Slimming World Sunday - A Long Overdue Update

Well this is a very long time in coming! It's been over two months since there was last any mention of Slimming World on my blog. If you've been following me on Instagram though, you'll know that I've still been 100% committed to the plan, and have done pretty well in my blogging absence.

I've managed to stick to my aim of getting one award every month, and in the last week of November I picked up my two & a half stone award, which I'm really thrilled with. Weight loss tends to get harder the closer you get to target, which I really found as I was trying to get this award - two weeks before I got it I was just a pound away!! More about my actual weight loss later, but now onto the FOOD!

It's really hard, when I've got so far to look back on, to remember just what it is that I've been doing since I last updated you! One thing I do know is that I've tried a lot of the Iceland meal, most of which I've enjoyed. The only miss within the bunch so far has been the carrot & coriander soup - I took mouthful of that and had to bin the rest!! Apart from that, the rest have been really delicious, but my favourite would have to be the bolognese ragu, which I've stocked up on so many times since. I love serving it with either courgette or butternut squash spaghetti for a bit of extra speed. I think the Iceland meals are a great thing to have at home for those days when you really can't be bothered to cook from scratch - and those are becoming more frequent now it's getting colder!!

One thing that people in my group have been raving about for ages, but I've only recently got round to trying myself, is baked oats. It's a great little twist on your traditional porridge oats for breakfast, and is so easy to make. I just mix 50ml milk, one egg and 2 tbsp sweetener together, then add in my 35g Healthy Extra B allowance of porridge oats and whatever flavourings I fancy - usually this is 2.5 syns worth of golden syrup - delicious! I then transfer the mixture into a loaf tin and bake on 200 for about 20 minutes. This has now become my staple breakfast for the weekends when I've got a bit more time on my hands - I love it!

I have to say I'm still not massively adventurous with my menus, and regularly stick to the same fail safe dinners, but I've recently tried a recipe for Hunters Chicken which I really enjoyed, and again is really easy to make. All you do is cut a slit in the top of a chicken breast and put 1 tbsp BBQ sauce into the slit (1 syn - there is a syn free recipe for BBQ sauce but I'd rather take the easier option and syn it!!), wrap the breast in bacon and pop in the oven at 180 for about 20 minutes. Then, add your Healthy Extra A allowance of cheese on top and put back in the oven for another 10-15 minute, et voila! This has now become one of mine and my husbands favourite dinners.

We live quite near a wide variety of fast food places, and I have to drive past them every day on the way home from work, which is always very tempting. Occasionally, we would treat ourselves to something, but more often than not I'd have a McDonalds Nugget meal, which would leave me very unsatisfied - and I've gone over my syns! Recently, KFC released these rice boxes, and I was really shocked (and delighted, as you can imagine) to find that the BBQ pulled chicken version was just 4.5 syns!! I've had these a few times now, and it really does feel like a naughty treat, but I manage to stay well within my daily allowance, which is great. They are so filling too, I often struggle to finish it!

I feel like I'm really in the "Slimming World zone" now, having lost weight every single week since I last updated you, and it's all down to writing one single word on a piece of card!! At the start of October, we got given our Christmas wish baubles, and I chose to write target on mine. I decided there and then that I wanted to stop the messing around that happened after my sister's wedding and get back on it properly. It was a huge mountain to climb, with 19.5lbs left to lose in just 10 weigh ins - so I needed an average of 2lbs per week to make it. As I've already mentioned, some weeks I haven't always managed such a big loss, but other weeks I've smashed that 2lb target - and even managed to get Slimmer of the Week once! My total weight loss now stands at 2st 9.5lb, so I'm now 6.5lb away with 3 weigh ins left - slightly behind schedule. Now that we're into December, I'm thinking I may no longer get there, but I'm still going to try my hardest to get as close as I can, so I've got less of a mission in the New Year, and I'm not going to beat myself up about it.

December is always a tricky month on any weight loss plan, with temptation around every corner. I've got a few pre-Christmas events coming up, including a lunch out today, but I'm going to try my best to make good choices where I can, and food optimise 100% when I'm at home. I'll have a blog post all about food optimising over the festive period for you next Sunday, so if you're finding it a bit of a struggle at the moment, make sure you check that out!

How have your weight loss journeys been going whilst I've been away?