Christmas Challenge, day 13 (14 really)

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 I ate yesterday:

Still no photos because . . .

I wasn't very hungry through the day so just grabbed fruit as and when.
I had Dave and Anna round for dinner and there just wasn't the opportunity to take photos.  You may or may not remember that I had pretty much prepped everything a fortnight ago and they had to cancel and the last minute so most of it went into the freezer.

What I did:

I made roast potatoes and onion.
I made honey mustard carrots and parsnips

I air fried sprouts and bacon

The main event was steak and chestnut slices.  I already had some of my rough puff pastry from when they had to cancel a fortnight ago and chunks of steak from a M&S can of chunky steak (it's delicious and worth it for special occasions) with the gravy sieved off.  To that I just added some crumbled chestnuts and turned that and the pastry into three 'slices' (like flat pasty type things).
The lemon cheesecake had frozen beautifully so that was good.

It was really lovely - but a long way from being SW or Med healthy

Today's meal plans:

B:  lemon buckwheat pancakes with spiced yogurt 🎅

L:  marmite cheese on toast; fruit

D:  potato topped steak, chestnut 🎅 and veg pie, veg; fruit

I have a bit of the steak and a very few veg left from last night

Exercise:  Lindsey's advent calendar exercises

And I REALLY hope I can get back to normal for three days now - until the next one.  Fingers crossed, please.

Christmas Challenge, day 12

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.

Having said the above, it's not been great today because my friend and I went out for a lunchtime meal which was absolutely delicious.
I had pate to start with and then went on to pan roasted turkey escalope wrapped in bacon with a sage and onion stuffing and a red wine jus with roasted potatoes, carrots, parsnips and sprouts.  So, so good.  My friend had a dessert and we both had coffee.
In the evening, I dug a ciabatta out of the freezer and made a cheese and cranberry toastie.  Again, delicious amd festive but not SW or Med friendly.
And no photos, sorry.  

It's SW today and, unsurpringly, I won't be weighing.  

Friday's meal plans are:

B:  fruit and yogurt

L:  soup and fruit

D:  Dave and Anna are round for dinner and I am doing steak and chestnut slice with roasted potatoes and onions, spiced parsnips, carrots and some other veg, not sure what yet.  All cooked from scratch apart from the steak which came from a couple of M&S cans!
And there will be pudding!

Exercise:  housework, etc

Back to normal for a few days from tomorrow.  In fact, back to basics!

Christmas Challenge, day 11

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.

Please m,ay I commend a YouTube channel to you today.
I have a lovely online friend, Roe, who is such a kind, helpful and empathic soul.  
Her channel really is an extension of herself - kind, thoughtful and analytical.
We would love for her channel to get to a thousand subscribers before Christmas so, if you can, please do take a look and show her some love by subscribing.
Thank you.

https://www.youtube.com/@ItsJustMyWeigh

What I ate today:

Fruit (apple, pear and kiwi) and spiced yogurt

Syn free

I know this looks like a right jumble of stuff but it is a small jacket potato, the leftovers of yesterday's chicken pasta bake and a salad.

One healthy extra A for the cheese on top, three syns for dressing and two syns for the leftovers.

And, after the school governors' meeting, a nice, simple baked beans on marmite toast.

One healthy B

Plus a couple of nice biscuits at the governors' meeting

Tomorrow's meal plans:

B: fruit and yogurt

L:  Lunch out with a friend

D:  Maybe a toastie I'm not sure right now.  xx

Exercise:  er  - not sure.

Christmas Challenge, day 10

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.

Well, today went really well, thank goodness.  I was rather shocked how quickly a healthy plan can descend into - well, let's be polite and call it 'not so healthy'.
I got on my scales this morning and was utterly shocked - in a not good way.  I may not be weighing on Friday.  I know but SW doesn't necessarily need to know.  :-)

What I ate today:

This was just what I needed.  Beans on toast is such a comfort food and adding umami in the form of marmite and a bit of brown sauce is just perfect.

One healthy extra B and half a syn.

I also had a couple of easy peelers before Groove class.

And another real comfort meal.
I used the rest of the tomato and lentil soup and to it added some cooked carrot, peas, sweetcorn and cooked chicken and reheated it.  So good and so comforting.

And syn free.

I will definitely be making this soup again - so simple and very delicious!

Later, I had more easy peelers.

Dinner was also scrummy.
I softened onion, pepper, mushrooms and tomatoes, added garlic granules, sweetcorn and peas plus some chicken stock powder, pepper and some chopped tomato.  Then I mixed in cooked pasta (30g raw weight) and some crumbled chestnuts before topping it with grated mozzarella and popping it in the oven.

It made loads.  I had all the cheese but have saved about half of the mixture for tomorrow's lunch

So . . . one healthy extra A, half a healthy extra B, three syns for chestnuts and two syns for evoo.

Summary:

one healthy extra A

one healthy extra B

five and a half syns

Tomorrow's meal plans:  

B: fruit and spiced yogurt 🎄

L:  jacket potato with the chicken and veg 🎄 (because of the chestnuts) plus cheese as a topping, side salad; fruit

D:  beans on toast

I have a meeting that starts at five thirty which makes things very difficult for dinner so, as I have baked beans left over from lunch, I'll have the rest on toast for a quick meal.

Exercise:  personal training

Christmas Challenge, day 9 - late again!

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.

Another late one, so sorry.  Again, please pretend this was posted on the evening of the 9th, rather than the morning of the 10th.
Thank you.

Yesterday didn't end well and I have confessed this below.  Positive vibes needed for the rest of the week, please.  I think I'm a bit post-virally really, that's all.

What I ate today:

The fruit was orange, blueberries, kiwi and pear and I flavoured the yogurt with a festive spice mix I made.

One syn for seeds

Lunch with a friend went really well.

We had the tomato and lentil soup which was free and a toastie which was an A, a B and half a syn.

Dessert was an easy peeler.

It was all going so well until I spoiled it with mulled wine, mince pies (in the plural) and cashew nuts.  Oh, dear.

No idea of SW values.

Tomorrow's meal plans:

B:  beans on toast
Not very Mediterranean but sometimes one just has to.

L:  What's left of the soup to which I will add left over chicken and possibly some veg as well; fruit

D:  chicken pasta bake; fruit

Exercise:  Groove and the walk there and back.

Christmas Challenge, day 8

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.

It's going to be a chickeny sort of week coming up.  I treated myself to a chicken, roasted it in Nellie yesterday, took all the meat off this morning and boiled up the bones, skin and other bits for stock.  It's provided me with protein for three meals already, three tomorrow (me and a friend for lunch and me for the evening) plus stock for tasty soups, etc

Chicken may not be as cheap as it was but it is still good value as long as you use every bit.  It's lean, healthy and a good source of protein.  

What I ate today:

I enjoyed this very much.  Inside there's tomatoes and mushrooms and I added a drizzle of brown sauce for one syn.

This was delicious.

Roast chicken, stuffing balls, spiced parsnips, roasties, sprouts, carrots and corn on the cob plus cranberry sauce.

One and a half syns for chestnuts crumbled into a rosemary and onion sausage (free) for the stuffing balls.

Half a syn for the cranberry sauce - home made with a mix of demerara sugar and sweetener.

One syn for some maple syrup that I added to an all rounder spice mix for the parsnips

And that, I think, is that.

Later on I had a couple of easy peelers.

This was my evening meal.  I went to the freezer to get bread and found a single rather battered wrap so used that instead to make a cheese, chicken and cranberry sort of quesadilla.  It was scrummy!

Afters was a couple of easy peelers - they are so delicious at the moment, aren't they?

So it was one A for cheese, one B for the wrap, one syn for some seeds and two syns for oil in some dressing.

Summary:

one healthy extra A

one healthy extra B

seven syns

Tomorrow's meal plans:

B:  festive spiced yogurt 🤶and fruit

L:  tomato and lentil soup, chicken and cranberry 🤶 toastie.

I have a SW friend over to share this with.

D:  cheesy chicken and chestnut 🤶 pasta salad; fruit

Exercise:  circuits - totally back to it this week.

Christmas Challenge, day 7

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.

Apologies for being late (again).  Just imagine this was posted Saturday evening, please.  
Thanks!

What I ate today:

Blueberry pancakes with lemon and sweetener and some yogurt.  Delish!

Half a healthy extra B

Home made lentil and tomato soup.  Very easy, very simple - just a carton of chopped tomatoes with garlic and onion, three level tbsp red lentils, one level tbsp chicken stock powder and some water.

Sometimes that's all you need, isn't it?

Dessert was some grapes and an apple

Syn free

As I had roasted a chicken in Nellie in the afternoon, I changed my plans and made myself a lovely chicken sandwich with cranberry sauce.
I took what I though would be really good close ups but they all came out blurry and ununable.  Such a shame.

One healthy extra B and three syns for the cranberry sauce.

Summary:

no healthy extra As

one and a half healthy extra Bs

three syns

Tomorrow's meal plans:

B:  breakfast omelette wrap

Nothing particularly festive about this.

L:  roast chicken, cranberry sauce 🎅, 'stuffing' 🎅 spiced parsnips 🎅, sprouts with chestnuts and bacon🎅, carrots; fruit

Almost a proper Christmas roast dinner but not quite.  

The stuffing is just a reshaped onion and rosemary sausage, probably with a chestnut crumbled into it and maybe a bit of sage added.

D:  chicken, cranberry 🎅 and cheese toastie, salad; fruit

Exercise:  rest day