I just came off of 325+ days on Nutrisystem where I lost 25-30 lbs (depending on what day I weigh). I plan to use the Slimming World Food Optimizing plan for continued weight loss. I'll be sharing with you my impressions, successes (and maybe failures) so you can decide if this plan is right for you.
Monday, July 10, 2017 Total Steps 12,872 (gym + walk) Total Calories: Approximately 1000 Water Intake: Didn't track Weight Loss: (-26.7 lb loss total to date) didn't weigh
This is an informal start to the Slimming World Food Combining healthy eating and weight loss program. I'm just starting to get the concepts down. I'm going to do a grocery shop this afternoon so hopefully I can get in the swing of things in a day or two. I'm still using up some Nutrisystem foods, most of which would be considered as "Syns" on Slimming World so right off the bat I'm not quite on-program. I bought some beautiful fresh peaches from the local orchard so I had a half of a peach (free food). I had 1/2 cup of Fage 2% yogurt (4.5 syn value which is half my daily allowance) and one Nutrisystem Buttermilk Waffle which I'm sure would be off the charts, syn value wise. For the purpose of comparison I could have had fat free Greek yogurt rather than 2% and I could have had a variety of dry cereal options rather than my waffle.
After the gym and a short walk I had a Nutrisystem Chocolate Turboshake without my typical added 1/2 banana. This was syns-a-plenty.
I made a half sandwich with one slice of Dave's Killer skinny bread, 2 teaspoons of mayonnaise, lettuce and a couple slices of fresh tomatoes and turkey breast slices (tomatoes and lettuce were from the garden). Slimming World wise, I'd have been fine except for the mayonnaise. They would have also allow 2 slices of my skinny bread but I'm cool with 1. So I think you can see already that Slimming World is a pretty traditional "low fat" diet.
Ok so already I failed day 1 of Slimming World. I had about 2 ounces of Gorgonzola and 6 thin crackers.
I did pretty well at dinner time. I made a blackened pork chop served with a simple salad of lettuce and tomatoes from my garden. I bought some fat free Italian dressing. If you like stuff like that then more power to you but for me it was a "fail". No calories, no flavor. Seriously, I'd rather eat "undressed" greens than to put that stuff on my salad. In fact when I go out and have my favorite "fresh Mex" mesquite grilled chicken salad, I don't even use dressing. The greens are crisp and fresh, the chicken is moist and fresh, plenty of flavor without anything on it.
I also microwaved a red potato which I had with just some pepper and salt. I actually really enjoy potatoes this way because all you really taste is the fresh earthy taste of the potato.
I did have a little bag of Nutrisystem Sweet and Salty snack mix. If I'd tally them up this would have been syns up the yin yang!
So clearly I'm not quite on board with this program. I guess I should have just stayed on Nutrisystem until I was out of everything. This will be an interesting test to see how I do. I'm honestly quite skeptical. I'm a "simple person" that likes to keep everything simple around me. So far this program seems overwhelmingly complex. I will have to reformat my blog too because Slimming World does not go by meals/snacks, more like meals, healthy extras a and b, speed foods, OMG, there goes my head spinning round again!
A syn is just a term for anything that has any fat, sugar, or flavor. I find this to be the most complex part of the program. Although they tout "you don't have to count calories" counting syns is worse! I'm pretty familiar with calorie counts and if I don't know it, I can easily look it up or find it on a package in the case of packaged foods. But syns? You have to source them in their book (in very tiny print) or on the website and if it's not there, and many things are not, you have to run it through their syn calculator. Sorry dudes, my life is just too short for that. From what I've seen so far a syn seems to be equivalent to about 1 syn per 20 calories (roughly). The only workable thing I can think of is to do a conversion that way. We'll see how it goes.