Fast food? No, speed food!

...in which things get a little more complicated

But not that complicated, honest. Read on, Macduff...

In addition to free, superfree, Healthy As and Bs and synned food, there are further classifications of food in the slimming world books; some free/superfree food also counts as speed or "superspeed".

These are foods which, for their type, are particularly low in energy density (i.e. they have lower calories than other foods in their group - e.g. Chicken is a speed food, minced beef is not, but both are free; Melon is a superspeed food, and a lot of other fruits are speed food).

You don't have to include speed or superspeed foods in what you eat, but I have found that when I have focused on including these in the food I make I tend to lose more weight and feel fuller. I usually now choose vegetables on the basis of a) do the kids like them (although it's almost impossible to find something that all 3 of them like) and b) is it speed/superspeed?

Unfortunately a) boils down to sweetcorn, which is free rather than superfree and is not a speed or superspeed food*; the daughter loves broccoli (superfree and speed) , but the boys won't touch it, so I usually end up doing sweetcorn and some other vegetable that counts as a speed food (thank goodness for frozen vegetables).

I choose the fruits I have for breakfast (nearly always apple, pear and satsuma) on the basis that they are speed foods - if I can be bothered I sometimes have melon because it's a superspeed food as well as being superfree.

A lot of varieties of fish are speed/superspeed foods; unfortunately we do not eat much fish, but I will try to make an effort to include some in the menu over the next couple of weeks.

*Baby sweetcorn is superfree and a speed food, but normal sweetcorn counts as a pulse and is free (not superfree) and not speed.

Saturday 7th June

(Planned menu - I'm posting this in the morning so things may change).

Breakfast

"Overnight oats" (a recipe from a lady in our Slimming World group) - 35g porridge oats (Healthy Extra b) soaked in a Mullerlight (Raspberry & Cranberry, but you can use any flavour) overnight - first time I've made this and I'll definitely make it again; also quite good if you've overindulged the night before...(who, me? Nah...*cough*).

Pear, satsuma.

Lunch

Saturdays tend to be a bit hit and miss as far as lunch goes, but it's important to make sure I get some food at lunchtime so I'm not tempted to snack later.

Mushroom omelette, jacket potato wedges (baking potatoes cut into wedges and the cooked on a baking tray with frylight and sea salt in the oven for 30 - 35 minutes turning every 10 minutes or so) and baked beans. These were some of the best wedges I've made.

Dinner

Penne with rich beef Ragu (recipe from the extra easy cookbook -  there's a similar recipe here for Slimming World members), with broccoli and sweetcorn.


Snacks

Pickled onions, melon, mullerlight.

Oops...on a trip to Shrewsbury I ended up having a muffin in Masseralla's - I'm not sure of the exact Syn value but I'm going to assume it's pretty high and put it at 25. Ouch! (Still inside my syns limit for the week though...)

And...then the evening came and there was football on and I may have sort of perhaps accidentally drank 4 cans of a certain brand of cider that's not spelt right (because being tipsy is better than actually watching football) at 11 syns each that's 44 syns.

That's a grand total of um...69 syns today, which puts me on 104.5 syns for the week so far, with 2 days to go (weigh in is Monday). That probably means I'll go over my 105 syn limit this week....oops.

Exercise

45 Minute run (4.9 miles according to Runkeeper). Ow my legs, but that's what our consultant would call a "non-scale victory" - I haven't run that far since the half-marathon and I feel pretty damn good about it. Hopefully that will help make up for the cider...