My weight loss story - Months 3 & 4

This is part 3 of my weight loss story, check out my earlier posts for parts 1 & 2.  I joined Slimming World in January 2011 and following their healthy eating and healthy lifestyle plans I am finding losing weight a doddle!  I have since taken on a new role as a Slimming World Consultant and am really enjoying helping others achieve their weight loss ambitions.

March 2011

A mixed month, started with a disappointing 4 lbs in 3 weeks, maybe I have just been lucky to lose weight so quickly so far and now it will slow down.  However, the next week I lose 4 lbs and in doing so achieve an overall weight loss of 2 stone. I complete my silver award for ‘Body Magic’ which meant doing 30 minutes of exercise at least 3 times a week for the last month.  My average exercise routine is now a session at the gym, a walk/jog (training with the aim of completing Race for Life this year), and an exercise class (normally Zumba) each week, I'm enjoying making friends at the classes and find it much easier to get the motivation to go out than to do the exercise at home, particularly as you have to pay if you cancel within 24 hours!

Finished the month with a bit of a downer, having my first weight gain, 1 ½ pounds on.  I know the reason though as the week had started with pizza with the girls, and continued similarly all week!  Must be stricter next week!

April 2011

Being strict worked, I kept my syns low and added in an extra exercise class to my routine, I am now also managing to jog more and walk less when I use the treadmill, and would love to do race for life this year and manage to jog the whole way.  The scales reflected how strict I’d been, although I’d not been hungry once, I’d lost 8 pounds and got my 2 ½ stone weight loss award! I think having eaten rubbish last week and Food Optimising 100% this week, my body must have thought it was on week 1 again!

I managed to lose 4 more lbs over the next fortnight and reached my interim target well ahead of my holiday.  Need to think about my final goal weight, but I think the next I’d like to set is to lose another half stone so I am 10 stone something.

This month I competed in my first run, I did a 1km Easter Bunny Fun Run and raised £75 for St Catherine’s Hospice.  I was pleased to complete the whole race at a jog, finishing midfield in about 8 minutes (forgot to time myself exactly in all the excitement).  I have also signed up for the St Catherine’s Hospice Midnight Walk in June, which is a ladies only half marathon walk in June.

Again a bit of a downer at the end of the month 1 ½ lbs on, those Easter eggs and strawberries and cream after the Royal Wedding catching up with me,  However I can’t complain as I’ve nearly lost 3 stone, and haven’t felt so healthy in years.  I’m the slimmest my husband has ever known me, and the added bonus is he has lost a stone too just by eating my slimming evening meals.  I have far more energy, need far less sleep, and can enjoy running round with the kids a whole lot more.  Even with the weight gain this week, I won slimmer of the month earning myself a slimming world magnet, which I have stuck to the biscuit tin to remind me not to eat them!

My weight loss story - Month 2

I hope you checked out my last article, about how I came to be obese and how I discovered Slimming World.  Now I've started on my journey find out my continued progress from February this year.

February 2011

Have been enjoying Zumba on the Xbox so much I decided to show my commitment to exercise and join the gym.  I shopped around and decided to go to the Kings Centre as the membership not only covered the gym, swim, fitness classes & racquet sports but also gives me free use of the crèche for an hour a day for each of the kids!

First weigh in of the month 3 ½ lbs down and got another sticker as have lost a stone. Second weigh in only lost 1 lb bit disappointed as had been using my gym membership and had been to the gym, for a swim and done legs bums and tums, however the consultant suggested it sometimes takes a couple of weeks to see the effect from exercise reflected on the scales.  2 ½ lbs the next week (that’s more like it) and 3 ½ lbs the next week, now I could see the benefit of exercise which I’m sure was contributing to at least a lb of this weight loss each week.  I achieved my bronze award for ‘Body Magic’ having maintained my exercise routine over 4 consecutive weeks, my 1 ½ stone lost award, and now weigh in at 12 stone 10 ½ pounds meaning I have lost 10% of my body weight.  I have set myself a new interim target of 11 stone 7 pounds as this means my BMI will be in the ‘overweight’ rather than ‘obese’ range, and would like to achieve this before I go on holiday at the end of May.

One of the things I am still finding hardest is not picking at the kids food and leftovers, although I have definitely cut down.  I am trying to have a healthy snack with them at their teatime (5pm) so we all sit down to eat together, and I am not too hungry.

My weight loss story - Month 1 'It begins'

This is how I discovered Slimming World and changed the course my life was taking:

Although I tried hard not to put on too much weight during my second pregnancy, I was horrified when babe was a couple of weeks old that I weighed in at nearly 17 stone, which put my BMI over 40!  I was pleased to weigh in a couple of weeks later and have lost half a stone, most of which I put down to the subsiding water around my swollen ankles.  But a couple of months down the line I hadn’t managed to shift much more.  I know some people find the weight falls off when nursing but it didn’t seem to work for me, probably because I treat it as an excuse to have one more biscuit than everyone else!  I tried dieting whilst breast feeding, but I found I was allowed to eat a lot more because I was nursing, to the extent I couldn’t actually lose weight.  That made no sense, especially when I was paying to be on a diet, so I waited and revisited the idea after weaning.  In the first half of 2010 I managed to lose 2 stone of my baby weight gain, on Weightwatchers.  However I found the plan hard work as everything needed to be weighed and counted, and I still found I was eating junk which used up my daily allowance of food quickly and left me hungry.  After 6 months I had lost motivation and wasn’t managing to do more than maintain my weight.  The next few months were pretty rubbish due to a family illness and bereavement.  It had meant a lot less time for our normal family activities which in turn meant more takeaways and bung in the oven type dinners and no cook from scratch food, in turn my weight went in the wrong direction and I put on over a stone. Christmas approaching didn’t help, particularly my mince pie a day habit during advent!

After Christmas I was feeling really low, the bereavement was having a bit of delayed effect on me, and I was also re-prioritising my life, and part of my unhappiness was with my weight, and the health implications of being morbidly obese.  My weight had always been a problem for me as I was obese at age 10, but managed to get down to a healthy weight the following year when Mum realised she needed to stop me helping myself to crisps and feeding me with kids junk food.  I stayed a normal healthy weight until I was 18, when I suffered poor health which stopped me studying or working.  The sedentary lifestyle and comfort eating made the pounds pile on and I went from 9 ½ stone to 15 stone in a year or so.  When my health recovered I pursued a career in retail management.  Being on my feet in a shop all day was the exercise my body had been craving and I lost 2 ½ stone without the need to diet.  When I made the effort to diet as well, another stone came off over the next year.  I met my husband in 2003 at which time I weighed in at 11 ½ stone and wore a dress size 12-14.  But when I shifted my career to a desk job without taking up any additional exercise the weight gradually crept back on, and a couple of years later when I fell pregnant I was already tipping the scales at nearly 14 stone and back up to a size 18.  After baby number one I was quite disheartened at having to still wear my maternity clothes or plus sizes.  In 2008 I managed to shift 2 stone for my wedding, (by eating nothing but ham salad for 2 months!), but still had to wear a size 20 wedding dress, and the weight was already starting to creep back on by the time I fell pregnant with baby number 2, six months later.  And so we come back to the start of my story.


January 2011

I was feeling like I was at a turning point in my life and needed some direction, and after the excitement of Christmas I was feeling uninspired and low, I really had no excuse with the baby weight now as little one was 18 months and well out of baby territory.  I spoke to my sister at that point. Like me the bereavement had caused her to put on nearly a stone, and subsequently she had been going to Slimming World in order to shift it, she had set herself a goal to just over a stone to lose, which would put her weight well back inside a healthy weight range for her height.  Even with socialising on the run up to Christmas she had already lost more than half a stone.  She suggested I go along to Slimming World, not only to lose weight and get myself healthier but to give myself a positive goal to focus on in what was generally a negative time in our lives.  Lacking the confidence to go alone my sister joined me and came along to the East Grinstead Slimming World group.

Being the first week of January it was the busiest week of the year to join, but it was nice to chat to lots of new people in the same position as me.  My initial weigh in was 14 stone 5 ½ pounds, more than I’d realised.  We were talked through the ‘Food Optimising’ plan which was very simple, you could eat unlimited amounts of fresh fruit and vegetables, fat free yoghurt, lean protein, pulses and carbohydrates (including potatoes, rice, pasta, couscous but not cereals or bread), a daily allowance of milk/cheese and of bread/cereal, and finally 5-15 syns a day for everything else like oil, sauces, chocolate, wine (6 syns for a glass of red wine!)  We were also introduced to ‘Body Magic’, a plan to help you slowly add exercise to your weekly routine until it becomes a way of life, and in doing so help speed up your weight loss.  I came away from my first meeting feeling really happy and positive for the first time in a while, it had really brought me out of my downward spiral, now I just needed to keep this motivation, and start shifting the pounds!

First week weigh in, I lost 4 ½ pounds, should be pleased but I was a bit disappointed, I had tried really hard to stick to the plan 100%, but knew I had lost more on week 1 of other diets before, and a couple other ladies also on week 1 had lost half a stone….not fair!

Week 2 and my weight loss was 3lbs. That meant I had earned a sticker and certificate for losing a ½ stone.  You can see why reward charts work for kids as I was really pleased with my sticker. Started working towards the bronze ‘Body Magic’ award, by doing 15 minutes of exercise at least 3 times a week.  We got a Xbox Kinect for Christmas and was brought the Zumba game so was using this to get my weekly exercise fix.

Week 3, not sure how but this week I lost 5lbs, must be all that Zumba! My weight loss seems to be more consistent on this diet, rather than dropping off after the first week, and I really haven’t been hungry.  I have managed to cut out crisps completely from my diet (need to wean the kids off them too!) and eat much less bread and cheese.  I’ve managed to cater to my sweet tooth with more fruit and Alpen Lite cereal bars which are lush!

Month 1 down, have so far lost 12 ½ lbs and a well on my way to my first target of losing 10% of my body weight, and finished off the month by winning slimmer of the week, having had the best weight loss this week, so won a bag of healthy fruit and snacks to take home.

Chicken and Bacon Kiev

Serves: 4

Time: 50 minutes

Extra Easy: 4 syns per serving

Original: 4 syns per serving

Ingredients

3 slices wholemeal bread, from a 400g loaf

2 eggs, whisked

2 tsp dijon mustard

3 Laughing Cow Light triangles 17.5g

3 tbsp fat free natural yoghurt

2 cloves of garlic, crushed

4 skinless chicken breasts

8 bacon medallions

4 red onions, cut into wedges

Fry Light (or equivalent)

250g cherry tomatoes

1 tbsp balsamic vinegar

200g sugar snap peas

Method

• Preheat oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6.
• Food process bread to breadcrumbs and place in shallow bowl.
• Mix eggs and mustard in second shallow bowl.
• Mix Laughing Cow, yoghurt and garlic to make filling.
• Slice chicken lengthways to make pocket, and fill with cheesy garlic mix.
• Wrap chicken in 2 bacon medallions.
• Dip chicken in egg mix and then breadcrumbs.
• Place chicken on non stick roasting tin and surround with onion wedges.
• Spray with Fry Light and bake for 30 minutes, until breadcrumbs slightly crisp.
• Remove chicken to serving plates, add tomatoes to roasting tin and drizzle with balsamic vinegar, bake for a further 5 minutes.
• Whilst tomatoes are roasting, steam the sugar snap peas or other green vegetables of your choice.
• Divide roast vegetables and sugar-snap peas and serve, enjoy!

This was adapted from a recipe in Slimming World magazine, as I was unable to source all the ingredients locally, and determined by what I had in the larder.  This was a really sucessful recipe and I would quite happily serve it to guests as it looked great too.  The kids enjoyed the chicken and green veg, but I couldn't get them to try the roasted veggies!

Welcome

Hello and welcome to my new blog.  My name is Jo and 'My Slimming World Family' is a blog primarily for posting family friendly recipes that are suitable if you are following Slimming World.  I will also post details of my own Slimming World journey, but to get you started in as brief terms as possible...I have been overweight, obese and latterly morbidly obese all of my adult life.  I have tried to lose weight so many times, and followed pretty much every plan going, but since discovering Slimming World in January 2011 I am a changed person.  So far I have lost over 4 stone and have just over a stone left to lose to reach my target weight.  With Slimming World I am able to eat till I'm full, no food is forbidden, and I've lost all this weight and still manage to eat out or have take-out at least once a week! However I do try and plan my meals the rest of the week, and I am always looking for new ideas.  My recipes tend to be old favourite recipes I have adapted to Slimming World, or inspired by magazines and books but tweaked and re-worked to my own liking.  Enjoy!
Jo xx