Monday, 15-10-18

Good morning!
 Today I'm starting four days of Extra Easy SP in response to last week's little slip ups and to get the weight loss back on track.

As with the main plan, SP sounds more complicated than it really is but once you've got the main ideas of the plan in your head it's not really complicated..

Most fruit and veg are labelled 'Speed' foods (that's the S bit).  Some are not - starchy veg, for example.
A lot of fish, meat, poultry, eggs, etc are high protein and low fat, they are labelled as P.

On the SP plan, you can have any 'free' food that is labelled as either S or P.  The non S/P free foods are out; neither should you have them and syn them, you just shouldn't have them.  So that means starchy fruit and veg, rice, pasta, potato, etc, shouldn't be eaten.
To compensate for this, you should have two healthy extra Bs (the fibre part of the plan) as well as the usual one healthy extra A (calcium).

Finally, you can have between five and fifteen syns, as usual, but they must not be from the 'free' list.

That's basically it; not lower carb really, just restricting 'simpler' carbs.  There are some inconsistencies but I will just shrug them aside for now and give it a go.  It is suggested that you do SP for a week but I have four days until next weigh in so I'll see how it goes for those four days.  If I get on with it, I might do something like three days (Fri, Sat, Sun) on the main plan and the other four days on the SP plan.

Interestingly, the manual doesn't ban anything outright, it just suggests, but if you have a sudden craving for a banana, have it!   Anything that doesn't totally ban has my vote -  outright bans always get my back up!

So I have planned four days and researched new recipes.  I have some cash left over from my holiday to cover anything I need to get in.
Here we go!

B:  overnight oats with 100 mls milk, yogurt, blueberries and raspberries
The 40g oats are my first healthy extra B, the milk is two and a half syns and the fruit yogurt is 1 syn

L:  cheese, bacon and onion toastie with a side salad.
This is an experiment.  Because of the two Bs, I can have two slices of wholemeal from a small loaf.  I shall spread Dairylea over each slice (3 syn), then add 30g finely grated cheddar (that's my healthy extra A), a cooked bacon medallion (P) and some softened and finely sliced onion (S).  Then I will spray the outsides with oil, press the edges together (the soft cheese should help them to stick together) and toast it under the grill.  By the time the outside is nicely toasted, the inside should be hot and the cheese melted.  The side salad will be all Speed.
Fingers crossed that it works OK.

D:  five spice chicken with stir fry vegetables.
This is a recipe I found so I'll let you know.  All free apart from some sweet chilli sauce which will be one and a half syns.
Fingers crossed again!

Ss:  speed fruit; sadly, grapes are out, so it will be apple and orange


Here's hoping.