Slimming World’s philosophy is based on a deep understanding of how people with a weight problem feel, coupled with a passionate desire to help them achieve their goals. Over more than 55 years, our programme has been developed and refined in line with the latest thinking on nutrition, exercise and the psychology of behaviour change. Slimming World groups are run by a network of Consultants, who’ve all been successful group members, and who work in their local community. Consultants receive advanced training in dietary aspects of weight management, the role of physical activity and, importantly, effective facilitation of behaviour change.
Our multi–component approach
Slimming World integrates three key principles to help people adopt a healthier lifestyle:
Our healthy eating plan
Food Optimising – helping you lose weight without ever going hungry, counting a single calorie or feeling deprived!
Our active lifestyle programme
Helping you build fitness into your everyday, at your pace.
Our unique support system
Empowering you to make changes that last.
Food Optimising – a liberating healthy eating plan
Food Optimising is a flexible, satisfying eating plan designed to create healthy eating patterns that can be maintained long term. It’s based on the science of energy density (the calories per gram in food) and satiety (how filling a food is), and a food’s propensity to be overeaten. Encouraging a higher intake of more satiating, lower calorie foods helps members reduce their energy intake (without feeling hungry) and lose weight. A typical Food Optimising daily menu includes at least five portions of fruits and vegetables alongside a healthy amount of lean protein-rich foods and carbohydrates, measured portions of fibre-rich foods, calcium-rich foods and healthy fats, and a reduction in overall fat, saturated fat and free sugars (the sugars that aren’t naturally found in fruit and vegetables).
The Food Optimising plan focuses on three components…
Free Foods
Free Foods are those foods that satisfy the appetite while reducing overall energy intake. They include lean meats, poultry, fish, plant-based proteins, eggs, vegetables, fruit, grains, potatoes and pasta. We encourage members to eat them abundantly. They are what makes Food Optimising so easy to establish and sustain, compared to weight loss plans that leave people feeling hungry and deprived.
Healthy Extras
Healthy Extras are measured amounts of foods eaten each day to provide a good overall balance of nutrients in addition to those obtained from Free Food. There is particular emphasis on calcium and fibre-rich foods, including cheese, cereals and wholemeal bread, plus healthy fats from nuts, seeds, avocado and oils.
Swips
Swips are the way members can guiltlessly enjoy the foods that many weight loss plans ban outright. Counting Swips helps members naturally limit their intake of more energy-dense foods such as fats, alcohol and sugar. These foods have a poor ability to satisfy hunger and, when they’re consumed in large amounts, make weight loss difficult. Swips stands for Slimming World’s Individual Picks, because they’re just that – individual to you, your preferences and your weight loss journey.
A rewarding active lifestyle programme
Our step-by-step programme helps members gradually increase physical activity levels and improve overall health and wellbeing. It’s informed by a deep understanding of the barriers overweight people often face in becoming more active. Developed in collaboration with Professor Ken Fox, a renowned exercise and public health expert, author, and government advisor, Slimming World's active lifestyle programme uses well-established psychological and scientific principles of behaviour change. It helps people find their own personal, enjoyable and sustainable ways of increasing activity and making it a part of their daily routine.
Our active lifestyle programme will help you to:
- break down any personal barriers, misconceptions or worries that may be stopping you from getting going
- feel the amazing benefits that being physically active brings, which include having more energy and improved health and wellbeing. Plus, when you reach your dream weight, it can help you stay slim for life!
- build – or build up – your active habits in a way that’s enjoyable and sustainable with the overall aim of making physical activity an intrinsic part of your life
- find new physical activities you love – which give you the feel-good factor, suit you and fit into your lifestyle
- continually find ways to take things up a gear and get even more benefits from different active habits, such as building bone and muscle strength and improving flexibility and balance
- celebrate every milestone along the way with tonnes of praise and encouragement, from day one right up to your Platinum activity award, where you’re meeting the government’s recommended guidelines and physical activity is just a way of life!
An empowering support system
Slimming World’s unique support system helps members to overcome their own individual challenges in a powerfully motivating group setting. Avoiding any criticism, control or judgement, it uses evidence-based behaviour-change techniques, underpinned by the Commitment Model (which addresses psychological, behavioural and intrinsic commitment), for lasting self-determined behaviour change. Based on our expert knowledge of the psychology of people living with overweight and obesity, our support system is designed to increase members’ confidence and self-esteem, while equipping them with motivational tools and resources to help them set goals, monitor achievements, overcome obstacles, stay focused and feel in control of their choices. We understand that many people carry the heavy burden of shame, self-criticism and poor self-esteem – and that successful long-term weight loss can only be achieved by tackling these deeper emotional issues. This support is only effective when it’s delivered with genuine warmth, compassion, empathy, respect and understanding. We have a sincere belief in the power of group support – for individuals to support and be supported, to inspire and be inspired – as we take members through the phases of commitment to change. We guide members through psychological and behavioural commitment, reinforcing these consistently until behaviour becomes intrinsic, ie it has become important to our members and they’re no longer dependent on the group to receive reward or praise.
Our online service
The weekly support provided to members in group is strengthened through our digital service, which members can access whenever they like. For people who aren’t able to attend a group, or prefer not to, we have an enhanced digital service, Slimming World Online, which enables members to follow Food Optimising and our active lifestyle programme, and receive empowering support via an online community. The digital service includes an app for iOS and Android users, providing a rich library of supportive content and personalised tools that helps members find support tailored to their individual situation.
Want to
know more?
To find out even more about Slimming World’s approach and evidence base, visit our
health professionals’ website