Why slimming clubs suck & make it worse for you! Part 2
Let’s look at the second part of why slimming clubs suck, they make it worse and you should avoid them like the plague! You can watch the video I made about this below or keep scrolling to read the blog.
Slimming clubs rake in so much money every year, yet people overall are getting bigger! We kinda need to think about why that is and how they only work if you keep going… I know some people love them and that’s great if it works for you. If you like going, following the plan and joining a group of people for support then great – this blog isn’t for you!
But if you dread the thought of going to yet another slimming clubs. You hate following the plan, you find you reach your target, then when you quit you regain all the weight. Then you feel worse in the long term then this is for you.
In the first part of this two part video blog, I talked about the first three reasons to avoid slimming clubs like the plague:
- The leader is often not qualified to teach about nutrition
- The focus is too much on weight and weight loss
- Slimming club advice is too prescriptive, it’s just a one-size-fits-all plan.
Here are the next three reasons why I think you should avoid slimming clubs coz they make it worse for you:
4. The advice they give you on what to eat is too strict & drastic
The advice I’ve heard from slimming clubs plans is not what I would call normal healthy eating. They want you to lose weight at the end of the day; they want results for their marketing. They’re not necessarily interested in making sure you’re doing it in a healthy way. I hear people talk of loads of rules about food that are quite frankly just bullshit. It’s often about cutting out whole food groups, which isn’t healthy. Or it’s labelling some foods as ‘bad’ so you’re not supposed to eat them or you’re only allowed to eat a tiny amount of them.
You end up confused about what to eat. People often tell me that they’d end up skipping meals or have meals that weren’t satisfying. That led to snacking and picking between meals, having cravings, then feeling guilty about not sticking to it. When you eat food you’re told you’re not supposed to eat, you end up eating more out of guilt or bingeing.
When you change your diet too much and it’s too strict, it’s not sustainable. Plus it’s unhealthy to cut out whole food groups – you’re likely to miss important nutrients. Then on the other side you’re not learning about normal healthy eating, if you’re told that some foods are unlimited. You’re not learning to look at the overall balance. Instead you’re learning to look at food as ‘points’ or ‘sins’ rather than learning how to put together healthy balanced meals. You learn to see food as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ rather than building healthy habits and a healthy attitude towards food.
5. You can pick up a dodgy dieting mentality from other people in the group
It’s really easy to get sucked into the obsession where your only focus is on food and the number on the scales. All you think about is what you’re allowed to eat or what you’re not allowed to eat. Weight & weight loss takes over your life and dieting becomes a hobby. There are people who’ve been going to these groups forever, but they’re not really committed to changing or building healthy habits. They might share tips for how to get the number down on the scales, but it’s all about the short term results!
Clients tell me they’ve met people at slimming clubs, who won’t make any changes all week, but then eat ice chips all day just before weigh-in. Then it looks like they’ve lost some weight, so then they reward themselves with cake! This is just a bonkers mentality! Also people can get competitive with each other as well, but in the long term it’s more harmful, because they’re not making real sustainable healthy changes to their habits. They’re usually restricting themselves short term to lose the weight loss and get to their target.
Then on the other side you can get people who convince themselves why it’s not working with reasons that don’t make sense. Like “I’ve gained weight, because I’m exercising more” when a walk around the block is unlikely to lead to a significant increase in muscle! They can’t move forward, because nobody helps them look at what’s really going on, to unpick what they’re doing and what they need to work on. It can be so easy to convince yourself you’re making changes or not be able to see what you’re actually doing. I’m sure you’ve seen those TV programmes on ‘secret eaters’. I’m not saying you need to blame or shame yourself if that sounds like you, but you may well need help to work through things. You’re unlikely to get what you need from slimming clubs.
6. Slimming clubs don’t teach you what’s actually going to help you
Slimming clubs don’t teach you the skills that will help you long term. You just learn to focus on the results and to follow the plan to get to your target weight. They teach you to limit and restrict yourself, demonising certain foods and encouraging you to fill up on others. Instead of learning normal healthy eating and how to put together balanced meals that satisfy you until your next meal.
They don’t necessarily teach you to explore why you eat in the first place. You won’t learn the skills that will help you make changes you can stick to forever. There’s no focus on building healthy habits that fit in with your individual lifestyle. Instead it’s all about changing everything to follow the plan. You don’t learn to eat and exercise for health and enjoyment – it’s all about the weight loss. Plus you don’t look at what you might need to change in your life to support you building healthy habits forever.
Why I think you should avoid slimming clubs like the plague:
- They’re not usually run by an actual qualified nutrition professional
- They’re only interested in the weight loss (regardless of what you do)
- The advice they give you is too prescriptive
- Their advice is too strict & drastically different to what you normally do
- You can pick up a dodgy dieting mentality from other people in the group
- Slimming clubs don’t teach you what’s actually going to help you
Over and over again I see when you do all the diets and go to all the slimming clubs you’re more likely to build up a really shitty relationship with food. It’s time to ditch all that and get back to eating normally again.
If you’re ready to ditch all the dieting, eat normally and tweak things – come and join The Anti-dieting Revolution. Find out how to make it easier to eat balanced meals that will satisfy you till your next meal with my super simple guide. Grab my guide to making healthy eating easier here for the best place to start and see what tweaks you could make.
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My Weekly Round-up! AKA; what I’ve been up to recently…
- Pregnancy related heartburn and taste-changes are still stopping me fancying tea – ugh! Hoping my taste for it will come back… So no tea of the week again, just copious amounts of heartburn medication – yuck!
- It’s been school half term this week so my usual walking and exercise routine has slipped – oops! Although I’ve still walked a few times and done a couple of short yoga sessions, it’s definitely not as much as I could do with doing.
- We did manage to do our 4th walk for our family challenge ’23 Walks in 2023′. The walk was meant to be a fairly short walk around Whixall Moss for about an hour and a half at my pregnant lady pace. Somehow we went a bit wrong and ended up going quite a long way in the wrong direction. Even though we back-tracked and found a shorter way back to the car, it was still double the time it was meant to be. I was pretty impressed with myself for managing to keep going all the way. Luckily we were with Sam’s parents and they live nearby so we went back to theirs for some much-needed refuelling, before we drove home!
- I finished the third book ‘The Clockwork Girl’ by Anna Mazzola, for my reading challenge ’23 New Books in 2023′. I finished another book too, but I’m not sure whether to count it as I accidentally got the abridged version! It was Caitlin Moran’s ‘How to be a woman’, but I think I’m going to see if I can get hold of the full version, before it goes on the list.
- As this week was school half term it’s been all about playdates and catch-ups. We also dropped by the local museum to check out a craft workshop that Genevieve enjoyed. I’ll be glad to get back into out routine next week though!
- Bird Nerd Report: I’ve not seen many interesting birds on the couple of short walks I’ve been on this week. However on our walk round Whixall Moss I saw a massive flock of very noisy lapwings. It was exciting as I’ve never seen them before. I’ve wanted to see them for a while as they’re a really pretty glossy green colour, but I didn’t realise I could see them fairly locally! There were also some other water birds I’ve never seen before, pin-tail ducks and teal ducks. I’m sure there were others too, but I couldn’t tell what they were.
