Down Day - advice needed from the experts!!!

This is my first down day today as i started yesterday, but had an up day yesterday to tie in with weigh in saturday morning.

Am i right in thinking that I can have what i want for my down day up to about 500 cals?

I have cambridge shakes and am thinking of having one of them for about 140 cals (I think!!) but would rather have some salad/veg/fruit instead of another 2 shakes! Am I ok doing this?

Was thinking of making some veg soup (the type on WW was 0 points). I know i will need to count the cals and i only use swede, carrot and leek with veg stock cube. I think i would enjoy a bowl of that rather than a shake! I also noticed the slimfast shakes are higher in cals and could have a 'meal' instead of that.

Any tips for a newbie, I so want to give this a good go but don't want to slip up at the beginning.

Yes, you can have what you like on a DD as long as count the cals to be sure you don't go over.

Best of luck with your DD

The diet recommends using diet shakes to start with because they are easy and there is no possibility of cheating. I have proper food because I have decided that even when dieting I should still be able to enjoy what I eat - if I can only have 500 calories then they'd better be nice ones!

The calculator tool at the top of the page will help you work out exactly how many calories you can have, mine came out at 525. Veg soup would be excellent, you already know you have to count the calories of the ingredients. Barb started a thread for recipes and snack tips so we can share our "finds".

Good luck with the diet, I must say I am enjoying it much more than I expected. The general experience seems to be that the DDs are pretty easy, it's the UDs that cause problems, I concur with that.

Just be sure to weigh everything. You need good quality digital scales and to be exact. With only 500 cals to play with guesstimates don't cut it. I weigh lettuce, cucumber, everything!
I do find the mini milk lollies at 29/30/31 cals (depending on flavour) a real help as they take a while to eat as well as fooling you into thinking you have had a real treat!

Good luck on your first DD!

Love