Rumination on Slimming World
Anyone who follows this blog knows, I went to Slimming World for about 6 months last year and it didn’t really work for me. I gained 9lbs and called it a day. I know so many people who lost on that diet and immediately gained it all back as soon as they stopped, but I didn’t even really lose, and it took a lot of time and effort to keep on that diet. Recently I started following a page RebelFitness on Facebook. (It’s a great page by the way, promotes self love and a healthy lifestyle without dieting. It’s very eating disorder friendly, I really enjoy their posts even if I don’t always agree.) There has been this discussion over there about the nature of the ‘syn’ use by Slinming World and I took some time to reflect.
Here’s the thing, the syn is very inconsistent, and doesn’t seem to really mean anything. It certainly isn’t linked calorie level or nutritional value. From my experience of it, it links very much to how much something adds or subtracts from your hunger level, offset by nutrition. It takes into account how long something takes to digest, and whether it will cause sugar spikes and lows. This is the thing I wanted to say.
The calorie value is not the only thing that makes you gain weight. Psychology and insulin levels play a huge part in weight gain. For example 1 apple is a nice healthy snack. It has lots of nutrients, around 80 calories and will tide you over when you get those mid morning munchies until lunch. Now in Slimming World, an apple would be syn free, whilst a blended apple would have a syn count. Madness I hear you scream! And it’s not unreasonable to call it madness. But it’s also correct. Blended apple doesn’t lose nutritional value because it is blended (that is pure swallocks as RebelFitness would say) but what it does destroy is the fibre. Why is that important? I hear you ask. Because apples are also packed with sugar. The thing is, fibre is hard to digest, and so an apple takes a while to digest, and will sit in the stomach and keep you full for a while. Because it digests slowly, sugar is released slowly, and you get a steady flow of sugar into your blood stream which is your energy for a little while. When you purée or blend an apple, the fibre is destroyed and the surface area is increased. The apple is digested much more quickly, releasing the sugar more quickly into the blood stream. This is why it gains syn value. Not because it gained calories, but because;
A) its digested quickly and therefore you are hungry more quickly.
B) A sugar dump in into the blood gives you an insulin dump which will make you feel slow and lethargic and also hungry.
Hungry people eat more.
The syn value isn’t about ranking food in order of healthiness, it’s about pushing you to eat food that will keep you full so you don’t reach for more snacks.
Honestly I don’t think the syning system is necessarily a bad system. I just found that, as a person with an eating disorder, it was too easy to min/max so I could continue the unhealthy habits I had developed, and it relied too heavily on my personal appetite being the inhibiting factor. As someone who at my lowest points, has eaten until I was sick and then continued eating, this doesn’t work for me.
Huel has helped me a great deal on this front. I haven’t really lost weight, but my weight has stabilised more or less, and I notice my body shape has changed (more toned and muscular) and my fitness levels have improved. I have more energy and better mood overall. I’ve regained time in my evenings which has allowed me to start hobbies, socialise more and relax, so my work/life balance feels better. In general it has helped my mental health and greatly improved my relationship with food. (I don’t live to eat anymore, I’ve found other things to live for.) I know a lot of people look down on meal replacement diets, but I don’t really think of it as a diet. It’s a lifestyle change, and one that has lead me to a healthier and happier life.