Eat Crisps & Chocolate & Still Lose Weight! (Slimming World)

Member Name: kathchurchill

Product:	Slimming World
Date:	28/05/01 (3373 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Can eat as much food as you like, can still eat treats

Disadvantages: Costs a lot for extra foods

I joined Slimming World back in 1993, so my version of this club could well be a little out of date, although I am sure the basics will still stand.

I was 19 years old when I joined and decided that I must lose some weight. I wasn't very overweight (5' 7" weighing 11 1/2 stone!) but I just felt fat, so I thought I'd give it a go. I went along with my mum, which also helped as at the time I still lived at home so we could encourage and cook for each other. I feel that encouragement is a real incentive to keep the diet going.

We had to register to join the club, which cost about £6 and then every week it would be about £3. I think you could buy blocks of sessions at reduced rates.

When you register, they weigh and measure you and you have to tell them how much your ideal weight is going to be - this is then known as your target weight. Once you hit your target weight, and stayed within 2lbs of it, you didn't have to pay the weekly fee. You could also change your target weight if you felt it was too much or not enough. I decided my ideal weight was about 10 stone, so had a stone and a half to lose.

At registration they gave you a diet book, at the time of going you could only have one of these, either the red plan (which is the protein diet) or the green plan (the carbohydrates diet). You could opt to buy an additional plan, but as it was the two of us going we had one of each.

The red plan involved eating proteins. You could eat as much meats, fish, vegetables and fruits as you wanted. Some of the meats were especially good at helping you lose weight, these were known as 'speed foods'.

The green plan involved eating carbohydrates, so you could eat as much potatoes, rice, pasta, beans, lentils, fruit and vegetables, as you liked. There were also some 'speed foods' on this plan, but not as many.

The ideal thing with Slimming World is that the more you eat the more weight
you should lose! It sounds impossible, but believe me, it does work! It also means you are never hungry.

In the books, they also had a chart of fibre foods. You had to choose two items from this chart to ensure you were eating enough fibre.

Then the best bit - the 'sins' i.e. chocolate, crisps etc. Yes, on this diet you could eat chocolate! You were allowed between 5-15 sins a day, which you HAD to eat! They always told us that if you felt deprived of anything you were more likely to fail at the diet and give up, if you ensure you eat your sins, you don't feel deprived!

With this diet you can alternate between the red and green plans, but you must stick to one plan throughout the day. This diet basically works by not eating proteins and carbohydrates together.

After my first week, I'd lost 7lb and lost about 2lb a week after that. It took about 4 months to get down to my goal weight.

Slimming World did several incentives to keep you going. When you lost 1/2lb they'd give you a sticker and each 1/2lb thereafter you'd get another sticker of a different colour according to how much weight you'd lost in total. Also they did 'slimmer of the week' which they gave to the person losing the most weight that week. In the club I went to, we'd all bring a small item of free or low sin food and the slimmer of the week would win all this food!

At the club meetings, they'd weigh you and you could either go or stay. If you stayed, once everyone had been weighed, they'd discuss any problems, sometimes cook some good recipes people had invented, or just discuss new foods and how many sins they were. The group always gave a lot of encouragement.

Slimming World never mentioned exercise, but I went to the gym and did a workout twice a week to 'try' and tone up!

I would recommend this diet to people. It is quite a healthy way to eat, although a bit strange at f
irst, i.e. not eating potatoes with your roast dinner! You never feel hungry and it works! I have even noticed that at Harvester Restaurants their menus tell you how many 'sins' their meals are! The only downside is it can cost a lot to buy all the meats etc and I always find I eat a lot more when I'm on a diet than when I'm not!

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