Slimming World - the new updated Plan! (Slimming World)

Member Name: geranium72

Product:	Slimming World
Date:	08/08/09 (787 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Normal food, easy to feed the family, really works!

Disadvantages: Class costs £4.50 per week, can be tricky to get you head round at first

Well there are some truly great reviews on Slimming World there so I wanted to add to them with a few thoughts of my own.

So - Hands up who has done weightwatchers, cabbage soup diet , grapefruit diet, Atkins, the weird American one where you eat like Atkins in the day but then at night can eat anything you like as long as you eat it in 1 hour, South Beach, GI, Rosemary Conley, Slimfast, the kiwi fruit and sealing wax diet...............ok, ok I made the last one up, but you get the picture. Yes I am a serial dieter and have never quite got it right. I get bored, I get cravings, I deprive myself and then have a blow out. The point is, let's face it, diets don't work, and anything that gives you a set amount to eat is going to fail, because at some point you will eat the wrong thing, or be hungry and then say - blow it, I'll give up. Before you think I am going to slate Slimming World and put it in the same category - STOP!!!! I think it is great!

I have been a member of Slimming World on and off several times over the last few years. It is a great programme, which I will talk about in a bit, but fundamentally like any lifestyle change, diet or healthy eating plan, you have to be committed to it and do it properly. It does work but you have to stick to it - and I am hoping that I am now finally in the place where I can do that. I have lost weight with it, but need to commit 100% to changing my habits to make it work.

The Food Optimising Plan
Many years ago this started off as a food combining type diet (although SW say it is not that as such) - with original or red days, where you have unlimited amounts of free protein type foods and measured amounts of carbs, or you have a Green Day, where the carbs are free and unlimited and you have measured amounts of protein. You can still follow this basic plan.It does have to be said that the unlimited food on these days is healthy stuff and all pretty low fat - so the proteins are lean meat and fish, and on a Green Day, the free or unlimited food is stuff like pasta, potatoes, pulses, rice etc. On both days you have 1 or 2 Healthy extras from a calcium source , called Helathy Extras A (like milk or cheese - again these are measured) and 2 Healthy extras from a list called B, which includes things like bread and cereal. On both days there is a massive list of things you can eat freely, such as very low fat cottage cheese, yogurt, fromage frais, eggs, quorn (which is a meat substitute, tofu) and a massive list of fruit and veg. I always found that I do well on a mixture of the 2. So you can do 1 day Red, 1 day Green, or all Red or all Green.

Th major plus with this is that you can always have something to eat. The ethos is, eat whatever you need to satisfy (note - not stuff yourself to bursting!) yourself. I find this really useful as anything that is "free" foods does not need measuring, so you can cook a family meal and not need to faff about with weighing scales.

You can also have up to 15 "syns" a day - note, syns not sins. they say it is to do with synergy - the plan works better with them. Essentially this is up to 300 cals approx of "other stuff" which could be butter, chocolate , alcohol, crisps, etc. everything has a syn value, which you can find on the website (if you are a member) or a rough rule of thumb seems to be about 20 cals per syn.

So - a couple of sample days

Through the day - 250 ml semi skim milk - Healthy Extra A

Red
Breakfast - lean grilled bacon, mushrooms, tomatoes, poached egg (or fried egg in Frylight). 2 slices wholemeal toast (Healthy Extra B choice). Strawberries and kiwi fruit with very low fat yogurt.

snack
banana

Lunch
Tuna salad. Apple and yogurt

snack
3 mini baybel light (Healthy Extra A) and a pear

Tea
Lean grilled steak with carrots, broccoli and an 8 oz Jacket potato. (Healthy Extra B).
Meringue nest (2.5 syns) with raspberries and very low fat fromage frais

and you would still have syns for maybe a glass of wine or something similar

A green day could be something like

Brekkie
2 Weetabix - (HEB) and milk (HEA) with chopped apple

lunch
Tomato, pasta and kidney bean salad with grated cheese (HEA)

tea
veggie curry and rice (or make it chicken and veg by adding a chicken breast (HEB). If not - have 2 Alpen light bars as snacks (HEB))

Have as much fruit and yogurt etc as you want. Maybe have some sugar free jelly (1/2 syn). Have a kitkat 2 finger bar - 5.5 syns

They are just examples but it does show you that the food is really normal and easy to prepare. It also means there is always something to snack on, whether that is fruit or yogurt, you can't go hungry. It is basically sound healthy eating. You can get a sample week for free on the Slimming World website.

There is now a new version - where you can have an Extra Easy day, where you can have any free Green or Red food - but you just have 1 Healthy Extra A and 1 B.

The beauty of this is that you cna follow 1 tyoe of day or Mix them about. I tend to mix and it stops me feeling bored and deprived of anything.

There are also other plans when you need a boost, like Success Express (which concentrates on Superfree foods - the ones that are unlimited on any day) and Mix To Max. It is not recommended to look at these though until you have a grip of the main prgrammes.

You can do the plan online (you can go to the website www.slimmingworld.com) or go to a class.

I go to class because we have IMAGE therapy. That means that once you weigh in the class leader goes round everyone and talks about the weight losses, some areas of interest like recipes, and helps anyone who is struggling. For me, this is good (although when the class is full it can take a long time and be a bit of a pain of people are taking amongst themselves). it is imprtant that you have a good leader though who is engaging and knows their stuff, so if you went to a group and were not impressed I would try another. Like anything, there are good and bad leaders. The great thing is that at no time is your weight announced, just what you have lost (or not!) and I have seen all shapes, ages, sizes, creeds, colours and both men and women of all ages. Everyone has a common goal - to lose weight, and everyone is welcome. It is amazing what we can learn from each other as well. I share my recipes and get tips from others. Sometimes we have food taster days which are great - everyone brings in a free or low-syn dish and we swap recipe ideas.

There is an award for Slimmer of the Week in our class. everyone adds something like a piece of fruit or another free food item or Healthy Extra to a bowl and the Slimmer of the Week gets that. We also havea raffle. 50 p a go and you can win about £5 worth of food stuff - all Slimming world compatible! The profits go to the social fund and we all go out at Christmas.

Slimming World also recommends Body Magic - which is just getting you moving and doing some exercise - again, with a view to building up to 30 mins 5 times a week. It is really normal stuff like walking, dancing and show you that exercise doesn't have to be in the gym.

I have also found a great online forum called Slimming World Support

http://slimmingworldsupport.editboard.com/index.h tm

This is just a forum for people following the plan and there is so much free and helpful advice there. It is not officially sanctioned by Slimming World but people really know their stuff there - highly recommended.

So - this is by far the best plan I have ever tried - my downfall is sticking to the change in habits - I tend to get sidetracked by life - but this time I am determined. there is 1 lady in my class who has lost 6 stone in about 5 months - amazing!

I would really recommend this plan for anyone wanting to lose weight, whether that is 1 stone or 10!

Summary: Fantastic - but the willpower is not provided..................