Meal planning - week 10

I've just got back from an amazing 16-day road trip in the US and have put on nearly half a stone! Six and a half pounds to be exact... which is not great but in some ways I'm surprised it's not a lot worse! I need to get back into following the Slimming World diet and planning my meals to shift this excess weight as soon as possible, as it's wiped out a horrible amount of my weight loss so far, so I'm going to try as hard as I can to stick to my plan this week! I also need to eat less cheese as I've just found out my cholesterol is a bit high, which is surprising as the last time I had it checked, it was impressively low. I've no idea why as I don't eat fried food, or a lot of butter (contrary to popular belief, I don't eat most of the things I bake!) and very little cheese, apart from Laughing Cow Light triangles- since finding they are allowed on Slimming World, I've been eating them like no tomorrow! So I guess that will have to stop, and I'm going to make a real effort this week to snack on fruit instead.


Monday
Breakfast cereal - I've just bought some Special K which is an option B choice on Slimming World.
Lunch pasta with tinned tomatoes (rather than a ready made pasta sauce) and chopped ham which is all free
Dinner Leftover pie and mash from Saturday with veg. Each mini pie has a tiny bit of pastry so I'm guesstimating 3 syns each.

Did I stick to it? Breakfast: Special K (option B), small glass of orange juice (2.5 syns), milk in tea (option A). Morning snack: apple (free). Lunch: pasta as above, free. Went to gym at lunchtime. Afternoon snack: Skips, 4.5 syns. Crabsticks, free. Started cooking dinner and also doing some fried potatoes, which are also free (with Fry Light). The veg was taking too long and I didn't fancy the pie so I just ate the potatoes! Also I was feeling kinda depressed, having come back from holiday and spending 24/7 with my boyfriend and now having to go back to being apart for the past 4 days out of 5.... so drowned my sorrows in a bottle of cider, I had about 2/3 of the bottle (only a sort-of pint sized one!) which is about 10 syns, more than I was expecting but at least I didn't eat much today!

Total syns for the day: 17. Was doing so well until the evening... really hope I get over this depressed feeling (or that my boyfriend agrees to move in with me!)

Tuesday
Breakfast cereal
Lunch pasta with tinned tomatoes (rather than a ready made pasta sauce) and chopped ham which is all free
Dinner With my boyfriend. Will make lemon chicken from Slimming World magazine with rice or may have to serve with potato wedges for him. If I have time tonight (which is unlikely) I will make hash browns for breakfast tomorrow, and add the leftover chopped ham.

Did I stick to it? Breakfast: cereal and small glass of orange juice (2.5 syns). Didn't eat anything all morning as I had horrible toothache. Lunch: pasta (free). Ate a Snickers as I was still feeling a bit depressed, but have now decided that will be the only chocolate I eat all week. I hope. Especially as it was about 20 syns (estimate as it was different to UK size, I brought it back from the airport in America).Cheered up a lot when I got home as I was seeing my boyfriend this evening. I found the SW recipe for lemon chicken I wanted and realised that we didn't like half the ingredients, so I completely adapted it though I did still follow the recipe for the lemon sauce, which was delicious and syn free. I served it with some potatoes for my boyfriend and I had a chicken breast, lemon sauce, rice and vegetables, all of which was free. I finished off the rest of the cider from yesterday which is 5 syns.

Total syns for the day:27.5, mainly down to the Snickers!

Wednesday
Breakfast hash browns if I had time to make them, if not I will have cereal
Lunch tuna sandwich
Dinner homemade fish cakes (which I already have in the freezer) and veg

Did I stick to it? Breakfast: sort of hash browns in that I had the leftover fried potatoes from dinner yesterday, which were very nice and syn free! Morning snacks: pear (free), marshmallow wafer (1.5 syns). Went to gym at lunchtime then had tuna sandwich - sauce was a mixture of mayo and fat free plain yogurt so I'll estimate 1 syn. The bread was white so strictly shouldn't be an option b choice but I'm going to count it as one anyway as I'm doing the best I can! Afternoon snacks: cereal bar (5 syns), Skips (4.5 syns). Dinner: decided I really ought to use up the leftover mini pie and mash cakes so I had three of those - estimating 9 syns for the tiny bit of pastry - with the leftover lemon sauce, and veg, which was really nice. It was good to have a quick reheatable dinner too as I was busy cake decorating all evening! In fact I think I should count at least another half a dozen syns for all the bits I ate while I was decorating!

Total syns for the day:26 - no willpower when it comes to eating while I bake! But a reasonably healthy day otherwise... just not sure if 26 syns will allow me to actually lose any weight this week.

Thursday
Breakfast hash browns or boiled egg and ham
Lunch tuna sandwich
Dinner Probably seeing my boyfriend again, not sure if we will go out or to his house or to mine. Backup plan in case we eat at my house: spaghetti and meatballs (I have some meatballs in the freezer and my boyfriend loves them) though I think I should either make my own or have spag bol myself as the ready made meatballs are quite high in syns. Think I might have some garlic bread in the freezer my boyfriend can have too.

Did I stick to it? Breakfast: leftover hash brown potato things (free). Morning snack: something quite upsetting happened so I bought a macaron from Paul to cheer myself up. I clearly use food as an emotional crutch! No idea how many syns are in the macaron but I expect it's a lot so I'm going to estimate 20. Lunch: sandwich with coronation chicken deli filler from a jar, as I'd run out of most other things... looked it up on the Slimming World website and it's not bad though, 8 syns. Dinner: spaghetti bolgnese for me, spaghetti and meatballs and garlic bread for my boyfriend. My spaghetti, mince and tinned tomatoes were free, though I also had about 1/3 of a jar of pasta sauce mixed in which was probably about 5 syns. I also had two glasses of wine in the evening which come to about 15 syns.

Total syns for the day: 48, as I had a bit of an upsetting day and needed cheering up

Friday
Breakfast cereal
Lunch jacket potato with cottage cheese
Dinner fish in breadcrumbs with fried potatoes and veg

Did I stick to it? Realised I wouldn't have time for a baked potato for lunch as I had to go to the dentist, so I had leftover potatoes for breakfast (free), a very small slice of cake in the morning as we had a charity bake sale at work (estimate 10 syns), and a tuna sandwich for lunch (2 syns for the mayo). In the afternoon I had a pasta Mug Shot (free) and a packet of Ryvita minis (free). Then I had fish in breadcrumbs for dinner which judging by similar items on the Slimming World website would have been 8 syns, with homemade potato wedges (free) and tartare sauce (3 syns). Then I sort of lost the plot and had a can of coke (7 syns), glass of wine (7 syns) and about 10 Hersheys kisses (no idea so I'll say 10 syns). That's what happens when I have an evening at home by myself!

Total syns for the day: 47. Really not good given I get weighed tomorrow!

Saturday
Breakfast Cereal (I never have much time on a Saturday morning as Slimming World starts at 9.30)
Lunch cheesy pasta bake - Slimming World mag
Dinner Probably at home cooking for my boyfriend (though yet to pin him down- which makes meal planning a bit hard). I'd like to do the home made chicken kiev from the latest Slimming World mag, and I might do a dessert of some sort if I can think of something healthy.

Weigh-in today: Lost 2.5 pounds, which I'm really pleased about given how much I put on during my holiday, but also a little surprised as I haven't been very good for the past two days! It's spurred me on to try and lose another 2 pounds next week and 2 pounds the week after that, so I can say I've lost the holiday weight in almost the same time it took me to put it on.
Did I stick to it? Breakfast: cereal. Lunch: cheesy pasta bake, with butternut squash, which was really nice and syn free. Packet of ryvita minis in the afternoon (5 syns), can of cherry coke (7 syns). Dinner: steak, jacket potato, margarine and a tiny bit of blue cheese (probably about 7 syns), vegetables. Vodka and diet coke (2.5 syns)

Total syns for the day: 21.5, not bad and both lunch and dinner were lovely

Sunday
Breakfast French toast from Slimming World mag
Lunch My dad's birthday is today so I will be visiting them and have a pub lunch - not sure where we are going yet, otherwise I would look at the menu and try to pick something in advance.
Dinner Won't get home very early and will depend on what I had for lunch - could have the other piece of fish in breadcrumbs that I will have defrosted for Friday's dinner.

Did I stick to it? It was the first time I'd made French toast before and it turned out really well, though as I was at my boyfriend's and they didn't have Splenda, I had to use sugar, and we did put maple syrup on top! So I'm going to estimate 5 syns. Pub lunch: roast beef, roast potatoes, veg (all free), 1 Yorkshire pudding (estimate 5 syns), gravy (1 syn). For dessert, a passionfruit bavarois (like a mousse) which was delicious - and when asked if I would like cream or ice cream with it, I said neither (go me!). No idea how many syns were in it or what it was made with so I'm going to randomly put 10. Back at my parents house I had a very small slice of cake - probably another 10 syns. For dinner at home I had spaghetti bolognese, using up the rest of the jar of pasta sauce I'd opened, so 5 syns, and I had a leftover cupcake - and threw the remaining one away so I wouldn't be tempted to eat it! Probably another 8 syns or so for that...

Total syns for the day: estimate around 44, not too bad given I went out for a birthday meal and had dessert and cake. Hope I can lose some more weight next week!

As usual I'm adding this to the At Home With Mrs M linkup.