It's a, It's a Syn!

If you are not familiar with the Slimming World diet then you might be wondering what Syns are. You can read Slimming World's own answer to this question here but basically they are a representation of how bad for the diet a food is; it works out at roughly 1 Syn per 20 calories but other things are taken into account such as omega-content, the benefits of which balance out the 'damage' done by the fat content. (This explains why smoked salmon is Free on a Red or Extra Easy day but smoked mackrel isn't, btw). We are encouraged to eat at least 5 Syns per day but can eat up to 15 a day, or 105 a week . Slimming World are trying to make not being able to eat things fun 'n' funky by coming up with a tenuous word ('synergy') that they can abbreviate to make our Nutella-topped Coco-Pops* sound a bit sexy and naughty rather than disgusting and pathetic. 

The system does work very well, you already have Healthy Extras which you are encouraged to eat to ensure that you get enough dairy and protein (e.g, a small amount of meat on a green/vegetarian day or a small amount of pasta on a red day when you cannot eat many pulses or much starch) and Syns let you add to this so you can have- oh, I don't know- a G&T (4 syns if using slimline tonic) of an evening or clotted cream on your strawberries (4.5 Syns per tbsp). 


It also allows you to harness the power of Neil Tennant to help you resist temptation. I find him rather effective:

*Where were you then, Neil?

Diet Coke Chicken

I had read about this recipe in various forms, not least Nigella's Ham in Cola so, being home alone for a week whilst my other half (who will be known henceforth by his Twitter username, @RalphMighty) camped in a field with children *double shudder*, I decided to give it a go. This version has the benefit of being completely Syn-Free on an Extra Easy or Red day depending on what you serve with it. I chose couscous.


I used a recipe from the excellent blog Low Syn Life because others didn't include onion and @lowsynlife's recipes have never let me down yet. I substituted soy sauce for the Worcester Sauce because I had some of one and none of the other.


I'd love to be able to  bring you a tale of revolting, burnt, stickiness but I'm afraid the preparation went without incident. The Coke reduced just as it was supposed to and the chicken was cooked through. It looked OK,

and tasted OK. Too sweet for my taste but no worse than a lot of bought sauces or Chinese takeaways that I have had.


Whilst I 'm not overwhelmed by the taste you certainly wouldn't know that it was made from diet coke. Unless of course you have a  basic grasp of chemistry and realise that what goes into many store-bought and even restaurant-cooked sauces are essentially the same ingredients that go into soft drinks. It was incredibly easy to make but now that my curiosity is appeased I don't think I will be doing it again.


Another more fun thing to do with a chicken and a beverage if you are not on a diet:

The story so far...

I've never bothered with a blog  before because, quite frankly, I didn't think that anyone would be interested in what I have to say. However, having recently have found several blogs from fellow Slimmers very supportive and useful to my efforts to survive on this diet (I say 'survive' but it's really not been that difficult!) I have decided to contribute to the junk currently cluttering up the bloggersphere. 

Clichéd though it is, everything said about 'Happy Weight Gain' is true, see 4 reasons You Gain Weight When You Meet Your Mate or any one of about a gazillion other articles on the subject. OK, so I was only a stone and a half overweight for my height but it still took me 4 years of 'outgrowing' clothes to twig. After going through denial ("I'm not fat!"), defensiveness ("So what if I'm a little overweight?") and despondency ("Oh god, I'm fat and ugly"), I eventually realised that I was spending so much time finding excuses for myself and being miserable about it that I might as well just go on a damn diet!

Several other factors contributed to my decision but I won't bore you with them. What follows will probably be mostly recipes and rants sporadically posted.

Next time... Diet Coke Chicken!

[End of first blog post]