Today’s Menu :)

Hellooooo, so I did as I said and got up with my daughter this morning, She get’s up at 6:15-30ish and I left with her at 7:10am and went to the pool at my gym and swam 2 miles=170 lentghs in 93mins, the last 10 lengths were absolute killer!! 😀 I do feel better today I bought a chocolate croissant from Sainsbury’s and was going to buy a skinny pumpkin spice latte from Starbucks for my breakfast.. But I decided against it and bought a hazelnut flavoured Cadbury’s highlights instead! In hindsight though I have only had 26pp today and that only totals up to 767 calories, so I probably could’ve had that latte after all 😉 So far I have done 6 miles out of the 22 I need to do for my aspire swim the channel challenge, I am not too worried however because as long as I swim at least 3 miles a week for the next 6 weeks I will reach my target on time! I have enough points and calories left over for a treat of some kind if I want one, but I am very satisfied with what I have eaten today and don’t actually feel I need anything right now.. I may have a hot chocolate later but it is options so only 1pp per cup! 😀 My menu today was:

Breakfast: Sainsbury’s chocolate croissant 7pp, Cadbury’s highlights hazelnut 1pp.

Lunch: Discovery tortilla wrap 3pp, 50g wafer thin ham 1pp, 25g Hoi sin marinade 1pp, 10g mushrooms 0pp, 10g spring onions 0pp.

Dinner: 60g Wafer thin ham 2pp, 170g Morrison’s frozen mash 4pp, 200g Nume baked beans 4pp.

Drinks: 750ml bottle water.. Need to up my water intake, 3 cups of mango and lychee green tea.

I am planning on swimming again on Thursday morning and again on Friday at some point too! Trying to write my blog is very difficult when I have this little monster on my lap and keyboard..

Monster Pepper!

Much Love Gems 😀 

 

Finally feeling human again.

Hey everyone, I was planning on writing my blog yesterday but I had a migraine for 2 days straight so putting the laptop on did not happen as I think my head would have exploded! Some of you already know I seem to have lost my way recently.. I don’t really know what’s been up or why I have been off track, I have been thinking maybe it’s something to do with the uncertainty around my job as I still haven’t started properly have just been doing training and that’s been a lot to take on in itself let me tell you. So I have really been wanting to get back on track but am actually if I’m honest struggling to find the motivation.. I don’t know exactly what’s up I just don’t seem to be in it 100% however I am trying to have as many days on track as I can and I’m off to the gym tomorrow morning to swim for a couple of hours so am hoping that will perk me up a bit, I’m hoping when I finally get my start date for work that I can get back into some sort of routine again and it will all fall into place but who know’s lol. We got a kitten last week and she is adorable but a lot of work lol hence the fact I had a migraine for 2 days as she wasn’t being very accommodating in letting me sleep! Her name is Pepper and she is the most playful, scatty yet intelligent and loving cat I have ever known.

Meet Pepper

I’ve put my daily propoints back up to 29 to give me a little more room to manovuer and I’ve also been thinking to way back when the pp system first came into play and I remember losing more then than now when I am on 26. I switched my lunch and dinner round today as I was hungrier I felt at lunch time,  So given that bit of info my menu today was:

Breakfast: Golden syrup oss 5pp, 100ml Skimmed milk 1pp, Graze beach bum punnet 3pp.  

Lunch: Chilli Taco Beef in 2 tortilla wraps 14pp, 30g Light philadelphia 1pp, 15g sweet chilli sauce 1pp.

Dinner: 1 pouch Birdseye tomato and herb rice fusions 6pp, 15g Light philadelphia 1pp.

Total used 31/29pp, 2 weeklies used. 

I only have 1 weekly left now after the weekend so that’s good and I’ve also decided to try and not snack at all as I really believe that 80% of the time this is my downfall, just having things like penguins and crisps in the flat are a no no for me right now. So that’s me I will endeavour to be on everyday but I can’t promise anything! I will be on tomorrow for definite to tell you how I got on with my swim.. I am planning to swim 2 miles tomorrow so wish me luck! 🙂 

Much Love Gems 😀

So not as in control as I thought.. ;)

Hey all so last night I was starving and I tried to put it out of my mind I had a drink and tried to distract myself but to no avail, I ended up munching beans on toast not too bad for a late night snack I hear you say, However I also had 2 things out of my graze box totalling 10pp also.. So all in all I used quite a few of my weeklies and I have used some today too, not many but hey that’s what they are there for! Today has been a pretty lazy day apart from popping out to Costa and Morrison’s, So I really have nothing interesting to tell you lol Sorry! I decided to have a rest day today as have exercised every day since Wed, so will be hop, skipping and jumping to the gym tomorrow instead. So my menu today has been:

Breakfast: 45g Mornflake jumbo oats 4pp, 100ml skimmed milk 1pp, 50g apple and bluberry puree 0pp. 

Lunch: Discovery garlic and herb tortilla wrap 3pp, mushrooms, onions, peppers 0pp, 15g extra light philadelphia 0pp, 15g tomato ketchup 0pp. 

Dinner: 65g Gammon 2pp, Mushrooms, onions, peppers 0pp, 5ml light soy sauce 1pp, 5g cajun seasoning 0pp, 15g Hoi sin marinade 1pp, 100g egg noodles 4pp, 50g beansprouts 0pp, 5ml garlic infused olive oil 1pp, 2.5ml sesame oil 1pp. 

Snacks: Harvest vale granola crunch bars pack of 2 6pp! (Had I of known how high they were I may have had just one today) Pint bottle stella pear cidre 8pp. 

Total used 30/26 4 weeklies used, think I have 26 left! 

So that’s me today as I said I’m back to the gym tomorrow and back to my swimming also.. Need to find something to wear to this wedding on Friday, Anyone else ever feel like they have nothing to wear  even though you have a wardrobe full of clothes?? 

Much Love Gems 😀 

I’ve taken my gain and..

Rolled with it today, I managed to get my gain down from +6 earlier in the week to just +2.6 today.. That may seem like a lot to some but after seeing +6 like I say I will definitely take +2.6 trust me!! 

So last night I decided if the weather was nice today I would go for a walk today and I did a nice stroll along the seafront to Hove lagoon totalling 6.4 miles and it took me 2 hours 🙂

I actually planned my menu for today last night.. And I am starting to realise that this is key for me, planning my meals I’ve never really been one for sitting down one evening and planning my meals for the week, I kinda just go with the flow I know roughly what I am having but sometimes not dinner. Anyway I am now realising that planning is a massive thing and am going to make more of an effort to plan more of my meals for the week in advance. So my menu today was: 

 

Breakfast: 35g Mornflake jumbo oats 3pp, 100ml Skimmed milk 1pp, 50g Apple and blueberry puree 0pp.

 

Lunch: Discovery garlic and herb tortilla wrap 3pp (These are really yummy and the same pp as ww ones!) 50g Mushrooms sliced 0pp, quarter small onion sliced 0pp, quarter small red pepper 0pp, 15g philadelphia extra light 0pp, 10g sweet chilli sauce 1pp.

 

Dinner: Sharwoods chinese chicken rice 12pp, 10g sweet chilli sauce 1pp.

 

Snacks: Penguin 2pp,  I also had a protein smoothie which was 100g frozen mixed berries 0pp, 200ml skimmed milk 2pp, 25g scoop maxitone sculptress protein powder 3pp, 5g golden syrup 0pp.

 

Total used 28/26 2 weeklies used and for mfp I used 1211 calories and was under all of my goals apart from sugar! (Not good!) 

 

So I’m feeling much more in control now and hoping the next time we go away I wont take so long to get back on track.. I have a wedding to go to next Friday so think I will be weighing in early then too! Tomorrow I am off to the gym to start the c25k programme again from like week 3 as I really enjoy running and miss it when I am not doing it, just hope my muscles stop aching by then 😉

Much Love Gems 😀 

Been struggling the last few days…

So I thought I’d drop on and let you know I have been struggling to get back on track since our weekend away.. I am looking at a big fat gain on the scales tomorrow! I have no one to blame but myself as I have just been eating crap.. Chocolate, crisps and worst of all bread!! On Wednesday I started to feel a bit better, however it took a whole big bar of Cadbury’s dairy milk golden biscuit crunch.. Let me give you the stats of this so you know just how low I went:

Calories: 1080

Protein: 13g

Carbs: 112g

Fat: 66g

Fibre: 2g

Propoints per 200g bar: 3o!!!

Yes this is how low I went, I lost control and it felt like it was a bit hopeless this week, the scales were showing +6! I don’t know what happened maybe it was that darn chocolate but I felt I needed to do something, I got up and put the wii on and did 30 mins free step and then I did 30 mins of free weights with my dumbbells. Yesterday I was showing a +5 gain.. So I ate better and went on a 3hr walk to Asda and back with 3 bags of shopping, when I got back I did another 30 mins step on the wii and this morning I was showing a 3.8 gain I have done 30 mins jogging on the wii, plus a little boxing and hula hooping..  I’m hoping I can get it back down to the 3 mark by tomorrow, Not good but still better than the plus 6 it was showing on Wednesday!! Sorry for the dribbley post but I feel you needed an explanation for my absence and I needed to write it all down and own up to myself and all of you how I felt. 

 

Tomorrow starts a fresh and I am going to be running my fitness pal alongside weight watchers this week as a little test.. Then for the next two weeks after that I’m going to do ww one week and mfp the other to see which suits me best. I will be here tomorrow with my daily menu and a much happier post! Much love Gems 😀 

Fantastic weekend.. Now to get back on track for Xmas!

Hellloooo lovely people, I know I went and left you for a whole 4 days.. Gosh you must have been lonely without me?! 😉 Well we had a fabulous weekend and we ate and drank far too much, in fact I was fairly surprised at how light my scales were telling me I was when we got back as I felt about 10lbs heavier!! Let me start by telling you I had a stay the same this week just gone on my weight loss journey.. I’m honestly not too hopeful for a loss this week either as I feel this weekend just past will catch up with me by then, although I have pledged to my self and our group on Facebook that I am going to swim everyday Mon-Fri this week. When we arrived in London we went for lunch at a pub called The London apprentice on the river in Isleworth near Richmond and I had a tomato, mozzarella and basil pesto sandwich which was amazing! I have to tell you about our karaoke at lucky voice in Soho, London on Friday night.. It was hilarious and a heck of a lot of fun, I had a jaeger bomb for the first time ever and have to say I  love that drink in fact our bill showed £77 just for the jaeger bombs we all had in there, you literally press a button that says thirsty and someone pops their head in the door and then goes to fetch your drinks.. You don’t have to go wandering to the bar, so therefore you miss none of the fun! Here’s the link http://www.luckyvoice.com/ I urge you to check it out! Also on Friday evening after our session and drinking we went for dinner and I had  Pizza of which I only ate a 3rd as 1) it was humongous for one person and 2) I was so full from drinking that I couldn’t eat it! Saturday afternoon for lunch we went to an all you can eat Brazilian restaurant in Bayswater, London. This was amazing food and I tried pretty much everything they brought round.. Including chicken hearts! Yes you heard me right chicken hearts, they were actually quite nice very small about an inch in width and length, I can’t really explain to you what they taste like as I didn’t think they had much flavour and they were seasoned with garlic, but they were nice and I will give anything a go once pretty much. 😉 After our all you can eat feast I was really bloated.. Don’t get me wrong it was lovely food but I am just not used to eating so much at all any more and I was actually in quite a lot of pain for a good 4-5 hours after that even the smell of food was making me feel sick 😦 Not so good when you are wandering around Camden market, however it did go down and I learned a lesson that I need to say no more often and listen to how full my body is, not just go for it as it’s all you can eat. That said check this place out, very good value and service, I was impressed http://www.rodiziorico.com/ Then on Sunday we went for brunch and I had a spaghetti carbonara, so safe to say I had a complete carbohydrate overload this weekend and honestly it made me feel sluggish and bloated so lesson learned I say even though we did a lot of walking! My menu today has been better and I am feeling more energetic today even if the weather has been plop, in fact I am off for my swim in a moment.. So menu:

Breakfast: 40g Jordans creamy porridge 4pp, 100ml Semi-skimmed milk 1pp, 100g of apple and blueberry puree 0pp. 

5pp of yumminess!

 

Lunch: weight watchers tortilla wrap 3pp, 2 Richmond thin sausages and 2 rashers of Richmond bacon 6pp, 20g Tomato ketchup 1pp.

Dinner: 2 Richmond sausages and 2 rashers of bacon 6pp, 130g Nume baked beans 2pp, onion 0pp.

Snacks: Raw chocolate vanoffee dark bar 22g 3pp, Small handful frozen grapes 0pp.

So that’s me for the day hope… Hope you all had a fantastic weekend too?! What did you get up to? Did you visit any nice restaurants I should know about? 😉 Much love Gems. 😀

 

Ooohhh home cooking how I have missed you!

So since my sister in law lent me that electric frying pan/wok thing.. I have been dying to make a home cooked curry! We used to eat them all the time with rice and either saag aloo or bombay potatoes.. Today I made one in the pan and it was lovely.. I recommend anyone who loves curry to make their own I mean I am yet to make one totally from scratch, at some point I will attempt it but for now I am wuite satisfied making it with the Patak’s curry pastes. We add a mini garlic and coriander naan to it also to make it a very filling meal for 15pp in total. I totally recommend going out buying the pastes and following the instructions on the jar for some of the yummiest curries you will ever taste! Okay so today I was supposed to swim another mile, I haven’t as for some reason my back is playing up?! I have never had an issue with my back before but I can tell you it woke me up at 2am this morning killing me.. Not good so I have decided to forgo the swimming today and go tomorrow and Friday instead before we go to London. Speaking of London I am so excited to see our friends.. Jamie and Valeria, We met them last year when we were on holiday in the Maldives.. they were on their honeymoon, we all spent pretty much that week together and then we have all met up 5-6 times since we got home too. It is going to be such a fabulous weekend and I cannot wait, we have so much planned in such a short amount of time I feel I will probably be exhausted by the time we get back on Sun evening haha. For my lunch today I took my inspiration from my friend Colette over at  http://propointslifestyle.wordpress.com/ So my menu today was… 

Breakfast: 30g Cheerios 3pp, 120ml Skimmed milk 1pp. 

Lunch: Weightwatchers tortilla wrap 3pp, 50g Bernard Matthews turkey chunks 1pp, 25g Lowlow red pepper and chilli cheese spread 1pp and 15g sweet chilli sauce 1pp. 

Dinner: Homemade Chicken rogan josh with wholegrain rice and saag aloo 11pp, Sharwood’s mini garlic and coriander naan 4pp. 

Yummy dinner for 15pp 🙂

Snacks: None today! 

So that’s me for today I have been looking online for a decent pair of boots for the winter but nowhere seems to have any yet, If any of you know of anywhere that is doing nice comfy ones pretty cheap please don’t hesitate to shout me 😉 Cheers, Much love Gems 😀 

 

forgive me father for I have sinned… :O

Helloooo, Today has been my boyfriends birthday and I have eaten more than I should have I am not exactly sure how many pp over my weeklies I am as the restaurant we went to is not on the weightwatchers tracker.. Not a good sign lol. I am not too bothered as I have been more hungry since I started swimming and I am on track pretty much 99% of the time anyhow so I figure every now and then as long as I can make sure it’s not just a snack attack!! So today even though we ate out for lunch I don’t think my menu was too bad just more than usual:

Breakfast: 30g Cheerios 3pp, 150ml skimmed milk 1pp.

Lunch: Out at carluccios, I had 4 bread sticks wrapped in prosicuto and 4 small chunks of fresh parmesan with 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar for dipping and pasta rigatoni in a spicy tomato sauce. 

Dinner: NuMe cajun spiced chicken fettucine 11pp.

Snacks: Penguin bar 2pp, graze yin and yang 6pp and tasty little numbers white wafer bar 3pp.

So after adding it all up on the tracker I’m roughly 20pp over weeklies :O Am hoping it won’t affect my weightloss this week but would be silly to expect a loss after over eating today! I don’t feel bad though as lunch was lovely and I enjoyed every second of it 🙂 Much Love Gems 😀 

Fabulous weekend, but…

I am glad to be back on track now.. However I had a lovely weekend of eating and drinking with my friends.. after a weigh in that showed me I had lost 1.4lbs this past week giving me another 7 on my online tracker and making me realise I am 3lbs away from my 10% so that is my goal for the next two weeks! On Saturday I went to my nephews 4th birthday party, I ate cake, chocolate orange brownies that were amazing!! I’m totally serious these were by far the best thing I have ever tasted.. So much so I had 3!!! Oh my god, I will be endeavouring to grab the recipe from my sister in law and trying to scale them down to make them pp friendly as she told me how many calories were in one and the ingredients.. Trust me you don’t want to know if your following ww lol. I also had a couple of sausage rolls and pink wafers, along with half a cheese bap and some tomato and cucumber! I quite happily ate all of this knowing that I had my weeklies and over half my dailies left to cover it.. In the evening we had some friends round for dinner, I was going to make Leek and mushroom risotto in the slow cooker but my sister in law lent me a big electric frying pan thing which is like a huge wok really so I did the risotto in that instead it was gorgeous and looked so nice in the pan but I forgot to take a photo 😦 I will post the recipe for this later on tonight as I just want to tell you my daily menu for yesterday and today in this post. So after the amount of wine and crap I consumed on Saturday I wanted to get back on track quite quickly yesterday but I was hungover which means I really wanted comfort food, food that has substance and doesn’t feel like it is too healthy if you catch my drift.. So this is what I made

Yummy beans and mushrooms on toast with fresh parsley and 20g reduced fat cheese! 10pp

Fantastic hangover food yet not wasting any of my daily pro points! So my menu for yesterday was:

Brunch: 2 slices of kingsmill 50/50 5pp, 1 butter bud sachet 0pp mixed with 2 tbsp water and a pinch of garlic granules, 100g mushrooms sliced 0pp, 200g nume baked beans 4pp, 20g co-op reduced fat cheddar 1pp. 

Dinner: Nume cajun spiced chicken fettucine 11pp.

Snacks: 10g cheerios 1pp, drizzled with 15g dark chocolate drops 2pp and a bottle of Lucozade revive 1pp This is my go to drink when hungover.. so glad they do a sugar free version now!! 

My daily menu today was: 

Breakfast: 30g cheerios 3pp, 120ml skimmed milk 1pp.

Lunch: weight watchers tortilla wrap 3pp, 50g wafer thin turkey 1pp, 1 shallot sliced 0pp, 15g low low cheese 1pp and 15g light salad cream 1pp.

Dinner: 50g wafer thin turkey 1pp, 170g mash potato 4pp, nume baked beans 200g 4pp and 15g low low cheese 1pp. 

Snacks: none yet but I have 6pp left and will maybe have something out of my graze box or one of those tasty little treat bars I posted about last week. 

So that’s that I am glad I have managed to get back on track so quickly and easily as we all know, best of all me how easy it is to go off track after a day like I had Saturday.. Yesterday after all that the scales were showing +3, today +2, so hopefully come Friday it will be less.. or at least a sts, I have to weigh in early this week as we are off to London for the weekend on Friday so I won’t be here to weigh in as normal on Saturday! Much Love Gems 😀 

   

Wi in day tomorrow..Waiting brings excitement and trepidation!

So tomorrow is weigh in day.. I am excited as the scales have been showing roughly a 1lb loss all week although today I feel heavy and bloated, It could be because I am tired but I hate that it makes me feel like I have to be nervous about my official weigh in! I also have had my daughter replaced by that of an alien or at least that’s what it feels like.. I always knew that once my daughter reached the teenage years that it was going to be hard but I feel helpless sometimes especially at that time of the month if you catch my drift.. She barely talks to me any more and I hate it I don’t know why she has suddenly turned into this alien that I feel like I barely know these days. It makes me stressed out and that leads me to my point,  I am an emotional eater I know this and understand it I have read a lot about it and found out ways to curb this and I pretty much feel I have it under control nowadays, but Letitia being so stressed out this morning and banging around at 6am, cause I wouldn’t let her have the day of school as she “felt ill” made me stressed out today and that made me hungry.. I’m glad I sat down and thought about it because if I hadn’t I may have ended up having some sort of binge.. If I’m completely honest and it wasn’t weigh in day tomorrow I don’t think I would have had so much self control.. But I’m proud that I did and I hope it pays off and shows on the scales in the morning! So my menu today was:

Breakfast: 35g Hot oats 3pp, 120ml skimmed milk 1pp and 7g of honey 1pp.

Lunch: Microwave pizza home made:-Weight watchers tortilla wrap 3pp, 1Tbsp tomato puree 0pp, 1 mushroom sliced 0pp, 1 shallot sliced 0pp, 3 slices of garlic sausage chopped/ripped into pieces 1pp(If I’m honest I ate 1 and 1/2 slices and put 1&1/2 on the pizza) and 30g co-op reduced fat grated cheddar 2pp.

My pizza before I blitzed it..                            

 

And after all for 6pp!

 

Dinner: 60g cous cous 2pp, 150g Nume piri piri chicken sandwich filler 5pp and a small sprinkling of parmasean cheese 0pp. 

Snacks: 1 pack of whisps 3pp and 1 caramella sundae 4pp. 

Total used 25/26! 

Tomorrow I have my nephews 4th birthday party and we have friends coming round for dinner and drinks also.. So have a feeling my weeklies will be blown all in that one day :O Seeing as my cooker is still not connected and one of the friends we have coming over is vegetarian, I have opted and found a recipe to make a mushroom and leek risotto in my slow cooker I will post the recipe  either tomorrow or Sunday and a pic of it too. I am off for my 3rd mile swim now and I can’t say in all honesty I am looking forward to it as I am  very tired but I know once I am in there I will feel better and it will help reduce the stress I have been feeling today, Looking forward to letting you all know the result of my wi tomorrow. Much Love Gems. 😀