Saturday evening, 24-08-24 and a necessary change of direction

Good evening, everyone!

After getting back into my happy zone again (what I call SW's 'target range' - the seven pounds within one can fluctuate without needing to pay at group), I went to the GP for my medication review and was knocked a bit sideways by the news that while my blood pressure (what I have ongoing meds for) is totally normal (hoorah), my cholesterol, especially the 'bad' cholesterol, is higher than they would like.  Drat and bother!

So - that is my next challenge, to run alongside maintaining the current healthy weight:  to work on lowering my cholesterol through diet and lifestyle.
I've decided to use the Mediterranean diet - not for weight loss, obviously but, from what I understand, it is considered the most healthy way of eating in the world but it isn't restrictive of any one food group.  Also, how I am eating now is pretty close - it goes for meals cooked from scratch, loads of fruit and veg, lean protein and fish, whole wheat pasta and bread, etc, but also includes a bit more healthy oil and nuts so I need to look deeper and see how it can mesh with SW general principles.

I do have a few healthy extras to play with now and nuts/seeds can be healthy extra Bs, so that's going to work.  And it won't need a huge amount of olive oil, just more than I have been using and that can be synned.

If you have any advice or information that you'd like to share, or books to recommend. please do say in comments or get in touch with me via my blog email, address at the side.
And thanks.

What I ate today

A couple of friends gave me cooking apples from the garden so I stewed some with sweetener and cinnamon, added a few raspberries, folded it into Greek yogurt and topped it with 20g toasted oats and some pumpkin seeds with three raspberries on top for a pop of colour.
Utterly delicious!
Half a healthy extra B (oats) and one syn (seeds).

For lunch I used my usual recipe for both pancakes and waffles, decided on pancakes (or, rather, one bigger, thicker pancake) and Bob's your uncle.  Very tasty.

Half a healthy extra B and another syn for more pumpkin seeds (or I suppose I could call it part of another B now - must get used to this one).

In the evening, I split the leftover tomato and feta in half and popped half in the freezer.  I had a few green beans from the garden, not really enough for a portion, so I cooked them and added them to the sauce, added what was left of the chicken and beef skewers, cooked a small portion of pasta (I have wholewheat on the shopping list or maybe I should make some, it isn't hard) and mixed that in and, as the tomatoes were 'sweet', also added a few chilli flakes.  Just like an arrabbiata really ; spicy but not too hot.  Nice.

Working out syns is tricky.  I can safely say one healthy extra A and I am going to allocate six syns - it doesn't really matter because I'm still well within but there's certainly not a whole tbsp of olive oil in the sauce.

Summary:

one healthy extra A

one healthy extra B

eight syns

My meal plans for tomorrow:  learning to live the Mediterranean diet life

B:  fruit and yogurt, maybe some seeds too

L: Beth is round and there are some leftover bits and bobs from Friday night so it will be a sort of fridge rubble finger nibble sort of thing.

D:  toasted avocado and smoked salmon focaccia with a side salad; fruit

Exercise:  Weather permitting, I would like to do some gardening and maybe go for a walk later on.