Cutting myself down to size

...in which I have joined a slimming club and not blogged about it for 6 months. Yes, really.

Wow, is this blog still here? I really need to use it more often, there's dust all over the place here.

So, first I should probably do that disclosure thing; I have no affiliation with Slimming World, nor any commercial relationship with them, other than the fact that I pay them every week.

This year I decided that I would lose some weight. Not because I was unhealthy (although I was) and not because anybody else told me to (although I'm sure my wife wanted me to), but because I decided that I wanted to be thinner and a bit more healthy. 

So I joined Slimming World just after Christmas because it was the "diet" that my wife lost 3 stone on last year (and has so far kept off, and looks fantastic). Thus far this has been a fairly spectacular success. Since joining in January, I have lost 2 stone and 9.5lbs (17kg according to Google, and nobody argues with them, right)?

 I still have about 8.5 lbs to go to get to my initial target, but that really doesn't seem that much compared to how much I've already lost, especially if I have a couple of good weeks.

This has meant that I am slimmer, and I also feel much better for it and have started running again; I don't get out of breath on brisk walks now, and I have much more stamina for certain other activities. (Like gardening. What? What were you thinking of? Really? Get your mind out of the gutter! But yes, that too, since you ask. Ahem).

I've also discovered that I really, really like cooking. Since joining, I have done almost all of the cooking, which I find very satisfying; Slimming World meals are not what most people would probably think of as diet food, since they focus on letting you eat as much as you need to satisfy your appetite while keeping the calorie count low.

One of the things that happens every week when I stay to the group is that the consultant (who is lovely - hi Claire!) asks me if I've made anything nice that week. Because I have the memory of an amnesiac goldfish I can only ever remember what I made that night, so I nearly always end up saying "err...." and then saying the same thing as I said the previous week.

So I thought this week I would blog what I am eating in the hope that it will jog my hopeless memory.

All of the food below is "free" or "super-free" on the extra easy plan unless I've put a Syn value by it or it's a healthy a or b option. This means you can have as much as you like of it. No, I'm not joking. Yes, I have lost weight eating like this. Yes, this is a fairly typical day for me. No, it's not a prank. Honest.

Note for Slimming World members: I follow the Extra Easy plan and have no idea how many syns any of this would be on any other plan. Sorry about that.

Tuesday 3rd June

Healthy A: 250 ml Semi Skimmed Milk for coffee. You can assume this every day, because I'm a developer and we can't write code without coffee. Seriously, it's true. Find a developer and take their coffee away and see what happens.

Breakfast

Apple, satsuma, pear

Morning Snack

Lean back bacon (all visible fat removed, fried in fry-light) with cherry tomatoes in a 60g wholemeal roll (Healthy b)

Lunch

Mushroom omelette with crushed chillies & spicy potato wedges (2 baking potatoes chopped into wedges, coated with paprika, oregano and sea salt and cooked in the oven for 30 - 35 minutes, turning occasionally).

Dinner

Lamb Rogan Josh (from the "Fakeaways" book - I can't find the recipe online unfortunately) with boiled rice and sweetcorn.

Evening Snacks

Muller Light (Vanilla), 1/4 fresh pineapple.

Exercise

I suppose the picture isn't really complete without a record of the exercise I'm doing too:

~5 miles walking

~2 mile run

15 minutes on exercise bike (200 calories, according to the bike).