#FlexFoodFeb #TheFlexEffect #BevsWW

31^st January 2018

Good food is good mood

Cracking good day yesterday, we had two interactive cooking demo’s in my meeting which I thoroughly enjoyed and I’ve already learned stuff and plan to do things slightly different tonight, instead of a frying pan, I’m thinking the George foreman might be needed.  I’ve also been on the old pinterest and found something else to throw into the equation.

Oh I do love to experiment and play and it appears my members were all for it too!  It’s great to be able to try new flavour ideas in the meetings, that way I don’t end up with loads of food at home and my members get to try stuff too.  We will learn to love the bean!  So far we would like to recommend mustard in general as a great way to add flavour, particularly Sainsbury’s wholegrain mustard with chilli, very good, very good indeed, just the right amount of kick.

I might have a play today before the meeting, just found a recipe I think would be good, needs tweaking, they always use far too many ingredients, we want things that are quick, easy and ingredients low – well I do anyway, I don’t know what you lot think.

I didn’t really eat properly yesterday, that’s the problem when there’s food samplings in the meeting, it all gets a little picky and I come home and I’m not hungry at all. 

Last night two lovely young ladies did a charity bake sale and they raised an incredible £90 thanks to my members for Lepra the UK-based international charity working to beat leprosy, how wonderful is that.  I also came home with my tea, they’d made a delicious couscous dish, I threw in a few black olives and that was me satisfied.

Keeping it short today as I’ve had me a lie in, I have last night’s meeting to balance and I want to get on with my day.

Oh did I mention it’s the 31^st January, last day of the month, one month down.  Is your attention to your health and happiness waning, are you forgetting WHY, I do hope not, we’re one month closer to Spring, then Summer or put it another way, one month closer to having to remove our jumpers and coats and bare our bellies!  Oh Ma’an, that’s just reminded me of my why, better sort my stuff, get some salmon out of the freezer and we can have salmon and couscous for lunch, nice.  Eggs for breakfast of course, through some mushrooms and tomatoes on the plate and that’s a mean sorted.  No need to shop today, I bought too much last week when I got paid and excited in the supermarket. 

Tomorrow’s February, who’s up for making it FLEXuary, really getting full on Flex, #FlexFoodFeb, let’s start sharing the amazing meals we can now have on the Flex Plan, share them on social media, use that hashtag and #TheFlexEffect #BevsWW, come on lets’ floods the interweb as my mom would call it with delicious photos of your food.  I’m up for that, are you? 

Right I’m off to make my delicious breakfast with a big mug of tea – what’s on your menu today, heck let’s start early with the hashtags, we’re rebels!

Have a delicious day BeYOUtiful.

Find what moves you!

30^th January 2018

Think like the person you want to become

How nice is it to wake up and read lovely comments that have been written about you!  That’s what I’ve done this morning, when I logged on to Facebook, reading the things my members have written makes me feel like I’m doing something right, that’s for sure.   https://www.facebook.com/weightwatchersuk/photos/a.155231741179119.23551.140213752680918/1574835125885433/?type=3&theater I may not be the best Weight Watcher in the world, but I’m a pretty decent Weight Watcher coach according to them.

I enjoyed my day off yesterday, yeah I did a little work, well actually a couple of hours, but it was worth it, then I went shopping to get some ingredients as we’re cooking in the meeting this week, yep, plus tonight I have one of my members young daughters selling her cooks and bakes and cuppas for charity, she’s made lemony couscous, fruit and banana loaf, flapjacks and a fruit cake – how fab is that.  Brooke has worked really hard and is raising money for Lepra which is a UK-based international charity working to beat leprosy.  How fab is that, hopefully we’ll raise a few pounds tonight whilst enjoying a cuppa.

Now I made the rookie error of buying a packet of bread rolls yesterday – 8 in the pack!  Well I had one for my breakfast, one for lunch and another for tea, it was all gonna end in tears wasn’t it.  They were so good though…

To distract me from the bread rolls, my lovely curtain lady came to hang my new curtains for me, it’s not as easy as you’d think you know, when they’ve been made for you rather than bought from a shop, you can’t half tell the difference – I’ve got to say I’m glad she hung them, we had to leave them open last night to give them chance to settle (she used technical terms), that’s weird sitting with your living room light on when it’s pitch black outside, waiting for someone to appear at the window in a freaky CSI kind of way – yeah we watch way too many episodes of those type of programmes, mom loves them.  All I’ll say is don’t ever upset either of us because we know way too many ways to kill ya ;)

I nipped to Sainsbury’s to buy stuff for the cooking in meetings, we’re experimenting by the way – I have no recipe, just ingredients!  This’ll either be brilliant or horrendous, either way it’ll be fun, especially as we’re gonna cover activity at the same time, lol.

Anyway whilst at Sainsbury’s I remembered that I’ve fancied ice cream for a good few days now, so I ended up in the freezer aisle and found this;

Let’s be honest sometimes you just need ice cream and this one was a ‘healthier’ option although I couldn’t tell from the taste of it, 2 scoops (100ml) 4SP or the tub on a really bad day 20SP, Oppo healthy Ice Cream, Madagascan vanilla – yeah I somehow managed not to sit there with a spoon and consume the lot, although I wanted too.  Just as I’d forgot about it, one of my members commented on my post and reminded me again.  We ended up going to bed before I fetched it out the freezer thankfully.

I was woken by the wails of foxes in the early hours of this morning, so it appears it’s that time of year, great joy, but we shall focus on the positives, if they’re doing that, Spring is on its way.

I’ve mentioned briefly that we’re talking activity in meetings this week, the mere word puts so many people off, which is why it’s important to focus on what you enjoy doing rather than what you think you should do!  Find what’s fun – what moves you so to speak, when my manager asked the question in our area group “so what is it that moves you? What do you enjoy doing to get your fitpoints?”  Without even thinking I wrote ‘hill walking’ although because of my situation I have to settle for dog walking these days.   I do miss spending the day up a mountain in Wales, exploring somewhere I’ve never been or walking the coastline, loved it so maybe this year I need to try and work out a way to just find somewhere to go for a few hours now and again.  It won’t be the same but it’ll be something, we have to work with what we have.  The farmers fields at the top of my estate are lovely and the views are good enough, then there’s Cannock chase and the Wrekin. 

Anyway, time to go get ready for my day, here’s to making it a good one – you up for that BeYOUtiful?

A very good day

29^th January 2018

Don’t be discouraged, it’s often the last key in the bunch that opens the lock.

Yesterday was just your regular Sunday, one where I got to chill and relax and potter, after the sunshine list yesterday, I decided to focus on all the good stuff throughout the day, not just think of 3 things, below are the ones I came up with, the things that made my day good, of course we should all be grateful we woke up, we have a roof over our heads, food on our table, all the obvious stuff, but it does you good to pay attention on the positives in your world and realise life’s pretty damn brilliant. 

The good in the last 24 hours

• Writing my blog knowing people actually enjoy reading it!
• Mega first cup of tea.
• Knowing the cat that’s not my cat will be waiting to be fed when I go downstairs.
• Realising it’s cold and being able to afford to put the heating on.
• Alfie’s wagging tail when he comes looking for me & finds me.
• That awful noise Alfie makes when he realises the cats outside and chases him away. Seriously it sounds like he’s being murdered, annoys the hell out of me but makes me laugh at the same time because if that cat turned round, who knows how that would end!
• Listening to my audiobooks.
• I love that I’m so clumsy, putting my coat on, I knocked a cup of the worktop and it smashed.
• Going for a walk with alfie & my hands not being cold – we’ve had some cold mornings and I always forget my gloves.
• Observing how I talk to Alfie whilst we're walking (well tell him off) and accepting not only doesn't he respond but he does the same wrong thing daily and we have the same conversation - you should cross a road diagonally nor walk in the road - he won't listen.
• Loving how dramatic I can be over the silliest thing then how calm I am when something major happens. 
• Watching the squirrels, sparrows & other birds feeding in my garden.
• That I finally found the energy to clean the kitchen.
• Only having one load of washing for the machine & knowing it’ll dry in the wetroom no matter what the weather because our heating is always on now because of mom.
• Having mom read me the same few lines out of the newspapers every time I walk past the living room. 
• Listening to radio2.
• Smiling at my mom pressing every button on the remote and still not getting it to work.
• Having FB chat with my besties, hearing how Lynne’s loving having family time & Vicky’s off to the cinema with orange segments (who is she & what has she done with my V)
• Having a sing song with the radio on in the kitchen whilst cleaning up.
• Experimenting with food in kitchen, making two new dishes I enjoyed.
• Having a taster tell me the food tastes good, thank you to V for borrowing me her man.
• I now have skirting board in my kitchen (almost completely finished now, final touches) because of said man.
• Liking my besties man (we all know how hard it is when you don’t)
• Watching the Orville.  Great show, paying homage to Star Trek.
• “Ain’t she lost weight” counting how many times Mom said that about Gerry Horner whilst watching a programme. 
• Mom saying “well I’ve gotta go to the toilet, if I don’t I’ll shit myself” then farting all the way to the loo & me praying she makes it – she did thankfully. 
• Playing a bit of Candy Crush.
• Having a glass of wine.
• Reading the lovely comments some of my members had written about me on this post https://www.facebook.com/weightwatchersuk/photos/a.155231741179119.23551.140213752680918/1574835125885433/?type=3&hc_ref=ARREYkqYU6pDRiHGOpfujVWcmymRGQ_gl9NeIbE5tUZ3XaAKtkMDHdnEF6uEImOsffU 
• Going to bed at 9pm, having a comfy bed and straight to sleep.
• Waking up at 1ish thirsty and needing a wee, being grateful I’ve made it to middle age, so many don’t and knowing I can go back to sleep.
• Waking up at 5ish refreshed and relatively pain free once I’ve done the usual evolution of man trip to the toilet, getting all my muscles and joints in order.
• Going down to get the notes from the cooking I did yesterday and realising I’ve already done the washing up.
• Looking round at my lovely shiny new kitchen & knowing this time next week it will be finished completely, the Roman Blinds are being delivered today and fitted next weekend, I’m having a offcut of my walnut worktop made into a draining board and another one replacing the laminate pullout on my island unit.  The boys done good.

Not a bad day all round when you take time to think about it, my life is pretty good, I’m blessed, moms good at the moment and for that I am thankful.  None of us know what tomorrow will bring and I don’t plan to think about it, I’m living for today.

Now my cooking, I’m all about keeping it simple right now and I want to start using more beans and pulses so yesterday I started with butterbeans, cannellini beans would’ve worked here too.

Sweet Mustard Butterbeans

Spray light

2 diced onions

Tin buttterbeans and the water in the can

2tbsps wholegrain mustard (1sp)

3 bacon medallions, diced (1sp)

200g Penn Road chicken breast sausagemeat , make into meatballs (2sp)
(obviously you can use more meatballs if there are more of you eating it.

1tbsp agave syrup (or Sweet Freedom syrup) (2sp)

In a liddled saucepan, (I have one of those liddled cast iron shallow casserole dishes - I love it as it can go straight from hob to oven) fry the onions in spray light until softened, add the bacon medallions, then add the mustard and syrup and stir through, throw in the butterbeans and cook through for a few minutes because mashing them on the stove with a masher (I don’t like the texture of the beans so mashed up I can handle them).  Place the meatballs in the sauce then pop a lid on and put in oven for twenty minutes on about gas mark 4, 180^o.

The entire pan of food was 6sp, I’d picked a jar of honey and mustard cooking sauce up in the Co-op on the morning and that was 20sp!  I enjoyed my portion with some mashed potato for an extra 4sp.

Next I moved onto black beans,

Slow cooker Chinese chicken & black beans

2 chicken breasts

4 tbsp soy sauce (2sp)

1 tbsp hoisin sauce (2sp)

1 tbsp ginger/garlic paste (1sp) (use fresh save points)

Carton or can black beans - drained

(now I’ve written on my paper 1tbsp rice wine but I can’t remember if I added it or not?  It’s zero Smart Points for that amount so you could throw it in or leave it out, I’ll throw anything in that’s zero!)

Put chicken in slow cooker with all ingredients but the beans, give it a stir then cook on high for 4 hours.  When cooked shred the chicken in the slow cooker using two forks.  Now throw in the drained beans, you could add a tin of sweetcorn here too, or some small broccoli florets and cook for another 30 minutes.  Serve.

If I was making it for more people I’d just double all the ingredients. 

If you’re going to be at work all day just put it on low for 8 hours.

The black beans I can eat without mashing, they’re not bad at all.  I had a portion of this in a flatbread for my tea with a sprinkle of Weight Watcher cheese on top, really good.  You could serve it with rice, in a jacket, any way you like.

Yeah yesterday was a very good day and do you know what’s even better, I don’t go to work today either!  I have stuff to do, got my new living room curtains coming today, we’re going to add a touch of spring to the room, yep today’s gonna be a good one too.

But first a cuppa is required because I do anything else, I’ve just enjoyed my pint of water, it’s still dark outside, I’ve only just realised I haven’t turned the radio on, that’s how engrossed I was in this blog. 

Have a good day BeYOUtiful, love life and it’ll love you right back.