Slimming World

I love my job as a support worker - I work permanent nightshift in a residential unit for adults with disabilities. Some of the people I work with live here permanently but some only come in for respite.

 It's one of those wonderfully rewarding but stressful jobs that come along every so often giving you just the right amount of job satisfaction that the bad days don't make you tear your hair out and quit spontaneously. 

 The only issue I have with it is how hard it is to stick to a diet! Diets usually consist of calorie counting, and when you're awake 22 out of 24 hours for work how do you work that? Sticking to 1300 calories per day isn't easy because when you eat most of those calories during the day by the time break time comes on nightshift you're starving. And a salad just doesn't cut it!

 During my time on nightshift I've had a huge variation of meals... Macaroni or pizza alternate nights. Because that's my two favourite dinners! It's also why I'm slightly chunkier than I should be. 

 My pizzas are just pizza. I microwave them, eat them and then feel sad because I've got none left. 

 Macaroni has always been different. I've had macaroni on a plate, with ketchup, on toast, on a roll and at one point I had it on top of my pizza!

 Since joining slimming world 6 weeks ago I've made a huge effort to change my eating habits. I've not done very good but I'm trying and that's the main thing. I've swapped a lot of eating out for eating in - I used to be at McDonald's or kfc on an almost daily basis but that's all different now. Slimming world has been wonderful for me because I've got a new sense of importance because I've been cooking for myself more often that not, although I seem to burn a lot of my food and my grandparents keep joking I've missed a trick and should be working in a crematorium. 

I have such a horrible fear of food poisoning which leads me to have a terribly limited diet. I won't eat any meat other than chicken (and chicken has to be cut into tiny little pieces and even then it's rare), I like my food to be slightly burnt as I worry when it's soggy, and I like to be totally sure that it's cooked. I'm a nightmare for anyone other than me to feed which is why slimming world has been so wonderful for me. I've discovered dishes I didn't know I'd like and using quorn products has led me to experiment a bit more without the panic of becoming ill. Although judging by my cooking I'm pretty surprised that I haven't yet been ill!

 To date I've lost 5lbs, which I'm not overly happy with but its better a loss than a gain! I've been terrible this past fortnight due to my birthday and eating out so many nights but I've been back on track on plan the past couple of days. 

 Dinner last night on nightshift was homemade soup, pasta and a salad. Followed by a yoghurt and a Crunchie. My Crunchie didn't go to plan as the chocolate was all discoloured and horrible looking, and there was a funny smell. Someone's looking out for me and is determined I'll have a loss this week!

Shame it's not me, I'm going home for another Crunchie 😬