Wheat free day 4...

Ok, so last night - Tuesday - was a bit of a mish-mash of a dinner. It's the day when both Mark and I are busiest with Soccer, bootcamp and the timings are all over the place. 

Bootcamp's not till 730, which means that when I get home from work I HAVE to eat some thing! Otherwise I am famished, and not really able for the class. So, I decided to give the porridge another go. This time i thought there might be a way to make it, and then fry it to give it a bit of a crispy edge. Nope, there's not - but it does create a lot of mess... :-( I did remember that I had a heap of frozen blueberries in the freezer - so I added a handful of them to the gloop, and then i diced 1/2 a cox apple and added that too. The apple saved the day - it definitely made the difference between it being gloopy and palatable. Added one teaspoon of golden syrup and ate it - three points. Same as a slice of toast sans rien - and considering I had progressed to toast with peanut butter I am better off with the porridge. sigh - I do love my PB. After bootcamp we both had really enjoyable bowls of roasted butternut squash soup, and today I am going to make a roasted tomato, garlic and basil soup which will be minus the butter, and will make a smaller quantity as I've only about 2 lbs of tomatoes in the fridge and its really just for tomorrow's dinner for me, and lunch for Mark - all we need is a couple of bowls. If it works out then I'll stock up on tomatoes over the weekend and make it again.  

Only good thing about winter is the soups... :-) 

Today's lunch is a scraping the bottom of the fridge lunch - there's spinach leaves - end of bag, sun-dried tomatoes - end of jar, beetroot - end of jar, chicken - end of the cooked chicken, and 40g of cheese - so end of the cheese too. I think it will be nice - i also added 1/2 a tsp of oil to the salad to give it some gloss. 

The scales today showed 10.1 (141) - but briefly briefly flicked to 9.13.8 :-) All I want is tomorrow to be 10 stone heading to my weigh in. I'd feel a lot better - I absolutely hate the fear of going to WW and knowing that you've cocked up! 

Also - i changed my tracking system. Instead of using their books, which are bright green and a bit ridiculous, I have decided to use my own notebook, and just stick within the 29 a day, and then track for 5 week days, and as much of the weekend as I can. I am not going to be that girl writing down her points while she's hammered in the chipper at 3am - but I'll do the best I can to stay out of the chipper :-) Good thing I'm not hitting the pub this weekend! 

Back to basics... I've been slacking!

Ok, so the posting has been a lot less inspired than I had hoped - and a lot more kudos go out to my friends who blog all the time - Jenn and Lynn, and Tiffany - you guys are amazing, how do you find the time! 

I have decided, based on my allergies, to go wheat free for a week - and see how that goes for me. So, no more sneaky slices of toast, no more digestives that were bought for the chocolate biscuit cake, and no more pasta - just for a week, which started on Saturday. So far it's been ok, as I mentally know that I can have some carbs, and there's a lot of wheat free options out there.

This is in attempt to reduce the itching that I experience all over my body, especially my eyes, throat, nose and legs, and to reduce my sniffles. I'll update how it goes. I may continue for one more week to ensure that i get into that LBD for my friends birthday on the 17th! :-) Who knows!!

Well - today's lunch was leftover fajita peppers (I didn't have the tortillas on Saturday), spinach leaves, roasted chicken and a tiny piece of cheese that was just too small to put back in the wrapper (think 1/4 of a matchbox). It was tasty, followed by an apple and a yoghurt and it was nice and filling - and i'd estimate maybe 6 points for the whole thing - the yogurt was only 1!!:-) 

This evening we are having grilled hake, baby potatoes, brocolli and carrots (boiled) - and I may add a teeeeny bit of parmesan to the veggies and perhaps the fish. I've a long run scheduled with my running buddy too -  12.5km - and have to work out what to eat before I do that. It's going to be hard if I can't have the toast I normally do. My boyfriend's going to get me some oranges, so that might do - or I can have a 2pt protein shake - that might work also, but I think the oranges, with the natural sugar and fibre will probably give me more energy... 

Filling, healthy and warming...

Chunky Vegetable Stew with Chorizo and Sweet Potato 

1 medium sized sweet potato
1 can of butter beans (including water)
1 can of tomato puree
1 can of tomatoes
1 medium - large red onion
4 cloves of garlic
2 courgettes / zucchini 
2 peppers / bell peppers 
4 inches of chorizo smoked sausage
3 tsp of italian herbs 

Slice and add to a lightly greased large pot the onion and the garlic
Gently fry off on a medium heat
Dice the peppers, the zucchini, the sweet potato into chunks - keep the zucchini a little longer so it keeps it shape.
Sprinkle the herbs into the pot and keep stirring 
Add the chorizo and the other veggies - stir until coated for a few minutes
Add the remainder of the ingredients and cover and simmer for 30 mins

This dinner was only labour intensive for the chopping, but then simmering away and splitting it into 4 portions was no hassle at all. I ate it just now, and can tell you, that with the low points that this dish has, and the fact that I had it with a litre of water, a banana and a yogurt I am completely full, and I should be OK till after boot camp later! 

Apologies for the terrible photograph - I should have cleaned up the bowl a bit before hand but I just was tooooooooooooo hungry!! 

Monday.... trying to not roll downhill after a rocky start to the week!!

Monday's just suck don't they....

Thankfully I had my lunch planned out from last night, if I'd had to do my own thing this morning I'd be enjoying lunch from McDonalds or some other such fast food delight... 

Last night we roasted a chicken, we do this  a lot on a Sunday, and have it handy then for lunch during the start of the week. I marinaded the chicken in about 1/3 of a bottle of sweet and chili marinade. Roasted it for 90 mins and then had the most golden looking chicken come out of the oven. What was great was a lot of the marinade, and the fat was not absorbed by the chicken, but there was enough to just give it a bit of flavour, and look the part. 

Today I enjoyed some chicken salad, using the leg (drumstick and thigh) of the chicken, some spinach for iron and vitamin c, olives, pickles, roasted red peppers and some sun-dried tomatoes. Fantastic by all accounts. There was no processed carbs today for me (well, I had a couple of biscuits at tea time) for lunch. 

I added to my lunch with a bowl of homemade roasted veggie soup, and two pieces of fruit - a banana and an orange. 

Any one who has done WW knows that soups are fantastic for being filling and low in points - this one has zero - recipe is below. I find that soup is something I pretty much only eat when I am cold, or trying to not use any points. I never order it in a restaurant, and I feel the ones I make at home are good for filling me between dinner at 730 and getting home at 5, without adding to my points allowance. 

Total lunch points: 5

Roasted Vegetable Soup

Butternut squash / small pumpkin diced 

4 - 6 cloves of garlic (depends on how much you want someone to talk to you that day)

Red onion diced

Red pepper diced

4 tomatoes quartered 

Oven at 200C

Add everything to a roasting tray and season well with salt and pepper 

Add a few shakes of smoked paprika, chili flakes

Crumble over a stock cube

Add two cups of water to the dish (this stops everything from sticking)

Cover with foil 

Bang in oven

After 30 mins take off foil and return to oven for 15 - 30 mins - the veggies should be going crispy and brown around the edges

Remove all to large saucepan

Add 1 cup water and blitz using a stick blender 

Add more water to thin to personal taste - and leave some chunks if you like chunky soup...

Tips - Add one handful of rinsed lentils to the soup to thicken and give it more bulk - that = about 2 points per serving 

Use any veggies that are red / orange / white in colour to this - we often use celery if it's lying around, and I would use sweet potato/ regular potato /parsnip if I had them in the crisper - just adjust the points accordingly. 

Now... why was Monday so shockingly terrible... WELL - this morning, I GOT A PUNCTURE while cycling to work. Bad enough if it happens on the way home, but on the way TO work!! No fair!! So, I had to walk the bike 8km to the office, and then shower / get ready and land at my desk 60 minutes later than planned!! Disaster! Off to get the puncture fixed later...

Hope everyone had a good weekend!