I'm back!

Morning dear SW readers..........remember me????

You'd be forgiven if you don't, as it's been a while since my last blog, and for that I apologise.

That old demon ambivalence sneaked in last week and surreptitiously devoured most of my commitment to SW (and blogging) and replaced them with an unhealthy dose of "devil may care".

And also handed me 1.5 pounds of fat at weigh in on Friday.  Ohhhh the horror!!!!!!!!!!!!

But a gain is a gain is a gain and it's not the end of the world. I went off plan quite a few days with this and that (I know exactly where and exactly why and it was all avoidable), but I thought everything would be OK and that this early on in my weight loss, I'd either stay the same or lose.  I didn't.  I put on weight and it is definitely a lesson learned.

Be aware of the demons, they are lurking everywhere!

My demon mostly comes out in the evenings after work. I find it quite easy to stick completely to plan during my work day, I always bring my lunch and healthy snacks and I am absorbed and thoroughly enjoy my job, so my working day usually flies by, with SW food being a nice part of that.

Then I get home, where my demon is patiently waiting for me, opening the fridge and kitchen cupboards and pouring a relaxing glass of my favourite boozy tipple with a loving smile (and a SW dagger behind his back!). My demon looks like this....

He always has VERY persuasive arguments for veering off plan when I'm alone, bored, happy, peckish, tense, moody, sad.......the list goes on. OK, OK, he could proffer a persuasive argument pretty much 24 hours a day, if I let him!!

And that my dear readers, is why for me, making SW a lifestyle plan, is so important.  If I treat SW as "just a diet" or a "quick fix for Christmas" or some other occasion (which it isn't for me, as my weight just doesn't come off that quickly), I am setting myself up for failure, because everything I love to eat and drink suddenly becomes a forbidden pleasure and such an irresistible temptation that I cave in as soon as my demon appears and I end up stuffing my face or boozing, whilst my demon chuckles delightedly and eggs me on.

And (if I let him), he would bash me on the head with his SW guilt stick to remind me what a terrible person I am and what a failure I've become.

 But I'm not gonna let that happen!!!!

I'm aware of my demon and I've had a long hard think about how to banish him from my SW kingdom. Cue avoiding triggers like boredom and habit and replacing them with something which will divert my attention during the "evil hours", i.e. my weakest hours which are usually between 5pm - 7pm weekdays.  I might even blog, so you'll all be sick of the sight of me after a couple of weeks, LOL!

I was firmly on plan yesterday (Saturday).  Sorry no photos, I must get better at capturing my food on camera before it is captured by my mouth. I had eggs and baked beans for breaky/brunch, a bit of a snacky mid afternoon with a Mugshot and HEX ryvitas with ham/tomatoes and my tea was chicken tarragon pasta with leeks and spinach, which you all know is my quick and delicious "go to" recipe. I also made a huge vat of free minestrone soup for lunches and snacks all week, packed full of veggies and pasta, delicious!

I've gotta do some flexi-syns today, as my OH and I are going for dinner at our friends' house and I've no idea what they will be cooking, but it's bound to be gorgeous and Italian, with fantastic rustic bread and olive oil. I cannot wait! In lieu of the humungous calories lying in wait for me, I am only eating super-free foods til I get there and I will be firmly back on plan tomorrow.

So I will be savouring and loving every mouthful of our friends' home cooked delicious dinner whilst I eat it AND ensuring that I deftly dodge my demon's guilt stick afterwards **blows big raspberry in demon's general direction**

So it's TTFN my lovely readers. Love yourselves and love SW!

c
xx

The ever so slightly more serious follow-up blog

Good morning dear SW readers!

I pinged awake at stupid o clock this morning, considering it's a Sunday, but I just couldn't get back off to sleep, hence I was up and about putting in a load of washing at 6.15am.  I feel a bit like this today:

Why I can't ping awake at a similar time during the working week is beyond me.  I usually have to peel myself off the sheets............

Anyway, after my totally non-food-based and rather frivolous blog yesterday, I thought I'd run through a few bits and bobs that passed my lips yesterday.  Rest assured it is all related to food, despite a smut-filled conversation on the Big Purple Bus last night about meaty sausages and all things related (you get the picture) which was very amusing!

Soooooooo, breakfast/brunch was one of my favourites, a SW cooked breakfast, which I adore. Depending what my HEX plans for the day are, I sometimes have bread, sometimes not, but yesterday 2 rounds of toast (no butter) were definitely on the menu, as well as half a tin of Sainsbugs veggie ravioli (1 syn), eggs, beans and 3 quorn sausages (1 syn each).  Totally delicious!

My lovely other half Steve and I went out for a stroll around the shops in the afternoon and I got peckish, so I bought a small pack of cooked chicken and a bottle of water (good ain't I?) whilst Steve wolfed down 2 large size Snickers bars and a bottle of fully leaded Coke. And I even managed to peruse a farmers market and not partake of any cheese or pie samples, despite them calling to me.

My belly thought my throat had been cut when we got home, so I had a Piri Piri Mugshot to tide me over (free) whilst we tackled a mountain of washing up and then started cooking tea: creamy tarragon chicken pasta, with garlic and spinach. It's SOOOOO delicious! Definitely one of my favourite meals ever. I always make lots of  inappropriate Loyd Grossman-eque noises while I'm eating it, mmmmmmmmmm, aaaaaaaahhhhhh, oooooooooohhhhhhhhhh.  There was very little ruminating and cogitating, but certainly plenty of digesting going on.

Talking of Loyd Grossman, I found a saucy little picture which I thought you ladies might appreciate. I'm sure you'll agree, he's really working the "wedged in a bookshelf" look. 

After that pic sensation, I'll just give you a minute to calm yourselves before I present the pic of my pasta.......

It's as pretty as pasta with sauce slopped over can be, but believe me it tastes amazing and I highly recommend it. The sauce is made with chicken stock and a HEX of Philadelphia light. 

I also made some paprika wedges to snack on during the evening, because it was Saturday night and yummy SW snacks are essential! I prefer to half-cook whole potatoes in the microwave (no peeling), then slice into chunks, season with salt/pepper/paprika/smoked paprika, spray lots with Frylight, then oven bake for about 35 mins til crispy. I find it's much less faff and mess than par-boiling.

I'm going to try making Homity Pie for tonight's tea (with obligatory chicken and veg to accompany) I've got the recipe from the Autumn recipes booklet that came with the latest SW magazine. I'm confident it's going to be gorgeous as it's basically cheesey mash..........what's not to like?? 

I'm off for my morning ablutions now, dear readers. So TTFN and enjoy another lovely day on SW!

c
xx

Pow! Bop! Thwap!

Take that, you odious stone of flab!

Holy smokes Batman, I've officially lost 2 ¾ pounds this week, making a grand total of 15 ¾ pounds over the last 7 weeks following the Slimming World plan.     KER-POWWW!!!!! 

AND........holy priceless collection of Etruscan snoods Batman, I've also dropped down into the next stone bracket!!!

Great work Robin. I've always believed, as the campest Batman ever, we must all be vigilant fighters of fat. Especially as I have to wear a leotard in public.

If I put on a few pounds, I have to stand like this to look good........SHHLLOOOOOPPPPP (sucks in gut).  No-one should ever have to stand like this Robin.   It looks ridiculous.

I'm pretty sure that the secret to my weight loss this week has been preparation and planning, knowing what I'm cooking for lunch and tea and having essential snackage in between of firstly superfree foods and then free foods.   

 As the dynamic duo so eloquently put it:

Robin: "Where'd you get a live fish, Batman?"
Batman: "The true crime (fat) -fighter always carries everything he needs in his utility belt, Robin."

(Disclaimer: This blog does not support weight loss by stuffing a fish into your pants)


TTFN lovely readers, I'm off for a Bat Cave breakfast!

c
xx

Average to middling!

If you are not from the North of England, then you will possibly not get my title......"How you doing?", "Eh up, well, average to middling......."

My dad still says this to me every time I see him :-) I am from the North West of England, Pennines to be precise, and my life has bordered Cheshire, Lancashire and Derbyshire. I am a Northerner through and through and I love the North of England, it's my home and always will be my heart too.

Soooooooo, this week how've I done? Average to middling.What a surprise! My personal bathroom weigh in ( I am not an official SW member despite following the SW principles) showed that I had fallen into the next stone  below in terms of weight loss and stoneage on the scales.

AAAAAAAAHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEGGGGGGGGGGGGOOOOOOOOOO!

What a fantastic result! I am yet to officially weigh myself on Friday morning (I do it after my morning wee, nudee (TMI sorry!) but I am confidently quietly confident!  Lets see anyway, there's lots more hours.

Love you all, love yourselves..

c
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The Inevitable gain blog

Ahhhhh, a gain had to happen at some point. At week 6 though?

One could be forgiven for shouting "EPIC FAIL"!!!

But not me today.

I was not expecting lose anything this week, as I've had 4 days out of 7 where I know my syns have exceeded 15.  So no Sherlock Holmes needed there! It's been a hungry week but I've gone a bit overboard and mega pigged out on free carbs, when I should have been snacking on superfree foods instead.

Take for example my lunch this week. I made a gorgeous yellow split pea soup which was really thick and filling as it had potato in it too, (as well as loads of veggies) but I thought why not make a ham pasta salad and take that for lunch too......it's all free right??? So my lunch bag has been bulging full of all that delicious healthy stuff, plus fat free yoghurt and superfrees like blueberries, grapes and figs. After eating all my soup and pasta I didn't want any of my superfrees and I was waddling round full to the brim.  I've also had a few naughties like alcohol and too many oatcakes (oh oatcakes, how I love thee!)

So this gain has taught me a good lesson, not in portion control, because we don't have to do that with free/superfree on SW, but that it's all about balance.  Pasta and most carbs are fabulous and amazing and free,  but if I stuff my face with the equivalent of 2 lunches at once, so much so that I can't even face a portion of fruit and a yoghurt, something is definitely awry!

Example 2: My lovely tea the other night was home made chilli with kidney beans containing a tin of kidney beans and a tin of baked beans (divided between 2 of us), PLUS couscous, PLUS SW wedges, PLUS stir-fry veggies. Here's a pic.  That's a bowl by the way, not a plate, so there's an awful lot of food in there!

Of course I had to eat the lot because I'm me and my mouth just luuurrrves to chew (perhaps I was bovine or a camel in a previous life!).

I've still lost a total of 13 pounds in 6 weeks taking into account the gain (it was half a pound gain by the way, not a lot but it's still going in the wrong direction). However the good thing is that I've learned some lessons from this week and I'm back on track now, making an effort to choose superfree foods first, then moving onto the free stuff.  And I also know that I need stop eating when I am full, rather than stopping when I am about to burst and waddle. I'm pretty sure the geniuses at SW who devised this plan, didn't advocate waddling after any of their meals!

And there endeth the lesson for today, my lovely Slimming Worlders.  At some point in the near future I will tell you all a bit more about myself, as we all like a bit of an autobiography don't we, but  it's TTFN lovely readers.

c
xx

Musings on an early "fail" week

Hello my lovelies.......

Here I am writing another SW blog (I am rather keen!!)  but tonight's musings are based not on food, (well not solely on food) but more on our attitudes to ourselves and our overweight bodies. I've discovered from myself and my friends and interacting with the online overweight community, that we pretty much harbour hate towards ourselves whilst we are in our overweight state and that being slim equates with happiness.

I can't deny I've been in and out of that myself since I was about 10 years old (including skinny phases) and I battle with myself about my self worth solely based upon my body image.

First I'd like to say:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

......I'm sure this is how a lot of you feel on a daily basis.

I do.

Marvellous!  :-)   Now that's out of our system, lets focus on ourselves. Our lovely selves.

We are lovely, we are unique, we are kind, decent people. Other people are not necessarily the same, people as a culture are unkind to those they find different or easy targets. We have to accept this, it's a fact of life. 

I'm not some do-gooder, tt's bloody hard when you get abuse, to not feel shitty about yourself. I recently went on a lovely holiday to Copenhagen and the Danish were disgracefully abusive to me, as it's a generally slim, stylish culture there. It ruined my holiday and destroyed my self esteem - I was scared to walk down the street without hiding behind my lovely boyfriend. So I am very familiar with feeling like a bag of crap because of the general public.

I can't deny this has fuelled my desire to lose weight, but I was losing weight before I went there and I refuse to lose weight under any pressure from anyone. I am me. I set my own goals. If those goals are not met, it's fine, I do not feel bad about myself, that is just life. I get back up and I start again.

What I am trying to say in my own way is that our journeys are based on ourselves and no-one else. Those twattish Danes who abused me can just eff off. I was upset at the time, but they have no influence on me now. I lose weight because I want to now. If I slip up, I just sort myself out and get back on plan when it suits me.

There is no "good" time to lose weight. It's a lifestyle.  SW is a fantastic lifestyle.  Added to that is your own self esteem and you need to love yourself and fuck everyone else who doesn't, quite frankley!!  It has taken me til now to realise that.  

Love you all! TTFN
c
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Second still quite scary blog!

Well............

I've been a lazy old moo and not watched any "how to" vids or websites which tell me how to bling up my blog. Naughty me. Note to self: don't make promises you can't keep.

But I'm a dieter aren't I? Don't we occasionally make promises we sometimes don't keep?? If you are like me, then you have made many dieting slimming promises for many many years and failed miserably. But that doesn't make me or you a bad person, it just shows that the best intentions often fall foul of life.

And unfortunately for us gorgeous ladies who could do with losing a few pounds, good food is really rather fabulous and I for one, like eating it, enjoying it, cooking it and surrounding myself with other people who also love it too. So this slimming malarkey is rather a hard one, I'm sure you'll agree.

But not impossible........... and that's where the fabulous Slimming World comes in.

I personally like eating yummy food when I am hungry (not just plain carrot sticks) and having a big fat (not fatty) plate of food in front of me for my main meal so my eyes are full as well as my belly.  Those of you on SW know that this is totally encouraged on SW and we still lose weight doing it!! It's quite frankly Mr Shankley, AMAZING!

Take my SW roasty dinner the other day........ (cue me trying to post a pic in the right place) it was mahoosive, yummily gorgeous and tasty and had everything on I could possible want and I was stuffed afterwards. SW roasties are the best they really are!

OMG that pic insert worked, I nearly fell off my chair.....Bazinga! (I am a bit of a nerd, so any nerds among you will get that)

Tonight's delights which await me as I type this (can you feel my typing getting more frantic?) are chilli con carne, couscous and SW wedges. I shall take a pic (hopefully sans pre-scoff dribble) and include it in my next blog.

Loving writing at the moment, I do hope this continues. I am ever inspired by current amazing SW bloggers and do hope you enjoy reading mine as it evolves.

Til next time, TTFN.
c
xxxxx