Does Low Calorie Ice Cream Taste Good?

Low calorie ice cream seems to be one of the latest things to hit the UK from across the pond, with a few different brands popping up offering seemingly 'low calorie' ice cream meaning you can eat the whole tub and feel relatively no guilt. Now I wanted to put a couple of these to the test because I had my doubts as to whether a low calorie ice cream tastes as good as a 'normal' ice cream. 

If you like ice cream then it'll be pretty easy to plough through a tub this size in one sitting especially if ice cream is your go-to comfort food when you're fancying a treat. If you were to do this with a tub of Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Fudge Brownie this would mean that you had consumed 855 calories which is nearly half of your recommended daily calorie intake *insert shocked emoji here*. I was genuinely shocked by that and you can tell why Ben & Jerry's don't shout about the 'calories per tub' like these brands do...

To be totally honest before I met Kev I never really ate ice cream but since being with him we've often bought a tub as a treat. However, we quickly realised that the treats were becoming a little too frequent so we needed a lower calorie alternative. 

We decided to pick up a couple of tubs of two different brands of low calorie ice cream; both brands seemed to have a full range of ice cream flavours at under 400 calories per tub. Both brands claim to be high in protein and lower in sugar which naturally you would assume as the calorie content is pretty much half of what is in Ben & Jerry's. 

Because I can't seem to make a decision, Kev chose the flavours. Breyers seem to stick to a more 'traditional' range so from theirs he picked up classic chocolate and mint chocolate chip and from Halo Top, who have a slightly wider range of flavours with non-dairy options as well; he meant to pick up chocolate and salted caramel but picked up cinnamon bun by mistake *insert eye-roll emoji*

So first of all let's have a look at Halo Top: out of the two the packaging has a more premium feel than the Breyers tubs both in colours and design and also for the fact that they have a foil lid whereas the Breyers tubs don't.

Calories-wise the chocolate comes out at 10 more than the Breyers chocolate and the tub is actually 473ml rather than Breyers which is the usual 500ml and let's look at the full breakdown of nutritional values in comparison:

Nutritional Values Per Tub	Breyers Chocolate  (500ml)	Halo Top Chocolate (473ml)
Calories	310	320
Sugar	22g	22.4g
Protein	20g	19.6g
Fat	8.4g	10.8g
Salt	0.44g	1.12g

The values are pretty similar, although you are getting 27ml less ice cream in a tub of Halo Top than Breyers so that's something to remember. I did wonder whether they'd pack this low calorie ice cream full of artificial sweeteners but thankfully, both brands use Stevia, an organic sweetener which softens the blow somewhat but I can't find any information about specifically how much sweetener is used in each of these tubs. 

Anyway, onto the taste test...

On first impressions, Halo Top is easier to scoop from the tub whereas Breyers is spoon-bendingly hard to get out unless you leave it to melt for a little while on the kitchen side; I did wonder whether this was due to a lack of something that higher calorie ice creams usually have - maybe more cream or something. 

I'm going to compare chocolate on taste because that seems like the fairest way to truly tell which one I prefer. To me, Breyers looks more appetising because it's a darker brown colour whereas Halo Top is surprisingly light brown and looks are not deceiving in this case because I actually prefer Breyers chocolate and here's why:

Halo Top chocolate ice cream (and the cinnamon bun one, actually) tastes quite powdery in my opinion; it doesn't have that creamy texture that you expect from ice cream, and the chocolate flavour isn't very strong at all. The cinnamon bun flavour does have more flavour to it but that's possibly because cinnamon is a naturally stronger taste so it comes through more easily. Cinnamon bun also has some cookie-dough-like pieces through it which did make it taste slightly better but in all honesty cinnamon isn't my favourite flavour and I was a little gutted by my silly mistake (the tubs are very similar so make sure you double check the flavour before you buy!).

Breyers chocolate is a lot creamier and has far more flavour than Halo Top; it doesn't have that powdery texture at all and tastes a lot more like higher calorie ice cream. It is harder than the Halo Top as I mentioned earlier which means it's not as easy to scoop out but I can totally overlook this and use a stronger spoon for the sake of a better flavour payoff. The mint chocolate chip is also pretty amazing and has plenty of little chocolate chips in it; it's whiter than you usually find mint chocolate chip ice cream, presumably because they haven't used artificial colourings to make it green but it's still a really minty, enjoyable ice cream.

Both ice creams currently £5 per tub in Tesco but you can often find them on offer. You can also buy both brands in Asda and Sainsbury's. I would personally recommend Breyers out of the two and I can definitely say that this low calorie ice cream definitely tastes as good as calorific ice cream. 

Full range of Breyers ice cream flavours

Full range of Halo Top ice cream flavours

Other posts you may be interested in:

Skinny Bakery low calorie sweet treats

Low syn sweet treats

How to Make Healthy Choices at Nando's

Being on a healthy eating plan can mean that you feel like you can't go out for meals, I know lots of people who will actively avoid eating out because they are on a 'diet'. In my opinion the best way to succeed at losing weight/becoming more healthy is to look at the change in what you're eating as a new way of life which you'll be following for the foreseeable future so you need to know how to live as well as lose weight. 

Throughout my time at Slimming World I have eaten in various different places, don't get me wrong some places are better than others but there will always be a 'healthy' choice and the key is not to be scared to ask for something without a dressing or to have something in place of chips. I know that in a lot of places it's VERY hard not to choose the biggest cheesiest burger or the most calorific pizza you've ever seen but I can tell you from experience that when you choose the healthy choice you leave without an ounce of guilt and with quite a smug little smile on you face. 

I'm going to turn this into a bit of a series and we're kicking off with Nando's, champions of chicken. You'd be forgiven for assuming that it's all pretty healthy in there but there are things to watch out for; I'll break it down into starters, mains and desserts...

Starters

To be totally honest none of the starters here really float my boat, I usually just go straight in with the main course but nevertheless if I was forced to choose a starter I'd probably go for the mixed olives because although they're probably covered in oil, they're the best of a bad bunch really. 

Mains

This one is easy for me, I'd definitely go for the chicken butterfly because although there is a bit of skin on it there's nowhere near as much as there is on the other chicken 'parts'. As for sides you could go for spicy rice, corn on the cob and/or a side salad, the only thing I'd say is don't slather butter all over your corn - sprinkle some salt on and it tastes just the same. The mash and macho peas might sound like a healthier option but the mash is loaded with butter to make it creamy and tasty and the macho peas contain quite a bit of oil from what I've heard. I might also treat myself to a slice of halloumi and count it as my Healthy A choice (slimming world talk!) but I usually just go for the butterfly, spicy rice and side salad. I would suggest that you can use the peri peri sauces pretty freely because they're not creamy or anything like that so shouldn't contain too many calories so crack on with those if hot stuff is your kinda thing. 

Desserts

The frozen yoghurt is definitely the lesser of the many naughty but nice desserts on the list; I would imagine that it's full fat yoghurt but that's better than a calorie loaded chocolate cake!

My 6 Stone Weight Loss Journey - Before & After

You'll probably already know that I'm a member of Slimming World and I have been for around 18 months now. After years of being obese with a BMI of 40 I finally decided to do something about it (you can read more about why I started to lose weight in this post), losing weight really is something that you've got to want to do otherwise you won't succeed. I often wonder what took me so long but the truth is I just wasn't ready to commit to losing weight; even my wedding didn't give me the incentive! It took me 62 weeks to lose 6 stone and it didn't come easy, I had my ups and downs; I've been on a few holidays and things during that time so it has meant some gains but I got there in the end. Lots of people have been asking whether I'm going to before and after post so here it is... (apologies for the quality of some of the photos, they're mainly taken with phones!)

Before Measurements (taken February 2012 so I dare say I will have got bigger)

Waist: 41 inches

Hips: 47 inches

Bust: 47 inches

June 2013 - London IMATS with Brogan - I would say that this is the only picture I have of me at my heaviest. 

On my wedding day October 2012 (the dress was a size 18)

 At my mums wedding August 2012 

February 2012

 My Graduation 2012

 This was in November 2013 when I had started to lose a bit of weight - I'd lost just under 2 stone 

 January 2014 I was at the 2.5 stone mark here and I started to feel a lot better about myself

On holiday in Florida May 2014 - I'd lost 4 stone for this and felt pretty damn good.

December 2014 - I'd got my 5.5 stone award 

This was me last night with my 6 stone weight loss feeling amazing!

After measurements

Waist: 31

Hips: 36

Bust: 38

So obviously 10 inches off both my waist and my hips and 9 inches off my bust. It's not until I look at figures like that, that I realise how much my body has changed. My confidence is through the roof and I honestly feel like a different person; I'm much happier now because my life is so much easier in all aspects; working, buying clothes, going out etc. etc. I was a size 18 both top and bottom before and I'm now a 10/12 bottom and a 12 top; I do still have to buy size 14 dresses most of the time because I've still got a sizeable chest but I don't mind that. At the end of the day it's not all about size and what the scales say, how I feel is what's most important to me. I'm now a target member at Slimming World so I have relaxed the plan a little to make sure I maintain within my target range and I'm absolutely loving life as my new slim self!

If you're thinking of doing Slimming World and you have any questions please do ask me in the comments below, although I'm not a consultant I can give you advice about the plan and point you in the right direction :)

Easy Slimming World Burger Recipe

This week I've been pretty much 100% still on plan (maybe could have eaten more Superfree, ie. Veg, Fruit and Salad), and my weightloss this week is...

- 3.5lb

I'm really really pleased with that as it's tipped me well into my 1/2 stone award and also got me slimmer of the week for this week.

I can't believe how much I've lost in only two weeks of being at Slimming World, I knew I could do the diet it's just having the motivation and the mind set to put it all into practise. This week I plan to keep it up with lots more superfree foods and I'm going to try and include more speed and super speed food in my diet (eg. Melon). Also I'd ideally like to keep my Syns down to around 10 per day rather than maxing it out to 15. 

Anyway here are some Slimming World meal ideas...

Slimming World Bacon Burgers

Ingredients

- Less than 5% fat Mince

- 1 Onion

- 1 Clove of Garlic

- Mixed Herbs

- 1 Egg

- Couple of Splashes of Worcester Sauce

Method

- Crush the garlic clove, chop the onion into small pieces & beat the egg

- Combine everything together in a bowl (mince, onion, garlic, herbs and egg, worcester sauce)

 - Separate the mince mixture and make it into patties as thick or as think as you would like, as big or small as necessary. 

- Place the patties on a grill or on a BBQ for about 20/30 minutes, turning periodically. I think the key is to cook these fairly slow so as you don't burn the bottom/top.

- Towards the end of the cooking time of the burgers, add a few slices of lean bacon to the grill.

And the rest is up to your personal taste really, you can have it with or without bread (use a 57g wholemeal roll if you haven't already used your healthy B otherwise it would be syns), You can also add cheese as a healthy A if you haven't already used yours for that day. When I want to make my meals syn free by using ingredients as healthy extras I find that I mainly have to change my breakfast a little to fit in with this.

Chicken Dinner

Just a couple of syns for the gravy but technically you could use stock for it which would make it free; I don't because I like thicker gravy. As you can see, more than 1/3 of my plate has super free foods on it (carrot and turnip mash and broccoli).

 Cooked Breakfast

Perfect start to the day, only 1 syn for the whole thing (Tesco Light Choices sausages are 0.5 syns each) and I've got some super free on there with the tomatoes.

Peppermint Tea

I've been loving this as a night time drink or after a meal, it aids in digestion and is something different from tea/coffee which I would normally have to use milk in. It's an acquired taste but if you can get a bag from somewhere I would try it before you knock it!

Sour Cream & Onion Pringles 40g Tub (10.5 syns)

I really fancied a tub of these after we bought some to sell in the pub so after not using any syns on Sunday I decided to treat myself and I really enjoyed them. Not something I'd have regularly because of the high syn content but as a one off they are very nice. It's the little things like this that remind me that Slimming world is not a diet it's a healthy eating plan. 

Next week I'm aiming to lose 2lb, I only need 4.5lb for my stone award so I'm working towards that within the next two weeks. I know a 9.5lb weight loss is good but I'm wanting more now! The only thing that is stopping me this week is that it's our 1 year anniversary and we're going out for a 6 course meal, although I hear the portions are very small and I've seen the menu and it's mainly meat and veg so not too much to worry about I don't think!