Becca Jane St Clair

[DISCLAIMER: I do not work for Slimming World, I am not affiliated with Slimming World beyond being a paying customer/member, I get no personal benefit from writing this post other than the joy of sharing.]

Last week I was on the Slimming World website, when I spotted a recipe for Squash, Potato, and Bacon stew. It looked like a great idea, but I wasn’t a fan of several of the ingredients. So, like I tend to — I changed up the recipe to fit my own likes/needs and what I had in the kitchen. It turned out more like a cross between a stew and a soup – a stoup, really. It was really good, but I think next time I might chop up the squash a little bit smaller so it’s easier to eat with a spoon. This recipe is Syn free on the Extra Easy (Orange) plan. You could omit the bacon to make it free on Green. If you follow Red, you will need to work out your Syn values.

[Please note: Syn values are based on my exact ingredients using the online calculator. Your Syn value may vary based on your ingredients and the size of your baking containers and portions, so use this number as a guide only. Syn values also frequently change, but these values are correct at the time of publication.]

This recipe will take about an hour and half from prep to finish, though steps one and two can be prepared ahead of time and the squash and potato stored in the fridge for up to a day.

You Will Need:

2 small squash, or 1 butternut squash. I took advantage of the season (and the fact that I love squash!) and picked up two random looking squashes – one orange (looked like a mini pumpkin) and one with yellow stripes. Both were about the size of a softball.
1 sweet potato (mine was huge, so I actually only used half)
1 pack of bacon medallions (There are either 8 or 10 in the pack, depending on the brand or just use regular bacon with the fat trimmed off. My husband wondered if we could use chicken or pork instead next time and I don’t see why not)
1 pint of vegetable broth (made with bouillon, could probably use chicken if that’s all you have)
1 tin chopped tomatoes
200g frozen peas
6 Tablespoons tomato passata
2 Tablespoons dried parsley
1 Tablespoon each of Sage and Thyme
Fry Light

1 – Pre-heat the oven to 180C.
2 – First, you will need to roast your squash and potato. Cut your squash in half lengthways and scoop out all the seeds, then lay cut side up on a baking tray sprayed with frylight. Cut the sweet potato in half lengthways and add it to the tray cut side up. Spray the tops with Fry Light and roast for 45 minutes. If your squash was large, it might take longer. Poke your squash with a fork and if it feels tender, it’s done. Take it out of the oven and let it cool slightly. (optional: peel the skin off while it’s still hot if you don’t want or like the skin. I left mine on). Once you are able to handle the squash and potato, cut them into chunks (size is up to you).
3 – Chop up the bacon and spray the bottom of a deep stove-top safe casserole dish with fry light (I used my Le Cruset dutch oven for this, but a large saucepan will do). Add the bacon to the pan and lightly fry. You don’t need the bacon to go crispy (unless you like it that way!).
4 – Once the bacon is cooked, add the tinned tomato, vegetable broth, passata, and herbs and bring to a boil. Add in your chopped squash and sweet potato and simmer for about 20 minutes.
5 – Add the frozen peas and cook until the peas are done (about 10 minutes).

I might try this in my crock pot sometime. If I do that, I won’t pre-roast the squash or potato, but I will still pre-fry the bacon.

Enjoy!

***
The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.

[LJ readers reading this on the LJ RSS feed: Please click on the link at the top of the entry to go directly to my blog to leave a comment, as comments left on the LJ RSS do not get seen by me. Facebook users reading this from my Networked Blogs link can either comment on facebook or on my blog. If you are reading this through an e-mail subscription, you might need to go directly to my blog to view videos and images.]

For full Copyright and Disclaimer, please read http://www.blog.beccajanestclair.com/copyright/

Firstly, please excuse any typos I don’t catch. I’m on our wireless keyboard, and it has problems with the letters h, j, and k.

[DISCLAIMER: I do not work for Slimming World, I am not affiliated with Slimming World beyond being a paying customer/member, I get no personal benefit from writing this post other than the joy of sharing.]

For reasons unknown, today I really wanted my mom’s Tuna Noodle Casserole. It was a staple of growing up and probably my second favourite tuna based casserole (the first one is Captain’s Casserole, a recipe I’m sure I’ll Slimming World-ize at some point). So I asked my mom to send it to me and I took a look at it. Butter, flour, and milk were going to shoot the Syn value pretty high, but then I remembered a recipe for a white sauce in the little book of sauces, so out it came for research purposes.

Now, I didn’t ave any noodles, so I used whole grain pasta. You can use noodles or pasta, whatever you happen to have on hand. We also never measure out the noodles, just cooked a few handfuls!

[Please note: Syn values are based on my exact ingredients using the online calculator. Your Syn value may vary based on your ingredients and the size of your baking containers and portions, so use this number as a guide only.]

You Will Need:
Noodles (or pasta)
2 tins of tuna fish in brine/water
125ml skim milk
100g fat free fromage frais (US friends: I recently discovered you can substitute greek yogurt as fromage frais is hard to find!)
1 tsp cornflour
1/4 tsp mustard powder (I used Coleman’s)
1 slice of whole grain bread from a 400g loaf
100g peas (optional)
salt & pepper

1. cook pasta according to directions on package and pre-heat the oven to 175C.
2. While the pasta is cooking, make your sauce by gently heating the milk and cornflour, removing it from the heat just before it starts to boil, and whisking in the fromage frais, mustard powder, salt, and pepper. Add both tins of drained tuna to the sauce mixture.
3. Spray a casserole dish with frylight and begin layering your casserole with a layer of pasta, some peas, then the tuna mixture. Repeat layers, making sure the tuna is the final layer.
4. You have two options with your bread. You can either cut it into cubes and put the cubes on top, or blitz it in a blender to top with breadcrumbs.
5. Give the layer of bread a squirt of frylight and bake for 25-30 minutes until thoroughly heated and the breadcrumbs/cubes are golden.

Total Syns in this recipe: 6 Syns for the whole thing. It makes plenty for 2 or 3, and probably enough for 4 if you have lots of sides with it.

This version wasn’t as saucy as what my mom would make, but you could always make more sauce (but remember to recalculate your Syns if you add extra milk or cornflour).

***
The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.

[LJ readers reading this on the LJ RSS feed: Please click on the link at the top of the entry to go directly to my blog to leave a comment, as comments left on the LJ RSS do not get seen by me. Facebook users reading this from my Networked Blogs link can either comment on facebook or on my blog. If you are reading this through an e-mail subscription, you might need to go directly to my blog to view videos and images.]

For full Copyright and Disclaimer, please read http://www.blog.beccajanestclair.com/copyright/

[DISCLAIMER: I do not work for Slimming World, I am not affiliated with Slimming World beyond being a paying customer/member, I get no personal benefit from writing this post other than the joy of sharing.]

A few years ago, Tim and I were planning on celebrating our birthdays (they’re only three days apart) at our favourite Italian American restaurant here in the UK. Due to Tim’s work schedule, we went out for Lunch instead of Dinner, and got the chance to order off the Lunch menu. Tim ordered something called “black and blue pasta”. He loved it and has been disappointed that it’s not a Dinner option at the restaurant. I kept saying I would try to re-create it at home, but I’m really picky about my blue cheeses and I worried it wouldn’t melt very well and it would be swimming in fat. A few weeks ago, we were talking at my local Slimming World group (Consultant Rebecca Stones!) about melting Laughing Cow wedges. Now, I had melted the regular ones to make a poor woman’s mac n cheese, but hadn’t tried it with the flavoured ones, so an experiment was conducted, and Tim tells me it tastes just as good (better!) than what we could get at Frankie and Benny’s!

I’m posting this recipe because two of my friends saw my Instagram picture on Facebook and couldn’t believe this was “diet food”!!

Black and Blue pasta (serves one)

Syn Values: FREE if counting the cheese as your HEA, otherwise one serving is 6 Syns (each triangle is 1.5 Syns)

[Please note: Syn values are based on my exact ingredients using the online calculator. Your Syn value may vary based on your ingredients and the size of your baking containers and portions, so use this number as a guide only. Syn values also frequently change, but these values are correct at the time of publication.]

You Will Need:

1 Chicken breast, cut up into bite sized pieces
1 TBS Cajun or Jerk spice (optional. Add more for extra spice!)
4 Laughing Cow Light Cheese Triangles with Blue Cheese
1 TBS Fat Free Fromage Frais
Pasta (As much as you want)
Frylight

1. Pre-heat a griddle pan (or frying pan) over high heat, sprayed with Frylight. While the pan is pre-heating, start cooking your pasta according to the package directions in a separate pot (I always pre-boil the water in the kettle to give it a head start to cut down on cooking time).
2. Toss the chicken with the spices and add to the griddle pan. Cook on high for about 5 minutes, then turn over and cook for an additional 5. continue to turn the bites of chicken until they are cooked through and browned (starting to char a little!).
3. Drain the pasta and add it back to the pot. Add the 4 blue cheese triangles and the fromage frais and mix over low heat and keep stirring until the cheese is melted and smooth.
4. Serve with a salad or vegetables of your choosing (I made a dressing with Fromage Frais and herbs).

This is so good, I want to make it again tonight…..

***
The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.

[LJ readers reading this on the LJ RSS feed: Please click on the link at the top of the entry to go directly to my blog to leave a comment, as comments left on the LJ RSS do not get seen by me. Facebook users reading this from my Networked Blogs link can either comment on facebook or on my blog. If you are reading this through an e-mail subscription, you might need to go directly to my blog to view videos and images.]

For full Copyright and Disclaimer, please read http://www.blog.beccajanestclair.com/copyright/

When I first moved to the UK and I would hear the word “flapjack”, I would automatically think of a pancake and I kept being confused as to why bakeries, tea shops, and coffee shops would offer a pancake with your cuppa. Well, I finally found out that a flapjack in the UK is a sweet oaty bar….kind of like a granola bar, but not quite so wholesome. The primary ingredients are oats, butter, and sugar. I did enjoy the few times I tried flapjack, but I had never tackled baking my own, until today.

And since I’m on Slimming World, I of course had to create my own version of a flapjack that come in at 4.5 Syns per square (if it’s divided into 18).

[Please note: Syn values are based on my exact ingredients using the online calculator. Your Syn value may vary based on your ingredients and the size of your baking containers and portions, so use this number as a guide only.]

You Will Need:

225g Quaker Rolled Oats
100g Flora Lightest (purple container)
40g Splenda
4 tsp The Groovy Food Company agave
100g Dr Öatker plain chocolate chips

Pre-heat your oven to 180C. I mixed these up in the same tray I baked them in, which was a small glass roasting tray. All you need to do is smoosh all the ingredients together in your dish (the girl who hates getting her hands dirty sprayed her hands with Frylight and squished it together by hand!) and bake for 25 minutes! You can score them before they go in to make it easier to cut apart, or cut them once they are cool. I made two horizontal cuts (to make three long strips of flapjack) and then cut each strip into 6 squares.

Not only is this Slimming World friendly, but it’s also safer for diabetics!

***

[DISCLAIMER: I do not work for Slimming World, I am not affiliated with Slimming World beyond being a paying customer/member, I get no personal benefit from writing this post other than the joy of sharing.]

The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.

My two weeks on Fast Forward are done! This week, I lost 2 pounds on it, bringing my Fast Forward two week total to 7 pounds. I now have to go off Fast Forward and forget about it for a few weeks before I am allowed to go on it again (if I need/want). I’m also incredibly closer to a personal goal I had set and am now only 3 1/2 pounds away from it, 4 pounds away from my three stone award, and 8 and a half pounds away from the first target I set for Slimming World! I am prepared that this week I might have a little gain as my body comes off the restricted diet and back onto regular eating, but that’s okay. I really think that doing Fast Forward has given me the kick in the pants I needed!

I’ve learned a few things while doing Fast Forward, and I thought I would share those things with you:

• I learned that measuring is KEY. Looking back on my eating habits for the past 8 weeks, I can see where I might not have actually measured out my HEA. I would use milk in my tea/coffee and then at the end of the day say that the milk was my HEA even though I didn’t measure it out at the beginning to find out if I used all of it or more than it.
• I learned how important Super Free food really is. Fast Forward has you eating one salad every day, and I really started looking forward to my salads. And now that I’m off Fast Forward, I can start to put other veggies like radishes and peppers into my salad that weren’t on my list. I think one of my goals coming off of Fast Forward is going to be to still have at least one salad each day.
• I learned drinking plenty of water is really important! 1.5L each day (or 500ml morning, afternoon, and evening) should be the bare minimum. And if you don’t like plain water, you can add a drop of squash or add a slice of lemon. I find a slice of lemon, a slice of cucumber, and a few springs of mint is quite refreshing.
• I learned to listen to my body. I actually felt better and fuller longer when I was eating 5-6 small meals each day instead of three “big” meals. Having a light breakfast when I woke up, and then a breakfast-y type snack a few hours later, followed by a sandwich or salad for Lunch and then a few hours later I’d have the other half (salad or sandwich)…I’d have a filling dinner, but then have a snack about an hour or two before bed. This might be hard to keep up with depending on my schedule, but it seemed to work better for me.
• I learned how to get creative. No, really. Plain cottage cheese with a cut up apple and a sprinkle of cinnamon and a pinch of splenda. YUM. Plain yogurt topped with sliced strawberries and plums. Adding strawberries to a salad. Making a herby mayonnaise to go on a chicken sandwich. So many creative things that I never really would have thought about before if I hadn’t been on such a restricted diet.
• I really like Greek salad!
• Never give up

I’m sure there are more, but that’s all I can remember since WordPress ate my post!

***
[DISCLAIMER: I do not work for Slimming World, I am not affiliated with Slimming World beyond being a paying customer/member, I get no personal benefit from writing this post other than the joy of sharing.]

The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.

[LJ readers reading this on the LJ RSS feed: Please click on the link at the top of the entry to go directly to my blog to leave a comment, as comments left on the LJ RSS do not get seen by me. Facebook users reading this from my Networked Blogs link can either comment on facebook or on my blog. If you are reading this through an e-mail subscription, you might need to go directly to my blog to view videos and images.]

For full Copyright and Disclaimer, please read http://www.blog.beccajanestclair.com/copyright/

[DISCLAIMER: I do not work for Slimming World, I am not affiliated with Slimming World beyond being a paying customer/member, I get no personal benefit from writing this post other than the joy of sharing.]

Wow, so here we go. This is a transcript of my paper journal I kept these past 7 days….

Day One

Trips to the Loo: 20
Drinks: 2L Water, 1.5L still lemonade, 2 cups coffee, 2 cups green tea

0930: Coooofffeeeeeeeee! Skim milk is gross. Sweetener. Lots of sweetener.
Hmm, I do like crumpets. Time to get out my cool drinking cup. It holds 710ML, so if I fill it at lest 2 and a bit times I’ll drink the required amount. Hmm. Gotta pee. Again. And again. and again. OMG when will I stop needing the loo?!
1145: Hungry. but it’s too early for Lunch. More water! (and peeing!)
1250:
Lunch, finally.
1405: You know, a digestive biscuit never tasted so good!
1420: All that rain is making me need the loo again…..
1450: Can I start planning dinner yet? I planned on Salmon, but I’m not sure I want that. Anyway, time to do some work….
1835: OK, time for dinner. Skipping the salad and saving it for a later snack sounds like a good idea to me.
2020:
Mmmm. Adding strawberries to salad? Brilliant.
2200: Bedtime.

Day 2
I stopped tracking my trips to the loo. I only did it yesterday for giggles.
0730: Awake. Ugh. Water & an apple to keep me going for now….
0920: Gave in and made coffee. Still don’t like skim milk.
1100: Visit to the in-laws for a cuppa….black tea. Bletch.
1230: Greek salad again. I’m supposed to have variety on this plan, but the greek salad option is just so good! This eating plan isn’t so bad….yet. Although I feel like I’m eating a lot of carbs. Wholegrain bread, pita bread, crumpets….that’s a lot of carbs. But, I’m still feeling positive!
1800: Dinnertime.
1900: I still have room for some snacks. Really want some biscuits, so going to have to go shopping for some Rich Tea or Morning Coffee biscuits. I’ve never had either, but I’m willing to try them.
2020: Having a diet Root Beer for a treat. I wonder if I could freeze some natural yoghurt and make a root beer float?
2215: I wonder how a hilight mixed into a cup of coffee would taste? The answer is JUST LIKE A MOCHA. Yummmmm
Midnight: Crap. Hungry. Hmmm. Maybe some Ryvita with cream cheese will satisfy me?

Day 3
0130: It’s 1:30 in the morning, so let’s replan my week’s menu….
1030: Wow, woke up later than I had expected. Oh well, time for breakfast. Wow, that’s a lot of strawberries:

1300: Need some more food. Time for a trip to Waitrose.
1500: Why does Waitrose have to smell like bacon? 🙁 Hungry! Having a peppermint tea in the cafe before I head home. Bought some Rich Tea fingers. I wonder if anyone would notice if I sneak into my bag to open them? Nope! Hey, these are pretty good. Taste like animal crackers from when I was a kid.
1800: Dinnertime
2100: Hmm. Someone online has told me I’m not following the plan right. Well, I hate to say it, but they don’t control me. If I’m doing this wrong, Rebecca will tell me. She saw my week’s plan and didn’t say anything about it. Besides, isn’t it all about what works for you? I’m actually discovering (yes, only three days in) that I actually prefer having lots of little meals throughout the day instead of three main ones. The proof will be in my weigh-in…..
2130: Cinnamon is a spice, right? Cottage cheese, apples, and cinnamon sound like a nice bedtime snack.

Day 4
0745: Up early. Breakfast. Hope I don’t get too hungry later.
1500: Ok, today is HARD! I’m just so hungry 🙁 And tomorrow is going to be a challenge since we are spending the day out at the Butterley Garden Railway.FORWARD PLANNING….right? I’m hungry. I ate Lunch at 1400 but I’m still hungry. Wishing for some diet soda….

Day 5
We spent the day out. I had a sensible Breakfast and packed a sensible Lunch, but we wound up out much later than we had hoped and needed to stop for Dinner. I made the best of it with a jacket spud, omelette, and salad….hope that will be good enough! Tonight would have been weigh-in day, but since we were out so late, I’m going to go to a different group tomorrow.

Day 6
I had a sneaky peek on the Wii to see where I was at and it’s said I’ve lost weight — yay!
I decided to have a jacket potato with tuna for Lunch. I hated opening a whole tin of corn just for a few Tablespoons, so I hope I can use it up before it goes bad. I also added some olives for flavour.

Day 7
Well….I did it. I lost FIVE POUNDS. AAAND, I got a shiny 2.5 Stone certificate too:

I also had a look on my Wii Fit history, and from back in 2011 when we first got our Wii until now, I have lost 4 Stone. That makes me feel incredible.

Bring on Week 2 of Fast Forward…..5.5 pounds to go until I hit my interim target…..can I do it by next week?

***
The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.

[LJ readers reading this on the LJ RSS feed: Please click on the link at the top of the entry to go directly to my blog to leave a comment, as comments left on the LJ RSS do not get seen by me. Facebook users reading this from my Networked Blogs link can either comment on facebook or on my blog. If you are reading this through an e-mail subscription, you might need to go directly to my blog to view videos and images.]

For full Copyright and Disclaimer, please read http://www.blog.beccajanestclair.com/copyright/

[DISCLAIMER: I do not work for Slimming World, I am not affiliated with Slimming World beyond being a paying customer/member, I get no personal benefit from writing this post other than the joy of sharing.]

Last week at Slimming World, I gained a half pound. This might not sound like much to anyone, but the week before I had lost 4 pounds, but the week before that I had GAINED 4….and going back in my weight loss chart, last Wednesday I weighed the same that I had at the beginning of March. My log looked like this:

+1
0
-2.5
-.5
+1.5
-2.5
+1.5
-.5
+4
-4
+.5

Now, in there somewhere I did have knee surgery and a very stressful few weeks of not only surgery recovery but also taking over my role as Company Secretary for the Association of 16mm Narrow Gauge Modellers (more on that in another post!) a few weeks earlier than planned. But to have not gotten anywhere after all those weeks? Gut-wrenching. I broke down in tears during Image Therapy, got a few hugs from my friends, and talked with my consultant, Rebecca Stones. Rebecca suggested that I give Fast Forward a go.

You hear horror stories about Fast Forward. A lot of people say not to do it, and it really does look scary when you first think about the fact that it’s a very restrictive eating plan, whereas the usual Slimming World plans (Extra Easy, Green, and Original/Red) are all based on eating anything you want with moderation (with loads of Free and Super Free foods you can eat unlimited quantities of depending on which plan you follow, plenty of Healthy As and Bs to choose from, and up to 15 Syns per day to spend on whatever you want). But Fast Forward has been an effective tool for people who are having a hard time keeping themselves on track, or they are really close to their goal and need an extra boost. Me, I’m in both boats. I have 10lbs to go until I hit a crucial interim goal of mine as well as flip flopping all over the place weight-wise recently. So I told Rebecca I would take a look at the packet and give it some thought, but if I really thought it wasn’t for me I wouldn’t force myself to do it. She didn’t have the packet on her as another member had it, so I had to wait for it to be sent to me (the fast forward packet is on loan from your consultant while you’re on it).

Because the fast forward plan is so restrictive, you are only allowed to be on it for a maximum of two weeks at a time (though I’m not sure how many weeks in between going on it you are allowed) and you must give the packet back to your consultant when you are done. This plan is not publicized on their website, and we are asked not to share it. So this blog post will not discuss the details on how to follow Fast Forward, just my experience on it. Consultants have a booklet that helps them calculate how many “units” you are allowed to eat per day based on your weight. I was given 21 units. The booklet has a page full of meals that are worth 5 units, a page of meals that are 8, a page of 1 unit snacks, and a page of 2 unit snacks. That’s it. You also have to drink at least 500ml of water three times per day (1.5L total), eat at least 1 salad (or other listed veggie) each day in addition to your units, and you can have unlimited black tea & coffee, sugar free squash, low-calorie soda, and certain condiments. You also have to pre-plan your week’s menu (though mine changed several times!) and send it off to your consultant so they can make sure you understand the plan. I spent all day Thursday working on my menu plan trying to get it just right, and then out shopping on Friday. I had a LOOOONG shopping list, so I went to Lidl, where I managed to get nearly everything I needed for under £35. (I still needed to top up with Tesco (and my husband needed food!), but we only spent £30. If I had ordered everything from Tesco, the bill would have been over £80. I checked. Every little helps!)

While I was figuring out my meals for the week, some of the items really struck me as funny. Crumpets? Olives? Biscuits? Ice Lollies? These are only a few of the choices you can make while on Fast Forward. As I said, some of them do feel a little weird, since crumpets are 4 Syns, Olives have Syns, Biscuits have Syns, Ice Lollies have Syns….but then it eliminates unlimited pasta, potatoes, rice, meat, veggies, and fruits. Some days I think I might have gone over 15 Syns if I was following Extra Easy, but because this is Fast Forward, it was okay. I had to tell myself to forget about thinking about the Syn values of items and just eat to my plan. Stick to my plan was my mantra.

I kept a paper day-by-day journal, which I will share with you all tomorrow.

Until then….

***
The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.

[LJ readers reading this on the LJ RSS feed: Please click on the link at the top of the entry to go directly to my blog to leave a comment, as comments left on the LJ RSS do not get seen by me. Facebook users reading this from my Networked Blogs link can either comment on facebook or on my blog. If you are reading this through an e-mail subscription, you might need to go directly to my blog to view videos and images.]

For full Copyright and Disclaimer, please read http://www.blog.beccajanestclair.com/copyright/

When the Fakeaway book came out I honestly wasn’t sure if I was going to get it. It seemed silly, when there are loads of changes you can make to existing recipes to make them Slimming World friendly, but at the same time I thought it might be useful for some new ideas. Last week, I bought it, and the first thing I did was tab off all the recipes I wanted to try….and I tabbed 24 of them!

So this week, I plan on trying FIVE new recipes out of the Fakeaway book. Of course, I always have to add my own flair to the recipes and I never use things as written in the books, so if I modify a recipe enough that it is different from the recipe in the cookbook, I will share them with you all.

Flipping through the book, one of the first things that caught my eye was the fake KFC. My husband likes KFC, but it’s so greasy I swear it leaves a lump in your stomach. Fortunately, the crew at Slimming World have developed a non-greasy, SW friendly version, so here is my version of KFC style chicken fingers. If you make the full dozen, each finger is 1/2 Syn.

[Please note: Syn values are based on my exact ingredients using the online calculator. Your Syn value may vary based on your ingredients and the size of your baking containers and portions, so use this number as a guide only.]

You will need:

150ml Passata
2 tsp chilli powder
2 tsp celery salt
1 TBS mixed herbs
pepper grinder (I used rainbow pepper)
1 egg, separated and yolk discarded (save it for an omelette!)
60g wholegrain bread (2-3 slices. It’s best to measure this out to make sure you don’t go over or under 60g), blitzed into breadcrumbs
12 chicken breast mini fillets
Fry Light

1 – Preheat oven to 200C and line a baking sheet with foil or parchment (or just spray with Fry Light)
2 – beat the egg white separately until it forms stiff peaks
3 – in a separate bowl (big enough to dip your chicken in) combine passata, chilli powder, celery salt, herbs, and a few grinds of the pepper mill. Fold in the egg white.
4 – Dip chicken fillets in tomato/egg mixture and then dredge in breadcrumbs. Spray tops with Fry Light
5 – bake 30-35 minutes.

If you start preparing your potato wedges/chips while the oven is pre-heating, you should be able to put both chips and chicken in at the same time and if you’ve pre-boiled the potatoes, they will take about the same amount of time as the chicken. I took the chicken out and raised the temperature on the chips for 5-10 minutes to crisp them up.

UK KFC is different from the KFC in the USA. There are no biscuits or mashed potatoes and gravy. Instead, you can get your chicken served with baked beans, chips (fries), and corn on the cob. Beans, potatoes, and corn are all FREE on Extra Easy (and on Green too, I think). For a dipping sauce, I took some Fromage Frais (also FREE) and added some dried chives (FREE) to make a mock sour cream & chives, or you could make Slimming World BBQ sauce.

My dinner tonight cost me 3 Syns, and that was including the ketchup for my chips! Quite tasty, and my husband said it did taste similar to KFC.

***
The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.

[LJ readers reading this on the LJ RSS feed: Please click on the link at the top of the entry to go directly to my blog to leave a comment, as comments left on the LJ RSS do not get seen by me. Facebook users reading this from my Networked Blogs link can either comment on facebook or on my blog. If you are reading this through an e-mail subscription, you might need to go directly to my blog to view videos and images.]

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Last night I got my 2 Stone Award!!

A few of my friends have asked me what I eat since I tend to have consistent weight loss, and when I do have a wobble, I usually know what the cause was. I lose on average 1 1/2 – 2 1/2 pounds per week, which for me isn’t bad! So since I decided to start tracking my food again this week, I thought I would post a typical week. I’ll add recipes at the bottom.

For those of you not on Slimming World, Slimming World has 5 categories for food. Free and Super Free (mostly fruit, vegetables, and other food that fill you up – things like pasta, rice, lean meats, etc.), Syns, Healthy Extra As (something with calcium), and Healthy Extra Bs (something with Fiber). Additional As and Bs can be had, but you count them as Syns. The booklet you get when you join has hundreds of Syn values, and you can find the values for everything else online (or with the ap). If the Syns aren’t listed, you can use the Syn calculator. If an item has Syns, the number is indicated in parenthesis. Slimming World has three eating plans, Original, Green, and Extra Easy. I tend to follow Extra Easy. Unless otherwise stated, the coffee I drink is fresh brewed, sweetened with saccharine tablets and my tea is Tetley “best of both” blend. Mayonnaise used is Hellman’s Lightest, Ketchup is always Heinz Reduced Sugar and Salt, Bread is usually from a 400g loaf of Warburton’s, Squash is no added sugar Robinsons.

Day 1
HEA: 250ml semi-skimmed milk measured out and used in tea/coffee
Breakfast – BLTEP(*) wrap in a Weight Watcher’s Tortilla (5 Syns) with Mayonnaise (.5 Syns), banana, coffee with milk.
Morning Snack – grapes, a pear, 500ml squash, and a cup of tea with milk
Lunch – Leftover Stew(**), 60g sliced wholemeal bread (HEB) with Flora spread (.5 Syns), 500ml no added sugar lemon squash, cup of tea with milk
Afternoon Snack – WW mini cake (3 Syns), apple, cup of tea with milk
Dinner/Tea – Vegetarian Chilli(***), 500ml diet iced tea
Evening Snack – RitterSport chocolate (6 Syns), cup of tea with milk
Total Syns: 15

Day 2
HEA: 250ml semi-skimmed milk measured out and used in tea/coffee
Breakfast – 3 egg omelette with 10g Reduced Fat Cheddar cheese (1.5 Syns), tomatoes, mushrooms, and 1 TBS Reduced Sugar and Salt Heinz Ketchup (.5 Syn), banana, coffee with milk, tea with milk
Morning Snack – Grapes and a plum, tea with milk, 500ml squash
Lunch – 3 Chicken Fingers(^) (3 Syns), seasoned potato wedges, cucumber salad(^^), Ranch dressing dip (made with powder and Greek yogurt) (.5 Syn), 1 TBS Reduced Sugar and Salt Heinz Ketchup (.5 Syn), 500ml diet iced tea
Afternoon Snack – apple and a pear with a cup of tea with milk
Dinner/Tea – I tried making mushy pea curry, but I didn’t like it, so I wound up with beans on toast (HEB), salad, and 500ml squash
Evening Snack – WW cake (3 Syns), tea with milk
Total Syns: 9

Day 3
Breakfast – BLTEP sandwich on wholegrain bread (HEB) with 1 TBS Lightest Mayo (.5 Syn), banana, Coffee with milk (.5 Syn)
Morning Snack – 500ml squash, tea with milk (.5 Syn), beans on toast (5 Syn)
Lunch – Pasta with Lightest Philadelphia Cream Cheese (HEA) stirred in and one Chicken finger(^) cut up (1 Syn), Cucumber salad(^^), apple, 500ml squash, tea with milk (.5)
Afternoon Snack – Pink N White (2.5 Syns), pear, tea with milk (.5)
Dinner/Tea – Pork steaks with mustard and agave(^^^) (1 Syn), sauteed potatoes, sprouts, salad, muller light yogurt, 500ml diet iced tea
Evening Snack – Options hot chocolate (2.5 Syns)
Total Syns: 14.5

Day 4
Breakfast – BLTEP* on wholegrain toast (HEB) with mayo (.5 Syn), coffee with milk (.5 syn), tea with milk (.5 syn), plum
Morning Snack – ASDA Vitality cereal bar (3.5 Syns), apple, coffee with milk (.5 Syn)
Lunch – Jacket Potato with reduced fat Cheddar cheese (HEA), Tuna mayo (1 Syn), and ketchup (.5 Syn), salad, pear, green tea, 500ml squash
Afternoon Snack – Pink N White (2.5 Syns), tea with milk (.5 syn), 500ml squash
Dinner/Tea – Fish and Chips(+) (2.5 Syns), mushy peas, salad, ketchup (.5 Syn), 500ml squash
Evening Snack – green tea
Total Syns: 13

Day 5
HEA: 250ml semi-skimmed milk used in coffee and tea
Breakfast – BLETP on toast (HEB) with mayo (.5 Syn), coffee with milk, tea with milk
Morning Snack – 500ml diet iced tea (++) (.5 Syn), plum
Lunch – (I wasn’t feeling well) Scrambled eggs, 10g cheddar (1.5 Syns), wholegrain toast (rest of HEB), green tea
Afternoon Snack – Atkins Endulge Chocolate Coconut bar (6.5 Syns), 500ml diet iced tea (.5 Syn)
Dinner/Tea – Roast chicken, roast potatoes, mushy peas, sprouts, ketchup (.5 Syn), tea with milk
Evening Snack – Options Hot Chocolate (2.5 Syn) made up with water and the rest of my HEA milk
Total Syns: 12.5

Day 6
HEA: 250ml semi-skimmed milk used in coffee and tea
Breakfast – Eggs over easy, Toast (HEB), lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise (.5 Syn), Apple, coffee with milk
Morning Snack – ASDA Vitality cereal bar (3.5 Syn), Pear, coffee with milk, 500ml squash
Lunch – Salad – lettuce, tomato, cucumber, chicken, corn, pasta, and dressing(^^), mullerlight yogurt, banana, 500ml squash
Afternoon Snack – 2 cups of tea with milk, no food as we were going out to dinner….
Dinner/Tea – Dinner out at the Fox and Hounds pub — baked sea bass with parsley, boiled new potatoes, salad, and cole slaw (counting 1 Syn for the mayo in the slaw), and then because I had some Syns left and I looked up on the Slimming World App that a basic Lemon Meringue was 8.5, I had that for desert, and 500ml sparkling water
Evening Snack – cup of green tea
Total Syns: I counted today at 15 since we went out to dinner. If the desert was 8.5, I had 14 Syns, but I am counting it as 15 to be safe, though I might have gone over 15 for the day, depending on how “naughty” the desert was!

Day 7 – Weigh In Day!
HEA: 250ml semi-skimmed milk used in coffee and tea+++
Breakfast – Scrambled eggs, baked beans, grilled tomato, apple, coffee with milk
Morning Snack – pear, mullerlight, coffee with milk
Lunch – We went to Morrison’s Cafe since we had a meeting in town. I had a Jacket potato with beans and a salad (no dressing), a mullerlight, and 2 cups of peppermint tea (all free!)
Afternoon Snack – apple, 500ml squash and a cup of peppermint green tea
Dinner/Tea – Eggs over easy, Toast (HEB), lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise (.5 Syn), RitterSport (5 Syn), tea with milk
Evening Snack – 2 Pink N Whites (5 Syn), tea with milk
Total Syns: 10.5

And this week I lost 2.5lbs to finally get my 2 stone award!

Some days I ate lots of food, some days I didn’t eat as much, but the idea is to eat if you are hungry — ie, don’t starve yourself and always eat until you are full. Some days all I really needed to feel full was some eggs and toast. Some days I needed more. Most days I ate salad at least once, maybe twice. I know it’s not the season for it, but a small pile of leaves and tomato with cucumber on the side is manageable.

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* – BLTEP wrap or sandwich is a lean bacon, lettuce, tomato, egg, and pickle (gherkin) wrap/sandwich. I usually use 1TBS of Lightest mayonaise for 1/2 Syn, and either my HEB bread choice or I Syn a wrap. This became my go-to breakfast all week!

** – I made this in the crock pot on Wednesday and had the leftovers for lunch the following day. Combine diced chicken breasts, mushrooms, carrots, parsnips, potatoes, peas, and tinned tomato in your crock pot with 2 Knorr stock pots, mixed herbs, and 3 bay leaves. If you are using frozen chicken and vegetables, you don’t need to add any water. If using fresh, add a mugful of water. Cook on low for 6-8 hours. To thicken the stew, take a ladleful of the vegetables and blitz with a stick blender, then stir back in.

*** – See Slimming World Friendly Chilli

^ – I used a bag of 10 frozen chicken fillets from iceland and coated them with a beaten egg and then crumbs made from 2 slices of Hovis bread (10 syns for the bread), so I calculated these at 1 Syn per strip)

^^ – Super easy and free dressing made from 2TBS greek yogurt, 1TBS apple cider vinegar, and 1tsp dill, added to diced cucumbers and tomatoes on a bed of lettuce

^^^ – I coated pork steaks with 1TBS Tesco Whole Grain Mustard (1/2 Syn) and 1TBS Agave syrup (1/2 Syn) in a hot oven for 10 minutes on each side.

+ – I coated the fish with an egg wash and crumbs made from 1 slice of wholegrain bread

++ – Some of the iced tea I was drinking has 0 calories, so it is free, but another brand has 5 calories per serving, so 1L is 20 calories or 1 Syn.

+++ – I always measure out 250ml of milk in the morning and then keep track of my cups of tea/coffee. If I decide to have cheese later in the day, I change the tea/coffee to 1/2 Syn per splash of milk. If I have any milk leftover at the end of the day, I will either drink it straight or have an Options hot chocolate made up with water and topped up with the last bit of milk.

The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.

[LJ readers reading this on the LJ RSS feed: Please click on the link at the top of the entry to go directly to my blog to leave a comment, as comments left on the LJ RSS do not get seen by me. Facebook users reading this from my Networked Blogs link can either comment on facebook or on my blog. If you are reading this through an e-mail subscription, you might need to go directly to my blog to view videos and images.]

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In February 2012, I blogged a Hairy Biker’s recipe for Sausage and Bean Pie. Tim and I both loved it, but the recipe went out of rotation when I started eating low-carb in March 2012, and never made it back into the rotation until today. I was cold and I wanted some good, warm, comfort food. Since beans and potatoes are free with Slimming World, I thought I would try my hand at modifying the recipe.

So, let’s take a look at the original recipe:

You will need:
750g Maris Piper potatoes
3 TBS cooking oil
8 sausages (I used Tesco half-fat)
2 x 415g tins of baked beans

So right away, I see a swap I can make. Instead of cooking oil, I will use Fry Light. And instead of any sausage, I will pick a low-syn or free sausage. Fortunately, there’s this nifty little graphic floating around Pinterest to help:

I chose to use Quorn sausages, which also makes this recipe vegetarian. The ones I had in our freezer were 1/2 Syn per sausage, so that makes the total Syns for the dish so far 4 Syns.

Beans and potatoes are free, so those can stay.

Now, we’ll look at the instructions:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 200C. Quarter the potatoes and put in a pan of boiling water. Bring to the boil and simmer for 10 minutes or until soft.
2. Meanwhile, fry the sausages in 1 TBS oil until browned. (or grill them)
3. Put the sausage in the bottom of a shallow casserole dish and cover with beans. Set aside.
4. Drain and roughly cut the potatoes into chunks. Don’t worry about the skins. Some of the skins will fall off after boiling, some won’t.
5 – Fry the potato chunks in the remaining oil for 2-3 minutes. Pour potatoes on top of sausage and beans
6 – Bake at 200C 15-20 minutes until potatoes are crisp on top and the beans are hot.

Right away, I spot the word fry. Instead of frying the sausages, I could grill them as that doesn’t add any syns. And the potatoes that need to be fried can be done with Fry Light, which is free. Or, I could Syn the oil, but I want this dish to be as low Syn as possible. I’m also going to take my advice from my previous post and add poached eggs to the meal to help fill us up more. Other than that, it looks pretty straight forward. So my new and improved Sausage and Bean Casserole now looks like this:

You will need:
750g potatoes
8 low or no Syn sausages
2 x 415g tins of baked beans
Fry Light
2 eggs per person

1. Pre-heat the oven to 200C. Quarter the potatoes and put in a pan of boiling water. Bring to the boil and simmer for 10 minutes or until soft.
2. Meanwhile, grill the sausages as per package instructions,
3. Put the sausage in the bottom of a shallow casserole dish and cover with beans. Set aside.
4. Drain and roughly cut the potatoes into chunks. Don’t worry about the skins. Some of the skins will fall off after boiling, some won’t.
5 – Fry the potato chunks in Fry Light for 2-3 minutes. Pour potatoes on top of sausage and beans.
6 – Bake at 200C 15-20 minutes until potatoes are crisp on top and the beans are hot.
7 – While casserole is cooking, bring a pan of water to the boil. Carefully drop in two eggs per person, reduce the heat to a simmer and cook 2-4 minutes, depending on how soft you want your eggs.

The result? This:

Total Syns for the whole dish? 4. So take the number of portions and divide to get your Syns. We each ate plenty, plus I have some to save for breakfast in the morning, so dinner tonight was 1 1/2 Syns.

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.

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I sometimes struggle to eat my Healthy Extra A and B each day, particularly the B choice, as I got myself out of eating carbs the year I followed a low-carb diet. Fortunately, I found this recipe for Weetabix Muffins on facebook that makes eating my Healthy B easy and spreads it out through the day (or makes a night evening snack). Since I also needed my Healthy A, I frosted the muffins with cream cheese.

[Please note: Syn values are based on my exact ingredients using the online calculator. Your Syn value may vary based on your ingredients and the size of your baking containers and portions, so use this number as a guide only.]

You will need:

for the muffins:
-2 crushed Weetabix biscuits
-2 eggs, beaten
-1/2 of a container of any flavour müllerlight yogurt (I used 3 desertspoonfuls of the Cranberry & Raspberry flavour)
-2 tsp Splenda
-1tsp vanilla essence

Silicone muffin cases

for the “frosting”:
-70g Philadelphia Lightest
-1-2 tsp Splenda
-1/2 tsp vanilla essence

1) Pre-heat the oven to 180C
2) combine Weetabix, eggs, yogurt, Splenda, and vanilla and spoon into muffin cases. you should fill the cups to nearly the top. I made 5 using my heart-shaped cups from Lakeland, but I think it would have made only 4 in regular sized ones. If you don’t have silicone cases, you could use paper liners in a cupcake pan.
3) bake 20-25 minutes, until the edges pull away slightly and they are springy.
4) If making “frosting”, combine cream cheese, vanilla, and 1 tsp Splenda. Give it a quick taste test and if it’s not sweet enough for you, add some more Splenda.
5) Spread on top of slightly cooled muffins for your HEA and HEB in one go!

Since I used a pink coloured yogurt, mine had a slight pink tinge to them and a vague taste of berry. They were slightly on the sweet side, so I might use less Splenda the next time and also try them with just vanilla yogurt.

If you have already had your A and B for the day, you would need to calculate the Syns. Philadelphia Lightest is 1.5 Syns per 25g on all plans, and Weetabix are 6.5 Syns on all plans. I would round up the cream cheese in the frosting to 75g, making the icing 4.5 Syns and the muffins 6.5, or 11 Syns total for all the muffins with frosting. Obviously, you could then divide this into your per muffin Syn value. If you made this into 5 muffins, they would be just over 2 Syns each.

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.

[LJ readers reading this on the LJ RSS feed: Please click on the link at the top of the entry to go directly to my blog to leave a comment, as comments left on the LJ RSS do not get seen by me. Facebook users reading this from my Networked Blogs link can either comment on facebook or on my blog. If you are reading this through an e-mail subscription, you might need to go directly to my blog to view videos and images.]

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Wow. I joined Slimming World 12 weeks ago and bought a Countdown to Success….and well, I’d say it’s been a success! Tonight was my week 12 weigh-in, and not only did I achieve my Club 10, but I also got my 1 1/2 stone award. Yep. 10% lighter than I was at the end of October. I can’t tell you how pleased I am.

I also kept track of my measurements in an excel spreadsheet and I’ve managed to lose 28.5 inches overall in 12 weeks AND my BMI has gone down by more than 4. Even more amazing is I’ve lost over 4 inches from my belly, something that as a PCOS sufferer is really hard to do!

I’m getting there.

Slowly, but steadily. I had a few wobbles in the past 12 weeks (gained 1 lb at our wedding anniversary week, gained 1 pound over Christmas), but overall the trend has been down. I might only be dropping a pound or two per week, but it’s all going in the right direction.

And honestly? I don’t miss the junk food. With 5-15 Syns per day, I’ve still been having “junk”, just in moderation. A Lindt truffle is 4 Syns, so when I have one I get to savor the flavour and enjoy it instead of just shovelling it into my mouth. Or biting into a crumpet with a little bit of Flora light spread on it. Even drinking an Options hot chocolate becomes a taste event as the hot chocolate is 2 Syns per 11g (one sachet). Sometimes I save my Healthy Extra A and use it to make a milky Options hot chocolate before bed. Most of the time my HEA is cheese. If you put milk in your tea, you can either take it out of your HEA or you can count it as .5 syn for a splash, so I tend to spend my syns on milk and go for the cheese. Our consultant said she doesn’t like having cheese because of measuring it out, but when you start to shred it, it really becomes quite a lot of cheese! I got a hand crank grater from Wilkos for less than £2 and that makes it super easy to grate. Or I’ll stir Philadelphia Lightest into some pasta for a take on macaroni cheese.

When it comes to my Healthy Extra B, I sometimes struggle. Especially when crackerbread got removed from the options! But 2 Alpen Light bars or 2 Hifi Light bars count as the HEB, and that includes some chocolate variations. A couple of Ryvita topped with cream cheese is both my HEA and HEB at the same time. Lately, I’ve been eating 2 slices of wholegrain bread from a small loaf for toast. The most important part is carefully measuring out your As and Bs. Argos sells a cheap digital scal for a fiver, and most measuring jugs, cups, and spoons can be had for less than £1 for a set at Wilkos.

And the free and superfree food! Some of the things that are free are Amazing! Baked beans, Mullerlight yougurts, rice, pasta…..all unlimited. All free. Fresh/raw fruit….superfree. Veggies? Do whatever you want to them and they’re superfree. And don’t forget your lean meats, bacon with the rind cut off, quorn mince (and some other products, like quorn hot dogs!), mince with less than 5% fat…..All unlimited. I have made so many meals totally free, which saves up my Syns for treats later.

So what has a typical day looked like in the past 12 weeks?

Breakfast – Baked beans and scrambled eggs done with fry light (sometimes on Toast as my HEB), sometimes an omelette with my HEA cheese), mullerlight yogurt, an apple, a banana. On days that we have extra time, I do a Slimming World “grill up” – grilled tomatoes and mushrooms, bacon without the rind, and eggs. I’ve made breakfast sandwiches combining my HEA & HEB with eggs and bacon. And always a cup of coffee with a splash of milk (.5 syns) and a cup of tea with milk (.5 syns). Sometimes I’ll enjoy a glass of Innocent Orange Juice (2 syn per 100ml), though I haven’t had juice in ages. Usually if I want orange juice, I’ll mix up some orange sugar free squash (FREE).

AM snack – a cup of green tea (milkless) and an Alpen bar or Hifi Light bar (3 Syns or half my HEB). Usually another piece of fruit or a handful of cherry tomatoes.

Lunch – Salad, a jacket potato topped with Tuna and lightest mayo (1 syn per TBS), a grilled gammon steak (no rind) with fresh pineapple and a fried egg, If I haven’t had my HEA and HEB yet, sometimes I’ll do Ryvita with lightest Philadelphia topped with some chopped veggies. For a dressing for my salad, I’ll take some fat free fromage frais or Total 100% greek yogurt with some dill and other herbs in it (free) or a 1/2 Tablespoon of some imported Hidden Valley Ranch dressing (.5 Syn). I usually round out the meal with a mullerlight and an apple, banana, some grapes, or strawberries.

Afternoon Snack – A cup of green tea, and some veggie sticks. for a dip, I make one out of greek yogurt or fromage frais and some dill and other herbs.

Dinner – We might use some syn free barbecue sauce (recipe coming soon), a HEA worth of cheese, bacon, and some chicken breast to make hunter’s chicken served with lots of steamed veggies. Or I might put some salmon with lemon pepper and dill in the steamer along with some potatoes and other veggies. If I haven’t used my HEB for the day, I might blitz some wholemeal bread and make breadcrumbs for fish and chips or chicken nuggets. Occasionally we’ll have a pasta based dish, since pasta is free, but I’m still on the low-ish carb thing and I’d rather eat potatoes than pasta for a carb! On Sundays, I do a full roast with potatoes, carrots, parsnips, etc.

Bedtime snack – Options hot chocolate (2 Syns) with a splash of milk to make it creamy (.5 syns) and a pink and white wafer biscuit (2.5 syns)

At this point, I usually tally up my syns for the day to see if I can have anything else. If I eat everything listed here, that’s 12.5 syns for the day so I usually will end it at that especially if I had any other cups of regular tea with milk, but if I had less than 10 syns, I might break into the chocolate and have an Lindt truffle.

I still sometimes keep a food diary. My cousin suggested a journal to track things, and Slimming World encourages you to track your first four weeks. I very religiously tracked for my first 4 weeks and continued on until around week 8. Then, I only tracked things when I felt like I needed to keep track, like if we ate a meal out. But I find tracking my food a very good tool and while I don’t want to track food for the rest of my life, if it works, it works.

And next week? Another Countdown to Success. 12 more weeks. If I can lose another stone and a half, that will bring me within a few pounds of my first target!

Are you interested in joining Slimming World? Check their website for your local group’s information! Their website also has some great taster menus for you to try out before you join, and several women’s magazines have been running coupons this month to get your first week for free!

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.

[LJ readers reading this on the LJ RSS feed: Please click on the link at the top of the entry to go directly to my blog to leave a comment, as comments left on the LJ RSS do not get seen by me. Facebook users reading this from my Networked Blogs link can either comment on facebook or on my blog. If you are reading this through an e-mail subscription, you might need to go directly to my blog to view videos and images.]

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When you join Slimming World, you are given a booklet with all the information you need and the back of the book has your weight loss log. Your consultant also gives you 4 weeks worth of food diary pages. I decided that I needed to have my own little journal to use as I saw fit, and I thought I would share my journal with all of you so you can work out how to make your own.

First, I needed a really nice notebook. Fortunately, I had a Cath Kidston notebook I received for free back in March, and I decided to use that one.

As you can see, I added a red ribbon to the inside and back cover to tie it shut, and I made a pen loop from some Union flag ribbon on the back. I also used some post-it tabs to tab off the weeks as they happen so I can easily go back and look at other weeks.

The inside front cover is peppered with things I printed off Pinterest. Some are silly/sarcastic, some are motivational…basically, anything that would keep me going and bring a smile to my face. I also glued in the post-it tabs so they would be handy. I use the smaller purple ones to mark important things I want to be sure to be able to find again.

This was my very first day on Slimming World. My week goes from Thursday to Wednesday since we have our group meeting on Wednesdays.

When I got my first 1/2 stone off, I pasted it into my notebook and marked the spot with a purple tab to find later.

And when I reached personal milestones, I wrote them down in my book, too.

One stone gone, and an inspirational quote I needed to see that week.

I also cut things out of other weight loss magazines that offered some encouragement, like this woman who was around the same age, weight, and height as me.

Lastly, on the back cover, I pasted in some syn value charts I found online and kept a running list of the synned items I had frequently. During the first four weeks of dedicated daily food tracking I found this list invaluable as it meant I didn’t have to keep flipping through books, checking an app, or going online. This is particularly useful if I’ve had to put the nutritional information of something into the calculator on my own, so I don’t have to check it again.

Today is the start of Week 12 for me, and my notebook is about halfway full. I might get 12 more weeks into the book, I might get as many as 20, it just depends on what I feel I need to put in the book each week. Some weeks have a page for every day (if I was tracking everything daily), some weeks I squeezed a whole week onto 2 pages, some weeks I only needed one page. It all depends on what I want to put in my book to remember. And when I fill up this notebook, I’ll start a new one. For me, this is helping to keep me on track!

Want to print out some of the inspirational phrases for your own book? I saved many of them to my hard drive and will put them below. I’m afraid I can’t give credit to the original creators because I don’t know where they came from, they were just gathered off of Pinterest.

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The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.

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My mom and I had a Christmas tradition that we would always make a breakfast casserole in the crock pot since the oven usually had the turkey in it at breakfast time (my family always ate around 1PM). Tim and I don’t have our Christmas dinner until later in the day, so that leaves my oven free. Last year, I made a crustless quiche that was lovely and low-carb….but also full of fat. And it made tons. So this year, I decided to make individual quiches and to make sure I got in my Healthy Extra A for the day, I added 40G of low-fat cheese.

[Please note: Syn values are based on my exact ingredients using the online calculator. Your Syn value may vary based on your ingredients and the size of your baking containers and portions, so use this number as a guide only.]

This recipe is PER PERSON. If you are making this for more than 3 people, my suggestion would be to just make it in a regular full-size quiche dish.

You will need (PER PERSON)

3 Eggs
4 TBS fat free Fromage Frais
A handful of fresh spinach
2 bacon medallions (or rashers of bacon with all the fat trimmed off), grilled and chopped (optional. or use grilled and chopped Quorn sausages*! Or both!)
3-4 button mushrooms, quartered
5 cherry tomatoes, quartered (or half of a regular tomato diced)
40g reduced fat Cheddar cheese**
Pepper

individual pie/quiche/flan dishes (I got ours at IKEA for £2 each. Or you could use individual casserole dishes)
Fry light

1 – Pre-heat the oven to 180C.
2 – Spray the bottom and sides of your dish with Fry Light. Beat the eggs and Fromage Frais and a sprinkle of pepper. Stir in half the cheese.
3 – Scatter the spinach leaves on the bottom of the dish and sprinkle on the mushrooms, tomatoes, and bacon.
4 – Pour on the egg mixture and top with remaining cheese.
5 – Repeat steps 2-4 for each person.
6 – Bake on a baking tray (in case of spillage) for 20-30 minutes, or until eggs have risen and are cooked through. If you are making this in a full-sized dish, it might take up to 45 minutes.

This is quite tasty on its own, or with some wholegrain toast (as your Healthy Extra B!). A teaspoon of Reduced Sugar and Salt Heinz Ketchup will only add 1/2 Syn and gives it a little extra kick.

The beauty of this recipe is that you also can add whatever vegetables you want. Some chopped up green, red, yellow, or orange pepper would add some flavour, too. Or try experimenting and eliminate the Cheddar Cheese and use fat free cottage cheese instead of the fromage frais! Or add some diced potato and turn it into a Frittata!

~~*~~
*Quorn sausages are 1 Syn each. If you use any other brand, you will need to calculate the syns.
**Assuming you use the cheese as your Healthy Extra A. If you are not, you will need to calculate the syn value of your cheese. You can use any other cheese at the Healthy Extra A amount in this if you don’t have Cheddar.

The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.

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A week before Christmas, our Slimming World group had a tasting night where we all got to bring in Slimming World friendly snacks for a party, and I decided to figure out how to make Devilled Eggs completly free. They were such a hit, I made them again for our family’s Boxing Day Buffet!

[Please note: Syn values are based on my exact ingredients using the online calculator. Your Syn value may vary based on your ingredients and the size of your baking containers and portions, so use this number as a guide only.]

You will Need:
1 Dozen eggs, hard boiled and peeled
4-6 TBS Fat Free Fromage Frais
1 tsp Mustard Powder
1 tsp Paprika
1 tsp Tumeric* (optional)
Fresh Ground Pepper

Pastry/icing Bag (optional)
Big Cake Decorating Tip (optional)

1 – Carefully slice each egg in half lengthway and scoop out the yolk (a teaspoon works great!).
2 – Combine all yolks with 4 TBS Fromage Frais, Mustard Powder, Tumeric, and Paprika. If your mixture seems a little dry, add some more Fromage Frais. Give it a tiny taste and if it’s not tangy enough for your tastes, add a little more mustard powder. I found that using my stick blender gave a smoother texture.
3 – if you want to be fancy, place the yolk mixture into a pastry bag fitted with a large decorating tip and carefully pipe the filling into the empty holes in the whites. If you don’t have a cake decorating set, you can still easily pipe your filling by cutting off the corner of a plastic bag, or just use a teaspoon and spoon it in.
4 – Sprinkle the tops of the eggs with more paprika and a few twists of a pepper grinder.

The beauty of this recipe is it can be scaled up or down based on how many eggs you want. There is no wrong amount, just mix until you are happy with the consistency and flavour of your filling.

~~*~~

*Tumeric is an optional ingredient and is only used to add that bright yellow colour you would usually get from using American mustard.

The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.

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Ah, the Christmas Pudding. Probably one of the most iconic puddings of Christmastime in the UK. Last year, I was brave and tried making my own. It was really good, but the number of Syns in that recipe would have done my head in. Slimming World’s Christmas Made Extra Easy cookbook contains a recipe for “The Pud” coming in at 7 1/2 Syns. I felt that this was a lot of syns just for my pudding (half my daily syns in one go? No thank you), so I sat down with the online Syn calculator and my ingredients and I worked out a pudding that comes in slightly lower at 6 Syns per serving. That meant I could add on a level tablespoon of Brandy sauce (1 Syn!) and still enjoy the rest of Christmas. In fact, my Christmas Day syns only came to 16! So, on to my recipe!

[Please note: Syn values are based on my exact ingredients using the online calculator. Your Syn value may vary based on your ingredients and the size of your baking containers and portions, so use this number as a guide only.]

This pudding takes multiple days to prepare, so start it at least three days before you plan on serving it.

You Will Need:

225g Dried Mixed Fruit (I used a Waitrose mix that had sultanas, raisins, and peel)
1 TBSP Brandy
50g Self-raising wholemeal flour (I used Allinson’s)
85g fresh brown bread crumbs (I used Walburton’s bread. 3-4 slices blitzed in my blender)
25g Splenda Brown Sugar OR Tate and Lyle Light at Heart Brown Sugar
170g Grated Carrots
200g Grated Bramley Apple
1 tsp Mixed Spice
1/2 tsp Nutmeg
1/2 tsp Cinnamon
2 Eggs, beaten
150ml Old Speckled Hen* (adjust your Syns if using another type of Ale. Old Speckled Hen has 11.5 Syns per 500ml)
25ml Brandy

You also will need:
2 Pudding basins
Baking Parchment
Aluminium Foil
String
Small bowl or saucer
Crock Pot
Fry Light

1 – Put your dried fruit in a bowl with the brandy and leave to soak overnight.
2 – The next day, mix together the brandied fruit, flour, breadcrumbs, sugar, carrot, apple, and spices.
3 – Add the eggs and Old Speckled Hen. Let your mixture rest for about a half an hour
4 – Trace the top and bottom of your pudding basins onto parchment paper and cut out the circles. Spray the bottom of the basin with fry light, place the bottom sized piece of parchment paper on top, and spray again. Spray the sides of your basin with Fry light, too.
5 – Divide the mixture between the two basins. I filled mine to about an inch or two from the top. Place the top sized piece of parchment paper on the top of your pudding.
6 – Make a Z fold in a piece of parchment paper and place over the pudding, using the string to hold it in place (tie the string around the top of the basin). Trim off the excess paper. Place the parchment covered basin on top of a piece of foil and wrap the bottom and sides. Leave a gap over the top near the Z fold (for steam to escape!)
7 – Find a saucer or bowl that will fit the bottom of your crock pot. Make sure you can balance the pudding on top of the bowl with the lid of your crock on. I found that a cheapie cereal bowl from Asda does the trick in mine. Place the saucer in the crock pot and put one of your puddings on top of the bowl. Fill the crock pot with water (I pre-boil mine in the kettle) until the water comes up within an inch or two of the top of your crock pot OR 2/3 of the way up your pudding basin. Do not cover the top of the pudding with water.
8 – Turn the crock pot on high and steam away. Your steam time may vary. I steamed our puddings on high for about 5 hours, then low overnight, and then back to high in the morning for another 5 hours. Check the water level before you go to bed and add more if you need to, and then check again in the morning. If your bowl starts to “dance”, crack the lid of the crock pot open with a wooden spoon to let some of the steam escape.
9 – Carefully remove your pudding from the crock pot and allow to slightly cool before unwrapping (you don’t want to get burned!)
10 – You will need to repeat steps 7-9 for the second pudding.
11 – On Christmas Day (or whenever you are serving your pudding), put your pudding back in the basin and steam again for about an hour, just to heat it through.
12 – Just before serving, poke a few holes in the top and pour on the 35ml of Brandy and light it on fire!

Syn Value: 6 Syns** per serving if you divide each pudding into 5 pieces. Add a tablespoon of Brandy sauce for another 1 Syn.

~~*~~

*I used Old Speckled Hen because my husband had a mini keg of it already opened and I felt it was silly to open a bottle of a different ale to only use 150ml.
**Technically, it calculated out at 5.7 Syns per serving. My husband thought I should have rounded it down to 5.5, but I chose to round it up to 6 to err on the side of caution.

The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.

[LJ readers reading this on the LJ RSS feed: Please click on the link at the top of the entry to go directly to my blog to leave a comment, as comments left on the LJ RSS do not get seen by me. Facebook users reading this from my Networked Blogs link can either comment on facebook or on my blog. If you are reading this through an e-mail subscription, you might need to go directly to my blog to view videos and images.]

I’ve created this recipe quite by accident today….I first wanted to make my own mince filling and had been looking up the Syn values for the ingredients so I could properly calculate Syn values and I was going to make the mince pies that are in the Slimming World Christmas cookbook….but I had this mini tartlet dish and a hankering to get creative, so Mince Tarlets were born. [Please note: Syn values are based on my exact ingredients using the online calculator. Your Syn value may vary based on your ingredients and the size of your tartlets, so use this number as a guide only.]

You Will need:
1 jar mincemeat (I used one from Waitrose suitable for Vegetarians)
225g wholegrain flour (if you use white flour, you will need to adjust your Syns)
50g Stork or other butter substitute (my Syns were calculated using Stork)
60g Quark (you could use 110g Stork instead, but you will need to recalculate your Syn value)
pinch of salt
Frylight (again, if you use any other spray you will need to recalculate the Syns!)

Tartlet pan
Rolling Pin
Biscuit cutter
UK teaspoon

1)Pre-heat oven to 180C
2) add salt to flour, and rub in Quark and Stork until combined. knead your dough and add a little water until you can form a ball with no dough touching the sides of the bowl (about 1-2TBS water). Put dough in fridge for 30 minutes.
3)Spray a tartlet pan with Frylight. (my pan is about an inch across the bottom, if that helps for size!)
4)When dough is chilled, roll out onto a smooth surface and use a small biscuit cutter to make rounds of dough. Press dough circles into the bottom and up sides of tartlet pan. I was able to make 38 rounds with my dough* (If you have more than 38, your Syns per tart will be lower, less than 38 and your Syns will be slightly higher).
5) Fill each tartlet with one teaspoon** mince pie filling (again, if you use more, your Syns will be higher)
6) Bake for 20 minutes, or until shells are golden
7) Carefully remove tartlets to a cooling rack. I made the mistake of tipping my first tray full out and two of them spilled. I found using the bamboo tongs from the toaster seemed to work the best for getting them out.

Makes 36 Tartlets. Well, technically 38, but I didn’t feel like baking two tartlets on their own and my pan makes 12 at a time!

~~*~~

*Based on the online calculator, each shell is approximately 1.5 Syns
**Based on the online calculator, 1 Tablespoon*** of Waitrose mincemeat filling is 2 Syns, 1 teaspoon*** is approximately half a syn
***Using UK Tablespoons and teaspoons. If you are using American teaspoons, your Syn value will vary, as it is 3 US teaspoons in a US Tablespoon, but 4 UK teaspoons in a UK Tablespoon.

The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.

[LJ readers reading this on the LJ RSS feed: Please click on the link at the top of the entry to go directly to my blog to leave a comment, as comments left on the LJ RSS do not get seen by me. Facebook users reading this from my Networked Blogs link can either comment on facebook or on my blog. If you are reading this through an e-mail subscription, you might need to go directly to my blog to view videos and images.]

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About a week or so ago, I posted to my Facebook page that MüllerLight Coconut with Chocolate Sprinkles yoghurt tasted like eating a Bounty (US: Mounds) bar and I was in heaven and my friend Paul commented with a recipe for chicken korma involving the yogurt. I was dubious as chocolate sounded like a strange ingredient, but tonight I decided to try it. I ran out of Korma powder, so mine was made with half Korma and half Garam Marsala, but it was still ridiculously creamy and “gooey”, as my husband called it. Definately going into regular rotation!

Slimming World Chicken Korma
You Will Need:

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite-sized pieces
250g button mushrooms, halved (or bigger mushrooms cut into smaller pieces)
(2 large onions, diced – I omitted this as I am allergic to onion!)
3 TBSP Korma spice
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp almond extract
2 MüllerLight Coconut with Chocolate Sprinkles yoghurt pots
1 container Quark
1/2 tsp tumeric (I had to borrow some from my mother-in-law!)
Fry Light
Rice

-Spray a griddle pan (or frying pan) with FryLight and add the chicken to the pan to brown the chicken (you will need to stir the chicken a few times to get all sides cooked)
-While the chicken is cooking, put a small frying pan over high heat and dry fry the Korma spice, then add the vanilla and almond (though I’m sure both of those are optional!)
-Transfer the spice to a large pot and stir in the yoghurts, Quark, and sweetener. Heat over low heat, making sure you don’t curdle the yogurt.
– Stir in the tumeric.
-Once the chicken is cooked, stir chicken into the sauce and keep on very low heat.
-add the mushrooms (and optional onions) to your griddle (or frying pan) and cook for 5-10 minutes or until soft.
-Add the mushrooms to your chicken and sauce

Divide into two portions and serve over rice. Yum!!

~~*~~
The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.

[LJ readers reading this on the LJ RSS feed: Please click on the link at the top of the entry to go directly to my blog to leave a comment, as comments left on the LJ RSS do not get seen by me. Facebook users reading this from my Networked Blogs link can either comment on facebook or on my blog. If you are reading this through an e-mail subscription, you might need to go directly to my blog to view videos and images.]

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* Today marks the end of my fourth week with Slimming World, and even though I gained a pound in there, I still managed to lose 11 and a half pounds. Not quite to the full stone (which would have been amazing), but 11.5 is nothing to sneeze at.

I have to admit, I was skeptical. I had lost two and a half stone (35lbs) on my own in 2012 by doing a modified Atkins style diet of extremely low carb, and surprisingly, high fat. The downside is that I managed to gain back nearly an entire stone from September 2012 until October 2013 when I stopped eating low carb, but kept some of the higher fat items in my diet. I gained about 1 pound per month…which doesn’t sound TOO bad, but when I worked so hard to get it off in the first place, it wasn’t too good, was it? But I was still skeptical. A friend of mine did Slimming World and she told me about it and it didn’t sound all that different from Weight Watchers, which friends in the US were doing and I kept thinking of joining, but I didn’t want to walk into meetings alone. Plus the whole point system at Weight Watchers confused me. Even though I had a voucher from my GP to do Weight Watchers, I put off joining.

Someone I know (I won’t say who to protect their own weight loss journey) asked me to join Slimming World with them and two others to do it as a small group. It’s been great having that type of encouragement and support so close, though I wonder if it’s hindering making friends at the weekly meetings. It probably doesn’t help that I’m still a newcomer to the village even after nearly 5 years, since a lot of the people the people I attended with knew because they both had children the same age, or both attended the local secondary school, etc. But friendships will come, I’m sure.

My first evening at Slimming World, I met my consultant, Rebecca Stone. Rebecca is amazing. She is VERY energetic and enthusuastic about Slimming World and about helping people. She even rang me during my first week to see how I was doing and it was a great chance to ask her some additional questions that had popped up. The two weeks she was ill and we had a “substitute” I wasn’t impressed with the sub, so I think a lot of Slimming World has to do with your consultant, too. When I joined, Slimming World was running a promotion, so we got 10 weeks for the price of 12, plus a Christmas cookbook. Not bad, plus by pre-paying for 12 weeks in advance it commits you to attending for at least those weeks. Slimming World also offers a money-back guarantee if you haven’t lost anything after your first four weeks but could prove (by keeping food diary pages) that you kept to the plan. To me, this was important. Not because I wanted to set myself up to fail, but because it was an extra incentive to keep track of everything on the food diary pages.

After that first meeting, I came home, told my husband how I thought this was going to be hard, and I read the books in my packet cover to cover. I also picked up the current Slimming World magazine and I loved the magazine. It focused more on recipes and “feel good stories” and there was very little fluff/filler. Every ad in the magazine was geared towards Slimming World and even listed the number of “syns” for the items advertised.

I had a really pretty Cath Kidston blank book that I got when I was up in Edinburgh with my mom in April as a freebie for spending x amount. It’s in the London fabric, and I hadn’t started using it yet as I wanted to put it towards a really good purpose since it was such an attractive book. This book, as my cousin says, became my Bible. I had a Pinterest board of inspiration, and I downloaded and printed off some of the things I had pinned to it to paste into the front cover. I also set a page for “goals” where I listed all the things I hoped to accomplish with my weight loss, even the really silly ones like “stop feeling uncomfortable on amusement park rides”. I’ve left plenty of room to add more goals and inspiration, too. I started searching both Google and Pinterest for Slimming World links and I created my Slimming World board. I found a lot of graphics with syn values listed, so I printed all those out and started pasting them into the back of my book for easy reference, as well as started writing down the syn values for some of the foods I eat a lot. I also grabbed some Post-it tabs and am tabbing off each week as I go, using the pages for the week as a food diary, and a place to make notes, add more inspiration, etc. etc. Writing down what I eat helped a lot with creating the food diaries, and even though I’m past my four weeks I’m going to keep doing it for several more just because I’m finding it a useful tool. Writing down what I eat also helps me to realize how little I might have eaten one day, or to realize partway through the day that I hadn’t eaten any fruit.

The Syn thing has been interesting for me, too. I’m following the Extra Easy plan and without going into too much detail, each day I am allowed a dairy product off the A list, and a grain product off the B list. I can have unlimited fruit and vegetable, unlimited lean meat, and some other foods are marked as “free” – like baked beans, pasta, and potatoes. Everything else you put into your mouth counts as a syn, and you can eat 5-15 of them per day. With all the free food, sometimes it’s hard to eat many syns, but the beauty of the syn is that in the evening if I’m looking over my food diary and saying that I’ve only had a few syns, I can go make myself a hot chocolate (one of the reduced fat versions with water), and add a splash of milk to it for another half syn to make it creamier (and sometimes I make it all with milk if I still have my A choice for the day). Some of the syn values are shockers — I looked up McDonald’s just last night for Tim while he was on night shift we we discovered how many syns were in some of those foods (answer: a lot); while some of the syn values are reasonable, such as 1/2 syn per level Tablespoon of Reduced Salt & Sugar Heinz ketchup, or 1 syn per Tablespoon of single cream (so I can still have my creamy coffee!) Even chocolate, in moderation, isn’t too bad. A Cadbury’s Freddo is 5 syns, and a single Celebration candy from a Celebrations tin is 2.

I’m also learning about portion sizes, and about making food stretch. One day, I planned on grating some dark chocolate to put in my yogurt (BTW – certain yogurts are free!) and I carefully measured out 15g of Green and Black’s (4.5 syns) and started grating it….only to stop after I had only grated 9g because I had enough! And Cheese — while 40g of reduced fat cheddar doesn’t look like much, it sure does once you’ve grated it! I was absolutely surprised when I went to make a recipe that called for Parmesan cheese to discover that a Healthy A choice was 30g of it. 30g of grated parm is quite a bit and was more than enough for my bowl of pasta. My digital and analog scales, measuring jugs, and measuring spoons have become my new favourite kitchen tools. After I measure things out, I put them into regular every day dishes to try to remember for the future how much of something I can have. Your daily healthy A of semi skim milk is 250ml, which just happens to conveniently fit into a crystal creamer from Princess House, so I can fill up the creamer in the morning and use that milk in my tea all day and when it’s gone I just count the rest of my milk as 1/2 syn per splash (or I count it all as Syns and have cheese as my A instead). 100ml of orange juice (2 syns) goes as high as Strawberry Shortcake’s eyes on my juice glass. 35g of porridge oats can be measured to the third line on a small IKEA plastic bowl. 70g of extra light Philadelphia Cream Cheese is just enough to cover 6 Ryvita Crispbreads, having my A and B in one go.

Coming up with new meals and ways of cooking things is fun, too. Tim likes having sauces/gravy with his meals and the other day I combined greek yogurt (free), diced cucumbers (free), mint and dill (both free) to make a version of Tzatziki to serve with Salmon. Last night, I wanted to have a bit of a treat and I still had the syns to spend so I combined sliced banana (free) with a Toffee Muller Light yogurt (free) and topped it with 100g of reduced fat devon custard (4.5 syns) for what Tim dubbed “Banoffee mess”. Sometimes it doesn’t work out. Like my homemade taco seasoning mix that is heavy on the cumin tasted pretty bad when I stirred some into my scrambled eggs! But it’s all about experimenting and trying new things. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t. Slimming World chips, on the other hand, are AMAZING. Slimming World chips can be cut to whatever size you want (so skinny fries, chunky chips, wedges, or even roastie size) and you just boil the potatoes, drain them and shake them (like making regular roast potatoes), but you spray the tray with Frylight instead of oil or meat drippings. Someone in our group suggested Marmite on top. Now, I do not like Marmite and I think it’s gross, but a tablespoon of Marmite warmed up and mixed with a little hot water made a very tasty glaze for the potatoes.

Another thing that’s become really important to me is eating breakfast. I am not a big cereal person, so some mornings I have scrambled eggs with beans (both free) or a yogurt and an apple (also both free). Some mornings if Tim is up and we’re both hungry, I’ll do a “grill up” — the Slimming World equivalent to a fry up with eggs, bacon (with the fat off!), grilled tomatoes, mushrooms, and beans. Is this having an impact on my weight loss? Probably! It’s now 1030 and I’ve been up for a few hours and the first thing I did as I sat down at the computer was grab a yogurt out of the fridge. It’s become habit to me in the past 28 days.

Another easy swap for me that I totally credit with this week’s amazing 5.5lb loss is Tetley’s “best of both” blended teabags. It comes in a bright pink bag and it is half regular tea, half green tea. And we all know about the multiple health benefits of green tea, don’t we? And honestly, because it’s half and half, you can hardly taste the difference. And as Rebecca pointed out, it also weans you off more slowly from caffeine instead of going straight to pure green tea. Though, it will be a while before you can pry my coffee away from me, I will admit.

I started measuring myself again, too. In the past 28 days, 16.75 inches are GONE from my body overall. I measure EVERYWHERE — around my belly (can it really be called a waist?), my hips, below and above my boobs, upper and lower thigh, calves, ankles, neck, around the top of my arm, and around my feet. I used to not measure as many places, but I find it’s important to look at all the places I collect extra fat. If I could figure out a way to measure my face, I would. My foot width went down by an inch, and I even noticed that when I went to wear a pair of shoes from a few years ago that are now too big. And a pair of shoes I had bought online that were barely wide enough without socks now fit comfortably with socks. Obviously, the measurements are subject to bloating and other changes — like my upper arm sometimes swells due to the Hidradenitis, but by keeping track I can also monitor that condition. My hips will bloat a little at that time of the month. My knee is currently injured, so my lower thigh has been a bit bigger. But there’s a definite downwards trend.

Can I get another amazing 5.5lbs off this week? Maybe. Who knows? But if I can get off 2.5, I will have the first stone gone. Would it have been amazing to do it within the first four weeks? Yes. But being 2.5lbs away from it is nothing to sneeze at, and I won’t beat myself up for it, either.

**

~~*~~

*image from Someecards via Pinterest.
** Unknown via Pinterest. (is this your creation? Let me know so I can credit you!)

The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.

[LJ readers reading this on the LJ RSS feed: Please click on the link at the top of the entry to go directly to my blog to leave a comment, as comments left on the LJ RSS do not get seen by me. Facebook users reading this from my Networked Blogs link can either comment on facebook or on my blog. If you are reading this through an e-mail subscription, you might need to go directly to my blog to view videos and images.]

For full Copyright and Disclaimer, please read http://www.blog.beccajanestclair.com/copyright/

Firstly, I need to apologize for my photo. Once again, I took a really bad photo of the meal, and as the meal has now been eaten, I don’t have anything else to take a replacement photo of. So, crappy photo it is!

Anyway.

If you are familiar at all with dieting and have used any of the “programs”, you probably have come across a recipe for Diet Coke Chicken. If you haven’t, you basically turn the Diet Coke into a marinade and it’s supposed to taste similar to barbecue sauce. I’ve never tried it, but I’m willing to give it a go sometime after today’s recipe turned out so great!

I’m on a few groups online for support in this whole Slimming World thing, and one of the ladies, Stephanie, posted that she made a sweet and sour version using Fanta Zero, so I had to give it a try tonight! I had some diced pork in the freezer, so tonight’s dinner became Sweet and Sour Pork.

You will need:

Fry Light
1 can of Fanta Zero (US friends, Fanta is orange soda, so use a diet orange)
4 TBS passata (Tomato Sauce)
Worcester sauce
Red pepper flakes
2 TBS vinegar (any flavour)
1/2 C diced cherry tomatoes
1 TBS soy sauce
Stir-fry vegetables (use whatever you like!)
500g diced pork (cut off all fat)
2 eggs, whisked (optional)
Rice
Fresh pineapple, diced

-Cook rice according to package directions.
-Combine Fanta Zero, passata, a dash of Worcester, a pinch of red pepper flakes, and vinegar into a saucepan and bring to a boil. As it starts to boil, add your diced tomatoes. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 20 minutes.
-Spray a wok or large frying pan with Fry Light and cook the pork until it is no longer pink. Add 1TBS Soy Sauce and your vegetables and stir-fry for 5 minutes, depending on how crunchy you like your vegetables.
-(optional) pour the two eggs into the wok and stir until scrambled (I do this because we like egg fried rice. It takes about 5 minutes).
-Check sauce. If it hasn’t reduced, take the lid off and turn up the heat. If it looks thick enough for your liking, pour over the mixture in the wok and stir, cooking an additional 5 minutes.
-Serve with rice (optional) and garnish the top with some fresh pineapple.
-This should serve 3-4 people.

I ate mine without rice because I don’t eat a lot of carbs, but rice is a free food, so this recipe would still be totally free on the Extra Easy Slimming World plan. If you modify any of the ingredients (other than the vegetables used or swapping the meat for chicken), you will need to look up the Syn values for those ingredients.

Like I said, my photo isn’t pretty, but I’ll include it anyway:

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