Lose Weight 6

Nenen

cheekymole wrote:

Nenen, you should also try the sponge cake that I posted a few days ago?

It sounds good Cheekymole... thanks for posting it. Mind you I have a real aversion to artificial sweeteners... I hate the taste of aspartamene etc (I am one of the unfortunate people who have a great sensitivity to it and get an awful aftertaste from it) and just hate putting all the chemicals in my body all the time. What I did with the lemon chickpea recipe you posted (and am not sure if it would work with the sponge cake) is to replace the 1.5 cups of sweetener with half cup of fructose (natural fruit sugar that is twice as sweet as normal sugar so although it has the same number of calories per gram you can use much less) and added a cup of porridge oats to lower glycemic index still further and ensure mixture wasn't too runny due to lack of dry sweetener. It worked really well but obviously increases the calories/syns a bit. Has anyone got any other alternatives to using artificial sweeteners?

bobsa1

I've just got weighed and after my first week on SW, sticking to it rigidly and no syns apart from Friday night when i went out for an anniversary meal I've lost 6lb.

I am really pleased but still a very very long way to go.

I'm aiming for an average of 2lb a week and hope to have lost a stone by the end of may.

Thanks for everyones tips and advice. I'll keep posting and asking questions everyone on this board is really helpfull

Money_Man_Steve

Hi everyone. Just weighed myself and lost 2lbs this week on SW. Makes my total loss 1st 8lbs and puts me in Club 10 (meaning I've lost 10% of my original weight) so I'm well chuffed!

I have a couple of tips for those of you who succumb to the temptation of sweets and chocolate. If you get a sweet craving, try one or more of these - they're all free!

- a ripe banana (ripe ones contain more sugar than greener ones).
- some fat free yogurt (add some sweetener and a few drops of vanilla essence and it's really delicious). You can eat a whole massive pot of Tesco's Healthy Living Bio Fat Free Yogurt and it's only costs about 45p.
- Low fat cottage cheese with pineapple (Sainsbury's BGTY and Tesco Healthy Living varieties are both free)
- pickled beetroot (yes, a little strange this one, but it's quite sweet) The basics range in Sainsbury's is only 20p a jar too, and much better for you than chocolate!

If you really have to have chocolate, then why not have a white chocolate Options drink (2.5 syns), or one of the 15g bags of Cadbury's Buttons (4 syns).

If a friend or your OH is eating a chocolate bar, I sometimes ask for a little bite - have a little taste and savour it - let it melt in your mouth really slowly. The satisfaction from having tried it and watching them scoff the whole thing (knowing that you have been good) is quite liberating, and the syns are negligible!

Having a small taste of something also works for those situations when you really want to have something, but you know you really shouldn't - that way you can still try it without blowing your diet. And it also makes you feel good about yourself because you're staying in control!

Cats_pajamas

Hello all,
Im so happy to have found you. I have been with slimming world for about a year and lost 2.5 stone so am delighted but have been losing motivation since christmas and find their own website a little bit uninspiring after all this time.
Looking at your stories and ideas feels like good medicine!!!
I started with losing weight, then stopped smoking and then decided to swap my interest in ebay for this site to sort out my money. It is nice to feel like I am getting back control of my life. I have to admit this is my birthday weekend and I have had a bit of a blow out but hey...bite me :rolleyes:
Cat

honey28

Well Done Bobsa and Steve - great results!! :T :T

Welcome Cats pyjamas :wave: - you'll find plenty of motivation and inspiration on here. I'm also at SW, You've had a great weight loss so far - well done. Any tips or recipes for success you could share?

Cats_pajamas

Plan, Plan, Plan... something I haven't been doing recently. Syn free chips and beans and SW quiche were my winners. :T I have been finding out a few things recently which have rocked my Slimming World like fresh pasta isn't free on green. Can you imagine how devastated I was to learn that a year into the project...LOL

thriftmonster

Hi everyone - well done to everyone for losing or keeping going - both just as important!!
Lost another 1.5 lbs this week so I'm happy especially as I had a really bad cold and the red wine allowance was definitely exceeded! More people round for dinner on Thurs but fed them all SW food and it went down well. Did the strawberry slices out of the new mag for pudding which were good but I added a couple of drops of cochineal to improve the colour.

Was feeling very unmotivated yesterday but back on track today - I just can't give up this time

honey28

Hi thriftmonster. I had thought about making the slices from the magazine - were they good?/easy to make?

Savvy_Sue

Nenen wrote:

I think that sounds like a great idea... are you volunteering to do the nice talking SavvySue???

Noooo, not me! I don't get over there very often these days, they've probably forgotten who I am ... Doesn't anyone else go there? If not can I suggest someone active like Cotsvale sends a PM to that board guide and asks how it might be made to work?

Nenen wrote:

I'm so new to this site I'm not quite sure how it all works yet... I feel like an 11 year old starting in a big comprehensive school feeling like I will never find my way round and might get lost in a time warp within these walls! :rolleyes:
So, for those of you that know the way round... could we then post recipe ideas here as part of our ongoing chat and motivational help but have them posted just as a list of recipes there too?

It's possible. I don't know how they get the recipes into the index over there, it's too technical for me ...

Actually, people here might find the recipes on Old Style quite useful anyway, because even when they're not synned and pointed it's cooking from scratch, so you can see what's going in and work out whether it's likely to be right for your diet or not.

Which leads me on to ...

Nenen wrote:

Has anyone got any other alternatives to using artificial sweeteners?

You can just reduce and reduce the amount of sugar you put into things gradually and see if you really notice. I mean, obviously there's a limit, I don't think you can cook a classic Victoria sponge without ANY sugar in it, and sugar does help the rising process in some recipes, but you can often cut it down. My chocolate biscuit cake (not on any diet plan!) has sugar, golden syrup and cocoa melted with margarine, and I've halved the amount of sugar I use for that, no complaints.

This goes for all sorts of things. I make bread pudding when we have stale bread left over: my mum's recipe has suet in it which I now find gross. But I use Delia, who says to put melted butter in it. I don't do that, and it tastes fine. Again, this isn't on any diet plan, but the boys gobble it up so fast I don't have to eat a lot of it! :rotfl:

thriftmonster

honey28 wrote:

Hi thriftmonster. I had thought about making the slices from the magazine - were they good?/easy to make?

Honey28, they were pretty easy. I couldn't get a flan case so I cut some value sponge to fit the tin (it says 3.5oz weight) and used cottage cheese instead of Quark. The colour was a bit depressing but a drop or two of cochineal helped. I made them the day before and then topped them with slices of strawberry just before serving. People had seconds without knowing they were SW - they didn't look it and they tasted really nice. And they cut out of the tin really easily.

The blueberry cheesecake was also very good - we do quite a lot of entertaining for dh's work and both recipes have gone down well. :beer: