What I eat in a day on the Slimming World plan.

If you’re a regular around here, you might have noticed that it’s been a bit sparse on the baking front recently. Well. Let me fill you in, there’s a reason for that. A new world order in the townhouse if you like! A Slimming world order to be precise. So instead of sharing my usual baking naughtiness, I thought it might be interesting to show you what that looks like.

If you’re thinking screw that and pass me the cake, I feel you! Check out my baking delights from pre-healthy eating right here.

Ahem, so why did I start slimming world you may wonder? Well, I’m a yo-yo dieter through and through. I’ve tried so many different diets in the past and had some amazing success, but maintaining a healthy weight is my Achilles heel. The minute I take my eye of the ball for a mere second to so much as admire a bar of chocolate, I’m back to square one.

Slimming world must be really amping up their PR because all of a sudden, I keep hearing success stories everywhere. You can’t argue with the results either, because so many people have had huge losses in a relatively short space of time. So maybe I got a little sucked in by the marketing hype, but after a few friends recommend it too and claimed that they were never hungry I thought it was worth looking into.

In the past, one thing that has made diets off-putting is when there are too many confusing elements to remember. I thought this was the case with Slimming World, but actually it really isn’t.

Here’s the basics:

Free foods – Lean meat, fish, poultry, eggs, veg, pasta, beans, rice, fat-free dairy, potatoes
Healthy Extra A – Foods that are high in calcium
Healthy Extra B – Foods that are high in fibre
Syns – All non free foods have a syn value. Everything that isn’t a free food or a healthy extra should be measured in syns. A woman can have around 10 per day.

Simple right?

Here’s what a typical Slimming World day looks like for me:

Breakfast

• Cherry Bakewell Alpen light bar – Half Healthy Extra B
• Muller light yoghurt – Free
• Strawberries – Free
• Banana – Free
• Huge mug of tea – I use half my Healthy Extra A for 175ml skimmed milk in hot drinks throughout the day

As I’m usually super busy in the mornings running around getting my son ready for School, I don’t have time for breakfast before I go. Plus, I don’t usually feel like eating too much when I first get up. I generally have an Alpen light bar and a cup of tea before the school run. They come in lots of different flavours, but Cherry Bakewell is my absolute favourite. It’s divine!

The walk to school is great cardio because it’s up a massive hill and takes almost an hour to get there and back. If you do nothing else I recommend a brisk walk for at least 30 minutes a day.

When I get home I pour the yoghurt into a bowl and scatter the fruit over the top and drink a huge mug of tea, while I’m checking my emails.

Lunch

• BBQ Chicken Omelette – free
• Salad – free

As I work from home, I like to make an omelette for lunch using a few sprays of Fry light coconut oil, which is only 1 calorie per spray. I’ve recently discovered Aldi’s sweet and smokey BBQ chicken, which is syn free and tastes amazing, so I popped some of this in. I serve it with a bistro salad, sweetcorn and cucumber slices.

Dinner

• Asparagus and meatball orzo pasta – 3 syns
• Parmesan – Half healthy extra A

One of the best things about Slimming world is that you don’t have to ditch the carbs! Most dried pasta is classed as a free food, so you can eat as much as you like. To make the meatballs I used reduced fat sausages which I cooked in the oven, then add them to cooked orzo past and stir through a 250ml tub of quark. Top with steamed asparagus and 15g of grated parmesan.

It’s a really simple and quick dinner to make.

Snacks

• Apple – free
• Fudge bar – 5.5 syns

I try to snack on fruit as much as possible, but sometimes you just need chocolate! Every Monday after weigh in I treat myself to chocolate – although you could do this every day if you want to. As long as you stick to your syns, it’s totally up to you.

Drinks

The key to fast effective weight loss, no matter what your diet is drinking enough. I love to fill my glass with ice and a squeeze of lime to make it a little more exciting. I also have a fair few cups of tea and coffee throughout the day using up half of my Healthy Extra A for 175ml skimmed milk.

Would I recommend Slimming World?

Absolutely! Since I started the diet 7 weeks ago, I’ve already lost 17lbs. I’ve been combining the diet with exercising every day for at least an hour. So if you’d like to lose a few lbs (or lots of lbs like me), I would really recommend giving it a go.

What appeals to me the most about the diet is that it is something that’s easy to stick to long-term. You can still have wine AND chocolate and lose weight. You’ll never be hungry either, because there are so many free foods that you can eat as much as you like.

I love the fact that no food groups are cut out,  unlike so many other diets I’ve followed. You really feel like you are eating a healthy balanced diet.

It’s very family friendly too. I find that my 4-year-old son seems to like a lot of the meals and he’s pretty fussy! We always used to have pizza night on a Friday night and we still do. Except now we make our own healthy version using wholemeal wraps for the base.

Thinking of starting Slimming World? Here’s some useful resources.

You can get a free 1 week meal plan from the slimming world website, so it won’t cost you anything to try it for a week and see how you get on. As I’m not able to attend meetings because I have a shift working husband, I’ve managed to find all the information I need about the diet from the internet and slimming world magazine.

List of free foods, healthy extras and syns

Great blogs for recipe ideas

• Basement Bakehouse
• SW Survival
• A pinch of nom

Let me know your thoughts about Slimming World in the comments below.

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