Sunday 11 January 2015

Healthy pregnancy (slimming world and exercise)

Hi everyone, 
I've not posted since the new year. One of my New Years resolutions was to keep myself healthy. The year before last and the beginning of last year I done slimming world and lost over 5 stone. I then stopped slimming world and put some of that weight back on. As some of you may know I am now 35 weeks pregnant. Since being pregnant I have only gained 15lbs which is actually pretty good (the midwifes are impressed) .. As part of my New Years resolution I decided to go back to slimming world. So on Friday that's exactly what I did. The plan I'm doing is the 'extra easy' plan like I did last year. The only difference is now being pregnant I have to have more healthy extras, which means for example I can have more bread and milk, which I'm happy with 😉.

So for anyone who doesn't know slimming world, it's a very easy diet to follow, to be honest it doesn't even really feel like a diet, it's more like just being aware of what your eating. Your aloud to eat a lot, there is no limit to how much you can have and you never have to go hungry. Every day your encouraged to have 'healthy extra's' one A and a one B choice, unless your pregnant then you can have two A and B choices.

Heathy extra A - this is basically dairy, so you can have milk or cheese as an healthy extra A.
Healthy extra B - Examples of this is, bread, cereals, and breakfast bars such as the hi-fi light bars (they're lovely).

Free food - you can eat as much free food as you like. Free foods include things like chicken, turkey, ham, potatoes, pasta, rice, fish, beans, eggs etc. There is literally loads, soooo much you can eat.

Super free speed food - these foods again you can eat as much of as you like. Your encouraged to have 1 third of your plate of food to always be super free speed food, this will boost your weight loss! These foods include a wide variety of fruit and vegetables.

Syns - syns are treats. So you need to syn up things like chocolate, crisps, pastries etc. Your encouraged to eat between 5 and 15 syns a day and it's very important that you do eat them. My favourite syns are either a curly wurly for 6 syns, or a ripple for 8.5 syns to satisfy my sweet tooth. I'm not really one for crisps (since being pregnant I've gone right off them). 

Here below are some picture of the types of foods I have been eating throughout the day.

Here I had porridge with raspberries. This was really nice! I had never tried raspberries in my porridge before and I actually really recommend it, it gave a sweet flavouring mixed in with the porridge, yummy! The porridge counted as my healthy extra B and the milk it's made with was my healthy extra A, the raspberries then were my super free speed food part of the meal.

Here I had tuna mayo pasta, with a side of salad and low fat ceaser dressing. The only thing on here that was syns was the mayonnaise and the dressing, I counted 3.5 syns for this meal. It was so yummy and filling though and well worth the small amount of syns.

Here I had salmon, boiled potatoes and green beans. I absolutely love salmon, plus it's really good for you (VERY GOOD during pregnancy too). This meal was very filling which is lovely after a long day. The salmon and potatoes are free food and the green beans are my super free speed food of the meal. 

Just because it's a diet doesn't mean you can't have chips 😉. These are slimming world chips. They're absolutely gorgeous to snack on and you can eat as much of them as you like, guess what.. They're totally free and no syns! I make mine using my actifry where you just chop potatoes, spray them with fry light (low cal cooking spray) and pop them in the actifry for 20-30 minutes... If you don't have an actifry what you do is boil the potatoes for around 6-8 minutes and then cut them into chip shapes, then place them in the oven for around 20-25 minutes. They taste just as nice that way too! I highly recommend these if your on slimming world or just eating healthier and looking for something to snack on, yummy!

Thst pretty much sums up slimming world in a nutshell! There are loads of slimming world groups around and the consultants that run them are always really lovely and ready to help. 
http://www.slimmingworld.com here is the link to the website where there is much more info on plans and where the groups are etc.

I'm planning on keeping up with slimming world and following the plan as best as I can. Being 35 weeks pregnant I realise it's not going to be the easiest. I just want to stress that I am not going to loose weight being pregnant, I'm going to keep myself healthy and eating the right sorts of foods. I'm not expecting any losses, the main thing is I'm keeping myself healthy and eating the right foods for both me and baby. I am planning on doing some exercise, I have been recommended to go swimming and try water exercises by the midwifes. I have joined the gym and I'm ready to start doing it and keeping myself in good health (this apparently helps with labour to, I hope so, haha) .. Tomorrow I will be going swimming, I'm aiming to do some lengths in the pool. I am also going to be taking part in aquasize, the trainer knows I'm pregnant and I've been told it's a great exercise when you are pregnant, I'm really looking forward to it because when I've been previously I've really enjoyed it.

Thanks for reading everyone! Hope this post wasn't to long and boring 😚 
Abbie xxx