Walkers Deep Ridged Crisps

A couple of weeks ago the lovely Sam at Walkers Crisps Twitter asked me if I'd like to try out their new crisps and tell all of you about them. Well, I wasn't going to turn him down now was I?lol

On Monday a box appeared in my doorway, I eagerly opened it and I was amazed at the size of the bags! They're quite a bit bigger than the ones I'm used to (these weigh 50g) they're more like the grab bags you get in the services. They come in 4 flavours (Flame grilled steak, Salt & malt vinegar, Mature cheddar & onion and Ready salted) and the packaging makes them look a bit special too don't you think?

These 3 flavours are the only ones available in the 50g bag but all 4 can be found in 28g and 100g sizes.

And on to the testing, well, the flavours are exactly how you would expect them to be, the Flame grilled steak is nice and meaty, the Mature cheddar & onion is very cheesy and the Salt & malt vinegar (I'm told as Dave tried these ones) is strong and tasty. All of them do have very powerful flavourings, the ridges do seem to collect a lot more flavouring than other designs of crisps but it never becomes overpowering. One good thing about them as well is that they are very filling, with some smaller packs you don't feel like you've eaten much, if anything due to the lack of contents in the bag. Well, I'm happy to say these have a really good amount of crisps in the packet, here, see for yourself

Believe me, these aren't small crisps either and they crunch really nicely, they don't turn to potato-ey mush within a couple of chews so they really are nice to munch on ...... although maybe don't take them to the cinema, you will get some dirty looks from the rustling and crunching as you eat them!lol

I guess there is one more thing I really need to put on here and that's the nutritional information as supplied on the packs:

	Flame Grilled Steak	Salt & Malt Vinegar	Mature Cheddar & Onion
Calories	258 (13%)	256 (13%)	260 (13%)
Sugar	2.2g (2%)	0.9g (1%)	1.0g (1%)
Fat	15.0g (21%)	15.3g (22%)	15.4g (22%)
Saturates	1.3g (6%)	1.2g (6%)	1.3g (7%)
Salt	0.78g (13%)	0.91g (15%)	0.81g (14%)

Ready salted (taken from the website rather than a packet) and these figures are for a 28g bag where those above are for a 50g bag

	Ready Salted
Calories	148 (7%)
Sugar	0.1 (1%)
Fat	9.0 (13%)
Saturates	0.7 (4%)
Salt	0.35 (6%)

I know some of these figures look wrong but they are what is written on each packet, I'm assuming 1.3g of saturates is borderline between 6% and 7%!lol

Also some of the figures are high but these are not supposed to be eaten with every meal but rather as part of a whole balanced diet and as such they are a very delicious and filling snack that we will enjoy occasionally.

Samsung Olympic Pins competition!

I had a really lovely surprise this week, amazingly my application to become a Samsung Mobiler was accepted YAY! After seeing Alison (Dragons&Fairydust) and Chris (Mummy of 3 Diaries) hard at work with this over the last year I have to say I'm a bit nervous but mostly excited to see what the year ahead will bring!

My first task has just arrived in my inbox and that is to let you all know about this android app and competition that Samsung have developed. From what I've seen it sounds like you really need to be either living in London or working there as you need to collect pins from different locations within the city. The app guides you to where and when you need to be in order to collect the pin and there are some great prizes on offer as you can see below

If you're having trouble reading the details from the image, the first 100 people who collect all 49 pins will receive a Samsung GALAXY S III and the grand prize (drawn at random from all those who collect them all) is listed as a "Global Travel Ticket to exciting destinations"

Now all that sounds like fun doesn't it, so you'll want to know where you can get your hands on the app itself, well you can go here and find the link to install and more information about it as well! I think the only thing left for me to say here is

Easy Home Bake - Oaty Cookie Dough

As I'm a BzzAgent I sometimes get products to test and on this occasion it is a very yummy one!

I joined up to a campaign to test the new Tesco Easy Home Bake range. I was sent some vouchers to gain some free products and more to share around. I exchanged one of my vouchers for the Oaty Cookie Dough and have just made and tasted them.

Calling the range 'Easy home Bake' doesn't even come close, all I had to do was warm the dough in my microwave for 30 secs and then spoon out 12 balls, place in the oven and wait for them to cook. Totally simple and I think anyone could cope with this to achieve results which look and smell like completely homemade. The real beauty of these for me was that the cook can decide which style of cookies to bake, I love those big chewy bakery style ones so I made mine like that but if you prefer smaller, crispy ones then you can make those instead, you could even press in fruit or chocolate to make different flavours and personalise them more. This is how mine came out:

As you can see I ended up with a variety of sizes, mostly because I was stingy with how much I used for each of the first 6 I made but there is a generous quantity of dough included so you can make them larger which is what I did with the second tray of 6.

The taste is slightly sweet for me but Dave enjoyed them and I have to say there was not much of an oaty taste to them, more a gentle hint but they are very nice. Mine came out of the oven and cooled just how I liked them in 12 mins, that is crisp round the edge with a chewy centre.

Over all I have to say I am impressed with these and am looking forward to trying more of the range.

Some oddness!

Over the Christmas period I received quite a few packages most days and achieved quite a collection of rubber bands. It made me wonder how many I get in a year so starting on the 1st of January this year I collected each band that came with the post (and only Royal Mail deliveries counted in this) and made them into a ball. Here's a picture of where my pet band ball is up to now along with a coin to help you see how he's doing. Hopefully he'll continue to grow this year and I'll share with you all how he grows ...... I just need to think up a name for him now!

Well, I did say there was some oddness here!lol

Now and to come!

Well, as expected I put on a little over my Birthday and Easter but not much and my fitness is getting better and better all the time. My skirt size has gone down again which I'm really happy about especially as we have an event to go to this weekend and I hope that I might give some people a surprise, well, maybe anyway. It's amazing how much of a difference it makes wearing the right sizes compared to my old comfy (very baggy) clothes, still there's a long way to go before I'll be clothes shopping, I have a good stock that I didn't ditch as I put on the weight, they'll do till I'm happy with myself

As for other highlights coming up, I've got a few review products I'm waiting for which is good. Some cleaning products which are always good to try out, these ones are 'green' so I'll be interested to see how they compare to my usual chemicals!lol Also there's some baking goodies (I know, I know diet but a little is OK to have!) not just cakes but also different types of breads as well. I've a couple of books, one is here but since I've just started a new one, it'll have to wait a couple of days till it gets started!lol and the last one I know of right now is (look away gents!lol) some sanitary products which are always handy, it'll be interesting to see what they send as a selection to sample ..... and if there are any gimmicks with it, I remember one a few years ago that came with test tubes, it would have been a good idea except the items in question lengthened instead of widening!lol

Anyway, that's my quick update for now, more to come soon from me now I have things lined up to tell you all about

Confessing and a new start

It's obviously been a very long time since I last posted on here and even longer since I have done any sort of update on whats happening with my weight loss and so I think it's about time I came clean, confessed and started keeping this blog again as it DID help me and I found it fun to do.

And so to my confession, I got bored of the diet food, started trying to add different things into my diet, stopped weighing the food I was eating as my meal of the day and found excuses for everything I could to myself and those around me that were trying to support me. Luckily I snapped out of it this year and have started again but I will say, I don't regret that cheesecake we shared over Christmas ..... it WAS worth it!lol

Anyway, I didn't put on that much, only half a stone which over all these months isn't really that bad (especially as that included Christmas!) and I'm really pleased to say that I've managed to lose it and another bit on top as well and so I've now lost a total of 48.4lbs YAY!

The biggest thing I found to help me with this is to use a smaller plate. I now have most of my meals on a sandwich plate, it really does make it so much easier to have control over your portion of food when you don't have much plate to put it on! Also, eating slower, chewing smaller mouthfulls of food properly before swallowing and increasing the volume of water that I drink has helped as well. I know these are all basic steps that we are all encouraged to take when we start dieting and like most people I couldn't see what difference it would make but it does, it really does!

Finally, the most amazing change has happened in my fitness. I started back on the treadmill in January, slowly at first and gradually increasing the amount I do, I now do 2 miles most days and I feel so much better for it, my shape has changed a lot and my skirt size has reduced by another 3 sizes which I'm absolutely over the moon about, top size is only down by 2 but it's all headed in the right direction and WILL continue to now!

And so onto my new start, well as I said above I'm exercising a lot more than I was now and I am still kind of on the Slimfast plan, when the weather is cold though I switch out the lunchtime shake and have a bowl of soup instead, it's comparable on the number of calories but very warming and filling so for me this works well, only time will tell though I guess but I know it'll keep going as it has the last couple of weeks, I'm determined it will! I do expect a blip next week ...... I have a night out coming up which I fully intend to enjoy as I know it's only 1 night and I can lose the weight (if any) I gain from it over the new few days by being good again!