Meal planning Monday - week 5

Slightly late as it's already Monday night and I've only just got around to doing this... better late than never!

Monday
Breakfast Ryvita with Philly light - option a/b, free
Lunch Leftover cauliflower and pasta bake - 2.5 syns
Dinner Sea bass fillet with beurre blanc and dill sauce - sounds impressive, non? But it's a piece of fish and ready made sauce I picked up in Sainsbury's the other day, never mind! Just looked it up on the syns calculator and if I have all the sauce that will be 8.5 syns. With new potatoes and veg

Did I stick to it? Breakfast: cereal (option b). Lunch: as above, cauli and pasta bake 2.5 syns. Afternoon snacks: crabsticks, laughing cow light triangles, diet Lilt - all free. Dinner: as above and it was delicious - and the little bit of sauce didn't go far - 8.5 syns. Also roasted a chicken so I could have it cold for lunches and ate a bit this evening, but luckily that's free.
Total syns for the day: 11. Finally back on track!

Tuesday
Breakfast Ryvita and Philly light
Lunch I've cooked a chicken with the aim of eating the meat cold (the weather is too hot at the moment for a roast) so I'm planning to have roast chicken and cous cous for lunch
Dinner Going to my boyfriend's for dinner and we're going to bbq again. There's half of all the fish left that I had on Sunday so hopefully I can have that and only use a couple of syns.

Did I stick to it? Breakfast: cereal. Morning snack: laughing cow light triangles, wafer thin ham - free. Slimming World Hi-Fi bar: 3 syns. Lunch: roast chicken, cold roast potatoes (yum!), cous cous (1 syn as it's flavoured). BBQ at my boyfriend's in the evening - I wasn't so good this time as they had some sausages and burgers from the local butcher that looked so tempting. I had some of the fish as before - so am counting 2 syns for the marinade - plus some plain boiled new potatoes, and 2 sausages - I'm going for 12 syns - in a bread roll - 5 syns - and half a burger in half a roll - probably about 12 syns. For dessert I cut up a whole pineapple, sprinkled it with brown sugar and barbecued it, and served it with fat-free fromage frais - it tasted amazing! I should probably count 2 syns for the sugar though. I did stay off the wine this time and just drank diet coke so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Plus, while the sausages were nice, they weren't quite as delicious as I'd hoped (maybe a little overcooked?) and I think I actually preferred the fish I had the other day. So next time I should hopefully be able to resist the temptation to have sausages and burgers!
Total syns for the day: 37, I think


Wednesday
Breakfast Cereal
Lunch Leftover roast chicken with cous cous
Dinner Pieminister Heide Pie, containing sweet potato, spinach and goat's cheese in a pastry crust. Really wanted to try this when I saw it in the supermarket, though I knew it would be high in syns. Looked it up when I got home and found it has 25 syns. Pretty high but could be worse.... I think I will make it my dinner treat this week and try to be good the rest of the time.

Did I stick to it? Breakfast: cereal. Am filling this in on Friday but can't remember what I had as snacks.. I have been pretty good though and think I only had laughing cow light triangles and wafer thin ham, plus I think I had a Hi-Fi bar (3 syns) in the afternoon, and a diet Lilt which is free. Lunch was leftover roast chicken, leftover roast potatoes and cous cous. Dinner: I was sent home from the barbecue last night with some leftovers so I had some leftover salmon (as I didn't think it would keep as long as the other stuff), new potatoes - both of which are free, which I served with veg and a lovely ready-made sauce from Schwartz - a low fat orange and dill sauce. According to the SW website it has 9 syns for the packet and I had a third of the packet, so that's 3 syns. Will keep the pie for another day.
Total syns for the day: 6. Really? Gosh, that's good!


Thursday
Breakfast cereal
Lunch leftover chicken with couscous or similar
Dinner Hopefully out with my boyfriend

Did I stick to it? Breakfast: actually decided to have wholemeal toast instead and will count 2 syns for the marg. Morning snack: Hi Fi bar, 3 syns. Lunch: leftover chicken, but thought the couscous tasted a bit funny (how long does it keep once it's been made up?) so had a tomato Mug Shot instead (free). Packet of Skips in the afternoon - 4.5. In the evening my boyfriend and I drove down to Newhaven (near Brighton) to meet his cousin and her fiance - and we went out on their speedboat! It was the first time I'd done that and it was really fun, though a little scary when the boat went fast - at least I thought it was scary, my boyfriend loved it! They had picked up a picnic tea for us and unfortunately it wasn't very healthy - I had one slice of a takeaway pizza - am guessing 8 syns - and a Greggs sausage roll - 18 syns, oh dear - I didn't know that at the time! I also had a small chunk of crusty bread with some ham and cheese that I should probably count 10 syns for, and a cornetto - 9 syns - and a homemade cupcake - maybe 6 syns. At least I drank diet coke rather than wine though a glass of wine on a boat on a summer's evening would have been lovely!

Total syns for the day: about 60. Have a feeling this Saturday's weigh in won't be good!


Friday
Working from home today - the Olympics are starting and I'm not particularly excited (I couldn't care less about sport) though I do have tickets to the beach volleyball, not that I understand the rules! I work in central London and commuting is going to be a nightmare, so my company has decided to allow a third of staff to work from home at any one time. That means that over the 12 working days the Olympics are on, I'm working from home on four of them. Which is better than nothing... and today is one of those days :-)

Breakfast cereal
Lunch jacket potato with cottage cheese
Dinner Hoping my boyfriend will come to dinner as I'll have been home all day and can cook something nice. I'm thinking of doing a filled Yorkshire pudding, as inspired by the Best of British blogging challenge - I just need to figure out how to make it first! And there will be a few syns as Yorkshires aren't free.. with any luck whatever I put in it will be though.

Did I stick to it? Breakfast: spent 2 hours trying to get on line to my company's work systems - despite testing this extensively from home in the last few weeks, today it seemed to be overloaded and I couldn't get access until 11am! I spent a lot of that time stressing and on the phone to the helpdesk so didn't make breakfast, then realised I was starving and grabbed a leftover cupcake from yesterday - 6 syns. Am going to put a jacket potato in the oven now though! Baked potato took ages to cook so had a packet of crisps around midday - 7 syns. Later had the potato with cottage cheese (free) but also added some marg to part of the potato (3 syns). Trying to remember what I ate in the afternoon... think I had a can of cherry coke - 7 syns. Dinner: did the Yorkshire pudding, which turned out really well! I filled mine with 1 sausage chopped into pieces, some roast potatoes, veg and gravy. I think it comes to around 15 syns but that's more of an educated guess. I then had 2 glasses of wine while watching the Olympic opening ceremony on TV which is another 15 syns.

Total syns for the day: 52, hope the other days I'm working from home are better!
Saturday
Breakfast Mullerlight before Slimming World (free) then ryvita and soft cheese (option a/b).
Lunch Ooh, just realised I hadn't planned anything... will probably be having lunch on my own and dinner with my boyfriend.
Dinner I need to use up the rest of the roast chicken so will use it in a curry. I've got the Slimming World book Curry Heaven and have decided to make a chicken tikka masala, which hopefully Mr. Fussy will like! It's free on extra easy and I will do it with some rice and a naan bread for my boyfriend (which I might steal a little bit of, but it's mainly for him!)


Did I stick to it? Breakfast: Mullerlight (free). Got to lunchtime and realised I hadn't remembered to plan anything so I had a piece of salmon, vegetables, a mixture of noodles and couscous - all free- and some leftover Schwartz orange and dill sauce (3 syns). I had a late dinner with my boyfriend so was a bit hungry in the afternoon and had a packet of skips - 4.5 syns - and a Kitkat - 4.5 syns. For dinner I made the chicken tikka masala which was lovely! I had it with half a microwavable pouch of Uncle Ben's basmati rice - 1 syn - and a small piece of my boyfriend's naan with some mango chutney - 6 syns? For dessert I made a caramel cheesecake from the Slimming World desserts book which was 6 syns and not bad but not quite as nice as I'd hoped. Also had another glass of wine - 6 syns.

Total syns for the day: 31. Definitely not doing so well this week... in fact I put on 1 pound at my weigh-in today. Really need to get back on track next week.


Sunday
Breakfast Hopefully my boyfriend will have stayed over; I just saw in a Slimming World meal planner the suggestion to have cheese on toast for breakfast. If I use wholemeal bread and reduced-fat cheddar that's free on my option a and b choice, and my boyfriend can have extra cheese.
Lunch Depends what time we have breakfast and whether it's more brunch... I could make him an omlette with cheese and bacon, though I don't like omlettes so I could have something that he doesn't like - which could be anything really!
Dinner Need to use up the Heidi Pie I didn't have earlier this week - 25 syns (it had better taste amazing!)

Did I stick to it? Didn't have breakfast then had cheese on toast for lunch. Supposedly free as my option a and b choices but think I had more cheese than I'm supposed to so will count 5 syns for it. Then had a can of cherry coke in the afternoon - 7 syns. Oh and ate 2 Maryland chocolate chip cookies while my boyfriend ate the rest - 5 syns. Had a packet of Skips while I was waiting for dinner to cook too - 4.5 syns. I need to get out of the habit of this! The Heidi Pie for dinner was nice- that is, the filling was lovely but the pastry was too thick for me. I had it with potatoes and veg -25 syns. Also had a glass of wine afterwards - 6 syns. At least that finishes the bottle and my pledge is not to open another one before I go on holiday (which is only 11 days from now!). I made an apple betty recipe from the Slimming World website which was lovely and only half a syn for the portion, but I still had the munchies and found a lonely Wispa bar in the cupboard. And now I learn it has 14 syns, I won't be doing that again! Quite a bad end to the week in fact.

Total syns for the day: 61, about half of which was down to the pie and chocolate!