by Sara Farrell
I stood on the scales after Christmas, with our wedding just months away, and after getting a shock of what it read I proceeded to slip in to denial and eat even more. It wasn’t until I couldn’t physically close my jeans, that I realised I needed to sort myself out!
I started jogging in the evening with a neighbour and this was going great and I genuinely felt great too. Until one day……..
It was a few days before my birthday and I was sewing bunting for the wedding and I went to stand up and couldn’t. I had put so much pressure on my lower back and hips from jogging that I had actually put my back out. Well, needless to say that scuppered my wedding ‘get skinny’ regime!
I spent my birthday in a chiropractors’ getting my back slotted back to where it was meant to be. It was also the week before my hen so it wasn’t exactly ideal.
I had to rethink my plans for the perfect wedding body! I tried Weight Watchers years ago but wasn’t really feeling like doing that again and the times and venues didn’t suit my busy schedule. I found a Slimming World up the road and I thought ‘why not’!
I went to my first meeting and there was a nice atmosphere. Initially it took a while to get my head around the system but once you do one week it clicks.
I’ll try and explain this in as simple a way as I can!
There are 2 lists of foods; ‘Super Free Foods’ and ‘Free Foods’ – from both of these lists you can eat as much as you wish! ‘Super Free Foods’ consist of fruit and vegetables, while ‘Free Foods’ include meat and pasta etc.
Also, there is a list of A foods and B foods– With the A foods you can eat one of these per day “for free” (dairy) and the B list of foods are carb based – again one a day for free!
Finally, controlled portions of higher calorie, less filling foods are included, such as crisps, wine, chocolate and sauces. These are called “Syns”. Most adults have a daily “Syn allowance” of between 5 and 15 “syns”. All foods outside of the above ‘free’ allocations have a syn value.
A typical day looked like this for me:
Breakfast
Porridge with berries and a cup of black tea – porridge is a B, berries are super free. Tea is free.
Snack
Banana and fat free yogurt – free
Plain rice cakes x 2 (3 syns)
Lunch
Baked potato with either beans or salad – free
Rich tea biscuit to have with tea (2 syns)
Snack
Fruit salad and x2 ryvita with laughing cow – (3 syns in ryvita and laughing cow is my A food)
Dinner
Homemade spaghetti bolognaise – free
Treat
Fudge bar (5.5 syns)
That’s a total of 13.5 syns – you can’t carry syns forward, you either use or lose in a given day!
The main thing I noted with this diet is that it encourages you to eat healthier. As you can see from the above I did not starve! Increasing my homemade cooking, eatings lots of fruit, veg and fat free food, meant I was eating a whole lot healthier!
I stuck to this plan, but had bad days too. In 8 weeks I lost 9 pounds without any intense exercise. I was able to do some walking but ultimately it was the programme that helped me achieve my desired weight loss. I wasn’t hungry and after a few weeks I stopped craving bold food!
I would highly recommend it as I felt really good when I was doing it. I felt healthy and had good energy. I also now dip in and out of it since the wedding. The recipes are also great.
This may not suit everyone but for me it really worked.
