Lara leaves us tomorrow to return to University so we thought we would have a farewell dinner as we will not see her again until the Easter holidays :-(.  We were booked in to a lovely local restaurant for dinner so I ate lightly and exercised to make sure I had some spare calories.

I could not decide what I fancied for breakfast.  I really wanted bacon and eggs but I can not find any bacon that is organic (and preferably free range) and that does not have added sugar.  Please will locals or UK readers let me know if you find any.  So instead I made a smoothie as I was not in a vegetable mood so just an egg on its own would not have been enough.

I put in to the blender 20 g of those yucky oats I moaned about yesterday, 300ml coconut water, a banana, an orange and 2 tbsp each of sesame and chia seeds.

490 calories – I shouldn’t have had the banana as that would have saved 105 calories. It actually tasted too sweet for me.  It was thick, smooth and creamy which was lovely but too sweet and didn’t keep me full for long enough. Big exercise points today – I swam for half an hour non stop as fast as I could manage.  My Fitness Pal says that burned up 560 calories but that seems too high to me. Lunch was late but very easy.  I reheated the leftover portion of the green bean and lentil curry I made earlier in the week and served it with a large green salad.

418 calories 

Supper time 🙂  The girls are ready for dinner.

We went to The Great House in Hawkhurst for dinner.  I managed to resist all the bread and the wine and stuck to mineral water. As a starter I had the duck salad which was really good.  Enough duck and not too much plum dressing.  Very enjoyable. I was really fancying a large steak and The Great House produced one.  I chose the Rib Eye which was huge.  Too big really but as I felt hungry I ate it all, only leaving the visible fat.  It was good.  I have had more flavoursome and more tender steaks but this one was above average and I really enjoyed it.  I liked the simple sides; watercress and cherry tomatoes and a giant portabello mushroom which were cooked perfectly.  There were lots of chips and as they are not forbidden I had some.  More than I intended as they were good.

I resisted the various sauces to accompany the steak which were on offer and ate it as it was.  A very good meal.  Estimated 1,058 calories for both courses which is significant!

The daily calorie total is 1,997 on food and apparently I used 560 in the pool so that gives me a net of 1,437 so not within allowance but not far over.  I should still come in with a loss this week.

We enjoyed our dinner at The Great House which had a great atmosphere and was very cosy and comfortable.  I will be sad to say au revoir to my gorgeous girl this weekend, she is such great company.  We will all miss her very much.