Monday 22 October 2012

Meal planning - week 14


Since I put on a pound last week I wanted to shift it but I think that might be hard as I'm out a lot this week!Here's the plan anyway...

Monday
Breakfast Cereal
Lunch Slimming World cauliflower cheese soup
Dinner I'm having a filling at the dentist so my mouth may be numb and I'll need soft food, so might just have pasta.
Did I stick to it? Breakfast: cereal. Resisted having a morning snack, something I've got a lot better at recently. Lunch: soup (free), Snackajacks (5 syns). Went to the dentist in the afternoon, afterwards compensated by eating some sweets, haha! Not sure how many syns, will estimate 8. For dinner, as my mouth was no longer numb and I was in the mood for comfort food, I had sausage and chips - with a Bratwurst sausage (estimate 8 syns) and syn-free Slimming World chips, which were lovely.
Total syns for the day: 21, I think - got a bit behind with updating this

Tuesday
Breakfast Cereal
Lunch Slimming World cauliflower cheese soup
Dinner Having my boyfriend over to dinner. Want to cook pan fried chicken breast with sesame seeds and mango hollandaise from Masterchef Kitchen Bible p423 which I will either serve with pasta or mashed potatoes.
Did I stick to it? Was in agony after my filling yesterday - apparently normal as it was a deep filling and near a nerve, but wish my dentist had warned me of that - I had such a bad night I phoned in sick today. Since I was home I cooked two Quorn sausages for breakfast (2 syns). For lunch I had a baked potato with Laughing Cow light triangles (free). Don't recall if I had an afternoon snack. Didn't fancy cooking anything elaborate for dinner and had some Tesco Light Choices Chicken Breasts with Tomato & Basil Sauce, in the freezer I needed to use up, which brilliantly are only 1 syn each. I cooked SW chips to go with them but we had some of my nanaimo bars for dessert. I only had one but I have no idea how many syns that is (as I can't even remember how many portions the recipe made) so am going to estimate 10 syns.

Total syns for the day: 13, unless I had an afternoon snack I've forgotten about!

Wednesday
Breakfast Cereal
Lunch Jacket potato with cottage cheese
Dinner Out with former work colleagues and I know we'll just be in a pub drinking and not eating, so I think I should take some pasta to eat before I leave the office.
Did I stick to it? Breakfast: Cereal (option b). Lunch: cauliflower soup as I didn't have it yesterday (free), followed by a packet of Skips (5 syns). Went to the gym at lunchtime which worked up an appetite so I had a chocolatey cereal bar (7 syns) and a packet of snackajacks (5 syns) in the afternoon. I had some pasta before I left the office, which I made mainly with passata but also with a bit of Dolmio pasta sauce so I should count about 5 syns. I had a nice evening out in a bar which shockingly is the first time I've been out drinking since January! I had three glasses of wine - which would be 21 syns -and then I thought I'd better switch to coke, but forgot to order diet, so that was another 7 syns. And despite eating pasta earlier I was absolutely starving (and a little tipsy) so took myself off into McDonalds. I had a plain double cheeseburger, which I'm shocked to now find is 22 syns, and also a small portion of Chicken Mcnuggets, which are 9 syns - so I know what I'll be ordering next time!
Total syns for the day: 65, totally thrown off course by my evening out!

Thursday
Breakfast Cereal
Lunch Leftover pasta from yesterday, assuming there is any
Dinner Out with a friend tonight- not sure where yet
Did I stick to it? Breakfast: cereal. Lunch: pasta with tuna from yesterday (5 syns). Afternoon snack: snackajacks (5 syns), cereal bar (7 syns). Dinner: my evening out was cancelled, which was something of a relief as I had a lot to do at home and couldn't have coped with three nights out in a row. But I wasn't in the mood to think of anything to cook so I had some pasta in a cheese sauce (5 syns) with a Bockwurst (no idea, guessing 7 syns). I also opened the gummi bears I'd bought in Germany (estimate 10 syns). At least I won't fancy any wine for a while!
Total syns for the day: 39. Didn't really try all that hard today but probably fewer syns than if I'd gone out as planned.

Friday
Breakfast Cereal
Lunch Jacket potato with tuna
Dinner Out for dinner with my boyfriend and some friends/family before going to see the new James Bond film :-)
Did I stick to it? Breakfast: cereal. Didn't leave myself enough time to organise anything for lunch (and not sure I have any big potatoes left anyway) so decided I would treat myself to lunch out. There's a place near my office that does a roast meal to take away (for lunch al desko) and I figured the meat, potatoes and veg would all be free so that would be a great option, but unfortunately they had run out. So I had a jacket potato with crab stick salad instead, which would be free but there was mayo with the crab sticks so maybe 5 syns. And I was still really hungry afterwards, having been looking forward to a roast dinner all day, so I had a packet of skips (5 syns) and then a Snickers - I had no idea they were 15 syns! So this week I probably won't have lost any more weight... must try harder! Went to ASK for dinner, and had garlic prawns as a starter which should be free but there may have been some oil used in the cooking so I will count three syns. I also had a slice of my boyfriend's garlic bread with cheese, for which I will count 7 syns. Drank diet coke (free). Main course: calzone which I knew would be high in syns but I've had a lot of pasta recently and love this kind of pizza (though in the end there was a bit too much chilli in it for my liking!) Not sure how many syns were in that so I'm estimating 25.
Total syns for the day: About 60 I think

Saturday
Breakfast Cereal bar as I will be in a rush for Slimming World
Lunch Spaghetti al tonno (spaghetti and tuna sauce)
Dinner Will ask my boyfriend over for dinner. I want to make something from the new book I picked up when I was at the Coca-Cola store in Las Vegas,called Classic Cooking with Coca-Cola. My boyfriend loves Coke but is incredibly fussy when it comes to food; so hopefully combining something he likes with something new will work (and he's going to need to broaden his palate if we're going to live together!). So I'm going to make the "perfect brisket" on p.57.
Did I stick to it? Skipped breakfast as I didn't have time but also because we had a tasting session at Slimming World this morning (savoury recipes). I made some falafel and tried a few bits and pieces - I didn't eat much but am counting about 2.5 syns. Lunch: spaghetti al tonno which is essentially a tin of tuna chucked in a blender with some fat-free plain yogurt and seasoning (you could also add capers or other flavourings) and then mixed with spaghetti - very tasty and syn free. Did eat some gummi bears in the afternoon though (5 syns estimate). I had a slight issue with the plan for dinner... I ordered 0.5kg of brisket from Asda online and they brought me 1.5kg as apparently it was the closest in size. It cost three times as much which I wasn't very pleased about - if they substitute an item that costs more, you only pay the price of what you originally ordered, but as this technically wasn't a substitute, I had to pay £11 for a giant piece of meat when I wanted one that was going to cost about £3. My only other option was to reject it entirely but then I wouldn't have had anything for dinner! Grrr..... on top of that, I realised I had forgotten to add one of the ingredients I needed for the recipe to my shopping list in the first place, so I had to come up with a substitute.... so it wasn't exactly ideal in the end! But it turned out OK - I will do a separate blog post on this. I reckon it had about 6 syns in total which isn't bad. But we then had some butterscotch angel delight to follow (7 syns). I also had a vodka and coke (full fat coke as I had to open a bottle for this recipe) which was about 12 syns but worth it :-)

Total syns for the day: 32.5 - not too bad for a Saturday
This week's weigh in: Put on another pound, which I'm annoyed about, but I know I haven't put in much effort this week so it's my ownfault.

Sunday
Breakfast My boyfriend will still be at my house so we will probably have brunch rather than breakfast
Lunch Trying to think of something suitable for Slimming World and my mind has gone blank, so for the moment I'm going to put down a chicken ciabatta sandwich.
Dinner Pork chop with roast potatoes and stuffing
Did I stick to it? Breakfast: my boyfriend had to leave fairly early so I found a packet of waffles in the freezer which we had with some maple syrup. Unfortunately the waffles were 6 syns each so with the syrup as well I probably had 25 syns for breakfast! Lunch: another slight problem with my Asda order yesterday was that I ordered a small Weightwatcher pizza oval, which would have been the ideal size for lunch and contains 11 syns. Unfortunately they didn't have any so as a substitute gave me a pepperoni pizza. I assumed it was the same size- as Asda don't mark the bags that contain substitute items and I had a lot of shopping, I couldn't find it so gave up. Later when I found it, I discovered it was a full size pepperoni pizza but didn't know what else to do with it, and don't like to throw food away, so I had it for lunch anyway. And I've just calculated it was 39 syns! Kicking myself now that I didn't have half of it with some salad or something. Sigh. At least Asda did manage to bring me the new Muller Light Greek style lemon yogurts, which I've been wanting to try - they were really nice and 0.5 syns for the one I had after lunch.
Total syns for the day:

6 comments:

  1. We are going to see Bond this week too - can't wait!!
    Lots of lovely meals :)

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  2. I am liking the look of your evenings the most, 3 nights out I confess to being jealous!!! x

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    1. One of them got cancelled in the end, which was a relief in the sense that it was nice to have an evening in. I have had times in the recent past where I've been out six nights out of seven - not drinking but maybe seeing friends, then my boyfriend, then a cake decorating course - and it was just too much!

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  3. Poor you suffering with your tooth like that, I have a dreadful fear of the dentist so I sympathise. Hope you've enjoyed your meals x

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  4. Two things - 1. "perfect brisket" makes me think of Big Bang Theory. 2. Do you find the meal planning works? I always think I should sit down and plan the week as it's meant to stop you eating crap or opting for takeaway, and also be good for money saving - but then I invariably make the list, stick it on the fridge, get to Tuesday and think, meh, I don't fancy that - I want chips! And out of the window it goes!

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    1. I kept thinking of Howard too! I feel a bit like Bernadette sometimes but that's a whole other story... Anyway I find that meal planning helps me because I'm trying to stick to Slimming World and if I didn't sit down and plan in advance I'd just eat rubbish. And I'm the sort of organised person who likes to plan so it's sort of fun!

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