Slimming World Secrets

I won Slimmer of the Week in my first week at Target

Sooooo, week one of being a Slimming World Target Member. This is completely unchartered territory. I have no idea what I’m doing, and I’m still losing weight. I even won Slimmer of the Week!

In all my seven-plus years as a Slimming World member, I’ve only ever seen a Target member win Slimmer of the Week once. That was the lovely Lady Haidee in my last group, the Night Owls.

And that’s unsurprising. After all, when you’re a Target member, the idea is to maintain your weight – not to keep losing.

But the rules state that, if ANY member has the greatest loss – and didn’t gain the previous week – they get that shiny, and that certificate.

Trust me to do it in my first week as a Target member!

To be fair, other members had lost more than me – I’d only lost half a pound after all. But, due to various circumstances, none of them had weighed in a week earlier. I wrote last week how I was the only member to stay to group on the day I got to Target.

Reaching Target requires a mind shift

Getting to Target requires a major mind shift almost overnight – and I’ve not even begun to adapt yet. I’m still in weight loss mode – and nothing like weight maintenance mode.

I have my Slim for Life book now – but it remains steadfastly unopened. And if the layered learning exercise taught me anything, it’s that Slimming World members do NOT read the books in their packs.

Apart from opening my pack to write down my weight each week, I’ve never read any of mine. Maybe if I had, I’d have got to Target a lot sooner.

But I just didn’t. And that’s not to say I didn’t have the knowledge – I just got it from other sources: from my consultant and group, the Lifeline Online website, Slimming World Magazine, the Slimming World Podcast and various blogs, forums and Instagram accounts.

Over the past week, I’ve just stuck to the plan I know and love – the one that got me to Target in the first place.

My Slimming World regime

So this is what I’ve been doing over the past 18 months or so:

• Flexible Syns, so I can treat myself at the weekend.
• An average of 10 to 15 Syns per day over the week
• At least five half-hour sessions of Body Magic
• A few SP days
• Write down EVERYTHING that to keep track
• Immerse myself in Slimming World with social media

After years of playing about at the plan, to finally find a method that suits me down to the ground has been a revelation.

Stay at Target – or reset it?

But I realise I can’t keep doing this forever if I want to remain a Target member. So, I have two choices.

• Start following the Target plan – so, more Healthy Extras, more Syns on certain days, Savvy Syns and so on – OR…
• Continue with my current plan, and lower my Target.

When I set my current Target, it was basically to get into the “Healthy” BMI zone and because it was a lovely round number.

There’s something very satisfying about starting at exactly 15st and then losing exactly 5st to become exactly 10st – losing exactly a third of my body weight.

This is where that weight loss puts me on the BMI chart (22.4):

I also thought that reaching this Target would make me REALLY slim. But am I really slim?

In one respect, I’m doing OK. I have a healthy BMI and my body looks (and feels) better than it has since my early 20s (I’m now 47).

In one respect, it’s even better than my youthful bod because I still have amazing skin and, despite one or two tiger stripes, I’m now on HRT, so I have curves, too.

Tiger stripes – what a waist!

But I’m still not what you’d call “skinny” – there’s still a little excess fat around my tummy, and I would LOVE to have a svelte waist.

It is tempting to lower my Target. Slimming World states that any adjustment must be at least half a stone. So I’d be looking at a loss of 5st 7lbs, and a weight of 9st 7lbs. But then there’s the question about whether I could maintain that weight.

Losing another 7lbs would place me bang in the middle of the Healthy zone with a BMI of 21.3:

So, to anyone saying “Oooooh, you’re losing too much!”, shut up. Don’t wanna hear it. I’m probably the healthiest and fittest I’ve ever been – and I could become an even better version of myself.

I’m hardly in anorexia territory, am I?! I eat like a shire horse every day – just one of the reasons I love Slimming World: I can eat massive, delicious meals – and STLL lose weight.

Anyway, I’m not going to decide now. I asked my consultant if it was OK to stick to the original [weight loss] plan and just see what happens – and she said that was fine.

So, I’ll do that for a week or two, and see what happens. If I carry on losing and get to the bottom end of my Target range, I shall probably lower my Target.

Let’s see what happens!