The new lifestyle choice (shouts IT'S NOT A DIET) is going well still, although the spectre of Christmas is looming and I am not sure how I will cope when I can no longer cook and/or eat my favourite festive foods - the non-traditional mince pies that look more like Danish pastries, the Panforte, Gratin Dauphinois, Eton Mess, sausage rolls, chips n dips, the cheese plate with crackers and chilli jam, and my favourite Christmas breakfast of pork pie and Branston pickle. And the drinks. Oh I could cry! Baileys, snowballs, amaretto, although I will still manage a couple of gins.
I am fully intending to do a Slimming World Christmas, but there are just some things that you can't replicate with 0 fat greek yoghurt and frylight spray. I need butter and sugar and cream and bread and pastry, all in vast quantities. I will still cook the old favourites but it will seriously test my will power to avoid them. I will make low fat smoked mackerel pate, and have that instead of chicken liver paté, and Mr C is going to make his famous pickled onions, which will hopefully take the edge off my salt and vinegar Pringle sadness. I am going to do my best, and that is all I can do. And if I do come undone, I will try to limit it to one day, and not stuff my face until I am sick. That word again. Try.
Despite how it sounds, I am feeling quite positive about food. Usually, by this stage I am very sad, because I am missing my favourites and feeling hard done by. But I am not hungry, eat really tasty food, and because I am writing at home, I am able to shop and cook without the usual time constraints. I do think that my attitude to food is changing. I am learning what I can have, and picking up great ideas from other members at the Group. I am thinking carefully about what I am eating, and what I have to sacrifice in order to have it. If I have toast with my breakfast, I know I can't have Ryvita with my lunch. Or if I have cheese triangles on my Ryvita, it means I can't have any sprinkled on my chilli. I haven't learnt anything I didn't already know about food, but it is helping me to focus on the choices I make. And I am still sad sometimes, and have the occasional slip ups, but I don't feel at all hard done by any more.
Some foods can be eaten freely, and others carry a syn value, which can be calculated using an app. I can have 15 syns a day. A multi pack Picnic bar has 9 syns. I bought a pack on Tuesday and kept my syns very low for the day, and then in the evening, I chopped my picnic bar into tiny pieces and ate them all very slowly. Last night Mr C and I decided that instead of having a whole one each, we would have one between us, and that still brought me great joy, without having to cut down as much on the other syns I usually have. I know I am becoming a Slimming World bore, but sometimes, it really is life! I envy people who do not have to buy in help to guide them in their lifestyle choices, but for everyone else, I would really recommend it.
Back in August, I was convinced that the washing machine was faulty and shrinking all our clothes (this had coincided with the bathroom scales breaking and not being replaced), but eventually had to face facts that it was us with the problem, and the washing machine was just fine. I had a couple of friends from work who had lost a lot of weight and kept it off using SW, and we decided to give it a go. And now, the weight is shifting, slowly but surely. The clothes that I was squeezing into are now getting a bit looser, and I am wearing jeans again - not leggings all the time. And I can't wait to wear some of my favourite Winter dresses which have been out of bounds for me for a couple of years. And I feel so much better, more active and energetic, with fewer aches and pains. Mr C and I even talked about joining a gym last week. Before you fall out of your seats, this is by no means a precursor to us joining a gym, but now the subject has been broached, who knows what might happen. The actual conversation went something like this.
Me - Do you think we might nearly be ready to talk about joining a gym?
Mr C - Yes
Me - Nearly, but not yet?
Mr C - Yes
And there we have it. There are some things we have to look forward to, like eating pickled onions and wearing sparkly dresses, and other things that we don't - like not being able to eat cream and butter, and being ready to talk about joining a gym.
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