Sashaying into a svelte 2025 with Slimming World

[Wilma55]

New thread for 2025, wishing you all a happy, healthy new year.

As an active alkie , all my syns are alcohol so I have to find syn free food that I like. Also neurodiverse so tend to fixate on foods - eating the same thing morning noon and night - so not healthy. Mostly, with the help of the group I can nip it in the bud now a lot sooner then I used to. I love the cowboy caviar, I also make humous using chick peas and yoghurt and adding roasted peppers or something Helps me get the veg in me , I can’t abide a traditional dinner. I like colour on a plate And I like more chew and crunch then slippy soft ( I can’t eat mashed potatoes for example )

it’s a struggle at times , especially keeping the diet varied

Well after getting 2 stone award last week was gutted with a maintain this week BUT non scale victory - got into some jeans id bought 6 months ago and couldn’t even put my leg in! Very happy with that now.

any good soup recipes? I have the sw little book of soups somewhere might have to find it! It’s this time of year I start to covet a soup maker…

@Dontsparethehorses , Its not always the scale victories , the getting into a smaller size means more to me then a weight loss showing on the scales

Well done on the STS and getting into the jeans

I as expected, had a half a pound on. Expected as my eating has been all over the show and sleep has been a struggle for me this week. My win was finding a jumper I liked, automatically reaching for the medium, realised it was too big, bought the small, and finding out I needed extra small :)

I still see myself a lot bigger then I am according to clothing manufacturers:)

I make two soups here, one is a chunky vegetable broth for DH ( its a traditional Irish soup sold everywhere made with barley, dried peas and then copious amounts of leaks, carrots and soup celery which is only grown here in Ireland, and parsley ) which Im not fussed on as I like blended soup - I blend my portion, and leek and potato - leeks being the big ingredient , just enough potato to thicken , as its the only one mum likes . The veggie broth is made weekly. Other soups I love now that we are coming into the cold weather are curried parsnip - I add a small apple to that , and sweet potato and red pepper soup - with the lovely hearty flavours of cumin and coriander Both those soups I roast the veg first - with the spice , well I air fry them till soft and as Jaimie says - gnarly , then in to a saucepan ( or in my case pressure cooker ) with stock and when veg is all soft and collapsing - in with the stick blender

Checking in for the week - weigh in shortly hoping it's a loss even if just a small one (5 perfect days on plan 2 less than ideal but not disastrous)

I love a soup and find having a batch in the fridge is the key to me losing or not - I have an old recipe for 'speed soup' which as it sounds like it everything speed! I mainly have it for lunch but sometimes just a small bowl in between will stop me reaching for rubbish snacks.

Slimming World Speed Soup:
Add sliced onion & peppers, diced carrots & celery to large pan along a with small handful red & green lentils. I sometimes add other rot veg like parsnips but tend to grate those. Add 2 tins of chopped toms, tin of cannellini beans (or baked beans) 0.5 L stock, salt, pepper, bay leaf, and mixed herbs and bring to the boil, simmer for about 30 minutes adding more stock if needed. Using a hand blender, just blend a small amount to thicken the soup - I stick the blender in and give it a quick blitz or take our a couple of ladles and purree to smooth before adding back in. Add shredded cabbage, kale or spinach and cook for final 5 mins. Freezes brilliantly & easy to change up with different herbs & spices. It's quite think so you can also have it on jacket potato or best topped with parmesan or fat free yogurt & paprika.

Hope it us OK to jump in and join you all? I have lost 24lb using low carb high fat mostly Fast800 recipes. I have just had my blood results and my cholesterol has shot up. It has thrown me into a bit if a panic as I don't want to go on medication. I know I need to cut down on saturated fats now. I still have nearly 6 stone to lose and to be honest am rather lost . I know what to do with the Michael Mosley diet. Suddenly I am adapting to what seems like the complete opposite with SW. I have joined online today and also been shopping. My SIL has done so well with SW and I was a member about 10 years ago so I think I know the basics. My fright now has 5% mince, fat free yoghurt and skimmed milk and protein bagels,😮

I'm a soupmaker convert! I was always, oh just do it in a saucepan and blend it, you have to cut it up either way. On a whim I got one for £8 on marketplace and love it. Yesterday I had wrinkly parsnips and carrots, washed but not peeled, onion and potato, a bit of cumin and garam masala and a teaspoon of Polish mix (recommended by @suki1964 ). I now use cold water. Half an hour before oh due in for lunch i switch it on smooth setting and voila soup!

I will try a version of the speed soup @lachatnoir but will have to reduce quantity somewhat.

Welcome @IlovetoKnitandRead ask away if you need any help.

I chickened out of weigh in yesterday, had enjoyed my holiday then had a hectic weekend with curry out for brothers 75th and a lunch do for old school friends 50th wedding anniversary. A lot of lager and red wine!

I was quite proud of myself on holiday though in Corfu, as with many meals you were offered a choice of rice or chips and I chose rice!

Welcome @IlovetoKnitandRead hopefully you’ll get the hang of it. Reading back on this thread has been really helpful for me in terms of recipes ideas, meal planning etc.

@Wilma55 I’m tempted to try and find a 2nd hand soup maker now! Hope you manage to stay on track post holiday.

off to make a mega batch of spag Bol with new addition of handful of green lentils - great for bulking up + extra fibre and you barely notice the difference. This will see me for quite a few meals over the next week as I’ve not been inspired by my dinner choices the last few days with the exception of an amazing spinach & ricotta stuffed pasta bake (google slimming eats if you want the recipe.)

Morning slimmers! Aged returnee here. I remember going nuts when I went "up" to 9 stone! What a joke.
Some days I can plod on OK with SW and others I feel resentful and bored.
It's so damn slow.
I'm wondering about banking syns and having some sort of treat.
I can take breakfast or leave it, make a decent evening meal, it's the bit in the middle that I struggle with. It's so alien to me to be eating eggs and beans and the like. Prefer a nice ciabatta with a lovely filling. Ah well. onwards and downwards.

@birling16 , I hear you regarding the bread for lunch, that was my go to for so many years, and partly the reason I got my backside into SW - I lived on bread. Only bread doesn't fill me, I could eat a baton slathered in butter, stuffed with salami and a family pack of crisps - and an hour later Id be reaching for another

Now for me, I have to avoid white bread, it's too addictive to me . So I stick to German dark rye or was warbutons protein pita or thin - all count as a HEB so not syned. The pitas open up really wide and I absolutely stuff them with salads , pickles and proteins - just no crisps now. The thins and rye, I use as a base for an open sandwich and again pile them high with salads and proteins , even cold roasted veg. I get my bread fix, the feeling of normality without the calories

Im way for work around 5.30 am, cooking the sausage rolls etc for deli counter. I dont eat breakfast and of course I cant lay into the food Im cooking so I tend to not get anything in me till 1 or 2 pm so it needs to be filling and quick, and I cant be doing with cooking seeing as Ive come back from a job cooking and a pile of dishes :)

Welcome aboard @IlovetoKnitandRead My cholesterol is a tad high - Ive a 6 number and GP is pushing Statins at me. However I had a good talk with the practice nurse and she's of the mind that seeing as the cholesterol is my only risk factor - I dont smoke, I eat a healthy diet, am a healthy weight and get loads of exercise , not to worry too much. With me its the alcohol that's causing the high readings, all other markers are fine

SW has moved on a lot in ten years and they are still evolving. Seeing as you are doing it online, do use your app to scan, even foods that may have been a HEB forever can be moved to Syns because of recipe changes - one particular bread that was popular here where I live, they lowered the quality of ingredients and it no longer hit the fibre requirements so now has syns

And something as stupid as cottage cheese - every brand out there has a different flaming value. Some are free, others are syn'd

@Wilma55 Well done on the holiday choices . I actually find it easier to make the healthy choices when on a sunshine holiday because the veg and salads are just so much tastier , plus I actually drink water :)

Dont avoid the scales too long , I did that last year, kept thinking Id go back when I dropped, only I didnt , and ended up struggling to shift 7lb by time I got myself back

My last weigh in on Saturday before my holiday. Been up and down this week - again - but it is what it is

Thanks @suki1964 yes bread based lunches. There's nothing of much goodness is there? A shop bought eggs sandwich is mostly bread for example.

Thank you for the welcomes
I have been loving the Warburtons bagel thins. Today I had leftover chicken, yesterday salmon, both with salad and loads of fat free cottage cheese. Having been use to the full fat variety,the Sainsbury's one is surprisingly good. I am having a glass of soy milk for part of my HexA which is yummy and this morning I tried the Alpro soy Greek yoghurt which was so delicious. I am slowly adapting to the low fat way and am using the SW app and Nutracheck to ground myself.

Shop bought and that's your syns used for the day !!!

If you are making lunch for the work place then I would take the filling in a Tupperware and make it up at lunch time so you dont have a soggy sandwich

In a pitta ( the warbutons are deep and soft and really very good - has to be the protein ones ) what I tend to do is "butter " the insides with a dairy lea light then Id fill it a third up with chopped salad, then a dollop of cottage cheese, some sliced chicken or tinned fish, more salad on top and something like pickled gherkins or pink pickled onions over the top for interest and added flavour and crunch . I did those for when we went on picnics in the summer - kept me filled. Seriously I fill them so it's like a Big Mac coming at you :) Yet it's all speed and protein and a HEB - so lunch sorted and not a syn used . Add dressings then the syns get used

I had a late GP appointment tonight so tea was a quick one

Skinny burgers which I smashed thin and warbutons thins instead of baps

OMG - amazing. Seriously felt like I had eaten something off the chart

Im talking Lidl skinny burgers. These are SOLID and I find them too solid as a rule so I stuck them in between two pieces of parchment and used the rolling pin to flatten - and shape more like a square to fit the thins . I made a small salad and seriously, even DH who's a builder walked away with tummy bulging and saying hes swapping to the thins - away from baps

Not a mission is the biscuit barrel getting a rattling tonight

That sounds so inviting. I think a lot of it is about organisation really.

Some good tips there @suki1964. Also your reminder re not staying away from weigh in too long has been taken on board! Its silly really that the thought of paying after grace week is putting me off, I should use it as motivation to stay on plan.

Deffo about planning and prepping

One of the girls in my group spends Sunday mornings prepping her lunches for the week ( she lives alone so has all the fridge space ) She has lots of wee tubs which she puts her washed grapes , strawberries etc in - 5 of them , ready to grab. Then she will cook a chicken, maybe some rice, maybe some pasta and make up a some kind of dish - shes a throw anything Ive got at it - type of cook, makes up a salad ready to take , - whatever she does the five days lunches in one go. I do three or four days but as Im at home by lunch I can make mine, but Im prepared. Like I might make a tray of roasted veg when cooking Sunday dinner so Ive got it in the fridge ready to dig into. I make a batch of yoghurt over night Saturdays , strain on Sundays - it's there to go for the week. I might make soup, I might make a Dahl , but I make something ahead so Im not stood looking in the cupboards when Im hungry and at risk of making bad choices And I always ensure I have the warbutins thins and pittas in the freezer ( always reduced in my Tesco on a Sunday so half the price ) and tins of fish ( I like tinned fish ) and frozen berries. Everything is syn free

Eating from the free and speed and using the HEA and B's allows for the treats so you can have a couple of biscuits or a glass of wine

Weigh in and I got away with a STS which considering the week Im having is pretty bloody good . So Im not heading away being 3 under but hey ho , hopefully the extra steps I will be doing will give me leeway for the dumplings ( week in Prague which is all about dumplings lol )

Plan now is to stay on plan till Thursday , which for me is zero syns , then not worry till the following Wednesday There will be beer and wine consumed , there will be bread and dumplings galore. But I know after 48 hours of that I will be hunting out salad bars. Even DH was screaming out for salad when in Krakow in March, dont get me wrong, Polish food is fantastic but very meat and bread heavy and Czech menus appear to be very similier. And whilst bread here causes me untold tummy problems , bread in Poland ( and hopefully Czech) dosent

Well I think I am getting my head around SW. My pack and a couple of cookbooks have arrived, so lots to read. I am certainly hungry at nights ( I have not realy been having syns as I don't know what to have) I did try an Adi Skinny Whip bar yesterday but it was so sweet.
Today we had a 'fry up ' brunch so my first time with low fat sausages etc. Aldi sausages were nice but the bacon medallions were dry. I did them in a non stick pan with fry lite but it wasn't very successful.
Any recommendations for good burgers. We love a Saturday burger tea. Yesterday I had our usual Aldi burgers with low fat cheese and a warburton thin
Thank you xx

I personally like the Mallons turkey sausages. Even the skinny pork ones are pretty tasty. Just use ordinary bacon , remove the fat after cooking. Fry light will ruin your non stick so bin it and refill with oil of choice. I use cold pressed rapeseed which has all the benefits of olive oil without the price tag.

I personally like the Lidl skinny burgers and the turkey burgers. Again you need to check the Syns because every brand will have different syn values.

an air fryer is a sw members best friend. Using a thin or bagel as your heb , cheese as your hea and cutting your own chips and air frying - you can possibly have your burger and chips meal totally syn free.

you really shouldn’t be going hungry if you are tracking correctly. I’m never sat here hungry Sure I get normal hunger an hour before dinner , but I eat to my fill and then can happily last out till the next meal time.

I have enjoyed a couple of birthday celebrations, including my own, over the last few weeks and have put on 4lbs.
need to get my arse into gear and get back on plan, it’s 10 weeks until my sister gets married and I want to lose 1lb a week.

@suki1964 your pittas sound devine! Warbutons pittas? And do you pickle the pickled onions yourself? I need to know all about this because this may just revolutionise my lunches!

queston, for those who use their B choices at lunch, what do you have for breakfast?

Pink pickled onions - which are so sweet and mild and just pass me the jar please - Sainsbury's And Im pretty sure its Sainsbury's that do the pickled pink slaw - again, crunchy and sweet without the sharpness of a malt vinegar ?

Warburtons have a high protein range - Tesco stock the lot - thins which are massive, bagels - not tried, the Pittas which are unlike the traditional dry as old boots wholemeal Pittas usually sold and they even do a large sliced loaf - also not tried . I know the thins, pittas and bagel are all counted as a HEB - so if that's your choice for the day - SYN FREE

I shared this advice in group a few weeks back DO NOT EAT YOUR HEB for breakfast

Seriously I was a toast woman, I dont like cereal , so I went for toast. Only what happens with carbs - you sugar spike and crash. You will be hungry within the hour

Even cooked oats - ie porridge will do that to you

So I do not eat carbs in the morning. IF I wake and I need to eat - greek yoghurt and fruit - fibre and protein . If Im in work and feel like Im going to pass out - I buy a packet of chicken or ham I do not eat carbs ( other then what os in fruit and veg ) until after 12

So I shared that and one lass who has been battling a stone for most of this year, changed her meal plan - she's 3lb off her next big marker

Now I am target and have been for 2 years soon. I wing a lot of it now, but the one thing I dont wing - is avoiding the carbs till late in the day, And as the bread/cereal consumption has reduced , my need for it has fallen I still go all out on a Saturday, But as I say ( and do ) I buy one white bread roll ( Italian style from Lidl ) but a £1.50 bag of crisp and stuff my face. If I got two rolls Id eat the two. If I buy a loaf, the loaf is going down the hatch . I love bread and because it doesn't fill me, gives me the high and crash , I can not have it daily

If Ive time for breakfast ( rare ) then it's FF greek yoghurt and frozen berries and chopped hard fruits. I nuke the berries, throw on the yoghurt and chop pears or apples or peaches on top . Weekends its usually brunch so the HEB come into play, a few rashers, some slices of tomato , mushrooms, a fried egg - , loads of fibre and protein, very few beige/white carbs

@listenlinda here's an old thread about no hexb breakfasts...

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/slimming_world/4510112-Ideas-for-no-hexb-breakfasts

Anyone heard about the big changes coming soon to SW???

Found this re changes from 2026...

https://www.slimmingworld.co.uk/press/slimming-world-to-introduce-healthy-fats-option-and-replace-syns-in-new-year-refresh/

My consultant sent the link out this morning! How exciting!

They had to do something to compete with injections. I keeping seeing people who live in my local town who used to go to SW but now say they are spending their money on them or are getting it from the Doctors instead of a SW referral.