Thread: Tracey's healthy yummy lovely journey

This is my brand spanking new food diary. I'm Tracey, I'm 23 and I live in Ireland.

I recently finished my Masters after an 5 year stint in University. I'm in the big bad world now in a job where I am learning lots but earning not so much. It is a positive experience though and will stand to me I love food. Everyone says it but i mean it from the depths of my soul. If i could talk to God I'd ask him to reconsider and make me a skinny person who can eat what they want

This leads me to my next point, I am overweight. I'd like to lose about 3.5 stone and be at a healthy weight of 10.5 stone. I am 5 foot 6.5. So far I have lost about 25 pounds through a combination of yo yo dieting over the years. LOTS of ups and downs but overall thankfully it has been progress overall.

I'm young but i've tried it all. 'healthy eating', weight watchers, starving myself, binge eating, stupid magazine diets, cabbage soup diet, and slimming world. What works for me? Slimming World does. It suits me perfectly because I love healthy food, but i have the leigh-way to make delicious healthy meals.

My boyfriend and i cook together a lot. It's a life change for both of us.

As easy as Slimming World is i find myself still yo yo'ing with it and i want that to end now.

I'm smack bang in the middle of a couple of weeks of weddings, holidays, birthdays etc and it is soooo difficult to stay on track. Seems to be a feast or a famine with me. But not for long, a serious revamp and life change is on the way.

Here goes welcome friends!

Oh and I have a tendancy to take pictures of food I make and eat, hope that's ok :-)

Hi Tracey, I found you!! Welcome to SW and minimins! I think you're in the BEST place you can be when it comes to inspiration and support. There will always be ups and downs but as long as you keep persevering you'll get to goal! I've been on this journey for over 3 years, got to target, got pregnant and had a baby and now pregnant again through it all lol! I've dabbled with WW & SW (I get bored...) but I eat pretty much the same things and lots of variety. I have a HUGE amount of cookbooks and I like to try new and unusual recipes.

Anyway welcome, I look forward to reading your food diary!

Hi Honey

Thank you for the message of support, it is very appreciated. I love your diary so i can only hope that mine is even a fraction as good as yours. I love inspiring others and being inspired by others, that's what it's all about in my opinion. It never feels like a 'diet' to me when I am eating gorgeous tasty food and have a lot of variety in my diet. And colour, I am a big lover of different colours on my plate. God bless vegetables! Wow, pregnant twice throughout this journey and still you remain so dedicated and inspiring. I have to actually give myself a little telling off when i'm in work because I find myself constantly logging on to look at your diary. So well done on being brilliant I look forward to a long mini mins career I am feeling very positive and motivated.

Well everyone, I am home from the wedding in Kerry! It was a fabulous weekend - lot's of good times, quality time with my man, and some stunning views of the West Of Ireland. The food I ate was abysmal.. Lots of fattening food, alcohol, desserts and snacks. It was to be expected though so I genuinely don't have guilt or regrets, just a lot of motivation now to get back on track. Events that are forthcoming include my birthday next weekend, a baby shower on Sunday, then my brothers 21st the following weekend, then a wedding the following weekend and finally a holiday in the sun immediately after. YES I am one lucky lady and I worked/am working incredibly hard to be able to afford all these things which just so happen to have all happened at once, but this kind of things BREATHES weight-gain. The next couple of weeks, realistically will not involve losses. My aim is to maintain. As it stands I can imagine I am up 3/4 pounds as of this week. I now need to be proactive and have a positive approach to things. My plan is as follows :

Food Diary, first and foremost. I plan to do a food diary every day this week to stay accountable. That begins today. This weekend for my birthday I will be going out to dinner with my boyfriend so I will enjoy myself that night. The baby shower will probably have sweet things and crisps etc. I will be staying away from these for SURE! The weekend after is my brothers 21st. I will save syns so that I have a little lee-way on the night to have a little bit of finger food, but I won't over-indulge. As for the wedding, well that's another set-meal I won't have control of and the holiday? Well a holiday is a holiday. There is a re-occurring theme here guys. While I may not have a whole lot of control at these events such as birthdays, weddings, holidays, I DO have control over the other days. The wedding is only three out of 7 days. My birthday and the baby shower are only two out of seven days. See where I am going with this? If I am disciplined and organized on those other days then in theory i should be able to prevent a gain. I am not looking for a loss. That's unrealistic, but I am aiming to maintain. If by the time I go on holiday I was within the region of 14 stone then I would be a VERY happy lady. At my last weigh in I was 14 stone 2 pounds, so if I stay within that region I will be delighted. I know that this will involve making up for the inevitable gains caused by these social events by being extra good on the other days. I know I can do this!

I've been to the shop this morning so my work-fridge is stocked with everything I need this week. I got yoghurts, bananas, apples, laughing cow light triangles, food doctor multi-seed pita breads, some salad and some pink milk for tea and coffee. Once I am organized and stocked up with what i need I usually do just fine. I'll be using my Slimming World App today to double-check the syns of things and I'll be doing a few little tweaks in terms of slimming world such as using the multiseed pitas as Health Extra B. They are small round Pitas and full of seeds and fibre so I am happy with that. Each to their own and all that.

The goal for this week is to have stayed the same when i go to weigh-in on Monday. This basically involves me having an angelic week and then not splurging too much for my birthday this weekend. I'm feeling positive and I am going to strong this week, I can just feel it.

Hope everyone is feeling positive :-) can't wait to get stuck in to all your diaries today... if only I could be paid to do that!

Subscribing as I've seen you around in Honey's diary so thought I'd

pop in and say hello and good luck for your weight loss journey

Hi Mumma K,

Thanks so much for stopping by and for the support. I will be subscribing to your thread also. My God you have done astonishingly well, what an inspiration you are. I'm really looking forward to having a good look at your thread now :-)

Thanks again

I will be most definitely putting yesterday behind me and moving on!

The first part of my day went fine, I had a ryvita and laughing cow light for breakfast with a banana. For lunch I had a multiseed toasted pita with ham, lettuce, tomato, onion, egg and a little coleslaw with a yoghurt and some fruit. For the rest of the day I just went nuts with food. Chocolate, chips, chinese, crips, white bread... WHY? I firmly believe it was 100% comfort eating. I know that because I'm definitely an emotional eater and at the moment I am feeling stressed and a bit down about certain things.

I completely regret what I had. If I had even left it at the chinese (fillet beef with vegetables and blackbean sauce with boiled rice, about 5 syns) then my day would have been right on the ball, but it's as if I always have to have more. It's not hunger, it's boredome and sort of pushing things to that back of my head and replacing it with food. I have learned my lesson because I feel awful about it today. I feel out of control and weak and that's not a fun feeling. So here I am, recomitting and completely putting that one day behind me. I still have 6 full days to make up for it, and I plan to do that 100%. I can already feel myself perking up and feeling more positive.

Game plan for today? I have already had one ryvita and a laughing cow triangle for breakfast, a banana and a coffee also. For lunch I will be having a multi-seed pita with ham,egg, lettuce, tomato, onion, and a little coleslaw served with an apple and a 0% fat yoghurt and a bottle of water.

For dinner I will be having 100% free food and lots of veggies. possibly wholemeal pasta with lots of veg but to be honest I'm leaning towards some sort of concoction involvoing tins of tomatoes, loads of veg, chilli, chickpeas etc because the weather here is rotten today and that will be a nice comforting dinner.

I am so determined to have a brilliant day today, that's all I need to get me out of this funk.

Can anyone offer some advice on the following... I never have my full milk allowance for Healthy Extra A. I usually have about two cups of tea (usually only ends up being half of the 350ml of skimmed milk, if even) and then I might have two laughing cow light triangles. I KNOW in terms of being a Slimming World saint you can't mix and match those things, but surely in theory you can? I don't have the full quota of either. Can I mix and match like this and consider it to be Healthy Extra A? I would appreciate your input as I know some of you swear by some Slimming World tweaks. The same question goes for Healthy Extra B. for example, i have these Food Doctor multi-seed not-so-huge pita breads and i consider then to be healthy extra B. The Slimming World Gods wouldn't though. It does make sense to me though and my gutt feeling is that it's fine to do it this way as all in all it's a healthy, low fat and balanced diet involving lots of fruit and veg, fibre and seeds from the pita( or bread equivalent in whatever form it may be), calcium and protein and it's all low in calories etc. I would love your input on this fellow Slimming Worlders.

Thanks in advance x

Tracey, I've always mixed my HEA's and had it in parts
I also don't drink a lot of milk either ....
All sounds like its going well with you

Hi Tracey! I'm so sorry you're feeling down about what you ate yesterday. You sound really self aware and in tune with your emotions which is half the battle. A lot of times we bury our feelings of anxiety (or whatever) to the point where we don't even really know why we feel "out of sorts" and eating all the wrong things. I'm a boredom/emotional eater too and I find having nothing to do a real danger zone for overeating. Luckily, I'm kept pretty busy with a toddler.

I replied your HEX query in my diary, but to reiterate you can definitely mix and match your HEXs! Just make sure you calculate the proportions accurately. So you can have 125ml semi skimmed milk + 15g cheddar cheese, 1 weetabix + 1 small slice wholemeal bread etc. As for tweaking Bs I always check the fat and fibre content of the bread I'm interested in and if it's the same or lower fat and the same or higher fibre than a SW approved brand then I'll call it a HEX! The only exception is the food doctor one which is higher in fat than the SW approved one but how can one dispute the wholesome healthiness of it?! Plus it's never affected my losses.

I just realised I made no sense in my last post when I said "I eat pretty much the same things and lots of variety" LOL!! What I meant was whether I'm following SW or WW I still eat pretty much the same things, i.e. lean meats, wholegrains, low fat calcium, plenty of fruit and veg etc and I keep things varied! So it's not like when I'm on WW I eat lots of processed food and white bread because technically I can! When I got to target before I got pregnant this time, I reached target with WW but as you can't follow it whilst pregnant I've gone back to SW which I'm just loving! Hope that makes sense now... Oops!

Good luck with the plan for today and don't stress about the days when you have no control over the food you're served. I think you've got it absolutely right sticking to plan when you can. Much better than "sodding it all" and just going to town until you get back from your holiday, who knows what the damage could be then! Well done!

Originally Posted by Honeyoc

Hi Tracey! I'm so sorry you're feeling down about what you ate yesterday. You sound really self aware and in tune with your emotions which is half the battle. A lot of times we bury our feelings of anxiety (or whatever) to the point where we don't even really know why we feel "out of sorts" and eating all the wrong things. I'm a boredom/emotional eater too and I find having nothing to do a real danger zone for overeating. Luckily, I'm kept pretty busy with a toddler.

I replied your HEX query in my diary, but to reiterate you can definitely mix and match your HEXs! Just make sure you calculate the proportions accurately. So you can have 125ml semi skimmed milk + 15g cheddar cheese, 1 weetabix + 1 small slice wholemeal bread etc. As for tweaking Bs I always check the fat and fibre content of the bread I'm interested in and if it's the same or lower fat and the same or higher fibre than a SW approved brand then I'll call it a HEX! The only exception is the food doctor one which is higher in fat than the SW approved one but how can one dispute the wholesome healthiness of it?! Plus it's never affected my losses.

I just realised I made no sense in my last post when I said "I eat pretty much the same things and lots of variety" LOL!! What I meant was whether I'm following SW or WW I still eat pretty much the same things, i.e. lean meats, wholegrains, low fat calcium, plenty of fruit and veg etc and I keep things varied! So it's not like when I'm on WW I eat lots of processed food and white bread because technically I can! When I got to target before I got pregnant this time, I reached target with WW but as you can't follow it whilst pregnant I've gone back to SW which I'm just loving! Hope that makes sense now... Oops!

Good luck with the plan for today and don't stress about the days when you have no control over the food you're served. I think you've got it absolutely right sticking to plan when you can. Much better than "sodding it all" and just going to town until you get back from your holiday, who knows what the damage could be then! Well done!

Thank you Honey!

Yes I do agree that half the battle is recognizing that you are emotionally eating, but the problem is that while I can be fully aware of it I still do it. Sometimes I can get out of control with it, but I think I have finally reached a point where I no longer want to experience that guilt and horrible feelings of weakness. It's just not worth it.

Oh I can only imagine how busy a toddler must keep you. Is being a Mammy amazing? I literally cannot wait to have kids. Right now it wouldn't be financially feasable though I hate saying that but one needs a nice home and money to sustain a family of three. Right now we are earning just about enough to pay rent, bills, food and a little extra for social things when we move in together next year! When one of us or both of us get a job that pays decent money I'll be thinking more seriously about it. Sounds sad but being a Mother is what i feel i was born to do. I am the oldest of five and I just feel so drawn to it. I honestly can't wait. Thankfully my boyfriend is the same, though like me he feels we have to think practically in terms of being able to provide for a little person. What do you and your hubby do? Your home looks lovely from the little bit of the kitchen I've seen in the pictures, lol!

Oh I know what you mean about Weight Watchers and Slimming World. Personally I prefer SW. I got very bored with WW because of all the pointing and calculating, it just didn't feel natural and also the fact that technically I could justify white bread, chocolate etc and there wasn't a huge focus on healthy eating. I remember years ago they had the Core Plan which i loved, but they got rid of that, in Ireland anyway. Then i discovered Slimming World and I fell in love immediately. I love that it's actually a healthy eating plan and it, in my opinion, is a sustainable way to managte your weight. I can't see myself ever becoming bored, I can actually order things in restaurants that I enjoy and don't have to feel guilty about, and I can pretty much have any of my favourite food in a Slimming World friendly way. I honestly just LOVE it. my boyfriend is not as strict as I am. He doesn't really syn things or counts his Healthy Extras, but he does 'healthy eating' now and eats vegetables most days which is such a difference from how he was before. He is not a great fruit eater but he LOVES cooking and makes some gorgeous dinners! I can't wait to try some of these recipes on your blog and see what he thinks (especially the Jambayala, which I think is similar to a dish we love called Nasi Goreng in it's ricey/vegetably/prawny nature).

I can't wait to try the smoked Paprika tonight, really hope I get it in Tesco! lol

So glad you gave me that info on the Healthy Extras, thank you! So in terms of the Food Doctor pita bread... do you think it's unrealistic to count it as a HEB or do you think i'd be OK? They're so yummy!

Aw I'm sure you'll make an amazing mummy! Being a mom is a lot harder than I thought in some ways and a lot easier in other ways. Not being able to go out whenever I want and come home whenever I want is the hardest thing for me but the actual mothering, teaching, guiding etc has been such a pleasure. It also helps that the person you caring for is the love of your life lol. I've become a lot stronger, more resilient and more assertive since I had her. I know now for a fact that I would do anything to protect her. I can forge on and have a very productive day depite having had 2 hours sleep, I can look after her and do everything for her that I always would despite being ill with the flu etc. You somehow find the strength from somewhere and do what you need to do to take care of your little one. I also know that I will fight for her, stand up for her (and TO her) and quite literally stand in the way of any danger coming her way. I never used to be so assertive, before I had a child I didn't think there was anything that would draw out such an impassioned response from me as I've always been pretty laid back. It's pretty primal. The great thing is that it's spilled onto other areas of my life!

I've also learned that love really can be limitless and unconditional, for your child anyway lol! Having your child hug you and reach for you and learn what you've taught them is the most amazing feeling! I just can't get my head around the fact that 2 years ago my little girl didn't exist and now she's here, a separate fully functioning (albeit clumsy) individual who's come seemingly out of nowhere! It's so hard to comprehend even though she's clearly here and healthy and active and chubby and gorgeous! Some days I look at her and think, how are you here?!!! LOL! Sorry I'm dribbling

You're so lucky you have a boyfriend who loves cooking! My husband just loves eating lol! He cooks more often now (once a week-ish) but that's only because I'm pregnant! LOL! He's wonderful in other ways though. I can't remember if you asked me here or in my diary but he's a company director and I'm a stay at home mom at the moment. Before I had Rosie I had an amazing job working for Lush as a product developer! When this baby I'm carrying is about 2, I plan on going back to work though it would never be to the same level of committment as my main job now is being a mama!

WOW, what an absolutely beautiful way to talk about motherhood, just gorgeous! I can only imagine how crazy it must be looking at her and thinking how has she not always been there. What kind of affect did he have on OH? I'd say it changed him big time from what i've seen with first time fathers, new perspectives and priorities etc.

Company director ooooh how very fancy. That's great that he has a good job, you are very fortunate. Is he a monday-friday 9-5r? Hopefully you guys get as much family time as possible, though sometimes do you ever just feel like there are not enough hours in the day?

Omg LUSH! I absolutely adore Lush, that must have been a great job. Were you in an office or a factory or a shop or what? Sounds so exciting!

Yeah i'm pretty lucky that my boyfriend is a good cook. It's so adorable seeing him get excited about our future home and all the culinary experiences we can have. He is currently obsessed with the idea of making bread, haha!

So i went to tesco looking for smoked paprika but to no avail i settled for paprika and hopefully that with fresh chilli, garlic and aome curry powder i should have a tasty concoction tonight.

In other news i also got mung beans, hooray. I'm so scared to try make these wraps in case they dont work out haha! I also don't have a rolling pin, shoot that could be a problem!!

I am feeling so incredibly proud of myself right now. I has a perfect on-plan day and I had gorgeous tasty good. I feel so satisfied and happy. I said it all along, i just needed one proper good day to set me off. I am feeling great right now.

My food today was as follows :

Breakfast - one ryvita dark rye (1.5) with one laughing cow light triangle (1/4 HEA) and a banana.

Lunch :
Food doctor pita (HEB?))with ham, boiled egg, lettuce, tomato, onion and about half a table spoon of coleslaw (2 syns) with a 0% fat free yoghurt

Snack : fruit and milk in tea (HEA)


Thats my shopping haul today


Dinner was AMAZING! A concoction made eup of loads of vegetables, spicynsss, prawns and its all free which is the best part.

Total syns for the say : 3
HEA : half pink skimmed milk and half laughing cow triangles. Yummy food!

Fabulous and loving your food haul too lovely healthy stuff

Ooh and good luck making the mung bean wraps

Hi Tracey, just read your diary, you have a great attitude towards your weight loss journey. We've all obviously joined slimming world to
Lose weight, but if we don't account for special occasions and forgive ourselves for any over indulgences at them then the plan isn't sustainable and we will ultimately fail because we'll choose life over weight loss, so you've got the perfect attitude; enjoy yourself at events without feeling guilt over food you cannot control and just get back on it when you are in control good job hunny! It's exactly how I look at it too, I've recently had my first child and am getting married august next year and I'm determined to lose weight to be healthy for my son and to look gorgeous in my wedding dress, but I don't deny myself a treat at special occasions, I just get straight back on it as soon as I'm responsible for my own food again and I'm doing pretty well so far! Still a way to go but I'm excited for it. My ultimate goal is 10 stone 7lbs to hopefully be a size 12, as I'm naturally very curvy and there's no way I'd suit being any slimmer!

Anyway, just wanted to say well done on your great attitude and best if luck (sorry if this post doesn't make sense, I'm awake unable to get to sleep at the moment because I'm full of cold, and can tend to ramble in this state lol). Xx

Please ignore the typos in last nights post, i was half alseep when writing it. I kept falling asleep with my phone in my hand, lol!

I'm trying to upload a photo but its telling me it 'exceeds' my quota. Can anyone shed some light on this??