Sunday night blues!

I have had a lovely weekend, albeit not particularly great on the syns - which may be why I feel so damn freaked out right now.  I have had 2 fantastic weight losses in a row, 4lb last week and then I lost 5lb this week - not done since I rejoined in 2009.  That is 9lb in two weeks, the problem is now I am terrified of gaining - if I have a big weight loss I almost always do, and I have had too naughty meals this weekend!

Yesterday I had fish and chips, mine and 'his' were wrapped together so I had 1/3 of the chips and took all the batter off the fish - I took an estimated guess on the syns as I didn't actually get the scales out and counted 17.5 for an average portion of chips.

Tonight I went out for my tea to a pub, unfortunately jacket spuds were not on the menu - so I had a few large chips (almost wedge sized) with steak, peas, mushrooms and tomatoes.  We shared a starter which included some ciabatta (probably half of one cut into slices between us), some battered chicken, battered mushrooms and pate. I took almost all the batter off the mushrooms and chicken but counted it all based on frozen chicken dippers - I couldn't find battered mushrooms anywhere on slimming world online. It also included some Cornish brie melted in a bowl - I think there was about 2 ounces which  I ate most of, god I love cheese!

For the whole meal I counted 46.5 syns including 2 glasses of wine- I think that I am covering everything but I just can't be sure - hence the anxiety!

My intention is to be saintly from now on - I have made a quiche for lunch tomorrow (1/2 a syn for the whole thing) and I will get some meat out for tea, if I can keep to a few syns a day max and get to the gym twice before Thursday; fingers crossed I will get a loss!

I hate not being in control, but at the same time don't want to live by a diet!

On a more positive note my sort of (lets not go there) sister in law is on SW too and we were sharing recipes this afternoon, she was making sweet and sour chicken with a can of diet tango - she wasn't all that impressed - it smelled quite nice though I might have a go at adapting the recipe this week!

farewell for now!

Starting again...sort of!

When you start slimming world the first time, you get a pack with all the things you need to start the diet, one of the things in the pack is a document called something like 'your fabulous first week'.

I have never started SW with a fabulous or fantastic first week usually I either gain weight or maintain, on the odd occasion I have lost half a pound, for whatever reason no matter how hard I stick to the diet, if I have been off it for a while I just don't seem to lose weight that first week back.

I would like to say to anyone who has started SW for the first time, that if this happens to you, it will eventually come good. Stick with it, keep your food diary and bask in the fact that if after 4 weeks you haven't lost weight SW will give you your money back as long as you hand in your diary each week. I have not yet, despite my history of poor starts, been able to squeeze a penny out of them!

Now back to this week, I am sure you can tell from my absence that I lost the plot a bit the other week, felt a familiar pattern emerging again, the pattern I was keen to stop when I started blogging about my SW escapades, 2 gains in 2 weeks - thankfully only 4 1/2 pounds not 7 this time but still a sure sign something needed to change.

I decided to stop with the targets, aiming for a specific weight loss seems to have the opposite effect, the most success I have had was when my only goal was to stick to the plan 100% and keep a food diary.  So I have started that again.

I decided to use the online food diary on the SW website, it is quick and convenient and allows you to look up your syns by keyword - which is great when you can't think who makes something.  There are elements I would like to change - it would be good to be able to group ingredients by recipe instead just a long list but overall I found it helpful, I even logged in at work to keep it updated.

So what was the net result of my efforts,  I had 72 syns all week (and it was a bank holiday) and lost 4lb!!

My food diaries for the week: