I have been back to 5:2 Fasting for this past fortnight with a vengeance! It works… as simple as that. I love the “freedom” it gives me, both on my fast and non-fast days.
Fast = freedom? Of course! Just one main meal to plan, log, prepare, cook, eat and clear away. By “log” I refer to having to weigh every single item that I eat each and every day. It becomes a way of life, and however tedious it is, I know that it has to be done if I am to lose weight and that this has been the key to my weight loss success.
Being just 4ft 9″ and fairly sedentary most of the time, there is little room for compromise when it comes to the amount of calories I can consume.
I usually stick to a single meal comprising of a combination of low calorie and filling ingredients.
Courgettes, aubergines, butternut squash, spinach, rocket, mushrooms, tinned tomatoes.
I add to that some sort of protein – fish, chicken, cheese, ham.
Tonight was one of my favourites – “Cheats Meatballs”. Cheats, because I chop up sausages to act as the meatballs. Hecks chicken chipolatas – now at this point, I’d have really liked to put in a hyperlink to them, however, it appears that the Heck website is…. not working this evening.
Hecks chicken chipolatas are just 72 calories for two! TWO whole chipolatas.
Cheats Meatballs (Serves 2, 204 calories)
Ingredients
100g onions, finely diced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
400g tin of chopped tomatoes in juice
2 tsps Herbes De Provence
100g Chestnut mushrooms, sliced or diced
5 x Heck Italia Chicken Sausages
100g Carrots, very finely diced
1 x stick of celery, very finely diced
20 x sprays of one calorie spray oil (I use Groovy Food Company Virgin Coconut)
Method
Preparation: Finely dice the onion. Finely dice the carrot and celery. Crush the garlic cloves. Chop each sausage into quarters (it doesn’t really matter if the skin comes off, just try to keep the meat in “balls”. Wipe and chop up mushrooms.
1. Spray the coconut oil into a large pan and heat over a medium heat. Add the onions, celery and carrot and turn down the heat. Stir over a low heat for about 5 – 7 minutes until translucent (don’t allow to brown) and then add the garlic.
2. Continue stirring for 2 – 3 minutes and then add the sausage pieces. Turn the heat up to medium, and continue to stir over the heat until the sausage pieces are browned and mostly cooked (about 15 minutes). If the mixture starts to stick or the sausage pieces start to disintegrate, move on to the next stage of the recipe. The sausages will cook through during the long cooking time.
3. Add the tinned tomatoes and a little tap water (about 50ml) the the herbes de Provence. Lower the heat and stir for a further 10 minutes.
4. Add the mushrooms and a little more water if required. Bring the mixture to the boil and then reduce to a simmer. Cover and leave to cook for an hour, stirring every 15 minutes and adding more water if the mixture becomes too thick or starts to stick to the bottom of the pan.
5. Serve with spaghetti or courgetti.
I served mine with 550g of butternut squash, roasted in one calorie spray for a huge 412 calorie meal.