oops syn slip up

breakfast:

28g Dorset cereal muesli, Tesco fat free blueberry yogurt, chopped banana and strawberry, mug of tea.

lunch:

I forgot to make something for lunch so picked this up from sainsburys. unfortunately I read the pack wrong and it turns out the sauce is 4.5 syns for half the pouch not the whole pouch like I thought. I had half the rice for 1 syn and half the veggies.

dinner:

pasta, beef and tomato sauce and salad.

dessert:

stewed apple and currents with cinnamon (3 syns) and low fat custard (1 syn)

seeing as I also had a crunchie chocolate bar for 9.5 syns today, this takes my syns for the day to 19… hence the “oops” will have to try and not have to many tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

sunday roast

breakfast:

quorn sausage (1 syn), egg and baked beans (no superfree I know :/)

lunch:

quorn fillet, salad mixed with mint and a bag of rivita minis (hexb)

Dinner:

I forgot to take photo until I’d eaten some of it. roast chicken, potato’s, green beans, carrots, shallots, broccoli and gravy (3 syns) with a 125ml glass of white wine (4 syns)

I also had 4 cups of coffee made with skimmed milk throughout the day and did a 3 mile run this morning.

curry night

 

Breakfast:

half grapefruit, quorn sausage (1 syn), plum tomato and egg with 2 cups of coffee with skimmed milk.

Lunch:

butternut squash soup (from the SW soup book) with a bag of rivita minis (hexb).

Dinner:

Quorn with chip shop curry sauce from SW website, SW chips and green beans plus a 187ml bottle of white wine (6.5 syns)

I also had 2 cups of tea made with skimmed milk and went on a 17 mile cycle ride.

biscuits and alcohol…and staying on the wagon

Breakfast

28g Dorset cereals muesli (hexb) banana, strawberry, Tesco fat free rhubarb and vanilla yogurt and a cuppa.

Lunch:

No KFC as I didn’t tell hubby and he had already made me this. Left over spaghetti with beef and veg sauce from last night with side salad and 10g parmesan cheese (hexa along with milk in 2 teas)

Afternoon snack:

cuppa and a 3.5 syn cookie

I also had a gin and slimline tonic in the pub after work for 4 syns.

Dinner:

2 chicken mini fillets with broccoli, soya beans, pak choi, and lots of thai spices served with 1/4 pouch of Tilda lime and coriander rice for 0.5 syns.

Followed later by 1/2 pint made up of sugar free jelly, a pint is 1.5 syns so 3/4 of a syn for the portion I had.

 

week 14 – damage limitation

hello again, this week has been fairly good, I managed the two meals I went out for with staying away from the wine completely and only had a small dessert with each meal. there was also another unplanned meal out which was fish and chips but I was very proud of myself for eating all the peas then started on the fish, then I had some of the batter and chips, but not much as I found I was full so I stopped eating and gave the rest to my husband – this is a massive achievement for me as I would usually eat everything really fast then feel uncomfortable as I’d be so stuffed.

As I was off work for 5 days over Easter I also had plenty of soups with rivita minis, sw cooked breakfasts, and tried to keep the meals I had at home a “normal” size (ie. not massive portions like I was having in the past) and serving up at least 1/3 superfree.

However there was a “entire bag of mini eggs” moment that I’m not quite as proud off, as I managed to lose 1lb this week I’d obviously done enough the rest of the week to counteract this but I’m not particularly happy about the fact I scoffed the entire bag in one go, and didn’t even look up the syn value until after I’d eaten them as I knew they’d be high (24 in case you were wondering) and I wanted to eat them guilt-free. I did think afterwards what would a “normal” person do when given a bag of chocolate, would they eat them all as fast as they could and then feel sick? or would they have handful and enjoy them and put the rest away for another time? well I’m going to make it my goal to be that “normal” person who has some amount of self control. I don’t want to be having the same struggle with my weight for the rest of my life and feel if I can tackle this now I might have some chance of being able to enjoy these things and not have it be a massive issue.

Anyway I am pleased with the 1lb off this week – not to much to go to get to target now.

I have a clear week this week, apart from a trip to KFC planned for tomorrow lunchtime with my work colleagues – I’m going to have the mini fillet chicken with regular fries for 14 syns which is perfect portion size to fill me up and I will make sure I have plenty of superfree the rest of the day and keep any additional syns to a minimum.

I’ve decided to blog a daily update with my food diary this week so you can see what I’m doing differently plus it’s helpful for me to look back on to remember how I did it when I’m struggling.

Hope you all have a good week 🙂

week 13 – my shopping bill has halved

with making things like SW lasagna, stirfries and curry last for dinner and two lunches rather than eating it all in one evening, plus not buying quite as much fruit to snack on I’ve noticed quite a decrease in my food shopping bill over the last couple of weeks which can only be a good thing in the current climate… another bonus of slimming world 🙂

So onto this weeks weigh in where I lost a respectable 1.5lbs, it feels like I finally have the hang of it and have been thinking why I’ve managed to lose 2 stone before with out noticeably reducing my portion sizes and have come to the (fairly obvious) conclusion that as you lose weight you stomach shrinks therefore it should naturally take less food to fill you up, it’s just my problem recently has been eating way past the point of being full (I blame the weather: on cold, dark nights all I want to do is eat! … but I want to lose weight more!)

Food this past week has mainly been Dorset cereals muesli with chopped banana, a blog of Tesco rhubarb and vanilla fat free yogurt (the 450g tub – and it is free) and a chopped strawberry on top. then mainly water, nas squash, tea and fruit tea all morning, left overs or one of my homemade veg based soups for lunch, a syned treat in the afternoon (there was one day when I had a crunchie from the vending machine for 9.5 syns) and lots more sugar free fluids to get me through the afternoon and to dinner time where I’ve been having a much smaller portion of a sw recipe using my plate so I have have half super free and half free foods and then waiting until I actually felt hungry again before having any dessert (either fruit, yogurt, sugar free jelly etc) which most of the time I’ve found im not hungry so havent bothered.

we have been having the kitchen refitted this week so have had to eat out once in the evening as hadn’t prepared something to microwave that night, we went to harvester and I had flame grilled chicken breast, and salad from the cart with a drizzle of thousand island dressing and diet pepsi, we even skipped dessert and went to the Tesco next door and got a sugar free jelly pot and a muller light fat free yogurt to have at home instead.

I did however find these:

they are individually wrapped so have scattered them at home, in the car and in my desk drawer at work and they are 1/2 a syn each, I find they take a while to suck (no you’re not supposed to bite them!!) and hit the spot for me, sugary, sweet, buttery, lovely, I find I usually only have one to keep the cravings at bay (I sound like some kind of addict saying that, but you know what I mean)

this week coming up looks fairly good, I have two meals out but both are at other people’s houses and both will be a roast dinner type meal that I will be able to help myself to, so can control portions without coming across as rude for leaving food (I’d never do that actually, I’d just eat it all and feel ill!) just will need to watch the wine and pudding intake.

as I am off work for 5 days now over Easter and I plan on cooking some new recipes in my new kitchen (although that will involve getting it dirty I suppose ) I’ll post them on here with pics if they turn out ok.

hope you all have a good week and that we get though Easter without succumbing to to many of those pesky chocolate eggs!!

Mandy x

week 12 – ok so this is how you do Slimming World

So the children’s animal plate doesn’t look quite so silly now with a whopping 4lb weight loss this week! I’m so shocked it was that much, but obviously very happy, just hope i can keep up with doing the same things that worked so well for me this week.

Ok so it wasnt just the kiddy plate that contributed to the amazing loss this week, one of the other things i did in the name of not eating when I’m not hungry is i left behind my usual sack of “free food” that i take to work with me. I usually take this in with me for fear of getting hungry and ending up at the vending machine or burger van, however what i actually end up doing is eating it all anyway and after a filling breakfast, lunch and several teas and other drinks throughout the day im not actually hungry, im just eating them because they are there. so this week was a trial to see if i could survive without them and i was surprised to see that i could, so need to carry this on and get it ingrained into my head to not eat when not hungry (unless it’s a syned treat of course!)

Some of the other things i did this week were:

•  i had a meal out on Saturday night at a Thai restaurant, i stuck to diet coke to drink, which was fine as i was driving anyway. When the prawn cracker bowl came out to start, i nervously ate a few thinking they must be full of syns, but after looking up the syn value afterwards they are a surprisingly low 5 crackers for 1.5 syns, so i could have had a few more! i will know for next time though. For main i had a chicken pad Thai which was exactly what i fancied and i think the only syns would have been in the oil used to stirfry it –  i had a great night!

• I’ve been wanting to make soup for a while but can never be bothered to chop and prepare all the veg to make it, so when i saw a pre-prepared soup mix in Morrisons for £1 it was perfect for me. it was chopped carrot, butternut squash and onion with some fresh coriander chopped into it. i just boiled the contents with a veg stock pot and some mini pasta shapes then blended half of it and mixed back together. it was delicious and made enough for 2 lunches and was really filling too. will be making this again, there were other flavours too which i am going to try.

  

• I had a KFC meal earlier in the week – i know it’s such a bad word! however… i did check the syn values before we went and discovered you can have a streetwise snack box for just 14 syns (regular fries = 11 syns, mini fillet 3 syns) so was within my syns for the day and it not only hit the spot but it meant i could join in with the rest of my colleagues on the outing 🙂

• i went to running club on Wednesday and met my friend for a run sunday morning and did 3 miles each time, this is something i would really love to keep up with as i enjoy it so much and as am in the office all day it’s great to get out and get some fresh air.

So i will be aiming to keep up all of these good things this coming week, i do have a weekend away the girls this weekend though which is going to involve lots of cocktails, a meal out and breakfast in the morning. i’m gong to try to stick to gin and slimline tonic though and have what i fancy for dinner but not stuff myself and stop eating when i am full, i’ll try to order a smaller portion if possible and im going offer to cook the morning after breakfast so i can cut my fat off my bacon etc. If all else fails I’ll just have to stay on the dance floor all night!

I’m not expecting a huge loss next week like i had this week. but 2lb would be wonderful.

good luck for the week ahead everyone xxx

week 11 – just because it’s “free” doesn’t mean it has no calories!

As promised, after not blogging all week here is a quick catch up from the past week and my weight difference at weigh in tonight.

Well basically the week was a complete right-off, from getting fed up with it all and thinking I could have a “blow out day” which turned into a blow out week 😦 on top of that for the last 3 nights I’ve stuffed myself so full of food (some of it even free food!) that I’ve not even been able to sleep I’ve been so uncomfortable.

And all this was reflected in my weight gain of 3 lbs tonight (I didn’t even think it was possible to gain that much in just 7 days!)

the only good thing I did this week was make it to running club on Wednesday which I really enjoyed and am going to try to get back into the habit of going each week.

So thinking about how I can turn things around this coming week, I’ve written a meal planner which includes lots of veggie based dishes to boost the superfree percentage and I’m going to try and snack a bit less as even though I generally snack on free or superfree foods (well, not this week!) I’m snacking because I’m bored or I think its ok because it’s syn free and I’ve planned to have it, when I should only really be snacking when im hungry. To help with this I’m going to try to drink more water / sugar-free squash / fruit tea as I’m really only looking for something occupy myself with.

The other thing im going to try this week is having smaller portions. I know with SW you can have as much free foods as you like but it really should be 1/3 superfree and what I tend to do is pile my plate with, for example, sw chips, then lean meat then add a token bit of veg on the side, I then eat all the chips and meat until i’m full but continue to eat anyway to “get my 1/3 superfree” which is ridiculous… talking of ridiculous, I brought these plates a few years ago as I liked that they were split into sections (yes they do have cartoon animals on and yes they are for children!) but they are perfect split-wise for have free foods in the smaller two and superfree in the larger section. Heres my dinner tonight, and yes I have cut up my sausage!

it doesnt look like much food (compared to my usual portions) but it did fill me up surprisingly and I can always fill it up again if im still hungry or use it to have for example 1/4 sugar free jelly, 1/4 fat free yogurt and 1/2 fruit.

So I’m feeling positive about the week ahead, im unlikely to get the 3lb off in one week but I would like to get 1lb off at least for next weeks weigh in.

Hope you all have a good week, will fill you in on how I’ve got on next week.

 

long time, no blog

Apologies for not posting for the last couple of days, I’ve been so busy I’ve not had the time this weekend… which brings me onto saying I’m not going to be posting every day from now on as it’s getting a bit to time-consuming.  It has really focused me over the last ten weeks though.

So with the first half stone gone and the last half stone to go i will now be posting once a week, on weigh in night (Thursdays) with a bit of an update of how the week has been, any major achievements or obstacles I’ve overcome and any new recipes I’ve tried plus my weigh loss for the week (notice how i say loss – positive thinking!) and hopefully with only blogging once a week i can put a bit more time into the post and make sure it has all the relevant information and photos in it to make sure it’s an interesting read.

Don’t fear though I’m still sticking to plan as much as possible and will be attending group every week. I am aiming to lose this last half stone by April, just in time for summer!

*You can see my weekly weight loss and running total under the “about” section.