Introduction to Slimming World

As you may have read in one of my previous posts, or seen in one of my YouTube videos, I recently decided to join Slimming World. Now, this may sound like a strange thing to do, considering I suffer from an eating disorder and am also on a strict medical diet, but I want to try and explain my thinking behind the decision and also explain to you a little bit about how Slimming World works. Basically, being in eating disorder treatment on and off for the last eleven years, I have found that you forget how to enjoy food. You’re taught that food is simply a fuel that you need to nourish your body with. You are forced to eat high calorie foods to put on weight, but you are never really taught how to enjoy food and how to eat normally.

Over the last year my weight has crept up to the point of it now being at an unhealthy number, and if I’m honest I feel really uncomfortable with my current shape. I chatted to a lovely lady from Slimming World about my concerns and about what I hope to achieve, and was reassured that Slimming World is not just about weight loss, but about learning how to enjoy food healthily. This is what I want to learn how to do. I want to learn how to nourish my body with the correct foods for me, to be able to maintain a healthy weight without eating high calorie and high fat foods that make me feel guilty and sluggish. I investigated a few different diet options, and Slimming World was the only one that really stood out to me.

Alongside Slimming World I have also decided to start trying to follow more of what Deliciously Ella does – living on a plant-based diet, which excludes things like dairy and gluten. I think this will fit in really well with the Slimming World ethos. I’m not planning to lose a lot of weight – I’ve set my target to a healthy BMI and I’m just hoping that, if I can get somewhere near there, I will start to feel a bit better about my weight. As I’ve probably already told you, despite asking several times for help with my eating disorder, I have been refused all help and support. Which is why I have decided I need to be proactive and improve my relationship with food and my body.

So, let’s get down to the nitty gritty. What is Slimming World all about? Slimming World, according to their website, is the most advanced slimming organisation in the UK. It was founded in 1969 by Margaret Miles-Bramwell, who remains the driving force behind the company to this day. There are now over 12,000 groups held weekly on a nationwide basis via a network of more than 4,000 Slimming World trained Consultants. They welcome 700,000 members to their groups weekly.

There are two ways of doing Slimming World. You can either go to a local group, paying weekly and having your weekly weigh-ins and support from the people at the group. Or, you can do it all from the comfort of your own home with their online membership, where you get everything you need from their website and enter your weight weekly from home. I have chosen to go with the online membership, as my health is quite unpredictable and I don’t want to have any excuses for not taking part.

When you join you are rather bombarded with information, and it’s certainly taking me a while to get my head around everything. The basic premise is that it’s all to do with eating different kinds of foods. First, you have your free foods, which you can eat as much of as you like. These include foods like fruit, vegetables, potatoes, rice and pasta. You can then choose something called a Healthy Extra ‘A’ choice every day, with foods like milk and cheese, and a Healthy Extra ‘B’ choice every day, with foods like bread, cereal and some soups. So, you’ve got your unlimited free foods, and your healthy extra choices, but what about those naughty things – chocolate, cake etc? Well, you then have something called syns, which are numbers assigned to foods that are higher in calories and fats. You can have between 5-15 syns a day, so with this diet there is no cutting out certain foods, which I believe it what helps it to work so far. Slimming World are very adamant that this is not a diet, it’s a lifestyle change, and they really push the idea that you will never go hungry, which I know puts some people off your typical diet.

So, I hope that has given you a bit of an insight into how Slimming World works and why I’ve decided to give it a go. I will be keeping you up-to-date with my Slimming World journey over the coming weeks, because I think if I’m held accountable I’m more likely to stick to it! So keep your eyes peeled for my meal plans and how I’m getting on with it. I’m not sure if I’m going to be posting actual weights, as I think that is something that is quite private to me, but I will certainly let you know how things are going.

Have you ever tried Slimming World? If you have any advice or recipe suggestions I’d love to hear them!

*Slimming World have given me a four week trial to talk to you about, but all opinions are my own

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And the winner is...

Thank you to everyone who entered my January Blues Giveaway - I was so touched by the number of you who left comments for me. I have selected a winner at random using Rafflecopter, and that winner is...
Clair Downham
Well done Clair! I will be e-mailing you soon and you have one week to respond with your details so I can get the prizes sent off to you.

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Sunday Spotlight - 8th February 2015

In my life this week…

University decision

This week has been a bit of an emotional rollercoaster if I’m honest and just at the moment my head feels like a rather messy place to be. After talking to my parents, tutors and some close friends, I have made the really difficult decision to withdraw my application to study Occupational Therapy at University. When I applied to college last year, I had hoped that, with a year to build myself up, my health would improve enough to move away and start a course. However, now in February, my health isn’t improving and I really don’t think I will be able to physically or mentally cope with the demands of living away from home and doing a full time course with placements. It’s a pretty devastating realisation, and it’s going to take me a while to accept the fact that, yet again, my health is stopping me doing something I want to do. But I’m trying to look forward as much as I can. I’m thinking of applying to go back to my college (which is also a University Centre) to do a degree in Journalism. It would mean I could live at home, and would only have a few contact hours a week, which would hopefully be a lot kinder to my health. Thinking into the future, a career in journalism would also be more flexible and would fit in better with my fluctuating health. So, as they say, when one door closes another door opens.

The Theory of Everything

On Friday, after making the decision about University, my Dad took me to see The Theory of Everything at the cinema. I’d wanted to see it for ages and had heard so many good things about it, so I had high hopes before hand. And I wasn’t disappointed. It was one of the best, most inspiring films I have ever seen. It was full of motivational quotes and scenarios and I was glued to the screen from beginning to end. Below I have included my favourite quote from the film, although it wasn’t easy to choose just one!

Image from Pinterest

Snow

So, we finally had a bit of snow this week after weeks of waiting. OK, it wasn’t very substantial, but it still looked pretty. Unfortunately I had to go to college so I couldn’t get outside to enjoy it. However, it was the first time I’ve ever driven in snow, so that was certainly an interesting experience, although thankfully the roads were pretty clear once I got off my estate. Although I do love the look of snow, I can definitely tell I’m getting older because I know hope that it won’t snow too heavily and stop me from driving around! Now that we’ve had a nice dusting, I’m happy that we’ve had our bit, so now it’s time for the sun to start warming up and Spring to fall upon us!

Image from Weheartit

What has grabbed your attention this week? I love hearing about people’s new discoveries and you may end up sharing something that makes it onto my list next week!

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Quote of the Day

As you may remember from previous posts, I have started working with a great little company called IttyBitty Book Company. They produce the cutest little books, filled with inspirational quotes for any situation. In my work with them, I’ve decided that every other week I will share a quote with you that I feel applies to my life at that particular time. I love quotes and often turn to them when I need some motivation and inspiration, so I hope that by doing this I can help to inspire some of you too.

“Every Little Thing is gonna be alright”

This quote came from the book of positivity, and I decided to look in that book this week because it’s been a pretty difficult week and I desperately need an injection of positivity. I have made the decision to withdraw my application to study Occupational Therapy at University because my health just isn’t going to be good enough, and right now it is hard to see what the future is going to hold. I had it all planned out, and now everything is up in the air again, which is incredibly scary and upsetting. But reading this quote is helping to reassure me that things will be OK in the end. It might not seem like it now, but things do work out for the best in the end, and I know deep down that this decision is the right one for my body and me. I’ve got a few ideas of what to do next, so instead of being scared about the future, I need to learn how to be excited about all these new opportunities that have opened up.

What quotes inspire you when things are difficult?

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Festival Place Lock Your Love Campaign

Recently, I was contacted by the lovely people at Festival Place Shopping Centre in Basingstoke about their latest special event, just in time for Valentine’s Day. Inspired by romantic locations around the world; from the Pont des Arts in Paris, to the Ponte Vecchio in Florence and Brooklyn Bridge in New York City, Festival Place is offering shoppers the chance to ‘lock their love’ on a special heart sculpture in Porchester Square this Valentine’s Day.

Launching on 31^st January in association with The Breeze radio station, and running for two weeks until Valentine’s Day on 14^th February, you will be given the opportunity to personalise a padlock with a tribute to your loved one and attach it to the Festival Place heart. By taking a picture of your padlock and sharing on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram with the #lockyourlove hashtag, you will also have the chance to win Big Brand prizes from Festival Place retailers including Nando’s, Giraffe, Wagamama, Build-a-Bear, Thorntons and The Perfume Shop. I headed down there last Saturday to take part and personalise my very own cute pink padlock.

Two local artists, Helen Dyne and Louise Hight, who met recently through All Our Own Crafts, a pop-up shop in Festival Place promoting local crafters, have lovingly created the heart sculpture. As well as personalising your own padlock and entering the competition, you will also be encouraged to share the love this Valentine’s Day by donating to Festival Place’s chosen local charity, the Ark Cancer Centre, when you receive your padlock in the centre.

As I mentioned, last Saturday I headed down to Festival Place for the launch, and took rather a lot of photos, which I thought I would share with you!

Will you be popping down to Festival Place to Lock Your Love?

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Sock it to Eating Disorders

Eating Disorders Awareness Week is coming up, and I've decided I would like to do as much as I can to raise money for Beat, a very worthwhile charity that supports people of all ages through their eating disorder journey. So, I've decided to set up a JustGiving page here and start a social media campaign to get awareness spread and lots of vital funds raised.

Photo found on Google

All you have to do is take a photo of yourself wearing your funkiest socks, upload the photo to social media using the hashtag #jensocksittoeatingdisorders and donate an amount of your choosing to Beat using my JustGiving link.
Let's see how far we can get this spread and how many funky sock photos we can get trending on social media. And most importantly, how much awareness and money we can raise for such a worthwhile cause. 
If you do take a photo of your funky socks, please leave me a little comment as it would be great to see how many people join in!

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My Happiness Project - February

I was recently given a book by a friend called The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin and after hearing about it online and then flicking through the book I was inspired to do my own Happiness Project. If you haven’t heard of the book, it is basically about a lady who was tired of feeling run down and miserable all the time, so she decided to do something about it. She started off on a project that would span an entire year. Every month was assigned a theme, and within these themes she came up with a selection of goals to help her reach the happiness theme of that particular month. It’s a really inspiring and thought-provoking book, so I would really recommend giving it a read if you ever get the chance.

So, I decided that I am also fed up of feeling sad all the time. Having depression makes life incredibly difficult and, whilst I know I can’t cure myself, I can be more proactive in my choices, which in turn could lead to an improved state of mind. Conducting my own Happiness Project seemed like the perfect thing to start, what with it being a new year and all that, so I started thinking about how I could do one for myself. I have decided to use the same monthly themes that are talked about in the book, because I feel I am able to come up with relevant goals for each of them, which are personal to me. Obviously no two happiness projects will be the same, because we all have individual challenges that cause us unhappiness and different things that make us feel happy. But I felt I could relate the themes to my own life and come up with a range of goals that cover all aspects of my life.

I thought I would make a series of posts, over the next year, so that you can experience my Happiness Project with me, and perhaps even join me and do a project of your own. I will do a post at the beginning of each month, detailing the monthly theme and the goals I am aiming towards, and then at the end of the month I will do a brief wrap-up about how I have got on over the last month and reflect on how the project is going.

So we are now in February, and the theme for this month is to ‘Remember Love.’ My goals this month are as follows:

Send a random text to a friend who is struggling at least once a week

I tend to text my friends quite regularly anyway, but I’m definitely one of those people who is better at replying to texts than I am at initiating contact. I do try, but there is always room for improvement. I know how much I love getting a little random text from someone, especially when I’m having a hard time, as just knowing someone is thinking of me can make things seem that little bit brighter. I’m hoping this goal won’t be too difficult – if I stick to just sending one text a week, it will probably only amount to about five minutes out of my whole month, so really not something that is going to take up loads of extra time. I would obviously like to try and send more than one text a week, but one a week is my absolute minimum requirement. Hopefully I can brighten a few people’s days over the next month and beyond.

Do an RAOK at least once a month

Now, if you’ve never heard of an RAOK before, let me first tell you what one is. It stands for Random Act of Kindness, and basically does what it says on the tin. It is any act of kindness, no matter how big or small, that is done completely randomly, with no hidden agenda, for the sole purpose of making someone else smile or making their day that little bit better. These acts of kindness could be anything from sending a text or letter, to giving someone a small gift, or even just helping to carry someone’s shopping. I’ve already got an idea for my main RAOK this month, but I will tell you more about it in the wrap-up as I’d like it to be a surprise for the recipient.

Every week write down two things I like about myself

This is definitely going to be the most difficult task this month by far. Like most people, I’m terrible at pointing out my good qualities and would much rather say something bad about myself or find fault with something I’ve done. I don’t know whether it’s a bit of self-preservation or something, but I’ve never liked to big myself up. Well, that needs to change this month, because as well as remembering to love other people, I need to remember to love myself. I’ve been given a really cute notebook by a friend, and have decided that I will use that to write down my two things a week. The idea is that I should carry this on beyond February, so hopefully I will develop a whole notebook full of my positive qualities and attributes. Hopefully it will be a good thing to have to read when I’m having a down day or just need a bit of a boost.

So there we have it. Three different goals to work on this month, and I think that hopefully they are much more achievable than my January goals. I’m still planning to work on my January goals, as the idea is that you are meant to carry your goals forward so at the end of the year you are practising everything you set out to do. I’ve joined Slimming World, so I’m hoping that will help improve my diet, and I’ve got plans to go and see Big Hero 6 and The Theory of Everything at the cinema, so I will more than meet my one film a month quota! I’m really enjoying taking part in this project and would love to hear if you’ve set yourself any goals this month. If you would like to join me in a Happiness Project and happen to take any photos as part of it, please use #JensHappyProject so I can check out what you’ve all been up to!

Have you read The Happiness Project? Do you have any resolutions you’ve made for this month?

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