Syn Free Food Treat

I've got out of the habit of having regular food treats. It's something I used to do years ago when I got to target weight. I'd follow plan weekdays and then eat what I wanted at the weekend, then the weekend crept into Friday, then Thursday....you get the idea? Diets I've followed before had always be so much more restrictive on what and how much you can eat that it's so easy to fall off the wagon as soon as you start eating normal food at normal quantities on the weekend. 

As I've found Slimming World to be so much more like a healthy eating plan where you just tweak normal every day food, in normal portions I don't really feel like I need a treat - other than wine ;-) I'm probably happier with a Slimming World burger than a Whopper from Burger King these days! I also like how they don't ask you to up your Syns once at target, which would just encourage me to slip back into bad habits. 

The easier a plan is to follow the easier it is to stick to and end up as a new normal . The more difficult and time consuming it is to follow the more likely I am to get fed up of it's restrictiveness and go off plan. It's easy to be more laid back around planning meals if all you have to have is a fridge full of normal food. As long as it's there you don't have to plan everything in advance, you can just open the fridge and decide on the spot. It's also nice and easy to have fall back food in the cupboard or freezer for a busy day. Pasta, couscous, tuna, beans, potatoes, Iceland ready meals...I could go on! So it's not the end of the world if you've not had time to spend all day planning your evening meal, then weighing and measuring it all out when you get in before you can even cook and eat it!

Whilst the food optimising plan might seem really complicated when you first read through it, as it begins to make sense and sink in it's surprisingly easy to follow. If you're struggling get help in group, or most Slimming Word groups have online Facebook pages only accessible by the members of their group where you can get help, support and advice.

I digress, now I just need to decide what to have for dinner and which pepper pot to use first!!

How the order you eat your food affects your health......

Interesting article here ......

How the order you eat your food affects your health: Eating protein and veg BEFORE carbs makes you fuller for longer and could help diabetics control their blood sugar.

Now, however, scientists say it's the order in which we eat food that is key, rather than eliminating key food groups.

Starting a meal by eating vegetables and protein, and finishing it with carbohydrates, keeps us fuller than if we ate the same foods in the reverse order. 

This is because protein slows down the release of sugar from carbohydrates into the blood stream, preventing a sugar 'high' and then crash - and hunger pangs.

Read more by clicking the link above.....

Love Your Freezer

Brilliant article here from the Hello Healthy blog about freezing stuff! I use my freezer loads now and quite often batch cook stuff, portion it up and shove some in the freezer. I also use frozen fruit quite a lot as love the fruit juice you get when it thaws.

Total 0% yogurt with  sweetener, chocolate Hi-Lights Bourneville flavour with frozen blueberries and strawberries.



Quark with sweetener, lemon flavouring, frozen blueberries, strawberries and mango with a crushed meringue nest.

Best Way To Peel A Boiled Egg!

I LOVE a boiled egg, I HATE peeling boiled eggs! I saw this on the internet a few weeks ago and gave it a go when making the Slimming World Gala Pie and it's brilliant! Mine didn't quite turn out as well but were definitely easier to peel than usual!

Should you weigh yourself every day?

I found this interesting article following a discussion a few weeks ago before Image Therapy on weighing in at home between official group weigh in. Give it a read and make up your own mind!

Guardian Article - Clicky Clicky

I’m firmly in the “Every Day” camp and have been for some years…….when I’ve not been off plan and avoiding the scales completely! I’m very much an all or nothing type of person. In the past I’ve been either strictly dieting or face down in a plate of burger and fries! Slimming World is changing that for me, at least in the healthy eating area of my life!

Firstly back to the scales, and the weighing in daily thing. I think it’s again a bit of an all or nothing thing. As I weigh in every day I know how my home scales compare to group scales so there’s no big surprises on the night! I’ve also got used to weight fluctuations the differences between morning and evening, before and after the weekend. The conversation we were having at group was about having a sneaky weigh in before the official one and being gutted to find the home scales are screaming a gain at you when you’ve been 100% on plan and are expecting a loss! It’s so disappointing and disheartening but I think  if you’re just hopping on the home scales every once in a while you don’t have the same comparisons as you do when weighing daily. The key, I think, is consistency, either do, or don’t nothing in between LOL .

Which brings me to my all or nothing personality. I’m pretty much like this in all things, however having first started Slimming World back in 2013 and getting to target I started going to group just once a month and not sticking around for Image Therapy which eventually turned into not going at all. Slowly the weight crept back on, but much slower that it has done in the past when I’ve stopped whatever diet plan I’d been doing. What I realised when I re-started was that although I’d been off plan a lot of the principles of Food Optimising had stuck and started to become part of my normal eating habits. Using Frylight, buying 5% mince and removing all the fat from meat, skin from fish etc. So whilst I was eating far too much bread (I love a sandwich) and not keeping a check on Synned food I was still following the basic principles. It’s all a learning curve, learning new habits and making them become your normal. I’m getting there, it’s not going to happen overnight.

One of the things I’ve also found is that getting the right group for you is also key. Check out your local groups, we also have some people who don’t live locally but who work locally and come straight from work to weigh in. My old group was great, the consultant was brilliant, but the timings just didn’t really work for me, which is one of the reasons I lapsed. Stay to Image Therapy, make that part of your normal. It’s an hour a week to get that little bit of extra help. Make friends, swap tips, get support when you’re struggling and give support when you’re doing well!

Slimming World - Find a Group