Lose Weight and Gain Health

I can’t believe this lovely long Easter weekend has finished!  We have done so many lovely things and caught up with lots of special people and I wanted it all to keep going.  Mind you, we may all collapse from a sugar over dose if we kept going like we have for the past 2 days!

Easter Sunday began with chocolate.  Lots and lots of chocolate.  For the dairy intolerant, hot chocolate in a new mug, with marshmallows and plain chocolate to dip in. Apparently this mug, spoon and hot chocolate kit from choccywoccydoodah was one of the best presents ever which made me very happy.  It is a lovely mug and the spoon is quite perfect for a young boy. It was Milton’s 10th birthday and he was a very spoilt dog.  Harvey is always more excited about the dog’s birthdays than any of ours and spent a very happy half hour (and far too much of my money!) in the local pet shop where he found dog chocolates, birthday cake and even a dog friendly Easter egg!  Plus new bones, all of which were lovingly wrapped and presented with a home made card 🙂 We gathered for Easter lunch with my three sisters and their families at my sister Abi’s house.  It was a lovely relaxed day with lots of chatting and laughing and eating.  And wine, oh my, so much wine.  And Port. And lots of chocolate.We all took different dishes so ended up with quite a feast; 2 roast legs of lamb and a roast chicken with potatoes Dauphinoise, quinoa and roasted vegetables and a green salad.  Good to see the boys tucking in to the green stuff.
The weather was quite dreadful for most of the day but when the clouds disappeared for a couple of hours we made the most of it and went out for a walk.  Rather a long and hilly walk as it turned out. Well, the women, children and dogs did.  Apparently there was some very important football on which seemed to detain the men! We walked up to Seaford Head and in the distance you can see the first of the Seven Sisters, the huge white chalk cliffs.  They look quite stunning when seen from the sea. Stunning when seen from the neighbouring cliff tops too, dazzling us in the sunshine. It was a hilly walk up to the top of the cliffs and on the way back we walked along the beach you can see here in the distance. It was a very long way down! We did get too close to the edge but luckily no harm was done. Lovely beach huts 🙂 Back at Abi’s we had dessert.  A delicious home made carrot cake for sister Lucy’s birthday and a fruit and cream scrunch, which was my attempt to recreate the lovely dessert made in Food For Thought. Today I took Lara and Harvey to my Dad’s for lunch. Rather than cook we were taken out to a local restaurant for lunch. The food is Mediterranean and I had the humous, taramosalata and Tzatziki to start with. Followed by a very tasty chicken Souvlaki. Finally Baklava and ice cream.  It was a lovely lunch with good food and great company.  The table next to us was celebrating a 100th birthday party.  The birthday boy was very sprightly and from chatting to him we discovered he still drives and he drives to Belgium to visit family! Back at home my birthday clematis was in full bloom and looking spectacular. Such pretty flowers. I spent a very happy 2-3 hours in the garden this morning.  I sowed lots of different flower seeds in to seed trays. I also potted on some cucumber and tomato seedlings.

My day was finished very happily with a glass of wine and some yummy snacks with Annette and David.

Apart from the excessive sugar consumption, I wish every weekend could be like this and so much fun.

Recently I have spent too much money on food and eaten too much of the wrong type of food.  As a result I feel very tired and rather lacklustre.  I have had a lot of fun too though and some of the food I have eaten is acceptable to me because it was as part of a celebration or special occassion.

Yesterday Lara and Harvey came up to London.  We met for lunch and I took them to Belgo because they both love moules et frites.  I have to be in the mood for moules and I wasn’t yesterday so I had chicken instead. They went for the moules though and enjoyed them. I had to work all afternoon but we met up again in the evening and enjoyed strolling around Covent Garden. Or just relaxing in Covent Garden.   Dinner did not go according to plan.  We had theatre tickets so time was restricted for supper.  Everywhere we tried was full and we didn’t have time to wait.  Eventually we came across Yo Sushi which Harvey has wanted to go to for ages – ever since he saw the episode of ‘Miranda’ when her tie got stuck in the conveyer belt and carried her round the restaurant on it. In case you have not come across Yo Sushi before, there are some chefs in the middle who prepare dishes which are put on a conveyer belt which takes the dishes round the restaurant.  If you fancy it, you take it and eat it.  The dishes are colour coded according to price and at the end of your meal, they count up how many of each colour you have eaten and present you with a bill.  It was good fun. Most of the food was perfectly adequate.  This was disgusting though – icy cold and slimy – gross! We enjoyed our meal in Yo Sushi.  I wouldn’t necessarily rush back but I am glad we went. This is my current impossible to resist food item.  An almond croissant from Monmouth coffee.  Quite the most perfectly formed item of ultra yumminess.  Crispy and chewy, sweet but not too sweet with a thick layer of crushed almonds.  Washed down with a coffee it is the ultimate taste sensation.  But a health and diet disaster. I have some birthdays to celebrate this weekend and it is so much fun shopping near our office.  There is a very eclectic mixture of shops who are all making the most of the Easter theme. In their own individual ways!  I didn’t actually go in this shop so if your birthday is this weekend, you can relax 🙂 I did go in here to buy lunch.  This restaurant and take away has been here for many years.  I really like their food.  They win few points for presentation or even service half the time but the food is delicious. I bought a mixed salad today. That gives you 4 different salads, each of which is lovely.  I also bought a portion of their ‘cream and berry scrunch’ which is amazing but wickedly naughty – a layer of flapjack/granola with whipped cream and fruit.

So I have been bad lately.  Very bad.  I suspect I will be bad this weekend too as it is Easter and I have 3 lunches to look forward to.   I must get back to the sugar free diet as it makes me feel so much better.

Not my usual type of breakfast today but I went to buy some milk for teas during the day and I fancied this chicken sandwich.  I also bought some nuts and an apple so I had healthier bits to nibble on than I have managed recently.

Oh dear – expensive shopping trip at lunch time! Quick and easy lunch back at my desk. A chicken tikka wrap which was very tasty. Back at home I did what I always do, which is to look round the garden.  This is such an exciting time of year with so much beginning to grow.  In the greenhouse the seedlings are progressing nicely.  2 types of tomatoes and cucumbers. I have way too many bean seedlings – what was I thinking of, planting so many?  I have several trays of different types of beans. CeleryOut in the veggie patch lots of seeds are sprouting.

Spinach Spring onions Radishes Beetroot Rocket Lettuce Nothing happening yet in the beans and peas beds Blueberries Raspberries

Easy supper of reheated fish pie left over from Sunday.

I ate a lot of really delicious food today but some of it was very fattening.

Coco-Nutty Granola with kefir, banana and strawberries.
Yummy. Quiche and salad.  The quiche was very cheesey and full of vegetables and the salad was fantastic.  It had big chunks of avocado in it, crispy lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, dill and a great dressing. Unfortunately, this irresistible dessert sits next to the salads and I love it.  Chewy oaty chunks, whipped cream and fruit.  So good but so bad! For dinner we had chicken nuggets!  Yes, we really did, good healthy ones.  Lara made these following my sister Abi’s recipe.  They were quite easy to make too.  Chop up the chicken breasts, coat them in seasoned flour, beaten egg and breadcrumbs and then fry them.  The coconut oil gave them a really good flavour.  Served with a large salad. Lara made these for Harvey.  He does really well with all the salads and vegetables we make him eat.  He has stopped moaning about no jam, ketchup or all the other things we no longer have as they contain sugar.   But sometimes he wants to eat junk food so Lara made him a healthy version.  Thank you Lara, they were excellent.  The crust was really crunchy and the chicken was succulent.

Then we had pudding – eek!  Such a lot of delicious food and hey, it’s nearly Easter !

I have barely made myself so much as a cup of tea today.  I have eaten out all day which has been lovely but I need to get back to the kitchen and back to the healthy food.

I took Harvey out for breakfast this morning.

We went to the new coffee shop which has just opened on Stone Street in Cranbrook called Cocolicious.

They made hot chocolate with soya milk – hurrah.  I like the space and light in here, the decor and the furnishings.  It may be a bit pink for some but I liked it.  I do have a bit of a thing about coffee in a glass cup – I just don’t like it so next time I go in I will see if they have a mug instead.  Monmouth has rather spoilt coffee for me in most other places so this coffee was slightly below par but I am probably being fussy. We both had a smoked salmon bagel and they were extremely helpful with making sure Harvey’s had no dairy in it which was appreciated.  Mine came with dill in the cream cheese which I liked very much. I liked Cocolicious and will go back.At lunch time I took Lara out and we went to the Milk House with Lucy and Michelle.  Lovely bread roll and excellent butter.

We each had a main.  Lara and I both had “Lemon-thyme crumbed rose veal escalope with spring-onion mash, a pea shoot salad and roast tomato coulis”. It was very good.  I am not sure I would choose to have the tomato coulis with it as the taste is quite sharp compared to the other flavours but I did really enjoy it. None of us fancied any of the desserts on the menu so we popped in to Cranbrook and went to Cocolicious for a cup of tea and a piece of cake.  I had a little sponge cake with Nutella icing.  Very enjoyable. The boys wanted a curry for dinner.  I wasn’t very hungry so I just had a taste of the others curry; an onion bhaji, chicken korma, chicken bhuna, sag paneer and peshwari naan.  Very good.

I am now completely stuffed and planning a much healthier days eating for tomorrow!