Healthy eating

Long Overdue Catch Up

greengirlgardener3 Comments

I was intending to write a Six on Saturday today given that the garden is waking up and there’s more to share, but then I realised I also wanted to write about our holiday so I’m combining the two (along with any other random thoughts that may enter my head!) But first, a holiday! Yes, that’s right, we actually managed to have a holiday, and in a different country at that!

Hubby was unexpectedly given three weeks holiday because the days needed using up, so we took the opportunity to book a short break in Gran Canaria. It didn’t turn out to be a simple as originally planned – we were due to fly out on 10th March (so we should be there now!) but a mix up in the holiday meant we had to bring it forward a couple of weeks. Much thanks to my boss for being so flexible in letting me change my holiday!

Anyway, Gran Canaria was the only one of the four main Canary Islands that we hadn’t been to, and we wanted somewhere with (pretty much) guaranteed sun. As it turns out, we pretty much could’ve been anywhere hot because we barely left the complex. After so long without a sunny break, we just wanted to chill out and recharge our batteries, and we were only there for four nights so we weren’t there long enough to get bored of lying around.

I just have to have a quick Brexit moan!

A stamp in my passport for an EU country. Honestly, it made me feel a leper! Anyway, it is what it is! I need to get over it, and currently there are far, far worse things happening in the world. As you can see, we flew out on 24th February which is the day that Putin decided that millions of innocent people needed to have their lives disrupted, at best, or ended at the other end of the scale. It was incredibly surreal to be lying on a sun bed in the sun with people going about their normal holiday lives around us, whilst a war was being waged a few hundred miles away.

I didn’t take many holiday photos because there’s only so many hotel photos you want/need, but I did snap some of the greenery around the hotel with a future Six on Saturday in mind.

There’s the obligatory palm tree and sun picture which I took as we were waiting for our tranfer back to the airport so I could remember the last bit of sun. Next to that, a beautiful bloom from around the pool. I don’t know what this is, but they were in pots all around the pool and in the sunlight the colour was amazing! Underneath that an impressive cactus and next to that, the olive tree of dreams. I have one in a pot that looks nothing like this at all!

On our first full day, we were treated to a visit from this beauty.

I tried really hard to get a photo that represented the vivid colours accurately, but I didn’t manage it, so I resorted to filters to get it to look something like an approximation of reality. The butterfly was beautiful, and huge! It was at least the size of an adult palm.

Typically for us on holiday, we managed to find a cat.

We joked that she looks like Tink’s grandma! Lovely as it is to find a cat to fuss, it’s still always good to get home to our girls waiting for us in their new basket.

It’s a month or so till our next holiday and we have to leave them again and I’ve recommenced my healthy eating and exercise regime. This week we discovered Pinch of Nom’s Diet Coke chicken, except we did it with Pepsi Max Cherry and Quorn pieces – absolutely delicious, full of veg and very low in calories – nutritious and delicious!

Back home, and spring has definitely sprung and what says spring more than daffodils?

Unfortunately the rest of my daffs have been flattened! Ordinarily this would really upset me, but, whilst I’m not happy about it, the reason for their flattening is good (and there are a few which look like they’ll recover). The week after we got back from Gran Canaria, our neighbour had the biggest of his trees chopped, most of which they did from our side, and the clean up involved a petrol powered leaf blower which caused the aforementioned flattening!

They chopped loads off, but I have to admit (especially as we contributed half to the cost) to being a little disappointed that they didn’t chop more. The height has been reduced significantly, but I was hoping they’d thin the trees out more too. However, it’s better than it was before, there’s already more light in the back of our house (and my home office is in the back bedroom that you can see so it’s not insignificant) and we remain to see how much more sun we get in the summer. Incidentally, I think I’ll look into getting a petrol leaf blower because our patio has never looked so clean, I’ll just be more careful around the daffs!

There are more and more signs that the garden’s waking up appearing almost every day. I always try to say to myself around this time of year, that I must appreciate the fact that we’re on the up again, days are getting longer, the sun is gearing up to shine on us and new shoots are emerging, because seemingly in no time, we’ll be past the longest day and heading back down. For now though, let us not think about that because it’s a long way off.

First is my polemonium which I bought to put in one of granny’s pots last year. I thought it had died so imagine my delight when I looked at it today and there’s new growth coming through. That’ll teach me not to read labels – I didn’t know it would die down and come back in the spring. Next to that is the cowslip that I rescued last year after it self seeded itself. It’s got such beautiful sienna edged petals – I’d never seen a cowslip that wasn’t bright yellow. Underneath that is one of my raspberries which has some leaves. Fingers crossed that I might get some fruit this year. Finally, beautiful flowers have appeared on my cherry thing! I got this from QVC last year, and I can’t remember what it is, but it’s some sort of cherry blossom,

Unfortunately, with flowers that you want, come plants that you don’t! The weeds have started growing again already!

There’s even some herb Robert growing on my little sleeping dragon!

Finally, I’m going to leave you with a picture of my latest cross stitch which I got framed recently, purely because I’m really pleased with it so I want to showcase it!! Indulge me if you will.

That was a lot of info in one post – hope I haven’t bored you all silly! I’m off to order a takeaway now – hope you all have a great weekend.

Slimming World

greengirlgardener1 Comment

I’ve had a little bit of writer’s block lately which has led to me being less present on my blog. Or is it just that I’m leading a dull life lately and have nothing of interest to say? There’s been a couple of times when I’ve been tempted to write a negative post because I’ve had a few blues days recently, but I’ve decided against it because I don’t want to have blue days recorded in writing to haunt me forever and a day. I’m sure you guys don’t to read gloom and doom either. Anyway, I’m working through the main thing on my mind and hopefully there’s light at the end of the tunnel.

I did do one definitely not dull thing last week.

I went to Birmingham uni with one of my very best friends (was supposed to be two of my very best friends but the dreaded lurgy struck!) to Birmingham Literature Festival where we saw Adam Kay. For those of you who haven’t heard of him, he wrote (as the photo shows) This is Going to Hurt. It’s a fantastic book written from diaries he kept during his days working in the NHS and it really gives an insight into the life of a doctor. It is, in pretty equal parts (if we’re judging by emotional response rather than actual work count), funny and heartbreaking.

His performance last week was brilliant and well worth venturing out on a drizzly Thursday evening for, and, just like the book, very funny but ultimately heart rending. Turns out he’s a pretty good musician as well as a writer, and a portion of the show was based on him singing and playing the piano when he also got the audience involved. I’d highly recommend going to see him if you can.

Another exciting thing that happened is that my company car finally arrived.

Isn’t she beautiful? I was a bit confused by the colour at first. When I built her on the configurator on line she was very green, like the old Rover colour British Racing Green. In the flesh, so to speak, she looks almost black. I’ve got used to it now though and she is definitely green. Look!

Anyway, on to the topic in hand. I’ve been following the Slimming World plan since the end of May, and it’s been going pretty well. I’ve lost over a stone, all my clothes fit again and I’m starting to feel a bit happier with myself. However, this last couple of weeks have been tough and, I admit, I’ve cheated a little bit which means I’m not seeing movement on the scales (or not in a downwards trajectory anyway) and I’m getting a little despondent.

The problem is, I’ve got back down to the weight that I’ve got to so many times before where it starts to get harder. It’s like my body doesn’t want me to get any lighter and my brain starts playing tricks on me.

It should be an oxymoron for your own brain to trick you into sabotaging yourself, but mine does! It starts seemingly independently thinking things like, you may as well stop because you never get any further than this, or, oh go on, have crispy chicken with pineapple – you deserve it, and most of it’s free (never mind the fact that it’s deep fried!) or if you stop now you won’t have to spend a fortune on a new wardrobe or everyone’s expecting you to fail so you may as well stop trying (rationally I know this isn’t true but it seems so real when faced with the choice of either an apple or a chocolate bar!) or you won’t be able to maintain it if you go any lower so you may as well eat cake! It’s really hard to fight with yourself and retrain your brain.

I’ve only got half a stone to go to get to the initial target that I set myself and I really want to get there to see if I’m happy with myself at that weight so I’m going to share some of my favourite meals that have got me this far in the hopes that I might find my diet mojo again.

I’ll start with that most British of meals – a chicken roast dinner.

Here we have chicken cooked in the slow cooker (tastiest and most convenient way to cook a whole chicken in my humble opinion) served with potatoes parboiled and roasted in frylight, potatoes mashed with milk and a bit of grated cheese from my healthy extra a allowance, broccoli, petit pois and roasted carrot batons and the only items with any syns, an Aunt Bessie’s Yorkshire pudding (4 1/2 syns because they were fancy ones left over from Christmas) and gravy made with Ah Bisto (showing my age there – 1 syn). Such a yummy meal and doesn’t taste ‘diet’ at all.

Also very British whilst not being British at all!

Chinese chicken curry made with Mayflower extra hot curry powder. I got the tip off for this delight from the Pinch of Nom Facebook group and it’s become a firm favourite in our household. You can get it in B&M Bargains or Iceland and it tastes as good as from the Chinese takeaway. 4 syns for the sauce and the rest of it’s free.

I’m switching to breakfast now (probably should’ve done that first, eh?)

This is a slightly modified Pinch of Nom recipe – Bakewell Baked Oats. I make them into muffins rather than in one big dish. They have almond essence in them which really makes them taste like Bakewell Tart and I top them with berries and a couple of spoonfuls of yoghurt. It’s like having cake for breakfast and the combination of egg and oats keeps you full till lunch.

Sticking with breakie.

Overnight oats. I’m not sure I could get through the week without my overnight oats. I LOVE them! I usually make a few portions on Sunday night and they keep for a week in the fridge, in fact, they get better as the week goes on and the juices from the frozen fruit seep through into the oats. Yum! I normally do them in takeaway containers, but I treated myself to a Kilner jar so I can have posh overnight oats once a week.

Next up, the great British fry up (Slimming World style!) Good for breakfast, lunch or tea.

Egg and mushrooms fried in frylight, baked beans (has to be …… erm, Branston for me), bacon medallions, a slice of wholemeal toast for half my healthy extra b, a Quorn sausage for 1 syn and a tablespoon of ketchup (which does have to be Heinz – ketchup of kings) for 1 syn.

Back to the first meal of the day.

Third attempt at making a sweet omelette and I finally cracked it (no pun intended). Two eggs with sweetener, almond essence and vanilla essence fried in frylight till it’s golden filled with berries and yoghurt (raspberry doughnut mullerlight in this case).

Back to teatime.

Pizza and chips. This uses my healthy extra b which is usually done and dusted by the time I’ve had breakfast, so I don’t have it often but it’s lovely. It’s a Weightwatchers wrap topped with tomato purée and bbq sauce and then whatever pizza topping you want. This one was leftover chicken, peppers and mushrooms with my healthy extra a of cheddar grated on top and then shoved in the oven for five minutes. It’s nice with blue cheese, onion, sweetcorn and peppers too. The chips are made from Maris Piper potatoes (any decent potato works well, Charlotte ones are nice too). I chop them, soak them in cold water to remove some of the starch, drain and pat dry and then spray with frylight and cook in the air fryer for fifteen minutes. We have these a lot – they’re really nice and they’re free. They’re nice reheated for lunch.

Speaking of lunch, do you notice a distinct lack of lunch recipes? This is where I struggle most. Can’t have a sandwich because I’ve usually had my healthy extra for breakfast so would have to use syns for bread, soup doesn’t satisfy me – I find myself craving something nice like chocolate, not because I’m hungry but because I’m not satisfied. I normally end up with leftovers from the night before or a Mugshot which is low syn. Today I did better. I bunged four potatoes in the slow cooker yesterday so all I had to do was heat one up in he microwave at work. I weighed out my healthy extra a of cheese and walked round to Tesco and got some beans (Branston, of course). I’ve got the same tomorrow. There are a couple of good options for eating lunch out. Most Subway salads are free as long as you don’t have cheese, dressing or olives, and they’re really nice. If I have some spare syns I have Subway tuna salad – it has mayo in hence the syns. Nandos is good too, my go to is butterfly chicken breast with the skin removed with spicy rice and macho peas. It’s a huge meal for 4 syns.

One thing that I’ve found invaluable on my weight loss journey (ugh, I hate that phrase) is the Pinch of Nom recipe book.

Somehow (through lots of experimentation I think) they’ve managed to make low/no syn alternatives to lots of classics and original recipes, that actually taste great. Dare I say it, much better than the official Slimming World versions. Their chip shop curry sauce is amazing and tastes just like the real thing. Diet Coke chicken has become a regular feature of our week night kitchen, as well as creamy garlic chicken.

Well, you know what, I think writing this out has actually helped. I feel ready to attack it again with gusto. I’m going to look back through the book to refamiliarise myself and I’m going to check out the syns in my favourite Gousto and Hello Fresh recipes. I may get a small gain this Wednesday on weigh day, but ….. tomorrow’s another day and I can and will do this.

A bit of a gloomy day

greengirlgardener1 Comment

I decided, when I entered this wonderful world of blogging, that I wouldn’t write on days when I was feeling a bit fed up or down in the dumps, when I found myself in the doldrums or feeling out of sorts, and especially not when I was in that worst of Eeyoreish states: GLOOMY! Today has been one of those days yet I feel inspired to write, so I am. I may not finish the post today because we’re entertaining tonight, but my normally perpetual glass-half-fullness is elbowing its way through the gloom and urging me to put a positive spin on my melancholy, to turn that frown upside down.

Let’s start with a picture of what I call my Gloom of Eeyores, for surely there has never been a more apt collective noun.

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There! It’s a nod towards today’s disposition, but also I feel so much better already just looking at all those Eeyores in their gloriousness.

I know what’s caused my glumness, and luckily it’s entirely fixable. There are two main reasons. One is a lack of the zzzzzzzzzs which can be fixed by spending some quality time here.

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Do you spy another Eeyore? This one came all the way from the Big Apple itself! He was a brilliant pillow for me on that red eye flight home, and every cat we’ve had since has fallen in love with him. Here’s our Olive and Tink when they were little showing him some love.

5C9F7B9F-4E69-40BE-B94E-8B0ADC585FDDSame duvet cover! We do change it regularly, I promise!

I need my sleep. I make no bones about it. If I don’t get enough sleep I’m horrid! As irritable as a really irritable thing living in irritableville! My tolerance levels, normally at least average if not beyond that, become close to zero and it really is best to leave me alone to wallow in my irritableness. Take a wide berth, leave a safe distance, maybe even turn and run the other way. Alternatively, you could feed me, that might work (although it’s probably wise to edge the food towards me with a cattle prod in case it backfires!)

This brings me to the second reason. I like to eat. A lot. Really, I love it! Love it, love it, love it. We’re so lucky over here in the affluent side of the world, that food isn’t really considered as a necessary part of staying alive, as a fuel. We don’t live on bread and milk, or rice and peas because that’s all we have access to, we basically use food as a mood enhancer. We eat to celebrate and we eat to commiserate. We eat to cheer ourselves up and we eat to be social. We eat when we’ve had a bad day telling ourselves we deserve it, and we eat when we’ve had a good day to reward ourselves for a job well done.

Last night I went out for my final birthday meal with some friends, and I had a lovely evening. Curry was consumed, wine was drunk (this may have contributed to reason one, but it was a work night so I didn’t go mad!) and much laughing filled the night. We went to the Kababish which is infamous round these parts due to the restaurant’s claim to fame – Robbie Williams took Geri Halliwell there about a million years ago when the teenyboppers of the world were speculating on the nature of their relationship.

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Anyway, enjoyable as the curry was at the time, today I’ve felt like if someone had prodded me (maybe with that cattle prod) I would’ve just rolled and rolled and rolled like a slightly deflated beach ball. Beware! I’m going to use the ‘f’ word!

Fat! I’ve felt like the fattest person in the world today, and that makes me gloomy! I’m completely aware that this is a first world problem, but I can’t help it making me blue. Moving on from the gloom, how to fix this predicament.

Reason two doesn’t have as quick a fix as putting my pjs on and snuggling under my duvet, but it is still fixable. I have spent my life yo-yo dieting. Maybe yo-yo is too extreme an analogy because I never go up or down too far, just far enough up so that I become aware that I’m heading in a direction I don’t like and far enough down to make myself feel reasonable again. Maybe I’m more of a metronome dieter, much closer extremes than a yo-yo.

Anyway, I’ve tried lots of diets and inevitably I fall off the wagon, so I thought if I tell you lovely people that I’m going to try again, it might give me the motivation to carry on. I have taken a photo of myself in my under garments (don’t worry, I’m nowhere near brave enough to show you that) and I intend to use it to track my progress.

I have also taken measurements using this lovely tape measure which came in October’s Little Box of Crochet.

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I will share with you the sum of those measurements so I can at least chart my progress on my blog in some way. 182.5 inches. I might even make a spreadsheet. I do like a good spreadsheet! I don’t know what I weigh and there’s no way I’m weighing myself at this end of the day. Maybe I’ll steel myself to it in the morning.

I have tried to eat more healthily today. Tesco do a really nice caesar salad kit which I had at lunchtime. As well as your leaves, you get croutons, Parmesan and the dressing and I always add barbecue chicken. Last week I discovered a nice red slaw which adds a nice extra crunch to the salad. Today I also threw on a handful of mixed seeds and some nuts and dried fruit.

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I never thought I’d use these words in the same sentence, but this salad was amazing!

When I got home, still in the midst of my gloomy fuzz, hubby took pity on me and cooked a quorn stir fry to continue my healthy day.

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We’re jetting off on holiday in five weeks and I really hope that I’ll be able to share some progress by then. If anyone has any tips or nice healthy recipes to share please let me know.