A little R & R

No weigh in this week as hubby and I have taken off for a week’s peace and quiet.  We’re visiting family and going out on day trips – the aim of which is to walk off all the syn-ful food I’m eating.

Hubby has surgery next week to try and fix his snoring.  He did offer to get me a course of hypnotherapy so I could sleep through it but I told him that I’d have to be dead to stand a chance, plus even then the racket would probably resurrect me.  So under the surgeon’s laser it is.

Weight loss will be a hit or miss affair for the next couple of weeks.  Hubby will be in a fair amount of pain afterwards and I am likely to feel stressed (and guilty) about it all.  Hopefully I can reach for the grapes rather than the chocolate.

If you’re doing Slimming World …

… I can heartily recommend the Little Book of Lunches.  I’ve been working through some of the recipes this week, making larger portions where necessary for dinner too.

Today I made crustless red onion and courgette quiche.  I’m going to ‘fess up now and say that I have some sensory issues and little slivers of food that stick to you (or feel slimy/damp) really make me want to run away.  As you’ll see if you click the link, this recipe calls for you to grate the raw courgette, then place it in a sieve and press it down to get rid of as much of its moisture as possible.  EEWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I did it though.  Fortunately it turned out delicious.  I might approach the grating a different way next time.

Then for dinner tonight we had the special fried rice and pork.  The senior chef (hubby) got the fun job of dicing the pork while I did the more pleasant task of thinly slicing the spring onions.  Absolutely gorgeous!!!!!

Both of these meals are FREE – no syns (on Extra Easy)!  As my breakfast is als syn-free I am now sitting here typing this and ‘inhaling’ several syns worth of chocolate.  S’a good day.

Ugh!!

What a week!  From one extreme to the other.  From Monday’s weigh in to Thursday night I was doing fine.  The scales showed I’d dropped 1 – 1.5lbs.  Yay me!  Friday morning I woke up feeling peckish.  I cooked my breakfast (all in the oven) and sat down to eat.  After 3 mouthfuls I felt absolutely stuffed.  However, I forced myself to finish it all – gotta put fuel in the engine.  Lunchtime saw the same thing; stuffed after a few mouthfuls.  Really?!?!?!?!  Then the afternoon arrived.

I spent most of the afternoon grazing and munching – on good stuff.  Friday evening is usually takeaway night here and I was going to be so good – as good as you can be with these things – but my willpower had gone into hiding and I ended up scoffing half a 12″ meaty pizza (thick crust, lotsa meats and a bbq sauce) in no time at all.  And still felt hungry.  (When am I going to learn that, these days, I need the veg stuff to keep the hunger at bay – not that it worked that well earlier in the day).  So I figured I was in serious refuelling mode after my very active week.

Saturday morning came and the scales bitch-slapped me.  4lbs on!!!!!!!  OMG!  That really hit me hard.  I’ve been beating myself up about it ever since.  Saturday’s hunger patterns followed the same path as Friday, except that I made myself a lovey syn-free dinner.

Today I have eaten better at the main meal times but not needed to snack (on fat-free yogurt) to keep the hunger pangs at bay.  What the heck is going on here?

Tomorrow’s weigh in should be interesting.

Weigh in – and what I’m doing this week

This week saw me put on half a pound.  I wasn’t too surprised as I’ve been lazy for 3 weeks whilst fighting this cough/fever/sore throat/catarrh thing that’s doing the rounds.

Last week I got my Silver Body Magic award, so this week I am starting my Gold.  Gold means I have to do 4 (I think, could be 8) weeks of 10 x 15 minutes or 5 x 30 minutes sessions of exercise – enough to get the blood pumping and the sweat pouring.  In just over 24 hours I have managed to tick of 7 x 15 minutes (a 45 minute walk, a 45 minute jog/walk and a 15 minute swim).  Needless to say I am now sitting with my feet up, staring at the sunshine, watching hubby finish off our lunch of pasta, gammon ham and tomatoes.

Tomorrow sees us attempting 45 minutes of badminton (or racket ball, depending on what’s available), which will take me to my 10 x 15 sessions.  The rest of the week will be a bonus – OR I’ll be feeling thoroughly miserable with achy joints 😉

Why all this mad activity?  Hubby and I are at Center Parcs.  We’ve left our kids guarding hearth and home.  The youngest is 19 so they are old enough.  Eating out here is very difficult if you want to stick to the SW plan.  Yes, there are cooking facilities in our villa but it’s my holiday too so there’s not going to be much self in the self-catering (a cooked breakfast and a very light lunch).  So all this exercise is going on counteracting the rather tasty, and synful, meals on offer.

Last night we had tapas.  Tonight it’ll be the American diner.  Hubby fancies sticky ribs.  I’ll have a long look at the menu and take it from there.

How I’ve changed

I thought I’d give you a before and after of how my eating habits have changed.

Before

Breakfast – 2 slices of toast with butter.

Lunch – 2 slices of bread with butter and ketchup.  Packet of plain crisps.

Dinner – Meat, sauce, chips (most nights), maybe baked beans or mushrooms.  Large glass of wine.

Snacks if required – biscuit, chocolate

The bread was granary.

Now

Breakfast – at least 3 of the following: 2 chipolata sausages, bacon, eggs (baked in the oven or poached), baked beans, mushrooms, toast (my Healthy B choice).  All baked in the oven with no fat.

Lunch – either salad with cooked meat and cheese (Healthy A choice); or pasta, passata, beans of some kind if not had at breakfast, cooked veg, chicken and cheese (A choice); or home-made vegetable soup made from whatever veg I have in, a chicken stock cube, and seasonings.

Dinner – meat, veg, sauce made with either some of the soup from lunch OR passata, jacket potato/rice/potato wedges, spices and seasonings.  Sometimes a small glass of wine.

Snacks if required – 0% fat natural yoghurt or muller-light yoghurts, a handful of grapes (rarely as I’m not a big fruit fan).  The occasional piece of chocolate but not if I’ve had wine.

So, there’s quite a difference in quality and quantity.  I couldn’t believe how much I was supposed to eat on Slimming World’s plan but it works.  It must do, I’ve lost very nearly a stone.  I don’t feel restricted or that anything is banned.

Another big change is when we go out to eat.  I find myself scanning the menu and seeing how synful the meals are.  OK, there are times when I think “stuff it, I really fancy ….”, but I mostly can’t bring myself to eat something that’s too far off the plan.  If I do succumb to temptation there’s a little voice in my head reminding me that I’ll have to be very good tomorrow to make up for it.  Who’d have thought that the guilt-trip would already be so entrenched.

A considered response

Last week a friend asked me if I could earn more Syns by being more active.  I said that wasn’t the case.  She thought it would be an incentive to move more.  I needed some time to consider her point.  Here are my thoughts on it.  Feel free to make yours in the comments section.

Friend told me that you get more points on WW if you are more active.  I’m not sure how WW works so I can’t comment on this.  However, her asking if more Syns would be available made me think how that would work.  I mean, yes who wouldn’t like to be able to have more syn-ful food in exchange for an hour’s walking/aerobics/insert activity of your choice.  BUT, and in my mind it is a big BUT (though not as big as mine, hahahaha), are you then setting up an association of food as a reward – food/treats that aren’t doing us much good nutritionally in the first place (and probably got us into the state where we needed SW to help undo it all).

I wonder how many of us have done some activity and then joined friends at the coffee shop for a hot drink and a muffin.  Or called in to get a bar of chocolate to snack on on the way home again.  I know I have, justifying it as having earned it after all the calories I’d just burned.  If you really want to scare yourself have a look how many calories are in the muffin/bar of chocolate.  Then, using a search of the internet, try and find roughly how many calories you burned doing your activity.  I’ll bet there’s a big difference THE WRONG WAY!!!!!  You will, just about every time, have put back WAY MORE calories than you expended, meaning that you are in a worse place calorie-wise than if you’d stayed home and not bothered in the first place.  Shocked??  So was I when I finally did the maths.

I once set up a treadmill to log the calories used rather than the distance travelled.  I couldn’t believe how much effort went into shifting 200 calories.  There are 116 calories in a 48g bar of Galaxy Caramel, or 11.5 syns  A certain coffee chain’s double chocolate muffin is 405 calories, so you can imagine the syn count!

So, I’ve decided I don’t want any more syns to be given to me for getting off my lardy behind and doing something useful and healthy; I’ll take the extra lost pounds on the scales instead.  Syns are there to warn us that a food isn’t that beneficial nutritionally.

If anyone can explain how WW and points work leave me a message in the comments section.  I’d be interested to know.  Also, if you want to add your thoughts to this send me a comment.

Thanks.

Got my Bronze Award

As well as giving you an easy-to-follow healthy eating plan Slimming World also encourage you to get off your backside and move.  For the past 4 weeks I have been doing a minimum of 45 minutes per week (spread over at least 3 sessions) of activity that makes the pulse tick over faster.  Most of it has been walking, and I can tell the difference in my stamina/distance levels, but some has been heavy-duty housework (moving furniture and hoovering can really bring on a good sweat).

Now I move on to the Silver Award.  For that I have to do 6 x 15 minutes or 3 x 30 minutes per week for 4 consecutive weeks.  Seeing as my walk to group and back is 10 minutes each way I shall now be changing my route to make it 2 x 15 minutes.

I also need to find some VERY gentle and friendly Zumba style DVDs.  I’ve got one from the library that teaches you some basic moves and then leaves you to wiggle around to some music.  I got a different one out yesterday that says it’s for beginners and intermediates.  Believe me, it’s not for novices at all.  The moves are way too fast and not repeated enough times to give you chance to work out what you’re supposed to be doing.  That one’ll be heading back to the library later this week.

So far this week’s eating has been on-track.  I haven’t blown my Syn limit, or even got that close to it.  I’m hoping I can knock off those 2.5lbs this week.

Fingers crossed

I’ll be happy with maintaining my weight tomorrow.  It’s been an interesting week, foodwise.  Plenty of slipping into bad habits.  In my defence an American friend was staying with us so we did a lot of going out, joined by another local friend.

Last Monday I really fancied home made pizza for tea so that is what we had.  Not much in the way of Superfree at all, although I did make veggie soup for lunch.

Tuesday was spent cleaning and tidying the master bedroom and en-suite for friend to use.  I was on the sofa-bed for the duration.  That killed my thigh muscles, making walking up and down stairs fun for a day or two,

Wednesday was spent picking up friend from Heathrow.  So glad he wasn’t arriving on Friday.  Breakfast was good, lunch was nearly good (except for the mayo on my chicken salad – premade service station food), dinner was Indian takeaway so really not very good (chicken tikka massala, rice and poppadom).

Thursday we went to Queen Elizabeth Country Park for a good walk round before the impending arrival of snow.  It was good fun.  I walked up Butser Hill for the first time ever and only needed 3 rest breaks on the way up.  Once up there it started to snow very lightly, as in you had to look hard to see it.  After we got back down we headed for the cafe and I very naughtily had hot chocolate with cream AND marshmallows but balanced it with a jacket potato with cheese and beans.  (Yeah I know, not really that balanced).

Friday it snowed so we didn’t bother going out.  Instead I made a big pan of veggie soup for lunch and cajun beef with rice, tortilla chips and salsa for tea.  Again, hardly Extra Easy style but very tasty.

Saturday American friend and hubby joined local friends in Portsmouth.  I wimped out because there was still enough snow around to need me to dig out my hiking boots.  I haven’t worn them for at least 10 years and decided that this was not the time to start.  I had more soup for lunch.  Then they all arrived back here and we had Dominos Pizza for tea.  I am ashamed to admit that I ate an entire half of a large Meteor.  But, oh boy, was it nice!

So I was somewhat shocked this morning when I jumped on the scales to find that there may well have been a half-pound loss.  Fingers crossed it is that way tomorrow but I definitely don’t deserve it.  Today’s meal plan is VERY much Extra Easy Style.  American friend has caught the train to London so he can do tourist stuff before going to a hotel ready to catch his plane tomorrow morning – today’s snowfall willing.

Another bump in the road – maybe

Edited to add:  we didn’t go out in the end, postponed till next weekend.

Tonight hubby and I are off out to the local with some friends.  We are eating first but it is our traditional takeaway night and it’s a nightmare trying to find something that will leave me enough Syns to have a glass of wine later.  I know I could make takeaway style food at home but, hey, a girl needs one night off a week from the stove.  So my choice is a tray of kebab meat with salad and some chilli sauce, somewhere around 10 Syns.  Thus leaving me 5 Syns for a 125ml glass of wine (which is worth 4), or I could flexi-Syn it and have a large one (8 Syns) which would put me 3 over.  Tough choice.  I’ll also be having a large jug of iced water at the table so I can knock that back and sip the booze.

I’m hoping to get more organised in the New Year so that these blips get spread out more.  I keep telling myself it’s the time of year but we have a takeaway every week, though if I’m off out with friends that counts as my takeaway night.  I’m trying, really I am.  (Very trying, according to hubby).

I’m also hoping that this ark-building weather knocks it off soon.  It’s getting in the way of a good walk or 6.

Sensible Eating makes the Headlines

I see that a member of parliament has written to various magazines asking them to basically cut out promoting “get thin quick” diet schemes; you know, the ones that promise to help you lose 7lbs in a week.  What those of us who have tried some of these quick fixes (or even some slower ones that we didn’t keep to) will tell you is that the quicker it comes off the quicker it will go back on – with interest!

I’d just like to point out now that the ‘you’ used below is a theoretical/general you, and not aimed at anyone in particular. 

The way that the word ‘diet’ is used these days conjures up images of deprivation and hunger, the thoughts of all those goodies you can no longer eat.  It is usually this very thing (no more chocolate/booze/fried stuff) that sabotages good intentions.  Then, once you have caved you berate yourself for being weak-willed and go bananas, stuffing yourself with all the forbidden foods.  Then, feeling a total failure you give up.  Also, ‘diet’ comes across as a temporary thing.  You know, “on a diet”, “off a diet”. The word ‘diet’ refers to your whole eating regime, not just some temporary fad.  Thus, the changes need to be permanent.  Put simply, if what you are currently eating is causing you to carry excess pounds, is it really sensible to expect that same regime to keep you at your new, lower weight – you know, the one you have just put yourself through hell to achieve?  Of course not.  It wasn’t doing you any favours beforehand (otherwise you wouldn’t need to have shed that extra weight in the first place) and now that you have lost those pounds your body needs less calories to operate, so going back to the excesses of ‘before’ is just giving it even more calories to store as fat – hence the weight going back on with interest.  That is why a lot of diets (maybe most) don’t work – people go back to their old habits and wonder why they pile on the pounds again.

Now, I have been doing SW for only a month and I can honestly say that I am rarely hungry (only when it’s nearly a meal time and I’m waiting for it to cook), nor am I deprived of ANY of the above ‘forbidden’.  Nothing is off-limits on SW.  NOTHING!!!!!!!!!  The less nutritional choices (the chocolate/booze/fried/etc) carry a points value (Syns), but you are allowed up to 15 of those Syns per day.  250ml of dry white wine (one third of a bottle of Chablis, for example) is 8 Syns, leaving some wiggle room for a Muller Light flavoured yoghurt or two.  I should point out that I am following the Extra Easy plan, and that Syn values vary according to which plan you choose to follow that day.

So, we all need to take a sensible, well-thought-out, approach to weight-loss, and not fall for these quick fixes that tend to make things worse in the long term.

Thank you for reading.