13/01/2016

Why am I disappointed about losing 1lb?

I have been so on it this week - I've (unfortunately not literally) food optimised my ass off.

After gaining 2.5lbs over the Christmas and New Year period (which is nothing really when you think about it) I was determined to get rid of that and more and kick January off to a successful, slimming start.

This week, I lost 1lb.

Now, I know a loss is a loss and all that but I was SO expecting more. I was so gutted with just one pound. One measly pound.

I sat waiting for group to start thinking about the biscuits I was going to eat when I got home, feeling sorry for myself. Then group started and I heard everyone else's great weight losses and I felt even worse. But then I realised I need to look at the bigger picture.

A loss is a loss. I should be happy. I know I've put a lot of hard work into this week but I still lost weight.


I shouldn't get disheartened and despondent, I should pick myself up and carry on into a good loss next week. One pound is apparently a whole Guinea pig. And Guinea pigs are some of the bigger little creatures.

When I first started Slimming World my mums friend said that sometimes, when you've had a really good week it doesn't show on the scales until the week after. And vice versa with a bad week.

I've also been on my period since leaving group last week (and still going) which I don't think helped. But I can't look for excuses, it's time to draw my sparkly line under this week and look to next week.

I've tried loads of new recipes this week as a way to motivate myself to stick at it.  I've trawled through Instagram and Pinterest and found some great ideas for things (the oat and raisin cookies were a personal favourite).

For them, you just need 35g oats (HEB), 3 tbsp of sweetener, one egg and 25g raisins (4 syns).  Mix all the ingredients together then shape into cookies (I only got two out of it!) and bake at 180 for 20-25 mins.  For it to count as your HEB, you have to eat both/all the cookies, but that won't be hard as they're really tasty!

I've seen some people make them for breakfast and have them with fat free natural yoghurt and fruit, but I just had mine as a snack with a coffee.  Other people have swapped the raisins for a Freddo (5 syns) and grated that in, which is definitely one I am going to try!!

I also tried the butternut squash jacket that everyone in my group raves about.  Without getting too technical and complicated, it's a great jacket potato alternative because it's a speed vegetable.  Basically, unless your meal is full of speeds, you need to try and make sure at least one third of your plate is made up of speeds.  So if you were having a jacket potato, you'd have to try and fill a third of your plate with a side salad of lettuce, tomato etc (all speeds).  But, because the squash is a speed, you don't need to add anything else to it.  Winning.

The first few bites were strange because, obviously, it doesn't taste like a jacket potato.  But I soon came round to the idea.  I found that (this is probably going to sound gross) mixing the squash and beans together into a mush (I warned you) was actually really tasty.

To do the butternut squash jacket, take a squash and peel the label off (it's foil on the other side!) Put it in the microwave for 5 mins on high then take out and cut in half and de-seed.  Place it on a baking tray, skin down, spray with fry light and cook for 25-30 mins (depending on the size of your squash). I did mine on 180 (electric).  It's really filling so you'll have the other half saved for another day, which is always nice.

Apparently you can eat the skin of the squash but I've not quite got that adventurous yet.  I did, however, make the butternut squash soup at the weekend and took the advice of a lady in my group and cooked it with the skin still on and blended it all up.  There was literally no difference to when I did it before and spent a good half an hour trying to peel the damn thing.  So that's a top tip for anyone wanting to try that!

As well as cooking lots of new things, I finally sat down and sorted through all of my Christmas chocolate.  I've been really good so far and not been tempted to binge on any of it - primarily because I didn't know how many syns any of it was.  So, Sunday afternoon, I sat with my SW app, my scales, and a load of freezer bags and divided it all into bags of 15 syns or less.  It's incredible how little was 15 syns in some cases.

For example, one segment of Terry's chocolate orange is 2.5 syns!!!!  So six segments and you've had your lot for the day.  I'd have happily troughed the whole lot once upon a time and not felt guilty in the slightest.


I was left with about 30 bags of treats so have made my very own 'syn bin' for me to reach into when I have a sugary craving.  If anyone still has Christmas chocolate left and is dreading it being in the house, I would highly recommend doing this.  It almost makes me want to eat it less seeing how many syns is in some of it.

I also continued back at the gym this last week and went to a spinning class.  Now, I love a good spinning class.  I hate it at the time, but it's a good kind of hate.  Me and Soph went on Tuesday because we know it's a class we like at a good time but were shocked to discover it wasn't just a normal spin.

Oh no.

This was 'warrior spin' and it was every bit as hard as it sounded.

There was spinning, burpees, spinning, press-ups, spinning, squat jumps, spinning... At one point I just sat on the floor next to the bike staring into space.  It was hard.  Harder than hard.

So hard I couldn't even be bothered to cook tea when I got home, I literally couldn't stand up long enough, so we went to Frankie & Benny's.  I didn't go silly, though, and had chicken with some veggies and spaghetti.  No way was I undoing all that hard work I'd just done and devouring a pizza (as nice as that would have been).

This next week is looking good - I've got enough chicken breasts in the freezer to feed an army and
still loads of salad and veg to create some yummy meals.  I'm going to do the chicken jambalaya again (purely because it's easy and makes enough for lunch the next day, too), the jerk chicken kebabs again, sweet chilli chicken and a big cottage pie.  Hopefully that will see me with a good loss and my half a stone award.

Fingers crossed!

Week nine food diary


Day One:

Breakfast: Two eggs scrambled with 1/3 of a tin of chopped tomatoes and 3/4 of a red pepper mixed in.
Dinner: Homemade carrot, swede and onion soup
Snack: The other 1/4 of the red pepper
Snack: Apple and pear
Tea: SW easy chicken curry with spicy broccoli and green beans
Syns for the day: 0

Day Two:

Breakfast: Poached eggs and loads of spinach leaves
Snack: Apple and pear
Dinner: Chicken and bacon salad with a whole meal bread roll (HEB)
Snack: Pear
Tea: SW fish and chips
Snack: Maltesers (5 syns)
Snack: Milky Way (5 syns)
Syns for the day: 10

Day Three:

Breakfast: Poached eggs on loads of spinach leaves
Snack: Homemade HEB oat and sultana cookies
Dinner: Homemade carrot, swede and onion soup
Tea: Diet cola chicken (SW recipe) with cauliflower rice
Snack: Five celebrations (2 syns each)
Syns for the day: 14

Day Four:

Breakfast: Dippy eggs with two slices of wholemeal bread (HEB) cut into soldiers
Drink: Tall skinny latte from Starbucks (5 syns)
Dinner: Butternut squash jacket (like a jacket potato but butternut squash) with baked beans
Tea: Roast chicken Sunday dinner with carrots, broccoli and homemade SW roast potatoes. 1 syn for gravy.
Snack: Two cookies (4 syns each)
Syns for the day: 14


Day Five:

Breakfast: Melon
Snack: Apple
Dinner: Soup and a sandwich - leftover roast chicken on two slices of wholemeal bread (HEB) with homemade SW butternut squash soup.
Snack: Pear
Tea: Chilli and garlic meatballs with roasted speed veg and a bit of spaghetti
Snacks: A 'syn bin' treat bag made up of 28g Jelly Tots (5 syns) and 38g Smarties (9 syns)
Syns for the day: 14

Day Six:

Breakfast: Melon
Snack: Pear
Dinner: Butternut squash jacket (like a jacket potato but butternut squash) with baked beans
Snack: Apple
Tea: 'Saltimbocca chicken' at Frankie and Benny's (chicken breast stuffed with salami and sage with spaghetti in tomato sauce, peas, green beans and broccoli) Guessing about 4 syns for the salami and a few for the olive oil it will have been cooked in.
Syns for the day: Est. 8

Day Seven: (weigh day)

Breakfast: Overnight oats
Snack: Apple
Dinner: Homemade SW butternut squash soup
Snack: Pear
Tea: Turkey and pepper stir fry (all done in the ActiFry so super easy)
Syns for the day: 0

You may also like: i couldn't think of an inventive title about this 'weight loss' post given my gains (and not the good gym kind)

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