Hate To Exercise

Two portions of that please

Well hello there. It’s been a while. What can I say – with poorly dog most of this year, I had very little time to dedicate to this diary, or my exercise or diet. But, when there’s something to say, I’m here to say it.

It’s no secrete this year has been a challenge from weight/health perspective, and health in general. Some feet issues left me unable to walk for weeks at a time. Add to all the challenges a splash of laziness, and dash of too busy with crafting, and the equation culminates in – yeah, you guessed it, extra pounds.

I’m relieved to say, I haven’t returned to my pre-pandemic weight, but I was very much on a path to. Until the other week. I’ve gone vegetarian.

Okay, not vegetarian really, I love my sausages and ham and Sunday roast far too much. However, for the moment, I’m filling up on veggies more than not. Recently I purchased and air-fryer. It was a treat – one because I didn’t really feel I needed it, and two because they’re not the cheapest things when you have other bills to pay. As it turns out, it’s been a great purchase. Air-fryer aside – although required for some of my cooking – I’ve been increasing the quantity of veg in my diet. Considerably.

Combined the new found (or rather re-discovered) fondness for veg, with tiny (or no) breakfast, gigantic brunch, and tiny dinner (more like fruit snacks really) – guess what….. yep my scales numbers are shifting downwards. 2lb this week alone. Fingers crossed this carries on – well, I intend to carry on with the veggies for another week, so hope so.

Granted, veggies aren’t for everyone; plus vegetarian cooking tends to be quite bland and samey. Well that is if you don’t start researching and experimenting. Turns out you don’t need exotic ingredients or pantry stocked full of stuff you don’t even know. Peppers stuffed with kidney beans, sweetcorn, bit of pesto, some feta cheese and few bits of cheddar on top. That’s not exotic – most of us have these ingredients in the kitchen – but I tell you what, it’s damn delicious and filling. So yes, I’ve been making double portions for myself. Incidentally, craving a snack the other day I air fried some chickpeas in a bit of salt, oil and smoked paprika. Nice alternative to crisps.

The point is, as we all know, vegetables are lower in fat, lower in calories – add more of those into the meals, reduce the meat, take out bread for a day or two and you will see results. Don’t diet – I don’t diet. I’m just being adventurous with my food. Trying to eat healthier not necessarily because of my weight, but because too much meat can’t be good for one’s organism.

So anyway, this week it’s been stuffed peppers, cauliflower and squash korma curry, cauliflower with buttered breadcrumbs, and few other bits.

Fingers crossed I find more easy, quick filling veggie dishes to make next week. I need to shift the next 2lb.

See you again sometime audience. Bye

Something smells fishy

I go through these – how should I call them – blocks of time when I get more disciplined about my food or exercise. At the moment it’s the food.

After dropping 2lb recently, I’m afraid I very quickly piled it back on due to some rather unforeseen and frequent restaurant visits. So I made a decision – for the next couple of weeks until my weekend break there is NO – bread, cheese, pasta, rice, any flour based foods in my house. Stick to vegetables and fish.

Generally I find fish very expensive. In fact if you really look at the prices of various food in shops – anything that’s actually good for you, low in calories, and healthy like vegetables and fruit, is extortionately expensive. No wonder we eat highly processed, fatty, full of carbs foods. They’re far cheaper.

Anyway, food price rant over. I decided to go with the fishy ‘diet’ for a little while. Rather than reaching for the salmon, I’m buying the less popular and less pricey fish like tilapia, or basa and few others. Now switched to canned tuna in spring water, rather than the expensive flavoured varieties – and tried mixing these myself with some sauces and veggies for some tasty flavour.

This current regime requires a bit more thinking – though not as much prep as you’d think. So far, I’ve been doing this for a week with I have to admit surprising results. Usually when I pay this much attention to my food, my weight bobs up and down like an apple on the surface of the water, slowly moving in the downward direction.

The twist with the current food regime has been that my weight has been steadily reducing each day. There has been no bobbing up in the scales at all so far. I’ve been alternating my meals between fish or vegetables. Or sometimes having fish 3 times a day. Fish, as we know, is low in fat, I mean when you talk about lean meat you really can’t get any leaner, can you?

So, I’m going to stick to this discipline for another week – then hopefully for longer. Fingers crossed. Today, I’m 100 grams away from being back in 86s – hopefully that will be achieved tomorrow – if the current trajectory and trend are to be believed.

And in case you’re wondering, these are the types of meals I’ve been prepping:

smoked mackerel shredded, with chopped onion/shallot, chopped radishes and a spoonful of cream cheese – plus 1 singe tortilla chip/cracker crumpled on top
fried tilapia with a spoonful of cream cheese, and again one tortilla chip
fried onions and red peppers, with cherry tomatoes, in tomato pure, stock, with a handful of ORZO pasta

Okay, I know, the no flour rule is broken – but the amounts are tiny compared to my usual intake – I’ve been very careful about that.

So let’s raise a glass to me sticking with this food regime for another week. I’m finding mixing veg meals between fish meals, it’s actually not as draining on my purpose as I worried. Today for lunch, mussels in creme fraiche sauce – with no pasta, no rice, no bread.