Last week I shared a fundamental reason why Slimming World doesn’t work well for most people, uncovered by talking with one of my patients who is a member. While having this chat I found out another reason why it was never going to work for her.
My patient managed to be ‘good’ nearly all day. She had a pretty good idea about food, she knew what would help her, and what wasn’t going to help her. However, knowing this and putting it into practice seem to be two very different things for her, especially after a hard day at work.
She has a very stressful job and when she gets home she feels like she deserves to eat a big meal. She sees it as a reward for working hard all day. Quite often she eats food that she knows isn’t going to help her waistline, and also eats way beyond being satisfied. She always thinks ‘tomorrow is another day, I’ll be good then’.
This lady doesn’t identify as a ‘comfort eater’. However, her eating habits in the evening are being driven mainly by seeking a reward from a stressful day. This is ’emotional eating’ and has little to do with physical need for food.
In fact, if you ever eat beyond feeling satisfied, you are eating for reasons other than hunger and physical need – something else is going on.
Slimming World Does It Work?
This lady is overeating nearly every evening, sometimes with healthy food, often with unhealthy food. She manages to be ‘good’ earlier in the day, but it all goes wrong in the evening.
I asked if this problem had ever been brought to light at Slimming World, and a solution offered. She had mentioned this problem and was simply advised about smaller portion sizes.
This advice is not going to help because it does not address the problem of emotional eating. And I think this woman was sensible enough to have come up with that idea herself!
No diet or eating plan will work while an emotional eating problem exists. Slimming World does it work? Not if you’ve got an emotional eating problem going on, and I would guess that’s nearly everyone with a weight problem.
My book goes into quite a bit of detail of how to overcome this problem and you can get one by clicking on the image:
Also, if you haven’t already got a copy of my FREE weight loss guide – can one by clicking here.
Have an Uber Healthy week.
Dr Julie
Your blog could have been writen about me this week!
I nearly always eat too much in the evening, I can’t seem to help it. I just put it down to liking my food too much, or even being a bit greedy. I never thought of it as comfort eating. Is that what you would say it is?
Hi Sally-Anne
If you’re consistently eating beyond feeling full – you’re eating for reasons other than physically needing food. This means your emotions are definitely at play, but which ones – boredom, stress relief?
I’ve never really thought about it much, maybe I just overeat out of habit?