Brighter and Lighter

Still going

2011-05-06T19:26:00.000+12:00

Well I am still going, I weigh 105 so have lost 10.5kg in 3 months in a pathetically painful 2 steps forward, 1 step back approach, eventually accumulating the 1 step forwards.
Junk food is very addictive and very very bad. Its good to fit into a whole range of clothes I had stored as I have lost a little over 1 dress size, but I am certainly not winning the war as I still eat bags of m&m's etc. that cancel out some of the huge amounts of exercise I do!

8 Week Challenge Day 4 - Saturday

2011-04-10T09:39:00.000+12:00

It has been a very good 4 days so I decided to photo-blog day 4.

A.M. 1 peice of Burgen Rye, 1 egg, 2 Swiss Brown mushrooms, 1 kiwifruit, 1 cup of tea

Lunch: Well I got distracted and didn't eat my usual early lunch and I was starving! So I went to my emergency meal. I actually planned this a couple of weeks ago for when I was dying for superquick takeaway- to just make this. It takes 4 minutes and totals 400 calories. I don't want to use it too often as it is processed. all foreign ingredients and high in sodium. But I don't really care because it's a very satisfying answer to food that could be alot worse. The idea came because last year I discovered Trident 3 minute laksa noodles and after eating heaps of them I looked at the calories - 1200! Yes one packet, looks just like 2 minute noodles, was 1200 calories, what you should eat in a whole day!!! I think it is because the noodles are fried, it has sachet of powdered coconut cream and a sachet of chilli oil. So I looked for alternatives and found this Tom Yum soup with rice noodles in the soup section for 200 calories. It is very very tasty and has a hot chilli sachet, I have never used more then half of it and it is a spicy chilli soup. Then I thought hey I could just throw in some frozen ingredients and presto a meal to rival most Asian takeaways.
So anyway Lunch was Tom Yum rice noodle soup (200cal) with a spinach portion and 8 spinach and prawn dumplings (200 cal) heated in the microwave.

Afternoon Snack: 2x 2cm pieces of licorice (how weird American spell check does not recognise this word? Do they have licorice in USA?) and 1 kiwifruit.

Dinner: Waldorf Salad (2 celery stalks, 1/2 apple, a few walnuts, dressed with 1/4 lemon and a smidge of mayo) small tuna tin. Followed an hour later by 2 spoons of sultanas, pumpkin and sunflower seeds.

Some dieters may think I have too many fats in by diet but I have decided it is the one nutrient I am not willing to give up as I am very concerned about my skin and hair issues and I am finishing uni so I need healthy brain function. I take a multi vitamin and alternate taking magnesium, vitamin B, chromium and fish oil so that I take each a couple of times a week.

Exercise:

A.M. Walked 5.42km/55mins/burnt 471 cals around streets.

P.M.75 mins of BL DVD - consisting of
5 mins Warm up
20 mins Boot Camp

20 mins Sculpt with weights

20 mins Low Impact 10 mins Stretch routine

I think I burnt the same calories in exercise as I ate. I would guess at my weight and how hard I worked - I would have burnt about 800 calories in the P.M. so about 1271 calories for the day.

My cat usually ignores me and just continues sleeping when I am working out but today she kept curling around me and when I was doing floor work she was smooching and jumping on me. Then she just fell over and fell asleep in this position while I sweated and puffed profusely.

So I'm going well. I jumped on the scales and it reads 107 kg so I think I have lost 2 kg this week. My metabolism is alive finally after months of working towards this point.

8 Week Challenge Day 2

2011-04-07T22:02:00.000+12:00

Food
A.M. Cup of tea with light milk
   Large nectarine
   Cup of cabbage soup
Lunch: 4 corn thins with butter and Vegemite and celery with spoon of cottage cheese
P.M. Approx 1 cup of fresh pineapple and a spoon of cottage cheese
Tea: Stuffed Red capsicum with turkey mince, carrot, zucchini, garlic, chilli, ginger & 1cup of Basmati Rice

Dinner, also made up and froze 2 more serves.

Exercise
A.M. 60 mins of BL DVD - consisting
   5 mins Warm up
   20 mins Boot Camp
   5 mins on stepper machine
   20 mins High Impact

10 mins Stretch routine

P.M. Some vigorous vaccuming. Desperately wanted to go for walk but constant rain. I couldn't think of another exercise to do as I really couldn't do any DVD's as my shoulders, arms and legs were hurting from boot camp. Note to self I really cannot do pushups. With winter coming up I must think of an alternate (must be free) exercise when I cannot go outside.

Speeding up my Metabolism

2011-04-07T17:04:00.000+12:00

I am absolutely done with losing weight so slowly. This post is a summary of what I have learnt elsewhere and what I have discovered by trial and error to speed up my metabolism and lose weight at a more appropriate rate.

PCOS has really deadened my metabolism and endocrine system. This year I have eaten quite well (like thousands of calories less then I used to) and exercise two hours a day and get very small results. I do go offtrack sometimes and recently I just gave up for a week, ate badly and then started eating 'normally'. I dropped a couple of kilo's! Ofcourse I put it back on as I notice my body takes about a week to register if I was good or bad a week ago. So anyway that probably doesn't make sense but I think my body was finally starting to respond. I always give up right on the precipice of succeeding with everything I do (like right now I am all of a sudden blogging when I was just getting the point of being ready to write an assignment due next week).

This is my system I have recently pulled together as I have had bits of success from these strategies, but haven't done it all together. I am expecting better weight loss results now:

Exercise:

I can't out-train a bad diet. I tried. It has to be both.
Exercise in the morning before breakfast to burn fat stores and again before dinner.
After warm-up, start out hard and then slow down. This way you kick you body from burning fuel to burning fat stores quicker and also burn a few more calories in your second part as its kind of like interval training, your go-hard burns through your go-slow. *tip from somewhere?*
Have mini excercise bursts throughout the day to fire up your metabolism. I have a mini-stepper. I could only do a minute at a time on it 2 months ago and now I do 5 minutes with some hand weight exercises. *This may have no scientific basis as I have come up with the idea myself as I figure if interval training works then there must be some small benefit from firing up even if you go back to your resting pulse rate 3 minutes later.*

Diet:

Eat less. Though I am large and think I can sneak in more food because I use more caolries then the next person, I can't. Due to my lifelong PCOS and pre-diabetic insulin resistance, I am physically metabolically and endocrinalogically programmed to hold on to all this damn weight now that I have it. And that is science.
To eat less and walk the line of not going into 'starvation mode' or ketosis (where metabolically this is just not good) eat regularly, with more protein and less carbs.

So I eat 4ish times a day and I tend to eat the same foods pepared in lots of different ways. I eat:

Oats, low fat milk, LSA, banana, blueberries and strawberries as smoothies, porridge.
Vegetables - zucchini, red capsicum, carrot, silverbeet, spinach, lettuce, rocket, tomatoes and mushrooms in a variety of ways like omelettes, garden salads, grilled, stuffed.
Eggs, Chicken, turkey, cottage cheese, a few nuts or sprouted legumes as a protein component of every meal, even if its a really small amount.
Soups made of veges and legumes, chickpeas etc.
Apples, pineapple or other seasonal fruit
Flat bread and occasionally rice

My favourite meals have become waldorf salad, pizza (under 100 calories for a wholegrain flat bread, tomato paste, lots of herbs and veges, and yes a spattering of full fat mozzarella cause you have to use so little of it to get the flavour) and stuffed veges.

8 week challenge Day 1 - Wednesday

2011-04-07T16:06:00.000+12:00

There is nothing special about this challenge, it's just a book I bought at Aldi a few weeks ago for a couple of dollars. Its called Walk off the weight and had a really good diary section so I am filling it out. Because I probably won't update my blog everyday - it is too distracting sometimes, I'll just spend hours on here.

I have though been slowly increasing my knowledge and refining my practices through trial and error. Which is why I thought I would blog for the next couple of days. To keep a record of what I am learning.

Food
A.M. - Porridge: 5 spoons of oats, honey, light milk
Lunch - Waldorf Salad - 3 celery stalks, 1 red apple, 1/2 lemon, 8 walnuts, light mayo
Snack - A few spoons of filling as pre-preparing dinner
Dinner - Whole red capsicum filled with grated zuchinni, carrot, turkey mince, ginger, chilli, garlic & sweet chilli sauce.
Snack - Weak hot chocolate with light milk.

Excercise
A.M. - 60 mins of BL DVD - consisting
   5 mins Warm up
   20 mins High Impact
   5 mins on stepper machine
   20 mins Low Impact
   10 mins Stretch routine
P.M. - 25 minutes brisk walk until I got caught in very heavy rain. Luckily I was right at outside the local club and sat in their covered verandah for about 45 mins. It was still raining and dark so I went in and asked if their courtesy bus could take me home when it next went out. So lucky as I joined the last time I was there 9 months ago so they looked me up on the computer. Phew! The walk home would have really sucked!!!

Chicken Tarragon Pie with butter-free pastry crust

2011-03-06T17:55:00.003+13:00

I have never made pastry or pies in my life. But I gave it a go yesterday.

The recipe I found for the pie crust seemed OK, it was 2,3/4 cups of flour, 1/2cup milk, 1/2 cup of oil, spoon of salt. I am pretty sure that is considerably healthier then store bought frozen pastry which is half butter/shortening.

The last couple of times I have bought celery I have chopped off the bottom and the leafy tops and kept them for cooking. They last only a couple of days so I wanted to put them to use in this pie. These celery throw away bits had gone into my sweet potato and chickpea curry last week quite successfully. It uses more of the celery so saves money and the nutrition and flavour in the celery leaves is good.

The filling was whatever veges I could rustle up, chicken, tarragon, water, cornflour, stock.

Cooking up the filling

I lined a 6 muffin tray with some pastry and the filling and this is how they turned out. Ugly but yummy.

The rest of the filling went into ramekins with a bit of pastry and sesame seeds on top. Again ugly but yummy.

It was a miserable day outside so I spent it on the couch with my cat reading for uni and watching TV.I ate chicken pie for late breakfast, lunch and dinner!

The need to disappear and some of my meals

2011-03-06T15:58:00.000+13:00

Yes I did a little disappearing act, I do that alot, in real life as well as online. It's not hard for me to see where it all went wrong. My last post was Feb17. I spent the whole of Feb 18 volunteering for my former employer- taking a social group of 85 year olds to the horse races. I thought I would be OK as I wouldn't be involved in the office. I was wrong. I was very very wrong. As the staff involved in the outing, who formerly reported to me, could not help themselves but update me on everything that was happening. Though yes I was very annoyed, it was also a great excuse to go off track with my eating. And that I did. I should not allow the excuse but I decided to eliminate the cause of the excuse. So I called in sick for the next weeks day of volunteering and am devising ways to have no contact whatsoever with my old job.

I have been back on track again for a week. When I am good I am very very good and when I am bad I am positively evil. So unfortunately having a couple of bad days every few weeks is cancelling out alot of the good.

I completely forgot about blogging most of the time. Here are a few shots from the last week.

Steak, potatoes, cheese, beans

Salad roll

Turkey with cranberry, Waldorf (no cheese) and salad

Now this was good and there is plenty more in my freezer - I made another batch of sweet potato and chickpea curry with brown rice and fresh coriander

Waldorf (no cheese) and salad. Sprouted legumes are good for some protein in what would otherwise be very low protein meals.

Stir fry beef in hoisin sauce and fresh ginger, veges including the pak choi from my courtyard garden

fresh pineapple

Egg on rye and garden vegetable medley

Oh now this was good I have made it a few times this week. Fried tofu then coated in honey and sesame seeds with salad dressed in lemon juice and balsamic vinegar. TASTE SENSTATION!!

Thursday 17th February Food

2011-02-17T23:11:00.001+13:00

This is my fridge, I need to do some grocery shopping as it is very empty! By the way it is only a bar fridge as I don't need any bigger (and I store alot in a chest freezer). I will not replace this until it is completely dead. Which by the way it tried to commit suicide mid January. Oh I wasn't blogging at the time so I will show you. It fell forward off a stand and the door broke off in the fall. I came home to this.

Breakfast: Nothing :(

Lunch: Waldorf salad of 2 celery stalks, 1 apple, 4 walnuts, lemon, 1 tspoon mayo, plate of lemon tuna and carrot sticks.

Snack: Smoothie of 2 milk ice cubes, 1/2 c water, 1/2 frozen banana, frozen strawberry, 1 spoon coconut, 2 spoons of oats.

Dinner: Home made cabbage soup from the freezer, 100gr off-the-bone ham, grilled mountain bread with 2 spoons grated cheese, glass of diet lemonade.

Wednesday 16th February Food

2011-02-17T15:52:00.001+13:00

I wanted junk food from the second I woke up until the second I fell asleep. I didn't eat any junk food but refined carbs did get a look-in.

Breakfast: Off-the-bone ham, Burgen Rye, tomato, mushroom

Lunch: 6 corn thins with vegemite and butter

Lunch: Smoothie with 1/2 milk, 1/2 banana, 1 stawberry and LSA mix

Snack: Seeds and 3 prunes

Snack: Diet Lemonade with blended frozen fruit ice cubes

Dinner: 1 Chicken tenderloin, stir fry frozen veges, 1/3 cup(uncooked) Jasmine Rice and the very first of my pak-choi from the courtyard.

Midnight snack (unpictured) 2 pieces of Rye toast with peanut butter and honey

Workout Wednesdays

2011-02-16T11:15:00.002+13:00

I have made this really simple spreadsheet to record my workouts. It is easy to get stats for walking as I use my trusty Oregon pedometer. It is good quality as I have had a few cheap pedometers in the past that were useless. My other workouts are DVD's I have had lying around for some time, so I estimate the calories burnt for those workouts. A heart rate monitor would be more accurate however my thrifty sensibilities stops me from buying one. At this stage it is doing the workout itself that matters, not the gadgets that can tell me statistics.

Day	Date	Type	mins	km	cals
Wed	9/02/2011		0	0	0
Thu	10/02/2011	Walk	80	6.08	655
		Yoga stretch	20		100
Fri	11/02/2011	Walk	80	5.56	599
Sat	12/02/2011	Zumba basic	40		300
		Walk	45	3.46	373
Sun	13/02/2011	Walk	80	6.29	678
Mon	14/02/2011	BL LowImpact	40		250
Tue	15/02/2011	Walk	50	3.5	360
		Week Total	435	24.89	3315

I feel like I have built just enough fitness to launch into two full workouts a day, so this is my goal for this week.

Tuesday 15th February Food

2011-02-16T01:09:00.000+13:00

Well I have had a busy day but I have made nutricious healthy food.

Breakfast: Green smoothie with water, lettuce,1/2 frozen banana, pineapple, pear and oats

Lunch: Carrot and celery sticks, salad topped with sesame seeds and a grilled mountain bread topped with one spoon of cheese.

Afternoon Tea in my crazy little courtyard, with pear halves topped in oats, cinnamon, cloves and honey.

Dinner: I revisited my pumpkin pizza as I was cooking for my Mum. I included a grilled mountain bread with butter and garlic and a salad.

Bargain milk to freeze

2011-02-15T12:33:00.000+13:00

The things I will do for a bargain! I found this milk for 29c, that is 94% off. It had one more day before expiry. So in the spirit of Joan, who is on the simple savings forum, I brought this sucker home and put it into ice-cube trays etc. and put it into the chest freezer. Ofcourse it has to be frozen in small amounts as when it defrosts it could go off quickly because it was so close to expiry.

Because it is full cream organic milk when I take out little portions I will put it in the little jug you can see at the back of this photo and mix it with some water. I already do this so that is why i have my little milk jug.

All put in a bigger container for the freezer so they don't get lost. I haven't tried this before but Joan would probably pop the cubes out of their trays when they are frozen so the trays can keep being re-used. I might need to do this as I have all my trays full of blended fruit an now milk.

So if you don't hear from me again, I have died of food poising from my risky use of old milk! But what doesn't kill me will only make me stronger.

Monday 14th February Food

2011-02-14T22:51:00.002+13:00

As my cat is always jumping up on the table, I thought I would put a placemat down to eat. I need to take the placemat away though as shortly after clearing my plate, this is what I turned around to. My cat snugly snoozing on my placemat!

Breakfast: 2 eggs on Rye and veges

Late Lunch: Leftover frozen meal from the depths of the freezer, the last of the rocket, a mountain bread with a spoon of grated cheese grilled, handful of prunes.

Snack: 2 WizzFizz. Atleast they were only 50 calories each

Dinner: 2 chicken tenderloins with sliced veges thrown in the pan and topped with shallots, peppermint and lemon. Adding topping like these is really working flavour wise as there is no salt in this meal.

I am still hungry and I have a few sad pears that need to be eaten or blended and frozen. I am considering if it would work to halve one and microwave it with honey, cloves and cinnamon. Hmmmm....

Sunday 13th February Food

2011-02-13T22:42:00.001+13:00

I had a late breakfast post-workout: a smoothie of 1.5 cups light milk, 6 boysenberries, half frozen banana and two spoons of oats. I have modified my smoothies by only using half a banana and adding in the oats instead. It works out good, varies the nutrition. The main reason though is the cost of banana's.

Lunch: Frozen fish with a very zesty large salad with heaps of peppermint and coriander from the garden, greens, capsicum, grapes, a dash of balsamic, avocado oil and lemon. This salad was so very tasty, a real winner.

I have been craving pizza so badly and after thinking all day about what I could do with this lovely round pumpkin, I came up with the idea of making mini pizzas on pumpkin bases.

I kept the skin on, sprayed a bit of olive oil and cooked on a pizza stone for about 15 mins.

These are the topping ingredients ready to go. The off-the bone ham scraps are so useful. I have a container of them in the freezer and chip off a bit whenever I want to add a ham/bacon flavour to dishes. We got this one reduced several times and my Mum sliced it up to share.

Dinner: Pumpkin pizza!

mmmm... cheese. Part of my thriftyness is to buy full fat products and use half the amount I used to use with low-fat products. My whole adult life I have eaten low fat dairy at home. I am loving the taste of full fat, it is so much nicer and because of that you really can use so much less the the low fat variety. Particularly cheese. Why pay more for a watered down or skimmed product. I tried mixing full fat milk with water to make my own skim milk but you have to be very disciplined.

The skin on was good as it went crispy. the pumpkin was perfectly cooked and held together.

Saturday 12th February Food

2011-02-13T10:09:00.001+13:00

Breakfast: Egg on Rye, zucchini, red capsicum, tomato, a few scraps of ham

Light Lunch: Greens, grapes, capsicum, pine nuts, lemon, balsamic. Lunch was actually really yummy, the sweet crunchy grapes were great in a salad and really contrasted with the pin-nuts and shallots.

I microwaved some pumpkin and cut up the steak and fried them.

Early Dinner: Rocket salad, steak, pumpkin, topped with sun dried tomatoes and balsamic. I though I would really enjoy this but it wasn't that nice. The rocket was very overpowering.

Snack: Straight after dinner I was still hungry so I had a cup if tea and a Rye crust with peanut butter and honey

Evening: Post-Workout banana and strawberry smoothie

Some of my meals

2011-02-12T20:08:00.000+13:00

I have not posted as I got busy with assignment due (over a week ago I finished) and then dabbled with the idea of not blogging after reading a few other posts about people regretting exposing themselves. I think I know what I want though so I will edit out personal 'exposing' kind of posts. Here are some things I have eaten since I last posted. Many meals repeated themselves as I made batches. Some good and some bad foods there.

Day 4 Diary

2011-01-26T23:40:00.000+13:00

Today I ate snacks I did not plan on eating and were a bit much. I was so hungry this afternoon so I dug into the toast. Atleast my new bread, Burgen Rye, is half the size and 1/3 the calories of my old bread, Tip Top 9 grain.

Breakfast: 1 egg on Rye with spinach, mushroom, tomotoe & 2 pc's bacon

Snack: 2 fruit cups leftover from my work snack box.

Lunch: chicken stir fry leftovers from the freezer with sesame seeds

Snack PB & honey on rye

Dinner: 2 chicken & corn patties, 1 pc of rye with mayo & a heap of lettuce

I don't have time to enter this into Calorie King so will do so later. Must.actually.do.study.(said with gritted teeth)

I am doing Spunkysuzi blog challenge to eat 7 serves of f&v each day, as I think this is a confidence booster as it is something I can acheive. Today I just scraped in on 7 serves.

Day 3 Diary and Food-Porn

2011-01-25T21:27:00.001+13:00

I started my day with a walk to the beach and back. While at the beach I performed a series of stretches. By the time I was walking back it was about 8:30am and very hot. I was pouring with sweat. It was an hour of walking and I burnt approximately 450 calories.

After I cooled down I was very hungry so made my favourite breakfast. I shared my newly acquired brunch obsession on facebook a while aback and got some comments on how bad it is for me. I really don't get it?

Breakky: Burgen Rye, 1 farm egg, 2 shortcut bacon slices, 1 tomato, 1 mushroom, parsley

According to Calorie King this breakfast was 340 calories.
It contains 2 servings of protein, 1 serving of complex carbs and 1-2 servings of veges ( I have been including spinach as well so it would be 2 serves).
I do not use any oil. Half the time I don't include the bacon. When I do, the bacon is short-cut rindless and has a bit of fat. The bacon and mushroom come from my freezer and a fair bit of water comes out of them as they cook and this is just enough for it to 'fry'.
It has far superior nutrition, enzymes, vitamins, minerals then a bowl of sugary cereal or a powdered high sugar/chemical protein shake.

So I am happy with my brunch. Although I was very tempted to make it again for about and hour afterwards as I am not used to making reasonable sized portions. I quickly loaded the photo and kept looking at it all morning, admiring it's yumminess and remembering the sensation. Then I realised it was "food porn". Yes, this blog is creating food porn just for me. But hey if admiring a photograph stops me from getting up and making more, job done.

My darling cat can't stand how much attention my computer gets and must interfere.

Lunch: Half a sandwich, cheese, salad, balsamic vinegar... followed by scoffing 2 candy canes

Snack: Gouda cheese and a nectarine

The ingredients to make chicken and corn patties

Dinner: 3 Chicken & corn patties, fried zucchini & lettuce

Calorie King take your exercise calories off your food calories so I ate more than this. Whoops on the 59% fat intake. It was the full-fat Gouda cheese and I put in 3 tablespoons of oil as dinner was fried.

Calories

Set Nutritional Targets

You have used 1303 out of your net daily budget of 1740 calories and have 437 calories remaining. 59% of the calories are from fat, 20% from protein, 20% from carbs and 0% from alcohol.

Day 2 Diary

2011-01-24T22:59:00.003+13:00

Shock of the day- my pancakes were 728 calories!!!! Why? A cup of flour is 497 cals!! Lesson learnt. I ate them before I could photograph them so here is the photo of the mess left.

Breakky: 4 pancakes and passionfruit

Lunch: garden salad with a slice of Gouda cheese & balsamic vinegar

Dinner: Jasmine rice and the last of the sweet potato & chickpea curry

Snack: Plain smoothie with frozen banana and glass of milk

Other snacks: Afternoon 100g organic milk chocolate, pepsi max drinks (yes it was a mini binge)

Calories

Set Nutritional Targets

You have used 2018 out of your net daily budget of 1740 calories and have -278 calories remaining. 31% of the calories are from fat, 13% from protein, 56% from carbs and 0% from alcohol.

Activities: 90 minutess of gardening and 45 minutes brisk evening walk - approx 300 cals burnt

Went shopping allover town this morning to get bits and pieces of vegetables at decent prices. Gosh all the Aussie floods have made fresh food pricey. I am planning a fair few dishes using chicken mince as last week I picked up discounted free-range meat and froze it in my chest freezer. Eating fresh food and cheaply is like a game. I plan to document more of my saving strategies.

Day 1 Diary

2011-01-23T19:31:00.002+13:00

Consider this day 1 of my year of investing in myself, as I have now finished up at work.
I ate very well today, as shown in the following photos. I concentrated on normal portion sizes. I would usually eat bigger portions and feel very full at the end of each meal. I did not feel full after any meal today, it will take some work to shrink my stomach size and get used to eating less. I was so hungry all afternoon!

Breakky #1 Pineapple and passionfruit

Breakky #2 Egg on Rye with spinach, mushroom, zucchini & green chilli

Lunch: Peri Peri Chicken thigh, lettuce & onion

Dinner: Sweet potato and chickpea curry with Jasmine rice

Dinner was put together from the freezer. Click here to see the making of the curry.

Snacks: 6 almonds, pepitas, fresh pineapple,1 candycane and still hungry so will have a bananna smoothie with LSA.

Everything was entered into Calorie King in reasonably exact measures. The lowest calorie meal was lunch at 162 cals and the danger item is the banana smoothie at 360 cals.

Calories

Set Nutritional Targets

You have used 1549 out of your net daily budget of 1740 calories and have 191 calories remaining. 33% of the calories are from fat, 18% from protein, 50% from carbs and 0% from alcohol.

I enjoy Cooking and Freezing Food

2011-01-16T13:33:00.001+13:00

Well its the weekend and it has been a full-on week. As expected. The QLD floods are just terrible, we are used to some other place in the world having such tragedies. No point whining as the point of this diary is to be "brighter" about things as well as losing weight and living cheaply. Brighter side is 1 more week of hellish work left. Brighter side is though I am behind in my study and haven't done a big essay that is nearly due, I can empower myself and just start it and stop robbing myself of success. Also I am happy because I realised I can apply for a one week extension.

I bought approximately 70 bananas at 99c/kg because apparently they will skyrocket in price because of the floods. I froze them for my smoothies by peeling them and stacking in 4 big containers and put in the bottom of my chest freezer. I then donated $30 to the flood victims which is the minimum I will save on bananas. Measly amount of money to donate, I know!!

Freezing bananas

Did a bit of cooking therapy on Saturday. I wanted carbs so I made spicy spaghetti.

The ingredients. The green chilli, red chilli and garlic is what makes it spicy

Fry it up

Added tomato paste and ricotta

The avocado makes it taste so creamy and luxurious

There was 3-4 serves so into the freezer for weeknight dinners. When you freeze alot like I do you can line a container with a bag and once it has started to freeze, remove the container.

Now the container can be used again and again instead and the food is less bulky in the freezer,

I have really been enjoying mineral water with three ice-cubes of frozen fruit blend that I made
as seen in this post
very sweet and delicious

That's about it. Eaten a fair bit of junk food at work and on the way home so not weighing myself!!

Not brighter or Lighter

2011-01-10T19:56:00.001+13:00

Well I'm been back at work for my last 2 weeks and it's like pulling fingernails. My eczma is back in full force, I pulled my back just like I did last year when I was really under the pressure (I hold myself tense all the time then when I twist or bend it cracks. I go the chiro and get it put back in place and 2 weeks later its fine.) It hurts.

Can't be brighter or lighter so I am checking out of reality and will come alive again in 2 weeks!

Saturday 8th December 2011 Diary

2011-01-08T22:20:00.002+13:00

I'll start with the good..

*Excercise*

90 minute walk to beach, 11471 steps, 6.3km, 680 calories burnt

Avert your eyes if you can't take reading about people who fall off the wagon...

*Food*

Morning: Nothing.Woke up late, like to walk on empty stomach, wasn't hungry when I got back

12:30 3 shortcut bacon rashers, 2 eggs, tomato, mushroom, Rye toast and a smoothie with 2/3 milk, 1/3 water, 1/2 frozen banana and 4 frozen strawberries.

5:00 Went down the street to the little market and came home and ate: 2 and 1/2 hot dogs with cheese, mustard and tomato sauce, 5 glasses of Pepsi Max and 3/4 box of Indulge chocolate fudge filled chocolate chip cookies.

No worries tomorrow is another day, one day at a time, each day without a binge is a success. So today is not a success, yesterday was and tomorrow will be. I am this size for a reason, I have been doing this atleast 5 times a week.

Now I have whole packets of hot dogs and hot dog buns. Damn hot dogs are disgusting. Even my cat wont eat a hot dog.

Lunch: Bacon and eggs

If anyone is reading this can you please let me know if you see my name or anything personally identifying show up... this blog definitely needs to stay on low down :)

Friday 7th January 2011 Diary

2011-01-08T21:08:00.003+13:00

*Food* Fresh food oh yeah!!
8:00 Green Smoothie with water, 1/2 frozen banana, nectarine, lettuce and mint
12.30 Sandwich (Burgen Rye bread, cheese, mayo, lettuce, tomato, cucumber) and celery sticks
3:20 Air popped pop-corn with a smidge of butter and salt, home-made fruit ice-block
7:00 Stir-fry tofu, Chinese broccoli, carrot and rice noodles with 1 spoon of hoisin sauce, sesame oil

Old nectarines, a pear, mint from the garden & canned pineapple to make ice-blocks

Added a bit of water and blended with a stick-mixer

Freeze ice blocks, 4 hours later you have sweet, pulpy, ice blocks

Lunch: Sandwich and celery

Snack Attack: popcorn

Ingredients used to make stir-fry dinner

Dinner: Stir Fry

*Exercise*
None

Really did not do much today and was quite lazy apart from making good food.

Thursday 6th January 2011 Diary

2011-01-08T21:06:00.003+13:00

*Food*
Morning: Banana and strawberry smoothie with milk
Lunch: Pork marinated in lime and coriander sauce and some frozen stirfry veges, dash of olive oil
Dinner: At a restaurant - Baked mushroom with fetta and almonds, shared hot chips, shared lamb souvlaki, shared rocket salad, no drinks
Desert: a mini mint slice at McCafe, it was a teeny thing, just 1 mouthful

Interestingly, this is the first meat I have eaten in 7 days, apart from 1 slice of ham. I want to minimise meat ( not including fish) but still eat it sometimes as I am trying to hedge my bets by not being vegetarian but still eating meat.

Yuk, frozen veges from the bottom of my freezer and marinated pork

Yukky lunch: Coriander and lime pork and veges stir-fry

*Excercise*

Light walking by the river in town

The single saving girl and the diet

2011-01-06T15:27:00.000+13:00

I am so excited. I have to go into town tonight for social reasons and am going to do my grocery shopping afterwards. Yay fresh food!!! I have avoided any shopping for 10 days now, as I am being frugal and using what I have on hand.

I am going to have to give some real thought to how I combine fresh food, bulk cooking, single serves, saving money and losing weight through eating natural foods (not commercial processed diet foods).

Wednesday 5th January 2010 Diary

2011-01-06T15:14:00.000+13:00

*Food*
9:00 Banana and strawberry smoothie with LSA mixed in
11:30 4 Corn thins with butter and Vegemite
1:30 Flapjacks made with carrot, potato, broccoli stalks, onion, garlic and chilli, eggs, olive oil, lemon dressing
7:00 Was full from big lunch so had home made Rocky Road muffins and a glass of milk (yes, I am deliberately vague about the portion size)

So, I entered exactly what I ate, portions etc in Calorie King (thanks Twisted Soul for the reminder about this site) and nearly fell-over. I went way over the calories. I am not eating like I am on a diet though as I am just trying to get some nutrition into my body and stop the daily junk food super-binge at this point, but it really is far too many calories. Calorie King also tells me that 51% of my calories are from fat?!?!!! On the one hand I think it overstated the muffins as I put in some commercial brand and mine would have had far less fat and sugar. However I have learnt:

My smoothie is 482 calories! I will now use half a banana as a whole banana is 200 calories, replace 1/3 of the milk with half a cup of water
I will live with the fact that LSA is very high calorie. Its about getting the right nutrition not just losing fat so I'm keeping the Linseed, Sunflower Seed, Almond mix!
I ate too many flapjacks. Vegetables still have calories.

This was grated and fried into flapjacks, minus the corn as it wasn't needed. I ate the flapjacks too quick to photograph.

*Exercise*

20 mins walk, intended to do more but it rained alot.

I am going to stay motivated and do more. I might have thought I was doing OK if I didn't lay it out on this blog and see that I need to do better. Its so funny how the mind plays little tricks and you just cruise along thinking all is well.

I am returning to work for my last 2 weeks, in a few days, and am REALLY feeling the anxiety.

Tuesday 3rd January 2011 Diary

2011-01-04T22:50:00.003+13:00

*Food*
Morning: Nothing
12:30 Bean Burrito with cheese, sweet chilli sauce and a large tomato
4:00 2 mini Rocky Road homemade muffins, cup of Lavender tea with milk
8:30 Sweet potato and Chicpea curry
My food is not including enough leafy greens or raw food but I am trying to use up items I have without doing much shopping. Definitely think I will have to drive into town and get some salad ingredients though as my potted vege garden is a bit bare.

*Exercise*
30 minute walk
Hard yakka mowing the lawn, whipper snipping the edges (I have avoided this for over a year, boy do my arms hurt now), sweeping the concrete and raking the cut grass.

Rocky Road muffins, not healthy but I put in very little sugar as the frozen berries would provide the sweet and only a bit of oil, they turned out a bit hard because of that.

Made Rocky Road muffins for guests that never came

Sweet potato and chickpea curry ingredients, had to use up a kg of sweet potato!

Fried off the onion etc, then threw everything in and covered with water

Will blend the rest and freeze in portions. Would be good with rice but I didn't have any and figured I would live without the carbs after the muffins.

Monday 3rd January 2011 Diary

2011-01-04T18:31:00.005+13:00

*Food*
10:00 1 egg
1:00 2 grain roles with ham, lettuce, tomatoes, mixed herbs and 2 spoons tabbouleh
4:00 Leftover tabbouleh (very healthy and yum)
8:00 Pasta with carrot, broccolini, mushroom, garlic and chilli in a ricotta tomoto sauce

Cooking Dinner

Veges and pasta

A lake where we sat and read while my brother kayaked

Pretty plants in the sand and the ocean and mountains in the distance

This sand wall was very tough to climb

But the view from the top was excellent

*Excercise*

I spent the day on a family picnic that invoved a fair bit of activity. Lots of little walks around different venues. I climbed up a sand wall which was pretty hard going!

*Brighter Moment*

It was a lovely day. I live in a truly beautiful part of the world.

Sunday 2nd January 2011 Diary

2011-01-04T18:20:00.003+13:00

*Food*
Morning: Bananna and Berry homemade smoothie
Lunch: Fish and Chips
Chocolate mints
Dinner: Fish and Chips

* Exercise*
30 mins walk on beach, 3509 steps, 1.92km, 208cal
90 mins moving all potplants, sweeping courtyard, sweeping cobwebs from all outside

I was going to make a curry for lunch but had no onion so drove to the shops to get one (silly really) and had left it quite late and was quite hungry so I ordered fish and chips from the local fish shop. It was quite a massive single serve so I put half in the fridge and reheated it for dinner.

I bought the fish and chips because I thought I deserved it and wanted to reward myself for my hard work in the garden, doing jobs I had long avoided. That made me think why do I think (as many people do) that it is a reward to buy bad food full of saturated fats and waste $8.50 when I was 2 blocks from home?! It is not a reward, it is a punishment that keeps me in the same place, fat and poor! I am sure that smarter people have worked this out already. BAD FOOD IS NOT A REWARD!

Oh and I had plenty of hot water still so I am going to turn it off every second night and see if that cuts some $ off the electricity bill.

Saturday 1st January 2011 Diary

2011-01-01T22:27:00.004+13:00

*Food*
9:00am Eggs with fetta cheese, garden greens and herbs, chilli, tomatoes, mushroom and Lavender Tea (pictured)
1.30pm 8 corn thins with Vegemite and butter
4:00pm 4 Tim Tams
7:30pm Bean Burrito with cheese, salad of lettuce, red capsicum and tomatoes
8:30pm Cup of Lavender Tea with handful of prunes

Yay everything except the left column came from my garden this morning: spinach, chilli, tomatoes, oregano, zuchinni, basil, parsely. The eggs, garlic, mushroom and fetta were added

* Exercise*
Walked 70 minutes, 6789 steps, 3.75km, 402.5 calories burnt according to my spiffy pulse stepper

*Activities*
Didn't accomplish any study or any house cleaning today. I have a sore back. I think its from scrubbing the pantry yesterday. I know it will go away but the body sure isn't working too well after being so inactive for a period.

I turned off my hot water at the mains this afternoon. I have a system that boils in the morning, every morning. I am going to see if I still get a hot shower tomorrow night. If so I might turn the hot water off every second day and save half the amount of electricity for hot water on my bill. Every cent counts!

Friday 31st December 2010 Diary

2011-01-01T14:14:00.002+13:00

Food wasn't good today:

2 pieces 9 grain toast with peanut butter and honey

Bean burrito with cheese, avocado and sweet chilli sauce and salad (pictured)

Two microwaved potatoes with cheese (a quick dinner so I would order a small dinner out)

Snapper and Ginger broth and field mushrooms with fetta, nuts, rocket in balsamic

11pm glass of wine and alot of Tim Tams!

Lunch: Burrito

Today I continued to read the how low can you go thread on www.simplesavings.com.au and continued to be inspired on ways to spend less and be healthy. I cleaned my pantry. Honestly I was a bit horrified at the fact that a yellow mould had grown on the walls and under-shelves. I also found alot of bottles and plastic had fine mould growing over them so it was quite the extensive cleaning mission. I have really let things get out of hand the last 2 years and not done much. Such a bad state I have been in! I tried to salvage as much as possible but had to throw away 2 packets of breadcrumbs, stale biscuits and some sauce that expired in 2007.

Before: I had 6 bags of unpacked shopping thrown in the bottom and they were the same things over and over as I never unpacked them so I didn't see them and clearly forgot I had bought them!!!

After shot: clean and organised

Berry Green Smoothie and Frozen Fruit

2010-12-30T12:23:00.000+13:00

I am getting back into green smoothies. Traditionally green smoothie is:

water
greens like lettuce, spinach, silver beet
frozen banana

The fruit combo's are endless, as long its has those three components above, it'll work. Its great to use leftover greens that are getting too limp. I am not a big fruit eater so it is a great way to get fruit, and cheaply as I buy fruit on big specials and freeze. I have bags and bags of fruit in my chest freezer. Banana's were 79c/kg at Aldi a while ago and I seriously bought 60 and skinned and froze them. Same with strawberries when they were 99c/punnet. I do buy the frozen mixed berries and blueberries when they are half price. Fruit lasts at least a year in my freezer, except banana does tend to brown and reduce in quality after 6 months.

Use First frozen fruit container, chopped bananas, stewed fruit in ice cube tray

Green smoothie: 1. Water and frozen banana and berries

2. lettuce and LSA

3. Blend with powerful stick mixer or in a blender

4. Drink straight away before enzymes deteriate

Fantastic Documentaries on Food and the World

2010-12-28T21:38:00.001+13:00

I have discovered the following website http://www.mustwatchfilms.com/ which has popular and relatively unknown documentaries streaming for free. Many are American but it would be naive to think the same things aren't happening nearly everywhere. They can be alarmist but the media keeps alot of info from us so we need to balance it all out and find our middle ground I think. I plan on watching:

http://www.mustwatchfilms.com/videos/the-future-of-food/
THE FUTURE OF FOOD offers an in-depth investigation into the disturbing truth behind the unlabeled, patented, genetically engineered foods that have quietly filled U.S. grocery store shelves for the past decade.

http://www.mustwatchfilms.com/videos/simply-raw-reversing-diabetes-in-30-days/
Independent documentary film that chronicles six Americans with diabetes who switch to a diet consisting entirely of vegan, organic, uncooked food in order to reverse disease without pharmaceutical medication. The six are challenged to give up meat, dairy, sugar, alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, soda, junk food, fast food, processed food, packaged food, and even cooked food for 30 days. The film follows each participant’s remarkable journey and captures the medical, physical, and emotional transformations brought on by this radical diet and lifestyle change. We witness moments of struggle, support, and hope as what is revealed, with startling clarity, is that diet can reverse disease and change lives.

http://www.mustwatchfilms.com/videos/sweet-misery-a-poisoned-world/
Excellent documentary showing how dangerous artificial sweetner Aspartame is. From its history, to its effects this video is enough to shock anyone into really looking at there food labels next time they shop. Aspartame is a toxic food that came into the world as an investment by Donald Rumsfeld, while ignoring the deadly effects the tests showed. Take a good look at this video, it could save lives.

http://www.mustwatchfilms.com/videos/food-inc/
In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation’s food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that has been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government’s regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation’s food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. We have bigger-breasted chickens, the perfect pork chop, herbicide-resistant soybean seeds, even tomatoes that won’t go bad, but we also have new strains of E. coli—the harmful bacteria that causes illness for an estimated 73,000 Americans annually. We are riddled with widespread obesity, particularly among children, and an epidemic level of diabetes among adults.

http://www.mustwatchfilms.com/videos/sweet-remedy-the-world-reacts-to-an-adulterated-foody-supply/
While aspartame was the single focus in “Sweet Misery: A Poisoned World”, “Sweet Remedy” demonstrates that a corrupt flagship regulatory agency has given birth to numerous toxins in our food supply.
A closer examination of the U.S. corporate power structure unveils a two-fold approach to manipulating the public. First, by attempting to shape public opinion and, second, by affecting an individual’s ability to discern PR from the truth. Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent selling neuro-toxic food additives to the public. In the United States and through each nation within its global corporate grasp, maintaining a healthy mind and body is an act of civil disobediance. Ultimately, healing has become the path of resistance for informed individuals improving their health. We interview a host of MD’s and Natural Health practitioners to gain the clearest possible perspective for a path to recovery. Perhaps the sweetest remedy this film offers is the hope provided by witnessing a variety of groups as they withstand the confusion, casualties and obstacles involved with taking control of their food and their health.

I have watched and enjoyed :

Supermarket Secrets - Must Watch Films

www.mustwatchfilms.com

‎"Supermarkets are now so powerful, they've emerged as these incredible oligopolies who can dictate the price they pay and they've sort of wiped out any other outlets; there are no real whole time markets where farmers can say 'ok, if you're not going to pay me properly, I'll take my food somewhe...

Affluenza - Must Watch Films

www.mustwatchfilms.com

‎"Shopping malls have really become the centers of many communities. Children, as well as adults, see a shopping center as just the natural destination to fill a bored life.

I Really liked this one : Food Matters... highly recommended

Food Matters - Must Watch Films

www.mustwatchfilms.com

‎"Let thy Food be thy Medicine and thy Medicine be thy Food." –Hippocrates With nutritionally-depleted foods, chemical additives and our tendency to rely upon pharmaceutical drugs to treat what's wrong with our malnourished bodies, it's no wonder that modern society is getting sicker.

What to do with mouldy pumpkin and 2 dead capsicums

2010-12-28T01:06:00.002+13:00

Well the festive season has seen me at family events and the produce in fridge wasting away. So I thought I better cook dinner using the vegetables closest to the end of their life, that was some mouldy butternut pumpkin and two red capsicums with bruised skin (they look so healthy in the photo's but trust me they weren't). I had no particular dinner in mind but thought I could stuff the capsicums with turkey mince. The pumpkin worked surprisingly well and soaked up lots of the yummy juices. I am finding I can make alot of things from my imagination and it comes out quite tasty when herbs, onion, garlic, ginger etc. are used.

Ingredients: turkey mince, Hoisin sauce, pumpkin, onion, garlic, ginger, chilli, mint, red capsicums

Cooked pumpkin in microwave, stir-fried all ingredients, stuffed and baked capsicums for 10 mins

Yummy...Added some salad and will reheat no. 2 for lunch tomorrow.

Brunch Obsession

2010-12-27T16:04:00.000+13:00

I am not a big eater of breakfasts. However I have not had any leave from my job in twelve months and so now that I am on Christmas Holidays I am enjoying the luxury of a cook-up mid morning, ie. brunch. Here are a few of the best.

Burgen Rye toast, tomatoe, capsicum, baby zuchinni, 1 egg omelette with spinach, oregano, parsley, chilli, garlic

Burgen Rye toast, 1 fried egg, 2 pc's short-cut bacon, zuchinni, capsicum, mushroom

Ingredients for the feast pictured below

My big news is I QUIT my job and am spending 2011 investing in myself

2010-12-27T15:23:00.002+13:00

I quit my job of 4 years, the last year has been so bad after a restructure !!! My reason was I wanted to study. They really don't want to let my experience go so I got a counter-offer of 12 months unpaid study leave and if I want I can return or still quit.

I am considering 2011 an investment in myself. I am going to kick-start my life. I am early thirties, I have alot of weight I want to lose and I want to get emotionally stronger and finish my Uni degree.

I am single and have a mortgage. I am ahead a bit but there is no getting around the fact that I will go into debt by doing this. Don't judge, like I said it is an investment in myself, because life just really isn't worth it unless I do this for myself.

So in 2011 I will have no income and be a full-time distance student. My challenges:

Be thrifty and make-do without buying non food items
Be healthy, educate myself on the reality behind our processed commercial grocery and medical industries
Lose alot of weight through old fashioned quality natural foods and excercise
Repair my mental and emotional strength through positivity, meditation, mindfulness and whatever else I come across that works

Workday eating

2010-10-25T22:44:00.003+13:00

7:30am Frozen banana, frozen strawberries, LSA(Linseed, Sunflower, Almond ground up) & skim milk blended with a hand-mixer & drunk on the 20 minute drive to work
11:00 Cup of soup mix pea & ham
1:00 Home-made cabbage-vege soup from the freezer and heated up at work
3:30 150g chips, 100g chocolate, diet coke - yes the new shop across the road won and I binged!
7:30 1/2 steak, lettuce, broccolini, avocado, lemon as dressing

Smoothie made to drink on the drive to work

Homemade cabbage-vege soup heated up at work

Steak & Salad

Sunday Diary

2010-10-25T13:20:00.002+13:00

11am Carrot, celery, apple, cucumber juice
12:00 1/2 pizza - tomato paste, onion, garlic, fresh oregano, dried basil, carrot, zucchini, broccolini, mushroom, tomatoes, red capsicum, boccocini cheese
4:00 Fish & Chips, tartare sauce, 2 glasses champagne, 110g chocolate
8:00 1 glass champagne, 110g chocolate
Tablets: 1 Xantrax, 1 Chromium vitamin, 1 B Complex

Fresh vegetable juice

Went to get the paper but also had a massive blow-out on
fish and chips, champagne & chocolate which is really odd food to binge on!!

Healthy Pizza

2010-10-24T12:11:00.002+13:00

10am Green Tea
1:00 Pork stir fry - fresh ginger, soy, honey, carrot, cabbage, red capsicum, zucchini
4:00 Air pop-corn with 2 tablespoons butter and salt
8:00 1/2 pizza - tomato paste, onion, garlic, fresh oregano, dried basil, carrot, zucchini, broccolini, mushroom, tomatoes, red capsicum, boccocini cheese
9:30 Dried apricots and almonds
Tablets: 1 Xantrax, 2 Chromium vitamins
Excercise: 30 min brisk walk through reserve

vegetable pizza