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