Slimming World: Food Optimising

August 25, 2008 at 11:55 am · Filed under Diet, Health, Obesity, Weight loss ·Tagged , , , , , ,

 For those who view the other pages of Feeders’ Digest, you will be aware that i am currently on a weight loss plan created by Slimming World.  I’ve been following it for over 16 weeks now, i thought it was about time i introduced the ideas behind the diet and also the advantages and disadvantages of following it.

Brief Overview

The Slimming World diet works on the principle of Food Optimising. Each item of food is given a value based on:

  • The foods’ energy density
  • It’s health-giving properties
  • It’s ability to satisfy the appetite quickly
  • Ability to keep and maintain a feeling of fullness and peoples’ behavioural patterns                                                                  (Source)

Based on this analysis, foods are then catergories into three groups, Free Foods, Healthy Extras and Syns.

Free Foods

The first component of Food Optimising is Free foods. To ensure weight loss and optimal health, you are advised to pick most of your food from a exhaustive list of free foods.

Free foods can be eaten in unlimited quantities without the worry of keeping track of points or the counting of calories. Depending on whether you choose to follow a green or red day, the free foods you choose from differ greatly. 

Green Days

Food optimising on a green day means all your free foods come from foods such as pasta, rice, noodles, grains, pulses, tofu, quorn, eggs and fruit and vegetables (which are free on both days, apart from starchy vegetables like potatoes which you can in unlimited quanties on a green day, or as a Healthy Extra on a red day).

Red Days

Food optimising on a red days means your free foods include meat, poultry and game with all visible fat taken off (and also cooked with no fat/oil) fish, seafood, eggs, all fruits and vegetables (not the starchy types).

On both days as mentioned previously, fruit and vegetables are free foods (bar a few exceptions depending on the day you are following) but also you can have unlimited amounts of tea, water, coffee, sugar/fat-free versions of products such as fizzy drinks, yoghurt, salad dressings and some sauces for example sugar-free mint jelly, Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, fish sauce and Tabasco . Salt, artificial sugar, herbs and spices can be used freely also.

One of the most important rules of food optimising, is that you pick whether you are following a green or red day and stick to it for the remainder of the day.

Slimming World has introduced 2 other choices for food optimisers to follow, which allows you the option to either have red and green meals on the same day or to speed up your weight loss (Mix2Match and Success Express), but i think it’s something that should only be considered once you are 100% clear on the basics on food optimising.

An note on fruit: It is important to point out that whilst raw fruit is free on both days, cooking them or pureeing them, will give them a syn value.

Healthy Extras

The second part of Food Optimising are Healthy Extras, which are foods that ensure you are getting your government recommended amount of nutrients and vitamins. Slimming World state that FO is ‘in line with all eight Government guidelines for healthy eating’. There are a wide variety of healthy extras you can pick.

Healthy extras are broken down into two categories, A and B choices.

Healthy Extras A choices come from foods that provide calcium (milk, yoghurt, cheese and some dairy alternatives.

Healthy Extras B choices come from bread, pulses and cereal and some other fibre rich foods which which change, depending what colour day you are following.

Syns

The last component of Food Optimising are Syns. Syns are Slimming World’s alternative to calorie counting. Each food item which isn’t a Free Food is given a value, which depending on the day you are following, can vary greatly. 

For example:

Batchelors Savoury Rice (Chinese flavour)  is free on a green day, but 21½syns on a red day.

You are recommended to consume between 5 and 15 syns a day and these can be used on anything you like, members can go online and check the syn values, or invest in a food directory which has all the values in. 

Exceeding the recommending number of syns, will definitely have a negative effect on your weight loss, but Slimming World encourages those who go over their syns, to remember the concept of Flexible Syns (where you allow yourself to increase the number of syns you are going to have that day, and stick to it rather than completely coming off plan)

Image Therapy

Image therapy stands for Individual Motivation and Group Experience, and  takes place for those who go to weekly classes.

Generally in IMAGE therapy:

  1. The class begins with a round up of how everyone has done, and then you can choose to set yourself a mini target for the next week.
  2. The slimmer of the week is announced alongside any awards for people who have received any awards (when you reach half st or st milestones and for reaching your club 10)
  3. The consultant may let you know if there are any changes to syn values, if the new slimming world magazine out and if any new books have been published.
  4. Class usually ends with the consultant going over some of the literature with the group or some small discussion on what people have tried over the week.

Lifeline Online

Lifeline online is the members section of the slimming world website. This is password protected and if you attend group, the consultant will alert you to the new password, which is changed every week.

With free access to lifeline online, you can record your weight losses, which is plotted on a graph, and if you have worked out your Club 10 (10% of your starting weight) the graph estimates how long it will take you to reach it.

You are also able to check syn values, use the recipe archive, read articles and use the syn calculator.

Advantages of Slimming World

  • No ’special’ diet foods are required
  • You can still have treats
  • Relatively cheap to follow
  • You can alter family favourites to become SW friendly
  • Is vegetarian friendly (they can follow green days)
  • You have a support system if you attend a group
  • No calorie counting / weighing (only for healthy extras and syns)
  • Can follow slimming world online/by post/in person at a group
  • As a member you get access to the Lifeline Online website
  • There are a large number of recipe books available for purchase for all occasions.
  • Free for 11-15 year olds to attend (more info)
  • Available for freee on GP referral in some parts of the UK (more info)

Disadvantages of Slimming World

  • Doesn’t teach you about portion control and combating overeating.
  • No real emphasis on exercise (though Body Magic does touch on this)
  • Classes can sometimes be a bit tedious (all depends on your consultant)
  • Depending how you follow the diet, it can be expensive
  • Slower weight loss than some of the more radical diets
  • Does require a lot of planning
  • Can be confusing in the beginning

Is slimming World for you?

If you are looking for a quick fix, definitely not.

But for everyone else, i would definitely recommend slimming world. It is an easy to follow plan (once you have grasped the basics) and will help you lose weight gradually, which means you are more likely to keep it off!

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Tasty Morsels of News

August 24, 2008 at 8:59 pm · Filed under Diet, Health, Obesity, Weight loss ·Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

Hard to swallow: The diet pill scammers

It’s hardly suprising that diet pills bought over the internet, or in fact, bought at all, are only successful in helping you shift pounds of the stirling variety.

Yet people who usually buy these products are desperate and looking for a quick fix, but come on, how can you expect a pill to undo years of delightful gluttony, in a few weeks?

The Daily Mail article exposes this diet scam and the clinics that asre more than happy to take your money and offer you miracle pills, the only miracle being you were stupid enough to part with up to £60 a jar of what sometimes is just repackaged multivitamins.

However the scary part of this article is the rather lax regulations surrounding the diet pill industy, as pointed out by Dr David Haslam, clinical director of the National Obesity Forum

‘I’m sure there are some decent private clinics operating out there,’ he says. ‘But most should be avoided at all costs. Many are simply a front for making huge sums out of selling obsolete or unethical drugs like Ionamin and Phentermine  -  which cost just a few pounds to produce.

‘In truth those drugs were only re-licensed due to a loophole, so although it’s legal to prescribe them, it’s not ethical. GPs wouldn’t offer them to patients due to the high risk of heart problems.

Double or quits: Second wife will bring you longevity

Acording to the Time of India, a study has discovered the key to a long life is polygamy, after finding that men from cultures that practise polygamy live longer those from monogamous ones

After accounting for socioeconomic differences, men aged over 60 from 140 countries that practice polygamy to varying degrees lived on average 12 per cent longer than men from 49 mostly monogamous nations, says Virpi Lummaa, an ecologist at the University of Sheffield, UK.

Obese children = Neglectful parents?

This is a story i am torn on because i agree that if a child is dangerously obese, and repeated attempts to help the child by working with the parents have failed, then the last resort should be to take the child out of the situation.

The Belfast Telegraph articlesaid that Local Government Association (LGA) warned that social services might have to treat very fat children as victims of “parental neglect” just as malnourished children are and that this abuse could lead to social services being able to remove the child.

But allowing that would lead to a host of other problems surely, one being the fact the child might blame themselves for the situation they find themselves (in a children’s home or with a foster family) and what pyschological damage could that cause?

Also who decides how fat a child need to be before they are removed, do the parents get the child back once they have returned back to a ‘normal weight and what if the child is in fact, not cooperating with their parent’s attempt to help them lose weight?

Related, is the news of Leanne Salt, who became the world’s heaviest mother to triplets, a prize i am sure she fought tooth and nail to win.

Much has been made about the enormous cost to the NHS of helping this woman give birth, a mere £200,000, four times the cost of a normal pregnancy. Being a 40st single parent with triplets, much has been made about of ability of this woman to look after her children, and whether she should have considered that before she had them, though the pregnancy was not planned apparently.

Don’t desert the dessert

Awww a feelgood story at last, nutrition experts are seeking to change US nutrition guidelines to allow for discretionary calories, which are foods that tend to be higher in calories but provide little nutritional value (the tasty stuff like cakes, biscuits, fast good and ice-cream).

However :

People can’t look for treats if they are overweight, because they already have used up their discretionary calories.

I think whilst the idea of discretionary calories might not make it into the revised guidelines, a lot of people practise this in one way or another, especially those on diets who give themselves a day in a week of slimming and being good, to eat tasty treats.

ADHD drug aids weight loss

Research has found that rats given the Elipesy drug Vigabatrin, lost 12-20% of their body weight after 40 days. What also is interesting, is scientists claim they saw no side effects in the rats.

The drug is works by stopping the dopamine, which is said to be the cause of ‘reward seeking behaviours’.

Restaurant to charge children based on their weight – all in the name of good old fashioned fun.

Not much to say on this story apart from that this is clearly an ill thought out gimmick offered by Oulton Hall Hotel. The restaurant bosses are unrepentant, with their spokesman pretty much claiming the ‘PC Brigade’ are responsible for all the fuss and that ‘frankly they should get a life and stop being so miserable.’

Yeah, how dare the PC brigade worry about any possible humilation children may feel from being weighed in a restaurant. For the purposes of fairness, i should point out that the scheme is voluntary, however should the child decline to be weighed, they will be charged at half the price of a adult meal – £11.25.

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News Review – Slightly Stale But Still Edible

August 17, 2008 at 12:24 pm · Filed under Health, Obesity, Weight loss ·Tagged , , , , , , , ,

Skinny Water? Fat Chance!- Well suprise suprise, the new water recently brought out by Bio-Synergy have had to admit that the claims made on their labelling are unsubstantiated and their product is not misleading because skinny water is “just a name”.

A skinny latte is so-called because it contains skimmed or semi skimmed milk, thus making it a low calorie version of the original, and for someone watching their calories, a healthier option to a latte.

So to have water, which has no calories anyway, being sold as ’skinny’, would give the impression to some people, that it was a diet aid, a claim the manufacturers have denied, stating that their product isn’t even sold alongside slimming aids.

The ingredients of skinny water include L-Carnitineand Chromium which the labelling says ‘reduces sugar cravings and improves the body’s ability to burn fat’.

Susan Jebb, of the Medical Research Council, said: “L-Carnitine and Chromium are widely advertised for being able to help you lose weight, but I have not seen one clinical study which proves this.”

She added: “The product also dresses up things we already know as scientific benefits. Like saying it has no added calories: why would you add calories to perfectly good water? And claiming it is a perfect way to re-hydrate. It’s water, of course it’s a good way to re-hydrate

Currently manufacturers are allowed to make unsupported claims, but the FSA have commented that this practise will soon be over as new EU strict regulations are being brought in to curb this practice.

Weight bias as prevalent as racial discrimination- As a black, overweight woman, i’m definitely never going to leave the house again, the statistics are against me, everybody hates me, wah!

Silliness aside, this research doesn’t tell me anything i didn’t already know, not that i think i have experienced weight bias, but the fact fat people may experience less life choices rings true. Fat people tend to self censor the opportunities they choose, because of what people might say or the fact they think they may get turned down because of their appearance.

The research was conducted by Rebecca Pulh at Yale’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, asked participants to self report weight discrimination and then compared it to discrimination based on race and gender.

These results show the need to treat weight discrimination as a legitimate form of prejudice,” she said. “It is comparable to other characteristics like race or gender that already receive legal protection.”

Denying someone a job or an opportunity because they are overweight, in some situations is necessary however, for example being a police officer, a flight attendant or wanting to take part in a bungee jump, but banning fat people from your nightclub, because they don’t look nice, is fucked up.

And whilst i am on the topic of bad decisions, what is this new nasty trend of writing off any wrong do-ings as just ‘a moment of madness’, or a ‘error of judgement’, like it is some kind of administrative error. When these ‘moments of madness’ are explanations for affairs when your wife is dying of cancer, repeated criminal activity, for example stealing and crashing your girlfriend’s car whilst 2 times over the drinking limit or in the case of the fattist owner of the Havana nightclub, getting caught out, claiming a moment of justice was the cause, just doesn’t seem to cut it.

Anyhoo, back to fat news, apparently there is a new ‘radical’ diet, which works and isn’t in anyway extreme or weird. Well, ok, the last statement might be a lie.

The Alternative Day Fast Diet is quite self-explanatory and the benefits reaped are fast weight loss and a faster metabolism.

Nutritionist Catherine Saxelby said the ADF was similar to the diet of our “hunter-gatherer ancestors” who survived on an irregular and unpredictable food intake pattern of little food one day and a lot the next.

Studies conducted have supported claims that the diet can ‘increase life span’ however critics have commented the diet is impractical to follow long term.

In the few human studies carried out on ADF, subjects have often reported feeling tired, tetchy and hungry on the days they were required to fast. Critics suggest that those looking to lose weight do not need to subject themselves to such a harsh regimen.

Another interesting story i stumbled across is the link between childhood chronic ear infections and obesity. Research has been published showing that chronic ear infections can damage nerve endings which alter the sense of taste, leading to a preference in fatty foods, which we know leads to the slippy road called fatsville.

In the first of 5 studies presented at the American Psychological Association’s conference , the results suggested that those with a moderate to severe history of ear infections were 62% more likely to be obese.

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News Review

August 8, 2008 at 12:51 pm · Filed under Health, Obesity, Weight loss ·Tagged , , , , , , , ,

Good sex everyday, keeps doctors away: And there I was chomping through apples like a girl crazed, when in fact I should have been indulging in lots of ‘good sex’, because of course, bad sex is terrible for your health.

According to the article:

…we also need to understand that sexual acts work more in terms of improving resistance, but are not a safe guard or a treatment to illnesses.

Does this really even need to be said? Do they expect us to put down our lifesaving medication and take up random sex partners to fight the common cold or cancer?

So folks, have lots of good sex, but don’t forget your asthma pump!
  
Anyway, it’s probably a good idea I am not chomping through my apples now, seeing how scientists have proved that  simple sugar turns to fat with “surprising speed”
 
The study, with a humongous sample size of 6, found that the body quickly converts fructose to body fat.
 
Clearly my diet rich in fruit is the sole reason for leaving me has left me in the overweight mess I am now in, but surely we need to be promoting people eat fruits and vegetables, instead of giving them reasons not to?
 
Credit Crunch related news!!!!! – The Japanese are shunning the western diet.
 
Apparently with the price of wheat being so expensive, the Japenese are retreating back to their traditional staple foods.

The return to a diet dependant on rice has been welcomed by the government, which last month launched an initiative to increase Japan’s food self-sufficiency rate.

The rise of ‘pregorexia’ – a story about vain mothers to be, trying to emulate the celebrities who pop out a baby and are back to their usual skeletal form weeks later.
 
In their attempt to limit the amount of pregnancy weight they have to work off after the birth, they are going on diets during the pregnancy, limiting their calorie intakes to dangerously low levels.
 
I don’t think much can be said on this, apart from the fact this practise is wholely unnecessary. Putting their unborn baby’s health at risk, just so they don’t have to spend a few extra weeks in the gym, is a disgusting and vain practice.

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Extremely short obesity news brief

August 5, 2008 at 8:09 pm · Filed under Health, Obesity, Weight loss ·Tagged , , , ,

1,000 calories packed in today’s kids meals: I was horrified, gobsmacked, dumbfounded by this US study into kids fast food meals that found that they contain a heck loads of calories.
Who would have thought, that a meal which is bread crumbed or battered, deep fried and served with a sugary beverage, is high in calories?
Sarcasm aside, the fact an adult woman’s calorific intake should be around 2000 calories, and a child can very easily consume that in one meal is pretty disturbing.
 
Parents of obese children to receive official letter of warning: This is an interesting story, as the lack of involvement of local authorities/ health professionals has been brought into the public eye following the case of the 33st 15 year old.
 
The Department of Health intends to send a letter to parents of overweight children, not containing any derogatory words, such as ‘obese’, ‘fat’ and ‘Mcchunky’ to avoid the embarrassment of the child, kindly reminding the parent that they have a fat child and the health implications of that.
 Will Cavendish, the department’s director of health and well-being, said: “We have to get the balance right between being a nanny state and a neglectful state.”
Parents will be told if a child is underweight, a healthy weight, overweight or “very overweight” – a category that coincides with clinical obesity.
It’s easy for me to mock, and I understand that there is an ‘obesity epidemic’, however surely the parents are aware that their child is overweight/obese, so a patronizing letter from the DoH, is hardly going to instantly solve anything. 
 
Exercise in a pill: scientist have found that by giving sedentary mice this ‘miracle’ drug, they burned off more calories and had less fat than the control mice.
 
Whilst I think that this drug has the potential to reduce the amount of overweight people, I am interested on how it will be regulated.
 
Personally i think it should be offered to people who are unable to exercise due to their weight, or other mobility issues, but as soon as they reach a particular increased state of fitness, they should then be directed to carry on their progress in the conventional way.

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The 33 st 15 year old – who is at fault?

August 3, 2008 at 5:49 pm · Filed under Health, Obesity, Weight loss ·Tagged ,

I read this article yesterday and debated it with a few friends on a forum this morning, so i thought i would highlight it on here as well, as i found it very interesting.

The article concerns a 15 year old girl who is at 33st, 245st overweight and in desperate need of attention.

I agree with most people that this is a very sad story and essentially, it does have a happy ending, the girl is going to fat camp (albeit in the US) to be re-educated and given the attention and support she obviously needs.

But what i do have a issue with is the lack of full responsiblity from the mother ( yes being poor does limit your food choices, but crisps/chocolates/fast food aren’t the cheapest option) and the lack of intervention from authorities.

Fighting back tears, she explained: “As a baby, Georgia wouldn’t keep down normal milk so I gave her condensed milk.

She’d spit out baby food, so I gave her things like tinned potatoes. We didn’t have much money so it was a case of filling up with food we could afford. Georgia was around four when I realised she ate more than other children. One Easter she munched her way through seven large eggs.

She also can’t claim ignorance when it comes to healthy eating. You can’t escape the massive amounts of adverts/articles/TV shows and well meaning annoying chefs on crusades to ’save’ our next generation from obesity. And whether we chose to adhere to it or not, we ALL know what constitutes a healthy diet.

To decide to give a baby condensed milk because they are not keeping down baby milk, i found outrageous.

This girl has taken some of the responsibility for her situation, which is good, because if we were to say, as a child, she is not responsible, her mother would surely have continued feeding this child in this way, up to her late teens or unfortunate premature death.

Also the school took enough notice of this girl’s weight to ban her from the canteen (bet that really boosted her self-esteem), but did they notify authorities or invite her parent in for a chat to find out what is happening?

It’s the fact that to the authorities, it is ok for this child to suffer because she is just ‘greedy’ or ‘lazy’, but if she had been anorexic, i believe she would have no doubt received a) more concern and sympathy b) more access to services.

What does everyone think?

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Greece Slides Up the Greasy Poll

July 31, 2008 at 9:10 am · Filed under Health, Obesity ·Tagged , , , ,

 

 

Oh it would be so easy for me to do some greece/grease punnage for this post, however this is a serious topic, so let’s move on.

 

For years health professionals have sworn by the Mediterranean Diet, which essentially is rich in fruits and vegetables, fish and good fats (Olive oil and oily fish, which we all know folks, is rich is Omega 3).

  

Research into the health benefits of the diet also confirmed that when followed, it could reduce your risk of cancer, heart disease and help you live a longer, healthier life.

 

However research published this week announced Greece, whose diet would normally fall under the principles of the Mediterranean diet, had the highest prevalence of obesity in the EU.

 

“Greece today is the EU state with the highest average body mass index and highest prevalence of overweight [people] and obesity,” says the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation report Article

 

Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Cyprus and Malta all had an increased calorie intake of 30%, with Spain, Greece and Italy the EU’s biggest consumers of lipids.

 

Blamed for the increasied rates of obesity amongst the Mediterranean countries, was a more sedentary lifestyles and a move towards quick, convenience foods, which we all know, is rich in sugars, fats and salt, but low on nutrients.

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