Saturday!

...in which I have woken up early.

Since it's Saturday, my brain has elected to wake me up at 6AM (or it might have been the dawn chorus). It's a beautiful day, there's not a cloud in the sky, and we are off to the beach.

So, a very short blog today with just the food diary (there may be an update when I get home).

Breakfast

Bacon, mushrooms, fried egg with tomato (all done in Frylight) 

Lunch

Pasta & chicken tikka salad 

Dinner

Breadless sandwiches (cooked chicken slices wrapped around shredded lettuce & cherry tomatoes)

Fish from fish & chip shop (batter removed)

Snacks/drinks

Fruit, lean meat 
375 ml red wine (13.5 syns)
125 ml rosé wine (5 syns)
Ok, I couldn't resist....fresh strawberry sundae (approx 20 syns)
Cheese & onion puff (about half the size of a pasty): 10 syns.

Total Syns so far this week: 88.5. Probably better not have any more!

Exercise

Lots of walking around, playing cricket etc. on the beach with the Younger Teen and Daughter.

The weekend arrives

...in which I mow the lawn and we are going to the beach.

I am not a natural gardener. I generally have an agreement with plants along of the lines of I won't try to grow them and they won't die; I think I get this from my mother, who was once given an "unkillable" cactus as a joke gift because her workmates knew how many house plants she killed. It was dead within a week. I therefore do my best to avoid any and all activity that might be construed as "gardening".

However, even I have to accept that lawns have to be mowed occasionally (the more occasionally the better), and today has been designated as a day when this must happen (boo) because we are going to the beach tomorrow (yay!) so I won't have time to do it. 

The Elder Teen has not yet decided whether to grace us with his presence, but this is standard. He will probably decide he wants to come with us at 7:30AM, at which point he will make us late because he hasn't got any stuff ready. I'm sure there are people reading this thinking "so make him decide tonight", but that just means you've failed to understand the nature of a teenager; even if he says he's decided tonight to come/not come, in the morning he may change his mind. 

This is apparently part of the unwritten contract you get signed up to automatically when you're a parent and never get to read..."the teenager, once old enough to stay at home alone, may decide whether to attend any family days out without notice, at any point up to and including the car being started. This is the teenager's unassailable right, and any objections on behalf of the parent may be met with any of the statements "oh my god you're so unfair", "I thought you said you wanted me to come", "pardon me for breathing" or any other retort the teenager can think of at the time."

Anyway, food. Going to the beach is obviously fraught with food peril, because there are many shops that sell things that are both deep-fried and delicious, and which the kids will no doubt want to eat. To counter this, I will make a pasta meat salad tonight for the wife and I to share. There are also some good ideas here on the Slimming World site (log on required) for breadless sandwiches.

I will also probably have a fish from the very nice chip shop at the beach and remove all the batter. I wasn't aware of this until recently, but the fish inside the batter is free on slimming world; this is presumably because the batter solidifies extremely quickly and the fish is protected from the oil during cooking, so it just cooks in the heat.

Last night I ran nearly 5 miles again; today my legs are not all that happy about this, but I'm still going to make them pedal the exercise bike after I've mowed the lawn. Come to think of it the Elder Teen is back early from school today because he just has an exam this morning....maybe I can get him to mow the back lawn for me (and pigs'll fly and the price of bacon will go up, as my grandmother used to say).

Friday 13th June

Healthy Extra A: 250 ml milk

Breakfast

Orange, apple, nectarine

Lunch

Batchelor's super rice with baked beans

Dinner

Slimming World Quiche (onions/mushrooms/peppers/tomatoes cooked in low fat onion & chive cottage cheese mixed with eggs, without pastry) with wedges & lettuce (this appears to be free - I was expecting the cottage cheese to have syns but it seems I was wrong).

Update: A described this as "delicious" so it seems I got something right! I also added bacon that I'd cut the fat off and fried in frylight about halfway through cooking - it was deliciously crispy.  A recipe for the quiche can be found here for slimming world members - the vegetables can be whatever superfree veg you like).

Snacks/Drinks

Fruit, coffee, 4 crispbreads (healthy extra b) with Marmite.
375 ml red wine (13.5 syns)

Exercise

Mowing the lawn (it counts, right?!)

30 minute walk

When the going gets tough

...the tough get eating.

Yesterday was one of those "difficult" days. There are days when it seems like it doesn't matter how much I eat I don't feel full. The pre-Slimming World version of me would have filled up on crisps (I could easily eat a bag of 12 packs of crisps to myself), but that's not really an option if I want to lose weight.

So, what to do when you want a lot of food but you don't want to put weight on? This is one of the biggest advantages I've found with Slimming World; there's always something you can eat, as long as you have "free" food in the house. This is what I ate yesterday, apart from my actual meals (members of other diet organisations cover your eyes now):

1/2 a jar of pickled onions

3 apples

2 pears

2/3rds of a punnet of strawberries

1/2 a punnet of grapes

120g couscous with crushed chillies

That's all "free" or "superfree" on slimming world; I can eat as much as I want of it, and I don't have to feel guilty or count points or worry about it. Fortunately after the couscous my appetite subsided somewhat as otherwise I'd have been heading to the shop for more fruit..

Obviously it takes an effort of willpower not to reach for the crisps/chocolate/whatever and go for fruit instead, but I've found that this has got easier with time (although there are times when nothing but a packet of crisps will do, and that's OK - I can have a packet of crisps and stay inside my syns limit).

It's fair to say that yesterday's experiment with fish did not go as well as hoped. The fish was OK-ish, edible at least, but despite the fact it was filleted it still had an awful lot of bones in it, and it didn't taste great although that may have been my cooking. The general consensus is that I won't be making that again.

Yesterday was a rest day from exercise and today my legs feel properly recovered, so I shall be running this evening.

Thursday 12th June

Healthy extra A: 250 ml semi-skimmed milk

Breakfast

Bacon, lettuce & tomato on a wholemeal roll (healthy extra B)

Lunch

Mushroom omelette with Jacket wedges & trimmed green beans.

Dinner

Chilli with boiled rice & green beans (2 syns because it was made with 10% fat mince).

Snacks/Drinks

Coffee, fruit (strawberries, nectarines), Jacob's Crinklys (6.5 syns)

Exercise

30 minute run

30 minutes on exercise bike

Hungry!

...in which I post a very small update.

Today I am in this mood:

So far I've managed to stick to fruit and other stuff that's good for me....hoping the beer breaded cod and slimming world chips will fill me up for I fear for the evening's munchies!

Bee Update

...in which the bees do not want to go away

The bees would not move into the pest force man's box. They seem to like living in our soffet. It does seem that they are not at all aggressive (the man's daughter went up the ladder to get the box down with no protective clothing on at all, and they just completely ignored her), so they're not really a problem other than preventing the elder teen opening his window, so we will get a flyscreen I guess.

The man did say that they might just decide to fly away by themselves now that they've been hassled a bit, especially if we can make life slightly unpleasant for them (apparently they hate certain smells, like clove oil and peppermint oil, so we can try spraying some of that under the soffet in the hope they'll decide to go live somewhere else).

So, diet; today I am making beer-breaded fish and chips (yes, that's a diet meal - Slimming World chips are done in the oven but they really are very nice). You can find a similar recipe (but without the beer) here if you're a Slimming World member (logon required). 

Since the fish only requires 2 tbsp of beer I have shared the rest of the bottle with the Elder Teen. It's a tough job, this cooking lark.

Wednesday 11th June

Healthy A: 250 ml semi-skimmed milk (used in coffee).

Breakfast

Grapes, apple, pear

Lunch

Bacon pasta salad; bacon, yellow pepper, onion, red onion, garlic, mushrooms, pasta.

Dinner

Beer breaded cod with slimming world chips, peas, sweetcorn & green beans

Snacks/drinks

Jacob's Crinklys (6.5 syns), Coffee, 1/2 bottle Bumble Bee honey ale (5.5 syns)

1/2 a jar of pickled onions, 3 apples, 2 pears, 2/3rds of a punnet of strawberries, 1/2 a punnet of grapes, 120g couscous with crushed chillies

Exercise

Having a day off today. Possibly.

A New Week Begins

...in which we have bees in the roof

A couple of weeks ago some honey bees (I say "some", but actually it's a swarm about 300 strong*) decided to settle on our roof. Bees are kind of important to the environment and stuff, and they're not particularly demanding house guests, so we're trying to avoid killing them, but the Elder Teen objects to the fact that he can't open his window as they're right outside there and when it's sunny there are hundreds of them flying around, which is a kind of scary sight.

*I haven't counted them or anything. It just looks like I'd imagine a swarm with 300 bees in it to look.

We had a couple of bee keepers round when the swarm first arrived, but they took one look and went "nope, not going up a ladder to get those". This week, they have found their way into the soffet and seem to be building a nest; apparently this will not cause any damage to the house, but obviously we would prefer it if they weren't there (I doubt they'll be letting us have any of their honey as rent).

So, today we have a man from a pest control company here trying to get rid of the bees with smoke, some "swarmattract" and a big box attached to a long ladder. Unfortunately, the bees do not seem to want to move homes, especially as it's just started throwing water out of the sky. The only other suggestion we've had (apart from killing them, which we'd prefer to avoid) is to get a fly screen to put over the inside of the Elder Teen's bedroom window so he can open them without being attacked by bees. So if the bees don't appreciate us setting up an all expenses paid moving home type arrangement for them I guess we'll have to go with that.

Anyway, diet stuff. Today I start a new week (although officially the "new week" starts the instant I get weighed) and this week I am determined to actually lose some weight as I've had 2 half pound gains in a row (after a 4lb loss over 2 weeks, so I'm still ahead of the game). 

Since I got everything right last week /(free food, superfree food, exercise, healthy a/b) except for syns, this week I will focus on reducing my syns; it has got more difficult to lose weight as I've got closer to target, so I probably do need to be a bit more careful for a few weeks if I'm going to get there any time soon.

I will also try to set up a page specifically for each week's food diary so they're easier to see (or maybe I'll write a widget), but for now I'll just put it on each page as per last week because I have work to do.

Tuesday, 10th June

Healthy A: 250 ml semi-skimmed milk.

Breakfast

Pear, grapes, strawberries (see? sometimes I have different fruit).

Lunch

Batchelor's super rice

(Most savoury rice of is 1.5 syns per packet, but all flavours of Batchelor's are free).

Dinner

SW style chicken nuggets from the Fakeaways book (recipe here for Slimming World members), with jacket wedges, sweetcorn, green beans and broccoli.

(using the wholemeal roll as a healthy b - the recipe says there's 1.5 syns per portion, but I assume that using the roll for breadcrumbs means they're effectively free as long as you don't eat more than 4 portions to yourself, as the other ingredients are all free).

Snacks

Fruit, pickled onions, Jacob's Crinklys (6.5 syns).

Exercise

30 minutes exercise bike

30 minutes running

I blame the cake!

...in which I have gained a little weight.

I have gained half a pound. I blame the muffin my wife made me eat on Saturday. Cider? What cider? Oh, that cider. Well OK, that probably didn't help either.

Anyway, I have bought a 6 week countdown (you pay for 5 weeks and get 6) and I'm determined to get close to target by the end of that. 

I've decided that 3 glasses of wine is probably my "tipping point" (i.e. the point where I decide I don't care what I eat/drink any more) so this week I'm going to limit my wine intake to 2 glasses a night on Friday/Saturday and have a few more syns than usual (I normally have almost none) during the rest of the week so I don't end up having 70 in one night (there's nothing wrong with that if you've had none for the week but alcohol quite often leads to other bad stuff).

So there you go. Can't blame anyone but myself, but I'll be blogging what I eat again next week and hopefully I will lose rather than gain next week!

Weigh-In day!

...in which I consider the week gone by

Update: I gained half a pound. I blame the muffin. (More details here).

Since I have my weigh-in on a Monday night, food-wise my week runs Monday-to-Monday. This week has been a bit of a mixed bag; I stuck to the plan well until Friday night, when the wine (almost inevitably) came out, but even then I was well under my syns limit for the week.

The trip to Shrewsbury and the large muffin would have been OK if it wasn't for the cider on Saturday night; however I'm only just over my syns limit (although going right up to the limit isn't the best idea - I usually have around 70 - 80 syns a week).

I think this coming week I'll try the recommended approach of using syns every day rather than saving them up.

On the plus side, I did incorporate more exercise this week so I'm hopeful that I can still manage a small loss tonight; I'd be happy with 1 or 1.5lb. I shall post later.

Monday 9th June

Breakfast

Bacon with fresh tomato in a wholemeal roll (Healthy extra b), followed by a smooth toffee Muller light and a banana.

Lunch

Jacket potato wedges with mushroom omelette (made with fry-light) and fresh trimmed green beans.

Dinner

Chicken Rogan Josh (made in the slow cooker with chicken left over from yesterday) - this is based on the lamb Rogan Josh from the Fakeaways book. (In a fit of organisation, this is already in the slow cooker at 9:30AM - organisation is a fairly rare occurrence around here)!

Snacks

Fruit, Mullerlight, Pickled onions

Exercise

30 Minutes exercise bike

30 Minute walk

30 Minute run


Here's the rest of the week's food, all in one place:
(Healthy A: 250 ml Semi Skimmed Milk for coffee - every day)

Tuesday 3rd June

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

Chicken 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:

1 hour walking

20 minute run

15 minutes exercise bike

Wednesday 4th June

Breakfast

Mullerlight yoghurt (smooth toffee), strawberries, satsuma

Morning Snack

60g Wholemeal Roll, lean back bacon with cherry tomatoes

Lunch

Home made savoury rice (boiled rice mixed with stir-fried onion, chilli pepper and mushrooms and cooked frozen sweetcorn and mixed with soy sauce and a little 5-spice powder).

Chicken Fillet cooked with crushed chillies & garlic (1.5 syns - chicken is usually free, but these were bought from Aldi and when I checked the Slimming World app they have 1 syn per 100g; I'm not sure if this is just because it's supposed to be cooked with oil (I used frylight)).

Dinner

Speedy Chicken Jambalaya (from the Easy Express cookbook - the recipe is here, but you'll need to be a slimming world member and log in to see it).

Evening Snack

Mullerlight (vanilla with dark cherry and chocolate sprinkles), Melon

Exercise

30 minutes exercise bike

Thursday 5th June

Breakfast

Apple, Satsuma, Pear, Mullerlight (Orange with dark chocolate sprinkles)

Lunch

Bacon & Tomato on a wholemeal roll (healthy extra b)

Dinner

Vegetable & Quorn chilli
My own recipe: 1 courgette, 1 red onion, 1 onion, 1 green pepper, 4 - 6 closed cup mushrooms, 3 cloves garlic (finely chopped), 1 400g tin of tomatoes, half a tube tomato puree, ~1/2 a pack frozen Quorn mince, 250 ml vegetable stock, 3 tsp chilli powder (choose your heat)!, 1 tsp paprika.

Roughly chop all of the veg; fry the onions, peppers & garlic for 5 - 10 minutes until the onions are softened. Add the mushrooms and stir fry for another 2 - 3 minutes. 
Add the tomato puree, chilli powder and paprika and stir to coat the veg; add the tin of tomatoes, stock and courgettes and stir to mix. Simmer for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. 

This was the first time I'd made this using this recipe - in future I think I'd use passata instead of the vegetable stock as it didn't taste as tomato-ey as usual. I'd usually put baked beans in a chilli too but I forgot!

Serve with boiled rice, peas & sweetcorn (optional but middle child wanted them)

Evening Snacks

2 apples, pear, a 1/4 of a melon and some strawberries. Plus a satsuma.

Exercise

15 Minutes on exercise bike
30 minute run

Friday 6th June

Breakfast

Apple, satsuma, pear

Morning Snack

4 Rye Crispbread (from Aldi's - Healthy Extra B) with Marmite

Lunch

Pasta salad (onions & mushrooms stir fried in frylight with chopped garlic & crushed chilli peppers, mixed with a chopped tomato and 2 slices of wafer-thin cooked chicken and all stirred into cooked pasta. This would be nicer with a red pepper instead of the red onion, but it was OK), and a pear.

Dinner

Sirloin steak (fat removed), fried in frylight with fried onions and mushrooms and spicy potato wedges (0.75 syns for the mushrooms because they're cooked with a Laughing Cow Light blue cheese triangle, 1.5 syns, shared between 2 people).

Evening snacks/drinks

Mullerlight (strawberry)

750ml Red Wine  (27 Syns)
200ml Rosé Wine (7 Syns)

Exercise

Exercise bike - 15 minutes

Saturday 7th June

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.

Home made muffin in a coffee shop (counting it as 25 syns)

4 cans Stella Artois Cidre (44 syns)

Exercise

45 Minute run (4.9 miles according to Runkeeper).

Sunday 8th June

Breakfast

Overnight oats made with cherry Muller light & 35g porridge oats (healthy extra b), Strawberries, Satsuma

Lunch

Roast chicken with boiled potatoes, roast potatoes (cooked with frylight), carrots, broccoli & sweetcorn. (All free/superfree - skin removed from chicken)
100ml gravy (1.5 syns)

Dessert - vanilla Muller light poured over fresh fruit salad. 

Dinner

Bacon pasta salad (bacon (fat removed), peppers, green beans, onions, mushrooms, tomatoes).

Snacks etc.

Fruit, Muller light, pickled onions

Exercise

30 minute run

30 minute exercise bike

A slight slip-up

...in which I get on with it, and talk about flexibility

If you read the blog yesterday, you might remember that I had rather a lot of cider last night while watching the football (I don't actually like football much except when the Younger Teen is playing, but the Elder Teen was watching it).

This means that I'm now very close to my syns limit for the week (you're allowed 105 per week, assuming the maximum of 15 per day, and I'm on 104.5), assuming that my estimate of the home made muffin in the coffee shop yesterday at 25 syns is correct.

Now, I did not intend to do this; I wasn't going to have anything to drink at all other than Pepsi Max (other diet drinks are available), but listening to the pundits (does anybody out there actually want to hear anything Adrian Chiles has to say? I know less than nothing about football and I'm pretty sure that's more than some of them) is enough to drive anyone to drink.

So, I could now decide that I've blown it for the week and pig out for the next 2 days. Or I could berate myself, telling myself that it was a stupid thing to do and feel guilty about it; I could tell myself over and over that I shouldn't have done it and get angry at myself, or I could blame the alcohol and say it wasn't my fault and therefore it doesn't count.

I will not do any of these things. Here is what I will do: I will accept that it's my responsibility and that I knew that if I started drinking at all I would probably drink all of the cider, but decided to do so anyway. I will not let 1 bad day turn this into a bad week; I will say to myself "it's already happened and there's nothing you can do about it." and then I will forget about it and not let it affect me for the rest of the week.

I will feel glad that I managed to run nearly 5 miles yesterday and that my legs still feel OK today, and I will try to slip in some extra exercise to help make up for the extra syns; this isn't me punishing myself, this is me saying "I had one bad day (and I'm still inside my syns limit), but I still want a loss this week; I can't change what's happened but I can do something to ameliorate the potential consequences, so I will".

I will, however, get cross with the Elder Teen for having some sort of chocolate crunch cereal last night and leaving what he didn't eat in the bowl overnight so that this morning when I came to wash up it appeared that someone had superglued it to the bowl. Seriously, what do they put in cereal that apparently makes it transmute overnight into a material you could use to build a house with?

Anyway, flexibility (see? moving on. As simple as that). Slimming World allows you to use "flexible syns" if you're in a situation where you know that it's going to be difficult to stay inside your syns limit (e.g. a night out, or a dinner in a restaurant). 

This is a way of controlling your intake, but allowing yourself extra, without taking the brakes off completely. You decide how many syns to limit yourself to beforehand, and then stick to that instead of your normal daily limit.

Obviously doing this every week would lead to no weight loss, but it's a good way to ensure you don't just eat/drink everything in sight on occasions when you are out and can't avoid going over your limit. The other option is to save your syns for the night out, but that can be difficult and means depriving yourself on the other days that week.

Sunday 8th June

Breakfast

Overnight oats made with cherry Muller light & 35g porridge oats (healthy extra b), Strawberries, Satsuma

Lunch

Roast chicken with boiled potatoes, roast potatoes (cooked with frylight), carrots, broccoli & sweetcorn. (All free/superfree - skin removed from chicken)
100ml gravy (1.5 syns)

Dessert - a vanilla Muller light poured over fresh fruit salad.

Dinner

Bacon pasta salad (bacon (fat removed), peppers, green beans, onions, mushrooms, tomatoes).

Snacks etc.

Fruit, Muller light, pickled onions

Exercise (planned)

30 minute run

30 minute exercise bike

45 minutes Just Dance 4