talkhealth Blog

Speedy post tonight as I have only just got home after a long day of loveliness at the stables! Speedy as I also wanted to share a few tips relating to weight loss…getting bigger weight losses whilst still following the Slimming World plan.

Most of this has been shamelessly plagiarised from the wonderful Slimming World website…which members have access to…another great reason to join a local group!

Whilst on Twitter I have noticed a few tweets recently with people asking for suggestions to boost their weight loss. Replies have included suggestions such as following the ‘Success Express’ plan, or trying ‘Fast Forward’ – both of which are plans that I am going to leave until the last minute to try if I can, as they are designed to speed losses up but for me will be used as tools to help me get to target. I am not in need at the moment as my losses keep happening – some smaller than others, but this weight is shifting in the right direction, so they will be last resort territory for me hopefully.

Other suggestions have included stuff like drinking lots of water, eating Scan Bran, having at least half a plate instead of just one third of a plate of superfree foods…all great options which are worth taking a look at. But a few people were surprised when I mentioned the little symbols in the book written next to some of the free and superfree food. The ‘s’ symbol and the ‘ss’ symbol stand for ‘speed’ and ‘superspeed’ and these foods can help boost your weight loss because they’re lower in energy density than other foods. That means weight for weight, they have fewer calories – so they fill you up whilst helping you reduce your calories.

Slimming World suggest paying more attention to speed and superspeed foods when:
– your weight loss is going a bit more slowly than you’d like
– your lifestyle has changed and you aren’t as active as you used to be
– you’re finding it harder to lose the last few pounds to reach your target – and you don’t want to reduce your syns

And it is not that hard to work speed and superspeed foods into your plan. If you like fruit then swapping a banana for some berries is a good option, and if like me you love fish then swapping salmon for cod helps too. In fact, it is that easy to work speed and superspeed foods into your plan that Slimming World set a little ‘Speed Food Challenge’ on their website. All you need to do is eat five speed foods each day. There are some great suggestions which I will share with you below…

Tuna salad – Free on Original and Extra Easy
Toss l
tuna (canned in brine) with sliced mushrooms, cooked green beans, spring onions, cherry tomatoes and sliced, hard-boiled egg. Serve with a fat-free vinaigrette dressing and enjoy with a Healthy Extra ‘b’ choice wholemeal roll.

Hot turkey salad – Free on Original and Extra Easy
Fry bite-sized pieces of turkey, spring onions, mushrooms, tomatoes and mixed peppers in a little Fry Light until cooked and tender. Serve with green salad leaves.

Cheesy Roll – Free on all choices (using a Healthy Extra ‘b’)
Fill a 60g wholemeal roll with low fat/virtually fat free cottage cheese, lots of chunks of beetroot and finely sliced spring onions.

Cheesy Omelette – Free on all choices
(using a Healthy Extra ‘a’)
Fry chopped peppers, mushrooms and sliced red onion in Fry Light. Whisk together eggs and low fat/virtually fat free cottage cheese and pour into the vegetable mixture. Gently heat until the sides look cooked. Sprinkle on 30g cheese and grill until cooked through and golden brown on top.

Super-speedy fruit salad – Free on all choices
Melon (except watermelon), blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, grapefruit, guava and yellow plums are all superspeed foods. Chop, throw into a bowl and enjoy a super-speedy, super healthy fruit salad!

And did you know…
Mushy peas are a speed food too. Syn free chips, mushy peas, tomatoes and fried egg – made with FryLight of course…perfect! And bring on the mushy pea curry!

So there we go then, my speedy blog post with help from the fantastic resources on the Slimming World website. I found some great little articles on there earlier and will definitely be making some time next week to have a browse…even looking through these could give you some great ideas if things have gone a bit stale recently.

Right then, the usuals…

I have had a wonderful day – preceded by a rubbish night of sleep! I will stop moaning about my sleep soon, I promise! I got up and faced the treadmill and managed to shave my other half’s head, prepare a picnic lunch, eat breakfast and post on Facebook whilst fitting in my workout in between jobs. My shower then decided to pack up on me – as I was standing in the bath, naked and covered in sweat from my workout…never good. Luckily my other half is a genius and managed to get it working for me and I can tell you that the moment the water came out of the shower was brilliant! I was meeting a friend for a picnic lunch at the stables and a good gossip and could not have turned up stinking as I did. Once I was showered and changed I headed off to meet her – my Mum came for a bit too – and we all had a good catch up before Mum left us to it. This friend of mine is wonderful – a real gem of a person and I love spending time with her. We met at work and just clicked and I am so glad that we kept in touch…I think we will make it more of a regular thing as we don’t catch up often…hence me getting home so late, but I didn’t mind in the slightest. The horses were good today. I had prepared snacks for them too – celery, apple and radishes…which my Welshie ended up eating most of! My other half met me at Asda on the way home for dinner supplies and I think we will retire soon for an early night and maybe a film.

And here is a celebration for our friends…

Breakfast: Banana and two Alpen light bars (HEB).

Lunch: Tikka chicken, rice and salad, with fruit salad.

Dinner: Cajun salmon, syn free chips and salad.

Snacks: Two packets of Snack a Jacks (9 syns).

Another good food day. The rice for was made by my Mum and was some of the Batchelors stuff with added veggies. The chicken was the Asda stuff and the salad I made with radish, spring and red onions, red pepper, rocket, celery and tomatoes. Dinner was just leftover salad, salmon sprinkled with Cajun seasoning and syn free chips. So a bit of a convenience day, but very tasty. Oh, I also had three Babybel lights at lunch but forgot to take a pic of those!

Exercise: 3 x 20 minute treadmill sessions and 1 x 15 minute BodyPump session.

It has been a long old exercise week! I love the fact that I can now exercise and am grateful to be able to walk, when I couldn’t do it before…so I just tell myself to quit complaining and get on with it. I have another full session tomorrow, my 30 minute session on Monday then a lovely, wonderful rest day on Tuesday…roll on Tuesday!

Enjoy Sunday all – and I hope that Saturday was fun!

Weight Loss Bitch xxx

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WeightLossBitch

On a health and fitness driven journey to lose over 32st / 448lbs / 203kgs – yes, it is a considerable amount – I am committed to losing my excess weight without the aid of weight loss surgery, diet pills, or quick fixes…as there aren’t any! Changing my eating habits and building up my fitness levels, along with addressing the ‘head issues’ will be crucial in order for me to achieve my goal. Living in England as a 31 year old super morbidly obese woman can be challenging to say the least. I have been shouted at in the street and verbally abused far too many times to mention; hence the name ‘Weight Loss Bitch’…the day I am just called a ‘bitch’ instead of a ‘fat bitch’ will be the day that I know I have cracked my weight loss! With many reasons to lose this weight I am documenting my journey for a number of reasons. Firstly, I would like to keep a record of the ups and downs, the highs and lows, and the challenges I face with such an enormous task to tackle. Secondly, I would also like to inspire and encourage other people who are in a similar situation and to show them that significant amounts of weight can be lost naturally…with a bit of motivation, hard work, dedication and will power. Thirdly, all of the blogging, Facebook-ing, Tweet-ing, Pinterest-ing and YouTube-ing keeps me occupied and keeps my fingers out of the fridge!