Can slimming clubs help me lose weight?

Slimming clubs are becoming an increasing popular way to help people lose weight and it is now a multi million dollar industry.

There are slimming clubs held all over the world and they are usually affiliated with one of the big weight loss companies, although there are smaller clubs as well. Most of them work on the same principle. You pay a joining fee (often waived at New Year to attract more members) as well as a regular subscription. Some clubs work on a pay weekly basis while others allow you to pay upfront for a set amount of weeks.

At the start of most meetings, you'll queue up, pay their fee, and then get weighed. After the weight in, some clubs have exercise classes, while others tend to sit down and discuss what they ate the previous week, tactics for weight loss, recipes and challenges ahead. Some clubs also offer prizes for the best weight loss that week.

But do slimming clubs work? What are the pros and cons?

Let's have a look at the pros:

• One of the main reasons why slimming clubs seem to work is that they keep you motivated.
• You're meeting like-minded people who want to lose weight and you can share your personal issues and experience.
• You'll get help and encouragement and be able to share your success with others. The clubs are all about support and commaraderie. When you're trying to lose weight, this can be exactly what you need.
• With some clubs you'll get access to exercise classes and healthy meal recipes. 
• These can be inavulable if you're just starting out as they give you a doog starting point.

Losing weight as part of a group can be a great motivator not only for the encouragement, but also for the sense of competition that it instill. It can spur you on and help you resist the temptation to cheat on your diet.

The cons:

• For those who are really conscious of their weight, it can be a daunting task to get up on those scales infront of everyone.
• Everyone sees your weight and will know if you lost any from the previous week. This can also be discouraging if you don't lose any weight from the previous weight in as you don't want people to think you didn't try or cheated.
• Most of the big clubs are run by large weight loss companies. Yes, they want you to lose weight so that it looks good for their products, but you also need to remember that their bottom line is profit. Even if you are losing weight, they want to keep you coming back for as long as possible and to keep purchasing their products. It’s hard not to be cynical when you realise that they offer lifetime memberships to people who keep the weight off (you can keep going back to the club for free so long as you stay within around five pounds of your goal weight). Research has shown that between 95 and 98 per cent of diets fail, in that all or part of any weight lost is regained within five years, so if you're in a club, chances are you'll be in it for some time.
• Although the blubs can be a great motivator for some, once you start losing weight and getting toward your goal, the meetings can become somewhat tiresome. You know what you're doing by this point and you know how to stay healthy. So the meetings can lose some of their benefit and there could be nothing duller than sitting in a cold village hall listening to a room full of overweight people moaning about their emotional reasons for eating that extra piece of chocolate cake.
• The cost can be one of the most off putting for some people. If you're honest, you can meet up with friends/coworkers/family and have a moan about your weight and what you can do to lose it for free. With a club you'll have to pay a weekly fee to do just that. All you need to set up a slimming club of your own is a few friends, a set of scales and a spreadsheet for recording everyone’s weight. The only difference with the big clubs tied to a weight loss company is that they'll require you to "count points" and encourage you to purchase their brand of weight loss products to help you do it. With your membership and the cost of branded meals and supplements the slimming club can work out quite expensive if you follow it to the letter.

Whether slimming clubs actually work or not is up for debate. There's no denying that some people have had huge weight loss success with clubs and you've more than likely seen the adverts and magazine stories. But they never tell you about the mass amount of people who have been going for weeks/months/years and are still there struggling to shift the weight.

The benefit or having people in the same position there to back you up can help you keep on track but if you're absolutely determined to lose weight, you'll do it regardless of whether you are in a club or not. It all comes down to personal preference whether you think a slimming club would benefit you personally.