5and2: False lows and false economies

Posted on May 25, 2013 by lindaharley

Why are people so hard on themselves? I think it was the Mumsnet lot (they are particularly self-critical) where someone wouldn’t record a new low weight seen on the scales after a fast because “it was a false low”.

What?

Weight varies up and down during the day. It will increase depending on what food you’ve eaten and how recently, what kind of food it was, what exercise you’ve done, what clothes you’re wearing. But the lowest weight will be your empty and naked weight. To me, that’s the sensible one to measure and record – so that’s first thing in the morning, no clothes, after a pee. If that’s lower than the last time I measured, I’ll record it. If it’s not, I’ll ignore it.

And another thing – debates about where your waist is? It’s the smallest distance around your middle. Again, why all the angst about measuring such and such a distance from your belly button etc – go with the smallest. That’s not cheating. Sometimes it’s as if people are deliberately trying to find ways to fail.

New lows for me this week – 134 pounds, and a waist size of 28 inches.

And after last week’s enthusing about M&S, this week they’ve disappointed me:

Following recommendations from other forums  for the Delicious and Nutritious range, I’d enjoyed the tuna mooli wraps for lunch last week. But I felt they were expensive at £3.50. On Saturday, shopping for something else in the Lisburn store, I got a voucher for £1 off the D&N range. Great, I thought, I’ll have something nice for dinner on Thursday! I couldn’t find any calorie info about the range online, but during the day I’d left  200-250 calories for my meal. So here’s what happened next.

  1.  I went out of my way to go to the Forestside store where I thought there’d be the largest range.
  2.  It wasn’t easy to find the D&N range, seemed to be in several places.
  3. None of the main meals came in at under 350 calories, and most were 400-500 and above.
  4.  I went back to the mooli wraps, and chose a beef one. At the till, it transpired that the £1 off did not apply to salads and wraps. Just how petty a decision was that!
  5. The barcode when scanned into MyFitnessPal came up as the pork ones, not beef.

This was a thoroughly disheartening experience, and I will not be rushing back, even to utilise that £1 off voucher. To be fair, I emailed the above complaints, and they replied within 24 hours, but the whole frustrating business has left a bad taste.  I reckon I’m better making my own meals, rather than relying on ready made ones.

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The chicken souvlaki I mentioned last week were rather tasty, at 70 cals apiece.  I’d planned to eat all 4, but husband thought they looked tasty too, so I ended up sharing with him.  With a large salad, probably 150 cals for the whole meal. These can’t be too hard to make myself, surely!

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I cannot pass by a bargain, and these little smoked salmon appetisers were reduced to 99p – 25 calories for 3 miniature bites of deliciousness.

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Next week I think I might dig out those miracle pasta sachets, and try them with some home made bolognese I have in the freezer.

 

 

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5and2: M&S ready meals

Posted on May 18, 2013 by lindaharley

I had Monday and Wednesday as my fast days this week, as it was full on busy every day!

On Monday I was struggling to go completely without food, so I had Ryvita with low-low cheese during the day, and some Bovril and miso soup. For dinner I had some leftover boiled ham, along with a salad of cherry tomatoes, mozzarella pearls and a pesto dressing.  I’d bought some of the new Nakd bars with added soya chunks for protein (they’re much tastier than that sounds!) and had one of those as a very satisfying 100 calories sweet tooth calmer.

I was taking Thursday off to go to the Balmoral Show with my sister, so I didn’t really want to have that as a fast day.  Which left Wednesday.  But I was going straight to a governors meeting after work, and didn’t want to be too rumbly in the tumbly.  So I decided to try out the highly recommended Marks and Spencers delicious and nutritious mooli ribbon meal.

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This comes in duck, beef, or tuna varieties – I chose the latter as it had the lowest sugar content.  It also came with  edamame beans, which I love.  It was pretty tasty, filled its purpose for a mere 150 calories, but at £3.50 I balked at the price.  Luckily I’ve since picked up a £1 off voucher, so I may try another selection from the  range next week.

Another find was the little souvlaki chicken kebabs, at only 70 calories per skewer – very tasty indeed!

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It feels good to be fasting 2 days a week – I can tell that my body likes this approach.  My weight is still creeping down slowly – the afternoon girly shopping trip with my sister netted a lovely size 8 jacket (also from M&S, I really should buy shares in the place), and I’m currently wearing a pair of size 12 jeans which are decidedly baggy and which will be going in the charity shop bag after they’re washed.

Oh, and lovely surprise of the week – I received a phone call from my old University that I’d won an iPad in a draw, so I had to go over there and get my photograph taken being presented with it.  So I took the opportunity to wear an outfit I’d bought recently on the half-price rail at – yes, you’ve guessed it – from their Per Una range: indigo linen trousers, and ice-blue Tshirt with draped neckline, and a blue grey Chanel style edge to edge jacket.  I was pretty pleased with the published photo, the shininess of the jacket looks great.  And my son is delighted that he’s inheriting my old iPad.

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