Lose up to A STONE in lockdown with... Weight Watchers REIMAGINED

YOU can never decide what you’re having for dinner, keep raiding the fridge because you’re bored at home and are worried your office clothes won’t fit when we finally go back to work.

Sound familiar? Welcome to the world of lockdown. Because while it may help keep us safe from the coronavirus, being stuck at home every day has been a real challenge for our eating habits.

Most of us have gone from being too busy at work to worry much about food, to suddenly having nothing else to think of. And it’s showing on our waistlines.

Fear not! The Mail on Sunday has teamed up with WW – formerly Weight Watchers – to help you keep the surplus pounds off during this difficult period. And if you follow their plan, you can even lose weight during the lockdown…

WHY BATCH IS BEST

WHEN you’re cooped up at home, one of the best ways to control what you’re eating is to batch cook, and over the next few pages we’ll introduce some delicious ideas for the tastiest meals, from a family-friendly spaghetti bolognese to vibrant curries and Mexican quesadillas.

The brilliance of batch cooking is that you can spend a few hours one afternoon cooking large amounts of several different recipes in one go, then portion them up and pop them in the fridge or freezer for later.

It means you won’t have to think about what you’re eating for the rest of the week and there’s always something tasty for dinner that even the fussiest eater will love.

What’s more, you can shake things up by serving your batch cook with different accompaniments – chilli with rice one day then on a baked potato, lasagne with steamed vegetables or salad, kung pao chicken with noodles or jasmine rice.

‘If you’re the kind of person for whom being at home feels like an all-day smorgasbord because you’ve always got access to the fridge, batch cooking is perfect,’ says WW’s Julia Westgarth.

‘You’re only spending a few hours cooking every few days so you’re not constantly in the kitchen, rummaging around in the fridge for food, wondering what to cook.

‘Instead you’ve got lots of exciting lunches and dinners you can easily heat up’.

WW recipes lend themselves particularly well to batch cooking.

‘With WW, nothing is off the menu,’ says Julia. ‘You don’t have to eat really boring food. We’re experts in creating tasty meals with little fat, sugar or salt. A lot

of our recipes are one-pot or suitable for batch-cooking because when people first come to us, they might not have a very healthy relationship with food. With batch cooking, you learn to enjoy creating meals again then pop them in the freezer for your own version of a healthier ready-meal.’

Preparing large amounts of food in one go also lends itself to lockdown because most of us have swapped going to the supermarket every few days for weekly or fortnightly shops because of the queues we now face.

Batch cooking enables you to buy a large amount of fresh food but waste nothing as you immediately turn it into mouth-watering meals.

A FLEXIBLE WAY TO EAT

BATCH cooking is also flexible enough for the shortages we now find ourselves with, when even a trip to the biggest supermarket doesn’t guarantee being able to get everything you need.

‘There are lots of recipes that can be batch cooked that don’t require fancy ingredients,’ says Julia. ‘If you can get hold of minced beef, as long as you’ve got pulses, herbs and spices in your store cupboard, you can turn it into spaghetti bolognese, chilli, burgers… the list is endless.

‘You can also swap ingredients if you can’t get one – WW is very good at suggesting swaps and still getting the best out of meals. Swap beef mince for turkey or if you only have Quorn or tofu, which can be quite bland, we can help you get creative with marinades to boost flavour.’

Best of all, you can use your imagination when batch cooking.

Julia says: ‘There’s a lot you can do out of your store cupboard and any frozen veg you’ve got knocking about. You can turn practically anything into a soup or stew. And you can be more creative – if you’re not sure, just search for the ingredient in the WW app and you’ll find half a dozen recipes.’

HOW TO FOLLOW THE PLAN

WHETHER you follow it faithfully to lose weight or try to stick to it a few days a week to limit the lockdown damage, WW makes controlling what you eat easier than ever.

There are three coloured plans and you simply pick the one that’s best for your lifestyle. So, whether you’re a devoted home cook or you’re eating more takeaways than normal, there’s a way you can lose or stabilise your weight.

Every recipe in this pullout is labelled with its SmartPoints value for each of the three plans. This will help tot up everything you eat, and give you some inspiration for some delicious batch cooked meals.

So which colour is best for you? When you join WW, you’ll be asked some questions about your lifestyle and your answers will help determine which one of the three will suit you best. Stick to it for a week or two and if it isn’t working for you – maybe you eat more convenience food than you thought or you get the baking bug – simply swap to another that’s more suitable. It’s really that easy.

SO HOW DOES IT WORK?

WITH WW, every food there is has a SmartPoints value. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a basic staple like peas, beef and flour or a complex ready meal containing lots of different ingredients, it will still have a SmartPoints value. You can find these by searching the database in the WW app, or use the app to calculate them yourself. Some foods have ‘ZeroPoints’, meaning you can eat as much as you like of them every day. These tend to be those foods that form the basis of a healthy eating pattern – such as fruit and veg, lean proteins, beans and pulses – and you can use them to keep yourself feeling full. The ZeroPoint food list is different on each of the three plans – find out more at ww.com.

All other foods have SmartPoints and you can eat up to a certain number of SmartPoints every day.

When you first sign up to WW, you’ll be asked your age, sex, height and weight, then you’ll take a short assessment to be matched with the plan that is the best fit for your lifestyle. You’ll then be given your SmartPoints Budget, and it’s up to you how you ‘spend’ it.

You may choose to live mainly off ZeroPoint food and spend your SmartPoints on lovely treats like wine and chocolate (yes, it’s still possible to have these on WW), or you may prefer to spend your points on your main meals.

It’s up to you and lets you live your life your way, making sticking to the programme and losing 1lb or 2lb a week – or just holding steady during lockdown – so much easier.

There’s also an extra Weekly Budget of SmartPoints which you can use any time, either in one go if you want a treat such as a takeaway or gradually over the course of the week. And if you find you haven’t used all your points, you can ‘rollover’ up to four each day into your weekly budget. So if you’re allowed 25 a day but ‘spend’ only 23, that’s an extra two you can use at any time that week.

And if that’s STILL not enough, you can earn FitPoints by doing some exercise!

THE THREE PLANS

GREEN: If you’re a ‘grab and go’ kind of person who, after lockdown, needs to be able to have a pre-packaged sandwich for lunch and points left over for a meal out, this is the plan for you. You’ll have the fewest ZeroPoint foods – there are about 100 on the list, mainly fruit and nonstarchy veg – but the biggest SmartPoints Budget, so you can eat takeaways or indulge in ready meals while still losing weight.

BLUE: If you like cooking from scratch but need the flexibility of occasionally eating convenience food when you’re busy, go for blue. You have twice as many ZeroPoint foods as on Green – about 200 – and they include skinless chicken, eggs, beans, pulses and tofu. You’ll also have a generous SmartPoints allowance, but less than on Green.

PURPLE: If you’re a homebody who loves cooking delicious meals from scratch, doesn’t like weighing and measuring everything or struggles to control portion size, you’re a purple person. This plan is perfect for people who are at home during lockdown. There’s a massive 300-odd foods on the ZeroPoint list including complex carbohydrates, wholegrain pastas and starchy veg. Yes, it means you’ve got the lowest number of SmartPoints every day, but with so many other foods to choose from, you won’t notice.