Slimming World VS Weight Watchers – which is best? | Scouse Bird Problems

Slimming World. Weight Watchers. Basically diets. They’re the bane of my bloody life. I hate they way when you’re sitting there about to open your 10th bag of crisps and your diet’s all there like “Are you sure you wanna eat that you actual hippo?”

Saying that, if you find one that works for you then it really can be something life changing. I’ve been on every diet under the sun; Slimming World, Weight Watchers, The Atkins, The South Beach, Slimfast, Orlistat… you names it I’ve dones it. And you can find out more about those adventures here.

When my daughter Cora was 7 months old, my mother-in-law took a photo of me on bonfire night and it’s the worst photo I’ve ever had taken of me in my life. You’d swear it was the actual moon wearing a pink fluffy coat, and I knew enough was enough. I joined Slimming World, with a determination never before seen.

Processed with MOLDIV

I’d pissed around on Slimming World for years – it’s the only one that works for a greedy bitch such as myself. I’m not about that portion control life. Within 4 months I was two and a half stone down and loving life. By the races, I no longer felt like the moon, I felt amazing.

Since then, with nothing to aim for my weight loss journey has stalled. I actually weigh a couple of lbs less than my last official weigh in but basically for the last 4 months my weight loss journey has been more of a ‘weight loss sit off and chill’.

They say a change is as good as a rest, so with some encouragement from a friend I tried Weight Watchers, yano, for comparison and I promised you all a blog on what I thought was best. The two plans both have their pros and cons so here you go:

Slimming World Pros

  • No limit on food. If you’re hungry, there’s plenty to eat.
  • It teaches you real healthy eating skills.
  • It teaches you cooking – almost everything is required to be made from scratch.
  • You’re steered down the path of a balanced diet with regulated portions of fibre, calcium and at least a third of every meal to be fruit or vegetable based.
  • Some flexibility – you can save your syns for the weekend.

Slimming World Cons

  • No real reward for exercise. Unless you count a certificate, and no body’s really arsed about that.
  • The flexibility is limited; yes you can save your syns for a weekend but they don’t go far.
  • It doesn’t teach portion control.
  • It can be inconvenient. Unless you plan ahead, there’s very little you can grab and eat while out and about.
  • You can’t track your syns on the iphone app. Dead annoying. Or at least you couldn’t by April 2017.

Weight Watchers Pros

  • Very flexible. If you want to eat fuck all and spend all your points for the day on vodka or a maccies then you can.
  • Very convenient – there’s plenty of pre-packaged Weight Watchers food available to buy, plus you can easily tot up the points of any food at all using the calculator.
  • There’s an incentive to exercise – if you exercise you can ‘buy’ extra points if you need them for flexibility. The app links up to your Apple Watch.
  • The app is very very good.
  • It does teach portion control.

Weight Watchers Cons

  • The points DO NOT GO FAR. I was starving every day and went over my point allowance every day. Like seriously, how do you stick within that limit??
  • It doesn’t really teach healthy eating – like I say, if you wanna spend all your points on bread or vodka, you can.
  • It doesn’t require a lot of cooking which is convenient but doesn’t really help you break takeaway and convenience food habits.

I personally don’t think WW is more of a diet rather than a long term lifestyle, but that’s my personal opinion, whereas the SW group I went to was full of target members who’d been at their goal weight for years and kept it off. By the way when you’re a target member at Slimming World you get to attend class for free forever so you always have the support.

It’s a personal choice at the end of the day, but I’m still Team Slimming World. Whichever one you choose – the food diary I designed works with any diet really – I’ve managed to make it somehow both useful AND vague!

Oh and the mate who originally convinced me to give Weight Watchers a try? She’s back on Slimming World too….

If you do decide to go with SW – here’s 50 things you’ll only know if you do.

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