Why slimming clubs suck!
Let’s talk about why slimming clubs suck! They don’t help you, they make it worse for you in the long term.
You can watch the video I made on this below, or keep scrolling to read the full blog.
Oh and this is a two part blog, so watch out for the second part coming next week…
I have seen so many people over the years, to help them with their weight and their eating. The majority of them have been to ALL of the slimming clubs, as well as tried all the different diets. Everything has left them ending up bigger in the long term. They might lose the weight in the short term, but then they put it all back on again, plus a little bit more each time. Then they end up bigger than when they first started, plus they’ve also built up a really shitty relationship with food. They struggle with cravings, especially for food they’ve been told not to eat. Then they end up bingeing, turning to food for comfort and they just feel guilty about their eating.
Yes there are some benefits for some people…
So obviously (before anyone gives me any grief!) for some people slimming clubs work great. Some people love them and find them really helpful. They find it helpful to have that accountability from a group and to have somewhere to go to monitor their progress. They learn some useful tips and enjoy getting support from others, so they don’t feel alone.
However overall the majority of the feedback I’ve had over the years about slimming-clubs is that they’ve made it worse in the long-term. So I wanted to share with you some of the main reasons to avoid slimming clubs like the plague! This is a two-parter – I’ll share half of the points with you today and then next week I’ll share the rest.
The reasons why slimming clubs suck:
1. Slimming clubs are often run by somebody with zero nutritional qualifications
If you’re learning about nutrition and healthy eating it really is best coming from someone qualified. There will always be people who say anyone can teach about nutrition and healthy eating. There’s so much information out there – you can get a load of information off the Internet then teach it, but it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s right. It’s not necessarily based on the best evidence for what a healthy diet looks like.
People who run slimming clubs have usually followed the plan recommended by the slimming club and they got the results. They’re a really big fan of the plan, but their advice is based on following the plan, because it worked for them, rather than being based on genuine nutritional expertise. So many people tell me they’ve picked up quite frankly dodgy rules about eating that make no sense, from slimming club leaders. For example ‘avocado is bad for you, just like a Mars bar’.
You may find you pick up any issues or obsession around food that the the leader might have. They haven’t necessarily been trained to coach you to do what’s best for you. Overall their support and their attitude towards food and nutrition may do you more harm than good!
2. Slimming clubs only seem to care about the weight loss results
The impression I get from clients is that slimming clubs are all about the results. It’s all about losing the weight, getting to your target weight, regardless of how you got there. When you go each week the focus is on weighing in and they want to see that you’ve lost weight. However they’re not necessarily exploring how you lose the weight, they’re not checking to see what changes you made (to check you’re doing something healthy and sustainable). They only congratulate you on the weight loss when you could have just made no changes all week, but then starved yourself on weigh-in day, so it looks like you lost a pound!
Then on the other side of things, they shame you for not losing weight! Even if you’re actually making some great changes, but the weight loss isn’t showing on the scales yet – which does happen! Weight loss doesn’t always follow a perfect linear trend, where you lose weight every week. It’s not the same for everybody, sometimes it can take a little while for things to kick in.
What they’re doing is teaching you to be obsessed with the number on the scales and only consider weight and weight loss. They’re not teaching you to do things to feel happy and healthy. They don’t teach you that there’s more to life than just weight loss. And they don’t teach you to eat well in order to feel well. Or to feel happy with your eating habits and to move in order to feel good. It’s all about the weight loss and you end up becoming obsessed with weight as a result of this attitude. You’re either ‘doing well’ coz you lost weight or you’re ‘failing’ when you haven’t!
3. Advice from slimming clubs is too prescriptive
Another reason to avoid slimming clubs like the plague is their advice is too prescriptive. They all have a plan for you to follow often with info on what you’re ‘allowed to eat’ and what you’re ‘not allowed to eat’. There’s often complicated rules around what you’re allowed to eat. They might give you weird recipes that are completely different to what you would normally cook. Or they want you to buy their special products that are more expensive and aren’t as satisfying as the normal versions.
They don’t explore your own individual normal eating habits first. Their advice is very much one-size-fits-all. Is any of that going to last you forever? When actually it might be that your normal eating habits are mostly fine, but a few tweaks here and there would make all the difference. But instead the advice is to eat in a completely drastically different way. You try to change everything and it’s just not sustainable.
The first three reasons 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
If you’re ready to ditch all the dieting, eat normally and tweak things – come and join The Anti-dieting Revolution. 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…
- It’s probably time to announce here that we are really excited to be having a baby in April this year. I’m not going to lie, it’s been a tricky pregnancy so far as we lost a baby in April last year. It’s taken me a while to feel reassured that everything is ok and that this is really happening!
- Due to all the appointments I had last week and feeling a bit tired & poorly, I missed blogging last week. I’m going to aim to keep up blogging weekly until the end of March, but I’m not going to get stressed if things don’t work out. Remember if you want to keep up-to-date on everything then the best thing to do is to sign-up to my mailing list where you’ll hear everything first!
- Tea of the week has gone out the window as I’ve completely gone off tea these last few weeks! But all that Vanilla Earl Grey tea should keep until my taste for it comes back after I’ve had the baby – this happened when I had Genevieve. I’m fairly certain I’ll be back on the tea again by May! For now though I’m getting through a ridiculous amount of indigestion stuff as the pregnancy-related heartburn has really kicked in – fun!
- At the weekend we did our 3rd walk for our family challenge ’23 Walks in 2023′. We took a friend for a catch up and wandered around Colemere. I’ve only been there once before and the plan was to follow the route in a book I was given for Christmas, but we were chatting so much we just followed the obvious path around the Mere!
- I finished my 2nd book for my reading challenge ’23 New Books in 2023′. It was ‘How to be Famous’ by Caitlin Moran, which I really enjoyed. Although I found out after that it was the second book in a trilogy – oops! Will have to see if I can get hold of the first one next…
- My little exercise routine and walking plan were a bit off last week, but I’ve been back on it this week. It’s not just my back that it makes a difference to – I’m really struggling if I sit for too long, my sides hurt and my legs seize up. This is only going to get harder the bigger I get in this pregnancy! So I’m really going to try and keep moving as much as possible over the next few months.
- Bird Nerd Report: The goldfinches have been all over the place again the last few weeks. One time there were a couple of chaffinches with them too. I’ve also seen treecreepers and redwings. Plus loads of woodpeckers – there were a few chasing each other all over the place near the brook this morning. They’re starting to make the hammering noise which I think is the male trying to attract a female! Spring is definitely on its way.
