The food and recipes you only know if you're on Slimming World

manchestereveningnews.co.uk:

As all those following the Slimming World diet plan will know, finding new recipes to negotiate your way through the rules while sticking to plan is all part of the fun.

The popular slimming club uses a "food optimising" technique, where different foods fall into different categories.

There are "free" foods like most fruit, vegetables, meats, fish and even things like pasta, rice and potato that you can eat without needing to weigh or measure - while treat foods like cakes and biscuits have a "Syn" value.

READ MORE: I ate Slimming World Iceland frozen meals for the week and this is what happened

And then, each day, you get to choose two portions of measured "Healthy Extra A" (HEA) for calcium - like milk or cheese, and one portion of "Healthy Extra B" (HEB) for fibre, like cereals, oats, wholemeal bread or wraps.

No one seems to know exactly how it works that you can eat quite so much food and still lose weight (well, aside from the founder of Slimming World I suppose) - but genuinely it does work, for a heck of a lot of people out there.

It still doesn't stop people moaning that it can't be healthy as it doesn't encourage portion control.

But hey, all I know is it's the only diet plan I've been on that's helped me shift four and a half stone in a year - and actually kept it (mostly) off for another year.

So, with that in mind, here's my ponderings on the foods and recipes that you only seem to know about when you sign up to Slimming World.

And, just like everyone else at Slimming World, I love discovering new recipes and low-Syn treats, so do share your favourites in the comments section below or on our Facebook page.

It's a truth universally accepted that no human has EVER encountered the substance called Quark