Slimming world Diet

[BioHaZarD]

I used to do Slimming World and I lost 1 and a half stone, this was over a year ago and it worked, albeit slowly which is the best way some say.

Being now diabetic, I believe this diet is no longer valid as part of this diet is, you can eat as much pasta, rice, potatoes, meat, fish as you like with every meal, with lots of fresh veggies, salads etc and any fruit they wish as much as they wish. The emphasis is on superfoods veggies and stuff like that. It limits you too 1 or 2 slices of whole meal bread, milk and butter, and then you can have syns (up to 15 a day) this could be anything, for example a mars bar is 12 syns, a curly wurly 8 syns, certain crisps 4 syns a packet and so on. So whilst you are limited on sugar intake, it's still loaded with carb and you can still have some sugar.

This does go against the low carb diet. I am still a member of a Facebook page for SW, and I notice someone asking about SW with diabetes, so I replied about my thoughts on the yogurts she was asking and mentioned about low carb is good too. The replies I got from several SW members who are diabetic type 1 and 2 were all "are you kidding" some have lost 5 stone, BG levels are great.

What's your thoughts on why they can eat all they want carb wise and some sweets? And levels are good?

 

[Momblegoose]

I am inclined to agree with you actually. I used to be a Slimming World member and I really believe that their 'green' days were detrimental to my health. It just helped me to indulge my carb addiction.

 

[googlegoss]

I'm in agreement too. Think the whole carb thing with sw is totally the wrong way for diabetes. It certainly didnt suit me. I did try it. Am now going to weight watchers and pointing my low carb diet. Its actually a very friendly diet where protein is concerned

 

[xyzzy]

Bio two things going on here.

A lot of it depends on how quickly you are diagnosed. Remember in T2 two things are in effect. Firstly insulin resistance and secondly impaired insulin production. The second you can do nothing about but the first does get significantly less as you lose weight. So if at the point you are diagnosed you have a lot of insulin resistance but haven't lost a lot of function then if you do lose weight you carb tolerance will improve. Effectively that is what a pre diabetic like MW did. She lost a load of weight using the SW diet and reverted back to being an "in remission" pre diabetic. She knows if she puts the weight back on she'd come out of remission and start working back towards being diabetic again. In the meantime even though she worships at the gates of VLC she could eat a healthy "carby" diet so long as it was healthy and didn't make her put on weight. People on the forum like YoungManFrank who did the Newcastle diet report a very similar thing.

Secondly of course you need to ask what meds they are on and what they think good blood levels are. If they come back and say they can keep their fasting BG's between 4 and 7 and their post meal 2 hour readings under 8.5 as the NICE guidelines state then yes that is good BG's. If its the case where with a lot of T2's they haven't been told those NICE guidlines and have just been told by their DSN's to "Try and keep under 12" then they may well think their BG's are good but they're not.

Likewise many may well accept say an HbA1c of 7.5% as "good levels" so that would mean you would be accepting running your BG's at an average of 9.5 on a meter is good even though its obviously well outside the NICE guidelines. Even at the 6.5% target that is seen as "excellent" that equates to an average of 7.8 so again although that's inside the NICE guideline for 2 hours its outside the 4 to 7 fasting levels guidelines. That's why many of us think a sub 6.5% hBA1c is a better target. So ask them what their hBA1c's are.

 

[BioHaZarD]

Xyzzy, thanks that's very informative.

 

[noblehead]

When my wife did SW a few years back there's was a fella who was type 2 and he lost a considerable amount of weight, I couldn't say what his daily carb intake was but it might be worth asking if they allow you to adapt the diet slightly to your own needs. My Mrs said the motivation to lose weight was having to get on the scales every week for the weigh-in session

 

[Momblegoose]

When my wife did SW a few years back there's was a fella who was type 2 and he lost a considerable amount of weight, I couldn't say what his daily carb intake was but it might be worth asking if they allow you to adapt the diet slightly to your own needs. My Mrs said the motivation to lose weight was having to get on the scales every week for the weigh-in session

They do a booklet for Diabetics and yes, the plan does work for some. I just found it hard to stay away from the free for all carb.

 

[noblehead]

They do a booklet for Diabetics and yes, the plan does work for some. I just found it hard to stay away from the free for all carb.

That's a shame!