Slimming World Secrets

How do I overcome a Slimming World plateau?

Another week of being absolutely angelic – but just ½lb off on the scales. I’m in the middle of a Slimming World plateau and I can’t seem to get out of it.

My week

• Average Syns per day: 10.8
• Average Speed foods per day: 9.6
• SP days: 3
• Body Magic days: 5
• Result: -½lb
• Total loss: -4st 6½lbs

One Slimming World consultant once told us in group that plateaus in your weight loss journey aren’t “a thing”. She said the good burghers of the Sparkly Castle believe that, despite a few bumps in the road, you will continue to consistently lose weight if you stick to the plan.

That is, on the whole, true. But I’ve followed this plan continuously for almost seven years – and I’ve had a good few plateaus in my time. Some of them in my earlier days were probably down to not sticking to the plan rigidly enough – that’s OK, and I take full responsibility.

However, I’ve been “on it” since January 2020 and I’ve had a few Slimming World plateau scenarios in that time. Here’s my graph from last year – please ignore Christmas Week at the end there! Oops!

As you can see, there are three periods there where I plateaued for about five weeks. Each time was incredibly frustrating, but I just told myself to stick to the plan and that all would come good in the end – and it did. But that third plateau effectively ended any hopes of getting to Target by the end of 2020. And then, well, Christmas happened!

Here’s my graph for 2021, with the pink line indicating an aim to reach Target by the end of 2021 and the peach line to get there by the middle of the year.

I’m still just ahead of that target, but I have plateaued of late, as you can see.

What is a Slimming World plateau?

I don’t think there’s an official definition because Slimming World doesn’t recognise that plateaus happen – but I’d say it’s a few weeks of flat results. For example, multiple maintains mixed in with a few ½lb losses and gains.

In other words, you stay about the same weight, give or take half a pound or so, throughout the plateau. That’s why it’s called a plateau – viewed on a graph, the line is fairly flat. It usually lasts a few weeks.

I won Slimmer of the Month in both January and February, with some belting losses. I lost another 3lb in March, but I’ve only lost 1lb in April and, when I’ve been sticking to the plan like an angel with super-wings and a hyper-halo, that’s a tad frustrating.

Also, with last year’s Slimming World plateau scenarios, I still had a fair bit of weight to shift. Now, just 7st ½lb away from Target, I’m concerned that I might just stay on this plateau for weeks to come or, worse still, lose heart and start to gain weight again.

Is my Target weight too low?

In last week’s group, one of the members asked me if my Target weight was too low. I don’t think it is, though. My start weight was exactly 15st, and my Target is to lose 5st to get to 10st.

As well as the nice round numbers, it would see me nicely in the normal range of the BMI chart, right here:

So, as you can see, it’s not like I’m even aiming for the lower end of the green “healthy range” of the scale. And I appreciate that BMI is only a rough guide, after all.

So, no, I don’t think my Target is too low. And if I changed it to, say, 4½st instead of 5st, I’d just feel like I cheated – and I want to feel ecstasy when I’m finally presented with that black and gold certificate – not a feeling that I’ve failed in some way by reaching a “lesser” Target.

It would be like failing to finish a 100km bike ride in the Peak District because my bike (and me) weren’t up to the job – and then getting a medal anyway because the organisers felt sorry for me. This actually happened – and there were far more climbs than plateaus, I can tell you!

So what can I do to overcome the plateau?

As stated last week, I am trying to drink more water. I prefer sparkling water – I don’t really like plain water from the tap – and it bothers me that buying bottled water causes environmental issues by creating so much plastic, even though it all goes in the recycle bin.

So, with that in mind, I’ve ordered a Sodastream. The last time I used one of these, I was about seven years old and mixing cherryade and cola. This time, I’ll just stick to sparkling water, diet tonics and a few of the low-Syn “grown-up” drinks, such as kombucha.

Other than that, there’s not much I can do but stick to the Slimming World plan and hope for the best. Wish me luck! There’s also the Fast Forward plan, but that’s not something I want to look at for now as I have a few weekends of eating out (on plan) in the diary for the next few weeks.

Some of the influencers on Instagram are now combining the plan with calorie counting – but I don’t want to go down that route. I’m OK with weighing and measuring my Syns – and how much cheese and bread make up a Healthy Extra. But to work out calories for every single morsel would do my head in!

I also need to make sure I eat breakfast every day, as I’ve been skipping that of late.

Layered learning week 5: Body Magic

And so on to tonight’s group, in which we returned to the fifth part of our Layered Learning sessions, all about Body Magic.

There was a lot to take on board, and I won’t write everything here as I want to write a feature on Body Magic in a future post, but here are a few highlights:

• Body Magic is not classed as exercise by Slimming World but as “movement”. So while yours truly does 300km bike rides (well, used to) and works out five times a week, for some people, just walking to post a letter is no less of an achievement.
• We live in an obese, sedentary nation – people being overweight cost the UK economy £27bn in 2017 alone – and the risk to our health from being overweight is as high as that of smoking. Yet there are still plenty of excuses for people not moving more.
• Body Magic can give you loads of benefits – everything from better sleep, appetite and energy to a toned body, improved self-esteem and a longer life expectancy.
• You’ll lose weight with Food Optimising alone – but Body Magic will boost your results, especially as you get closer to Target and have less weight to lose. Remind you of anyone? 😉
• And you don’t need to be down the gym at the crack of dawn every morning to earn those Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum awards – anything that raises the heart rate and makes you breathe faster will do. That could be walking the dog, gardening or just jigging round the kitchen when preparing dinner. When I’m cooking, I always have a few indie tunes playing to inspire a little dancing and bopping to my dicing and chopping – though not at the same time, of course!

So what’s beyond Platinum?

I started my Body Magic Bronze award the first time, in 2014, by going for a walk for a few minutes during my lunch half-hour at work. I soon got hooked on the extra shinies and worked my way up to Silver, Gold and Platinum. The only thing that bothers me slightly is that there’s nothing to aim for when you reach Platinum. That’s kind of it.

Here’s a Slimming World Secret for you: the Lifeline Online website WILL let you continue. Once you achieve Platinum status (two lots of Gold), you can just apply for another Gold award. I got my fifth consecutive Gold award this week since I restarted my Body Magic almost a year ago. There are no more shinies or certificates to be won, but you do get extra digital badges on your profile, like this:

As you can see, I’m now going for my sixth Gold award, but wouldn’t it be nice if there was something else to aim for? Maybe an award for a year’s continuous committment. Body Magic Palladium, anyone?

… and finally…

Group was fab tonight – and a new later start time meant we had loads of members. We also welcomed my friend Diana to group. She’s done Slimming World a couple of times before, albeit with a different group, and got to Target the first time. Let’s hope she can do it again – and that we can help each other to get there.

Despite my plateau, I shall try to stay positive for the next week. At the end of the day, I’ve equalled my all-time PB weight this week and I’m just ½lb off my 4½st award. There are worse positions to be in.

Andie

PS: A quick update! I follow Sara Ward, the Slimming World Magazine editor, on Instagram, and I fired her a quick message earlier. This was to ask if her team had written anything on how to get out of a Slimming World plateau.

Result! They have, and it’s now available for members to read, on the Lifeline Online website: From Plateau to let’s go! I shall have a read later and report back in next week’s blog update.