04-01-25

Hi, everyone!  Welcome to my blog where I talk about my ongoing Slimming World and associated health journeys.

What I ate today:

This was pretty filling.  A wholemeal muffin, toasted and filler with a couple of bacon medallions, an egg and a small squirt of brown sauce.  The side had a simple dressing that is half evoo and half acid (a mix of citrus juice and vinegar).

One healthy extra B, half a syn for sauce and one syn for dressing.

Lunchtime soup may not look that amazing but it was delicious and very filling - and syn free.  I had a hm fruit salad and yogurt for a dessert.

All syn free.

Later on, I had a nibble of leftover cheese.

One and a half healthy extra As

And a few nuts - six syns because I had already used my B

I got the recipe from BBC Good Food - steak and mushroom stroganoff - and just tweaked it to work with SW and what I had.  It was delicious.  At the bottom of the bowl was neither rice nor potato, it was bulgur wheat and it went very well.

One syn for some mixed seeds in the salad, two syns for some evoo and one for a bit of flour and that, I think, is that.

Summary:

one and a half healthy extra As

one healthy extra B

eleven and a half syns

Tomorrow's plans:

B:  fruit and yogurt

L:  roast lamb (Christmas leftovers), roasties and veg; fruit

D:  cheese and chutney toastie with salad; fruit

Exercise:  squats and balance

03-01-25 and Eat-Your-Syns-Friday

Hi, everyone!  It is still the Christmas season chez moi and will continue to be so until Twelfth Night, so I make no apologies for the ongoing Festive vibe in here. 

Having said that, I am trying, somewhat unsuccessfully, to get back on track.

It was buzzing at SW this morning.  We had ingoing members, returners and new members and it was so fri3endly and positive.  All in all, a lovely time.  
I don't have to weigh until the 31st which gives me four weeks to get back into the happy zone.

I've got it all written down so I don't forget.

Eat-Your-Syns-Friday has resumed with one proviso - it won't be junk, UPFs, that sort of stuff, it will be what SW calls 'savvy syns', items that enhance meals and are good for health such as olives, evoo, chestnuts, nuts, seeds and so on.

What I ate today:

Breakfast was oat pancakes (ok but not amazing) with fruit and yogurt.

Half a healthy extra B.

Later on, I had an easy peeler.

Yesterdays arrabbiata leftovers, warmed up with a side salad.

One and a half healthy extra As, one syn for some olives, one syn for mixed seeds in the salad and three syns for some salad dressing.

Later on, I had some grapes and a nibble of cheese.  Half a healthy extra A

When I was sorting out the freezer, I found what I thought must be a rump steak, just because it was so thick and seemed big to me.  I don't think it was huge as steaks go but too much for one meal so I thawed it out and cut half of it off and that's now in the fridge and I will make steak and mushroom stroganoff tomorrow evening.  Mmmm.

This was nice too.  Steak with some balsamic onion chutney, sweet potato fries that I seasoned with a little flour, salt and pepper - the flour gave them a slightly crunchy texture in places.  I dressed the salad with a tsp on toasted sesame oil which I really love.

Two syns for the chutney, two for the flour and two for the sesame oil - actually better than I thought it would be.

Then I had a couple of small apples for dessert.

Summary:

two healthy extra As

one healthy extra B (I will add the lunchtime seeds to the oats to make one B instead of synning them)

ten syns - so I didn't quite use them all but I was very satisfied and didn't want anything else.

Tomorrow's plans:

B:  bacon and egg muffin, tomatoes and mushrooms

L:  chicken and soup mix soup; fruit

D:  steak and mushroom stroganoff, rice ot jacket potato, assorted veg; fruit

Exercise:  squats, maybe a walk if the weather plays ball.

The Extra Bit:

Inspired by the Michael Mosely book, 'Just One Thing', I'm starting a cumulative little exercise and balance Thing.

I'm starting with twenty five squats consisting of five sumo squats, five plies, five knees together squats, five forward squats and five backward squats (I have no idea what some of these are called) and I will be doing this every day for a week.

Then, next Friday, I will be adding some balance things that a friend sent me yesterday.

And so on.  

After a while, as one more is added, the first one drops off (but will probably reappear at some point).

That's the idea anyway.

02-01-25 and a Zoe podcast

Hi, everyone!  It is still the Christmas season chez moi and will continue to be so until Twelfth Night, so I make no apologies for the ongoing Festive vibe in here. 

Having said that, I am trying, somewhat unsuccessfully, to get back on track.

I'll be weighing myself tomorrow morning rather than at group and I'm not expecting good news.  No worry though because I know exactly what to do and I have all the tools I need.  I really appreciate being in a good place, despite the ups and downs.

I have four weeks until I have to weigh at group to keep my membership and then another week of grace to get back into my happy zone.   Will that be enough?  Goodness knows but I'm giving it a good go anyway!  :-)

What I ate today:

Breakfast of smashed avo on a toasted bagel with smoked salmon, tomato and lettuce.  Delicious!

One healthy extra B and two and and half syns for the avocado.

A delicious carrot and lentil soup for lunch - onion, carrots, red lentils, fresh (and frozen) chicken stock, old bay spice, garlic granules and seasonings.  Boil it all up and blend it all down.  Delicious!

I've discovered I have some ham stock in the freezer - that will make a nice soup with lentils another time.

Syn free.

Later on I had three small easy peelers.

Dinner was also lovely.  I made a penne arrabbiata using a bit of tomato soup/sauce I found in the freezer plus onion, mushroom, pepper, tomatoes, olives, some shredded ham trimmings, chilli flakes, garlic and penne pasta.  When that was all ready I covered it with cheese and browned it under the grill.  It made two generous (as you can see) portions to have with a salad.

One and a half healthy extra As, two syns for salad dressing, one and a half syns for a few olives and two syns for a tsp evoo.

Summary (the first for a while!):

one and a half healthy extra As

one healthy extra B

eight syns, mostly for evoo

Tomorrow's plans:

B:  oat pancakes with fruit and yogurt

L:  penne arrabbiata leftovers, salad; fruit

D:  steak, sweet potato fries, salad or veg; fruit

Exercise:  squats and a Lindsey video

The Extra Bit:

I watched the new Zoe podcast on YouTube this morning and found it really good and helpful.

Prof. Tim Spector and Prof. Sarah  Berry talk about how to eat in 2025:  science backed tips to make this year a healthy one.

It was interesting and really informative so I will post the link below and just mention the seven tips.

1.  Reduce ultra processed foods.  Obviously, this one had to be there, didn't it?

2.  Have an eating window.  Even reducing your eating window to ten hours (which is quite generous really has considerable healthy benefits.

3.  Stop counting calories , they don't work.  Interestingly, Dr Chris van Tulleken talked about this in the last of his three RI Science Lectures too - which were brilliant, well worth watching, link to iPlayer below.

4.  Change your drink habits.

5.  Eat more plants, but you can still eat meat.  Aim for 30 different plants per week and eat less but good quality meats.

6.  Stop worrying about getting enough protein and focus on increasing fibre.

7.  Snack smarter.

Here's the YouTube link to the podcast.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRxbxmjjjdw

And here's the link to the third of the RI Christmas Lectures - although they are all worth watching if you are interested in the science of food.  https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0026b2r/royal-institution-christmas-lectures-2024-chris-van-tulleken-the-truth-about-food-3-the-big-food-hack.

01-01-25 - welcome to 2025 and a few decisions (posted early)

Hi, everyone!  It is still the Christmas season chez moi and will continue to be so until Twelfth Night, so I make no apologies for the ongoing Festive vibe in here. 

Having said that, I am trying, somewhat unsuccessfully, to get back on track.

I'm posting this early because I have family round this evening and it wouldn't get posted until tomorrow - and I have been doing too much of that lately!

What I ate today:

I enjoyed this breakfast - I ought to have smoked fish a bit more often.  I know this haddock has been dyed which is not great, but it is hard to get undyed smoked fish.

Syn free.

This really is an odds and ends lunch.  I made the sausage casserole ages ago and I think freezing it has improved things.  I forgot it was slightly spicy.

The coleslaw is the leftovers from yesterday's which dealt with a pretty wizened white cabbage.

The casserole was three syns (for the sausages) and the coleslaw was one syn so four syns altogether.

I'm doing a buffet for the evening - pizza, garlic bread, coleslaw (nicer coleslaw!), crisps, baked camembert with bread sticks, salad - and some mince pies/cake and some fruit for afters.  It won't take long and it won't be remotely on plan.

Tomorrow's plans:

B:   smashed avo, smoked salmon, tomatoes and leaves

L:  carrot and lentil soup; fruit

D:  penne arrabbiata, side salad; fruit

Exercise:  Lindsey exercise.

The Extra Bit:

Traditionally, we make resolutions for the New Year - resolutions that tend to have died the death a week or so into the New Year.

I have made a few decisions for January though - and then I will see.

1.  After tonight (I have family round tonight), January is going to be a dry month.   I've had far too much vino over the Christmas period and I know it is a trigger so it makes sense to stay off it.

2.  I'm doing a low spend month.  Linked to that, I have started sorting out the freezer (again) one bag at a time, making a list of what I have got (again), defrosting it when the sorting out is done and then using the list to plan my meals (again!)

Ditto for fridge (done yesterday) and cupboards

Yes - this comes up regularly but, to be fair, it is an ongoing thing.  After all, what are freezers for?

3.  I want to challenge myself to walk 5,000 steps a day.  Not 10,000, just 5,000.  That's more realistic for me and I'm not someone who walks around the house in the evening to try and make it up to the higher target.  I'd much rather be doing my knitting or crochet and that's hard to do while walking around!!!  😉

Ongoing stuff . . .

I already have the food structure and content sorted - it will be the same as before because it works for me. So, to recap:

SW structure - I'm not at target right now so no extra healthy7 extras, etc, but Eat Your Syns Friday will continue - it really worked.

Mediterranean style content for health/cholesterol reasons.

I'm most comfortable when using the 8-16 Intermittent Fasting way

Plenty of exercise with Lindsey, one way and another.

Going to group each week and staying for Image Therapy  - it really does help.

None of this is new but I know it works for me and 

How about you?  xx

31-12-24 - New Year's Eve

Hi, everyone!  It is still the Christmas season round here and will continue to be so until Twelfth Night, so I make no apologies for the ongoing Festive vibe in here. 

Having said that, I am trying, somewhat unsuccessfully, to get back on track.

Well, almost I managed two on-plan days on the trot - I am trying not to use value judgements like 'good' and 'bad' days but on-plan sounds very micro managed.
Mind you, I suppose that's what it is until I get back into targets range again.

What I ate today:

This might look a bit of a mess but it was really nice.  I evoo roasted yellow pepper, mushroom and tomato and added some bacon bits for the last five minutes.  Topped with a little brown sauce, it went down a real treat.  

Half a syn for the sauce and two syns for the evoo.

All leftovers from yesterday.  I wasn't sure it would work putting lamb hotpot and beans together, but it did!

I'm going to say one syn for the bit of spray oil on the potato slices.

More leftovers for dinner - a portion of the lamb and Christmas veg pasta bake with some coleslaw made with what I could salvage from a manky cabbage, carrot and apple with a mayo mustard dressing and some crunchy salad mix.

One A for cheese, one syn for mayo and half for mustard.

I'm not gpoing to do a summary because there were a few nibbles later on, sadly.

Tomorrow's plans:

B:  smoked haddock, tomatoes, mushrooms and an egg

L:  sausage casserole with quinoa - both found while sorting put the freezer

D:  It is New Year's Day, of course, and I have the family here for dinner.  I am doing pizza, salad, coleslaw, etc with fruit afterwards.  Semi-on-plan!!

Exercise:  housework, one of Lindsey's videos on YouTube.

The Extra Bit:

It's New Year's Eve and, inevitably, thoughts turn to the weeks and months ahead.  I've got some aims relating to health, fitness and food that I will be sharing with you tomorrow and which start Thursday.

I will just say that I have started a new freezer audit and there's no excuse not to have a healthy and low spend January, given the amount of protein stuff I have tucked away in there.