Newbie SW'er - help needed

Hi
I need help after my 1/2lb gain on my first week.

The 1/3rd superfree food is really puzzling me. I get it if you have meat and potatoes and vegetables - balancing your plate with 1/3rd vegetables really limits the amount of meat and potatoes you eat - there's only so much food you can have on a plate. So "eat as much meat as you like..." is really not true - because I might like to have a full plate of steak and potatoes - but according to the 1/3rd rule I can't, I'd have to cut down on steak and potatoes to make room for the 1/3rd vegetables. Have I got that right?

What if the meal doesnt really suit fruit/vegetables? Tonight I had 2 poached eggs, beans, SW chips and 3 rashers grilled bacon ... lovely meal and all free but because it didn't include 1/3rd superfree I won't lose weight on it?! It wouldn't have suited brocolli!!!

So if I just eat free foods all week I won't lose weight?

SW saying "You can eat unlimited amounts of pasta, potato, meat ..." etc. isn't really true, is it?

Well I would've had some mushrooms and tomatoes to make up the one third superfree with your meal this evening.

I'm no expert but if you follow the Extra Easy plan exactly as it says then it will work. I've followed it for the past year (apart from a few times off plan) and I've lost 2 stone! I've had at least 10 syns every day and 15 syns most days, so I recommend you have yours.

I think a lot of people use the 1/3 superfree over a day, so if you do have a meal that doesnt suit superfree then have fruit as pudding, and snack on superfree. I always do GREEN days as a veggie and the 1/3 superfree rule isn't part of that plan.
The RED day GREEN day was originally splitting the carbs and the meat proteins to separate days, so on a GREEN day you could only have limited meat.
The EE allows you to have all the FREE food off of both the previous plans, BUT to prevent you over eating on those foods you have the 1/3 superfree rule to aid portion control.
I learnt the plan a long time before EE was introduced so for me i dont get it!, but it obviously does work if you follow it to the letter.
Maybe do a food diary too.
Keep the faith in SW it DOES work

Your two examples of meals could have easily been added to with 1/3 superfree. Both meals could have had tinned tomatoes and fried in frylight with or without a bit of garlic mushrooms with them, for example. The steak meal could have had a salad to accompany it, or a portion of roasted mediterranean veg (peppers, courgette, mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, splash of balsamic vinegar, sprinkle of garlic granules, dose of fry light, in the oven for about 1/2 an hour)

At an absolute push, you can have some melon as a starter (not watermelon though, thats not superfree) or a bowl of fruit afterwards - but there are plenty of veg out there that would suit most meals, as long as you are a bit creative.

Have you read this thread? It's definitely worth a thorough read -

http://www.minimins.com/slimming-wo...d-advice-new-comers-including-extra-easy.html

Well, I can't think of a meal that you really couldn't add veg to. But if you really don't want them with it, then have fruit afterwards.
But you have to have the 1/3 as part of that meal, not only spread throughout the day. You need it to improve the digestion of everything else you're eating at the same time.

It's confusing, isn't it? But it does click after a week or two.

And I've known a few people who put on in their first SW week. It really depends what your diet was like before it, because for some people, the sheer volume of food you can eat makes you put on initially. But they all lost in Week 2. So stick with it. It really does work! (And I'm someone for whom no diet has really worked before!)

Keep going, and you'll get there.

MadameLaMinx said:

At an absolute push, you can have some melon as a starter (not watermelon though, thats not superfree)

Click to expand...

Thats always shocked me that of all the melons its watermelon thats not superfree!!!

Watermelon has always seemed to me to be - just water!

So why isn't it superfree?