Wahey - Bargain cycling gear at Aldi.

Wahey - Bargain cycling gear at Aldi. Went into Aldi this afternoon and got two cycling shirts for £7 each, winter cycling trousers for a tenner, lightweight hi-viz jacket for a tenner and some cycling gloves for £3. Phil says he wants a shirt too so am going back tomorrow. Recommend you get some quick if you're interested Aldi have a tendency to under-stock if anything and at these prices you can't go wrong!!

Yog Surprise is Dead, Long Live Sultana Bran!

Oh dear, it could be the end of one of my staples - Yogurt Surprise. This culinary masterpiece made using Optifit Yogurt (syn-free), 2 weetabix (1 Healthy B) and a banana (syn-free) is under threat from a new kid in town! Was having a look at the list of Healthy Extras on LifelineOnline today (see the 'Eat and Slim' section)and noticed a couple of Aldi cereals that qualify as Healthy Extras. (Aldi is my favourite thrifty shop in case you didn't know!!)

So picked up a box of SultanaBran (£1.19 for 500g box) and straight away it's my new favourite. T'is sweet in the sultanas and good for you in a fibre'y way with the bran flakes (and the box says fortified with 7 vitamins and iron, you can't beat that!).

Worth noting however, I also bought 4 optifit yogurts at the same time so there's a high likelihood of Yogurt surprise making an appearance tomorrow morning!!! Also changed my plan in terms of biking to and from work tomorrow. Legs ached a bit at work today so am going to take bike on roof rack to work tomorrow morning, ride home tomorrow night and then ride back to work on Thursday morning. Have done almost exactly 20miles today with a morning and evening ride (upto 52.5 miles for the week should have 100 target done by Thursday morning).

Finally: Purchased some lemon sole and pepper goujons that looked interesting for dinner tomorrow night. Looking at Syns Online they should be 8 syns so with some tasty SynFree chips that should get my syns to be 16 same as most days it seems!

Calm down, Calm down

Was getting a bit too sorry for myself yesterday (well all week really), however there was one good thing that came out of the last post and that was setting some actions to sort things out. I said no alcohol this weekend and went to the pub last night and nursed a beautifully alcohol-free diet coke - wierd night too - no ashtrays on the tables, me mate John nipping out in the rain for smoke - good of the government to give smokers a choice wasn't it? Not that I'm a smoker at present - 13 days gone and no cigarrettes so far, so good, so what as they say...

Anyhoo, that was one action I set which has been good for one day so far (it is only Saturday after all), another was to only go for Healthy Extra cereals rather than any old cereal and I said I'd avoid my current fave which is Aldi's version of Special K they call Benefit. Well here's a picture of Saturday morning's breakfast - called (in our household at least) 'Yogurt Surprise" - essentially it is two weetabix (Aldi variant 79p for 24 biscuits) on a bed of 'Aldi Optifit Yogurt with wheatgrains' topped off with a chopped banana also residing on a bed of Yogurt. Not also black coffee - gave up white coffee back in february and don't miss it at all, in fact white coffee now tastes horrendous.

This means that breakfast was pretty much syn-free - weetabix is Healthy B choice, yogurt is free, banana free. A good start - I got the focus back and I've not even put the 'stop smoking' nicquitin patch on yet.

Didn't really do lunch as such as was golfing at 12:20, just did the fruit thing going round. Over the day I had five apples and three bananas.

For dinner it was breaded cod and syn-free chips with mushy peas so that's where the syns will come from (will try and find out what the syns total would be but I don't expect it to be too high). Pudding was yogurt surprise as you'd expect!!!

Watch this space...

Aldi Rocks!! - Extra Trimmed Bacon - spot on for Slimming World!

Took Phil to Aldi in Derby on Sunday morning (he buys tools for his toolkit every week it seems) and discovered “Extra trimmed unsmoked rindless back bacon” in their ‘Be Light’ range. “Why is this such a find ?” I hear you ask – because Slimming World’s Food Optimising Bible says that Bacon is free if all the fat is trimmed off and guess what Aldi does that for you with this product and at £1.09 for six rashers it’s a bloomin steal. Only 161 kcals per 100g which if there’s six rashers per pack (which I think there is) means each rasher is about 50Kcals. Am going to see if there’s a smoked version next time I’m in but this is a top product for Slimming World members in my opinion. I’ve mentioned Aldi products before now and am thinking of putting together a list - at the minute my favourite Aldi products for Slimming Worlding with are as follows:-

• Optifit Yogurts with Wheat Grains (have two or three everyday – great and only 29p each. These are just plain ace - syn-free in Slimming World Food Optimising terms and they last much longer than Mullerlites which are nice but not as good in my opinion.


• Wheat Bisks (Weetabix at 89p for 24 biscuits – Healthy B option)


• Wholemeal Sliced Loaf – not good really in a dieting sense but ideal for bacon sarnies and better than rolls 59p


• Diet Red Thunder – stimulation drink. Slowed down on this a bit as on top of the super quality ground coffee I get at work I might end up switching addictions from Nicotine to Caffeine!!


• Diet Cola dead cheap - not bad and has the advantageous side effect of blowing the stomach up during a meal (this might be in my head but if I believe it it's true!). £1.09 for 6x500ml bottles
• If you don't fancy coke there's diet bitter lemon or diet tonic water at 99p for 6 x 330ml - can't go wrong!


• 6 x Golden Delicious – 99p! Absolute essential.


• Bananas – vary from about 58p for four decent size ones upwards dependant on weight.
  
• Don't forget sugar-free gum at 45p for 35 sticks. Spearmint is the best of the flavours and lowest in terms of calories at 1.7KCal per stick - as near as damnit free and a worthy smoking substitue.

25-06-07 Rain stopped play - so debate Muller vs Optifit

Cruddy British summer stopped me going out on the bike today. Never seen rain like it. So went in early to work to use gym for 40 minutes instead of morning bike ride and did a bit of a walk up the golf course this evening. Know, it's not enough exercise though.

Anyway, a bit of a Slimming World post for a change. Don't often post SW food stuff because I don't do it quite properly (never counted syns properly for example) but I've lost four stone so far so let me give a bit of Slimming Worldy advice! Try Aldi Optifit Yogurts with wheat grains - they come in a 250ml pot, they're syn-free (I'm 98% sure of that) so you can have as much as you like and... they're much more filling than the Mullerlites which I think have got more runny in recent times - I know it's Aldi but give em a try - Iused to get through loads of Mullerlites now the missus doesn't even bother buying any as they'll just sit in the fridge. And best of all they're not expensive cause they're from Aldi. While you're there - diet Red Thunder is very good caffeine based stimulant drink at £1.39 for 6 cans (bit like Red Bull), fruit (which I get through tons of now) is really good value - 6 french golden delicious for 99p, bunch of bananas for between 50p and 90p. There's a ton of stuff in there and although it's cheap and cheerful it's not bad either (not like rubbishy lidl).