BravingABikini's route to the beach

Hi! I just received my 28 day order of slim & save this morning so thought i should set up a diary to track my month.

Ok, so a bit about me. I am in my final year at Uni, and hoping to slim down in time for a holiday in June. Also I want to look my best at graduation (hopefully) in July. I have already done a couple of weeks of the special K diet and 4 weeks of a different meal replacement plan which I finish on Monday. That means I am starting S&S on Tuesday!

I have previously tried WW as a diet, but used to get very concerned by what the scales read when I went to meetings and it sparked a bit of a mini eating disorder where I was just starving myself for days before weigh in. For this reason I haven't stepped on the scales at all this time around, so I have no idea what weight I started at, or what weight I am now. Maybe I will have a look at some point but for now I am just trusting the diet.

I have taken all my measurements this morning for the first time-Thank you S&S for the freebie tape measure and shaker. and will try to remember to do this every Friday. I am very excited to start this diet, and looking forward to getting involved with this board, and chatting to all my fellow S&Sers.

So hi again. Sorry if I have rambled.

BAB

Hi and good luck I'm sure I'll do fab, I'm on day 5 so still early days for me but really enjoying it and the support on this forum is great xx

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Thanks for the welcome. This board does seem really supportive which is always good. i didn't have anyone doing the diet I am on now, so it will be good that other people are in the same boat and had the same struggles/successes.

How have you found the first week? That's always the worst. I'm hoping that as I am transfering it won't be to hard to get used to.

And we're off! I have just had my first Slim and Save shake (a cafe latte) this morning and it is yummy! Its a bit thin after the creaminess of the dropweight shakes but I am hoping that reducing the water amount will help that. I do love that there is no bits left in these shakes, where as I always had to leave the last mouthful on the old shakes.

Aside from this I am very excited to try all the packs. There are so many that it is difficult to decide what to have first. I have 7 different meals and 7 different shakes along with the 3 bars, so it will be a week before I have tried everything, which is great for choice.

I went out last night and bought a few pieces of white fish and chicken and have separated them all into around 100g pieces and frozen them, so I have my portions for the next 2 weeks. I just need to pick up some veg. All I have is some spinach, asparagus and a few sad-looking pieces of lettuce at the minute. Hardly inspirational. I am sure I heard people saying that olives were ok, so I may have to pick up some of those in the shops. I do love olives!

Good luck, you sound really organised! Let us know how you get on with the different meals. I've just had a caramel shake - totally lush. I might blend the next one up with loads of ice and make it thick...

That sounds like a great idea with ice! I have some porridge packs in my order so if I have a porridge for breakfast on day I think I might do one with ice for a sunny afternoon treat. I also have to try some hot or with coffee, everyone seems to rave about that.

I actually feel a little giddy with all these new things to try. I am like a kid in a sweet shop, but without the consequences and guilt

I know exactly what you mean, I almost want to try everything at once. How are you finding the taste of the packs compared to your old diet?

Chika said:

I know exactly what you mean, I almost want to try everything at once. How are you finding the taste of the packs compared to your old diet?

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I couldn't really say yet. My old diet was soups for lunch and I had a spag bol today which I was apprehensive about, but should have trusted all the rave reviews it get on here. Yummy! I don't think it fills you nearly as much as a soup would though, which I think has some sciency basis. I'll let you know how the soups compare when I finally get round to tasting them, but I have my eyes on all the other meals first.

As far as the bar is concerned, there is no comparison! DW did a really nice caramel bar, but the truffa is in another league. It is a lot smaller though.

And the shake was a lot thinner than DW's, but S&S recommend a lot more water, so I will try less water tomorrow and see how that fares. It's all really nice though. Not diety at all. Have you done a meal replacement before to compare, or is this a first?

Hi BaB..glad to hear this new plan is going well x

I've done Cambridge and Exante before with varying degrees of success (never long lasting though) I think the shakes are much much nicer than both, especially Exante which I couldn't stand. I haven't had a s&s soup but I don't like soup anyway. The spag bol is lovely, I used to finely slice white cabbage and mix it up with the s&s pack which make it look like you actually got a plateful.

I'm still in raptures about the bar though!

Aymz said:

Hi BaB..glad to hear this new plan is going well x

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Thanks Aymz! Early days yet, but its been a good start. I just need to get used to smaller portions. My meat and veg amounts on DW were getting bigger by the day, and they are quite fussy about that on this one. i had my dinner on a side plate today to try to get in the right mindset.

Chika said:

I've done Cambridge and Exante before with varying degrees of success (never long lasting though) I think the shakes are much much nicer than both, especially Exante which I couldn't stand. I haven't had a s&s soup but I don't like soup anyway. The spag bol is lovely, I used to finely slice white cabbage and mix it up with the s&s pack which make it look like you actually got a plateful.

I'm still in raptures about the bar though!

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Tell me about it! I am looking forward to trying the other bars, but come tomorrow I will probably be fighting temptation just to have another truffa

I was having a bit of indecision over exante/S&S last week. In the end, S&S just seemed to have more positive feedback and choice. Plus the customer service seems brilliant, which I really like. I had a bit of spinach to bulk out my spag bol. I didn't pick up cabbage, but that would work really well thinking about it. I do need to go and pick up a cauliflower after the discussion on your diary (yey!). Diet is seeming less restrictive by the hour

Ok so day one is basically over food-wise. That is, as long as I can keep myself away from the bars until tomorrow. I have had a cafe latte shake, some spag bol with a handful of spinach, and a truffa bar through the day, and have just had dinner of:

100g chicken breast (grilled)
4 asparagus spears,
5 mushrooms,
and a handful lettuce

I think this came to less than 200g of veg, but I haven't got kitchen scales. I am going to assume it is fine :S

I also did my kettlebell workout and went for a run round Westbury today which was nice. It was a new running route for me and I really enjoyed it (maybe the downhill element had something to do with it) although the cool down walk now takes me past bakers and cake shops and sweet shops and all sorts of other evil places. I might have to make sure I do my run before my afternoon bar in the future.

This plan sounds great from the few pages I visited on this section. How long do you have yours for? A month? I might use your diary as another form of review from beginning to end and see if I want to consider it. At the moment I feel that I could never cut out so much food during the day but I'm sure you get used to it. Good luck!

Yeah, I bought 28 days worth. I am doing 3 packs a day with a protein and veg allowance, but a lot of people do 4 packs without the protein. The thing with these diets is that I honestly never feel hungry. I just don't think about food the same, so it doesn't feel like I am cutting out food at all. After struggling to curb snacking on WW in the past, it makes a really lovely change.

Right day 2. and I have had all my allowance. I had some porridge for breakfast which I thought was lovely. I know a few people haven't been keen on it, but I had it with skimmed milk and I thought it was just right. I felt just like goldilocks. Then I had a hazelnut shake for lunch which was amazing. It really put my cafe latte to shame from yesterday, and cutting the water down to 250ml definitely helped. Yum. And as a snack I had a muesli bar which was nice. Nothing on the truffa, which I could have had 28 of in my order to be honest, but still a nice bar to go with my cup of tea.

For dinner I have just had a piece of haddock along with asparagus, spinach, spring onions, and mushrooms. I didn't realise tomatoes weren't on the list so I have bought these and had a few of these with dinner as well. Must not make the same mistake again.

Now the only problem is that I am going to the cinema tonight with friends. I would usually get a ben and jerrys or share bag of m&m's to eat, but I am going to try my hardest to resist. If I am feeling a bit weak I might get a small amount of pick and mix. Very naughty of me, but we'll see.

Are you allowed unlimited amounts of fruit/Veg or does it have to be a certain weight or calorie total?

You can have 100g of chicken or fish, and 200g of vegetables from the approved list here:

http://www.slimandsave.co.uk/vlcd-values/Full-VLCD-Programme.pdf

A tip might be to slice a museli bars into tiny slivers and snack on that at the flics? I did it today for work and it was lovely.

zoebear said:

A tip might be to slice a museli bars into tiny slivers and snack on that at the flics? I did it today for work and it was lovely.

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I noticed that quite a few people do that to make their bars go further. I will remember to save my bar for next time and do this. Thanks!

In the end I decided not to go as I had work to do, but I did have a kinder bueno which came to around 220cals. Not on plan, but not terrible. I have to stop this becoming a weekly thing though. The last 2 Wednesdays have been chocolate-filled.

Ah well. On to day three. I have had my chocolate crispy shake this morning, which was lovely and creamy, but I still prefer the hazelnut. I have my first soup to try for lunch (vegetable) and a lemon bar as a snack. I can't remember what I have defrosted for dinner but I think it may be chicken. yum.yum

I was not overly keen on the soup I made. My usual technique of using a cup of hot water and stirring the pack in with a fork did not come close to the results I had been getting with my previous plan. The taste was nice, but the texture was decidedly clumpy. Plus, it turned out it was mushroom. I will try powder first next time and see how that goes.

The lemon bar was really nice though. I thought that the bars would not be enough to fill me, but they have been rich enough that I have felt like I am getting more than I was on my old plan despite the size drop.

Dinner tonight turned out to be haddock. I had this with asparagus, spinach, mushrooms, a small green pepper and 3 small tomatoes. I actually managed to weigh my veg before dinner and it turned out that I am having more like 300g of veg, so I need to be more careful in future.

Exercise wise, I went for a run today, and did 35 minutes of kettlebell exercises. Good job. I must remember to re-take my measurements tomorrow morning before uni. As I don't trust myself around the scales, I thought I should start monitoring progress in some way and seeing as I was gifted a lovely new tape measure and chart by slim & save I took everything down last Friday. I am not expecting much to have changed in a week, if anything, but over time it will be nice to see decreasing figures.