calorie counting v ww/sw and free foods - i dont get it!

JodieJoJo

Silver Member
I may be really dim here but there is something i cant get my head round!

I know that ww and sw have plans where you can eat certain foods freely such as particular veg and fruit.

So in theory you could have 10 apples if you wanted. But with calorie counting the theory is that you must expend more energy than you consume.

So, i'm sure that alot of people on ww/sw must eat over the amount they would need if calorie counting but do they still lose weight?

I hope this makes sense??!! I just don't get it!
 
I think with both SW and WW, the free foods tend to be very low calorie - like the example you used, Apples. Its quite hard to overeat on fruit and veg and if you did you would end up with terrible stomach ache anyway. But ultimately, if you did manage to consume more calories from free foods than you were burning off in your daily activities then you would gain weight.
 
if you did manage to consume more calories from free foods than you were burning off in your daily activities then you would gain weight.

Agreed. With WW, the allowed points is quite low in calorie terms. In the olden days it was even lower and if I remember rightly, WW got in trouble for it.

Now they've raised it, but it's still minimum. This allows for a certain amount of free foods.

With both SW and WW, they are assuming you won't eat too many 'free' foods as to go over the calories as you would get either bored of them or end up having less of other foods because you weren't hungry.
 
I have done ww and slimming world in the past and they dont work for me. Im impaired glucose tolerance and have to really watch how much fruit i eat. i only ever lost half a stone on both plans. It was just too much food. Im a strange person i think i only need very little amounts of food, my body knows how to store fat very effectively it allways thinks there is a famine around the corner and may need it. Well the famine has arrived with SS and the fat is going. hurrah.......
 
in general, burn more than you take in is correct.

But different foods burn differently and also work differently in combination with other types of food.
Not all that simple, unfortunately.
 
i remember on sw that you could eat as much as pasta as you wanted on certain days - so do they assume that you will only be able to actually eat a certain amount before bursting?! (they dont know me!:D)
 
When I did SW (the first few times anyway), there was no 'green' day, only red.

Corned beef was a free food, but there were no mullerlights, and little choice in the two 'extras'

I lived on chicken, ham, and corned beef pie (corned beef with eggs). I ate very little and in hindsight, was probably in ketosis.

Didn't work out very healthy though. I had a similar problem with WW which I did a few times. The points were lower and you could have what you wanted. Not being a lover of fruit and veg at the time, I filled with rubbish. I didn't think it mattered. After all, as long as you are losing weight, it must be healthy eh??:rolleyes:

Much later, I did the WW no count (core) and ate very healthily. Unfortunately I didn't lose weight because of the portion sizes I should imagine.

Nothing wrong with either plan, it's how you chose to do it. I wasn't very sensible in those days:rolleyes:

I was happy with WLR as calorie counting was more convenient (calories listed on most foods) and also you try to get a healthy balance between fat/protein/carbs, and with the extra F&V counter, it was another goal to aim for. I especially liked the fact that the balance was the same whether you were at goal or not. It wasn't low fat, just 'normal', and not having any free foods meant it was obvious where I could be going wrong.

I did lose 6 stone on SW at one time :clap: All okay plans...just whether you do them in an okay way;)
 
Can i just say that i did WW for 8 months and only lost 11lbs however i didnt stick to it all the time but on the weeks i just ate healthily as apposed to calorie counted i had amazing weight losses but the weeks i pointed the i often lost only 1lb or stayed the same and on one occasion actually put 2lbs on but then i am abnormal lol there was a girl in our class that used to eat 2 mars bars a day to fill her points up so she never lost weight lol
 
I have to admit Im not sure how the WW core or SW works, someone at my work is doing sw and eats phenominal amounts of bacon, sausage etc... he loves it but I have to admit hes cagey about how much hes losing.

I need the discpline of points so that when theyre done.... thats me for the day.

When I look at some of my menus for the past week, the amount of stuff Ive eaten Im sometimes amazed that even that works but believe me it does ;)
 
Can i just say that i did WW for 8 months and only lost 11lbs however i didnt stick to it all the time but on the weeks i just ate healthily as apposed to calorie counted i had amazing weight losses but the weeks i pointed the i often lost only 1lb or stayed the same and on one occasion actually put 2lbs on but then i am abnormal lol there was a girl in our class that used to eat 2 mars bars a day to fill her points up so she never lost weight lol

lol about the mars bars! Thats why points wasnt very good for me - i would save them up for naughty treats and so didnt really educate myself about food and nutrition.

I did sw for a little while many years back but only lost about half a stone. All in all it seems that even with free foods you cant really eat as much as you want but still have to exercise some control over portion even though they dont say that.

I dont know - its all very confusing!
 
I've done Slimming World Before and i couldn't understand how it could work either, but decided to go on it and 'test' the theory that you could eat as much of the free foods as you want. I pretty much stuffed my face with free foods and was 'full' the entire time i was on the diet.....i still lost 7lbs in my first week!!! *shock*
I don't know how it works, but it does. I think it may have something to do with the fat content maybe? All the free foods a very low in fat and you don't eat any processed foods so they're better for you anyway.
 
when I last did SW, the leader basically said that you could stuff your face all day long on free foods and still lose weight and actually encouraged us to eat as many free foods as possible.

As Rayven said, by eating free foods which are low calorie and unprocessed you will automatically be eating fewer calories than you normally would anyway and so should in theory lose weight.

Im following WW Core plan now and the losses seem to be going well so far. Its basically three meals a day from free foods and only fruit between meals. You can then have up to 21 points a week if you want to spend how you want but so far I havent had to use any points as the meals are so filling.
 
i think the only way to test it is if i do a few weeks on a sw or ww stylee diet when i have finished cd and enter the cals on my counter. If my cals are over what it says i should have to lose weight but i still lose then i'll know that the free food concept works!

I know on ww that they still advise you to watch portion size on the core plan Sam but on sw they used to say eat as much as you want, ie on a pasta day you could have bowl after bowl if you wanted.

I always lost on ww points plan but never tried the core plan as i felt abit out of control. However, i'm definitely going to follow it when i get to goal (plus a few extra treats ofcourse!)
 
Well in my experience of both (many times over!) I don't get on with either really!!

On WW core plan - portion control was an issue for me so I rarely lost (perhaps 0.5-1lb if I was lucky). On the points plan I ate healthily and stayed within points and could lose/gain each week despite being angelic all week. SW is a great plan (I'm a great believer in food combining ;) )can't say I was ever hungry, but the fluctuations in weight were bizarre - I could lose 3.5 lbs one week, gain 2 the next, gain 2 the following and then lose 6 ..... just couldn't cope with the rollercoaster!

Once in maintenance I'll be using WLR to monitor my intake and be exercising. No foods will be forbidden (because that just makes me want them more) but everything will be in moderation ;) :)
 
wise words Dobbie. I've just joined wlr and i'm finding it really useful. I think i was going way over on the 1000 plan with my fruit and by entering the food in the diary its really helping. When i see that number get to 1000 or 1100 max i stop!:D
 
Hey JJJ - glad to hear WLR is working out for you! It's great that you have taken control again and by having an upper limit you defo know you have to stop. You are well deserving of another decent loss this week - can't wait to hear how you do!

Will be defo following your footsteps of using WLR as I move up. Another week or so on 790 for me thou :(
 
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