Menu plans

I'm slowly getting into the habit of menu planning although this week's one is incomplete so far. I'm going out on Friday night and I don't know what food choices there will be at the place I'm going to. So because I undoubtably wont be able to restrain myself, and will be drinking alcohol (which I rarely do now) I'm trimming my points for the rest of the week. Weight Watchers say this isn't the way to follow the plan, and give you a weekly points allowance for times like these, but it has worked for me in the past and seems like "damage limitation" to me. I will be having a good old dance to burn some of the calories off though!

There also isn't a planned meal for Monday evening either. I weigh in on a Tuesday morning, so I usually have something very light such as fish and salad or chicken and steamed veg on a Monday night, and Mr FGS has something different - so I don't have a "meal" to plan as such. I have some quorn fillets in the freezer and there is always fresh veg in the fridge, so I know that's there and I don't have to "plan" it as such.

Snacks are the same. I have plenty of fresh fruit and veg - celery, carrots, apples, bananas, grapes, mango - and things like plain fat free yoghurt and cottage cheese, as well as low-fat crisps and Weight Watchers snack bars.

Getting my mojo back this week! For my new exercise I ordered a skipping rope! Once it comes I plan to do 5-10 minutes of skipping a day and I think this is manageable. I'm restricted to doing exercise in the evenings once the children are in bed which means my time with Mr FGS is cut into, but 5 minutes of skipping I can fit in while DS1 is at pre-school and DS2 is safely strapped into his highchair eating lunch or whatever. I can't wait for Spring when I can rely a bit more on the weather being better.

How is your menu shaping up for the week? Link me to it if you've posted one!

Hx

This week's menu plan...

Morning!

I've managed a menu plan again, but am doing it a little different this week. I decided that planning my snacks wasn't working - I rarely ate what I had planned and swapped the planned things for other days when I wanted them, so instead I have left the snack area blank and just written how many points I have left for the day after my main meals have been taken into consideration. On some of the days I've left more points for snacks than I have included for meals! But, in reality, it probably wont work out like that, and I'm not intending to use all my points every day. Once again, if there are any specific recipes you'd like to see please ask!

I have had to repeat meals and lunches more this week, for reasons I'll go into in a later post, but I don't mind and it means less cooking!

For snacks, as well as fresh fruit and veg and a huge batch of 0pp veg soup and fruit smoothies I will have the following options available:

WW rich toffee bar 2         Ryvita 1

WW crisps 2                     60g cottage cheese 1

150g lf plain yogurt 2         Tbsp lf hummus 2

Rich tea biscuit 1               Boiled egg 2

6 mini breadsticks 1           Cooked veggie sausage 2

I struggle for snack ideas, so if you have any suggestions please share! I am a big snacker and while I know I shouldn't be reaching for the crisps I can't help it! But as long as my choices are measured and accounted for, I'm not too worried. I'm trying to include more protein in my choices too.

Have you planned this week? I found it really helpful last week, knowing what to have and when, and it helped me spend less too.

Hx

Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance...

Hi loves, hope you're having a good week!

After last week's disaster I took some time on Tuesday afternoon after my weigh in working out to what I was going to eat for the week, down to the last snack. I've planned my menu to around 20-25 ProPoints per day as I'm allowed 29 and this will give me some leeway! Already yesterday I found it so much easier to stick to, and didn't even eat 2 of the planned snacks. I've included more variety in there too, which I think now it's getting harder I'm going to need. Having mostly the same thing for breakfast and lunch every day is repetitive and makes me not look forward to eating it. Today I was really excited about my bagel and enjoyed it, and as a result I feel satisfied. What has my life come to, that I enjoy looking forward to a bagel?! There are still some repeats of meals, but it is a lot more varied than what I was eating before.

Anyway, if you're interested here is my menu plan for the week. If the pic comes out really tiny, click it to look a bit closer. I plan on posting about some of the recipes but if there's any you specifically want to know, leave a message in the comments. I'm also planning to make this a regular thing, so have added a Menu Plan tab to the top. At the moment it just contains a link to this post, but I'll hopefully build it up with recipe links and menu plans as the weeks pass. It is time consuming planning this way, so I might not do it every week, but will definitely try and plan more!

Once I'd planned out everything, yesterday morning I walked to a farm shop to buy veg for the week. I spent £11.20 on this little lot:

Grapes, peppers, butternut squash, red onions, kiwis, courgettes, cucumber, tomatoes, lemon, spring onions, broccoli 

When I went to the supermarket after for a few more bits I had a quick wander round the veg aisles and looked at the prices to compare the farm shop prices, and found out that some things cost a few pence more, while some things cost a few pence less, so all in all I think I probably broke even. I will definitely walk to the farm shop more often (it's a 2 mile round trip) as most of the produce is British if not local (obviously not all of it!), and it means I get a nice walk in too. I was nice and warm by the time I got back yesterday, so plenty of calories burned.

Continuing with the planning theme, 3 of the meals I have planned for the week involve roasted veg, so this morning I baked a huge tray of it of which I had some for lunch today and the rest will go in the fridge for tomorrow's dinner and another lunch later in the week. Lessening the load! I just chopped 3 courgettes, 2 peppers, and two red onions, slung them in a tray sprayed with low-cal cooking spray with seasoning, balsamic vinegar and some dried orgeano and roasted it for about 45 minutes. So yum!

Now I just have to stop myself from eating it all and running out when I need it...

How do you plan? I would love to see links to menu plans if you have them!

Hx

Weigh in day!

...and I wake up dreaming of croissants and scones...

Yesterday I only had 9 points (or thereabouts) all day. For breakfast I had fruit and yogurt (1PP) lunch was soup and Weight Watchers crackers (1PP) dinner was chicken and mango salad (4PP) and I also had 2 custard cream biscuits (3PP). I kept myself busy moving furniture around and actually didn't feel that hungry. In the evening after settling the kids in their new room I did a 20 minute Wii Zumba routine, had a nice bath and painted my nails, then had some pineapple as a snack, so I wasn't tempted to pick at unhealthy things. Usually evenings are my danger time and I can quite happily eat and eat, so finding something else to do instead of sit on the laptop with a pack of crisps at my side is the key I think.

Image source

So hopefully the scales will be in my favor this morning. I had a bad week for picking last week but hopefully counter balanced that yesterday and over the weekend. It would be nice to at least maintain my weight and any loss will be a bonus.

Wish me luck!

Hx

Fruit and yogurt

My current breakfast of choice! This morning I had a kiwi, some black berries and a nectarine chopped and topped with a weight watchers layered fromage frais (1PP). You can also blend it all together and have it as a smoothie instead. It's a good breakfast, if I was doing anything terribly strenuous today I'd be hungry again pretty soon but I've got my sons bedroom to sort out so that'll keep my mind off food! And as I've been so bad this week today I'm eating as little "pointed" food as I can and instead filling up on free fruit and veg. I've made a huge pot of veg soup (with no points) and everytime I feel a bit peckish I'm going to have a mug of that, plus a chicken breast and salad for dinner. No carbs! Hopefully I wont just bloat up and weigh a ton on the scales tomorrow...

I'll post my soup recipe later!

Hx

Breakfast of the day! 8 ProPoint cooked breakfast

Morning!

I have just eaten my breakfast and man was it good! My usual breakfast consists of cereal, skimmed milk and fruit but this morning I felt like a change. Don't get me wrong, starting the day with a bowl of cereal and fruit makes me feel amazing and sets me up for the day, but a change is as good as a rest, and having a good cooked breakfast for 8 points isn't bad. Only 3 more points than my usual breakfast, but I had it a little later than usual so wont have a morning snack which will even it out.

So, I had:

• 2 Weight Watchers Premium Pork Sausages - 3PP (1pp each but when you enter 2 into the tracker it comes up with 3 - hate when that happens!)
• 2 slices Weight Watchers White Danish bread, toasted - 3PP (1PP each, but same as the sausages)
• 1 medium poached egg - 2PP
• Tinned tomatoes - 0PP
• Sliced mushrooms steamed in the microwave with 1tbsp Worcester Sauce - 0PP

Totally worth 8 points!

Some more cooked breakfast ideas:

• Swap the poached egg for a whole egg and an egg white, scrambled, for the same points. Or make it into an omelette
• Exchange one sausage for a 25g rasher of bacon, fat removed (1PP per rasher)
• Add some baked beans for 1PP per tablespoon
• Quorn sausages are also 1PP each
• Cube a small (100g) potato and microwave it for 3-4 mins. Put on a baking tray and mist with Fry Light before baking for about 15-20 mins until crispy. 2PP
• Put it all in a sandwich! You can use 1tbsp of extra light mayo instead of butter for free

What did you have for breakfast today?

Hx