I went to my Slimming World group today, as I have every week since the beginning of last February, when I first joined. It’s sort of become second nature, but at the same time a big part of my life.
Pre-SW I had been trying unsuccessfully for eight years to lose weight. The thing I’ve found has been most helpful with SW is the weekly group weigh-in – I find I’m so much more motivated to stay on track when I feel like I’m accountable to other people, and having this weekly appointment has really helped me during difficult periods of my weight loss, at times when, during previous efforts, I would take my eye off the ball and end up regaining everything.
Over Christmas/New Year/my birthday, for instance, I put on five pounds over three weeks. When I went to weigh-in today after a week during which I tried really hard to stick to plan (Dry January is really helping with this), I’d lost four and a half pounds of that weight and am nearly back where I was before Christmas. Just having a support system to keep track of this kind of thing works so much better for me than trying to do everything myself.
Also, it’s great for magpies like me, ’cause you get shiny stickers with every achievement:
Lost another half stone? STICKER. Done enough exercise for a certain number of weeks? STICKER. Lost more weight this week than anyone else in the group? SHINY, SHINY STICKER (not to mention a basket of Slimming World-friendly food). My SW consultant calls it “bling for your book”, and I love bling.
I’ve lost three and a half stone with Slimming World so far – aiming for four and a half stone in total. Hopefully, with all the indulgences of autumn and early winter out of the way, that last stone before target shouldn’t take too much longer!