Monday, 23-05-22

  Good morning!

Day two of my Southwold holiday - I can't really count travel day - and all is well.  Enjoying the walking and enjoying the food.  I do enjoy self catering!

Yesterday's meals

Breakfast - very delicious and very sustaining.

I cooked the ham yesterday morning and now I have it to hand for meals and nibbles.  I do like Sainsbury's Be Good to Yourself hams, they are so lean and tender.

When it came to it, I didn't fancy a ham roll, just ham salad.

I had an orange and a banana afterwards.

It worked.  Kept me on the straight and narrow and it's amazingly good.  

half a litre of diet lemonade, half a tbsp balsamic vinegar and whatever fruit you want to pile in - I used berries.  Mix and pour over ice.

My roast dinner.  Rather simple and I had a bit of cut ham left over from lunch so I added that too.  I suppose some cranberry sauce would have been nice but I didn't have any.

Instead of yogurt, dessert was the fruit from the jug.  Nice!

And that was that!

Today's plans

B:  fruit and yogurt, probably eaten in Framlingham Castle.

This is the main issue with intermittent fasting - it doesn't always work with planned activities but then no eating 'plan' does.  Flexibility is the name of the game.

I'll probably treat myself to a nice coffee from the café there too.

SW:  half a syn for some Mullerlight

L:  ham and potato frittata, salad; fruit

This will make enough for two so I will either have the other half tomorrow or pop it in the freezer for later on in the week.

As well as the ham and potato, I plan to add onion, pepper and mushroom to the mix.  Really, it will be like a loaded crustless quiche but without cheese.

SW:  this will all be protein, speed and free as I won't be using any cheese

D:   chicken and ham pasta bake; jelly and yogurt

The chicken is left overs from yesterday's dinner and he ham is what I cooked yesterday.  I will need to get some chopped tomatoes but the rest is what I brought with me.

SW:  one to two healthy extra As, depending on how much cheese I fancy

Exercise:  walking around again, maybe something online.

Summary:

up to two healthy extra As

no healthy extra B

half a syn for the jelly

Sunday, 22-05-22

  Good morning!

Well, here I am, at Southwold for a week, staying in a very pleasant cottage close to the beach, with a good butcher, a good greengrocer, a small Tesco and a small co-op, all within a hundred steps of my front door.  How useful is that!

I'm not planning ahead this week - one of the joys of this holiday is deciding what I'm going to have and popping to the butcher to get what I want.  It also does cheese and cold meat but I bought cheese with me.  Cold meat for lunches sounds good though, if I fancy a change from the ham I brought with me and will boil this morning..

Having said that, I have got today's meat because they're closed on Sundays!  I'm having an easy day - an idle breakfast, maybe outside in the courtyard if the sun comes out, a lunch either here or maybe along the shore, a nice walk along the sand to Walberswick and back again and, maybe, a Lindsey class on YouTube.  That should work off yesterday's excesses to some degree.

Yesterday's meals

This is breakfast.  Loads of tomatoes because I had a huge beef tomato that was squishy and quite a lot of bacon (all fat cut off) to finish off so I didn't have the planned egg in the sandwich, which was fine.

My other meal was dinner, no photo, but it was nice.
I bought a lovely piece of fillet steak (I am on holiday, after all) and enjoyed that with some home made chips and a small salad.

Unfortunately, there was a welcome pack - very nice ground coffee, very posh crisps, very posh chocolate, posh milk in proper little bottles (semi-skimmed, so that's OK), an extremely posh jar of posh mayonnaise and a posh jar of strawberry jam.  Oh, and a bottle of 'lemon refresher - don't know if that's posh or not but I doubt it is SW friendly.  The crisps and the chocolate are no more and the mayo has been sampled - very nice with chips but I shudder to think of those syns.  I can take the jam and the drink home with me and any of the coffee and mayo that I don't have (and there will be some) can also come home.

Today's plans

B:  sweet omelette with fruit and yogurt

Yum!  Two eggs, some skinny syrup, a mixture of fruit and some Greek yogurt.  With a fresh cafetiere of coffee and a good book, what more could one ask of a leisurely Sunday breakfast?

SW:  protein, speed and free

L:  ham salad or ham roll with salad, depending on where I have it
The little Tesco didn't have wholemeal rolls but the little co-op did so I got a four pack, one for today (maybe) and three for the very decent sized freezer for a holiday cottage for other days.

SW:  half a healthy extra A for two cheese triangles in lieu of butter, one healthy extra B and the rest is protein, speed and maybe free

D:  roast chicken dinner - chicken wrapped in bacon, Jersey royals, broccoli, carrots and cauliflower; fruit salad and yogurt

I got a nice looking skinless, boneless chicken breast from the butcher and some of their own cured bacon which I remember as being absolutely gorgeous (and I am buying a whole load to take home with me for the freezer)

I'm planning to make a good jug of the not-Pimms as well.  The only thing I don't have is some mint.

SW:  should be protein and speed

Exercise:  a good walk along the sand and maybe Lindsey's aerobics class

Summary:

half a healthy extra A

one healthy extra B

I think it is syn free, not by design though.

Saturday, 21-05-22

 Good morning!

Yesterday was a maintain which I'm OK with after last Friday's Chinese takeaway scoff-in.  Holiday week has now started and Back to Basics is the name of the game.

I can do it.

Yesterday's meals

I had intended to have boiled egg and toast but, at the SW meeting, Jen gave me a taster sample of the new Hi Fi bars that are coming out next week (a perk of being on the social team) and, obviously, I had to sample them.

Two is a healthy extra B and I had an apple and an orange to make it a more full breakfast.

This is the leftover chicken pasta bake with a salad and a drizzle of salad cream.  It was so nice and very filling - no room for afters.

I didn't take my camera with me to the cream tea but the scones were big and I only had room for one scone with some jam and cream (no butter) plus a black coffee.  So that was OK, especially as it was a main meal substitute.  The syns may be shocking but sometimes syns don't tell the whole story and I am sure the calories are fine.

Today's plans

B:  a cooked breakfast

Bacon, egg, fried bread (might make it a bacon and egg sandwich, in fact), mushrooms and tomatoes.

I'll have this as late as possible so that it tides me over until the evening meal as I will be travelling over lunch time.

SW:  one healthy extra B

L:  fresh fruit

. . . if needed - and it probably will be at some point.

SW:  speed and free

D:  steak, cheesy chips and, probably, salad

Because I really, really fancy it!  I might make a mushroom sauce too with some lighter crème fraiche.

SW:  one to two healthy extra As and three syns for two tbsp lighter crème fraiche plus half a syn for yogurt

Exercise: a nice walk along the beach

Summary:

one to two healthy extra As

one healthy extra B

three and a half syns

Friday, 20-05-22

 Good morning!

I've been having a good old thunk about my focus areas while I'm on holiday and I have decided that, in SW terms, I am going Back to Basics.  That means . . .

• not fussing about keeping carbs a bit lower.  If I want rice or pasta, I will have rice and pasta as SW free foods.  The pasta will be wholemeal (because I prefer it), the rice will be basmati and chips will feature - if I want.
• I won't work to keep syns low - I will have up to ten (which sounds a lot to me).  If I want a synned something, I will have a synned something.  If I don't, I won't.
• speed and protein stay the same because I like them
• ditto for healthy extras

Except for next Thursday, that is - I must have my one fish and chips from the Little Fish and Chip Shop - arguably the best chippie in the East of England.

Fingers crossed.

But first - weigh day today.  

Yesterday's meals

I had two meals and only photo-ed one of them

This was the fancy pants parma ham, feta and griddled nectarine salad and it was scrumptious.  I'll have that again next time I want a treat!

Today's plans

B:  boiled eggs and toast

SW:  one healthy extra B

L:  cajun chicken pasta bake, salad; fruit

Leftovers from the freezer.

SW:  one healthy extra A for cheese

D:   charity cream tea

Well, you have to, don't you.  It's in a very good local cause and I'm looking forward to a bit of naughty.

SW:  off plan - what a surprise!!

Exercise:  a walk, plenty of housework

Summary:

one healthy extra A

one healthy extra B

off plan so no idea of syns - I will try but maybe not too hard

From the freezer

bread

pasta bake

Thursday, 19-05-22

 Good morning!

A normal SW day today, not SP or syn free.

However, timings are awkward because of various commitments so I'm going to go for two meals today, something that people doing intermittent fasting rather more faithfully than I often go for.

Yesterday's meals

This went down a treat.  I also had an apple that I had dropped on the floor and an easy peeler that was more peel that juice - obviously I HAD to have them, didn't I?

A nice, squishy, well filled sandwich for lunch, followed by an orange.  I remembered I was having an SP day today, not a syn free day, so I 'spent' another syn on some mayo.

And then, later on, I had a nibble of cheese and am calling it four syns as I'd already planned in my healthy extras.  Ooops.

Hunter's chicken followed by a yogurt was really lovely and left me feeling extremely full.

Focus areas

diary - tick

lots of speed but more syns than usual.  Oh, well . .

two SP days and two syn free days - that's it done for the week. .

Today's plans

Br:  parma ham, feta and griddled peach salad; fruit

This is an attempt to sort of reproduce the very nice salad I had at Robyn's Nest a while ago

The idea is to spread some Parma ham (all visible fat cut off) around the plate, pile some leaves in the middle with a few other salad things such as tomatoes and cucumber, top with crumbled feta (originally goat's cheese but I fancy feta) and griddled peach/nectarine slices (I have some in the freezer) and drizzle over some of my grain mustard dressing (originally balsamic glaze)

SW:  parma ham is half a syn per slice so let's call it three syns.  The dressing is up to two syns if I make double the quantity I usually make, the feta is a healthy extra A for 45g and the rest is speed.  I am not synning the fruit slices just because I wave them near a very hot griddle pan!

D:  leftover turkey curry (leftovers of leftovers!), broccoli, carrots; yogurt

Nothing more to add to this really.  :-)

SW:  speed, protein and free with half a syn for yogurt

Exercise:  a walk, gardening (weather permitting)

Summary:

between one and two healthy extra As

no healthy extra B

five and a half syns

From the freezer

just the curry

Slimming World shopping haul at M&S and Aldi

 Quite a small shop because I have plenty already.  Mostly fresh stuff with a bit of other.

Meat and dairy:
I really like the Aldi steak - it's not a shockingly expensive as some other places and it is nice.  The sirloin steaks are so big, I am going to cut them in half and I might do the same with the fillets - they always go much bigger when you happen them out a bit.  They are for the freezer, of course.  The feta is because I fancied a change and I always get the M&S 0% Greek yogurt - I think it is lovely.

Bits and bobs.

The lemon yogurt should have gone with the meat and dairy really.  The oat topped deli rolls (Aldi) are because someone recommended them and they are a B choice.  They're going into the freezer, individually wrapped.
I was getting low on tomato puree, ginger and garlic and those lazy jars do save effort and money, by the time I have thrown away the fresh stuff that I didn't use!

Fruit and veg

I think these are all speed foods which wasn't my intent, it was just what I wanted.  I've just realised I have missed something - a pack of peaches.

I like the San Marzano tomatoes; they are lovely for cooking for breakfast and one is plenty.

The apples are a new to me variety, Smitten.  I think they are absolutely delicious.

I also got some diet lemonade for my not-Pimms drinks and some cans of fizzy to take away with me.

It may not be loads, but it cost a pretty penny, all the same.  That's just the way of the world right now.  Not good, is it, but there's nothing we can do about it.

Wednesday, 18-05-22

 Good morning!

I've been thinking about next weeks focus areas and I think I will have just one - Back to Basics.  Just stick to the plan and enjoy my food.

Yesterday's meals

Breakfast was changed.  Before Groove, I had a banana and when I got home afterwards, I really didn't fancy a cooked breakfast so I had an apple, a plum and some yogurt and that was more than enough.  

For good reasons, I couldn't have lunch until four so I just made something quick - toast, marmite, some chicken shreds and cheese melted on top - nearly a toastie but not quite.  I made a small jug of not-Pimms and added some berries.  Very nice indeed and syn free.

Dinner:  I was supposed to have broccoli but forgot to turn the ring on so it's just as well I had enough veg roasting in the Ninja.
No yogurt afterwards - again, I wasn't that hungry and the salmon and veg really filled me up.

So a bit of an odd day but very SW and syn free.

Focus areas:

diary - tick

ten speeds and no syns

two syn free days down and one SP day

Today's SP plans

B:  cooked breakfast

Egg, bacon, mushrooms and tomatoes.  What I had planned for yesterday but didn't have.

SW:  protein and free

L:  chicken salad sandwich, other salad stuff; fruit

The last of the weekend roast chicken must be used up today so it will be a nice, chunky sandwich..

SW:  one healthy extra B plus protein and speed

D:  sort of hunter's chicken, broccoli, cauliflower; yogurt

I won't jazz up the sauce too much - just some passata and some bbq sauce.  Basically, chicken, topped with onion and pepper, maybe mushroom, sauce poured over and baked, then cheese sprinkled over the top and back into the oven to melt the cheese.

SW  one and a half healthy extra As for cheese, one syn for some Crucials bbq sauce and half a syn for yogurt

Exercise:  Personal training with Lindsey today.

Summary:

two healthy extra As

one healthy extra B

two syns

From the freezer:

bread

chicken

passata