Meat glorious meat.

If you like meat then you will love red days. Slimming World original plan, nicknamed 'red days' from the colour of the pages in the book, are a carnivores dream. All lean meat, fish and seafood are classed as free food on a red day. Combine meat with your free vegetables and you are set. You get to add one or two portions of dairy, called healthy extra A choices and two healthy extra B portions of pasta, potatoes, rice, cereals or bread, plus 5 - 15 syns.

Whilst it sounds like a dream plan, you must remember that you need to remove ALL visible fat prior to cooking. Unless they are less than 5% fat, sausages, burgers etc all contain syns. Some veg such as beans, peas and lentils are not free, but can be eaten as a healthy extra or as syns.

In my previous post I mentioned that I prefer green days, but have found that having at least one red day each week seems to boost my weight loss. Some of the dishes I really enjoy are;

All day breakfast: Grilled syn free sausages, bacon, grilled garlic mushrooms, sliced tomato, baked beans and a cheesy omelet with onion and bell peppers. As long as you cut all the fat off the bacon and grill everything, limit the cheese in the omelet to 30g and 150g of beans, you can be really extravagant with this meal.

Open club sandwich: Lightly toasted rye bread (60g), low fat mayo (1/2 syn / tbsp), mustard, pastrami, ham, sliced chicken, bacon, tomato, lettuce and spring onion. I like to mix a little English mustard powder into very low fat mayo for this sandwich, or add horseradish sauce if I add sliced beef to the sandwich.

Roast dinner: Roast beef, potatoes (healthy extra), roast squash, carrots, green beans and gravy (a couple of syns depending on brand) and horseradish sauce. If I have spare syns I will indulge in a couple of Aunt Bessie's Yorkshire puddings (3 syns each).  Any lean meat will work with a roast as long as it is as lean as possible.

Jacket potato with chilli: Grab a good size spud (230g raw) and toss in the oven. Make a beef chilli, with lean mince, onion, peppers and seasoning, but skip the beans. Once the spud is ready, split in half and pile on the chilli. Garnish with some grated cheese from your healthy extras. If like me you are not a fan of veg you can add finely chopped veg to your chilli, once they have cooked down, you hardly notice them in there.

Snacking on red days is easy too, in addition to your fruit and veg, you can grab a couple of slices of cooked meat, roll them up and snack. Slice up a couple of syn free sausages and add sliced apple. Wrap slices of ham around a stick of melon or just chow down on a chicken drumstick, but take the skin off first.