Details

I was approached a little while back, and asked if I wanted to try out a dietary supplement, by the name of Superfruit Slim. I did a little research into the supplement, and its ingredients, and decided to try it out after seeing how much guarana seed and Green Tea extract was in it. My psychiatrist suggested, last summer, that I increase my non-existent green tea intake. It’s supposed to be very good for general health, and weight loss in particular. He even said that if it’s green tea extract, it does exactly the same as drinking your green tea.

(Which is excellent news, as I’m a coffee fan, and this comic explains perfectly how I feel about tea.)

So yes. I decided to give it a go.

Packaging/Product

I received my package last week. I was very impressed with the packaging itself. There were no glaring marks on the outside stating that it was from any online herbal remedy stores, or anything of that nature. (Trust me, I’ve had it in the past. I was pretty sure that one of my packages from a supplement store was going to be confiscated by Royal Mail for containing illegal drugs, it looked so bad.)

I don’t know why I fuzzed my name and address out. It’s on my who.is, anyway. But moving swiftly on. You can see the actual bottle at the top of the page. Shows acai berries, raspberries, and mangoes on the label. Gives the supplement facts on the right-hand side in an easy-to-read black-on-white box, just like the nutritional information on food.

The bottle has your typical “sealed for your protection” seal inside the lid.

And inside that, the little cotton wool ball to stop the pills bouncing around or whatever it’s for (I honestly have no idea!) and a little silica gel pouch. The actual pill shown for illustrative purposes: approx 0.875″ in length.

Impressions So Far

I’ve been taking the pills as directed (one in the morning, one in the afternoon) for just over a week now, and I can honestly say I’ve found a marked improvement in my energy levels.

I don’t feel anywhere near as tired in the middle of the day.

Unfortunately I can’t comment much on the claims of it decreasing appetite, as I’ve had pretty much none for the past two months anyway. But I’m definitely enjoying the fact that I don’t want to go and lie down in the middle of the day right now. I can get through almost a normal day’s hours without wanting to curl up next to the cat.

Which is a marked improvement, let me tell you.

Alas, it doesn’t do anything for depression, manic swings, or anxiety, so I’m still having to cope with them, but I’m at least getting a little more work done around the house. I believe I tweeted today about doing my dishes before midnight…?

My god, I washed my dishes before midnight. What is this madness?!

— Tracy W (@iknowitsforreal) May 17, 2013

Which says a lot in and of itself.

I’ll do a full, proper review of how I feel they’ve helped, if at all, once the full container has been used at the end of the month (not the end of May; probably sometime closer to June 5 or 6). But so far, I’m feeling positive.

Availability

If you want to check out Superfruit Slim for yourself, you can do so here.

It costs £97 for 3 bottles + 1 free (120 days’ supply – best value); £59.95 for two bottles (60 days’ supply); or £34.95 for 1 bottle (30 days’ supply), and they all have free shipping to UK addresses and comes with a no quibble, 30-day money back guarantee.

In the interests of full disclosure: I have received no monetary compensation for this, or any future review for Superfruit Slim. I received only the One Month trial package. However, if you use the links provided above and should purchase anything from the Superfruit Slim website, I will receive an affiliate’s payment.

-2.2lb -10.8lbs since Jan 1 2013 378.8lbs

Sorry for the day-late weigh-in: completely managed to forget to weigh-in yesterday, despite remembering that it was cheapie Tuesday for the cinema (didn’t eat anything! And only had a 500ml diet soda. Go me!). How my brain works, I’ll never know.

Not a bad wee week, actually; I’m quite happy with it. My Fasting Days have been all over the place – they’re supposed to be Wednesdays and Sundays, but will probably have to change to Thursdays and Sundays or Mondays, because of how my Dad’s job is. I don’t wanna be on a Fasting day when I’m going up to my parents’ place.

My parents sometimes have pudding.

I really like pudding.

Overall, though, yeah.

I’m fine with that. Happy it’s coming down again, and obviously you saw in the progress photo that I’m actually shrinking – not quite sure how!, but I am – as well, which is good news.

So all’s going well right now.

I just need to remember to actually weigh in on my weigh-in days, and that’ll be even better.

I was going to make a post about how I felt like I’ve been swelling up like a balloon because of the hot weather, but the past two days, any hot weather we’ve had has kind of dissipated, and my ankles/feet/legs have gone back to being their normal mutant selves, and I can flex my feet to almost normal angles again.

So I’ll talk about the other thing!

I was at my parents’ place today (Dad’s new job means alternate weekend days off: Saturday one week; Sunday the next. It’s gonna be a pain for me getting to talk to my boy, but *SIGH*. We’ll work something out, even if it’s me staying up until the wee hours of the morning.) so I remembered to get my new progress photos.

(I don’t know why I decided to do it every four months this year. It SHOULD have been every three months, but in my head, I was saying every four months. Go figure.)

Obviously, if you’ve been reading, y’all will know that I’ve been yo-yoing like crazy this year, which is actually nothing unusual lately, annoyingly. I wish it was unusual, but alas. It will be.

Anyway. Got home, got the photos into Photoshop to take a look at them – I always compare them before I make them smaller for the Progress page (note: not actually updated yet; need to take my measurements still).

This is January. I’m massive. I hate being massive. I’m luckily still nowhere near at my massive-est, but I’m still only 60/70lbs away.

This is today. The black lines are from where the same places are in January’s photo. I’m not sucking it in, or holding my stomach up or whatever. I’m letting it all out. I know it’s a different pair of underpants, but neither of them really have any amount of hold – the pair I’m wearing today are actually notorious for falling down!

So I’m really, really interested to see how my measurements turn out tomorrow. I’m actually almost tempted to add a measurement about the drop of my stomach – kept private, because there really are some things I don’t wanna share with y’all, contrary to popular belief – just so that I can mesure whether or not it’s getting smaller.

Because my hips never really get any smaller (LIAR!). But the overhang (I think someone said panniculus?) is the bit that really annoys me. I think things will start to get easier again, once it starts to get smaller again.

-0.1lb -8.6lbs since Jan 1 2013 381lbs

Seriously, 0.1lbs?

*laughing*

Oy.

If I didn’t laugh, I think I’d take a straight razor to my throat, if I owned one. Oyyyyyyyyy.

Well. It’s only my first week of intermittent fasting. Probably I should be eating more on the days when I’m not fasting? It was the whole, “Ugh, I don’t feel like cooking,” thing again, and I ended up cooking maybe two meals (with enough in one of them for leftovers for another day) in the entire week.

I mean, I’ve been eating when my meal alarms go off. Just. Most of the time, I’m not hungry enough for a whole meal. I’m not kidding when I say a sandwich – 40g of cheese, a tablespoon of mayonnaise and a tablespoon of Branston pickle – is sometimes too much for me lately. I end up feeling almost too-full after eating it.

(I think it’s the carbs? But I don’t want to cut out carbs, because that’s stupid. Would going Paleo and intermittent fasting be stupid?)

Ugh, I don’t know.

We’ll see how this goes for a few more weeks, anyway.

I know today’s a complete bust, at any rate. I ate about 3,000 calories because I ate two of my three meals out of the house, and ate a couple of sweet things I shouldn’t have.

(It was my Dad’s Aunt’s cremation, down in my hometown. Beautiful day for a sad occasion for my Granny and the family. [Whole complicated backstory I'm not gonna get into here.] Had to leave so early – 8.15am – that I got up early, forgot to eat breakfast because I had to get up, feed the cat, change the litter, do my hair, brush my teeth, wash my face, get dressed, morning routine, etc, makeup, medication, make sure I had medication with me for the day… forgot to actually have something to eat.)

Anyway, yeah. I know I’m starting to sound like a broken record with my food. Oops.

I’ll try to do better. *SIGH*

It’s been a long, long time now since I last even thought about my old BodyMedia FIT, because I had to get rid of it after my subscription ran out last summer (couldn’t afford the yearly rate after the first year, BOO :().

But I found myself missing it today.

Today was one of those days that I felt like I was weirdly inactive, but when I looked back on it, I probably burned a wee bit more calories than I think I did, and I’d really have liked to have known how many I did, even if it’s only a vague estimate, using a piece of equipment like that.

When I got up, I took my tablets, and I put my washing in the machine. Ate my breakfast and quickly washed up the breakfast dishes (coffee cup and cereal bowl. I only have four cereal bowls, so I have to wash them up as I use them, or risk them sitting in the sink forever, and eventually going, “Oh god, where are my bowls?!” when I need them for something.).

Took all of my Kingdom Hearts figurines down from the shelf they were on (seventeen figurines in all) and took the shelf off the wall. Filled the holes with Polyfilla. Moved the shelf to a more stable place on the wall. (My walls are all, for some god-unknown reason – thanks, South Lanarkshire Council, for nothing – artexed.) Dusted all the figurines, which took an hour and a half, because they’re (small) doll-sized, some of them, and all of them have wee nooks and crannies for dust to get into.

Put them all back on the shelf.

Hoovered the house, because why not hoover the whole house, since I was hoovering the living room to get rid of the wall dust/Pollyfilla dust?

Hung out the washing.

Chased the cat around the house a while, trying to pick her up and pet her.

Had to walk over to the shops to get a pack of Ibuprofen for my splitting headache.

And I thought I’d been sitting on my ass all day, trying to work on my little sister and brother-in-law’s anniversary card, listening to music I probably started listening to when I was 20.

So yeah.

I miss my BodyMedia FIT.

I can’t estimate that kind of calorie burn. I wish I could. Even if it’s only 100 calories or so, it’s something.

-0.1lb -8.5lbs since Jan 1 2013 381.1lbs

Wow. I managed to lose that 0.1lbs again! How perfect is that?

I had my period last week. For about 4 days. My cat also went into heat last week. Our cycles have aligned. :| The joys.

But anyway, I probably didn’t actually gain/lose anything over the past two weeks because of it being That Time Of The Month, so I’ll just chalk these two up to being what they are: ±0lbs. And I’m fine with that!

But at this time of the year – tomorrow’s May Day, for crying out loud! My Mum and Dad, and little sister and brother-in-law’s anniversaries are coming up in the next few days!, MY GOD I NEED TO MAKE THEIR CARDS – I should be down at least 20lbs (4lbs for each month, minimum). And I’m not. I’m glad I’m down anything, don’t get me wrong, but ugh.

I need to step things up.

And I know I keep saying that and not doing anything, or doing something for a week and then getting disheartened because OH JESUS CHRIST OW FUCK IT HURTS LIKE HELL, but I mean it. I’ve marked two days per week on my calendar that are going to be my “fast days”. I’m going to mark two other days on my calendar when I’m going to do exercise (other than my daily walk) – one day Yoga, one day my dance mat.

I’m sick of being stuck like this.

More importantly, I need to lose weight so that if I get this referral for weight loss surgery (and I’m still working on that other post re: weight loss surgery; I haven’t forgotten about it!) that I’ll hopefully be able to get onto the list ASAP; get my pre-surgery therapy talk and get the surgery ASAP, too.

If I decide it’s right for me. If the 5:2 thing and the exercise doesn’t work.

I’m also currently reading The Skinny Rules by Bob Harper (I splurged with my Amazon vouchers and bought the Kindle Version… and then had to convert it for my Kobo. Oy. Need a Kindle Paperwhite, but my Kobo’s fine right now.) and will see how those rules work out. I read the list of the rules from a link Bob posted on his Twitter, and I read the reviews, and it was overwhelmingly positive. So I’ll see how it goes.

(Also recently purchased [with Amazon vouchers. I feel the need to point this out, since I've been complaining that I'm short of money recently: most, if not all, of my frivolities purchased on Amazon are purchased with Amazon vouchers I get via various survey sites.]: Naturally Thin and The Skinnygirl Dish. I bought The SkinnyGirl Dish first, because I’m a sucker for new cookbooks, and I love the fact that I can buy books on Amazon from sellers, for, like, £2.81. Then, when it got here, I was like, “Oh, there’s a book that goes with it.” And bought that, too.)

I’ll probably do reviews of the above three some time in the future, once I’ve finished reading them all, obviously.

But yeah. I know it’s more than a quarter of the way through the year now, but I’m finally getting my head together?

Better late than never, isn’t that what they say?

For a change of pace, I’m not going to be complaining about feeling crappy! (Although I could. Still got an abundance of craptastic feelings going on right now.)

I was really blessed this past week to have two final amounts applied to my webhosting bill by a reader, and by two friends, that cleared my bill for the next year, so I can keep FATGIRLslim.org alive. I have no words for how grateful I am, I really don’t.

My Dad started a new job, which screws up the schedule we’ve had going since February, when he started his last job, but oh well. This one’s a wee bit better paid and he gets to see my Mum at least one day at the weekend, which is an improvement.

I put my application in for student funding – I don’t know how long it’ll be before I get a yea or a nay back on that one, but it’s in, and all I can do now is wait.

All in all, after the stress of the past few weeks, this week has been relatively… quiet. Stress-free.

(Sort of.)

It’s been nice to actually sit down and play my video game in my down time instead of sitting panicking and not wanting to do anything.

So hopefully it’s a sign that things are picking up. Maybe the bad luck’s gone on holiday.

I’m hoping, in the next week or two, that the weather’s going to improve enough that I can finally finish painting my living room and bedroom, too. And then, when I get any spare money (like never, haha!) I’ll be able to get some paint to do the bathroom.

But I really need good weather so that I can open my windows and not choke on fumes. And not freeze to death while I’ve got the windows open. Last summer, I was painting when it was that really, really hot weather, and that was just too much. Anywhere between 10-15°C would be lovely and tolerable.

Of course, it means eating painkillers like sweets so I can do the middle and top parts, but hey. Otherwise it won’t get done at all. The joys of having my own place.

And let’s not talk about the problem with cat hair potentially getting everywhere, okay? *laughing*

+0.1lb -8.4lbs since Jan 1 2013 381.2lbs

I gained an entire 0.1lbs this week.

I’ll admit one thing, though: my walks haven’t been as long as they should, or could, have been. I’ve mostly just been doing my short walk around the block instead of anything longer. So any calories I have burned has probably been a minuscule amount, hardly worth noticing.

I need to lose enough weight so that I can ride my bike. Then I can start burning real calories again.

(Would that I could afford a spin bike for my house. I’d find a way to rig up my iMac onto the handbars, and I’d never be off it, except to eat, and pee, and go visit my parents, and see Dr. David when I needed to. And maybe to sleep. Until I learned how to sleep while still pedalling.)

In other news, I’m all aches and pains. This is, perhaps, not surprising. I managed to fall out of my big sister’s car last week (not 15-21, but the Friday before that? I think?) and landed hard on my elbow. Now I’m getting shooting pains up my left arm to accompany the shooting pains up my right arm’s muscle and the random numbness in my right arm (probable trapped nerve in my neck) and the pains in both my hips and my spine (probable arthritis) and the nagging feeling of everything is shit right now.

I really want to get on a bike right now. I miss being on a bike. I miss just being out in the good weather, too. You know last summer, when I was getting a lot fitter than I’d been in a long while, and I was walking up and down to my classes, and I was walking home, cooling down, and the sun was just setting so it was in my eyes?

I miss that. There was literally a je ne sais quoi about it. I couldn’t describe it if I tried. And I miss it. Same goes for being in Spin class. Even just pedalling, man. Being on the bike and pedalling and the feel of the sweat running down the back of my ears (or into my eyes; disgusting! But I miss it.) and having to mop my face, and.

I know that I could still be at the classes if I had the money. I could get the bus and struggle the quarter mile to The Water Palace, or I could get the bus to Blantyre, and it’s just across the road. And I’ve made it through class at this size before, so I could do it again.

But it’s money.

Same as I’m currently freaking out about my webhosting bill. (Hey, look at that non sequitur! *COUGH*) It’s due up tomorrow, and I still owe $21. I’ve got some PayPal money (£5, still not enough, ugh) coming my way from one of my survey sites, but I’ve no idea when I’m going to get it. And everyone’s been so good, so I’m feeling like a shithead for asking.

Please donate to my webhosting costs. Minimum $10 donation ($9.20 after fees are taken off). Again, I don’t know if I can explain just how much FATGIRLslim means to me.

Or, maybe I can just direct you to the archives, and say: I’ve been blogging here since 2004 (with a few gaps where I went to college) and I’d probably have ballooned and ballooned and ballooned without it.

It keeps me sane and it keeps me accountable.

And I’ve only asked for help these past two years. :/ Hopefully I won’t NEED to ask for help next year, fingers crossed.

So I say again: I feel like a shithead for asking, but I do need your help. Please.

Details

Weight Watchers Breakfast Biscuits Pack Shot

Everyone knows that breakfast is the most important meal of the day: it sets you up, and if you don’t do it right, you can find yourself struggling for the rest of the day.

Weight Watchers^® have released two delicious flavours of breakfast biscuits to help set you up from the get-go: Milk & Honey and Fruit & Seeds, with only 4 ProPoints^® per two biscuits, and  are a great source of fibre and vitamins (please see individual pack images for details!) and contain no artificial colours, flavours or preservatives.

Made using wheat and oats and a combination of B vitamins and iron, the new Weight Watchers^® biscuits have been designed especially for breakfasts – for get-goers, or for sit-downers!

They come in a 216g pack (6x36g) and come in individually wrapped packets of two, making portion-control super-easy.

Weight Watchers Breakfast Biscuit Individual Packaging Shot

Impressions: Milk & Honey

The Milk & Honey flavour was the first I tried, grabbed just after it arrived as I was flying out of the house with no breakfast in my stomach on my way to a therapy appointment on Thursday.  To be honest, I was starving, and I wasn’t expecting two biscuits to be able to stem the hunger; I was expecting to have to stop in at the hospital’s shop and buy something when I was done.

Now, at a 36g portion, it’s a larger portion than is recommended for breakfast cereals (obviously not including the milk).  It doesn’t look like it, but it is.

And good golly, it actually kept me filled it.  I ate it at about lunchtime, and didn’t get hungry until after 3pm – and considering the fact that I usually eat anywhere between 60g-80g of cereal for my breakfast, that’s a massive feat.

And the flavour was wonderful. The instant I put it in my mouth, I could taste the honey and the oats, and I’m not sure about anyone else, but honey has a kind of taste-memory for me; it reminds me of hot milk and honey drinks, curled under the covers on cold nights reading books.  The flavours mesh really well together.

The biscuit has a really good crunch to it, and it’s obviously milled well, because I didn’t have to pick a lot of oats out of my teeth, pardon the TMI.

They might be a little too sweet for some people first thing in the morning, though. But I could live on sweet breakfast cereals alone; definitely not a problem for me!

Overall: ★★★★☆

Milk & Honey Nutritional Advice

Weight Watchers^® Breakfast Biscuits Milk & Honey Nutritional Information – click for larger

Impressions: Fruit & Seeds

The Fruit & Seeds flavour was immediately overwhelmingly fruity, in a good way.  I thought it was strawberries until I noticed the distinct lack of strawberries on the packet!  There are, however, cranberries, which are awesome when they’re not eaten straight.  *laughs*

They don’t taste like cranberry sauce, which is a good, good, plus.  They smell like summertime.  They taste like summertime, which is really odd, because I associate cranberries with autumn! They’re absolutely delicious.

But they have one small drawback: the seeds.  Where the Milk & Honey didn’t leave me picking anything out of my teeth that I couldn’t get with my tongue, the Fruit & Seeds had, unsurprisingly, seeds!  ARGH!  Great for flavour.  Annoying when one of them gets stuck in between your canine and incisor and you don’t notice until it’s too late… :)

It’s a small drawback, though, and certainly one that the delicious, fruity flavour helps it to overcome.  I only ever found one or two seeds while I was eating – and that third in my teeth – and that’s through two packets of two biscuits.  There are probably more, but they’re not noticeable is what I’m trying to say.  That’s the important part!

So, overall, also: ★★★★☆

Fruit & Seeds Nutritional Advice

Weight Watchers^® Breakfast Biscuits Fruit & Seeds Nutritional Information – click for larger

Overall

Weight Watchers^® Breakfast Biscuits Comparison – left: Honey & Milk; right: Fruit & Seeds. Bet you couldn’t tell that without this caption, huh? ;)

I’m really impressed with both flavours, obviously. While you can taste the flavours of the honey and the fruit, you can still, lovelily (I don’t care if that’s not a word; Chrome doesn’t say it’s not, and if it’s actually not, IT IS NOW), taste the biscuits themselves.

They have a lovely crunch, but aren’t so hard that you’re breaking your teeth on them. Just enough crunch that you feel you’re actually eating something instead of smushing it with your mouth before swallowing.

And, since they’re in 2-packs, they’re portion controlled. Put them in a large jar. Whip the lid off in the morning, and pick a pack out. The reason I say that, and the reason that I scored them both as 4-star, is because of the outer packaging: it’s not resealable-with-a-flap. It’s resealable in that way where you fold the opened flaps back into the box. (It’s also a bit of a nightmare to open. Which end are you supposed to open? I wasn’t entirely sure, to be honest.)

But I was, overall, really impressed with them. I’ve tried some of the other biscuit bars and cereals on the market, and these are, honestly, two of the best flavours I’ve tried – especially the Fruit & Seeds.
 

Availability

The new Weight Watchers Breakfast Biscuits have an RRP of £2.49 for 6 portion packs and are available in Sainsbury’s and Independent stores nationwide.

 
 
 
Popcorn PR provided me with a box each of Honey & Milk flavour and Fruit & Seeds flavour Weight Watchers^®‘ new Breakfast Biscuits in exchange for this review. I was not required to give a positive review; all opinions are my own, and I have received no monetary compensation for it.

+3.1lb -8.5lbs since Jan 1 2013 381.1lbs

I’m going to pretend my face didn’t light up that it’s weigh-in #16 on April 16 (and 16 is 4² – you know, April being the 4th month and all?). Anyway, yes. That’s how my brain works

Forgot to post yesterday, because I don’t think my brain actually kicked in until about 23:59, by which point I was getting ready to go to sleep and completely forgot about updating.

Sorry about that.

Up a little this week, which is probably due to the fact that I was actually eating three meals most days this week and not surviving on a handful of breakfast cereal and a sandwich. Hopefully, now that I’ve set my mealtime alarms, and I’m eating actual meals and stuff again, and am reaching my daily recommended intake, my metabolism won’t come to a screeching halt.

That really would be worst-case scenario.

I ordered a few things from my catalogue for the “summer” that’s supposed to be happening this year, although there’s no actual sign of it yet. All I can say is that it’s no longer freezing cold, and I’m not throwing myself into bed the second I take off my clothes at night.

I ordered two t-shirts, which were on a buy-two-get-£5-off deal – in “slouchy” style, so I thought maybe they’d be maybe a half-size too big?

No such luck. They were maybe a size too small? I didn’t take a photo, though.

I did, however, take a photo of the denim jean shorts I ordered.

On top: the denim jean shorts; size 32. On bottom: a pair of straight-leg denim jeans from Evans; size 32. I’ve been complaining for YEARS that Evans’ jeans are probably some of the smallest-made jeans I’ve ever had the misfortune to wear, although you can get the odd pair that are comfortable, depending on the elastane content in them.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a smaller “size 32″ in my life. It’s not like I ordered them from eBay and mistakenly ordered ’32″‘, as has almost happened in the past.

THESE ARE SUPPOSED TO BE A SIZE 32.

Ugh.

And I really liked the look of them, too.