Slimming World's Simple Folder

Those amongst you who follow me on Twitter will know that I have joined Slimming World (or Fat Club as I have so lovingly dubbed it) with my Mother.

On signing up we were given a cute little folder stuffed with all the information we need to start, and continue, our adventure to a more socially acceptable silhouette.

Front: with a lovely blue showing through. That wasn't meant to rhyme...

The front design is ever so reassuring! Pretty butterfly, heart and flower cut-outs and some rather gorgeous typography in silver foil decorate its cover. It's hard to show in the photographs, but they're not actually cut out of the translucent plastic (yes, it's plastic. A nice cream canvas or linen would probably last longer.) they are transparent sections. I'm not 100% sure how they achieved this effect; I'm assuming some form of heat printing.

"So here it is, with all our love; because you are amazing, and together we do amazing things."

Exactly what you want to hear before you step on a scale that looks like a Roomba from 2001.

Because of the variable transparency, the colour scheme of the colour changes depending on which booklet you put behind it.

A lovely sunset affair. The sunset to my love-handles perhaps?

Inside you can see the magnetic closing mechanism, and the pockets that neatly hold everything you need to get going.

Transparency reads, "If you love food you'll love food optimising. Your slimming success really does start here."

I'm so glad this isn't one of those nasty shake/special soup based diets. Been there, done that, got the "Awful stomach pains after 2 hours." T-shirt. As you can see, I've labelled everything with Washi tape in case I ever leave it at a meeting.

On the exterior, everything is lovely, as is most of the interior; but it goes a bit to pot when it comes to listing food "Syns". So many tables!

The one main qualm I have with the starting pack is the food diary.

This design just doesn't seem to click with me.

Surely spaces for each of the three main meals; and separate spaces to list your Syns, extra free foods, and your a & b choices, would work much better than this? The current set-up only really lends itself to one of the 4 daily plan choices you can follow. If, like me, you're on perpetual green days, listing the free foods in that tiny gap is going to prove the biggest challenge of the whole diet!

I've decided to make my own in both mini and personal sizes so both I and my Mother can carry it easily, reducing the chances of us forgetting something or getting confused whilst recording our food.