Physical disability doesn’t need to be a barrier. Charting my up and down journey – losing weight and improving fitness. Sharing my passion for food and cooking – which can be a positive thing!
Delicious and very filling….. lots of fibre and definitely, I have had my five-a-day!
Ingredients
Oil, Sunflower
7ml
Onions, Brown
94g
Celery
72g
Carrots
100g
Cabbage, Savoy
300g
Tomatoes, tinned
2 Cans/800g
Curry Paste, Tikka Masala, Spice, Patak’s
166g
Red Lentils, Dried
128g
Fresh Coriander
25g
Preparation:
Peel, and finely dice carrots, onion and celery. Finely chop the cabbage. Chop the coriander.
Method:
Pour the oil in a large lidded saucepan. Heat over a medium heat. Add the onion, fry gently (don’t allow to brown) for 10 minutes, stirring regularly. Add the diced carrot and celery. Cover and cook for about 15 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes to prevent sticking.
Add the curry paste and the tinned tomatoes and about 100ml of water. Add the cabbage and the lentils. Heat until mixture bubbles, turn down to a simmer and continue to cook on a gentle heat and covered for about an hour, stirring regularly. Add further water if required.
Add the coriander just before serving
I served mine with swede – very low calorie and tasty!
Vegetables (in my opinion) play a significant part in successful 5:2 fasting, . They are so filling! One gets a lot of filling food on ones plate for ones calories.
Fast Day dinner. A 95g sea bass fillet (108 cals), pan fried in 2.5ml of olive oil (21 cals). Braised fennel and tomatoes (38 cals), roasted cauliflower steaks (71 cals), mashed swede and carrot (49 cals). 100g of leek (22 cals) friend in half a teaspoon of olive oil and 2.5g of butter (21 & 18 cals). Total 348 calories.
Thankfully I LOVE vegetables. I prepare them in a variety of ways – not just boiling or steaming. Oven roasting adds a whole different dimension to the flavours. Cooking vegetables in a tomato sauce, griddling in a pan over a low heat….
I particularly love these cauliflower steaks and they are so simple to make. I trim the stalk from the cauliflower leaving the base flat and then cut the cauliflower vertically through the middle. I then cut a “steak” of about 1.5cm from either half. Depending on the cauliflower, you can get two or three steaks before you reach the crumbling outer parts.
I lay these gently onto a baking sheet and spray with low calorie spray oil (about 15 squirts). Place in a pre-heated (200 degrees) oven and cook for 30 minutes, turning over half way through.
The texture is perfect. Still “el dente”.
The braised fennel and tomato shown is really simple to cook too. I make a huge batch, as it works well with so many things and is very low calorie. Simply slice two fennel bulbs into the slow cooker, pour over two tins of chopped tomato and cook on Medium for two hours, turning to Low for another three hours. I then freeze in smaller individual portions.
Other vegetables I love are: cubed and roasted butternut squash, courgette, aubergines (usually cooked in some sort of casserole or curry), savoy cabbage, roasted peppers, beetroot… actually, I think I love ALL vegetables – yes, even spinach and kale! They’re great for adding a bit of bulk to all sorts of dishes.
Far from five a day, I probably eat 6 or 7 portions of vegetables on a Fast day!
As part of my weight loss journey, I’ve made a lot of “food swaps”. I’m trying to virtually cut out things like pasta, rice and bread, reduce the amount of potatoes I consume.
These foodstuffs often are those which make you feel fuller – the things which make you feel full and contented.
I discovered, tried and like a recipe for cauliflower rice a long time before it became so hugely popular. It’s now being sold in pouches ready to microwave! Of course, as a horrendously marked up price. £2 for 200g!
Given that the same shop sells a whole cauliflower (around 400g) for £1, it’s easy to see why so many stores are jumping on the bandwagon.
Strange that people buy it – all you need is a food processor with a metal blade and a cauliflower. Chop the cauliflower into chunks, add to food processor, pulse about 4 or 5 times until the cauliflower resembled rice grains.
I actually managed to put myself right off cauliflower rice as I simply ate it too often! Thankfully I wasn’t put off the vegetable itself.
Roasted spiced cauliflower. A tasty and healthy alternative to rice or pasta.
Tonight I made a spiced roasted cauliflower to accompany a chicken breast in a tikka masala sauce. 330g of raw cauliflower, broken/cut into small bite sized pieces. Spread on a baking tray. Sprinkle on half a teaspoon of nigella (black onion) seeds, a quarter of a teaspoon of cumin seeds, a drizzle (10ml) of a really good quality (thick) balsamic vinegar. Spray with 20 squirts of a low calorie spray oil. Put into a pre-heated oven (190 degrees) for around 20 minutes, stirring half way through.
Total 150 calories. Services one as a main meal or two as a vegetable side dish.
It remains slightly al dente, which is nice as it retains a bit of crunch and makes the whole meal take longer to eat!
Tesco Healthy Living Ginger, Lime and Chilli Chicken, mashed carrot and swede and my own interpretation of saag aloo – baby sweet potatoes and wilted spinach. 292 calories.
I’m struggling with the exercise.
Some of it is down to pain… in my lower back and hip and my neck. When I complain about pain, it’s usually pretty significant. Two cocodomol tablets don’t take it away. It interferes with my sleep. If I lie on one side, my hip hurts. If I lie on the other side, my neck hurts. I spend the night tossing and turning waking in pain, turning over, falling to sleep and waking in pain an hour or so later.
I like my sleep. I’m an 8 hour a night girl. Any less and I feel sluggish and grumpy. And sleep aids weight loss – yes it’s true!
Some of it is down to the time of year. My “gym” is in my garage. There’s no heat. It’s not insulated. I soon warm up, but the idea of getting out of a warm bed and going outside to a cold garage doesn’t grab me. Especially if I’ve had a broken nights sleep.
BUT I have to do something about this additional stone and a half I seem to have acquired. This time last year, I was 9 stone 7lbs. My goal weight. I was at my fittest.
I know why it’s happened, and I know what I have to do to deal with it.
So, I’ve decided… if I’m not exercising, then the alternative is to be ultra careful with my eating. So I am being.
And attempting to lose weight doesn’t mean that I am missing out! I am able to conjure up a really appetising, filling and healthy meal for under 400 calories. Such as my meal this evening (shown above). At just 292 calories, I even can allow myself a sugar-free jelly. Or perhaps an apple. Or even a mini smarties ice-cream cone. 70g – 118 calories. A perfect sweet treat.
I’m making a huge effort not to eat anything after dinner time in the evening, as I have come to realise that is a sure way to create a calorie counting disaster!
It seems to be working.
I’ve got a BIG incentive. I was trying on some of my “posh frocks” today, as in July we are going on our first ever cruise. 12 nights, sailing around the Baltics. They all fastened, but some of them felt decidedly snug! I need to remember the frock session when I am next tempted to enjoy a treat. Visualisation is another weight loss tool. I shall visualise as I lie in bed unable to sleep because of my pain….
Weigh In tomorrow….. I know I’ve lost weight this week because I’ve worked hard to achieve it.
The view from our apartment – worth the steep hill climb!
We enjoyed a wonderful fortnight in Tenerife just before Christmas. This is a time of year that I really can recommend for taking a break in the sunshine. And there was sunshine. Lots of it, most days that we were there. The daily temperature was somewhere between 25 and 30 degrees, which is exceptionally warm for Tenerife for December.
I had taken my trainers, sports wear and heart rate monitor with me. The plan had been to walk for about 30 minutes a day. I was fully intending to stick to this daily commitment to offset the additional calories I knew that I would be consuming and the reduced activity levels. At home, I potter about doing housework. On holiday, I sit and read in the sunshine.
HOWEVER, what I hadn’t planned for was the fact that the sun would be so hot from first thing in the morning until it set in the evening. I’d researched the area we were staying in (Los Gigantes), and I knew that out apartment was located on a bit of a hill. BUT I’d not realised just how long that hill was and quite how hard it is to walk uphill for any length of time. We were also sleeping incredibly well (often 9 or 10 hours a night). Part of that was the fact that it didn’t get light until 8am. By which time, the sun was up and it was already 22 degrees outside. That is simply far too hot for me. I overheat.
Long and short of it – I managed one morning to fit in an hours walk around the village.
Our apartment was about centre left of the picture. Wonderful views but a steep climb!
It was lovely to be walking around the village whilst the locals were going about their business and the holiday makers were mostly still asleep.
I managed a few more walking opportunities – after returning our hire car, and at some of the places we visited, where a wheelchair just couldn’t go with me in it! Los Gigantes, whilst being very picturesque, isn’t the best place to visit if you are a wheelchair user or your mobility is impaired in any way.
I ate more that I would at home (where I am very conscious about my calorie intake), I moved less (read a lot of lovely books) and returned home with a few additional pounds in weight. Well, about 7lbs if I am honest. All that a week before Christmas!
Christmas food indulgence didn’t seem too bad. We hadn’t stocked up on lots of snacks and goodies. We ate “regular” meals before and after Christmas day itself. Including ostrich steaks, which were surprisingly tasty and very easy to cook. Similar in taste and appearance to fillet steak and cooked in the same way. However, only 141 calories for a 125g steak, very low in fat and very high in protein. We’ll be eating it again!
BUT there was cheese, and chocolate and many other things that found their way into the house disguised as a Christmas gift or as a “rare” treat. The things that I usually have to banish as they are just too great a temptation for me…
Cheese fest…. and sausage rolls
Anyhow, like so many others, I am “back on it”, back to my exercise regime, which has been sadly neglected since last March. I’ve paid the price. My niggly aches and pains have returned. My body is looking less toned. There are wobbles in places where I’d thought I’d managed to banish them from.
Fitness doesn’t just happen. It needs to be earned. It needs to be respected. Suddenly this journey is just as much about how I look and feel in my reduced sized body – not just what the scales say.
