Yes I have to admit I like Monday's. It means that the weekend is over, therefore, the temptations of times past, (take-aways, excess alcohol, chocolates whilst watching TV), have successfully been avoided.
After weeks of reading fellow bloggers daily blogs, I discovered where I was going wrong on many counts someone somewhere may take note themselves, hope so because its working for me and I am not going to any clubs.
Breakfast. I was not eating breakfast, simply because I was not hungry, but the
most successful dieters, were the ones who did in fact eat breakfast. It did not have to be cereals, it could simply be fruit and yoghurt!! Or, a cup of tea with a banana and yoghurt. This meant I could save my HEXB for lunch. I also hadn't touched a HEXA. For me it was, ( think this is the right way to say it) "My eureka moment!" It also meant if I wanted to I could have an Alpen light bar which would only use half my HEXB. It could only get better.
Superfree foods. I knew these were listed in the book, endless lists of veggies and fruits. But again, by reading the blogs of those who have done the best, I found how to utilise this. My first blog showed a photo of my plate of lunch. Two eggs, two bacon, mushrooms, beans, 2 toast. When I look at it now, its all wrong. I wish I could remove it! Now my plate would show 2 eggs, 2 LM red onion and rosemary sausages, tomatoes with mushrooms and two frozen spinach blobs stirred through. Subtle changes but BIG difference in understanding Free foods and Superfree Foods. I read an amazing blog by a lady called weight loss bitch...did she give me an understanding on this subject. Wow ! She explains it so well.
Portion Control. Yes!! I thought, "woo hoo" I finally found a diet where the promo says "eat as much as you want" well, that was my interpretation and no matter when I asked anyone, "Does this mean you can eat as much rice, pasta, potatoes etc, as you would like?" The response invariably was "Yepper" - I dont think so, someone with a voracious appetite (like me) can easily overdo the carbs etc.
So once again, sorry to bore you with this, I started to note these "bloggers who do it best", photos and studied them. There are free foods but ALWAYS superfree. I used to think the 1/3rd Superfree rule, meant 2/3rds of a plate with free foods and a 1/3rd filled with lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber. Me not being a lover of salad hardly ever did this. So I found a different approach. My curry last night, not only had chicken breast, 2 sweet potatoes, onions, peppers, curry powder, it was served with rice and a 1/3rd made up of red onion, cucumber, cherry tomatoes finely chopped in 0% Greek Yoghurt. Next time I am going to use Quorn chicken pieces, as I am trying to eat less meat and poultry.
SYNS. Somewhere in my stupid head was the idea I could use syns to have two glasses of wine a day (12 syns). I was not allowing for the fact that I had also had a TBSP of EL mayo, Tbps brown sauce, list goes on. I must have been having in excess of 25-35 syns a day. Hey, guess what was one of the biggest discoveries I made. I didnt see any "bloggers who do it best", have alcohol on their general daily food diaries! I saw that their treat was usually "mikados", I had seen an advert but didnt have a clue what they were. Well, for anyone who loves chocolate, try them. 1/2 syn each. Eat 12 and only 6 syns. So for me a glass of wine or 12 mikados...mmmm....Mikados every time now. I buy Options drinking chocolate in a large jar. I never weighed it, until I looked at a packet in Morrisons and saw it was 11g...so next time, I measured it and I had been using almost 18g, not a lot you may say but 60% more than I should.
So my Monday was off to a nice start, no headache. A bowl of freshly prepared fruit and an activia 0% cherry yoghurt.
Lunch, well this was a first and possible last. I had half a tin of tomatoes to use up, so I put loads of chopped mushrooms into a pan, added two dollops of frozen spinach, handful of frozen diced onions, added some water and soy sauce. Let it cook for a while then added the tomatoes. I had intended to have tomatoes on 2 slices of wholemeal toast. The mixture was way too sloppy and not worthy of a photo. My hubby said it looked like something the dogs would do! So the mix was now going to be soup. I added a small handful of parmesan cheese and black pepper. It tasted far nicer than it looked.
Dinner was the curry shown above. For two people, I diced two chicken breasts and browned them off in frylight, then added 2 small chopped onions, 2 small sweet potatoes and a red pepper sliced. 2 tblsp of tandoori masalla powder, 1tsp chilli powder, 1tsp mustard seeds, half can of chopped tomatoes. approx 150ml water and a knorr chicken stock cube. It simmered for about 40 mins. Served with basmati plain boiled rice. 0% greek yoghurt with chopped cherry toms, onions and tsp mint sauce. One of my favourite meals. But as I said earlier, next time i will try Quorn chicken pieces.
Later I had an Alpen cherry bakewell delight broken up in the bottom of my bowl, topped with few grapes. I had a few raspberries that had defrosted, so i added sweetener and a tub of quark. This topped the above. Enough quarky mix for a repeat pud on Tuesday evening. I will photo it as I forgot last night.
Now I read back and note I have not really had many syns
HEXA probably not enough on reflection : milk in one coffee and small handful of parmesan grated cheese.
HEXB one Alpen light.
SYNS.
1 tbsp Brinjal pickle 2.5
1 tbps Mango chutney 1.5
1 tsp mint sauce 0.5
total 4.5 syns.
Body Magic. Usual 35 minute walk with Paddy and Molly.
On reflection I can do this better. I need to keep a tally of all syns.
Hope to do this better for Tuesday's blog.
Carol xxx
