Day. [insert generic come back title here] - The return.

Hello 2011. Hello blog. 

I've been off plan for the last few weeks due to massive busy festive blah blah bollocks. Excuses. I ate lots of lovely stuff and it was most definitely worth it. I've put on about 5lbs but I'm really not that phased, I don't feel like I've failed. I'm somewhat proud that it wasn't more despite all the rubbish I've been eating over Christmas. The major positive is that throughout the holidays I was actually looking forward to restarting the diet. Anyway, moaning will get me nowhere so it's all smiles and happy thoughts from here on!

I've been bought some life lines, in the form of Christmas presents, that I think will really help me make this year 'the year' I shift the chub. The three things are as follows:

1. A Nintendo Wii Fit Plus.

2. A make-your-own Scrapbook kit.
3. An amazing dress that's a size too small.

The Wii Fit was the biggest suprise this Christmas, I had no idea whatsoever that I was getting it so it was a really lovely gesture from Liam. I'm a very lucky girl! I set up my profile last night and watched my BMI go swiftly into the big red 'OBESE' zone. I then got told by a cartoon I'm super fat. Good times. Although, for some reason by fitness age is 23?? Madness. Especially when Liam (who has an envious BMI of 19.3 and cycles 10 miles a day) got age 52! Shocker. Anywho, it's all good. I've done 20 minutes so far today and I'm looking forward to another round tonight.

Now, with the scrapbooking kit I shall create a week by week food plan for myself and have a hands on flick book to keep me motivated for the year. I'm planning all my meals again, now too strictly. I'll also write down some thoughts etc, random ideas for things. I might have a page for things I'd like to do when I hit target. Every little helps!

The dress, as you can imagine, is just a nice little goal for the short term. Short term goals are majorly important. Don't push yourself too hard to do too much - you'll give up so much easier. The feeling of completing a smaller challenge is just as rewarding. Baby steps!

I've also got about a million recipes I need to get on and post - watch this space.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and a very happy New Year.

E x

Chocolate cake - 1 syn per slice or 7.5 for the whole cake!

As I sit patiently waiting for X Factor, I feel I need to share this new slimming world revelation. Chocolate cake with white chocolate frosting and rasberries - less than 8 syns for the ENTIRE cake. Yes, you read correct. It's a very rich cake and the frosting and berries cut through it nicely but once you've got the base down you can play around with it all you like! Enjoy.

Chocolate Cake with White Chocolate Frosting and Berries -
Syns - 7.5 for whole cake.

Serves 1-8

For the cake:
Half an oz of self raising flour
Half an oz of drinking chocolate
3 Eggs
5 Tbs of Sweetener

For the topping:
1 Tub of Quark
Sachet of White Chocolate Options
1 Tbs of Sweetener
Raspberries/Strawberries/Whatever you want

1. Pre heat the over to about 180 degrees.
2. Combine all the cake ingredients together and pour into a round sandwich cake tin. Bake for 10 minutes until at a spongey texture and leave to cool.
3. While the cake is cooling, mix the quark, options and sweetner in a bowl.
4. Once the cake is cool, spread with the frosting and top with berries or whatever you'd like to use!

I had 1/8 of the cake and it was more than enough! And only 1 syn!! Definitely a crowd please, Liam really enjoyed it too. Very, very happy! Good luck!

E

Syn free*! KFC style chicken - Can't even describe how yum this is...!

Hey there everyone. Sorry I've not posted in a while - I've been a very busy (aka lazy) girl! Anywho, it's friday night. I've been getting monster cravings. Cravings for what? The colonels fried chicken, that's what. So imagine my joy when I found a slimming world friendly version! It's delicious. I can't even recommend this enough. Make it, enjoy it. God bless KFC.

Btw - sorry for the low quality photo. Batteries have died so I'm using a camera phone - it looked much better in real life!

KFC Style Chicken - Syns - 0*
Serves 2-4

4 Chicken Fillets/Chicken Pieces
1 Pot of Chicken Bovril
4 Slices of Brown Bread (400g loaf)
1 Egg
1 Tsp Hot Chilli Powder (Optional)
1 Tbsp Mixed Herbs
1 Tsp Garlic Powder (optional)
Bit of Black Pepper.

*WARNING: If not using the bread as your healthy extra, syn accordingly. It normally works out as 1 slice per person!

1. Boil your chicken in a large pan of water and then for about 20-25 minutes. Once cooked, drain, dry and leave to cool for a little bit while you do the rest.
2. Put the bread and mixed herbs into a food processor or use a hand blender to blitz them into breadcrumbs.
3. In another bowl, mix the bovril, chilli powder, garlic, pepper and egg (and anything else you want to use).
4. Coat the chicken in the bovril mix before rolling in the breadcrumbs. It doesn't need to be too thick, just enough to coat it!
5. Place the chicken on a tray and put in a pre-heated oven on a fairly high temperature (I went about 200). Cook for 10-15 minutes until browned and crispy!

And there you have it! Wonderfully tasty chicken!! I served this with slimming world chips and home made coleslaw and it felt like I was being all naughty and induldgent.

Enjoy!

E

Super Easy Coronation chicken - Mmm.

This is great to do for lunch - you can use it in sandwiches or whatever you want. I have it with jacket potato. I've also used the sauce to marinate chicken which was real tasty.

Coronation Chicken 1 syn per 1/3 portion.

4/5 tbs Fat Free or Low Fat Fromage Frais

1 tbs of Mango Chutney

2 tbs of Curry Powder

1 tbs of Extra Light Mayo

Pinch of Salt & Pepper

Ready cooked low fat chicken slices (not the processed stuff!)

1. Add all the ingredients minus the chicken into a bowl and mix. Try it and see if it's okay, you can add more curry powder or more fromage frais if it's not quite to your tasting. It's best to go with your gut instincts here!

2. Cut up the chicken into smallish chunks. Mix into the sauce.

3. OPTIONAL - I cover it with cling film and leave it for 15 minutes or so to soak up the flavours a bit but you don't really have to.

As you can see in the photo, I served this with jacket potato and salad. Really enjoyed it!

E

Sausage Casserole - Crazy tasty!

This a really awesome meal for the cold weather, it makes your insides feel like they are being hugged. Now I'm thinking about it, you could easily use this sauce with chicken or any kind of meat. Enjoy.

Sausage Casserole with Roasted Veg - Syns - 1/2 per sausage!

Serves 2-4

1 Super Large Onion

2 Portebello Mushrooms

2 Cloves of Garlic

3 Oxo beef stock cubes

A Tin of Plum Tomatoes

200ml of Boiling Water

As many low fat sausages as you want.

Salt & Pepper

Frylight

1. Heat up a non-stick frying pan and start to fry your sausages. Use however many you want, they're your sysn!

2. Slice your onions and mushrooms and garlic. Once the sausages are almost done add the rest to the pan and keep spraying with frylight.

3. Once cooked, add a crumbled up oxo cube (without water) and then the tin of plum tomatos. If it's hot enough, it should begin to thicken up! I like to kind of slice up the plum tomatoes when they're in the pan using a spatula, s'good fun if you're easily amused.

4. Once it's real thickening up, put those 2 left over oxo cubes in the 200ml of water and stir well. Pour into the pan and reduced down until at a consistency you're happy with.

5. Add some salt and pepper to taste and serve!

I served these with some roasted vegetables and it was delicious. Hope it goes okay!

E

Day. 23 - Rules are there to be broken.

BUT AM I BREAKING THEM?

Give me an N. Give me an O.
Ohhh, that's right.
I'm sticking to this plan like a piece of velcro sticks to a tennis ball.
Pretty darn well!

As you may notice, a few little design changes have gone on. Thought I might as well spruce the page up a little. Feel free to let me know what you think!

Aside from all that jazz, I actually feel a lot more positive about my diet now. Over three weeks in and I've not cracked, which in my humble opinion, means so far, so good. I've been making a few playlists to exercise to! I did 25 minutes worth of crazy dancing last night and my body aches because of it. Awesome times. No pain, no gain. If you have spotify feel free to listen to my 30 minute playlists! I have made 3 volumes:

Volume 1: A whole load of 80's cheese.

Dancing 30 minutes vol.1

Volume 2: Pop songs that make it impossible not to move to.

Dancing 30 minutes vol. 2

Volume 3: Classics to rock out to.

Dancing 30 minutes vol. 3

I really recommend trying this out! Just go crazy for the duration of the playlists and run around or jump about, do some crazy stretchs, do star jumps, anything you can to get your heart racing!

Catch you later alligators.
 
E

Day. 22 - I would kick myself in the face...

...but it is not physically possible, which to be honest, I'm quite glad about.

I went off to chubclub this morning feeling positive. I got onto the scales and my heart just sank. I really thought I'd tried hard last week and I'd lost 1lb. It's only my third week! I should be losing more than that. I was so ashamed I didn't even stay for image therapy. I just ran off like a little baby with a lame excuse! So now, I'm twice as ashamed. To make matters even worse, on the way home I got a chocolate bar and it was so tasty and worth the 8.5 syns I used on it. Then it dawned on me, I really didn't even try that hard last week.

By this point, I am three times as ashamed as I could have been. THRICE.

Anyway, onwards and downwards. I can't bitch about it like a small child when I know it's all my own fault! And it's still a loss, so I'm going to man up (metaphorically speaking) and step up my game this week. I am enforcing on myself a strict list of rules for the next 7 days.

Behold - Emily's 7 day mircale boost! OOOH. AHHH. Yeah that's right.

The following rules shall be stuck to or I shall live a life time of shame and regret (or something less dramatic).

RULE 1 - Always have a breakfast.

RULE 2 - Never eat past 6pm unless it is fruit or yogurt.

RULE 3 - Do at least 20 minutes of exercise a day.

RULE 4 - Try at least one red day and one green day.

RULE 5 - Only have one portion of food at meal times!

RULE 6 - Weigh and count everything that needs to be. No more guessing.

RULE 7 - Put more effort into this blog.

So, with the power of the miracle boost behind me, I am aiming to lose 4lbs through the course of next week. How exciting!

I am now off to make some wonderful pasta and scoff the lost before 6pm. Yum.

E