Slimming World Secrets

Layered learning – and a new PB for me

Layered learning” is most definitely the buzz phrase among Slimming World members this past week – and it looks to continue to be so for some time to come.

• Average Syns per day: 8.5
• Average Speed foods per day: 8.7
• SP days: 3
• Body Magic days: 6
• Result: -1½lbs
• Total loss: -4st 5lbs

Personally speaking, I’ve had another good week, losing 1½lbs to hit a new PB of 4st 5lbs lost. But first, let’s look at that “layered learning”. What is it – and how can it help members lose weight?

After mentioning layered learning in last week’s blog, visitor numbers went sky-high – not bad for a website that’s not even been officially launched yet. Thanks, Google! It seems there’s a thirst for information about this new topic.

But, aside from some presenter notes on Twitter, my own Google search revealed nothing. Tonight, via Zoom, our consultant told our group what’s what, so here’s my summary.

Why do we need layered learning now?

For a start, Slimming World members aren’t generally doing that well at the moment. I won’t reveal the average weekly result on the scales – but suffice to say it is far from great.

That said, the nation, nay, the world, has been battling with a pandemic for the past year or more, so weight loss has understandably taken a back seat when it comes to priorities. Not everyone can be a goody-two-shoes like me – as I’ve said already, I can do my job perfectly well from home, I’m single and I don’t have kids to worry about. So weight loss during a pandemic (when the pubs are shut!) has been relatively easy and I’ve been able to make it my main focus.

For those battling with furlough or job losses, home schooling and being kept apart from their partners – not to mention battling with Covid-19 themselves and losing loved ones – Slimming World has been, understandably, less important.

So, the powers that be have come up with this “layered learning” approach to help members go back to basics, strip back the plan and really get their heads around it. It’s like having one of those New Member Talks in the new year – but with knobs on.

Layered learning will be spread over six weeks, of which this week was the first. Each week has a different focus. These are:

1. Food Optimising
2. Socialising and Tipping Points
3. Shopping and “Top of the Swaps”
4. Journey of Self-Discovery
5. Body Magic
6. Slimming World Motivational Tools

The science bit – and counting calories

The idea, says our consultant, is to rebuild confidence and to bring people back under Slimming World’s wing. If, like me, you’re a member of Instagram, you’ll have noticed that a fair few people who were previously Slimming World influencers have switched to calorie counting. I don’t know about you, but it makes me so sad when I see people with tens of thousands of followers seemingly walking away from something that has helped them.

So, we looked at calorie counting and how Slimming World is far simpler – the boffins at the Sparkly Castle have designed a plan that means we don’t need to weigh and measure every single thing. We can keep it simpler by counting Syns and combining them with Free and Speed foods, and Healthy Extras. I know, newsflash, right? ?

Then there was what I’ll call the “science bit”. I won’t write too much about that here as it’s something I want to look at in a future post, but it involves three core principles:

1. Energy Density: the number of calories contained in a specific weight of food.
2. Satiation: the feeling of fullness that can cause us to stop eating.
3. Satiety: the feeling of satisfaction that remains after eating.

After that, we looked at the calories per gramme of protein, carbohydrate, fat and alcohol:

• Protein: 3.75 calories per gramme
• Carbohydrate: 4 calories per gramme
• Fat: 9 calories per gramme
• Alcohol: 7 calories per gramme

Which explains why a greasy doner kebab and chips after a Saturday night on the beer is a really bad idea if you want a loss on the scales the following week!

Hidden Syns in healthy foods

After this, we were given a couple of examples of dishes which could be dangerous when eating out. One was a classic full English breakfast with speedy tomatoes and mushrooms and protein-filled bacon and egg.

But, as every switched-on Slimming World member should know already, you can still rack up the Syns because most if not all of that would have been fried in oil. Failure to remove bacon fat means more Syns. And that’s not to mention white toast, hash browns, butter, black puddings and so on. I can easily make a monster Syn-free full English and do so most Saturdays. Again, this will be another future post.

Into the Be Delighted book we delved – and I certainly wasn’t alone in admitting I’d never opened it before. Several members of my group had never removed it from their pack until now.

Pages 32 and 33 pose the question: where do you plan to be in six weeks’ time? And we were all urged to write down our goals and keep a record of what we’d eaten and drunk over that period. When I joined back in 2014, we had food diaries to fill in during the first four weeks. I’m not going to fill in the book myself as I already record every morsel and drop that passes my lips in my SynsTracker spreadsheet. Guess what – another future post!

Failing to plan is planning to fail

Then some tough-love wisdom from our super-consultant: “If you’re not planning on having five to 15 Syns every single day, you’re not planning on having a loss on the scales this week.”

And that seems pretty fair enough to me! That’s how it works. If you’re “angelic” and stick to plan, nine times out of ten you’re going to get a loss. If you cheat day after day, going over your Syns by eating loads of cake and crisps or drinking loads of beer and wine, you’re just wasting your £6 a week.

That’s not me being a goody two-shoes just because I’ve had a good year or so – that’s me speaking from experience. I’ve been doing this since 2014 and never got to close to Target until now because, much of the time, I was only playing at following the plan.

Then we were given our orders for the next seven days – write down everything we eat and drink in the book (or spreadsheet in my case), plan our meals, get to know our books by filling them with pastel-coloured ink from highlighter pens. Most of all: “Take ownership.”

There was loads more information – including a new “thing” about draining off any fat from dishes made with Syn-free 5% fat beef mince – but these are the highlights, and I shall continue to keep you updated over the next five weeks.

4st 5lbs lost – another new PB

As for my week to date, I’ll keep it brief. It’s been a decent loss to reverse last week’s teeny gain despite having more Syns (though still well within my limit). I upped my Speed foods and my Body Magic, so that must have helped.

So, I’ve now lost 4st 5lbs – just another 2lbs until my next award, and 9lbs until my 5st Target. Let’s hope a little layered learning can help me finally get there.