Slimming World Secrets

I’m going to be in Slimming World Magazine!

So, the good people at the Sparkly Castle want to feature my story in Slimming World Magazine. What an absolute honour!

The wheels are in motion, and my words and pictures should be in the March/April issue, out next spring. Watch this space!

My week

• Average Syns per day: 6.5
• Average Speed foods per day: 9.4
• SP days: 4
• Body Magic days: 5
• Result: -2½lbs
• Total loss: -5st 6½lbs (new PB)

But, first of all, my week. Today is my 48th birthday, and I tried SO hard this week to get a good loss. My aim was to lose 3lbs, which would have got me to my new Target (5st 7lbs loss) – the best birthday present ever.

So, I was angelic. I kept my Syns down to a tiny average of 6.5 per day – the lowest since late March, when I wasn’t drinking alcohol – upped my Speed food a little and did plenty of Body Magic and SP days.

In the event, I didn’t quite make it. I lost 2½lbs, which, despite getting my weight down to an all-time PB low, leaves me ½lb off my Target.

Hopefully that should keep me on track during my birthday week – unlike similar birthday weeks in previous years, which have been “messy”, to say the least.

So, I’ll have a few beers with my pals tonight – and then get right back “on it” for the rest of the week. Wish me luck!

Slimming World Magazine wants to run my story

So, to this week’s main event: I’ve heard back from Slimming World Magazine, and the staff there want to run my story. Squee!

I’ve written before about winning Woman of the Year soon after hitting my original Target, and my consultant Tracy wanting to tell my story to head office.

This she did, and then we waited to hear from Team: Sparkly Castle. As the days went by, I hadn’t heard anything, so I just assumed they’d decided not to run anything.

Then I got an Instagram message from the magazine’s deputy editor to ask me if I’d received her email. And I hadn’t – my email provider had probably filtered it out. It has form for this.

Anyway, she resent it to another email account and, this time, it arrived. Here’s an extract from her email:

Slimming World Magazine cover girl?

So, first things first. I’m not gonna be the cover girl. Ha! There will be no day trip to London with a makeover and glamorous photoshoot at a top fashion house. Daaaaamn!

But they love my story and want to do something on me. There will be a bit on my Slimming World and transgender journeys, winning Man of the Year and then going on to win Woman of the Year (twice)!

There will be some photos of me, plus a panel with some of my top Slimming World tips, and then three recipes.

Each of these recipes will be made up by the chefs at the Sparkly Castle and then the dishes photographed to go with the feature.

As for what culinary wonders they will be, you’re gonna have to wait and see!

All about the food and drink

Part of the reason they wanted to do more of a food-based feature was because, for quite a few years, I ran my own award-winning food and drink magazine.

I’ve been an avid reader of their magazine since I joined Slimming World back in 2014, so to be invited to share my story and some of my recipes and tips really is a dream come true.

Whereas my magazine had a circulation of 10,000, Slimming World Magazine‘s is in the hundreds of thousands. Pre-pandemic, it was well over half a million.

Hopefully being featured in its glossy pages – and the digital version – will raise the profile of this blog, too. They’ve agreed to include the web address, slimmingworldsecrets.com.

One of the reasons I launched this website was because I missed writing about food and drink – and I had an itch to scratch.

This lets me do that without the enormous printing costs, although the focus is on Slimming World, and not food and drink in my local county.

Growth for the group

Group this week was as fab as ever. Numbers are really starting to build now as society begins to return to some sort of “new normal” and people return to group.

And I’m getting to know some of the other members, too. We get one or two from my previous group, but the rest are people I didn’t know before. They seem a lovely bunch.

There was much chatter about the new peanut butter Hi-Fi bars – and the fact that fresh pasta is now Syn-free. Hooray! I can’t remember the last time I bought fresh pasta.

Oh, and I won the raffle – AGAIN! Another fantastic prize from Tracy, including three different kinds of stock, a stewpack, red lentils and pearl barley.

I shall have fun this week putting that little lot to good use, along with one of my birthday presents: a double pie-maker!

Yep, you read it right. Because low-Syn pies (using WW wraps instead of pastry) are now quite the thing on Instagram. Click here to get your own. I can’t wait to give it a go, and shall report back next week.