Christmas challenge, day 3, a pesky cold and a coffee review

Good evening, everyone, and welcome to my Christmas Challenge, 2024 where I try to give as much festive vibe to my everyday food as I can with the aim of staying on my healthy Mediterranean focused meals so that weight gain is minimal and I remain healthy.

What did I say about staying healthy?  There's no arguing with a cold, is there.  You feel yucky but it's not a dangerous thing (for most of us) and fairly soon over.  I opted out of Groove today and personal training will be on Saturday - thank you, Lindsey.

What I ate today:

I started on the other Christmas themed Oat Pantry oats today, cinnamon bun flavoured, for my overnight oats, adding yogurt, a splash of milk, some spiced cranberry skinny syrup and fruit (blueberries, raspberries and grapes) plus my mixed seeds.

Half a B for 20g oats and half a syn for the splash of milk

To make the smoked salmon pate, I simply blended some smoked salmon bits with some light soft cheese (which I am calling half a healthy A but that is unofficial so be careful) plus some lemon juice and zest and a pinch of dill.
I toast bread, remove the crust, then split in in half through the slice and pop the thin slices in Nellie to dehydrate.  I have to fasten them down or they fly up and burn.

Half a healthy extra B for one slice of toast and half an A for the soft cheese plus four syns for the evoo in the salad dressing and one syn for mixed seeds.

Later on I had a pear and a couple of easy peelers plus a chicken bouillon drink (which is free) because I wanted something very flavoursome.

I changed dinner plans a bit as I decided I didn't really want pasta so it was just a bean and olive bake.  I softened some veg including tomatoes in evoo, added some mixed beans, olives and Mediterranean herbs, stock and tomato puree plus a bit of marmite, added some grated cheese on top and popped it in Nellie for a short while to melt the cheese a bit.  Very easy and very tasty.

Two syns for olives, two syns for some evoo, two healthy extra As for cheese.

And that was me done for the day.

Summary:

two and a half healthy extra As

one and a half healthy extra Bs

eleven and a half syns - a bit high but not to worry!

Tomorrow's meal plans:

B: buckwheat, cranberry 🤶 and cinnamon 🤶 pancakes with fruit and yogurt

L:  avocado bagel with smoked salmon 🤶, salad; fruit

D:  chicken with cranberry sauce 🤶, veg; fruit

Exercise: lovely Lindsey has rescheduled personal training for Saturday morning so it will probably be a rest day.  

The Extra Bit:

Another review.

I love my coffee but I am in no way a coffee expert and I'm not, as a general rule, that keen of flavoured coffee.

However - this is delicious and I'm happy to own up that every time I have been to Morrisons, I have picked a box up.

It's just under £3 for ten so 30p per coffee which is a lot more than the wonky pods I usually buy but not in terms of paying for one at Starbucks.  And it is syn free!

I'm looking upon it as a December/Advent treat and am happy to recommend, if that's your thing.