My consultant told me to up my syns to 15. Strange psycology but it worked. You can eat too much free food though unless its veggies and fruit they still have calories. We had the same with a woman in group, turned out she was eating 15 muller lights a day cos they are free!
I think of it as a bit like the clause in a mobile phone contract about 'unlimited text messages', they still have a 'fair usage policy' attached and I think the same goes for food. Yes its free, but that doesnt mean we should exceed the fair usage policy.
Dont throw in the towel, it does work, we just need to find the balance of how it works with our body, we are all different.