Morning Morning - let's have ya!

24^th February 2014

If you add a little to a little, and then do it again, soon that little shall be much. Hesiod

I’ll never be accused of rushing when it comes to getting rid of my Christmas weight, lost 1/2lb this week and that’s my silver seven ;) and back to my pre Christmas weight – phew!  It’s taken me 7 weeks, I’ll happy with that!  I started a new journal last week and my target was 1/2lb a week and that’s exactly what I’ve lost this week, if I can keep that up till the sunshine arrives I’ll be happy and ready for summer.  This way I get to go over my allowance a little and still lose weight, I likes eating I do so I’m in no rush!

Yesterday’s breakfast was a Weight Watcher wrap with scrambled egg, mushrooms, tomatoes and a Weight Watcher sausage, I have to say I was impressed with their Cumberland sausage for one ProPoints.

For lunch we had lazy beef with chips and veggies, that’s not what it says on the packet but all supermarkets do them, usually 3 for a tenner, they’re beef or lamb in gravy in a microwaveable bag, and personally I cannot cook beef and make it that melt in your mouth texture, plus they’re cheaper than buying a joint.  At 6pp for half on the packet, it’s perfect for a quick meal without fuss.

For tea we had Weight Watcher wraps filled with the leftover veg from lunch and a little cheese, folded in half and cooked on the George Foreman – they were delicious! 

 

I also came across a great idea on facebook, salad in a jar (I’ve seen it before but had forgotten) she’d put up four days of salad ready for work – nothing like being prepared and because it’s airtight it will keep well.  I’m sure I saw these jars in Asda the other day, they usually do them in Ikea too.

I also did a taste test on the Cathedral City cheese, comparing the lighter option against the mature and I have to say I couldn’t really tell the difference, yet a 40g piece of lighter is 3pp and the full fat 5pp, so definitely worth the change. 

I’m thinking Filling & Healthy today.  Have some salmon in the fridge, we’ll see, for a change I haven’t thought about food the moment I get out of bed! 

Have a great day, there’s an amazing sunrise starting. 

BeYOUtiful & Eat Gorgeous.

Can't beat a good walk...

23^rd February 2014

It's kind of fun to do the impossible. Walt Disney

A lovely walk was had with a group of my Weight Watcher members yesterday on Cannock Chase, really nice to get some fresh air and we were fortunate enough to have a bit of sun too, cold maybe but dry – perfect walking weather.  We enjoyed it so much we’re going to do it again Sunday 2^nd March, 11.45am for a 12 o’clock start, meeting at Whitehouse Car Park,‎ Cannock,WS12 4PR which is on Penkridge Bank Road , at the junction of Marquis’s drive, there’s a Baptist bible college white building across the road.  All welcome, adults, kids and dogs as long as they can walk for a couple of hours.  

I then enjoyed a massage at the marvellous Chi Rooms in Essington where she tried to sort out all my aches and pains, she did a damn good job of chilling me out, I was good for nothing for the rest of the day and enjoyed mostly sitting on my backside in front of the tv, watching Colin Farrell mmm…  The tv viewing was followed by an early night, unfortunately not with Colin Farrell, hey ho at least I was guaranteed sleep!

I’d popped into Asda on my way to the chase to get some stuff for my meeting next week, looking forward to sharing my findings with my members, it’s amazing what you can find when you spend a little time looking.

I also bought some nice food for dinner, although I didn’t have the energy or inclination to cook yesterday so we went for the easy option, I’d bought these from Co-Op, they were only £1 each and the chicken one was 10pp / 13pp for the cheese one, we had split them and had half of each flavour, we weren’t hungry luckily so they were an easy, enjoyable quick fix.  I’d bought some Weight Watcher coleslaw too, so enjoyed a spoonful of that with it.

Today I will make the effort to cook a proper meal, I’ll start with something scrumptious for breakfast I think, then hopefully if moms still in the mood we’re off to visit one of my besties in her new house.  Yes I feel a day filled with ‘doing’, and I have the energy to do it because I’m all rested.  Can’t beat days like that!

Have a good one whatever you’ve planned, Eat Gorgeous, BeYOUtiful & enjoy every day, life’s short!

All things battered & chipped!

22^nd February 2014

An optimist is the human personification of spring. Susan J. Bissonette

What a beautiful sunrise this morning, I realised spring is almost here and when I looked it is, started March 20^th, that’s less than a month, this crazy weather we’ve had this winter means I’ve still got pansy’s flowering up my garden that I planted last June, I might spend a bit of time out there this weekend tidying things up.  I’m a fair weather gardener, haven’t been out there since September!

I had so much to get done in my office yesterday, I decided against cooking and opted for chip shop lunch, then I decided to turn it into a bit of research for my members because of course I’m extremely dedicated to them all and I know they struggle with ProPointing all that is chipped and battered so this is what I purchased – purely for research purposes of course!

Regular chips

Saveloy

Battered roe

Battered mini fish

Scallop

Curry sauce

May I say first before I continue I didn’t eat anything with batter on it, as I don’t like it, not a fan of deep fat fried things I have to say, mom and the birds took are of it all though.

Moving on to the important information, I was really impressed that the portion size of the chips at my local chip shop has become more realistic, 28pp for the bag (it says 29 on scales but I didn’t eat the wrapper!), when that’s split between two it’s more than plenty.   The last time I bought a bag of chips on my way home from work (& I asked for a small portion!) the bag they gave me had 67pp in it! 

 I think the moral of the story here is be careful what you think is "a bag of chips" and put them on the scales when you get home!

This is what 28pp worth of chips looks like!

Moving on to the saveloy, an easy one as it was inputted into my scales, so that was 10pp;

Battered food mmm, not as bad as I expected if I’m honest, I reckon batter works out at roughly 4pp per 50g, now that sounds a lot and it is but it doesn’t weigh heavy so this scallop was 7pp;

 

this is the batter of the scallop! 

This cod roe is only 6pp

 

And my mini fish I reckon 8pp of which 6pp worth was probably the batter – you get more batter than fish!  I think you’d be better off having a large fish and sharing if you actually want fish.

Curry sauce mmm, now you’re talking, I bought the larger pot (for research obviously!) and I was really pleased to find out it would work out about 4pp using averages from other curry sauces you can buy in supermarkets.

 

Now I ended up having saveloy, chips and curry sauce which worked out at 28pp, my 49 weeklies would easily cover that and I left some of the chips as they were the small bits that are either burnt or really greasy.

I didn’t have to do the donor kebab because if you recall I covered that earlier in the month

http://wwbevsworld.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/another-fancy-going-to-chippy-for-tea.html  however someone did say, “but what about a chicken kebab!”, so instead of buying one, I asked the chip shop man serving me to go take a photo of the labels, he did, they only had the ingredients though not the nutritional information.  Again you’ll be glad to hear the one in our Ashmore Park chip shop is 91% chicken thigh, spices and finally vegetable oil.  Based on that information and knowing they give people about 300g of meat, the pitta bread would be 7pp, sauces 4pp, I work out that a chicken kebab is going to set you back 30pp and NO they are not Filling & Healthy because they do not use breast meat and I doubt anywhere does unless it’s the kebabs on skewers from a proper Greek place.

Hope that helps because it cost me nearly £8 to work out ;-)

Right I’m off to have a shower and get dressed as I’m going for a walk on the chase this morning, you’re more than welcome to join me, I’ll be at Whitehouse Car Park,‎ Cannock,WS12 4PR at 11am, only planning on doing an hour, although it’s glorious out there right now, I do have a massage booked and it’s my first in weeks, my body is in bits!

Have a great day whatever you’re planning to do, Eat Gorgeous, BeYOUtiful and go and check out Rachel from yesterday’s blog BEFORE photo on our area group this morning – WOWSERS!  What a transformation!

https://www.facebook.com/area37

Love my job I do!

21^st February 2014

They succeed, because they think they can. Virgil

YAY it’s Friday, although I have a full day’s work to do in my office, it’s all good because if I want to I can stay in my PJ’s!  I actually would have to get dressed to work the dog though, but if I want to I can put the PJ’s back on when I get back.  Totally without car today, it’s going to be mended – there’s a squeak, well more a whine so hopefully my amazing mechanic Tif will make my it better without it breaking my bank account.

Yesterday morning was amazing in my meeting, two of my golden girls Carol and Elsie celebrated 10 years at their gold weight, what an incredible achievement and what a gorgeous pair of ladies.  I got quite emotional before I started the group meeting thinking about what a lucky lady I was to have such an enjoyable job and how I’d know some of my members over 9 years and I’ve watched them all change, I’ve watched babies grow up, which was proven when Karen dropped in to get weighed and we realised she’d been at goal 9 years all except the year she took off to have her son who’s now 7!   

Then there’s the lovely Rachel (above)  looking stunning now having lost over 5 stone in total.  She posted this photo on facebook last weekend and told us "I've attended Weight Watchers for most of my adult life, I've lost stones & gained them back 3 time over thanks to being a mom to 3 beautiful girls but I'm still going, still losing & feeling great this evening"

I really do have the most rewarding job in the world! And seeing all the success stories from all the meetings in our area I’ve been sharing on https://www.facebook.com/area37 makes me realise even more so how much Weight Watchers Works!

Back to the reality of life, I nipped in the Asda on the way back to my meetings on the night to pick up a few things and I found myself in the ‘ready meal’ aisle looking at foods I would have once eaten, these days I prefer to cook for myself because I get more food and that’s a priority for me.  An old favourite (which I haven’t had for years) that I spotted was Heinz toast toppers, I worked them out at 3pp a tin.   Then I spotted these mug shot things, I didn’t much like the look of those, even less so when I worked them out at 6pp, there’s nothing to them!  Ye Olde Oak Meatballs in gravy 10pp for the can, I used to eat those all the time – would maybe be tempted to have a tin still.  Pie’s in a tin, my dad used to eat those, they worked out at 17 and 18pp each, from memory I remember most of it used to stick to the tin lid!   

I did battle with myself in the crisp aisle though, mom had asked me to get her a bag of cheese and onion crisps, I couldn’t see single bags, so looked at the 6 packs, £1.68 for 6 or 3 packs of 6 for £4.  My bargain brain was thinking oo it’s so much cheaper to have 3 packs, my weight loss brain was thinking yeah but do you really need 18 packs of 4PP crisps?  I managed to resist and only purchased the 6 pack because I know I’m better off spending a bit more than eating all those crisps, I would’ve eaten them asap because I can’t resist them – you can’t eat what isn’t there!

Today I’m thinking fish fingers on weight watcher Petit Pains, mmm I may through a few chips on the plate too!  Eggs for breakfast I think, then who knows what else, I don’t want to spend too long in the kitchen as I have so much paperwork to get through, I don’t want to break my stride.

Right I’m off, have a fabulous Friday, EatGorgeous and as always BeYOUtiful. xx