the main things people say about SW having gone from here to there, is "they didnt teach me portion control".

But surely portion control is led by our appetites, and SW does incorporate SOME portion control. FE you can have cheese as HexA, but only 28g of it. Thats a portion. You can have 2 Alpen lights as your HexB. Thats a "portion". Basically, if its going to be damaging in excess, its limited, by syns or Hex limits.


Really, the feeling of being so full its almost painful is not nice, and I dont ever want to have to feel that way again. I eat till I am comfortably full, but I dont sit down with 24 sausages and 10 jacket potatoes and a giant bowl of salad. I have the same sorts of portions I would have had before, and am comfortably full enough to not go ravaging the cupboards for high cal treats, but I am eating more healthily than I ever have! You do have to take some responsibility for your own choices. Of course if you ate 20 chicken breasts it probably wouldnt give you a loss, but who realistically could?

 

[cocktailprincess]

I would say this is being relaxed around food and not treating it like it is the enemy or to be avoided.

Do agree with soccermom though- to some it seems to be a challenge to eat as much as possible. Occasionally on here it is almost said that the more you eat the more you lose, which even if it is free food, it is not a healthy way of looking at eating.

SW do say eat until satisfied, but I guess that is the difficulty- many of us over time have lost the ability to listen to our bodies and recognise hunger and 'full' feelings. It's so difficult to have one set of rules for so many complex individuals

Interesting topic - thanks for posting

xxxx

 

[Louise24]

I agree Ronnie, I do eat more, but of the "right" things, e.g. I'll have 2 chicken breasts rather than 1 "because they are free".

I've bought myself a smaller dinner plate which is helping, but.... I live on my own and hate food waste, so end up eating the leftovers too. Grrgh.

Still love SW though xx

 

[Mummy_Helen]

Although i understand that free food IS free... I don't over indulge. I DO make larger portions for tea to fill me up or beef up a meal with free food, but then if I feel peckish, I wouldn't have another portion, I'll go for fruit or salad.

I think self discipline has to come in to it somewhere. I always ask myself when i think I'm hungry whether I really AM really hungry or just bored. Boredom is usually when I would pig out before.

 

[Gettingthinnerbytheday]

I think what a lot of people forget that although on SW there are alot of "free foods" at the end of the day moderation is the key!

It has certainly not made me greedy, but instead of snacking on biscuits etc I tend to snack on more fruit & that, which I should have done before really

 

[elizabeth]

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.

 

[Woodsylou]

I think it's down to the individual and how you work. I can't say i've ever over indulged and got greedy with the free food, and like elizabeth says, it's because its physcholigical. I know i can eat loads of it, so i don't binge on it.

 

[Busy_mam]

Hmmm I agree to a point but then again the last bit of my baby's birthday cake is in the fridge (yummy chocolate gateaux) I was going to have a bit 10 syns worth with my cup of tea I knew I'd cut a bit bigger than 10 syns and not be satisfied so chose a hi fibre bar instead hexb, I now have I cake not 4 or 5, I think before I hit the buffet no longer is it only small, its how fattening is it a salad or a punnet of fruit will have less calories in than a cream cake.

My big thing with SW it the over use of sweeteners and abuse of free food, I said to a lady eating 6 Muller's a day if they were .5 syns would she eat 6 she agreed 2 was more likely. I know it would not be popular but if SW made flavoured yogurt .5 syns I think people would be less greedy. Keep fruit, veg, rice, meat, etc free but processed stuff that you would not eat a lot of in normal life should possibly have a value to keep food abuse in check.

 

[Going2be*fab*at40]

Excellent idea for a thread!

Personally, I'd like to see some guidance given about portion size - I know this is not weight watchers etc, but one of the reasons why we joined SW is our (sometimes) inability to manage portion control.

That said, I personally love the freedom. If I'm having a BBQ then I love being able to have chicken and a bit of steak and maybe 1/2 syn free burger......

I do try and manage my own portion control - I'll only have one ff yog a day etc.

Anyway....when I say 'guidance', I just mean a few words that would help as opposed to the 'eat until you are satisfied' bit.

 

[teens74]

See to me free food is free food.... If i am told i can eat as much of it as I want I will eat as much of it as I want

However I could not eat more than two yogurts a day and I am fully aware how much pasta agrees with me and how much makes me very bloated....

However I would happily eat 6 mullers a day if it meant I wasnt eating 6 chocolate bars or bags of crisps a day.

I am guessing that if you di eat "unlimited food" as they suggest at some point your weight loss will slow down and/or stop, at this point you or your group or you C will look at your food diaries and realise that 10 mullers and 15 bananas may be excessive and you will need to cut down to carry on losing

Not sure any of that made sense lol

x

 

[cocktailprincess]

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!
x

 

[debjk]

I was greedy before sw except it was cakes, biscuits, chocolate, cheese, buttered, toast ect
Much healthier to be greedy with free foods than to be greedy with the stuff I used to eat

 

[gemma_]

I think thats the thing we ate so much before and was all terribly fattening. now if i went to slimming world and was told right eat small portions of this this and that, i be terrified of that! but because there telling us what 'good' food is we filling up on that instead of all the fat! so eventually we'll stop eating when we're full and a mullerlite yogurt as got to be better than a jumbo snicker.... i think they do it to teach us in a way... that we can be sattisfied and STOP... they never say fill your face and eat til you can't eat no more. it's for us to learn ourself when we are satisified... and its okay to stop the food wont feel affended if you throw rest away lol

 

[elizabeth]

i think they do it to teach us in a way... that we can be sattisfied and STOP... they never say fill your face and eat til you can't eat no more. it's for us to learn ourself when we are satisified... and its okay to stop the food wont feel affended if you throw rest away lol

That's it in a nutshell Gemma, SW is about giving you the chance to change your habits for life, because that's how you'll achieve a healthy weight and stay there.

 

[Lovely_Laura]

Really interesting reading everyone's views. I'm sure I eat alot more some days than people would say was right. With SW and the free foods it's ok. I know scientifically it doesn't make sense 3500cals=1lb gain (I think), if I were to count calories which thank goodness I don't I know I'd not have that deficit of calories every week to lose 2-3lbs for example. I don't understand how it works! On a green week I eat far more, huge plates of pasta/rice etc but it does work. In fact green weeks give me the best weight loss. Now I know all of the weight I lose isn't fat, must be water some of it but it's still weight that's gone and doesn't reappear.

Saying that I do have more control over how I eat now than I used to. Yes my portions are huge (I think this is from years of bingeing which has left if difficult for me to feel stuffed so is something I will work on but I'm in no rush tbh) and would be fairly high in calories, but because of that I don't feel hungry enough to graze all day as I've done in the past. I guess what I'm trying to say is if it takes you 5 mullers for example to feel full enough to wait 'til tea then I see no problem with it. Far better that free food than a packet of biscuits.

I do understand why people get concerned with the label 'free foods' but it does work. I think we'd have to be eating a HUGE amount of free foods everyday for it to be negative to the weight loss. Free foods are generally pretty natural, just by eating the less processed rubbish we probably used to live off we are saving ourselves from the hidden added sugars and fat.

 

[Mummy_Helen]

I agree, I'd rather snack on free foods when I'm really hungry than what I USED to snack on. I'm sure indulging in veg or fruit is MUCH better than indulging in a box of chocolates! (Which is what I would do before)

 

[Starlight]

I think we'd have to be eating a HUGE amount of free foods everyday for it to be negative to the weight loss.

Not necessarily though. My sister in law does SW and someone in her class had no losses for several weeks but was adamant she was sticking to plan 100%. She was but the 4/5 Muller yoghurts and the 2 mugshots she was having every day came to about 800 calories on their own. She thought she was doing the right thing by snacking on them when in actual fact they were totally holding her weight loss back.

I know shes (hopefully) the exception but it wasnt a huge amount she was having over the period of a day but she hadnt thought of how much was actually in them

 

[louisedan]

people will sometimes binge on free food but quite often this peters out.What is too much for one person is sufficient or insufficient for another. The beauty of free/superfree food is that its low in density and burned off easier than other foods. Also if you limit your intake of food then your metabolism slows down as shown by low calorie diets-people will stop losing and put fat on because the body thinks it is about to go into starvation mode.SW kick starts your metabolism-you need to eat properly to loose weight. What a lot of people do is judge SW by the standards of those diets which are not sustainable for long periods of time. They encourage yo yo dieting(know about that one) whereas SW encourages healthy eating. As far as I am concerned it is better if people pig out on the good stuff not the bad.
Mullers etc and fruit used to be sins(old system) but Sw realised it was better to make them free than have people eating too much bread chocccie etc.