Nutty as a Fruitcake

I’m feeling slightly perkier today. I think I feel that the end is in sight of this cold harsh winter. January is a month that forces you to look at where you have got to.. a natural planning month.. what is the year going to bring, what do you want 2010 to be. But February is a month of getting ready for Spring, which is just around the corner. More light, more growth. Perhaps we should all work to a financial calendar instead and see Spring as the start of the Year. It would make more sense. Instead we start a year when nature is essentially closed down.

Breakfast today was yummy. Crisp bacon, creamy eggs and nutty bread toasted to perfections. This is what Sunday’s were made for.

I had to finish a presentation before we went out for our shopping. Frome today and Sainsbury. We haven’t been for a few weeks. However it made sense today as we needs to go to some of the other stores in the area. Bird food and a coax cable for a neighbour.

Lunch was super quick after we unpacked the groceries. Quorn Hot-dogs served in a Torpedo Roll, with mustard, ketchup and onions. For afters, a Suchard Tassimo Hot Chocolate and some Green and Blacks Butterscotch Chocolate. Just the thing for an afternoon off.

Washing and icing of a chocolate cake await.

My daughter popped in on here return from Cardiff, where she has spent the weekend with some friends… it seems to have been a bit of a Gavin and Stacey Pilgrimage. They went to Barry Island… bless.

Dinner was a Chicken en Croute with mashed potato and roast brussels with balsamic vinegar. I love the green stuff. While others in my family tolerate them, I just can’t get enough.. hot, cold, doesn’t matter.

This was followed by Chocolate Cake… actually it was a Mocha cake because I put a fresh espresso coffee in the mix. This is completely yummy, and I think is the main reason that my daughter called today. 🙂

Sometimes life wins… sometimes my level of energy, motivation and tolerance crashes to such a low that I just want to curl up in a corner and cry. Friday was like that for me. I had completely overstretched myself during the week, and had a minor rant at my boss about why the world needed to be put to rights… and then Friday, it turns out that I was the only one who could do so, at short notice and being already overloaded. It was too much and I lost focus on me at a priority. No blogging, no exercise, no care.

The meals for Thursday evening and Friday were:

Lunch: Fresh tomato soup, and a cheese and coleslaw baguette.

Dinner: Vegetable Curry and Rice

Breakfast: Buttermilk Pancakes and Maple Syrup

Lunch: Spaghetti and Tomato Sauce

Dinner: Homemade Chili with Brown Rice and Homemade Cornbread.

This sounds a virtuous set of meals, and would have been without the meeting biscuits and chocolate that were scattered between them.

The start of the weekend fared better with a lovely bowl of Top Banana Porridge with Banana and Maple Syrup. I think I have finally mastered the texture that I crave. Not runny, not too cooked means less milk and shorter time. Todays was spot on.

Lunch was a frozen mini meal of sausages and mash from Waitrose. Not worth the photo, frankly.

The evening meal was another recipe from my slow cooking book. A collar of bacon cooked in cola and spices until tender. Served with some roasted Jerusalem artichokes and vegetables roast in Balsamic Vinegar and Oil. I added some Star Anise to the spice mix which was lovely for the meat, but meant the ‘gravy’ was too bitter to be used as more than a dribble on the vegetables.

Spent the day setting up KMyMoney in Ubuntu. Very good but a little more complex to set up than MSMoney was… but at least it is being maintained. I never understood why Money was dropped by Microsoft.

I woke up 2:30am. Then I couldn’t got back to sleep again. I was hungry and wide awake. As a result today has been a foggy landscape with Mrs Muddlehead. Breakfast was a repeat of my car meal. …Fruit bread and a skinny latte at work. Calories=492

Lunch was an un-pictured sandwich and fruit. Staying at the hotel this evening I tried to choose something healthy off the menu. I stay at this hotel a lot, and its not their fault, but I am bored of their menu. I’ve had what I fancy several times, and now it is all just boring. I tried something new for a change, which was supposed to be Chicken topped with Italian Ham and Parmesan. I ended up with this decided Anglo Saxon version. Never Mind.

I’m trying to work out what to do about my difficulties in travelling and blogging. Two options: Buy an iphone and use it to blog. But not sure I want the £30 contract with it…. Or, buy a more discrete camera to take the photos, but only upload them once and a while… Currently mulling.

Today was a huge day. I had presentation to 20 stakeholder in a new research programme I am managing. We had to impress and as we are a virtual team, we met for the first time this morning, just before the meeting. Co-ordinating 4 different presenters, making sure the material is right and giving confidence to our customers was a challenge and we did it.

This is me laying on the excuses for the fact that photos and food planning was low on my list of priorities today. I knew it was going to be difficult so I stuck to some guidelines instead of rigid calorie counting. Toting up the damage, it seems to have worked.

Breakfast was Fruit bread (no butter) and coffee… in the car. Naughty. Calories= 452

Lunch was a buffet which I had 1/2 sandwich, 2 mini Kiev, 2 halves of a mini pork pie ( I felt guilty but I did enjoy it) and a diet coke. I was talking all the way through lunch with our VIPs, so I think my attention wasn’t as focused as it could be, but these events are few and far between so this kind of problem isn’t common. Calories= 548

However, the volume of this food was low and by the time I drove home I was starving… a fuel stop end up with me buying chocolate and more fruit bread and a machiato when I got home.Calories=460

Dinner is Ham & Egg Meatloaf, wedges and tomato salad and houmous. Calories= 437

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It was an early start today as I had to be down in Christchurch by 9am. I soaked my porridge the night before so that it would cook quicker in the morning… it didn’t work as it just meant that the milk was very cold and therefore needed to warm up first.

So, breakfast ended up as Top Banana porridge with banana, apple puree and maple syrup and a spoon of almond butter. It kept me full from 6:30 to nearly 12. Calories=533

Lunch unfortunately was unphoto’d. It was a Gammon Salad Sandwich, a banana and some Orange and Carrot Juice drink which I won’t have again because it had 57g of sugar in it… This type of discovery that something ‘healthy’ looking is a sugar bomb is very annoying. Calories=609

Other stuff had today: 2 small skinny cappuccinos, a naked cashew bar and an apple. Calories=286

Dinner was Haddock Tacos with a salad and houmous dressing. Very satisfying. Calories=613

I will finish the day with 30 minutes on the ET. – This didn’t happen 😦

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I woke up at 6 this morning (not good for a Sunday unless you are a morning person). The reason was that I was starving hungry. I knew I hadn’t eaten enough yesterday but ran out of meals… What do I mean? I strongly believe that dieting is very bad for us in the long term. I think we play around with our metabolism at our peril, and that it is very unforgiving of our mistakes. I found the Fat2Fit Radio podcast on itunes, and the two presenters are very convincing that we should not go below our BMR in terms of calorie intake. If we do, our body responds by going into starvation mode which is highly efficient at using the few calories we take in. This is a start of a cycle which forces the dieter to consume less and less just to sustain weight loss. I know that I cannot thrive on less than my BMR so I aim to eat around 2000 calories a day.

Breakfast today was our usual Sunday breakfast: Scrambled Eggs, Grilled Bacon, Toast and Grilled Tomatoes. With a dollop of ketchup on the side. Also a lovely frothy cup of Machiato. Calories= 502

My daughter has spent the day with us having Java tutorial from my Beloved. She is new to software programming and its a very steep learning curve with an assignment at the end which has to be in this Thursday. She is working very hard to manage the course, the assignments and work. We left her to it while we drove to Waitrose for the weekly shop. Lunch was a bowl of Heinz Pork & Stuffing soup and bread (unpictured). Calories=354

My exercise today was 30 minutes on the ET, The two downstairs were laughing as I sang along with my music. I like singing when I exercise, and I love music that gets the blood pumping.

Dinner was a baked smoked gammon ham, served with baked cauliflower, sweet potatoes and roast baked new potatoes. Served with a spoon of spiced peach chutney. Followed by a Fru Mini Key Lime Pie ( picture of the box… D’oh) .Calories=820

I had a late night splurge… my daughter had made cupcakes at a friends house yesterday and bought samples with her. I cut the topping off and had the sponge. I also had half a mini bar of Green and Black’s creamy milk chocolate. Calories=245

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I knew I wanted to exercise this morning, as I have a lot of tension in my system after a long and stressy week. However I started my day with a cafe machiato to give me a little energy before I started. I’m listening to a 101 Running Songs as I exercise at the moment, so I figured I would start on our Elliptical Trainer and carry on until I’d had enough. 30 minute later I had set a personal best, and what’s more, no hurting knee. A good stretch and a shower later, I made breakfast.

This is Top Banana porridge made with Alpro soya milk, and cooked with fresh blueberries. Topped with half a banana, a bit of maple syrup and almond butter. The maple syrup is one of the lower GI sweeteners, and the AB is a protein kick to keep the satiety level high. Calories = 535

I’m using my new small slow cooker for the first time today, so I found myself making lunch and dinner simultaneously. I have been rewarded by a sense of smugness all afternoon, knowing I just need to wait for the meal tonight.

Lunch was a home made Tikka Marsala Dhal, served with a mini naan bread and topped with chopped fresh tomato and sautéed onions and spices. I also had another coffee while I was preparing this. The lentils are an excellent source of protein and the tomato based sauce is high in Lycopene, which is excellent for eyesight. Calories=406

Dinner is a Lancashire Hotpot made with lean lamb steak, sliced potatoes, carrots, celery and onion, in a mint gravy. This was served with a slice of seed bread. Calories=604

Last thing I had a banana and some peanut butter. Calories=144

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I have had a few days away from my blog to consider what I want from this experience of laying my days bare to the unseen viewer. Examined closely, the motivation for doing this is a quiet nagging voice in my head that says that life is beating my health again and I need to be accountable for the choices of food and lifestyle that I make. I must see that I will be held accountable either through ill health, physical discomfort or shortened life. There is no escape except reform.

In 2009 I lost 60lbs of weight. I embraced exercise as a necessity. I measured my food and counted calories. I was successful in my strategy. However, then my work commitments grew. My energy and focus on my needs receded and my old weight started to pile on as I abandon my successful strategy. I am now 16lbs heavier and have to get back to setting me as a priority.

So today is day 1 of the 2010 campaign. Workload is still a problem, but one that I am going to have to develop new successful strategies for.

• I will wear my KiFit and record my calorie use each day.
• I will carry on recording my food and exercise on my Spark People account, and will link to this from this blog.
• I will build a photo record of my meals ( where taking them has been logistically possible)
• I will put a summary of my nutritional intake each day
• I will put a summary of my exercise each day.

Be warned, I eat strange food. I get bored very easily and like to combine tastes, textures, colours, sweet and savouries. My meals can look eclectic but my choices are usually driven by what my instinct tells me my body needs. Part of my personal challenge is keeping my mind (which is very dominant and used to being in charge) in sync with my body (which has been ignored, abused and taken for granted for years). They are a team, and its about time they started working for the common good!

My current weight is 299lbs and this will not happen again. So that’s decided….

3391 burned, and I feel like I’ve sat on my bum all day. How does that happen? The Ki-fit doesn’t lie.

Breakfast was a rule breaker! I ATE IT IN THE CAR…. damn, damn, damn. I had to be down in Christchurch super-early so had to leave early too. So I made a coffee and a almond butter and sugar free apricot jam sandwich and two bites of flapjack.

Lunch was more straight forward. A packed lunch of roast beef sandwich, a piece of Brie, Clementine and some carrot cake.

Dinner was a Red Thai Curry made with chicken breast, coconut cream, yellow peppers, spring onions and Red Thai Curry paste and served with brown basmati rice.

Tired, tired bunny so a short posting today.

The sun was out, the temperature was up to 6 degrees and we could pretend for a while that spring is around the corner. Its not… but no harm in wishful thinking. But it did energise me into doing 13 minutes on the elliptical trainer.

Breakfast was a Cumberland sausage, scrambled eggs, multi-grain toast and a grilled tomato.

Sunday is shopping day, which was a much more pleasant journey than last weeks icy adventure.Waitrose again. Returning to unpack and then soup and bread for lunch.

Dinner was a ‘Try Something New’ with Roasted Duck Leg Confit. These are frozen, and covered in duck fat. I separated the legs from the fat, and stored the fat in the freezer for future roast potatoes. I roasted the duck for 35 minutes until it was very crispy, and served with broccoli, roast potatoes and yorkshire pudding. I didn’t eat the skin,but the meat was incredibly tasty.

This was followed by a piece of New York cheese cake and sugar free apricot jam.

See you tomorrow!