Another Challenge - 7lbs to lose for my holiday - Chicken Fajitas

So you may recall I managed to get my 3 stone award a few weeks ago, taking my overall loss to 3 1/2 stones. However, I'm back on that plateau, a wedding, a birthday party, a family meal out and a week in Portugal all adds up to me staying static on the scales. Not a bad place to be as I'm not where I was, but I'm also not where I want to be, a few more stone to shift first.
So it's time for a challenge. I've got 3 weeks before my next holiday and I would like to kiss goodbye to another half a stone by then.
In group this week I made a commitment to try and lose 4lbs and to do that I am going to try an SP week. I also made a commitment to my Wii Fit today to lose half a stone by my holiday. To achieve this, this week I can only eat speed foods and protein foods (half and half), no free foods, but I can have an extra healthy B.
I've done SP before and quite enjoyed it, not found it difficult, some people miss their carbs, but I make up for that by making use of my additional healthy B.
The first thing to do was make a plan. I don't need to plan my breakfasts and lunches, as I love eggs I find breakfasts easy and lunches can be a salad when there are no leftovers.
To plan I chose a cookbook out of the many on my shelves "Save Money Good Food - Family Feasts for a Fiver" and scanned it for recipes which would fit the SP principals and that I could easily adapt to fit a Slimming World way of cooking.


Day One

Breakfast and Lunch

Breakfast started at group. I put on half a pound this week, which after 5 days in Portugal was a blooming miracle. I have to be in group for 8am and don't leave til around 9:30, so I took a hi fi bar, an apple and a clementine to keep me going all washed down with a bottle of water.

Armed with a shopping list to cater for the weeks plan, I headed off to the shops after group. First stop was the butchers, a new one for me, but this butchers wife has started to make slimming world friendly scotch eggs, so I thought I would drop in to try one. They were still warm and so delicious. I ate one in the car before driving off, they are super savoury and juicy and the sausage meat had a chunky texture. I love scotch eggs and at half a syn, these were well worth it.

I did the shop and stuck to my list religiously. Unfortunately, the shopping still cost a blooming fortune!

Back at home I unpacked it all and then thought about lunch. A bag of Ringos (3.5 syns), some left over chicken and another clementine.

Dinner

Dinner was based on the Pulled Chicken Fajitas recipe from the book (page 85).

I skinned and removed the visible fat from 800 gms of bone in chicken thighs. In a food processor I whizzed up a chopped red onion, the zest and juice of an orange, a couple of large garlic cloves, a teaspoon of mixed herbs, some smoked paprika and half a tin of tomatoes and then used this to marinade the chicken for about an hour. If I made it again I would fry the onion and garlic before processing and I would use the whole tin of tomatoes, as even after an hour and a half in the oven the onion still had that raw taste and the marinade got quite dry so the extra tomatoes would have helped. After the hours marinade, I cooked the chicken thighs at 160C (fan) for 90 minutes, after which time I used 2 forks to pull the meat from the bones and shred it.
To accompany it I made some refried beans, by frying a chopped onion in fry light (you can use oil) with a handful of coriander stalks, I added a tin of kidney beans, 1/2 pint of vegetable stock and 250 gms of chopped fresh tomatoes. I simmered them until the liquid became creamy and the beans were soft and then mashed them a little. I also made a coleslaw with shredded white cabbage and grated carrot mixed with 1 tbsp Helman's Light (synned)and 4 tbsp plain quark.
I used plain quark as a sour cream substitute and grated some low fat cheddar.
I serves plates of salad along with all the separate elements in bowls on the table, also 2 wraps each, so we could build our own fajitas with the chicken, beans, quarks and cheese.
I was worried that it wouldn't be filling enough but we were stuffed at the end and with the two changes I mentioned earlier - cooking the onions and using the whole tin of tomatoes, I can see this becoming a regular choice for us.
You could easily add some extra spice into the chicken mix with some dried chillies to give some punch and it would be nice to stir some chopped coriander into the refried beans for a bit of extra flavour.

In summary

All food was either speed or protein or syns
Healthy A was 40g low fat cheddar
Healthy B's were 2 x Fitzgerald's seeded wraps
Ended the day on 12 syns
9 different fruit and vegetables
Drinks today were black coffee and water


Footnote: I am not an official spokesperson for Slimming World. Any syn values should be checked as they are often subject to change.