I will not eat the Easter eggs ...repeat...

Today was a KIT day, so the morning was hectic trying to get the 3 of us up, ready and out before 8am. Thank heavens for half term traffic making the journey so much quicker. I grabbed a banana en route, and the little ones had breakfast at nursery (after a panic inducing missed call from nursery, which turned out to be a query on what little man would have for breakfast and how much milk to give him - I forgot to tell them that bit when I dropped him off!) 

The mr made my lunch for me last night, so I had a cheese and Branston pickle sandwich. 3 Syns for low fat marge and the pickle, and used up my healthy extras on the cheese and bread. I snacked on a punnet of grapes throughout the day, avoiding the tuck box of chocolate and crisps. 

When I got home tonight to one sleepy girl on the sofa and a little boy with the biggest 'yay it's mummy!' smile on his face, I was ravenous. So I finished off the cottage pie. There was only a little bit left so when little miss asked if she could 'have a sausage sandwich please mummy?' I promptly put the oven on and made them for us all. Adding another 12 Syns to my tally. 

As I write this I'm desperately avoiding the temptation to steal one of the kids' Easter eggs. But resist I will, as I've no Syns left and I'm determined to get my next award next week! 

Wednesday weigh day - 1lb loss

The kids both slept in this morning so I took the opportunity to join them. Little miss stayed in her own bed, hoorah, and little man and I continued the "go to sleep" "pppppppp"(raspberry blowing) conversation. Until the wee hours. So I was glad of the chance to catch up a bit. Breakfast was yogurt all round, and a bit rushed. 

We dropped little miss at nursery and then went holiday clothes shopping...for the whole day...and I didn't stop to eat (little man had milk on the go.) when we got back home I rushed off to group for the dreaded weekly weigh in.

I had absolutely no idea what the scales were going to show. Could have been a 1/2st gain and I wouldn't have been surprised but I decided to go and assess the damage and get back on plan to shift it. As it turned out I needn't have dreaded it. I lost 1lb. What a result. It just shows I was still making some food optimising choices and they worked. I did set myself a mini one week target of 3.5lb for next week. So I need to stay focused. Starting with tonight's dinner. Leftover cottage pie. And later a toasted cheese sandwich (I was ravenous having only had s yogurt all day!) using my healthy extras of cheese and bread, and 4 Syns for the low fat marge.

Soup and cottage pie

After a tiring night squashed between little man (I'm not tired raspberry blower) and little miss (the shadows are too scary) we got up a bit too late for breakfast. So I appeased them both with mini fromage frais and fruit puree (for little man) whilst I started making a syn free soup. 

Bacon, vegetable and mixed bean soup
Chop 1 shallot, 1 onion, 1 leek and 2 cloves of garlic. Soften in a pot with a few sprays of fry light a sprinkle of mixed herbs and Cajun spice mix. Remove all visible fat from a pack of bacon and chop into pot, add tomato puree, and cook for approx. 5 mins (if it starts to stick add a dash of water and keep stirring.) Chop 3 carrots and 1 courgette and add to the pot. Cook for a few minutes. 
Add chicken stock (I make fresh stock when we have a roast and freeze it down into little pots, but a stock cube would work),  1 tin of tomatoes, 1 carton of passatta, a bay leaf a teaspoon of mustard powder and 2 tins of mixed beans. Bring to the boil and then simmer for 20 mins. I love that this soup is so chunky it doesn't need bread with it. However I chose to use my healthy extra bread allowance.  Little miss didn't want any until little man and I had finished then she decided she did 'want some actually mummy, with bread.' She ate about 3 mouthfuls and then decided she'd had enough! 

For dinner I made my version of a cottage pie. I estimate 1 syn per serving. (It's probably less but it's best to over estimate) 
Chop 1 shallot, 1 onion, 3 cloves of garlic and soften in fry light with mixed herbs and a sprinkle of mustard powder. Add tomato puree and cook for approx 5 mins. Add in thinly chopped carrots, and a splash of red wine and fry a little longer before adding the minced beef (less than 5% fat.) Cook until mince is browned off. Add beef stock pot (or cube), and stir in. Then add tin of baked beans and tin of tomatoes. Mix together and add a hearty sprinkle of frozen peas. Bring to a rolling boil then reduce to a simmer. Meanwhile peel and cook potatoes for mash. Once potatoes are cooked mash with splash of milk (from healthy extra allowance,  or use 2 tsp low fat marge for 2 Syns.) remove 'filling' from the heat and smooth mash on top. Place into a preheated oven at 180, and leave for 10-20 mins. 
I served it with broccoli, cauliflower and kale. 

As tasty as all that was and as good as I'd been up to that point I did not manage to resist the temptation of the Easter eggs and ate the majority of one! Then hid the evidence so little miss doesn't notice in the morning. Oops. 

Visitors + visiting = dreading the scales

As you can probably tell from my blog silence it's been a busy few weeks. I decided to make the most of the end of my maternity leave by visiting relatives. And as is the way when staying with other people, my adherence to 'the plan' has been severely lacking. I'd be lying if I said I'd even been halfway sticking to it. So I'm dreading the scales on Wednesday. This image pretty much sums up my good points for the last few weeks:

I didn't eat any of the chocolate hat! But I did succumb to my much missed favourite, pie, mash and liquor! Which little man had his first taste of and i'm pleased to say he enjoyed. 

Now I'm back home I have 2 days to put right a week or so of bad choices. I started to get back on track tonight with a syn free Bolognese I had in the freezer, and did pasta for me and little miss, as well as some garlic bread for the children and daddy to share. I also used my healthy extra on cheese.  

Thankfully I did my online shop so it would arrive today, so the bare cupboards are now brimming and I have no excuses. I'm planning to make a super filling vegetable and bean soup tomorrow to hopefully help counteract the naughtiness. 

I just need to somehow not get sucked into stealing some of the little munchkins' Easter eggs! 

weigh-in...result

We have yet more visitors from today so spent much of this morning doing the last minute tidy/Hoover etc in between taking little miss to nursery and little man for his health visitor check up.
Little miss had....yep, you guessed it...super hoops for breakfast (even I'm bored of Soooper hoooops now!) little man had some toast and milk. Once again I didn't end up having breakfast because we just ran out of time.

Little man had homemade Bolognese with left over mash for lunch which he absolutely wolfed down. Followed by half a tub of rice pudding. I had the other half at 3 Syns. Followed by a few mouthfuls of Bolognese. Why is it we are the lowest priority when we have things to do? 

Weigh in tonight and I was really apprehensive stepping on the scales after the blip weekend. But I needn't have worried. I lost 1lb. So I celebrated with Bolognese and pasta, and used up my healthy extra with 30g cheddar. I also had a bit of bread, oops, and a few mini eggs at 1 syn each. 

Total Syns = 15 Syns 

Back from the blip

After a weekend that was essentially a large blip in the slimming world plan, a trip to the Golden Arches, popcorn at the cinema, takeout pizza and a christening buffet with cake, I got back on plan on Monday. 

Nanna came over to look after little man while I went in to work for the day. Little miss went to nursery as usual. My breakfast consisted of 2 slimming world high fi bars (healthy extra),  I snacked on cherry tomatoes and grapes, and had a chicken salad with low fat Mayo (2 Syns) for my lunch. 

When I got home I defrosted last week's chilli (1 syn) and served it with rice and 30g cheese (healthy extra.) I'm not entirely sure what little man ate all day, but I think it was mostly Ella pouches and toast. Daddy took over from Nanna and she'd gone home by the time I got back. I finished the day on 5 Syns (I had a square of chocolate after my tea.) 

This morning Little miss had her usual breakfast, despite me trying to convince her to have scrambled egg or 'bsgetti' on toast. Little man had 2 pots of fromage frais and a slice of toast. I swear he has hollow legs. I seemed to forget to have anything amidst the child feeding frenzy. Not quite sure how that happened. 

We spent the morning decorating their bedrooms (not a full on repaint, just putting up stickers and pictures etc.) so we had a bit of a late lunch. Cheese sandwich for little miss with cucumber and tomatoes on the side. I had a chicken sandwich with cucumber and rocket, and tomatoes, pickled onions, a gherkin, beetroot and more cucumber on the side. Little  man had a mix of bread, chicken, cheese chunks and cucumber (with the skin removed.) Very healthy and quite tasty. Just 2 Syns for the low fat spread, the bread was my healthy extra. Then we went back to decorating. 

I had planned to make the sausage cassoulet from the new slimming world free foods cook book (but using chipolatas sausages at 1.5 Syns each), however  by the time I'd finished sticking asteroids and space invaders to the wall it was getting a bit too late for that so we had sausages and mashed potato with lots of speed veg. Broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, and green beans, as well as peas and a splash of gravy. Little miss ate loads, 5 sausages in the end (2 extra helpings), extra veg which is almost unheard of, and then they both had custard for pudding. 

Total Syns today = 6.5 

Busy friday

We had a repeat of the phenomenon I mentioned earlier in the week, we had loads of time this morning so ended up in a massive rush. Little miss managed to stay in her own bed all night, little man not so much but at least he didn't wake too often. We had a rushed brekkie of fruit puree pot for little man, who was very shouty for no apparent reason. Soooper hoooops for Madam, and left over sausages in a sandwich for me, bread was my healthy extra, dash of ketchup (1 syn), 3 chipolatas sausages (4.5 Syns.) once I'd packed up half of the house we set off for dancing. Late. And hit every bit of traffic, the slowest tractor in the world and roadworks en route. 

We started with little miss' ballet class. Then straight into her acrobatics. She more or less had a one to one lesson today which was both good and bad, she got to practice a bit more with additional focus on correcting her positioning and technique (roly polys are less a jumble of arms and legs now.) BUT she really missed her friends and got a bit bored of the repetition. (The lack of queueing for the next go seems to break it up a bit normally.) Once acrobatics was over it was mummy's turn. 

Little man was asleep in his car seat, little miss was set up with a film on the tablet and snacks (carrot and cucumber batons, a bag of bears dried fruit and a packet of quavers. Not the most balanced lunch but it could have been worse.) And then we began. I find with my class, which is a kind of Zumba inspired excercise, if I just go with it I'm OK, but as soon as I start to overthink each move my feet lose all sense of coordination. Surprisingly little man didn't wake up until 2 songs from the end and seemed quite content to watch mummy flailing around like a loon. Little miss decided she needed to come and hold my hand for the last one, which made attempting to balance on one leg for the stretches a bit more challenging. All in all it was a good class. 

We dashed off from dancing for a quick drink in our favourite cafe, and a speedy Ella pouch for little man. Before heading to the dentist for check ups all round. Both of them were very good at opening up and letting the dentist have a good nosey round. Phew. Little miss' first trip to the dentist was utterly pointless as she refused to even bare her teeth let alone open her mouth. 

Following the dentist we went to our favourite jungle gym for a play date with the baby gang. By this point I was ravenous, having not had time for any lunch myself. So I went completely off plan and had a plate of cheesey chips and a tuna mayo sandwich (on a white tea cake.) little miss had fish fingers, beans, smiley faces, my crisps and 1/4 of my sandwich. Little man only managed a few spoonfuls of rice pudding before refusing to eat anymore and demanding milk. 

When we finally got home, little miss was treated by daddy to 3/4 of an Easter egg and then went to bed with no complaints or delay tactics! 

Hoorah for busy Fridays! 

Total Syns today = no idea! But I'll need to reign it in for a few days.