Marks & Spencer's Enviously Delicious Clean Eating Ranges for a Fresh 2016

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In the past if someone announced their eating clean intentions I'd think 'dead on. Rather you than me!'. Clean Eating involves removing preprocessed foods from your diet, or at least avoiding additives in what you do buy already made. That sounds like no fun at all. 

When I arranged this latest blog post with my lovely contact for M&S, she suggested I look at the new juices they've brought out, and clean eating involving a stirfry offer (it's a really great offer, more on that below). I wondered would I find anything to my taste, but I was pleasantly surprised.

The fruit and veg section is an obvious place to start. All sorts of delicious fruit with some on a 2 for £3, mix and match offer. 

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As well as the classic favourite fruits, there are some I haven't even heard of! M&S are great like that, they'll have products you just can't get elsewhere. 

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Adventurous cooks will love the herb station. You can buy potted herb plants too. 

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These little salad bowls have been around for ages, but they've launched a few new versions for the year ahead. I noticed quite a lot of avocado products round the store, always a good thing. These pots are £3 for 2, can be mixed varieties or even included in the fruit and veg 2 for £3 too. 

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Here's that fabulous stirfry deal I mentioned. You get a meat, veg mix, noodle or rice and finally a sauce for £7. It's all mix and match so the different combinations seem endless. The meal serves two but you could easily bulk it up to feed two kids as well with an extra pack of noodles. 

The meat options don't cut corners, as well as the chicken and beef you'd expect, there are exotic choices like duck breast, king prawn and salmon. I don't think Ive ever had salmon in a stir fry. 

£7

£7

£7

£7

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Here comes a really innovative range- vegetables that replace pasta in meals. Each of these cost £1 and could definitely be used to bulk up the stir fry like I mentioned. I havent seen these for sale anywhere else and I'm very curious to try them. 

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Those of you with brand new Nutribullets will love these smoothie packs. For £2.50, or two for £3, you get everything you need to whizz up the perfect healthy juice. You can even use the container as a cup.

The little veg and protein tubs, such as this beetroot, chicken and pecan nut one below are an interesting alternative to a snack of chocolate or crisps during the day. 

Green tea can help your metabolism, so with it only being £1 for this box, I decided to give it a go. 

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M&S fresh soups, from the fridge department, are known for being rich and delicious. They've launched a few new recipes and you can try them by taking advantage of the current buy one, get one half price offer.

£2.50 with the second half price £1.25

£2.50 with the second half price £1.25

Also newly launched are these tea based drinks. They are £1.50 each. They'd make a delicious afternoon snack with one of the crispy Pink Lady apples. 

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Staying with healthy snacks, these baked pea snaps are £2 for bags of 5. 

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I also loved the package design of their instant noodles. 

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So you're set for your evening meal with the stirfry offer, but what can you pick up on the go, or for a working lunch? 

These new open sandwiches and healthy wraps are mix and match with a drink & snack all for £4.

Here are a couple of combinations I chose. All £4 offers. 

Roast beef and radish open sandwich. 

Roast beef and radish open sandwich. 

Smoked salmon and prawn. How cool are these carrot crisps? 

Smoked salmon and prawn. How cool are these carrot crisps? 

More avocado!  

More avocado!  

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Finally, your healthy eating breakfast- porridge, you can't beat it! 

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Coincidentally Sprucefield M&S have Fitbits. I bought one last week and I'm loving it. It tracks your steps, exercise, quality of sleep etc. If you're thinking of getting one you should pop along and play about with what they have there.

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New You Plan Day Five : Making Crisps out of Soup?

Can't believe I've made it this far! I've never stuck so completely & strictly to an eating plan, EVER. Not just weight loss eating, but also a few years ago I had high cholesterol and couldn't stick to a diet for that either!  

So why is this diet different?

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Firstly I have to be accountable to you guys. There's no point me doing a free week's trial in return for blogging all about it, then not doing it properly. My readers want to see if it's worth the price tag, and if I mess around on it, you aren't getting the whole experience reported to you.

The other reasons are applicable to anyone doing the plan, the second being the money guilt trap. As you are paying £38.99 a week for your total inclusive food for those seven days, it's silly to cheat one or two days and waste your money. 

Lastly, this diet is different in that New You Plan's input doesn't stop with the delivery. There is free  live chat with a customer service advisor during office hours. There is a plethora of tools for weight loss maximisation on their main website. But what really is helping keep me on plan is the Secret Slimmers Facebook Page that I keep mentioning. Women (mostly) who are going through the exact same plan as you, with advise, answers to questions and encouragement for you daily. It's a very active page with fun events like Selfie Saturday and weigh ins weekly. Without the page I KNOW I would have blipped and scoffed something off plan by now.

 So, truthfully, how do I see the New You Plan diet, five days in? Well to be brutally honest, it IS hard. This isn't a diet where you simply make a few changes to you eating by adding more lettuce than potatoes to your dinner. You can only eat four New You products a day, a shake, a soup, a bar or a meal. The meals are SMALL. I'm not going to pussyfoot around that fact. You are certain to pour out your very first meal packet on your first day and think, 'oh my god, I could eat four of these in one go'. 

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So you are making a big sacrifice of your usual eating habit of eating until you are full. You aren't hungry after the small meals, but you will notice the huge difference in portion size from regular meals. 

So the meals are small, but balanced for nutrients daily. The meal replacement bars are quite big in comparison. Like fun size Mars Bar size. Being able to eat chocolate on a diet is fab though. The other two products, shakes and soups, are straightforward, easy to make and taste good. I decided quite early that I didn't want any of my four products a day to be liquid, so I'm now turning shakes into bowls of mousse or frozen lollies, and this afternoon I attempted the soup mix crisps!

One pack of New You Plan soup mix, any Flavour, I chose chicken, add spices if desired. 

One pack of New You Plan soup mix, any Flavour, I chose chicken, add spices if desired. 

Add 30ml of water and mix into a baby food consistency  

Add 30ml of water and mix into a baby food consistency  

Spread the mixture out in crisp sized shapes and microwave for 90 seconds

Spread the mixture out in crisp sized shapes and microwave for 90 seconds

Peel from the paper and eat! Mine were more like savoury bites so I'll spread the mix thinner on my next attempt

Peel from the paper and eat! Mine were more like savoury bites so I'll spread the mix thinner on my next attempt

Excitingly now my daily posts are being shared over on the New You Blog among the other stories of women's successes. I hope by the end of the full seven days I'll have a result somewhere near the average. I have a fashion event to attend next Tuesday, so it would be lovely to have dropped under 9 stone by then. 

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*week one of the New You Plan provided for review purposes. Always see a GP before embarking on a very low calorie diet. All result vary, weight loss is not a guarantee* 

Tasty, Balanced Meals from Marks & Spencer in Store Now

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How's your new year's resolution going? Yeah... mine too. Anyway, if you're feeling like a little health kick you can always check out Marks & Spencer's Count on Us and Balanced for You ranges. Lower calorie ready meals that don't compromise on taste or inventiness.

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There are also plenty of take away snacks and lunch options available from both ranges. 

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Desserts aren't to be missed out on either! 

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This is the Jaffa dessert and it's glorious! 

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Coconut Popcorn from Propercorn, the Perfect Summer Snack

If you are a Birchbox beauty sample service subscriber, like me, you might have had the chance to try the Propercorn Coconut flavour popcorn in this month's box. I absolutely loved it, I'd never tasted anything like that before. Propercorn kindly sent me this pretty box containing each of their flavours currently available. 

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The packs are slightly larger than regular crisp packets, but are lower in calories from being hand cooked in rapeseed oil & seasoned with Propercorn's special seasonings. A great snack if you are counting calories and still want snacky stuff. Whenever I diet I always need things like this on hand, because if I cut out everything snacky altogether, the diet only lasts half a day before I give in due to misery!

I've managed to drop from 11st 6lbs to 9st 10lbs since Christmas, so I will be buying lots of Propercorn for the rest of the weight loss journey.

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Darling Spuds' Sweet & Salty Popcorn Tastes Exactly Like Cinema Popcorn

I could tell you all about how Darling Spuds' new Sweet & Salty popcorn is gluten free, vegetarian, and lower in fat than other similar snacks. I could also mention the corn is popped in small batches and flavoured with simply sea salt & cane sugar. Or that there are no GMOs or other artificial ingredients and each snack pack is under 40 calories.

The real important part to me is- does it taste good? We tried it out and it tastes exactly like cinema popcorn. Some sweet popcorn can be a bit too sugary, and nothing like cinema style, but Darling Spuds is spot on. Adding in the subtle salt to the mix makes it extra delicious.  

You can buy online here, or watch out for packs in your supermarket. 

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