Sarah83 climbing back on the wagon...

[sarah83]

Hi,
Well I've decided to take the plunge and jump back on the slimming world wagon. I used this forum religiously before getting pregnant 2 years ago and lost 2 stone in the year before getting pregnant.
Well I'm not yet back to my pre-pregnancy weight and I desperately want to slim down.
my daughter is 19 months old now and everywhere! But combined with looking after a crazy toddler I also work full time with 2 hours of commuting a day too. So time is truly at a minimum for me. I used to love cooking all sorts of tasty slimming world recipes, but now on weekdays once I put my daughter to bed I don't have the time or energy to cook a 'proper' meal so that's going to be my biggest challenge I think.

Over the last month or so I've been trying the 5:2 diet which in essence worked really well, until I got home and ate everything in sight! So I'm going to try slimming world again whilst figuring out how on earth to fit in some exercise!

I'm going to weigh in on Monday mornings (I'm not going to class but doing it at home) however this week I'm not officially starting the diet until Tuesday because of the bank holidays.

I will be cheating at weekends which I know isn't the right way to do it but its what works for me, and I'll be keeping my syns to a minimum during the week to try and compensate.

so between now and Tuesday I'll be having a nose around the forum, get my head back on track and hopefully find some of my old and new friends!

Sarah xx

 

[sarah83]

Well I weighed myself this morning so its all go!

I weighed in at 15st 1lb about what I was expecting so no nasty surprises. My first target is to drop down to just over 14st as this is what I did on SW before and was a comfortable size 16. Although at that time I had a fairly flat tummy not a big post pregnancy baby pouch so that's definitely something I have to tackle...

I've got my meals all planned. Breakfasts will be fruit salad which I'll make the night before and eat in work. Lunches at work include hot Thai stir fry from my fast day recipe book, and salmon salads. Dinners planned are chicken teriyaki, seafood spaghetti, Tarka Dahl, roast chicken and salad, and chicken fried rice/stir fry with the leftover roast chicken from the salad.

I'm sticking to extra easy and going to try really hard to make sure I stick to the 1/3 super free too. My HEXs will be alpen lights or olive oil probably for Bs and a combo of a little bit of milk (for coffees) and cheese for my As.

As I said before I am going to be lax at weekends (today included as its bank holiday), this is so i can relax and not put myself under so much pressure. So I'll try and minimise my syns in the week. My main weak area is vino so I'm going to force myself to cut it out in the week eek! That's going to be my biggest challenge I think.

And then at some point I will need to try and fit some exercise in... When I have no idea!

Wish me luck! .

 

[sarah83]

Well day 1 and so far so good.

Breakfast: Fruit salad - orange, strawbs, grapes & melon

Lunch: Hot thai stir fry veg out of my fasting cookbook. All superfree veg: red cabbage, broccoli, cauli, onion, mangetouts, babycorn, beansprouts, ginger, chilli, garlic in a fish sauce, soy and lime dressing. I stir fried it last night and had it chilled today. Wasn't sure if it would work but was really tasty and probably all 5 of my 5 a day in one sitting.

Dinner: Roast chicken, salad, new potatoes (vinagrette made from olive oil for my HEXB), cheese (half HEXA - other half used in milk for coffees) and EL salad cream (1 syn)

Snacks: Banana, pear, apple, chicken drumsticks

Total syns: 1

 

[sarah83]

Well I'm really proud of myself for such a successful day 1 yesterday... roll on day 2!
Although I didn't anticipate how hungry I'd feel on my solely veggie and fruity meals during the day... which inevitably resulted in me sat in the car park in the car munching on cooked chicken drumsticks I picked up from Sainsburys while I was waiting for DH to finish work!! Must have looked very strange!
I'm a bit better prepared with snacks today...


Wednesday 29th May - Extra Easy

Breakfast: Fruit salad as yesterday

Lunch: Hot thai veggie stir fry as yesterday

Dinner: Egg fried rice with leftover roast chicken, beansprouts, mangetouts, babycorn, carrot, leek, spinach
Followed by strawberries, raspberries and FF vanilla yog

Snacks: Banana, pear, Alpen light (half HEXB), mugshot, babybell light x2 and a bit of milk for coffees (HEXA), chicken

Total syns: none planned

 

[sarah83]

I am so hungry today!! So far already I have eaten my fruit salad, banana and an alpen light bar.
Not sure how to keep myself from eating everything I have brought in for work by 11am!
I'm thinking of popping out lunchtime so could pick up another snack but can't think what, and I definitely don't want anymore fruit...

 

[riahummingbird]

Hi Sarah, well done for starting back it can be so difficult esp with kids and working. My DS2 is 18 mo so quite close to your Lo and they do keep you on your toes!

How about some babybels for your snacks in work as your hea and if you eat quorn the low fat ones in sainsbury's are free so I usually cook up a few and snack on those during the day. How about seafood sticks, cherry tomatoes, lean meats, mug shot, pickles (thought the people in work might not thank you!)... You could also syn your alpen lights and have something else as your heb. I find alpen lights still leave me quite hungry.

 

[sarah83]

Thank you!
I've managed to hold off so far so I'm just having my lunch now. Then I've got my mugshot, apple, pear and alpen light to have this afternoon and the rest of the cooked chicken drumsticks are calling me for when I get home.
I think my real issue today was that I didn't really fancy my lunch, I wanted something a bit more filling like a jacket potato. But I'm actually enjoying my lunch now I'm eating it, and looking forward to my mugshot.

I think babybells are a great idea - I love cheese and I could always syn the milk in my coffee instead of using it as a HEXA - I only drink 3 or 4 a day. Is it 3 of the light ones you're allowed a day?

I think cold meats would be a good snack idea too - but I'm not sure how to not make it look wierd eating slices of ham at my desk...

 

[riahummingbird]

I eat slices of quorn ham and get extra weird looks because I'm veggie! Yeah I do sw from home but as far as I know it's 3 babybel light and 2 of the ordinary ones. They're handy as they cut out the weighing!

 

[sarah83]

I'll definitely have to add babybells to my shopping list. I've spent an absolute fortune on food this week starting SW, it's suprising how much all the fresh stuff costs!
Trouble is I bought lots of different veggies for my thai stir fries so I'll have to make sure I use them all up as reducing food waste is something else I really want to do.
I was tempted to bring a chicken drumstick in to eat at my desk today but didn't think it was quite office etiquette...

 

[sarah83]

Babybell lights bought and munched on tonight! Picked up the latest SW mag too for some inspiration

 

[Kimsulyn]

Sarah- I was 15st 1 when I started, down to 14st 6 now! Last time I started slimming world I was just over 14st so we sound very similar! Really into it this time! Just tried one of those maggi chicken bag things, was really nice and I think(?) syn free! Good luck!

 

[riahummingbird]

Im with you on reducing food waste i've got now that i will just throw something together woth alot of half dead veg just so i dont throw it out! Alot of curries and casseroles lol. Babybel are bogof in tesco got some last night as talking about them put me in the notion. I normally dont bother as my ds1 usually nicks them all so now we have a bag each.

 

[sarah83]

Sarah- I was 15st 1 when I started, down to 14st 6 now! Last time I started slimming world I was just over 14st so we sound very similar! Really into it this time! Just tried one of those maggi chicken bag things, was really nice and I think(?) syn free! Good luck!

Wow you've done really well - I'm hoping for a nice steady loss but would love to lose 1st in a couple of months, we'll see!
I think I have some of those chicken bags I picked up cheap from Home Bargains. Great if they're syn free as they're actually a really good way of cooking chicken breasts without them totally drying out!

 

[sarah83]

Im with you on reducing food waste i've got now that i will just throw something together woth alot of half dead veg just so i dont throw it out! Alot of curries and casseroles lol. Babybel are bogof in tesco got some last night as talking about them put me in the notion. I normally dont bother as my ds1 usually nicks them all so now we have a bag each.

Curries were what I was thinking too - any veg with some tinned toms and a bit of curry powder tends to turn out ok!! Typical - I went to Sainsburys not Tesco on my way to the car last night where Babybells weren't on offer. Will have to pop to Tesco in the next couple of days. The one pack didn't go very far - I had 2 in the car, DH had one and then I gave DD one when we picked her up from creche. Mistake was giving it to her still in the wax to find she'd eaten half the wax!!

 

[sarah83]

Not such a good day as I had the challenge of going out after work with the girls.

Wednesday 30th May - Extra Easy

Breakfast: Fruit salad

Lunch: leftover chicken rice from last night

Dinner: nandos - butterfly chicken with lemon and herb with salad and some mayo (mayo is bad I know) but I think I did pretty good considering
2 175ml glasses of dry white wine

Snacks: Pear. Apple, a few of hubby's chippy chips when I got home

Syns: quite a lot but I've only had 1 over the last 2 days so can't be that bad...?

 

[riahummingbird]

Hey you're doing good im out with the girls after work tonight and not sure i will be so restrained! Are you calculating your syns weekly rather than daily then?

 

[sarah83]

Hi my general strategy is to be as good as possible on the weekend keeping syns to a minimum and then let my hair down at the weekends.
I know this isn't following the plan effectively and it's cheating but if I lose slowly this way I'll be a lot happier doing it. If I don't lose this way then I'll have to have a rethink ;-)

Weekend has been a bit on the naughty side so far. I'll still post my diaries though so I keep track of it

 

[sarah83]

Tuesday 30th May - extra easy


Breakfast: fruit salad

Lunch: leftover rice from night before

Dinner: nandos - lemon and herb butterfly chicken with salad and some mayo. 2 glasses dry white wine

Snacks: banana, apple, pear

 

[sarah83]

Friday 31st May - extra easy

Breakfast: melon, pineapple and mango

Lunch: chicken salad from local cafe. Really fresh and I could pick what I wanted in it.

Dinner: where it all started to go wrong. Crusty bread, salami, Parma ham, Brie and olives. With half a bottle of prosecco followed by a little bit of chocolate.

Oops not a very good day...

 

[sarah83]

Saturday 1st June


Breakfast: banana

Lunch - BBQ - burger, hotdog, beef kebab

Dinner: leftover meat - chicken with salad

And some rose wine...