Shocker!!!!

How is it that I decide that I need to lose weight and start off at the depressing weight of 83.5kg, and only one week later I weigh 86kg!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?
That would be the dreaded comfort eating to combat the anxiety that has welled up like a wave of horror. Have I triggered the anxiety by getting all worried about my weight? Probably more likely to be my social anxiety issues, which have reared their ugly head this week. Grrrrrr! Thinking back I started out pretty well, but had a couple of bought meals that were not exactly light on the calories. We went out for tea and had a roast dinner with pudding. Last night we had pudding and chips and chocolate at a friend's house (while watching the delightfully corny Bride and Prejudice). We had a big pasta meal one night that Mr B cooked when I went to cello. Plus I did nibble a fair bit at school. So thinking back, I didn't manage to eat healthy food much at all. Well, I ate the healthy stuff plus a whole lot of other stuff too. And big portions. We've got Barbara coming around for tea tonight. We are having tortellini and salad, with gingerbread ice-cream and Jamie's gingerbread. If I go light on the tortellini and heavy on the salad, and don't have the ice-cream cause I'm not that mad on it, that should reduce the calorie intake. Plus a nice brisk doggy walk today.

Right, this week I will try to keep this blog updated so I can track my progress. I can do it. XXX

The Fatty Challenge!

The time has come. My pants are cutting in around the waist, giving me an assortment of rolls and bumps that I've never had before. I am finding it tricky to choose what to wear to be both comfortable and to disguise the expanding girth. Without a serious intervention I am going to keep on expanding. I have to change my lifestyle rather than starve myself. I'm sure there wouldn't be a dietitian that would disagree with that. In previous attempts to lose weight I have:

• Eaten nothing except the odd bit of junk food until tea time. Worked, but really bad for my metabolism and brain function.
• Gym. I went to the gym for ages. Didn't lose a kilo, but got pretty fit and strong. I stopped going because it was costing so much. Plus I got really hungry and couldn't practise cello after doing weights.
• Dietitian. Trotted along for ages and learnt what to do, but didn't lose anything.
• Went to Weightwatchers. Went along to meetings religiously with a bunch of porky and not so porky women, and one huge man. Lost 4 kg and then started gaining again. Got sick of the same people going up the front to get their little badges, bookmarks, stars etc.

The Problem

I am a serious emotional eater. And with an anxiety disorder I feel a lot of stress. When I get stressed I want to eat to feel good. Good old Weightwatchers talked about this, but I'm a hard core case. If I wasn't so sensible I think I'd probably head down the eating disorder route. I'd be bulimic I think. Fortunately I'm far to busy to spend time binging and barfing. I can happily eat a King Sized block of Cadbury chocolate and a family sized bag of chips in one sitting. Or a whole packet of chocolate biscuits. Whole bags of lollies.

The second problem is that I get really tired with my job, and don't get much time or have much motivation and energy for exercise. I'd like to spend all of my spare time curled up sleeping or reading a book.

The Plan

• A weekly weigh-in. I'll record my progress here on the blog. Confession time.
• Eat 3 low calorie meals a day plus 2 snacks.
• Record the good and bad here on the blog.
• Learn lots of new recipes and share them here on the blog.
• Exercise for at least 30 minutes a day. Rain, snow, hail or sun.
• Only eat "junk food" occasionally and eat single portion sized amounts (this is going to be the tricky one).
• Eat masses of fruit and veges, and watch portions with everything else.

Any advice, recipe, ideas and encouragement would be greatly received. And if you want to confess your sins (or weight once a week) I'd be happy to return the support.

The Goal

• To improve my eating habits.
• To eliminate junk food binges.
• To increase my exercise.
• To eat masses of fruit and veges.
• To lose weight. My goal weight is the weight at which I last felt really comfortable, is healthy for my height and still has curves.

Goal weight 63kg

Current weight (oh dear, so far to go) 83.5kg. Next weigh in is Sunday next weekend. Wish me luck. XXX

Making the most of Sunday

You will be thinking practically all I eat is soup and bread. Well, it is heading into winter here, and I love soup and making bread. Today I've whipped up a brew of my "not minestrone" minestrone soup. I say "not minestrone" because traditionally minestrone has beans, but Mr B makes a fuss if he has to eat anything other than a baked bean, so I leave them out. Here is the general recipe. This is a throw it in the pot and it will work recipe.

1. Brown bacon (I used 100g, but you can use as much as you like)


2. Throw in one chopped up fat onion and continue sauteing.


3. Chop up one fat potato, 2 big sticks of celery and 1-2 cups of cabbage and throw into the pot.


4. Add water to almost the top of the pot (I forgot to say I use a big pot)


5. Add 1 tin of tomatoes in juice (chop up roughly if not already chopped) and 1 little tin or pottle of tomato paste.


6. Throw in a handful of dried pasta (because Mr B loves it).

Boil it all together for a while. Season with salt, pepper and smoked garlic salt (if you have some).

Serve with a sprinkle of cheese if you can bear to part with lots of money to get some.

Here's my bread in the oven. I wanted to make 2 loaves so I have enough for sandwiches during the week.

I had some extra dough so I rolled it out and spread it with sweet chili jam.

Then I rolled it up and sliced into little swirls.

Unfortunately while I was letting them rise a bit more on the table (waiting for a vacancy in the oven, as you can happily do with bread) something dreadful happened.

Someone was hungry.

Luckily she was only halfway through scoffing off the whole tray when she was caught, sweet chili jam sticky upon her whiskery lips. There were a few left for the intended consumers, so I bunged them in the oven. May I just suggest that you don't attempt to remove these from the tray as soon as you get them out of the oven. My finger hurts. Burnt by sweet chili jam that stuck like superglue to my fingers while I flapped around trying to get them under the tap. Bugger, bugger, bugger!

I'm proud to say I had an outstanding baking afternoon, apart from the obvious little issues I faced. Here are the banana muffins I made from bananas Mr B promised he would eat, but didn't.

The one missing was a test muffin. I had to make sure they were fit for human consumption (the dog certainly wont be getting any!

I'm off to grab a slice of bread and a bowl of soup. I'm pretty proud of myself. If I can do it, so can you!

Action stations

I'm back from my holiday, and it's time to get this Chocolate Baby under control. Fruit and veges are my materials, and my kitchen is the tool . How dorky does that sound? Anyway, I've got Mr B on board. Here's what we had for tea tonight:

This is the most simple roast vegetable salad you can imagine. It contains the following things and serves 2 hungry people as a main.

• Two medium potatoes - leave the skin on.
• One big kumera - peeled in this case because it was a bit rough. Leave skin on if it is good enough.
• One fat carrot.
• About 1 cup pumpkin.
• One big onion.

Chop into even pieces about 3cm across. Heat a roasting dish in the oven. When hot pour in about 1 tablespoon of oil (I use olive oil) and throw in all of the veges except for the onion. Mix around. Cook for a while until the veges soften up. Add your onion (it cooks quicker than the other things). Sprinkle on seasoning. I used smoked garlic seasoning salt, but you could keep it simple and just use salt and pepper, or flavour with something exotic like Cajun or Moroccan seasoning. Mixed herbs give you a good flavour too. Once everything is browny and soft you are ready to eat.

Serving: I shredded some rainbow chard and put the roasties on top. Then I sprinkled with parsley. Mr B chose a balsamic vinagrette and I chose a traditional vinagrette (both in bottles from the fridge!-I will have to work on dressing production).

Now onto pudding. Take a look at these beauties:

Now that manky looking apple is pure organic- growing on a tree on the farm. It is smothered in them, so I headed up through the long grass and picked myself a few. I picked up the walnuts from under a tree on the farm too. I wouldn't want to eat the apples as they come off the tree, although they would probably come up ok with a good scrub. It just shows how we are so used to perfect fruit and veges in the shops. I have to admit I don't buy organic fruit and veg from the supermarket because it is just so much more expensive. I do think it is well worth seeking out sources of spray-free or organic items that have been overlooked, or are madly producing and are going to waste. I'm going to check out the markets too.

Here's my apple crumble before I baked it:

And after:

For this crumble I used about 1/2 cup flour, 1 heaped tablespoon butter, 1/3 cup muesli, 1 tablespoon sugar and a few walnuts. I rubbed the butter into the flour, then added the rest of the ingredients. The best thing was cracking the walnuts. I discovered that I can poke a knife into the seam at the pointy end and twist it (like shucking an oyster). I baked it for about 1/2 an hour on fanbake at 170 degrees celcius.

Before I forget- I sweetened up the apple with a big tablespoon of sugar too, before I added the crumble. This is a two person crumble, so it is pretty little.

I hope my instructions are clear enough for Mrs CT. My a bit of this, and a bit of that recipes needed more explanation. These are super basic things to cook. And yummy.

Now for my words on health - and why I'm going to be going mad over fruit and vegetables. I've got a history of breast cancer in my family. My dear Auntie Jenny died of breast cancer after a seven year fight. The latest thing I read about breast cancer protection said I should be having nine servings of fruit or vegetable a day. I think everyone would benefit from a diet heavy on fruit and vegetables and very light on the processed foods. I've got a terrible habit of turning to nasty processed junk foods when I'm feeling stressed or down. So I'm working to improve my diet. I hope you can join me. XXX