Last Monday a few friends and I took the plunge and attended our first Slimming World session. I've found lately that as much as I exercise and try and eat right I just am not losing as much weight as I would like and feel I need to be a lot stricter with myself if I want faster, more noticeable results. I'm quite lucky that I'm tall and can carry a few pounds without anyone noticing however I long for the days when I was a skinnier bean pole.
So this post is for all that may not know too much about Slimming World and hopefully this post just gives you an idea of what it's all about so when I update you, you know what I'm chatting about. Also it's a great post to read if you are thinking of joining yourself!
The Basics
All fruit and vegetables are classed as Super Free Foods. You can have as many as you want with no measuring and you should aim to fill each of your meals with one third of these. There are very few exceptions to these rule as my beloved avocados do not count.
Free Foods are also foods you can have in unlimited amounts and should make up around two thirds of each meal. These include;
Shellfish
Oily Fish
White Fish
Meat & Poultry (make sure you trim off any fat & that mince is less than 5% fat)
Eggs
Fat Free Dairy
Beans & Pulses
Pasta, Rice and Potatoes
Drinks wise you can have tea, coffee, squash, diet fizzy drinks, water & bovril in unlimited amounts.
Each day you get 2 Healthy Options; Healthy A is a dairy choice which is measured. This can be in the form of milk such as 250ml semi skimmed milk or cheese such as 30g of cheddar. If you are in rush there's babybels etc.
Healthy B is a fibre choice which is also measured and can be bread, cereals, dried fruit and even some soups. 35g of porridge oats is good for breakfast or 2 slices of wholemeal bread is what I use for some lunches.
All foods have a synergy or "syn" value and are basically extras to your diet. So basically the better a food is for you the lower it's syn value. You should aim to get a minimum of 5 syns a day and have a maximum of 15. Just to give you some perspective a rich tea biscuit is worth 2 syns, a bag of Walker's crisps is 9.5 and a shot of vodka is 4. I have only been doing the diet for a few days now but am really learning my way around these. When I see that a penguin bar is 5.5 syns and I'm hungry it makes me not really want it anymore and I opt for something else instead.
So results from my first week? I lost 3.5 pounds! I'll take that thank you very much. The other girls I go with did extremely well; I'm so proud of us!
Here's a few things I ate:
Prawns, Spinach, Rocket, Tomatoes, Cucumber, Sweetcorn, Pepper & Sweet Chilli Sauce. 1.5 Syns
Curly Wurly & Chocolate Tea - 6 syns if you use your milk as your Healthy Extra A option.
Asparagus, 2 Eggs, Milk, Ham, Low Fat Margarine & 2 slices of wholemeal bread - 1.5 syns if you use milk from your HexA and bread from your HexB.
Rice, Edamame Beans, Sweetcorn, Egg & Soy Sauce - Syn Free!
My one cocktail at the weekend with my sister. Definitely not Syn free (I calculated about 12)! Oops.
Eggs, Baked Beans, Tomatoes and Bacon with removed fat - Syn Free
2 Banana's, Natural Yogurt and Ice - Syn Free
I've really enjoyed the last week and find that it's not a diet at all. I still get to eat anything I want but focus on really healthy foods whilst allowing myself some little treats with my syn points. It's hard logging everything I eat & drinks but it's rewarding planning my meals and seeing how good I've been all week. I would definitely like to reach another 3 pounds next week and am excited to try more recipes!
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