Katie Untranslated

My posts have been missing for the past two weeks! The commute with the new job has taken it out of me more than I thought it would (it's an extra 40 minutes each way). Thankfully it has not stopped my motivation to stay on plan, and I have been on plan all of September! Super proud of myself as I do not know the last time I had such a good "on plan" streak. I completely credit it to doing the 777 Challenge.  It gave me a chance to "reset" my focus, it has also made me grateful to be able to have 15 syns again (if I want to).  Where I was restricted to only 7 syns a day I got creative with my treat plates so that I was getting a good amount for the fewest syns.  I definitely recommend giving this challenge a go to anyone out there struggling with staying on plan. Also I haven't had wine in four weeks!!  God I miss it, I'm glad we're now going into colder weather which for me is a better time to have spirits and mixers as I don't need a lon...

Spot on week! For the first time in a long time this week has been 100% on plan.  777 challenge week one is complete.  I must say that I have enjoyed the challenge, I’ve liked being creative with what I pick for my syns and also how to cram in so many different speed foods.  I made Pinch of Noms lemon drizzle loaf and that wasn’t amazing to keep me on track, only one syn a square! Think I’ll be trying to make this each week so I’ve got low syn snack on hand.  It is such a great sweet fix.  First week of my new job is halfway through too. It has become clear that I won’t have much time to snack during the day and I’ve also majorly upped my step count during the day.  This is great news for me as having time to scoff naughties at my desk was a major sabotage issue for me.  Less food + more steps = more weight loss hopefully!! The only downer of my new job is my commute, my journey home is now an hour instead of 15 minutes, which scuppered me ...

The weekend is fast approaching and I wanted to make something to that I could snack on throughout without having to worry about the syns.  I also wanted it to be slightly interesting and easy to transport. The Chickpea Dahl loaf recipe is one that I've heard floating around for a while on several different websites and also throughout my SW group.   The Mr has a baseball game on Sunday and watching for 4 hours is hungry work! Thankfully I'll now have this with me, and I'll take some speedy fruit and veg with me too. The following recipe is the method I went with, hope you enjoy :) Ingredients: - 400g tin of chickpea dahl (I used Asda's it is 1 syn per can) - Pack of dried savoury rice  (I used golden vegetable savoury rice from Aldi which is free on SW) - 3 large eggs - 1 tbsp curry powder Method: Cook up the rice as directed, or until water has been absorbed. Whisk the eggs in a bowl Add rice and chickpea dahl to the eggs and mix...

Ups and downs food optimising wise, more details in my Bank Holiday Fail post on Tuesday. This week was slightly better than last week, so I am mentally moving in the right direction. Breakfasts this week have been a mix of fruit (nectarines, clementines, grapes, bananas) and seafood sticks. Lunches have mainly been salads with either seafood sticks or pre-cooked chicken. Dinners have been SW ready meals and quick stir-fries. Syn count for the week: Thursday - unknown Friday - 12.5 Saturday - 50 - 60 (all gin based) Sunday - 25 Monday - 12.5 Tuesday - 5 Wednesday - 17.5 Yesterdays syn count was high as I went to Harvester with my SW girlies after weigh in. I fully utilised the unlimited salad cart to start, had syn free salmon & jacket potato with veg. For dessert I had their "Sundae Best" with toffee sauce for 17.5 syns. That was much better than the Rocky Horror Sundae for 36.5 syns or the Millionaires Sundae for 48!!! Continuing with the 777 chall...

From yesterday (Tuesday) I have started the "777 Challenge" This means each day for seven days I must: - Have no more than 7 syns - Have at least 7 glasses of water - Have at least 7 different speed foods I have seen this concept floating around Instagram for a while, and I searched it under the tags page and it seems a lot of people out there are doing this and having great results to boot! My plan is to do it from Tuesday 28th August through to 5th September, so it will be one day longer than the usual seven. I do have a little bump in the road as tonight I'm going out for dinner at Harvester after weigh in.  I have planned to have the salmon, jacket potato, and veg so that will be syn free, I am going to indulge in a dessert, their "Sundae Best" comes with several different choices of sauce flavour and according to the SW app they're all 17.5 syns. As my syns will be 10.5 over the 7 syns a day challenge requirement, I have calculated that if I...

I had planned the hell out of the Bank Holiday on Thursday last week...however life had a different schedule. Was due to go to a BBQ on Sunday but how terrible the weather was going to be it was moved to Saturday.  That meant that all my planning to cook loads of SW food and take to the BBQ was interrupted and all I took to eat was a SW ready meal (chicken in black bean sauce....EURGH too spicy). Foodwise I managed to stay on plan, but I reckon I consumed around 50-60 syns worth of Gin *hangs head in shame*. So with that, Sunday was spent rather hungover and I had an off plan dinner of a Pukka pie bought from Tesco and McCain oven sweet potato fries (roughly 25 syns - Pukka pies aren't on the SW app!) Monday I managed to get myself back on plan and had a total of 12.5 syns. One day I will learn.... K x

Another week slightly awry, still trying to pull myself back to reality. I have gained back around 9lbs in the last two months most of the new clothes I’ve bought don’t fit.  I got quite upset about this, even more so because I knew it was all my own doing. So I decided I need to pull my metaphorical socks up, and get going again.   If I don’t I am going to quickly end up back where I started or even worse, this would break my heart.  With that thought in mind I planned my days and from Tuesday morning I was completely on plan. For breakfast this week I have been having omelettes with Quorn sausage patties (0.5 syns each) and for speed I have been having snack cucumbers. Lunches have been plain mixed salad pots from Sainsbury's, and dinners have been whatever I have previously batched cooked in the freezer. Tuesday total syn count: 14.5 Wednesday total syn count: 15.5 (0.5 over, much better than my usual post weigh-in binge, where the syns are...

I love taking photos and I haven't been that great as of late, so the spur me on I'm thinking about posting a photo per month on here.  This should hopefully get the creative juices flowing. My favourite photo of the last month has been of this deer, I took this on a little trip to Knole Park in Kent. K x

Well I don’t quite know where to start! This past year has involve a lot of ups and downs…and not just on the scales! Mine and my partner’s mental health took a strong downturn over the past year and we are just finally getting through the darkness.  He is managing on his meds and I am now also managing on mine.  I had to take 5 months out from work (the main catalyst in my mental health deterioration). Finally went back to work the beginning of July and now I’m in my 6th week of being back.  Thankfully the issue that caused me to go off has been resolved. Now to discuss how I’ve been on the scales, my highest weight loss total was 2st 11lbs on 21/03/2018.  Since then my weigh has been yo-yoing with my current weight loss total at weigh in last night being 1st 9.5lbs. Where I’ve lost weight and have felt more comfortable socialising with friends I have been going out a lot more, which has involved yummy syn-full food and very syn-full alcohol. So I am currently strug...

Gosh those two weeks were hard going!  I am now sick to the back teeth of SP.  I was craving jacket potatoes, mullerlights, and grapes.  Week one I felt went ok, I was having my full 15 syns a day which looking back I shouldn't have been doing, I should have been filling up on speed/protein foods more.  I still cannot believe it but when I went to weigh in I had gained 2 lbs!  Shocked and pi**ed off is an understatement! Not wanting to let it beat me, at Image Therapy I decided that I would continue SP for a second week. Week two was a struggle, I was hungrier than normal and also more tired.   Weigh in for week two was a loss of 2.5 lbs.  This meant that for the whole two weeks I only lost half a pound.  I have seriously fallen out of love with SP.  I will not be doing that again, most I will do is incorporate SP days every now and again as it just hasn't been the promised wonder it has been sold as.  Further discussion with my ...

Happy days, I'm in the zone it would appear! This week saw another 2 lb gone which earned me the 2 stone loss award! Total weight loss now sits at 29.5 lbs. By the end of this month I also want to get the 2.5 stone award.  With 5.5 lbs to go and only two weigh-ins left this seems quite a challenge! To supercharge my weight loss I am going to do Slimming World's Extra Easy SP plan for the full 7 days!! I will only be having free foods that are protein dense.  I have decided that during this week I will use up all 15 syns each day as I want to test the SP plan on it's own and see what it does for me on the scales. Food plan for the week looks like porridge (HEx A&B) or fruit for breakfast, salad and some form of protein for lunch, and veggies with some form of protein for dinner.   As low-fat cottage cheese is protein-y enough for the SP plan I am going to be using that as a syn free salad dressing. The holiday to Spain is creeping ever closer I am...

Yaaaaaay! I'm on it, found my mojo and I'm back on track!  The line has been drawn under an unsuccessful June and I'm moving forward.  I had a great week last week, to get me back on track my SW consultant recommended that I complete a food diary for her with 110% honesty.  This was a great motivational tool, as I knew that whatever I ate I had to write it down.  There was one day where a meal did go off kilter, but I worked out average syn values for what I'd had and wrote them down.  Before I would have ignored it and instead of just one meal being over my syns, the whole day would have gone to rack and ruin.  Big learning curve for me, and it shows that I can regain control quickly once it has slipped through my fingers.   Putting the effort in that week gave me a 2.5 lb weight loss on the scales that week.  Win! The past week was much the same, I carried on rigidly completing a food diary (just for me this time) and I have been a...

Fell off the posting bandwagon didn't I?! I have had quite a few ups and downs since I last posted.   Work has been hard, the change in job role has left me feeling so out of my depth I question regularly whether or not I want to do it any more. It has included training days in central London where I struggle to stay on plan with Slimming World as I keep ending up in Starbucks for the essential caffeine to keep myself awake. I am a terrible stress eater and I keep walking down the old path of binging, I feel like this will always be something I struggle with so I think I need to accept it so it has less power over me. There have been some high points, I have gotten back into Powerwave classes, and I am now up to a 5kg bag again.   I have fallen in love with Skinny Caffe Skinny Coffee, it is so delicious!  And mega bonus, managed to get hold of Marilyn Manson tickets for December 💜.   For June my aim was to do five lots of exercise a week and tr...

Soooooo this week was my 14th weigh in, I'll do a quick round-up of the last four weeks. Week 11 - lost 0.5 lb Week 12 - gained 1 lb Week 13 - I couldn't weigh in Week 14 - lost 1.5 lbs - GOT MY 1 STONE AWARD!!!! So I have now lost 14 lbs on the button!   Last few weeks I had lost my oomphf with SW, loss of motivation partly to my previous gain (week 12) and not being able to weigh in week 13.   I also had issues with my new job...I won't go into that headache!! Now I have finally gotten over the stone hurdle I have enthusiasm for SW again, which is really great.   I am taking part in the April S W Photo Challe nge on Instagram (@kt_untranslated) which I'm finding helpfu l as it reminds me to keep on track. To give me an extra shove in the right direction I have also started listening to a hypnosis app called "Virtual Gastric Band Hypnosis" by easyloss.co.uk (it's the paid for app in Apple App store).  They have a night-time and a day-...

After the damaging 2 lb gain last week, I managed to pull it back and work hard with SP days and had a rather successful week with a 3 lbs loss!! I also managed a 2 mile walk one lunchtime and a 2 mile incline treadmill walk this week.  I'm coming to the end of a cold, so I am hopeful to increase activity from this week. I am really really happy with my loss, still behind target, as it was week ten I should have lost 20 lbs by now and the total loss is at 13 lbs.   I am taking inspiration from my SW group and consultant this week, along with a new SW article about "grazing trays".  I am partial to saving up my syns for a treat plate of an evening, but now I am a walking syn directory for all sorts of things, and I feel like I am not using the plan how I should. I think that to speed my weight loss up even more I need to cut down on the syn'd items and increase my speed food snacks instead.   So as well as more SP days this week I am also going to...