Luckily, the Slimming World community have got creative with scan bran. They make it into cakes, bread or use it as a cereal. A whole cake made with 5 scan bran counts as your healthy extra B choice, and can easily be very low syn to totally syn free. A whole cake a day and it's actually supposed to be good for you? Winner right there, right?
And you know what, it certainly keeps things moving. As long as you drink enough, that is, or else it will just sit in your stomach like a lead weight.
The scan bran challenge is simple enough. 5 scan bran a day for 5 days, and drink at least 5 glasses of water for the 7 days. Make sure you stop eating the bran two days before you weigh to give it time to work through your system.
In my research, I found fantastic results. Most at about 2 or 3 pounds, but it was not uncommon to see 5 or even 7 pounds in a single week. The people that didn't seem to get good results either didn't drink enough or didn't stop eating it long enough before weigh in. Simple enough, stick to the plan and your laughing all the way to the scales.
My first week I made a rookie mistake. I stuck to the scan bran challenge plan to the letter, but let the slimming world plan fall to the wayside. I ate crap. A lot of crap. But the extra fibre was doing its job so I felt thinner. Unfortunately though, I wasn't lighter. I maintained.
The second week, I got my act together. I ate well, still sticking to the scan bran challenge but instead finishing on the Sunday instead of the Monday to allow enough time before my Wednesday afternoon weigh in. It worked, and I achieved a 1.5lb loss.
Now, I'll point out here that I am a mere 4.5lbs off target, and my target is pretty low. So any loss is a major achievement right now. I was really happy, but I couldn't help but feel slightly disappointed at the same time.
Sorry if this is tmi, but I was pooping multiple times a day. Literally, 3 to 5 times. Easy poops too. I can't stress enough how important water is. In the morning, it wouldn't be until I had drunk half a litre of water that I realised I needed to go - the water really gets things going.
The cakes were pretty good too. Sure, they were bran-y, but what do you expect. Be careful of all the sugar or sweetener in them, even if it is free. I ate a lot of sugar on my challenge, in fruit and sweetener and can't help but wonder if that held me back slightly.
A particular favourite cake was the Jamaican Ginger cake, but I also tried chocolate beetroot, cherry bakewell and a tomato bread. I even experimented with making scan bran tortilla wraps. For breakfast every morning, I would blitz 2 or 3 in my nutribullet and layer the powder with sweetened quark and fresh fruit. It was lovely.
So 2 weeks and a 1.5lb loss. I enjoyed the challenge a lot, and would definitely recommend it to anyone. It's very easy to do, as long as you have the time to make the cakes and make sure you drink the water. I was averaging about 2.5 to 3 litres a day.
The best tip I can give you though, is to make sure you food optimise. The added fibre is all well and good, but get your speed in and choose your syns carefully to get the best results.
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