Festival Survival Guide

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If you're attending a festival this year, plan ahead. Use some of these tips and you will have a great time but not stray from your weight loss target.

You can box up lots of lovely diet friendly treats to put in your rucksack including rice cakes, fruit, cereal bars. I usually take some Weight Watcher cakes that come wrapped individually and I make a sandwich to eat when I have finished setting up camp. It can take ages to queue for your wristband and put you tent up and you will be hungry after all of this. If you are prepared you will eat something healthy that you have packed rather than heading straight for the burger van. You don’t want to spend the whole time worrying about what to eat so it is a good idea to check out the festival website before you go. I found out that there is a great Salvation Army tent at Reading that serves soup and a bread roll for about a quid, so much cheaper than food in the arena and really healthy. There are usually loads of veggie and vegan food stalls and these are great for people on diets, fill up on a pitta filled with falafel and salad or go for some vegetable chow mein on a Chinese food stand (the average portion is about 7 points on the Weight Watcher plan). If you think about what you are going to eat before you get there you can work out the points in advance and take away all the hassle and stress. Weight Watchers have a new app where you can track your points and find out the points values of food so this is worth downloading before you go. You can save all of your weekly points/syns for the festival so you can have a few treats without feeling guilty. Make sure you dance the night away and explore the festival site to burn away some of the calories from all the alcohol you will be drinking ;) Remember, celebrate your weight loss so far by wearing lots of lovely, bright summer clothing. Don’t hide under baggy clothes anymore, dance and have the time of your life! If you have any festival tips please leave a comment.

New House Dilemma

I really need your help!

I'm moving house on Friday and I'm leaving behind a lovely home and moving in to a place that needs a lot of work and renovation. The house I'm moving in to doesn't have a kitchen at the moment and it will take a few weeks of ripping off plaster and making sure all the major structural work is done before we fit the kitchen.

I'm a little worried about all the take aways we will be having and going totally off my Weight Watchers plan so I would love to know what easy meals I can make with limited kitchen facilities and only a little time. There is only so much cereal and toast you can eat before you get totally bored!
I will have a microwave, toaster and kettle at my disposal but not much else.

Do you have any meal ideas for me?

Two For Tuesday

One of my biggest weaknesses when it comes to dieting is pizza. I love pizza and could eat it every day but it's usually the bad type of pizza I go for. I just can't resist ordering greasy take away pizza in that iconic blue and red box, complete with the garlic and herb dip, especially on a Tuesday. Come on, you know the one I'm talking about - D********!

A few weeks ago I had MAJOR cravings for take away pizza and it was suggested that I make my own pizza from scratch because it would taste better and more importantly, would be much healthier. But you know what? The reason I wanted to order pizza from the overpriced grease factory in town was because I was too lazy to go to the effort of making my own pizza from scratch. The thought of making my own dough and waiting an hour for it to rise just didn't appeal when I could click a few buttons and an effort free pizza would be on my doorstep in 30 minutes.

Unfortunately I did give in to temptation and parted with £10 of my hard earned cash in return for 1,744 calories (yes, really!! in one medium size pizza!!) and a bloated tummy. I'm not gonna lie, the pizza tasted bloody amazing but afterwards I couldn't help but feel terrible. Not only because I had wrecked my hard work at the gym that week, but because I had ate far too much and the sore tummy majorly outweighed the delicious pizza I had just forked out for. And then there was the weight I'd probably gain from stuffing my face. That's when I decided that I was going to come up with a plan that would stop me from resisting the urge to… well, stuff my body full of fat just because I'm feeling lazy. I bring to you… LAZY TUESDAYS.

First off, you need a pizza base. You can buy these pre-made in supermarkets, but you can also make your own bases from scratch and freeze them in advance. I've tried this recipe so far and it's been a success.

A good tomato sauce is what can make or break a pizza and this simple recipe from Jamie Oliver tastes great. I've been making the sauce in advance and freezing it in an ice cube tray and just pop 2 or 3 out at a time and defrost when needed.

Toppings and cheese are the easy part. 99% of the time there are foods in my fridge, freezer and cupboard that would make a great pizza topping. Mushrooms, courgette, olives, pineapple, sundried tomatoes, peppers and of course meat for those of you who aren't vegetarian. The list is endless.

It takes 10 minutes max to spread some tomato sauce, chop up and arrange some topping and throw some cheese over it and then a further 15 minutes to cook. That's probably less time than it would take for a Dominos to be delivered and I bet it cost half the price aswell as being much healthier.

What are your biggest diet weaknesses? Have you found a way to combat your cravings?

Lunch box ideas

Just a quick post from me today but I'm after a bit of help and inspiration. I'm sure most of you are aware that as of next Monday I'm going to be interning in a beauty department of a magazine in London. Now, as exciting as it is, I'm a bit worried about what I'm going to eat - this is my chance to really knuckle down and use these four weeks as a stepping stone for me, I'll have a routine and I'll hopefully not be bored so I won't need to turn to food for entertainment, thus hopefully resulting in a decent weight loss!

I'm going to be commuting from Leicester which will mean 12/13 hour days and this is where you come in, I need ideas for healthy lunch box ideas that'll keep me full, potential snacks I can keep in my bag incase I get mid-morning/afternoon munchies and then ideas for quick and easy dinner solutions. I'm planning on doing a Tesco-delivery shop at some point towards the back end of this week, has anybody got any key ingredients I should get that will keep well? I'm thinking of maybe getting a piece of gammon or chicken and cooking that on Sundays and having it in sandwiches for lunch and maybe with new potatoes and salad for dinner? But that'll get boring after about day one!

So yeah, your go-to recipes when you can't be bothered - throw them my way please along with any other ideas you may have! :)