Ex - Slimming World Disordered Eating Recovery

[Helmac79]

Please can someone give me a rocket and make me see sense!

I've always "done" SW off and on for about 20 years. Finally saw the light over lockdown and calorie counted loosely while keeping active. Worked for me, absolutely loved it and finally realised how disordered SW is. Long story short I've fallen back into old habits, long covid has meant I can't keep up the fitness like I used to and now I'm finding that calorie counting is harder than I thought and am getting a little obsessive over it. I've been thinking about heading back to doing SW again. What am I thinking!? I know it's comfort in familiarity but it's so disordered and not right for me at all.
Any words of wisdom to keep me away from the dark side would be gratefully received!!!

 

[Stillsneezy]

Please can someone give me a rocket and make me see sense!

I've always "done" SW off and on for about 20 years. Finally saw the light over lockdown and calorie counted loosely while keeping active. Worked for me, absolutely loved it and finally realised how disordered SW is. Long story short I've fallen back into old habits, long covid has meant I can't keep up the fitness like I used to and now I'm finding that calorie counting is harder than I thought and am getting a little obsessive over it. I've been thinking about heading back to doing SW again. What am I thinking!? I know it's comfort in familiarity but it's so disordered and not right for me at all.
Any words of wisdom to keep me away from the dark side would be gratefully received!!!

Think of all your favourite meals and make some of them. If you need the accountability that group brings find a buddy, I'm sure someone here will be willing. Take it slow. More than 1lb a week is too much. Start small. Tackle one meal a day and once you've cracked that take on the next meal.

Cal count if you want. Bulk up your meals with veggies. Fruit isn't evil. If you want bread and cereal in one day do it.

Now don't mind me as I try and follow my own advice!

 

[Helmac79]

Think of all your favourite meals and make some of them. If you need the accountability that group brings find a buddy, I'm sure someone here will be willing. Take it slow. More than 1lb a week is too much. Start small. Tackle one meal a day and once you've cracked that take on the next meal.

Cal count if you want. Bulk up your meals with veggies. Fruit isn't evil. If you want bread and cereal in one day do it.

Now don't mind me as I try and follow my own advice!

You're so right! I can't see the wood for the trees at the minute and I'll be honest I spend far too long lately thinking about the bread v cereal dilemma which is ridiculous!

Thanks for replying!

 

[Mr Krabs]

I do miss some things about SW, like the weekly weigh in and the group support. It is always tempting to go back but I’m trying to unlearn all the nonsense.

One thing that put me off recently was spending time with a family member who is a huge SW devotee. She’s done it for years and yoyoed like crazy. Her relationship with food is awful. She wouldn’t even have a burger at a BBQ over summer but ate a huge plate of ‘syn free’ pasta salad type dishes. Being around her makes me realise how bad my own relationship is with food. It’s exactly the sort of thing I would have done while having a ‘good week’.

Besides, can you really face going to your local village hall to sit chatting about muller shites for an hour?

 

[Robbie09]

Please can someone give me a rocket and make me see sense!

I've always "done" SW off and on for about 20 years. Finally saw the light over lockdown and calorie counted loosely while keeping active. Worked for me, absolutely loved it and finally realised how disordered SW is. Long story short I've fallen back into old habits, long covid has meant I can't keep up the fitness like I used to and now I'm finding that calorie counting is harder than I thought and am getting a little obsessive over it. I've been thinking about heading back to doing SW again. What am I thinking!? I know it's comfort in familiarity but it's so disordered and not right for me at all.
Any words of wisdom to keep me away from the dark side would be gratefully received!!!

I can relate 100% but I’m doing calorie counting again, half way through my 2nd week.
1st week lost 3.5lb. I’m only guesstimating my veg and salad and fruit but measuring potatoes, rice and pasta if that helps.
Each day is easier and is making me glad I’ve not gone back to SW as well as saving me money, it’s saving my sanity

 

[ATV2021]

You'll probably find its not that many more calories to enjoy a 'proper' lasagna.
If you regularly ate the normal lasagna you'd be far less likely to binge on it because it would become normal.
Just because somethings not syn free doesn't mean its instantly fattening.
I know its not home made but for comparison;
A sainsburys Taste the difference Lasagna that is full of synful cream, cheese and oils is less calories that the SW syn free ready meal.
Yes, its a bit smaller but I know which one will be nicer and more filling.
View attachment 1561776View attachment 1561777
Another thing to think about is you may eat more of the 'proper' lasagna but it will keep you full.
After eating your low syn SW lasagna you will likely eat other treats afterwards to get your 15 syns.
So you're probably ending up eating near the same calorie wise and enduring eating a SW recipe you don't particularly enjoy.

Plus the Sainsburys one won't have the absolutely vile ingredient, Quark, in it like the SW one does. I remember making a carbonara with it and it was inedible

 

[JustWonderingIf]

Plus the Sainsburys one won't have the absolutely vile ingredient, Quark, in it like the SW one does. I remember making a carbonara with it and it was inedible

Random memory but...
When I was a teenager I worked in a supermarket stacking shelves and I mostly did the cheese section.
Quark always used to sell out within hours it was put out (only got a case a day) with women buying multiple tubs
I didn't know what it was and curious why so popular, I read the tub and it said 'bavarian cheese used traditionally to make cheesecakes.'
I assumed all these women must have been baking cheesecakes.
10 years later when older and fatter I finally learnt (and experienced) the terrible and far less tasty truth

 

[ATV2021]

Random memory but...
When I was a teenager I worked in a supermarket stacking shelves and I mostly did the cheese section.
Quark always used to sell out within hours it was put out (only got a case a day) with women buying multiple tubs
I didn't know what it was and curious why so popular, I read the tub and it said 'bavarian cheese used traditionally to make cheesecakes.'
I assumed all these women must have been baking cheesecakes.
10 years later when older and fatter I finally learnt (and experienced) the terrible and far less tasty truth

It was a rare beast when I did SW. I could just about bare it in the roulade...with 8 tonne of sweetener and an options hot chocolate to remove any trace of chalky flavour. Otherwise absolutely not

 

[Stillsneezy]

Random memory but...
When I was a teenager I worked in a supermarket stacking shelves and I mostly did the cheese section.
Quark always used to sell out within hours it was put out (only got a case a day) with women buying multiple tubs
I didn't know what it was and curious why so popular, I read the tub and it said 'bavarian cheese used traditionally to make cheesecakes.'
I assumed all these women must have been baking cheesecakes.
10 years later when older and fatter I finally learnt (and experienced) the terrible and far less tasty truth

I used to put blue cheese in mine and use it like a thick cream on chilli

 

[Mr Krabs]

One of my worst SW memories is making coleslaw with quark and a bit of mustard powder. Because heaven forbid you have a teaspoon of normal mustard. Absolutely mental behaviour.

 

[uokhun92]

One of my most fucked up SW memories is losing 2.5lb the first week and being dead chuffed then getting a text in the week off my consultant saying ‘I know you are probably feeling disappointed with your first weigh in…’ I thought she had text the wrong person at first!

Also putting on 1lb one week and I knew I’d 100% been ‘on plan’ and her looking at me knowingly when it got to me I’m group saying ‘there must be something you’re having you think is syn free which isn’t’ then the girl next to me asking if I have a cheat meal usually after weigh in and when she said no she said that would be where I was going wrong and everyone else nodding approvingly

 

[Mr Krabs]

Yeah one of the messed up things about SW is that you lose a ton of weight on week one. I don’t know what the science is, but I literally saw a big guy in one group who lost a stone. 8/9lb weight losses weren’t uncommon in week one.

But of course, we all know that doesn’t stay off!

 

[disillusionedbythegram]

Smash cupcakes (where you use smash powder instead of flour) were the most fucked up thing I did, along with an option hot choc mixed with quark as the ‘buttercream’. This was about 10 years ago so before they stopped you doing all that because of ‘tweaks’

 

[ATV2021]

Smash cupcakes (where you use smash powder instead of flour) were the most fucked up thing I did, along with an option hot choc mixed with quark as the ‘buttercream’. This was about 10 years ago so before they stopped you doing all that because of ‘tweaks’

I thought smash pizza was bad....they sound absolutely revolting the only time smash was OK was to thicken up a katsu curry sauce of theirs which was like actual water lol the tweak police thing was madness. I was so obsessed and strict.

Did anyone ever make the savory "scones". cottage cheese and smash I think they were

 

[malibu skies]

I wonder if there would even be a market for Quark if it wasn’t for SW?

Spoiler: TW: binge eating

I always used to go to group on a Tuesday and I would essentially starve myself all day so that I could increase my chances of a good weigh in - I’d also wear my lightest summer clothes, even in winter, so they didn’t weigh me down. And then Tuesday would be ‘treat night’ after weigh in so I’d get a takeaway, and crisps, and chocolate, and whatever else I wanted, and inhale it all in a 3 hour window so I could be ‘good’ again from the next day. I still remember how sick and bloated and guilty I used to feel each time but it never stopped me from doing the same the following week. I’m sure lots of people can have a treat after weigh in without going to the extremes that I did but I never managed it.

 

[Mr Krabs]

Weetabix cake was also mad. I could never get mine to taste of anything but weetabix and they’d come out dry or soggy. But everyone was excited because you could eat the whole thing.

A lady in my group used to make really low syn cakes. Like one syn a slice. They were basically just eggs and sweetener. Plus chemically ingredients you could only buy off Amazon.

 

[ATV2021]

Weetabix cake was also mad. I could never get mine to taste of anything but weetabix and they’d come out dry or soggy. But everyone was excited because you could eat the whole thing.

A lady in my group used to make really low syn cakes. Like one syn a slice. They were basically just eggs and sweetener. Plus chemically ingredients you could only buy off Amazon.

The SW "roulade" was like half a syn for the whole thing...but you honestly needed a tonne of sweetener to remove the quark taste before it was edible. It was basically a foam with quark and strawberries on it delish lol

I used to do the same as another poster RE wearing the lightest thing I owned, no bra, barely ate on weigh days. AND if you dare to talk about the pitfalls of SW in public they come down so hard on you and I've seen them threaten their lawyers on people. Absolutely madness. They don't give any support for post weight loss feelings or things such as loose skin & again god forbid you mention it. I had significant disordered eating & BDD after it and it took me a very long time to get out of the mindset. I even went on holiday and was obsessing about syns the entire time (and thought I was fat). The pictures of that holiday have cropped up recently and I was SO thin and couldn't see it at all. It's actually the devil.

 

[marshmallowfluff30]

Horrible, horrible diet. I developed disordered eating as a result of SW and I’m so glad I’m not the only one.

I can’t remember the last time I had sugar in my coffee and not horrible artificial syrups. I loved rubicon pre SW put haven’t touched it since about 2012. I constantly have SW rules a health extras in my head and what syns are in freddos and whether or not i am allowed more than 1 pint of cider. It’s ridiculous. I haven’t done this diet since 2016 but it’s so deeply entrenched that I can’t get away from the bloody thing.

 

[uokhun92]

Horrible, horrible diet. I developed disordered eating as a result of SW and I’m so glad I’m not the only one.

I can’t remember the last time I had sugar in my coffee and not horrible artificial syrups. I loved rubicon pre SW put haven’t touched it since about 2012. I constantly have SW rules a health extras in my head and what syns are in freddos and whether or not i am allowed more than 1 pint of cider. It’s ridiculous. I haven’t done this diet since 2016 but it’s so deeply entrenched that I can’t get away from the bloody thing.

Oh I know it’s ridiculous isn’t it. I still buy Babybels every time I do a shop and cheese triangles which I never used to buy before I did SW I also automatically buy regulation HexB type breads like brown bagel thins

 

[ATV2021]

Oh I know it’s ridiculous isn’t it. I still buy Babybels every time I do a shop and cheese triangles which I never used to buy before I did SW I also automatically buy regulation HexB type breads like brown bagel thins

I buy light babybel but because they're good for protein after a workout now, thankfully rather than being oh they're a HeA