Slimming World. My First Weekfeatured

After piling on the pounds over the past few years, it recently dawned on me that unless I changed my behaviour I will continue to get bigger and bigger. So I’ve joined Slimming World!

I’ve always been a big eater, but when diagnosed with Coeliac disease - an autoimmune disease which is triggered by eating gluten - in 2010, I comforted myself by eating tons of chocolate and other unhealthy foods. Sometimes they were gluten free, sometimes they weren’t.

Since then my weight has been up and down. One minute I’d be relatively healthy and slim from plenty of cycling, the next I’d be a couple of stone heavier after a period of laziness and greed.

Diets are for dummies

I’ve never been a fan of diets and in particular have understood the point in rapid weight loss diet plans that involve anything other than eating a wide variety of healthy foods. Why limit yourself to eating nothing but bananas for 7 days, or liquidise disgusting vegetables when you could just eat healthily and exercise a bit?

Sod Atkins and sod the five two diet, they don’t work, they’re not healthy, and you’re only going to pile the pounds back on as soon as you look at a piece of cake.

However, after hearing good things about Slimming World, I decided to give it a go. As much as I’d like to, I don’t need to lose weight fast. Instead I need to start eating healthy and exercising more. I’m hoping that the routine weigh ins and support from others in the group will help me to control my greediness and stick to a healthy diet plan.

Slimming World Extra Easy

At Slimming World, foods are separated into categories. But unlike so many other diets, no category is out of bounds.

On the plan that I’m on, Extra Easy, you can eat as many Free Foods as you like each day. Free Foods include things like lean meat, fish, potatoes and rice.

You can also eat as many Superfree Foods as you like each day. Superfree foods include vegetables, fruit and salad. You’re encouraged to fill a third of your plate with superfree foods.

Next you have your Healthy Extra A category. This includes milk and cheese. There’s a limit on how much you’re to have of these each day, but a little bit does you good.

Then there’s Healthy Extra B. This includes wholemeal bread. Again, there is a limit on how much you can have.

Finally, there are your Syns. Nope, that’s not a typo and the spelling annoyed me at first too! Almost everything that is not included in the above list, counts as Syns. So this includes chocolate, crisps, chips, takeaways, and various other types of food. There are however exceptions, with baked beans and Mullerlight Yogurts both counting as Free Foods.

So how’s it going?

I’ve almost finished my first week now and I’m pleased with how I’m doing. Obviously it’s too early to say whether I’ve lost any weight just yet, but I’m confident that I will because I’ve completely changed my diet.

Gone are the sausage butties, burgers, chips and Twirls that I was so used to eating each day, and instead I’ve been filling my plate with salads, lean meat and potatoes.

Before, I used to snack on so much chocolate that I never had room for fruit in between meals, but now it’s the other way round. I try to have say an apple, banana and pear each day in between my main meals but since the rest of my diet is so filling, sometimes I don’t feel the need to. Maybe I need to cut down on the amount of potato I have.

It’s my first proper weigh in tomorrow so I’ll keep you updated. Wish me luck!