Lose Weight and Gain Health

Eat What You Like

Posted on February 2, 2014 by Lose Weight and Gain Health

I had a respite from my draconian diet rules this weekend. I knew I would eat too much and too much of food high in fat and sugar so I went for a brisk early morning walk on Saturday to burn up some calories.

It was cold but beautiful in the early morning sunshine. Really beautiful. VERY wet and muddy though. After scrambled eggs with tomato for breakfast I had my first dairy and wheat of the year; a wholemeal sandwich with Cheddar cheese, ham and lamb’s lettuce. In the evening we had a few of the neighbours round for drinks and dinner. With an ‘Eat What You Like’ theme, everyone brought along a dish. David made a fantastic olive and rosemary loaf which was perfect dipped in to a hot camembert topped with caramelised onion with garlic – thank you Kevin and Sarah. Sloe gin, gin and tonic and wine flowed. We moved in to the dining room and began with a delicious spicy chicken satay with peanut sauce and salad courtesy of Sarah and Chris. Marion made a lovely chicken and ham pie and David brought along a very richly flavoured onion and mushroom suet pudding. Inevitably the photos became rather blurry! We finished with a very rummy Tiramisu – thank you Jane – and my contribution of a chocolate pecan meringue pie. After that lot, there were few takers for cheese and biscuits.

Thank you to all my lovely neighbours for bringing such wonderful food. Every dish was totally enjoyable and I enjoyed plenty of them all! Sunday morning surprised us by being sunny and much milder than recent days. Gail was visiting for the weekend and we went for a long but very muddy walk. We parked the car in Sissinghurst village and walked through the apple orchards and woods to Sissinghurst Castle Gardens. Squelching through the mud made the walk take much longer than usual and so we were out for 2 hours. I did get fed up with the mud but it was wonderful to be outside in the sunshine and fresh air.

Abi had arrived with my lovely nieces by the time we got home. We sat down and enjoyed the Prosecco, Manchego and Quince paste Gail had brought from the very fabulous Tapas Brindisa. This was followed by roast pork, potatoes and veggies and some delicious peanut butter and butterscotch chocolate cookies made completely by Harvey.

I ate way too much on my weekend off. I confess I had hoped my month of strict eating would have tempered my enthusiasm for all things naughty but sadly no. I slipped back in to my old habits much too easily. So as of now most of the January rules are back:

NO SUGAR

NO WHEAT

NO DAIRY

I am going to drink alcohol because I don’t drink excessively or regularly but ocassionally a glass of wine is just the thing. I had a great weekend and do not regret anything I had. But I really want to be back on the healthy eating regime from NOW!

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Fat Vs Sugar – Commentary

Posted on January 31, 2014 by Lose Weight and Gain Health

I felt disappointed and a bit confused after watching Fat Vs Sugar. I have done so much research in to the healthiest ways to eat and lose weight and I am convinced it is best to cut out sucrose all together, limit fructose, never eat trans or hydrogenated fats and limit saturated fat. Eat lots of vegetables, plenty of lean meat, fish, pulses, beans, lentils and some nuts and seeds. So the conclusion to Fat vs Sugar threw me a ~~bit~~ lot. I wondered if I was on the right track after all.

Thank goodness for the commentary from Dr Briffa. You can read it here. I was definitely lulled in to accepting what I saw in Fat vs Sugar because Horizon has a reputation for quality documentaries and the 2 men in the study were intelligent and Doctors so very credible. But it was flawed and I did feel uneasy about some of the tasks they did while I watched it but why would I know better? I agree there was a bias in favour of cutting fat rather then sugar. Thank you Dr Briffa for reassuring me that I am on the right track.

I was very busy working today so didn’t manage to prepare anything that took longer than a few quick minutes. A modest bowl of apple and chia seed porridge.

422 calories. Lunch was a large mug full of the same soup I had yesterday – Biona’s hearty lentil.

238 calories.

This was a supper that took minutes to prepare and used up leftovers. I roasted 2 large tomatoes that were a bit too ripe to enjoy raw, 5 spinach falaffels, 50 g houmous and some celery.

533 calories. Eaten in front of the tv with a fire roaring to make us cosy and one of my two favourite scented candles. I love Friday evenings.I am so happy I read Dr Briffa’s article early today as it really motivated me to keep going. This is the last day of January and I have totally stuck to my self-imposed rules for the month:

NO SUGAR

NO ALCOHOL

NO DAIRY

NO WHEAT

I did it, I lost 21 pounds and I feel much better. Tomorrow I am having an eat and drink what I like day. Right now I am most excited about having a cup of tea with milk in it first thing as I have really missed that. I do have 12 friends coming round for supper so I suspect there will be some alcohol and pudding indulgence and then it will be back to the rules. They may be different to the January rules though, we shall see. Apart from the no sugar rule. That will definitely be back in place. So many researchers can not be wrong that sugar is the worst food for health and weight.

Have a great weekend.

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Fat Vs Sugar

Posted on January 30, 2014 by Lose Weight and Gain Health

It was with great interest that I watched Horizon’s Fat Vs Sugar. Identical twins following different diets for a month; one full of fat and very low sugar and one full of sugar and very low fat. The conclusion to this programme was that the worst things to eat are foods which are high in both fat and sugar such as doughnuts, ice-cream and cheesecake. This is because such foods seem to effect grehlin which is a “hunger hormone” which is helps tell us when we are hungry, or not. When we (and rats !) eat foods with a 50:50 fat to sugar ratio, we don’t realise we are full even though we have consumed more calories than a healthier alternative would have provided. I was surprised by the conclusion as I was sure the high sugar diet would be the worst, based on books I have recently by John Yudkin, Robert Lustig and David Gillespie.

If you think about it, are there any foods in nature with the highly desirable but potentially deadly combination of 50:50 fat and sugar? I can not think of any. Foods tend to be either fat or sugar and we, us humans, combine them. Hopefully, since I have given up sugar and dairy so am therefore eating a low sugar and fairly low fat diet, i.e. cutting down on both food types, I am eating healthily.

I was working from home again today due to a poorly boy again. So we both ate simply but healthily. I cooked a big pile of green leaves for breakfast. Swiss Chard, onions and pink and green kale from the garden. I made egg fried rice but varied how I cook it today. I usually push the cooked rice and vegetables to the side to cook the egg and then mix them together. But today I spread the rice and veggies out across the pan and poured the egg on top and left it to cook, then flipped it over. Same calories either way you cook it but it makes a change. 402 calories.I always enjoy a decent coffee, especially now I drink it black. I particularly like the fact we visited this lovely farm where the coffee is produced. Happy memories.
Quick and easy lunch. Half this jar of soup. This was delicious and I have ordered another. Eaten with a salmon fillet.

438 calories. There was a very bright and well formed double rainbow over my house today. One good thing about the endless rain we are enduring.Dinner was half a baked potato served with half a mashed avocado and half a chicken breast.

402 calories

My dinner was made up of 3 halves, partly because I was sharing it with someone small but also because I was over my calorie allowance. It was impossible for me to get out to exercise and I had used up some calories by adding soya milk to tea and eating an apple. If I had managed a walk I would have been within calories. Hey ho, I am not much over.

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A Comforting Bowl Of Yumminess

Posted on January 29, 2014 by Lose Weight and Gain Health

I have felt hungry and tired all day today. Really hungry but I stuck to my diet and now feel much better. I took breakfast and lunch in to work this morning.

Breakfast was overnight oats made with almond milk, chia seeds and a lovely blood orange. I was meant to add 10 nuts but I forgot to put them in, even though I added in the calories to my tracker so I am enjoying them now :-). 363 calories (imagine the nuts). Lunch was a large salad made with rocket, lamb’s lettuce, celery, tomato, carrot and 150 g tuna. 348 calories.

By the time I got home, after a very busy day, I felt exhausted. I craved something warm and comforting. This is exactly the type of moment when I have failed on previous diets and gone crazy with tea and toast or hunks of cheese or chocolate! I managed to hold firm and decided instead that brown rice would do the trick. Yes, I really did.

I made this comforting bowl of yumminess and Harvey and I loved it. Brown Basmati rice, yellow pepper, carrot and red onions, stir fried in coconut oil served with spinach falafel, Tahini, coriander and chilli flakes for a bit of heat. This hit the spot perfectly and I feel restored, warm and sated.486 calories.

1,197 calories for the day today. Almost perfect. I was in an all day workshop so no time to do a walk so nil point for exercise but 10/10 for healthy food.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Chia Seeds, Falaffel, Stir Fry, Tahini | 2 Comments

Weigh Day Tuesday

Posted on January 28, 2014 by Lose Weight and Gain Health

Tuesday is weigh day and this week I was looking forward to going. I have been really good this week and although I went over my calories slightly on Saturday, I was slightly under every other day and ended up 82 calories under total which I think is very good. I have also exercised quite consistently. So off I went to the leisure centre to get on those scales feeling quite optimistic.

Oh my goodness, you won’t believe it! I LOST 6 POUNDS THIS WEEK !!!!!!!! That means I have lost 21 pounds this year so far which is one and a half stones. I didn’t expect to lose that much and am a bit worried that the scales are wrong. But I won’t anxst too much about that and will assume they are correct and consider this an amazing week. To finish this week I ate within calories and managed a walk.

Any self-respecting Scotsman would hitch up his kilt and run to the hills screaming rather than eat my “porridge” today. I started by wanting to make a traditional porridge and use the Pinhead Oats, also known as steel cut oats, I have. In Scotland they tend to eat porridge made with oats, water and salt rather then the sweet and milky version we favour in England. However, after looking online I found this recipe for perfect porridge and decided to try it. It seemed to be a blend of the 2 styles.

It asked for 1/4 cup each of pinhead and rolled oats. They are very different to each other to look at and in cooking times. I used almond milk instead of dairy milk and made it with my pink silicon spatula rather than a traditional spurtle! I also added chia seeds for extra protein and satiety. I followed the cooking method in the recipe and it was a good consistency and tasted ok but not quite exciting enough. An apple would make the difference. Perfect. A lovely bowl of apple porridge made by just grating the apple and stirring it in.

403 calories.

I worked form home today and took advantage of some clear skies to take the dogs over the road for a walk.

It was wetter and muddier over there than ever! There was water where I have never noticed water before. Where I am used to seeing water, it was flowing much faster than usual.

We got back just before the rain began again.

Time for lunch and I made roasted red veggies with chicken and salad. I roasted 2 tomatoes with thyme, salt and pepper for half an hour and then added beetroot and red pepper and roasted them all for another half hour. I didn’t use any oil.

I prepared a large pile of rocket and lamb’s lettuce and added 100g roast chicken and 50g humous.This was colourful and flavourful.

Every mouthful was an absolute pleasure. Apart from the beetroot which was not cooked enough. This is one of the tastiest lunches I have eaten for a while. Why don’t I roast tomatoes more often?

497 delicious and fabulous calories.I had a lot of work to do today so I was tired by this evening. Harvey still feels off colour and once again wasn’t hungry. I couldn’t be bothered to cook so I cheated tonight.

I heated up this can of Thai vegetable curry and added the cooked Basmati rice I had leftover in the fridge.

I would have liked to add some spinach but I didn’t have any. A little fresh basil would have to do.

This was perfectly adequate. Not amazing but for ease and cheapness it hit the spot tonight.

433 calories.

6 pounds lost eh?

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Diet, Weight Loss | 9 Comments

Time For Breakfast

Posted on January 27, 2014 by Lose Weight and Gain Health

A dear friend of mine asked me to recommend something for breakfast. The brief was a good simple porridge with chia seeds. Something healthy but filling and that keeps you full for ages and is low in sugar. To remain sated for a long time a meal needs to have a low GI that is, to not give you a blood sugar spike. The meal should contain protein and good fat plus, for health, some raw fruits and/or veggies.

This is a porridge I made for Harvey recently. In the base of the bowl is a mashed banana. I made porridge with unsweetened soya milk and added in some cashew nuts instead of chia seeds. The nuts had been soaked and then blitzed in the coffee grinder so they resembled a cashew nut butter. This was served with some fresh raspberries and a heaped tsp of honey which you could leave out. The breakfast Harvey and I both enjoyed today is another I would recommend. It is particularly good for busy parents or working people as it can be made the night before and popped in the fridge. In fact it has to be.

Overnight Oats

Ingredients

40 g oats
200ml milk of choice (I used almond milk)
10g chia seeds
Fruit of choice (I added an orange today)
Handful of nuts e.g. today I added 10 pecans and 10 almonds (optional)

Method

The night before you want to eat breakfast, place oats, milk and chia seeds in a dish or tupperware pot and mix well
Add fruit
Cover and leave in fridge overnight
In the morning, add nuts

By the morning, the chia seeds and oats will have absorbed the milk. This leaves a thick and creamy “porridge” consistency. Oats and milk are quite sweet anyway so they do not need sugar and adding fresh fruit makes it even sweeter.

The first time you make this, I recommend following the proportions given above so you end up with the correct consistency but then fiddle around with it to suit you.
Harvey loved this and ate it at home before hopping on the school bus. I took mine to work today and enjoyed eating it at my desk with a mug of black tea. A delicious start to the day and it kept me full for hours.

538 calories I was very organised on Sunday evening as not only did I make breakfast the night before but I also made lunch. It was very satisfying to go to bed and know I had healthy meals prepared and some good leftovers in the fridge to make mid week suppers quicker and therefore easier.

Lunch was a huge bowl of salad with another portion of the spicy peanut sauce. 423 calories I didn’t have many calories left for dinner. I earned 93 calories for doing a 20 minute walk at lunch time so I just had enough for spaghetti bolognaise because I made the “pasta” from spiralled courgette. The bolognaise is left over mince from Friday’s dinner and left over cooked carrots so that was a really quick and easy dinner. Harvey had spaghetti instead of courgette so I lightly steamed the courgettes over the pasta water.

303 caloriesAnother day of eating within calories, eating healthily and some exercise.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Courgettes, Oats | 2 Comments

This Crazy Weather

Posted on January 26, 2014 by Lose Weight and Gain Health

What is going on with this weather of ours? Late Saturday afternoon there was a very intense storm; incredibly strong winds and extremely heavy rain. It delayed my drive home from my Dad’s and when I did set off, I was anxious driving along, fearing for fallen trees but I arrived home with no problems. However, the sound of chainsaws filled the air this morning and there had been a large tree down opposite my house which fell across the road. It was cut and moved to the side to re-open the road to traffic last night but today the farmer who owns the land was out cutting the tree in to smaller pieces. The phone lines had been brought down but my house is ok as I have my own phone line which is intact so I feel very lucky.

I made a quick smoothie with watermelon, a blood orange, protein powder and macadamia nut butter.

429 calories. This nut butter is nearly finished which I am disappointed about. I really like it and doubt I will get it over here. I was very impressed to see Harvey making his own ice lollies. He whizzed up 2 oranges with some almond milk and froze them overnight using a plastic cup and the broken handle from a bamboo ladle. He is doing well with no sugar in the house but obviously yesterday he was missing sorbets so he made his own. I was impressed and he was happy with his “orange ice-cream”. I went out with the dogs immediately after breakfast as it was a very dark sky and I thought it would rain. It did – more heavy rain. It is so wet and muddy over the road ! Mushrooms are thriving. Water, water everywhere nor any drop to drink. These two managed to drink plenty. Walking through this heavy clay mud certainly adds to your workout ! Amazingly, my fence survived yesterday’s fallen tree. The casualties were the phone line and a big gap in the hedge where the tree settled but that will grow back. I planned a raw lunch with a tasty dressing. I made the Spicy Peanut Sauce from Oh She Glows. Angela adds maple syrup to hers but I left that out.

Spicy Peanut Sauce

Ingredients

1 garlic clove
6 tablespoons smooth peanut butter (or almond or sunflower seed butter)
2.5 tablespoons fresh lime juice
2 tablespoons tamari
1-2 tablespoons water, as needed
1 teaspoon freshly grated ginger
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Method

Blend all ingredients together in food processor until smooth.

So this was a really easy recipe to make and it tasted very fresh, zingy and nutty! I made a salad to put it on from a red pepper, courgette, celery, spring onions and some fresh chilli.

I spiralled the courgette. All the salad ingredients were put in a large bowl. Half the quantity of spicy peanut sauce was poured on top. It was excellent and I enjoyed every mouthful

379 calories. Having endured a dull, dull, dull, afternoon dealing with tax (aaaaagh !!!!!) it was comforting to know a decent roast was in the oven. I had 100g roast chicken, breast meat only, no skin, half a large roast sweet potato and a huge pile of steamed courgette, carrots and broccoli. Having taken the photo I calculated my calories and was pleased to see I had enough for a small portion of gravy.

571 calories.

I am pleased with today. I ate within my calories, discovered a new and very tasty salad dressing, managed a walk despite the terrible weather and got some boring chores out the way. Here’s to another good week next week.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Salad, Smoothie, Walking | Leave a comment

Munching Seeds

Posted on January 25, 2014 by Lose Weight and Gain Health

What a very pleasant day I have had.

I began with veggies; spring onions, mushrooms and Swiss chard. Fried in coconut oil with rice and eggs, garnished with coriander.

374 calories. I did all sorts of intersting things today and ended up at my Dad’s. I popped in to see him to wish him a happy birthday and found 2 of my sisters there. They all enjoyed an afternoon tea and I managed to behave myself and ate something very light instead.

One yellow pepper, green leaves and humous.

With a raw orange.

295 calories in total.

Back home we had a quick and easy supper of half a Wild Alaskan salmon fillet, 1 small sweet potato roasted in coconut oil with a red pepper and steamed broccoli.

411 calories.

I should have stopped there and I would have been on 1,111 calories. But while I was cooking dinner, I was decanting some of the large bags of nuts I bought and I munched on a few of those as I was hungry. I gave Harvey a bowl of Munch Seeds Omega Sprinkle to nibble on but he didn’t fancy them. Unfortunately I did and I couldn’t restrain myself and ate them all. My nut nibbling and seed munching added 323 calories so I am over by 234 for the day. At least it was healthy snacking and I remain under 1,500 which is my upper limit.

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A Very Rice Day

Posted on January 24, 2014 by Lose Weight and Gain Health

One of my favourite breakfasts is egg fried rice with vegetables. I had a real fancy for it today and as I was working from home I was able to make it. I am finding rice an excellent food to eat at the moment. It feels comfortable in my stomach, it has relatively low calories compared to how , it is nutritious and it is very easy to cook.

If you click on this link, you can see why brown rice is so much more nutritious than white rice. One reason why it is good to eat in the morning, is because it is an excellent source of manganese which helps with energy production. It is also a critical component of an antioxidant enzyme which protects our cells from free radical damage.

If you don’t make rice because you think it is too difficult, let me show you how easy it is.

I use brown basmati rice but other brown rices are healthy too. I find basmati easier to cook and prefer the taste to other types of rice. I never eat white rice as it has so many nutrients stripped out during processing I don’t see the point of it.

I always rinse mine before cooking in a sieve. Having rinsed the rice well I put one cup in to a large saucepan with two cups of water and I bring it to a very lively boil.

Once it is boiling I put the lid on leaving a slight gap for steam to escape. You don’t want too much steam to escape or it will dry out too much but if the lid is put on fully, the water boils over and the rice ends up dried out and burnt.

Boil vigorously for 10 minutes and then put the lid on the saucepan. Do NOT lift the lid or look in the saucepan or all the steam escapes. You want to keep as much steam in the pan as possible.

Forget about it now for half an hour and the steam completes the cooking.

After half an hour you end up with a pot of perfectly cooked brown basmati rice.

You can fry the rice in coconut oil before adding the water. It adds a little flavour but it’s not necessary and I don’t to save some calories. You can also add spices when you add the rice and water and they end up sitting on the top of the rice so they are easy to pick out. But today I made plain basmati rice.

It is recommended that you do not make more rice than you need to eat at each meal as it can give you food poisoning. This is a link to the NHS site which explains why. However, I always make enough for 2 – 4 servings and have been fine.

So while my rice was steaming I decided what to have with it. The trouble with organic food is that it goes off quickly!

I only bought these last week. The mould was created because I leave tomatoes at room temperature but I made the mistake of leaving them in the plastic bag. I did salvage 4 to use though. I picked some Swiss Chard from the garden. I fried a red onion with the chard stalks in coconut oil and then added the chard leaves and chopped cherry tomatoes. When the veggies are cooked, I added 80 g cooked rice. When it was all cooked to my satisfaction, I pushed it to one side of a large frying pan and cooked the egg in the other half. I added soy sauce to the egg. When the egg was cooked, I mixed everything together. Breakfast perfection – egg fried eggs with Swiss chard and tomatoes.

453 calories. I was too busy with meetings and then collecting a poorly son from school to have lunch so I made a quick smoothie with coconut water, an orange, almond butter and protein powder. It was runny and refreshing and kept me going until dinner.

292 calories. I meant to make a chilli con carne for dinner but I had neither chilli nor kidney beans so instead we had a slow cooked beef and onion dish which I ate with broccoli and carrots.

430 calories.

Adding in the extra calories I used by adding some soya milk to coffee, I consumed 1,208 calories today so nearly bang on target. Unfortunately there was no time for any exercise which was a shame so that will be a priority tomorrow.

I had a very enjoyable evening in Benenden watching ‘Scrooge The Panto’ put on by the Benenden Players. It was really good fun – a very good bit of Am’ Dram’. It is on again over the weekend so go and see it.

Have a happy weekend 🙂

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Brown Basmati Rice, Calories, Diet | Leave a comment

Leadenhall Market

Posted on January 23, 2014 by Lose Weight and Gain Health

I had a very early start today and was eating breakfast in my office at 7:30 am. I was thankful I had made it the night before. Oats, almond milk, cashew nuts, chia seeds and raspberries. Overnight the chia seeds (10g), nuts (25 g) and oats (40 g) absorb the liquid (200 ml) so the consistency was perfect.

448 calories. I had made salad last night too which I was very relieved about. I was in an all day meeting in a different office and when we broke for lunch it was to eat in the canteen. The food was perfectly adequate but not enough raw food for me. I realised yesterday when I was blogging that I had cooked all my meals. They were all healthy and contained lots of veggies but I am trying to increase the amount of raw food I eat too. So today, to balance things out, everything was raw except the sweetcorn and tuna.

In my salad pot was mainly mixed green leaves, tomatoes, celery, sweetcorn, pink grapefruit (there was a small bit left in the fridge to use up), tuna and coriander. This was not really enough for lunch so I was very hungry when I got home.

182 calories.

We finished earlier than I expected so I took the opportunity to wander through Leadenhall Market, somewhere I used to go to regularly but where I have not been for ages. In the background is the top of the Lloyd’s building and the ‘Cheese Grater’. It looks like it has had a paint job since I was last here! The Lloyd’s Building, home of the insurance market.Many years ago I worked next to this market and for years would pop in here to grab a sandwich or similar for lunch. I enjoyed many an evening out at The Lamb, the pub on the right hand side. Most of the shops in here have changed since my day but I enjoyed the memories as I wandered around. It is a beautiful building. Back at home I was very hungry and in the mood for something sweetish. So I made a smoothie with lots of goodies, including cacao nibs and a small banana for some sweetness. No sugar or dairy though so none of my diet rules were broken. I blended it for ages so it was super smooth. I really liked it but this would not appeal to most of you. The taste was unusual but the banana and chocolate were detectable beneath the other flavours and I enjoyed thinking about the goodness this was doing. It did seem very rich so I ate it slowly and enjoyed it all.