Snapshot of Yesterday

 A little snapshot of my day yesterday, before I post later with a full couple of meals and anything else to report.

Carrot cake muffin with yoghurt 'icing' is delicious! I think calling it a cake is a stretch, but it's made of cous-cous so has a solid bite to it which makes you feel like you're eating something more substantial - like real muffins. I made ours with ginger and cinnamon (because my carrot cakes were always well spiced) and that definitely worked better than the plain ones.

Can you guess what the top right image and bottom left are going to be?


I stumbled across the Vicki Kitchen blog and decided to try out potato rosti - as she rightly says, potatoes may be a great staple but they can get a little boring. I pressed them into a cake tin and baked in the oven for about 30 minutes. Next time I think I will shape them in a cake tin but not cook them in it, so that both top and bottom brown evenly.

The beautiful looking pink mush is doner kebab meat! I mashed various spices (chilli, garlic, onion powder, seasoning salt, mixed herbs) into it and made it into a vague square shape, and will cook it in the oven later today before slicing and serving in wholemeal pitta breads (HEb) with homemade coleslaw, SW chips and spinach salad.

And the even more beautiful looking thing in the bottom right image is my pesky boy, who decided to sit in the recipe folder when I put it across my lap to browse for more ideas. He's not on the menu!

Carbonara and Imam Bayildi

Savoury things are something I can easily neglect - my problem has always been the cakes, doughnuts, pastries, sweets of the world.

These are two of our most successful slimming world dinners of recent times - not perhaps beating the 'KFC' (of which there is a batch for 'nibbles' in my fridge 99% of the time!) but nonetheless, things we loved and were relatively easy.

Firstly, a friend recommended that carbonara made with Quark fat free soft cheese was indistinguishable from the full fat version, so we had to put this to the test. And since then we've had it several times - it's so quick to knock together after a full day at work and, more importantly, delicious! I'm sure there are recipes out there on the internet, but for ours I boiled pasta/spaghetti for however long stated on the packet, and whilst that was cooking fried off some extra trimmed bacon with an onion or two. I also mixed together in a jug a good heaped tablespoon of quark with two eggs, salt and pepper. When the pasta was done, I stirred the bacon into it with the creamy sauce mix, gave it a minute to warm through and served over some fresh spinach leaves. So good. Last time we had a more generic lettuce salad, and the sauce soaked into the leaves like a beautiful dressing. Perfect for that quick supper that doesn't leave you just making beans on toast!



Our second recent success is an Imam Bayildi. I have made this dish for years, ever since I had to present a dinner party at which several guests were vegetarian. I only remember that the cook book I used in the first place was full of garish photos - ever since then I've worked from memory (or experimentation, depending on who you've asked). This recipe is perhaps the most similar, though not Slimming World converted. For this dish, I also added a sausage for each of us, cut into pieces and served on top for 8.5syns each - which is a lot, but they're really delicious pork and leek ones from a local butcher! Worth it!
Aubergine are halved and then the soft inside flesh removed, leaving a shell about 1cm thick. Some prefer to cook the shells first - drop them into boiling water for about 5 minutes, and turn upside down to cool to help them retain their shape. The other way is to bake them with an amount of liquid in the bottom of the dish, which does mean baking them for longer but is generally a nicer result. In my opinion. Anyway. Make the stuffing sauce with fried onion, chopped tomatoes, plenty of herbs, any other vegetables you particularly enjoy (grated courgette can be nice, as can grated carrot), and add the chopped aubergine flesh, cooking down to make a thick rich sauce. Put it back into the shells and put them in a medium warm oven for about half an hour if you've pre-cooked the shells, an hour if you're putting some liquid in the basin with them in the oven. About half way through you will need to cover them to stop the tops burning, but remember to leave a little hole in the foil for the steam to escape.

Profiteroles

A long overdue post! With going up north for a family event, and other Life Stresses getting in the way, there's been a bit of radio silence over here - that needs stopping!

So two posts today, to make up for lost time!

Firstly, profiteroles. Adapted from this recipe for 1 Syn Cupcakes, which came out of the oven looking rather impressive. They rose like 'normal' cakes - I was rather dubious they might not get to that point.

As mentioned before, squirty cream is to me like a very legal drug. Low syn, makes everything feel like a proper treat. So it wasn't a long stretch to slice these babies open and squirt a little filling in, making them 1.5 syns each! Two on a plate with a couple of strawberries, yummy. And so easy!

Holiday

It's the first day of our holiday to my boyfriend's family for a christening - and in true holiday fashion, today has been a diet disaster.

I have had 40 syns today. :/ !

Over the last few days we've made some lovely Slimming World things - potato moussaka, cottage pie, quark carbonara, imam bayildi, profiteroles - and I'll share some photos as soon as we're home. The profiteroles were amazing. Such an incredible success. Very proud! They're definitely worth a post of their own!

But being on holiday isn't an excuse to really let things go as badly as this, so tomorrow is a new day and we will get back on plan and keep up the good work  ready for Monday weigh in!

Danone 'Danio'

The adverts for the Danone Danio yoghurts are adorable. Seriously adorable. And every time I see them I think "I would love to try that." So today I did. 

They are COMPLETELY worth the hype.

The television told me they were "extra thick" - I was not expecting them to be so thick that the spoon stands up on its own! The fruit at the bottom was lush - I had passionfruit, and the gold syrup and crunchy seeds was delicious.

For the syns they are worth, they are the perfect indulgence - they feel more like a cheesecake than a yoghurt. So so thick. Something that I wouldn't choose every day but when I had a cheesecake craving, this is what I'll buy.

The 0% passionfruit is 1.5 syns. 0% strawberry is just 1 syn.

The blueberry and the peach are 3 syns each but I imagine totally totally worth it. That's not even many. You get so much flavour and 'treat' out of it. I'm am a convert. They are even on special offer at the Co-op at the moment!

Week One Weigh In and Fifty Shades of Fruit Salad

This morning was the proper day for the weekly weigh in (not yesterday: it's just that I forget what day of the week it is because I'm a tool.)

I've lost four pounds! Boyfriend lost five pounds!

I was a bit disheartened yesterday to have thought I'd not done so very well. This has definitely perked me back up! And that's even with a cheeky takeaway last night (although we did choose the lower syn options) because I was feeling terrible and too apathetic to cook. We're on holiday over the bank holiday weekend, which might be a challenge, but hopefully we can continue this momentum. I do hope so!

We had a celebratory 'exotic fruit' salad to treat ourselves (plus a syn's worth each of squirty cream.. it was a celebration after all!) Add that to the fruit salad and natural yoghurt I had for breakfast this morning and I'm pretty sure we've had a good portion of our 5-a-day today!






















We had papaya, sharon fruit and strawberries. The other day we tried dragon fruit and I was really not a fan, but both of these were delicious. I hope we get them again!

Layered Treat Pot (and Tea Solves Everything)

I've realised I really like preparing food for my other half. My long term ambitions are all things which fit around being a home-maker, I see now, but I've never looked at it that way before nor have I ever really indulged in this kind of taking care of somebody. But I love going to his work place at midday to deliver some kind of tasty nutritious lunch, seeing him for 30 seconds, and then later having him come home to the smell of a hot oven and a dinner ready when he is. I know how much some of my old friends would laugh to hear that's what I dream of, though! We've just got to get him a good enough job that he can support his 1950s housewife whilst she cooks delights for him and raises the children!

Hey, a girl can dream of whatever she wants. The 1950s woman I imagine I could be also gets to wear very snazzy aprons, so it's a win-win really!

Today I took him a ham salad (with ham from a shank we slow cooked for cold meat), some syn free rice pudding (which he's been pestering me to make again for a few days now, ever since I tried it and shared it on here) and then a layered pudding, a treat pot if you will, made from a slice of the flourless chocolate cake (2.5 syns), a pot of his favourite low fat gooseberry yoghurt (2 syns), sliced bananas and a handful of strawberries. It looked pretty from the outside of the container, and was a nice little surprise for a Sunday afternoon at the office, bless him.

Unfortunately, I'm still not feeling terribly chipper myself. I'm hungry today like I haven't really been all week, craving cupcakes piled high with buttercream frosting, cookies, meringues and fudgey brownies. I have the most appropriate mug for the situation (a gift a long long time ago) and a lovely selection of teas, and am hoping that some sort of magic will infuse into my drink, warm me up and inspire me to finish (/start) my last essay. I wish I had some other sort of pick me up but there's really nothing here that I want to eat, and I'm too dispirited to want to cook. The internet recommended I knock up some scrambled eggs and beans, or make some SW chips quickly, to sate a hunger before I go on a binge. I don't see that I'm likely to make anything more taxing than a bowl of jelly, at this rate! (Hartley's Sugar Free sachets come in at 1 syn, for the record.)

I hope I cheer up tomorrow, but with the actual weigh-day (!), going to the doctor's, going to therapy and trying to sort out whether we're moving or not, it seems unlikely!

Or maybe all I need is this cup of tea, a few deep breaths and a moment of calm. We'll see.

The Wrong Weigh In

Well, at the end of the first week of living Slimming World style again, I have successfully dropped 1 pound.

Less than I'd hoped for, of course, but it's at least one notch in the right direction. The boyfriend forgot to weigh himself before work, so we'll see how he's done tomorrow.

I thought I'd have a lot more to say about this, but somehow I am quiet. Today will be a busy day and I am a little overwhelmed by the amount that's left to do, so perhaps I'll have more thoughts when my brain slows down again.

For now it's probably enough that it's the first step on a long path, but that first step it most certainly is.

ETA: Well, I'm an idiot. I thought it was Monday today. I'm a real special creature, me. So we'll do this again tomorrow!

Sweet Potato Curry

Yesterday's dinner wasn't a patch on the Chicken and Mustard Casserole but few things ever would be! Following on from a success like that is rather a big ask! (I was made incredibly smug by one of my boyfriend's colleagues reportedly saying to him, upon having a small taste of my boy's lunchtime pasta salad in the reduced-down bacon & mustard sauce, that he "wishes his missus cooked like that for him!")

All things considered, though, this Sweet Potato Curry was good, if not fantastic to photograph. Sweet potato chunks were cooked in the slow cooker with tinned tomatoes, chilli, garlic, onions, lentils and stock, with peas, broccoli, chopped peppers and hard boiled eggs added 20 minutes before the end of the cooking time to cook through. This is another one adapted to suit Slimming World from the Hamlyn cookbook, though turned out differently than I imagined. The boyfriend wasn't terribly impressed when I said we were going to have at least one 'vegetarian' day per week, but he seemed happy enough with his dinner last night and I haven't heard any complaints so far today!

And yesterday's sadness was helped greatly by the beloved bunny, who is such a mummy's boy that he decided that the place to be was directly under my chair whilst I was eating said curry (also pictured in the low quality iPhone photo: fuzzy slippers.)

It's not even as if he's begging for food - he hasn't learnt yet that (some) human food can be delicious for small rabbits, he just likes to be close to me. He is a darling. 

Tonight is just a simple fritatta made with red onions, potatoes, pepper and a sliced sausage (8.5 syns per sausage) so I doubt there will be anything worth saying about that - but tomorrow is the first weekly weigh in and chance to move our markers along the ribbon chart of progress, so either way, come success or disappointment, I'll have something to say!

Lunch, Plans, Sadness and Goals

I don't feel quite myself today, but I'm trying hard to focus on more positive things and look after 'me' in the best way possible. I think a while longer on the internet and playing with Bunny then I'll crack on with the essay I'm avoiding (and panicking about) and perhaps even reward myself with a bath this evening.

As I'm so blue, I wanted comfort food. I'm a simple girl. Emotions = eating (though of course I know they definitely shouldn't!) But comfort food on Slimming World, not breaking rules? More difficult, not something I've explored too much before!

So I made rice pudding. Syn free rice pudding using my HEa allowance of milk for the day, and then filled it with chopped banana and berries. C'mon, when you're down, rice pudding is going to put a smile on your face. Or maybe that's just me. I don't know. :) Recharging with the magazine, though, I'm sure that's a more mainstream cure for the sads! It's full of motivation and success stories - one of the women in this edition is about my weight and is now even smaller than my target, and stunning. I want the dress she's wearing! I think when I reach target weight I will buy the most glamorous dress I've ever owned (wedding dresses not included!) and hold a party in which I am a princess.

But reading these success stories also made me think that I might need to be at a group, and I'm terrified that I won't get the reductions each week that I'm hoping for. The My Fitness Pal app which I use as a food diary each day, writing syns into the comments and notes sections, keeps telling me I'm not eating enough and might be putting my body into 'starvation mode'. But I'm not starving myself, I'm not particularly hungry most of the time, I feel like we're cooking good quality food. I'm worrying about Monday and weighing ourselves and I've got no need to be worrying about that yet. I'm very good at worrying, though!

Bigger picture, though. We're in this for the long haul. Lifestyle change and all that jazz. So I thought I'd show you what's up on my wall in the kitchen - the boyfriend and I have made one of those ticker/countdown things people have on the internet, but in real life!

Our goals are on blu-tack so can be moved if we reassess where we're at, and I'm worried I'm going to want to lose more than we've got length for! But right now, that's not something I need to be concerned with! I just think it'll be lovely moving along the slider and getting visibly closer to where we want to be.

Chicken Mustard Casserole

Turns out I was wrong, and my brother didn't insist on McDonald's! As we were walking and trying to decide, he volunteered Pizza Hut as his choice, which I politely suggested wasn't a good idea, and then he saw a Subway in the distance. Seeming to be the lesser evil, I thought that would be fine - but as we walked towards it, we saw a lovely little local cafe next door to it! Perfect!

I was planning on having a jacket potato with beans, but after ordering, the lady came back to the table and said "we've been so busy.. we've run out of beans... what else would you like?" and after a minor fluster, decided I could use cheese as my Healthy Extra 'A' and that'd be okay. I'm glad I did; I haven't had cheese in so long and it was delicious!

Dinner, though, was a whole new level of amazing. Boyfriend sounded like he was having a religious experience eating it! He said it was the best thing I've made from the Hamlyn All Colour Cookbooks: 200 Slow Cooker Recipes (though of course I Slimming World enhanced it) and I have to admit it was pretty special even if I say so myself!

Chicken drumsticks and thighs (skinless) were browned in a frying pan before going into the slow cooker. I then dropped half a leek in to the frying pan with some chopped bacon, added stock and three tablespoons of wholegrain mustard, brought to the boil then put that into the slow cooker too. I added baby new potatoes and cooked the whole thing on low for about 9 hours. When we got home from work, I added the other half of the leek and gave it 20 minutes to soften, then served with salad. The other half used his Healthy Extra 'B' wholemeal bread to mop up the sauce, too. The meat just falls off the bone, no effort involved, and it was sweet, sticky, om nom nom.

Later I boiled up the remaining sauce into a much thicker one, cooked some pasta and that's the basis of lunch today as a cold pasta salad. So it's frugal, too, in a way! We're not exactly on a high budget at the moment so most of what we're making is fairly cost efficient, budget brand, so I'm very proud that we're still eating such nice things. And, yesterday I treated myself to the Slimming World magazine which has a good 40 recipes in it, so we've plenty of ideas to be playing with!

ETA! Forgot to mention the Syns! The casserole would be just 0.5 syns per level tablespoon of mustard!

More Cake (and other stories)

..because why the hell not?!

I've realised that whilst it definitely still will be a dark chocolate flavour, someone (me) may possibly have used too much cocoa powder and that might possibly be why it's so bitter - the proportion of sweetener to chocolate is wrong. Oops? But at least we liked it enough to make it again anyway, and it wasn't a recipe written off for no fault of its own!





















The trifles I was making the other day were rather good indeed. The already-moist chocolate cake absorbed the custard and became akin to a chocolate sponge finger - delicious with the berries. And with an (artistic!) squirt of cream, almost like a real trifle and satisfied my cravings. For a low syn dessert, I don't think you'd get more 'decadent' feeling.

And then last night we had it with custard again to show the boyfriend my discovery, and....

So good. So very very good. Syn free custard is my new favourite dessert - you could have that with all kinds of fresh fruit, or chill it down and have it with frozen berries as a cold ice cream substitute, and it's so easy to make. Perfect for us. The first time I made it I used approximately 20g of sweetener - this time I used just 10g and it was still fantastic. Given that the recipe advised me to use 50g... I can't imagine it would need that much!

Today is a breakfast-on-the-go kind of day so, unfortunately, there might not be anything worth writing about - I'm going out today with my brother, who will inevitably want to go to McDonald's since we'll be in a town that has such luxuries, and so tonight will either feature a post about how virtuous I feel or the syn value in relation to the quality of Happy Meal toy I've received!

I am putting a chicken and bacon hotpot in the slow cooker, though, so if that turns out nicely there'll be another savoury recipe to make up for all these posts about cake!

SW Chocolate Cake (Part 2)

After giving it a night in the fridge (which every recipe assured me was the right thing to do lest I be traumatised by the lingering flavour of kidney beans), we're now ready to present the Chocolate Cake!

One of my Facebook friends posted the recipe to this Healthy Chocolate Cake as a gluten free, low carb idea. From there, I ended up using this recipe from Eating Well Living Thin, and I worked out the Slimming World syn value for the ingredients given. By my reckoning, it's 31 for the whole cake - mine has cut into 12 generous slices but as it's so rich, you could easily serve smaller pieces. That made it a chocolate cake which looked very promising, for just 2.5 syns a slice! We couldn't resist trying it out.

Last night you saw the food processor full of gooey chocolatey goodness. Those of you lucky enough to be twitter friends of mine also got the bonus picture of my boyfriend - and this picture too, the product as it came out of the oven looking - much to my surprise, if I'm totally honest - like a real, normal, full fat chocolate cake! Risen tall, unexpectedly tall - with a cracked shell like a brownie. The whole flat smelt delicious. Our hopes were very high as I wrapped it in cling film, put it in the fridge and went to bed for the night, dreaming of soft, moist, creamy chocolatey cake crumbs!

It still smells good today, it definitely does have that going for it, though I can't say I'm 100% happy with the overall result. Have you ever had a bitter chocolate torte? It's reminding me of something I tasted in Austria, though I can't at all remember the name. It's got a beautiful moist texture, it's just very 'dark chocolate' when my palette is of course used to MILK and SUGAR and FAT and all the things we're trying to avoid at the moment! I think with a little more sweetener it would be magnificent, and we will be trying it again for sure - but I've already made some improvisations with what we've got.

Yesterday I was talking to the boyfriend about a craving for trifle, so I went hunting for syn free custard recipes (with custard being sugar, egg yolks and milk, I couldn't see that there would be syns involved - but I like to check these things against the greater knowledge of the Google masses!) - it turns out that my boyfriend doesn't actually like trifle, which put paid to that idea. (Next time he's on a conference I'm getting my sugar free jellies, SW custard, fresh berries, and making a trifle that will last all week. Probably. Unless I eat it in one night for dinner.) However! Not to be perturbed by his lack of enthusiasm, I made SW custard today and  had my slice of this cake with lashings of hot custard and a handful of soft raspberries. The sweetness of the custard and the fruit made this cake absolutely amazing. In my opinion, it just needed that little bit of extra sugar (or sugar substitute) to make it really sing - and boy am I glad I went with my instinct on that one. It was incredible. I'm now upset that I took a slice to my mother for her to try ("yes mum, I've made a cake with kidney beans in... no, it won't taste like kidney beans!") when it would have impressed her one hundred times more as a warm dessert with custard and fruit.

But you know me, so we're taking it one step further and trying another approach to getting my own way in the Menu War with my beloved boy - tonight's dessert is going to be chocolate cake and raspberry 'trifles' and the custard is setting as we speak. I hope it turns out as nicely as the hot dish! Plus, one slice of my cake created these two small trifle bowls - which makes this a 1 syn dessert! If you wanted to make it even more special, a bit of non branded low fat squirty cream on top would be but half a syn for 2 level tablespoonfuls making this into a really luscious party treat that you can 'afford' to have every day on Extra Easy!

I also treated myself to those little glass dishes from a charity shop recently and think they're delightful, so I imagine that when pudding is finished I will make us both wait to dive in whilst I take a series of artistic photographs. I'm sure you can't wait to see those tomorrow :P 

So far today has been a really good day - delicious fruit breakfast, a second batch of the 'KFC' chicken made for lunch (and totally demolished, given that I then had to make a special trip to his workplace to deliver it to him still-warm) and a dinner that I've not made in a long time - Imam Bayildi, made 'my' way, with a sneaky sausage in there too using a few more of our syns and getting things out of the freezer ready to be replaced with bags of frozen vegetables and other SW staples. Tuesday is a neglected day, I think, so I hope yours is shaping up as nicely as mine has.

Chocolate Cake?!

Yes indeed, my friends! We are making chocolate cake whilst on a healthy eating plan. It can be done (...we think..!)

In the terrible little teaser photo, you can see two things of note:

1. Our blender is older than we are. And yellow.
2. It looks just like 'real' chocolate cake mix (ie yummy)

Stay tuned! Full reveal - including the all important tasting! - and recipe tomorrow! :)

And for the record, that's not my hand!

SW Rice Pudding

Rice pudding! Syn free! Yum!

I'm calling it a success, at least, anyway. A combination of this Scottish Mum recipe and iVillage ideas for SW rice pudding recipes but with, as ever, a few ideas of my own thrown into the mix!

It's not as creamy as I might have liked, but I only had long grain rice in the cupboard - pudding rice is shorter and starchier, I believe, and that's part of what contributes to the creamy texture. Next time I'll use the right kind of rice and mess around with the sweetening - there are two kinds of artificial sweetener, I'm told, and one of them doesn't heat very well! So even with putting 7tbsps of sweetener into the mix, by the time it cooks to completion it's got very little sweetness at all. I added another tablespoonful when I served it, which was nice. I also followed the advice of one of the iVillage posts and added a spoonful of yoghurt to help the creaminess - definitely would like to try it in the future with some flavoured Mullerlights, or frozen fruit... but today, for now, the traditional: nutmeg and a dash of ginger, with a little lemon to complement the yoghurt creamy-smooth-sour-ness!

300g of long grain rice, 3/4pint of milk, 3/4 pint water, and sweetener, in the slow cooker on high for 3 hours. The recipes using pudding rice called for 4 oz, which I believe is about 100g. I would ordinarily add the nutmeg and some cinnamon into the cooking mix so the flavour really permeates, and will do that next time - today I wanted a blank canvas so I could experiment at the end.

And it was not bad at all. This Slimming World thing isn't so hard, eh? (Unless you're me, and forgot the last time you tried to make rice in the slow cooker, and how it sticks something chronic. Washing that is going to be FUN.)

Slimming World 'KFC'

Several Good Things happened today! Or rather, some 'things' (neutral) happened but we make the positive spin ;P

One genuine real good thing! I had another three hours work on my tattoo - we were going to finish it today as it doesn't need a lot more (some final shading to the mandala and the birds) but I had a funny low sugar turn and got very faint, causing an unplanned break, and my wonderful artist was himself exhausted and suggested we finish it off when he's refreshed rather than just power through. So stopping suited both of us. 

There's a whole story attached to it, but I'll save that for another time. The short hair is also new this week, and I love it! I feel cute and feisty and a bit more like myself again. My previous growing-out style was doing nothing for me; this definitely is. I love it. 

But as to the topic of this post, and the more relevant information for this blog!

Tonight we made SW 'KFC' - and believe me when I say it is incredible. I possibly even liked it more than actual KFC - made all the better by knowing it's almost free! The only countable elements are the breadcrumbs - made from your HE-B it's your fibre choice for the day, or if not then I believe you just need to syn the bread. 

We googled of a recipe then made adjustments based on what we had in the cupboards. Cut chicken into goujons (or use drumsticks as per your preference). Mix one beaten egg with some chicken Bovril paste (or Marmite!) and a selection of spices, then dip your chicken first into this gloopy sludge then into breadcrumbs. Bake in a hot oven (225^ ish) for 15-20minutes, until golden and crispy. 

SO GOOD. We had ours with SW chips, green salad and a low fat coleslaw - SW coleslaw is also rather good. 

Yum yum yum! This is definitely going into our regular recipes!

Fancy Feasts for This Kitten

Well, it's certainly been awhile!

Sadly my mental health did not improve between the previous post and now, but with some delicious medication and the support of my fantastic boy and a network of friends across the country, we're hopefully back on the right path. I don't have much confidence, I'll be honest, but we're making small steps in that direction. It's not something I want to get into too much again on here, though suffice to say the happy sunshiney blog post from October last year is now only half true (boyfriend is still amazing, the flat is still cute, and we've got a baby bunny now to look after as well).

A few things have changed. Once more, we're back on the Slimming World Wagon - though again, not in at the groups but on our own. The other big thing I'm doing is using My Fitness Pal - the app and website - to keep a diary of food and exercise. I'm happy to have more friends on there, too, if anyone wants to add me! My username is laila_kitt. I find it really useful to be able to chart what I'm eating - I know that if I tried to reflect at the end of the day I had a tendency to forget. Not consciously, or maliciously, but 'snacks' whilst out and about didn't register as 'eating' whereas now, it all goes into my smartphone straight away. There is also a very handy barcode scanner, which in my experience of the last few months hasn't missed much at all. The search option is also very broad, so homemade meals come up on there as well - I know that the chilli con carne I make, for example, might not be exactly the same number of calories as the one on the app but I'm fairly sure it's not going to be different enough for it to make that big a difference.

The other thing that's nice about that app is that it expects you to list exercise as well, which has been really helpful in making me really 'see' the connection between input and output. If I want that cake for 300cal, what can I do in return? I do more walking now than I previously have, though with my mental health that's not always easy, and I'm hoping once my interactive treatment starts next week I'll be brave enough to start jogging again. It's too nice weather to stay inside, even if that's what I desperately want to do. My tattoo is getting finished tomorrow (finally!) and I've got lots of dress making fabric to make things that really show it off. I've lost the desire to be 'thin' but just to be happy with myself, and right now my fitness level is a big concern to me. So hopefully we're taking steps to get into the right mindset and make some more changes, and hopefully my silly little brain doesn't interfere again.

Yesterday I had a really rough day and the hangover of that into today hasn't been great, so I decided that this little kitten deserved a fancy feast of a lunch to cheer me back up again. (Also, the idea of a Fancy Feast amused me greatly because of the branded cat food of the same name, and I am behaving more like a mischievous feline than ever at the moment!)

All free food on Slimming World, and somewhere in the region of 400 calories for the whole lot if on any other system. I've got a homemade stock and green vegetable risotto planned for this evening, and maybe even a square or two of luxury dark chocolate after that!

Here's to baby steps and getting back on track.