Fab visualisations Harry! I think the word 'syns' in itself is pretty damaging, mentally. It automatically labels foods as bad, which I'm glad that you've pointed this out in your video, to show people, foods shouldn't be labelled as good or bad!! Shocking how many people avoid avocados when following SW and yet, save their "syns" up for (naughty foods, as they called them) I know so many people have unfortunately got disordered eating by following SW, and as you well know, it sucked me in for a bit too!! Glad I managed to break free and now I can enjoy ALL foods, without ever feeling guilty. That's all down to you! Thank you Harry! ❤
I casually started looking into Slimming World on youtube when a friend of mine started going (on prescription from the NHS!) after being diagnosed as T2 diabetic. The more I look into what people do there and what they eat - it's a trainwreck for some* people and wholly inappropriate. There are slimming world youtubers who have very apparent disordered eating problems. Their _Weight Loss Journey_... is the exact opposite. Gradually gaining weight... getting progressively heavier, unhealthier, buying bigger clothes... daily making poor-choices on food. At the heart of this lies a sugar addiction and a diet filled with processed food. The constant stream of "what-I-eat-in-a-day" videos are heartbreaking - truly slo-mo car crash stuff. Spending all day obsessed about food, non-stop eating, grazing on snacks, constantly hungry as a consequence. .. and then banking 'syns' for a hot chocolate or a couple of late-night-salted-caramel-nut-cluster-honeycomb-chocolate-coated bars... made and sold by slimming world! Wake up the next morning, face inflamed and feeling dreadful because the core nutrition is just so awful. The road to insulin resistance and metabolic ill-health is well trodden by so many people. *It's not all bad, there are some people I know that rely on the group sessions and weigh-ins for their motivation - and that is powerful. There are examples of people that are successful on it and transform their lives with very impressive weight loss - and that's to be celebrated. But, there is a slightly dark and sinister edge to a lot of it. It's a multi-million pound industry that relies on repeat business from people that continually fail as they fall 'off-plan' and the whole notion of the Syns and complexity of the food groupings keeps people going back after their limited success.
Yeah, you're right! There's so much too it and lots of bad parts. The community is one thing that people love and is one of the essentials to long term success with anything - i.e. Find people who do that thing too and build a "tribe". It's one of the reasons religion is so successful.
It's definitely one of those systems where it all boils down to the individual and how knowledgeable they are regarding the importance of calorie counting. As a member for just over a year now (lost 7 1/2st in a year) it's one of my biggest critiques with Slimming World, mostly for the reasons you pointed out. Half the members in my group have been yo-yo'ing the entire time since I began attending, and I feel it's due to this system. Some members feel they can no longer enjoy or ever again have certain foods that they once loved, which of course then leads to them depriving themselves and later binge eating as a result. One woman in particular does this and has gained more weight than she's lost. The word choice also really irks me. The founder, Margaret, can hand-wave it all she wants and claim it means 'synergy', but let's face it, she could have chosen any other word but instead chose the one that sounds like 'sins' x) I'm fortunate enough to have a lovely group with a supportive and friendly group leader who is willing to listen (even got her to talk more about calories/counting :D) so going for me is worth it. It's not a flawless system, but in an age where morbid obesity is on the rise and fat acceptance is destroying lives, anything to help encourage and promote people to live a healthier life is a blessing imo. It's certainly helped me! P.S: My question is, can you really blame and bash a system when ultimately it falls down to the individual to care enough about their health in order to educate themselves? Because as far as I see it, the people who have been yo-yo'ing (especially the one lady above who has gained more than she's lost) are all people who are looking for a quick, easy fix, and aren't willing to truly educate themselves, because that requires effort lol.
I agree it is very difficult to get a healthy relationship with food. I got obsessed with what I eat syns. I left slimming world today. ❤😢It was extremely Anxiety over food. Thanks Harry Jess x
Very good content! 😃 I agree with most of what you're saying but are insuline resistance, the metabolic processes of our body and the importance of the action of the hormones, in particular insuline and cortisol, ever going to be part of the discussion? Let's not forget that obesity is a metabolic disease. Many thanks for this valuable content!
Thanks for the comment 😁. What would you like me to cover about insulin and cortisol? For this video I don't think it was relevant. My focus was on labelling foods. One thing to note - obesity being a metabolic diesese - that doesn't mean poor metabolism causes obesity. It means that being obese can make it harder to lose weight due to complications. It doesn't stop calorie balance being the fundamental for weight loss / weight gain though.
@@emotionaleatingcoach yes, of course, in this video you explained very well that the concept of syns simply doesn't help somebody with an eating disorder or anybody really who has a complicated relationship with food, the syn demonising a food category instead of another, and especially limiting fats to an excessive degree (seeing that fats have a high calorie density) but actually fats are vital allies in the control of insulin release in the blood and in keeping glucose levels steady. What I mean is, with slimming world it is important to note that yes, they utilise the power of calorie density to have people lose weight, at least for a while, but still keep them chained to the obsessions related to foods, guilt and especially they never tackle the real problem, which is the metabolic disease in itself, with its psychological challenges. And certain hormones, especially insuline, are the key to the puzzle, since they regulate the storing processes of the body. All I'm saying is that I wish this aspect of weight gain and weight loss was brought to light more in videos that are meant to educate us about nutitrition. In any case, this particular video is comprehensive, I would perhaps love to hear what's your opinion on the hormonal factor ( insuline resistance being the cause of the mess, as well as disordered relationships with food)
@@NadiWLJ I've got you now. The reason I don't focus on some of those things are - 1. They aren't all true. 2. It often disempowers people because they think "oh well, I've got this thing wrong with me so I'm stuck doing nothing". 3. When I have done in the past, people just aren't interested and don't watch the video. 4. Others do it better than me - this is good to fill the knowledge gap - weightology.net/insulin-an-undeserved-bad-reputation/
