A loss - woohoo!

YAY! 3.5 lbs off last night, so excited. I am not under any illusions that that'll continue next week as I'm away for the weekend, but I'm hoping I can manage a maintain before the craziness of Christmas starts next weekend!

Also, I came home from group and we ordered pizza! Which I'm regretting today because my acid reflux is now getting its revenge. But it was good at the time.

Fought every urge in me today to have the lovely, soft, white, uncut bread we have in the kitchen for breakfast and had some SW friendly porridge instead.

Have an awesome weekend everyone!

Sal
xXx

Recipe: Mushroom Soup

Someone at work the other was heating up something for lunch that smelt delightfully mushroomy (sod off spellcheck, it's totally a word!). So I then spent the rest of the day fantasising about mushroom soup. I'm a sad bugger I know.

It's ugly. In fact it was so ugly I couldn't get a decent photo so I decided not to include one.
Here's what I came up with. Ugly... but tasty!

Mushroom Soup
Serves: (depends on how much soup you want but mine made about 4 servings)
Syns: 0.5 for the whole pot

Ingredients:
1/4 cup of dried mushrooms, any will do

1 Small onion, chopped

1/2 a cup (a couple of stalks) of celery, chopped
350g ish of mushrooms, stalks and all, chopped (I used a pack of chestnut mushrooms and half a pack of shiitake mushrooms that I had left to use up)
1 medium potato, chopped (I don't bother peeling, just give it a scrub)
Veggie stock
Marmite
2 bay leaves
A Pinch of dried thyme
1/3 of a pot (about 125-130g) of plain Alpro Go On Yogurt, optional
Salt & pepper to taste

Method: 
Pour boiling water over the dried mushrooms and leave to soak.

Hack up the onions and celery and fry in Frylight for a few mins until start to soften. Clean any mud off the mushrooms and hack them up - stalks'n'all. Throw in pan and cook until the water starts to release and they've cooked down a bit.

Chop up the potato and add to the pan with the soaked mushrooms and their soaking water. Add a couple of stock cubes and enough water to just cover the veggies (I added about 3-4 cups, including the mushroom liquid). Add a teaspoon or so of marmite (even if you're a hater like me, trust me!). Add the herbs and bring to the boil.

Turn to a simmer and simmer for 20 minutes, until potatoes are soft. Leave to cool a bit and then remove the bay leaves and blend.

Add the yogurt if using and blend again. Check seasoning and serve.

If you wanted to make this SP friendly you could replace the potato with cauliflower! :)

Sal xXx

Savoury Rice Recipe

It's less than 3 weeks til Christmas! I'm pretty excited, just put up a few decorations at work as my boss is out for the week. No more bah humbug for him! haha

Saw this yesterday on Facebook and laughed!

Anyway, I thought I'd share a super easy, regular weekday dinner of ours. This recipe has evolved over the years from something I used to make, with some additions my mum made... and this is the most regularly used version, but tweak it to what you have.

This made 4 decent sized portions and worked out at 3 syns for the entire pan. I counted it as 1 syn per portion, rounded up and had I not been feeding 4 of us, I would've had a third of it and kept a third for lunch today. You could also use curry powder instead of paste, if you want to keep this free, or leave it out altogether and add some herbs and spices instead. But here's how I made this version.

The beans etc are approximates, if you want to chuck in a whole can do it. If you want to add more or less peas/sweetcorn or any other veg, do it!

Savoury Rice
Serves: 3-4
Syns: 3 in the whole recipe; omit or swap the curry paste with powder to make this syn-free

Ingredients
Frylight
1 onion, diced as finely as you can be bothered
1 pepper, colour of your choice or a bit of both, diced as above
1/2 a tin of kidney beans
1/2 a cup or so of sweetcorn
1+1/4 cups of basmati rice, dry
Veggie stock
2 tablespoons of korma (or other curry) paste (I used Pataks)
1/2 a cup or so of peas
Salt & Pepper to taste

Method
In a non-stick frying pan (the non-stick bit is important!), fry the onion in frylight for a few minutes, then add the peppers and fry a few more minutes. Place basmati rice into a sieve and rinse under cold water. Add to the pan. Add 3 cups of stock (or in my case 3 cups of water and two vegetable oxo cubes) and the curry paste. Stir well.

Add the beans and sweetcorn and mix through. Turn to a simmer, cover* and leave to simmer for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

After 15 minutes, add the peas, stir through and switch off the heat. Replace the lid and leave to sit for around 5 minutes. Fluff with a fork, taste to see if it needs salt and/or pepper and then serve.

I love the leftovers cold the next day but if you are going to do this, make sure you keep refrigerated until you eat it or if you're going to reheat, make sure you do so until it's super mega boiling hot. Like liquid hot magma-hot! Reheating cold rice is when it becomes a danger zone, so either eat really cold or piping hot!!

*If your pan doesn't have a tight fitting lid, use foil.

What's your favourite easy weekenight meal?

Sal xXx

Food Diary - Sunday 04.12.16

Here is a recent food diary (from Sunday):

Breakfast

Dee's sausages, potato farls (1 syn*), heinz spaghetti (not hoops - hoops are not vegan, pesky vit D grr!), Mushrooms. I also had my daily latte made with 200ml hazelnut milk for half my HEA.

*these are shown as about 5.5 syns each on the app but on checking the ingredients, they are mostly made from dehydrated potato - smash! So if smash is free, no way I'm counting these as 5.5 syns. So I put them through the syn calculator with a free food allowance and they came out as 0.5 each. That's what I go with - obviously if you're not happy to do this count them as per the app.

Lunch

25g of granovita pate (3 syns), 2 ryvita dark rye (1/2 HEB), cuppa.

Dinner

Sainsbury's meatfree balls (hehe) (0.5 syn) in speedy mushroom/hidden veg sauce. I added a little bit of alpro go on plain to the sauce and a sprinkle of nooch, so I called that half a syn. I had the other half of my HEB too with dinner, one slice of bread.

I also had one of these chocolate covered gingerbread cookies with jam i the middle that I found in the Polish section in my local Tesco (or possibly Sainsbury's). They're 2 syns each.

Snack

I got a bit peckish later on so I had 21 grams of these Snapea crisps for 4.5 syns.

Not pictured, I also had a tall soya latte in Starbucks. They're 5.5 syns each so I counted it as the other half of my HEA plus 2.5 syns.

Ended the day on 14.5 syns.

Sal xXx

What I ate video

No weigh in update this week because I couldn't get to group due to a work event. However, I'm pretty sure it'd have been another gain. But I'm back on track now and feeling quite inspired to stay on it until the weekend when I'll no doubt do some more damage :)

I decided to film a what I ate video and introduce myself a bit. If you are interested in that, here it is. Excuse my derp face thumbnail! haha

Have a great week everyone
Sal xXx

Syn Free Gravy

A syn free roast is easy to do but it's the gravy that adds syns if you use bisto, albeit only a few. But if you want a syn free version, here's one I made to put on my sausage and mash last night:

I just made 1 serving as it is just me that is vegan / on SW in our house. I sliced a shallot and fried it off in frylight until it had a bit of colour. Then I crumble in a veggie oxo cube and then added around 1/2 a cup of hot water (add more as you cook it if needed).

I also added a tsp of marmite and a tsp of tomato puree - both of these help to thicken the gravy a bit. Then just turned down the heat to low to keep it warm until the rest of the food was cooked. Season to taste.

I think the stock cube you use is key here, as it gives most of the flavour, so use one you like the taste of. Also, Oxo cubes are pretty salty (and marmite is too) so I only added pepper as it didn't need salt, but you may need to add some if you use a lower sodium stock.

Sal xXx

Downloadable Syn Chart

I try not to every week, but on weeks when I have a big weekend, I use weekly syns instead of daily, so I try not to go over 105 in the week (7x15).

I made this chart this morning to have something pretty to look at. One smiley face is one syn! You can use it for daily syns too, as one horizontal line is 15 syns :)

If you want a downloadable PDF, you can access it HERE.

Sal xXx

Food Diary - 28.11.16

I gained again last week (1 lb) and I'm not sure I'll make it to weigh-in this week (work thing!). At this point I think I'm trying to do damage limitation more than actually lose, because of the festive period. I seem to have something in the diary every week.

Anyway, as I mentioned before, I think I'm going to start posting regular food diaries, I won't post every day this week because I am going for no syns, besides my morning yogurt, to combat the weekend!! So they'll be pretty boring and very similar!

So here's what I ate yesterday:

Breakfast
Half a tub of Alpro Go On plain (1*)
Defrosted frozen cherries
A Banana
200ml of Alpro hazelnut milk in my latte (half HEA)

Lunch
Split pea soup

Snack
The last of my candy floss grapes!

Dinner
Slimming World chips
Quorn fillet
Sauce made with finely chopped speedy veg (tomatoes, onion, courgette, peppers) and a bit of paprika, dried sage and veg stock.

HEA
200ml Hazelnut Milk
No more than 300ml light soymilk in tea throughout the day

HEB
1 Alpen Light Jaffa Cake bar (I forgot to eat the second one!!)

Syns
1

* it's 1.5 syns for the whole tub so I rounded up!

Sal
xXx

A gain again :(

So I gained 1.5lbs on Thursday. So annoying, I seem to be yoyoing every week! up down up down up down.

I had a bit of a heavy weekend again but I'm going to just eat minimal syns this week in the hope I can pull it back. UGH.

I know after Christmas I can be more focused but I still don't want to have a big gain before then.

I think I am going to film / photograph some food diaries this week and share them, hopefully this will inspire me to cook and eat some good stuff.

I have also planned meals for the week on my meal planning pad!

How's everyone else doing? Is the run up to Chrimbo affecting you at all / yet?

Sal xXx

Update

So on Thursday I was expecting a gain, hoping for a maintain (heavy weekend, I blame the booze!) and my result was.....

2.5 lbs off! Shocked isn't the word! I actually thought the lovely lady who weighed me wrote down 1.5, which I was still super happy about but my consultant announced 2.5 to the group and when I checked she was right. So YAY! I am now 2.5lbs away from my stone (although after another weekend of crap, I'm probably going to gain this week!).

So if anyone is reading this, help! How do you stay on track at the weekend, especially when you have plans? Any tips appreciated?

I now have something in my diary for every weekend until Christmas and I need to order my wedding dress in February at the latest, so I don't want to take huge backwards steps!

Sal xXx

Update

Arrgghhh I totally forgot to update!

So after my last gain I managed to lose 5lbs the following week! So pleased. But then last week I put 2 on again after I couldn't manage to keep my head in the game.

I don't think I'm on a for a loss this week either, after the weekend I had. Trying desperately to pull back something though.

I feel frustrated! I have been hovering around the same 2 or 3 lbs for months now and the weekends keep doing me in. This weekend won't be any better either as it's my fiance's birthday. It's one meal out, so I'm hoping I can control it a bit.

Tomorrow I'm going wedding dress shopping for the first time. Which is exciting but I wanted to have lost 2 stone before I even started to look and at the moment the first stone still feels like miles away.

So I need a kick up the bum to stay on track. Hopefully a maintain this week (if I can pull that off) will help focus me and keep me on track.

Cross your fingers on Thursday for me! :)

Sal xXx

Shepherd's Jacket Potatoes

OK you need to make these TODAY!

Shepherd's Potatoes!

I wish I'd taken a pic of the inside! But anyway, I got the idea from the Bosh! Facebook page, which is a must-follow, if you're not already! I didn't follow their recipe because I wanted to keep the filling free and I also didn't have any mushrooms, but what I did was:

Bake a jacket potato at 200°C for an hour.

Cut a hole in the top and scoop out the innards. Mash that with salt, pepper and a splash of soymilk.

For the filling I cooked an onion in frylight and then added a chopped carrot, half a chopped courgette a couple of handfuls of soya mince (make sure you get a free one) and then added some veggie stock and tomato puree, a bay leaf, some dried sage, a bit of garlic powder and a squeeze of marmite and let it simmer away for 20 minutes or so.

Then fill the jacket about 2/3 of the way up with the soya mince mixture and then top with the mashed potato.

I added some Sainsbury's vegan cheese* on top and then popped it under the grill for 5 mins or so until the Gary was bubbly and starting to brown.

These were delicious. I added extra speed veg on the side. I am about to devour the leftovers for lunch but I could easily have eaten both.

Sal xXx

Original inspiration from Bosh! on Facebook - HERE.

*I made 2 potatoes and shared 30g of Gary between them; it was kind of a lot and I could have used less but I shoved it all on there! haha. I counted these as 2 syns each.

A gain this week!

Well, shit.

5.5 lbs on this week! I didn't weigh last week and I've been off plan for 2 weeks so not really any surprise, considering the crap I'd been eating.

so....

Moving onwards and upwards. Had a nice breakfast of an Alpro Go On yogurt and a red grapefruit and I'm gonna make a tofu stir fry with loads of speed veg in for lunch.

Have an awesome weekend.
Sal xXx

I'm rubbish, so here's a recipe

I didn't weigh in last week as I couldn't get to group and I've been pretty much off plan since before then. So I'm guessing this week's weigh in will be a bit rubbish. But I'll update on Thursday/Friday!

I was eating a tin of bought lentil soup the other day and remembered an old recipe of mine off my other blog that I used to make a lot. It's easily made SW friendly with a few tweaks. The picture is of the original version, but the recipe below is the updated one:

Lentil & Sausage Soup
1/2 cup brown or green lentils
Fry light
1 medium onion
2 carrots
1 medium potato 
2 medium tomatoes
2 cloves of garlic, grated on a microplane or chopped finely
1 veggie stock cube
about 3 cups of water*
2 bay leaves
1/2 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp sage
Good squeeze (tbsp or so) tomato puree
4 syn free vegan sausages (or syn as necessary) - optional
Salt & pepper to taste

Serves: 3-4
Syn Free (if using syn free sausages)

Method:
Pour boiling water over the lentils and set aside while you prepare the rest of the veg. 

Chop the onions, potato and carrots into rough dice. Saute the onion in the olive oil and a pinch of salt for 5 minutes.

Add the garlic, tomatoes, carrots and potato and stir well and cook for a few minutes. Add boiling water from the kettle *enough to almost cover the veg (I also added a bit more as the soup was cooking so I added about 3 cups in total). Add the stock cube, tomato puree and the drained lentils and a pinch of salt & pepper. Don't go overboard on the salt if your stock cube has added salt. Add the herbs and bring to the boil, then cover with a lid and turn down to a simmer and cook for 20-25 minutes until the veggies are cooked.

Cook the sausages while the soup is simmering and leave them to cool a bit so they can be chopped.

Turn off the heat and add the sausage if still warm. If the sausage is cold, cook it for a minute or so after you add the sausage.

In the photo above I used homemade seitan sausages but I am unsure of the syns of them, so would switch them out for Linda McCartney ones instead.

Sal xXx

Easy (SP Friendly) Syn Free Vegan Chilli Recipe

First things first, results of this week's weigh-in:

I lost 1.5 lbs this week! YAY.

Here is a super easy recipe for the SP day friendly vegan chilli I mentioned in the yesterday's food diary that I posted this afternoon.

I actually had it with rice the other night (and the leftovers on a baked potato for lunch yesterday) but this makes for a yummy SP day meal, either alone or with cauli-rice.

Ingredients:
1 small onion, diced
Frylight Spray
1 red pepper, diced finely
1 tin of kidney beans in chilli sauce
1 tin of cooked lentils
2 tomatoes, chopped
a pinch of sweetener
2 tsps of marmite
Chilli flakes or chilli powder (optional) to taste

This makes 3-4 servings but on SP days I often eat half of it as I have it without rice.

Method:
Fry the onion in frylight until it starts to soften and colour a bit then add the pepper and cook for a little more time. You could also throw in a clove or 2 of garlic if you want.

Add all the other ingredients (I add chilli flakes as the chilli sauce on the beans isn't that hot, but only add if you like it spicier) and bring to the boil. Turn down to a simmer and cook for at least 15 minutes, but anywhere up to 30-40 will be fine too. I pretty much just put my rice on once it's simmering and cook it til the rice is done.

Re the marmite - even if you're a hater, add it in. It adds a lovely savoury note to the chilli. If you hate it so much you can't bear to be around it, just add a bit of extra salt.

I added 3.5 syns worth of avocado mashed with a bit of salt and lime juice.

Have an awesome weekend.
Sal xXx

What I ate Yesterday

Here is a food diary of yesterday's eats:

For breakfast I had an Alpro Go-On Yogurt (1.5 syns) and a banana. And a litre of water throughout the morning.

For lunch, I had the last of the potato/leek soup I made the other day (free). I also had a packet of beef flavoured hula hoop pufts but forgot to take a pic (3.5 syns).

For a snack when I got home from work, I hate a massive hunk of raw cauliflower. I won't like, after a few mouthfuls it got weird! But I was hungry so I ate it.

Dinner was this chilli and rice. Super easy and tasty, recipe will be up later on tonight or tomorrow morning with my weigh-in results. The chilli and rice were free but I also added 3.5 syns worth of avocado on top because it's yummy!

I also made myself a mug cake out of my HEB oats that worked out at 0.5 syns and then I added some alpro coconut cream for 1.5 syns and a tablespoon of coconut choc shot for 2 syns. I didn't take a pic and it was kind of a stodgy mess, so I'm gonna have to work on that before I share the recipe.

I ended the day on 12.5 syns and used my HEA for Alpro Light Soya Milk and my HEB for 35g of oats. I drank about 2 litres of water, not including teas/coffees throughout the day.

Sal xXx

Weigh-In Update

I gained 0.5 lb last night.

I'm ok with that. In fact I'm pretty happy about it! Considering the weekend of booze and desserts and Zizzi's that i had :)

Back on plan now and I'm aiming to lose 1.5 lbs next week.

I'm still on track for my first mini goal (as per THIS POST). I've got 4 lbs to lose in 6 weeks, so totally doable if I knuckle down.

One thing that should help this, is that I'm doing Sober October! Indulging in too much prosecco always ends up with me eating like crap, so cutting it out for a while should help.


Is anyone else doing Sober October? If you sign up then you can get your friends to sponsor you and raise some dosh for Macmillan Cancer Support, which is a great cause. You can sign up here: https://www.gosober.org.uk/

If you're not up for doing it yourself but want to donate, you can sponsor me via the button on my sidebar to the right, even if it's just a £ or 2.

Have an awesome weekend everyone.
Sal xXx

Weigh-in and some exciting new vegan stuffs!

First things first, last week was awful and I ended up having a bit of a heavy weekend because of it. Plus it was star week (HATE that term!) so I was expecting a gain. I did 3 sp/no syn days to try and claw back a maintain and was actually down half a lb, so YAY.

Onto the good stuff.

It seems like every day I'm reading about some exciting new vegan item being released, which is awesome.

This week I found one of the new Quorn offerings; the breaded fillets. I worked these out on the syn calc as 3 each, as they're not on syns online yet. That sounds about right to me, as they're bigger than the burgers which are 2 each.

Pic from Quorn's website

I thought they were good. Ignore my terrible photo but this is them cooked. I had it with mushies and mashed potatoes. After 3 sp days, it was frigging GREAT to have some taters. I dunno how anyone does a low carb / no carb diet. That to me would be hell. haha

How did you get on this week?

I also picked up the new Alpro ice cream, but haven't tried that yet. Watch this space....

Have an awesome weekend.
Sal xXx

A Recipe - Easy Vegan Lentil Curry (SP Friendly)

Remember the curry I posted about recently? No probably not, but either way, it looked like this...

And here is link to the recipe video for it. 

Linky Link!

Hope you enjoy and if you do, please subscribe to my youtube channel, as I have lots of ideas for videos to go on there.

Hope you're having a fabulous weekend.

Sal xXx

Weigh in and new Linda McCartney vegan items (syns)

This week has not been a good one, my beautiful cat passed away on Wednesday and I am devastated. Somehow though, I managed to stay on plan, when in the past I'd have run straight for the chocolate / wine!

Anyway, at weigh-in last night (I didn't stay for the meeting for once) I was down 1.5 lbs. Making a total of 10 lbs in 6 weigh ins.

So I am confident that I'll get to my 1 stone by my fiance's birthday, which was my first mini-goal, as per my last post.

On another note, there's been some new offerings from Linda McCartney out recently, I found these in Morrisons. (Not my pictures, taken from the LM site.)

I work the syns out (using the SW syn calculator) as 2.5 per 100g of the chicken (or 6.5 for the whole bag and 3 syns per 100g of the duck (or 8.5 for the whole bag). But I don't have official SW confirmation of that yet (will update here when it's confirmed). I should note that worked out the syns per 100g, someone on the vegan slimming world facebook group worked out the syns for the whole bag.

Also they have brought out some new sausages that are vegan, Chorizo & Red Pepper flavour which look to be 0.5 syns each and also a Beef Burrito mix, which someone worked out as 4.5 syns for half the bag or 200g.

Has anyone tried any of the new items yet? I have no idea what to do with the chicken and duck, so they're still sat in my freezer haha.

Have an awesome weekend.

Sal xXx

Belated Weigh-In / Update

Thursday night I was down 1 lb, making a total of 8.5 lbs lost, by my 5th weigh in.

I don't have any plans for the next week or two, so I have no excuse for not losing at both of my next weigh-ins.

So I decided to set myself some mini goals, to see if it will keep me on track.

1 - I have a skirt that has never fitted me; I want to fit in that by December.

2 - I want to get my 1 stone award by my fiance's birthday in November.

3 - I want to get my club 10 award by Christmas (that's 13 lbs in 15 weeks, totally doable!)

What are your current goals / mini goals?

Have an awesome week everyone
Sal xXx

What I ate yesterday (SP Day) and weekly weigh in

Weigh in: 2 lbs lost YAY! That means I lost the 1.5 lbs I put on last week, plus a cheeky extra half pound. Yippee.

So how about a little food diary?? I had a bit of a heavy weekend, well one day anyway (as I mentioned in my previous post) so I'm doing a couple of SP days this week. Here's what I ate on Wednesday.

Breakfast
2 x small wholemeal slices of bread (HEB) with strawberry jam (1 syn)
125ml/half a cup of Alpro plain yogurt with coconut (0.5 syn)
Some grapes

Lunch

Mushroom Quinoa Pilaf*

This was super easy; I just cooked an onion and a few sliced, large white mushrooms in frylight. Then I soaked a good handful of dried mushrooms. I added around 120g (about 1/2 a cup) of dry quinoa to the pan and then added the dried mushrooms, their soaking water (plus a bit extra water to make it up to 1 cup) and added a veggie stock cube. I also added a chopped roasted red pepper (from a jar).

I let this cook around 20 minutes, until the quinoa was cooked, adding a bit more water where needed. I checked the seasoning and it was ready to go into a tupperware to bring to work. I ate it cold.

I also had some more grapes.

Snack
Wheaty Space Bar (3 syns) 

Dinner

Lentil chickpea curry with more wholemeal bread (my second HEB). I used 1/2 a cup of soya yogurt in this so it's 0.5 syns for the whole recipe, and I ate about half of it. But I'm counting it as 1/2 a syn for today.

I actually filmed the making of this curry so look out for a recipe post coming very soon!

Snack

Chocolate orange rice cake (4 syns)

1 teaspoon of orange spice choc shot (1 syn) in some warm soymilk (HEA)

This is the brand of rice cakes - I get them in Sainsburys or Waitrose from the Free From aisle :)

So I finished the day on 10 syns.

Hope you're having an awesome week. Have you weighed in yet this week? How'd you do?

Sal xXx

* I may have messsed up as not sure if you are meant to have quinoa on an SP day? However, I always thought of it as a protein and not just a grain, so hopefully it's ok.

Ice Lollies!

OK so I know it's now September which means technically Summer is about done... but hopefully we'll have a bit of warm weather still. Also, I like ice cream all year round so maybe someone will find this useful. Here are some syn values for some awesome vegan lollies.

Not my pics by the way... they're taken from google.

Fruit Pastille Lolly - 2.5 syns

Coconut Collaborative Coco Nutters - 5 syns

Smooze Simply Coconut - 5.5 syns

Smooze Mango, Guava or Pineapple - 3.5 syns

I think the packaging may have changed since this pic!

Valsoia Ice Cream Sandwiches - 5.5 syns

Swedish Glace Strawberry Dessert - 6 syns

Tesco Free From Toffee and Vanilla Cones - 7.5 syns

Tesco Free From Strawberry Cones - 10.5 syns

Tesco Goodness Rocket Lollies - 8.5 syns

There's other rocket lollies too but calories/syns do vary!

Waitrose LoveLife Calorie Controlled Mango & Raspberry Fruit Sorbet Lollies - 2.5 syns

Del Monte Mango Smoothie Ice Lollies - 5 syns

R Whites Lemonade Ice Lollies - 3 Syns

Calippo Orange (105ml) - 5 syns

I will be adding to this list as and when I grocery shop / find more options :)

What's your favourite ice lolly / ice cream? Let me know so I can add it on.

Sal xXx

Update and staying on track at the weekend!

So last week I had a gain, 1.5 lbs. Could have been worse and was totally expected after an awesome weekend of 80s Rewind Festival, lots of junk food, booze and meals out.

So I'm trying to reign it back in this week in the hopes that I can lose that 1.5 lbs by Thursday. I'm doing a couple of SP days this week.

Over the weekend is where I always struggle though. Especially this weekend as we were moving. So no one felt like cooking! And we ended up having 2 takeaways. On Friday we got Chinese and I know I went over my syns by a lot. I also had wine. BUT... I wrote it all down and decided to reduce my syns for the other days of the week, so that I don't go over the 105 total.

Then Saturday night, an Indian takeaway was suggested. This time I decided to limit the damage and googled the best options syn wise. It turned out vegetable dhansak was the lowest, at 6.5 syns and I ordered plain boiled rice as a free accompaniment. I skipped the wine and the breads/bhajis etc and managed to stay under my syns for the day.

Then yesterday was bank holiday and we had a barbecue. And I managed to have a full BBQ meal for only 1/2  syn. I had:

1 Linda McCartney red onion sausage (free)
1 Linda McCartney regular sausage (1/2 syn)
1 vegan quorn fillet
Some homemade syn free BBQ sauce*
Roasted potatoes done in Frylight
Corn on the cob
Asparagus
Sweetcorn/Edamame salad
Regular Salad

That's a pretty decent meal! I was originally going to have a Linda McCartney burger which are 4.5 syns, but by swapping that out for the quorn fillet, I had enough syns for a Rowntrees fruit pastille ice lolly for 3 syns!)

(* recipe is coming for bbq sauce soon, as soon as I figure out the measurements!)

Hope you all had a fab bank holiday weekend!
Sal xXx

Weigh In 18.08.2016

Last night was my second weigh in after starting back and I only lost half a pound, which I was a bit disappointed but not surprised about (strayed from the plan on Saturday!). However, I lost 6.5 lbs the week before so this put me at 7 lbs and I got my 1/2 stone award. YAY!

Have an awesome weekend.
Sal xXx

About me...

Hello there to anyone reading this.

I decided to start this blog as there are not a great deal of resources out there for those of us who follow Slimming World as a vegan.

So about me: My name is Sal and I started SW in March 2015 and lost around a stone. Then fell off the wagon, went back on, fell off..... you get the drill! Anyway, I put that stone back on with interest and so now I'm back at group and with only just over a year til my wedding, I'm more determined than ever to get healthier.

Some of you may know my other blog, but I wanted to keep this separate from that one, because that is not what my other blog is about.

So anyway, welcome to my blog. I'm planning on posting recipes, food diaries, meal ideas, syns of vegan stuff.... you get the gist. I'm hoping that this blog is useful and also that it aids as a useful tool to help me stay on track with my weight loss.

I'd love to chat with you soon so don't be shy about leaving comments or talking to me on twitter or instagram (links over there >>>).

Sal xXx