Slimming World - A Beginners Guide

Hey there.

September 2014

So last week I asked you guys on Snapchat (MyBuzzyBeauty) if you'd like my own take on Slimming World and I got a few snaps saying yes. If this helps even one person make better choices to stay on plan, I will be delighted. Making a conscious decision to do something about your weight is scary. Do you have the will power? Do you have the support of those around you? Will you be happier? I've struggled with my weight my entire life. Since having Eloise I can now admit to myself I was too heavy, and I didn't want to be that way anymore. I'd heard quite a bit about Slimming World from a friend so I said I'd give it a go.

I joined the first week of  May. It was a bit daunting, but I sat down to the New Members talk and knew I had made the right decision. Everyone was so lovely, welcoming and supportive. If you've had a bad week every single person there wants to help pick you back up. And if you've had a great week every single person there is overjoyed for you. There's a real sense of community to the classes.

June 2014

The plan sounds complicated, but it is honestly simple. You have 3 main groups of food:

Free Foods:

• Speed foods- 95% of fruits and veg fall into this category. They help to speed up your metabolism, are filling, and quite a lot can be used instead of Free Foods (Will come back to this below).
• Protein- chicken, fish, eggs, any lean meat under 5% fat all fall into this and are free.
• Free foods- potatoes, dried pasta, couscous, rice, some yoghurts; basically all those filling things you've been told to stay away from.

You can eat your fill of the above, the only golden rule is to fill your plate with a third of each. You can have seconds, but you need to fill your plate with speed foods. They really do make all the difference.

Healthy Extras:

• Heathy Extra A- this is your dairy allowance. You don't need to have your full allowance everyday if you don't want to, but you can't carry it over to the next day. This group breaks down to cheese and milk basically. You can have varying amounts, from 40g of reduced fat cheese to 1 litre of unsweetened almond milk. If I don't want cheese that day I really like 250mls of dark almond milk, split between cereal and coffees for the day.
• Healthy Extra B- your fibre allowance. 35g of porridge or 2 weetabix or 2 slices of wholemeal bread from a 400g loaf or a 60g wholemeal roll. Most breakfast cereals can be used for a healthy extra, and so can some nuts, but I don't eat these so I'm not sure of the exact amounts. Ryvitas and Hi-Fi bars also fall into this category, and are so handy for a Grab-and-Go option.

You need to weigh/measure/count these out, to protect your own weight loss. These are the foods I would find the easiest to overeat. 35g of porridge is not a whole lot. You honestly won't believe how little it is when you measure it out. Once you get used to weighing these out it will become so second nature that it really isn't a hassle.

Syns:
Everything else! Chocolate, alcohol, oils, avocados (yes they're healthy, but they are still very high in fats), crisps, wine, gin, cider- all the good stuff! You get 15 syns a day. I'd generally aim to use 12 a day, just to protect my weight loss if I haven't measured something properly. Syns are there to be used, and are all about being creative. I only go out once a month usually, so the alcohol doesn't really affect me, but I do have a serious sweet tooth. I usually save as many syns as I can for the evenings to facilitate my need to pick.

March 2014

Top Tips:

• I was a major cheese hound, so I completely cut it for the first 4 weeks, until I could trust myself to weigh it out and not cheat. This may seem harsh but it really worked for me.
• Try to do a different HexB every week and assess how you felt after each week. I find that the bars and cereals worked best for me. I felt bloated and sluggish by the end of the wholemeal bread week. 
• Plan, plan, plan! Weeks I've done out a proper shopping list/meal plan have been my best weeks, for losses and staying on plan.
• Stay for the meetings. Slimming World offers amazing support, but only if you put yourself out there and accept the help being offered. 
• Don't be too hard on yourself- so you were 100% on plan and you had a maintain. This happens. It's a dose and makes you feel like a goose. Keep going. 
• Experiment and try the recipes. There are thousands of SW recipes available online. I've done 40 or 50 at this stage, and there's only been 3 or so we haven't liked. 
• Change it up. Use Speed instead of Free foods. Roasted butternut squash is lovely instead of potatoes, or courgetti noodles are amazing instead of anything!
• Always put 1/3 Speed on your plate. Even if you're doing a 100% vegetarian curry, boil/roast/spirialise some veg for your third speed. 
• Snack on whatever you want, but always have some Speed with it. 
• If you go off plan on a Tuesday, that's your Tuesday over, not your week and not your diet. Get back on plan. 
• Stock up your spice press. Dried spices, passata, tinned beans (in water), stock cubes, Lea and Perrins, these are all free, all delicious, and all so easy to use to add flavour. 
• Be proud of every pound you lose. 

Just as an example, I'm going to give you a kind of sampler menu, for some idea of the range of foods I still enjoy on Slimming World.

Breakfast:

• 2 weetabix (HexB), crushed up and mixed with a Toffee Muller Light yogurt (FF), 4 strawberries (SF). A green tea (F), an apple and a mandarin (SF).

Snack:

• A plum and an apple (SF) and a Benefit chocolate fudge bar (3 syns).

Lunch:

• A two egg (P) omelette, with mushrooms and peppers (SF), sweetcorn (FF) and a side salad (SF). Maybe some couscous (FF) too if I was very hungry.

Snack:

• A mandarin (SF) and a Benefit chocolate fudge bar (3 syns).

Dinner:

• Spaghetti Bolognese (Completely Free, with a lot of Speed), whole wheat spaghetti (FF), boiled broccoli (Speed).
• Fruit salad (SF) maybe an hour after dinner.
• Microwave 100 cal popcorn.

Now this isn't set in stone. Some days I'd have half a honey dew melon after my breakfast. And if I'm on my period, or hungover, I'm a ravenous beast and would need a second dinner in place of a lunch. But for the most part this would be what I'd eat.

When I started the first week of May, I weighed 15 stone 4 lbs, and as of last week I weighed 12 stone 5.5 lbs. I've lost almost 3 stone already, and am hoping to lose another stone, just because I figure 11s 4lbs is a healthy weight for my height (5'5"). This could all change as I get closer to my target, but I'm happily working away to that goal for the moment. And in typical me fashion, I an't find any of my Awards! Bloody typical!

January 2016

I'm going to throw up a recipe tomorrow for my Spag Bol tomorrow, so if you have any questions please feel free to ask me here, on Insta, Facebook or Tweet me! Would you like me to upload a recipe here every couple of weeks? Please let me know, because I'd only be too happy to!

Love, 

MyBuzzyBeauty

Tender Loving Care for Happy Hydrated Hair

Hey there.

Guys and gals I'm so sorry. I have been neglecting my blog so much, since Christmas. I promise I'm going to try and have a new blog post once a week. I was thinking every Tuesday? What do you guys think? I work weekends now, so ideally one of Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday would suit me best. Being back to work is actually great, gives me a balance I've been missing the last few months. I would spend every moment I could with Eloise, but it's important to hold on to some of your pre-child identity. At least for me it has been. Ok I really need to stop with the DMC's I know!

I'm getting married in September 2017 and if sheer determination could make my hair grow it would be down to my knees. I've always had fine hair, but since Eloise it is definitely thicker than it was, all thanks to Holland and Barrett! I have been showing my hair a lot of TLC the past few months so I thought I'd share some of my tips and tricks with you all.

Since I've had Eloise I really only wash my hair every 3 days if I can. I say it's for colour longevity but it's honestly laziness. It took maybe 3 weeks to "train" my hair but it was worth it. For at least 15 years I washed my hair everyday, because it was so greasy. The reality is if you wash your hair everyday you're stripping your hair of its natural oils. Basically using dry shampoo in your hair is similar to using a cleansing oil on your face, you're allowing oil to combat oil and helping your skin/scalp find it's own harmony. I've tried multiple dry shampoos and I always return to Batiste. I spray it in sections all around my head, throw my hair up and leave it absorb the oil for at least 30 mins. By this time it is so much easier to brush out of the hair. I use my Tangle Teaser in the morning and a boar bristle brush at night, to get the naturally occuring oils from my scalp down the lengths of my hair. I've been wearing my hair in a plait every night to bed for the past months and have definitely noticed a decent reduction in breakages. You're minimising friction against the tips of your hair follicles, and so reducing the possibility of damage while you sleep. My hair used to be so oily that, even if I washed it that morning and was going out that night, I would have to wash it again that evening. Training your hair really is the way forward for all my greasy gruaig lads and ladies. You will never look back!

I put more effort into the night before I was my hair than I do for a date night! I had a beautiful balyage from my natural dark brown into a beautiful blonde before I opened my arms and accepted copper into my heart and soul. Both colours involve bleaching. Bleaching is not good for your hair or your pockets, and made my fine hair coarser than it had ever been. I stumbled across the LOC method of hair care while stuck in a YouTube void one evening. I'm not in anyway comparing my coarse hair to natural hair, but it is an extremely effective way of getting moisture into you hair. I've modified it sightly for my hair. Oil forms a barrier, not allowing moisture in or out, so I do Liquid, Cream, Oil. I start with any leave in conditioner I have (I don't use them on a daily basis, so I haven't invested in an expensive one. I really do like the Mane 'n Tail one though, and it smells so nice!)

Next up is the most important part, to me. I use the Mark Hill MiracOILous Hydrating 2 Minute Mask as my leave in conditioner. Imagine you were curling your hair, but instead you're rubbing a small bit of the conditioner into those sections. Be warned, this does smell like Jagerbombs, so avoid when hungover. The reason the first step, Liquid/Leave in conditioner, is so important is because if you start with dry hair you use twice the amount you need to. But if it's already partially saturated and has some moisture in it, so will need less Cream. Your starting point has a higher level of moisture, so can absorb less of the Cream.

Lastly, it's time for the Oil. You need this step to seal all the moisture in. I've been using argan oil and I'm obsessed. It smells nice and my hair has been responding so well to it. I comb through my hair and put it in a plait for the night.

Now just as a disclaimer, you do not need to use these products. These are items I had hanging around the house and wanted to use up or put to good use. When I finish the argan oil I doubt I'll repurchase, just because it's quite expensive and you use quite a bit. I will be buying and using organic coconut oil. It's multifunctional beauty-wise, and I can use it to cook Eloise's meals.

I honestly feel like my hair has gotten softer since I've started this routine about 4 weeks ago. And my hair has grown a quarter inch in the past 3 weeks. This is huge growth to me. I know this is just as much down to my silica tablets and fish oil, but it looks longer and I have no split ends and next to no end damage. Most importantly, I'm really taking pride in my hair. I'm excited to think about possibilities for my big day, rather than trying to think of the best way to have it up and out of my way, and worrying if it'll look awful in pictures. I'm even half considering wearing it down, but those thoughts are still very fleeting!

If you're around the Cork city area and thinking of a hair transformation I suggest you get onto Shane Markham, he is the only person I'd trust with my hair, and so good at what he does. He's also outrageously handsome and was a Colgate model in a past life!

Ok, these are all my hair secrets! Have you any hair secrets you want to share with me? Leave me a comment here, on Facebook, Instagram, or even Tweet me! Oh and I'm now on Snapchat too! My handle is: MyBuzzyBeauty - I love interacting with people on it, so please add me if you want to see what I get up to instead of cleaning my house!

Love,

MyBuzzyBeauty