Maybe tomorrow, Jack*

Over the weekend I bought some more clothes, got to see my grandparents and uncle, went to Steve's baptism and lots of other stuff besides. I have got pics from Sunday, but I will have to loads them up tomorrow or sometime, cos this evening I'm going out for a drink with the boy.
See y'all tomorrow.

* That's a line from an advert, and it just came into my head when I was deciding what to call this post.

Weigh-in

209.6
Yay :-)
Down about 2 1\2. can't remember exactly.

Friday's here again

I have no idea what I've eaten this week. I was just concentrating on remembering to eat SOMETHING! I don't think I'm doing too badly though. I'm pretty sure I will have lost weight this week, but not so dramatically as last week, which is good, cos that was a bit scary.

I'm just happy being ME and enjoying the unexpected things life has thrown at me this week.

And I'm feeling so happy right now, I don't think you could say anything much right now to upset me (but I'm also tired, so maybe best not to test that one!)

I'll report back on Monday if not before.

Monday weigh-in

212.2
Um, yes, that's down quite a lot on last week. I was kind of distracted yesterday and didn't eat any carbs, or anything much at all in the afternoon or evening. So I started the day with porridge (made with bits of apple in) and then I've had two apples, and a big lot of veggie curry with cheese sprinkled on the top (that I had to share some of with two demanding little ones who didn't want to be left out!)

I loved wearing the dress to the wedding on Satuday and had a fantastic time. I'll add a pic to the sidebar at some point soon.

The end of the week in review

Well I did take a few more pictures of the things I was eating, but I didn't photograph everything, and I can't honestly remember everything I ate over the last couple of days. I think taking pictures of my food does help me to stay on track more, so I might so it again at some point, but I figured you were probably all getting bored of it by now.

Rach Wibbs asked how I can eat curry for breakfast. Well, I dunno. It's just warm and squidgy, and tastes good with bacon and egg, which have become my standard things to eat for breakfast. This morning I was out of curry and had to have broccoli instead, which just wasn't the same. But it's ok, because I made some more curry this evening, so I can have it again tomorrow.

On Thursday I went to Cambridge and managed to find a shrug, necklace and shoes to go with The Dress. We've also added new ribbon straps, which is good, because having lost more weight this week, it was kind of in danger of falling down. I will post pictures in due course.

I haven't done much official exercise this week - I went on my treadmill on Tuesday, but Wednesday and Thursday I was just content to walk around Covent Garden and Cambridge. Actually, I didn't have much choice, because the front room, when my treadmill is, was full of HP's stuff, so I'm not sure there was space to unfold the treadmill (it gets folded up when not in use, just to make a bit more space in the room). This evening I did a wonderfully intense hour on my treadmill - 25 minutes while dinner was cooking, and then another 35 minutes after dinner while the curry was cooking. (I didn't eat curry today, just made it ready to be able to have some tomorrow). And it felt really really good. Earlier in the day I was feeling a bit sad and lost because HP had gone back to university - my Mum took her today, so I was helping them pack and then load up the car this morning, but this afternoon the house felt really empty).

Hmm, now blogger doesn't want to save this post, but hopefully it'll change its mind in a minute.

She realises that she really better eat some carbs today

It's not that I think my food is boring, it's just that it's time to change and eat something else. I think I could probably actually eat what I've eaten for the past few days for the rest of the month, and not have a problem with it. Only, I weighed myself this morning, and I'm down from Monday. Quite a bit down. Let me explain some of the reasons why this might be, before I tell you what I weighed this morning.
1. I've been on a course of oral steroids for a week. I took my last dose on Monday morning. Although I don't know exactly what they do, I do know that steroids can inhibit weight-loss, or at least make it harder to lose.

2. My Monday weigh-in was 219.4. I've been in the 219s since about Friday, so I guess I'd hit a bit of a plateaux. So, remembering that I've been on phase 1.5 (still eating fruit) so expecting to lose faster than when on phase 2, and if you take an average of the weight lost from Friday until today that's 5 days) then it's not quite so alarming.

All that said, my weigh-in this morning was 215.6. So I need to start eating carbs, cos it's just not healthy to drop that quickly for an extended period of time. (I'm down 7.6 in a week and a half, and that's plenty). I think I can almost get stuck in a phase one rut, and not want to stop, but I am determined to... So much so, that I'll probably eat porridge for lunch.

I have no idea if any of what I wrote was coherent, but hopefully it was possible to catch the drift of what I was on about. Besides, I have to stop losing weight, or else this dress will fall down too much when I wear it on Saturday.

Breakfast
Bacon, egg, veggie curry.Snack
Pear

Lunch
Porridge, made with 1\3 cup oats, skimmed milk, and a chopped apple. With cinnamon on the top.

Afternoon
Hot chocolate and a small piece of chocolate brownie (I'd taken a box of Brownies with me for Jeana and her family, and I ate a piece to show them that they weren't poisoned or anything...! Besides, it was small and yummy.

Dinner
Mini turkey burgers (made them the other day, and reheated them today), veggie curry, purple sprouting broccoli and broad beans. Two mini pumpkin muffins.

After dinner
Some nuts. Probably over did them really. Need to keep an eye on myself tomorrow.

Tuesday (was a long and busy day)

I was looking after kiddos, and then when I got home I went on the treadmill, and then had to have a super-quick shower before heading out for a meal with my church small group friends. And decided that 11pm was too late to start uploading photos and all that jazz.

Breakfast
Guess what?Snack
Once again..Lunch
Veggie CurrySnack
Pear and a spoonful of peanut butter (I really pushed the boat out for that one!)

Dinner
Ok, so this where it gets exciting. Or not, but less predictible, at any rate.
I went out to dinner to Caffe Uno. I'd looked up the menu on Sunday, and discovered they had a few different salads. On closer inspection last night, there was only really one that sounded me, but one option is good enough! I read through the whole menu several times (I was one of the first there, and we waited a while for the last group of people to arrive!) but I didn't find anything that seemed worth wasting a carb or more on - sure, the pizzas and pastas looked nice, but they'd all be made with white flour, and the salad did sound good.
And it really was. I had them leave the dressing on the side (not so much for healthy reasons, but because I tend not to like salad dressings!) and just added some balsamic vinegar. There was plenty of chicken, and lots of interesting salad leaves, and I even ate the green beans. (I didn't take a picture, but you can see the description instead)

Insalata di pollo contadina...Succulent pieces of char-grilled chicken served with mixed salad leaves,roasted vegetables, green beans, artichoke, Caesar dressing and toasted pine nuts

Monday, Monday, so good to me

Morning weigh-in 219.4 (Yay!)

(I think I may be staying on phase one until I make up my mind about whether I'm wearing a dress that Little One's Mum has lent me, to go to a wedding this weekend!)

Breakfast
Bacon, egg, veggie curry

Snack
PearLunch
Veggie Curry
Snack
Pear

Dinner
Cashew chicken with roasted spiced chickpeas with spinach on the side (I actually added another handful a bit after I'd taken the photo)(This recipe, but with some slight changes. Or maybe more than slight changes. We don't put in fish sauce, because I don't eat fish. Instead tonight I just put in some hot water instead. I used three onions instead of the shallots. We didn't have rice, and I don't put the spinach in it, but serve it on the side as a salad - it's a good way t cool your tongue from the spices, because I always put more chickpeas and more spices than the recipe says. But other than that, it's similar!)

Sunday, or Just how much veggie curry is too much?

Ok, so I've been photographing my food for several days now, is anyone getting bored? I'm not really, it's just that basically I'm stuck in a veggie curry rut at the moment, and there are possibly only so many time y'all will want to look at veggie curry in a variety of bowls and containers!

I think that my modified phase one has probably done its job - the weight loss has been kick-started again, and unless something very strange happens between now and tomorrow morning I should be safely below my next short term goal (220). I'll start adding in some carbs again, but I am aware that I'm going out for a meal on Tuesday evening to Cafe Uno which is an Italian restuarant, so it could be easy to go overboard on carbs there. I've just been looking at the menu online, and will probably go for a chicken salad of some type - they have a couple of different ones. If things don't go according to plan, or I just can't face salad on the night, then I can always cut the carbs again for a day or two (but my intent is to go down the sald route. I'll let you know how I do.)

Breakfast
2 rashers bacon, egg, veggie curry.Snack
As is often the case on a Sunday I didn't have a snack this morning, but I did successfully stay away from the cakes and biscuits at church. Actually, I looked at them and though 'nah' and that was that. They didn't even tempt me. That IS an achievement!

Lunch
Turkey burger (homemade, and sort of fall apart-y) - that's Parmesan cheese on the top, leftover broccoli and some veggie curry (you may see a theme emerging!)
Half a pomegranate.

Afternoon snack
It kinda felt a little bit like I was snacking all afternoon, but I think all I ate was two pears (only took a picture of the first one!), some pistachios, and a couple of spoonfuls of peanut butter. Ok, so I need to watch the nut intake, but I think it was liveable with today. I know that's got potential to be a problem, so I will keep an eye on myself.

Dinner
Guess what? Veggie curry, with low-fat cheese on the top. This was actually the last of last week's plus some more of today's batch, and with some leftover sweetcorn thrown in for good measure. I like leftovers - they're fun!
I'm still feeling hungry, but I haven't decided what to have next.Evening Snack
Seems like it was all about the green - I started off with some sugar-free jelly, but after one mouthful I realised it was too sweet and was giving me a headache, so I gave it to my Mum. And instead finished off some sald that was leftover from lunchtime and the last three macademias in the pot. I still feel hungry, but I've got to the 'blow-this, I'm off to bed stage of the day'!

Veggie Curry

I was going to take pictures as I made some this afternoon, but the camera was in the other room. Anyway, Brandi wanted to know how I made my veggie curry, and although it is different every time, here's a basic recipe.

Onion, garlic, curry powder, dried thyme, stock\broth, vegetables (sweet potato, courgette(zucchini), carrot, parsnip, squash, swede, anything that's a root vegetable really), tinned chopped tomatoes, tinned chickpeas (garbanzos)

Chop a couple of onion (quite large - I usually cut the onion in half, and then in thirds each way, if that's any help at all!) Crush\Chop a couple of cloves of garlic and then fry together in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, until beginning to soften (try not to burn the garlic, like I did today).

Toss in a couple of teaspoons of curry powder (I used medium heat) and a teaspoon of dried thyme. Mix together until the onion is coated.

Add some stock - I use vegetable bouillon which you mix using a couple of teaspoons of stock powder and some hot water. I make about a pint (20 fluid oz). Pour in the stock (carefully, watching out for the steam - especially if you used boiling water)

Peal the sweet potatoes\squash\anything else that needs pealing! Chop into small cubes (I usually make them pretty small, but not always cuboid - the bigger it is, the longer it'll take to cook) Also chop any other vegetables, such as courgette. I sometimes throw in some bell pepper too.

Add all the chopped vegetables to the pan (did I tell you it should be big?!). Also add some chopped tomatoes (I usually put two cans) and some chickpeas (also 2 cans). Chuck in some salt and pepper, give it all a big stir, and then gently simmer for around half an hour, or until you come back and remember you left it cooking. The vegetables should be soft (you can easily cut them with a knife) or even going a bit mushy, if you've left them a long time.

Does that help? Today we didn't have many interesting vegetables so only used onion, sweet potatoes, courgette, and carrot. When I eat it I'll sometimes throw in some frozen peas or sweetcorn before heating it up in my bowl in the microwave. It should be good to keep for about a week - that's about how long it generally takes me to get through it, but it depends who else is eating it, and how many meals I've eaten it for.

Saturday, hungry day

Breakfast
1 rasher middle cut bacon, egg, veggie curry.Snack
A pearLunch
Bowl of veggie curry with cheese on the top.
Spoonful of peanut butter (yes, it seems I'm back on nuts!)
Snack
7 Macadamia nuts, a pear, quarter of a red pepper, a bit more peanut butter. Oh dear, that's a lot, but I'm just so hungry today! (See I told you I was hungry - this is the pear, about to be bitten again!)Dinner
Roast Lamb with roast parsnips, peas, sweetcorn and purple sprouting broccoli. There's mint sauce on the lamb, and I put a bit of gravy on after I took the picture (I thought you'd be able to see the pretty colours better if I took it before I did that!)
After Dinner
Argh! I just ate a whole bunch of nuts. I'm about to go to bed, and I felt really hungry, and had some nuts, but then I couldn't stop eating them. Tomorrow's a new day. I'll start again then. I'd better clean my teeth quick before I eat any more.

Friday's Finally Here

Weigh-in this morning 220. Woo-hoo!

Breakfast
2 rashers bacon, egg, a couple of spoonfuls of veggie curry and some yellow pepper (that's the ingredient I'll be adding to most of my meals today - we have lots and it needs eating up!)
Snack
I ended up not having a snack this morning, but having lunch fairly early. I'll see how I go this afternoon - maybe I'll have two snacks then!

Lunch
Veggie Cury with extra yellow pepper on top.
Snack
A pear and a raw mushroom.
Dinner
Too tired to tell you now what it was, see if you can guess!
It was some thin beef steak, cut into strips and cooked with pepper and rosemary. Then augergine, cooked on the griddle pan, and the remains of the chickpea/onion/courgette/pepper mixture that I'd put in my lunch the day before.After Dinner
A piece of my newly invented apple cake (I had to go off phase one to try it, but it was worth it!)

Some things I didn't eat today

Any of the chocolate chip muffins. Even though they were trying to call out to me, I told them NO!Any of the biscuits or leftover Easter candy and chocolate - a whole cupboard full!
Any of the numerous packets of crisps.Or anything else that wasn't on plan. All I've gotta do now is choose my evening 'munchie' sensibly (I forgot to take my antibiotic before dinner, so I'm letting my dinner go down, and then will need to eat something after I take it. Don't know if that's the right course of action, but it's what I've decided!)

Thursday

Good morning!

Today is a bit of an odd day. I had to be up and out early enough to get to R&D's house for 7.4o am, so that their mum could head off to work. So I had a shower at home, and brought my breakfast with me. Also, since we're going out for the day, and I won't be eating veggie curry for lunch (it's best hot, and although I could take it in a thermos, I only just thought of that!), so I had it for breakfast!

Breakfast
Veggie Curry

Snack
Ok, so I was wrong in thinking we didn't have any pears. We had one left, but it already looked so bruised that I didn't want to take a picture of it in case it put you off them for life! And it was really bruised inside too, so I only ate about half of it.

Lunch
A sort of salad type thing. I didn't want salad (lettuce and all that) because it just seemed too cold (we'll be having a picnic), and also we didn't have anything exciting to put in it. If I weren't doing phase one I'd probably have made a couscous salad, but as I'm not eating carbs right now, I'm having, as I told HP, 'a couscous salad without the couscous'. It doesn't look at that appealing in the photo, but it tastes good.
I sauteed together some onion, courgette and yellow pepper. Then added some chickpeas, soy sauce and a bit of paprika. I added to that some leftover meatloaf, some raw mushroom cut up, a little bit of red pepper (I would have put tomato for a bit of colour, but we were out of baby ones!), and a few cashew nuts.
I also ate about 7 grapes.

Snack
8 more grapes and a cheese tri-bite. (Basically just a pre-packed portion sized piece of cheese) (I only took one picture of grapes, because I didn't take it until after I'd eaten the first 7!)

Dinner
Sausage mush*, as made by HP with peas and low-fat cheese grated on the top.

*Cut the sausage into chunks and fry in a little oil. Add an onion, chopped, then a tin of chopped tomatoes. Add chopped mushrooms and red and yellow pepper, some mixed herbs, Worcestershire sauce, and some kidney beans.

Evening
A spoonful of peanut butter after my antibiotic, and then 7 macadamias cos I was still hungry. Guess I'd better head to bed before I eat anything else!

Wednesday

Breakfast
1 rasher middle cut bacon, 1 egg, some spinach and a spoonful of veggie curry.Morning Snack
A pear (I actually got to eat all of this one today, although I had to hurry the last few mouthfuls as some men were arriving to put some loft insulation in at R&D's house) (And I did take a new picture this morning, if you look carefully you'll see it is different to yesterday's one)

Lunch
Veggie curry and a raw mushroom.

Afternoon snack
A pear (yes, I like pears, but more importantly, they needed eating, especially since the only other person that eats them is my Mum, and she's been doing phase one and not eating fruit the last few days) The second mushroom.
I also ate half a pork burger. It was leftover from the kid's dinner and I was hungry (it was after 6pm and I wasn't going to be eating my dinner until half 7.) I'm afraid I didn't take a photo, but I can tell you that I totally ignored the leftover chips, and to be honest wasn't even tempted. I figured the burger was actually pretty healthy - I read the packet before I ate it!

Dinner
A pork chop with leftover braised green cabbage from a couple of days ago, leftover red cabbage from yesterday, and peas (which I added because it was all looking a bit brown and boring!)

Photographing my food - Tuesday

I'm back to taking pictures of my food for a couple of days...

Breakfast
1 rasher middle cut bacon, a fried* egg (broken and turned) and spinach (wilted in the pan once the bacon and egg are done)
* I use a non-stick pan to cook the bacon, and then fry the egg in the pan afterwards, so it's not exactly fried, and I don't add any extra fat to cook it in.

Snack
Pears - I took the photo first thing, before I took them out with me, because I knew they'd probably be bruised when I actually got to eat them. I actually ate about half of the one on the right, because it was bruised inside (they're getting a bit past it really), and then maybe 2\3 or 3\4 of the one on the left before Little One spotted it, and stole it off me to finish it himself.Lunch
A mixture of a few different leftovers (I'm not fussy!). There was some of my veggie curry, some cashew nut curry (we had it for dinner Monday night, and I couldn't eat all my portion, so I saved it to go in this combo). On top of that I threw in a leftover cold sausage, cut up into little bits, and some broccoli (the long green bits are broccoli stem, which although some people just throw it away, I think it's yummy). Oh, and I also ate a raw mushroom while I was waiting for it to heat up in the microwave and sorting out the kids' lunch.Afternoon snack
I forgot to take anything with me to the kids' house for my afternoon snack, and couldn't find anything south beachy there, so I just stayed hungry and moaned about it various places online!

Dinner
We had meatloaf, made from pork mince, I believe. With that I had peas (yay!), roasted radishes (I tried putting on sesame seeds like Kalyn originally suggested, but I didn't really notice them, to be honest) and red cabbage (cooked approximately like this)

Evening snack
I realised that the antibiotics I'm taking are supposed to be taken before food, and therefore ought probably to eat something after I took my evening dose. Also, I was feeling hungry, so I ate the leftover radishes. (I took a photo, but will upload it tomorrow when I do tomorrow's pics)