HOW IT WORKS

★ Choose one breakfast, one lunch and one dinner every day. Feel free to repeat meals you enjoy and you’ll find more ideas at slimmingworld.ie or when you join your local Slimming World group or sign up to Slimming World Online.

★ Foods printed in bold are ‘Free Food’, which means you can enjoy them freely to satisfy your appetite without needing to weigh, measure or count at all. Base meals around Free Food, such as lean meat, plain tofu, Quorn, fish, pasta, rice, potatoes, eggs, pulses, fat-free dairy, fruit, vegetables and more. If you feel hungry between meals, snack on these foods. For the very best weight loss, reach for fresh fruit or vegetables first.

★ As well as Free Food, stock your store cupboard with fat-free dressings, herbs, low-calorie cooking spray (1 calorie per spray or less), oil-free tomato purée, seasoning, soy sauce, spices and stock cubes, which can be used freely to flavour meals.

★ To help support an overall healthy balanced diet, Slimming World encourages you to enjoy measured amounts of foods that provide calcium, such as milk and cheese (two portions per day), and those providing fibre, other essential minerals and healthy oils, such as wholemeal bread, high-fibre cereals, crispbreads, nuts and seeds (one portion per day). These can be enjoyed as part of your meals and where we’ve included them as such in this plan, we’ve given specific measurements. Alternatively, you may choose to use them in hot drinks or on their own as a snack. Where you’re enjoying them separately in this plan:

Choose 350ml skimmed milk OR 250ml semi-skimmed milk OR 400ml plain and unsweetened soya milk with added calcium OR 30g full-fat hard cheese OR 40g reduced-fat hard cheese.

lllll★ Boost your fibre intake by enjoying two slices of wholemeal bread (from a small 400g loaf), a 60g wholemeal roll, 60g wholemeal pitta or 60g brown, high-fibre white or multi-seed, gluten-free bread/roll.

★ Treat yourself. Enjoy up to two treats from the list provided on page 31 every day.

For extra health benefits and filling power, choose wholegrains, eg, wholemeal pasta or wholegrain rice, where you can.

Aim to have between six and eight drinks a day – choose water, sugar-free drinks, tea and coffee. Any milk needs to come from your allowance.

The most successful slimmers join a Slimming World group or its online programme for shared support, inspiration and motivation.