How to work out syns on a ready meal

Hi all

I thinking of having ago at Slimming World from home. At the moment I'm trying to do myself a shopping list and a diet plan just to see if I can do slimming world because I'm such a fuzzy eater. So far from what I'm reading it seems good.

I have one of many questions which I'm sure I will ask later. If for you example I was to get a pasta, chicken & bacon in a cheese sauce ready meal how do I work out the syns? Or is it just not worth getting?

Thanks for reading.

A lot of people say if there's no free food use the 1 syn for every 20 calorie rule, ready meals tend to be quite high in syns especially if they contain creamy sauces

It is likely to be pretty high. The emphasis with SW is on cooking fresh, unlike weight watchers that heavily advertises its own convenience food. That said not all ready meals are created equal. If you join you will get access to the syns directory that give you the run down of what's good and what's less good.
As an example I put chicken bacon and pasta in and the top three ready meals came in at 18 / 19 and 14.5 syns. One, a tesco pasta salad with chicken and bacon was a whopping 32.5

Id steer clear and think about making your own. Some pasta, shredded chicken, chopped bacon (no fat) mixed through with some light Philadelphia with garlic and herb would be very low syn or even syn free if using the philli as a hex A

chug said:

Hi all

I thinking of having ago at Slimming World from home. At the moment I'm trying to do myself a shopping list and a diet plan just to see if I can do slimming world because I'm such a fuzzy eater. So far from what I'm reading it seems good.

I have one of many questions which I'm sure I will ask later. If for you example I was to get a pasta, chicken & bacon in a cheese sauce ready meal how do I work out the syns? Or is it just not worth getting?

Thanks for reading.

Click to expand...

The only way to work out the syns would be either looking it up on syns online or putting it through the online syn calculator. Depending on the brand and meal you can find low syn option x

As lickthelid said, there is a huge spread in the syn values of ready meals and it's very hard to know which ones are good without access to the Slimming World website, which you would have as a member. Two of my favourites, which I save for those days when I really can't be bothered to cook are Sainsbury's Classic Chicken Hotpot, which is 6.5 syns on EE and Tesco Finest Wiltshire Ham Hock, Leek and Potato Gratin (which is yummy, cheesy, and a big serving for 1) which is 5.5 syns for the whole thing.

Thank you all for your response its really helped. I'm trying to do this from home at the moment because money is very tight at the moment. I really have to then I may do 1 month online just so I can get the basics. Reading what you all have put has made my decision easier and that I'm not going for ready meals lol.

lickthelid - that pasta meal suggested sounds really nice I'm going to give that ago instead

Thank you all again.