What’s wrong with Slimming World (and Weight Watchers and the like)
The other day I was having a chat with someone at school.
“I’ve got to get back on track with my weight” she said…
“Excellent! What’s your plan?” I said…
Person: I’m gonna go back to Slimming World…
At this point I think I literally banged my head against the wall…
Person: Oh, you don’t like them then… but it always works for me.
Now, I’m not the type of person to slate people’s efforts to get healthy. Quite the opposite in fact, but I lose track of the number of times slimming world / weight watchers comes up in my world.
Me: “Oh it worked for you. Tell me what happened…”
Person: Well yes. It worked. I lost some weight. Then I stopped going, because (Choose one: I went on holiday / I got ill / it was my birthday, husband’s birthday, dog’s birthday) And, you know, the weight came back on again…
And this, my lovely readers is THE reason I don’t recommend slimming world or weight watchers.
- If you put the weight back on again, it hasn’t worked.
- If it hasn’t taught you how to deal with holidays / birthdays / events, it hasn’t worked.
- If it doesn’t equip you with a mechanism to make good, better, best choices FOR LIFE, then it hasn’t worked.
- If it doesn’t deal with the why and how you came to be overweight, it hasn’t worked.
- If it doesn’t deliver you with a brand new set of behaviours and beliefs that you will use for the rest of your life then it hasn’t worked.
I also have a moral issue with a company that makes millions in profits by selling junk food disguised as healthy food, but that another story.
What’s the alternative?
The alternative is start with Why. Start with understanding the real, deep reason for why you want to lose weight. I speak to so many mums who want to lose weight, but many of them just want to lose it at a superficial level. Because it’s the thing we are all obsessing about, and guess what? These people will lose a couple of kgs before a holiday and put it back on again, and there’s no problem with that.
But for those of you looking to make real changes to your health, you need a deep, real reason for why? So keep asking yourself: why do you want to lose weight? Why is it important to you? What will happen if you don’t lose weight? Why now?
Be honest with yourself. And write it down somewhere where it is visible…
That’s the first step: understanding and connecting with your Why…
Once you’ve done that, every other step will connect back to your why and make lifestyle changes so much easier and sustainable. For life.
