Sarah Jayne’s Journey

This morning when the alarm went off to wake myself and Anthony up to go for our morning walk we both grumbled and hit snooze.  Anthony went back to sleep to catch and extra hour of sleep before having to leave for work.  I stayed in bed for a few moments and then even though I was still really tired something in me made me get up.  I went to the room next door and got on the exercise bike and did 40 minutes while Anthony caught up his (not needed) beauty sleep.  With the help of two episodes of My Name Is Earl  I managed to burn about 400 calories (if I believe the website I use to estimate calorie burn) when I could have been sleeping.

When Anthony woke up he came into the exercise room and mumbled about how he really should have gone for a walk but was too tired. Then he commented that what he needed to do  was stay consistent.  I have been thinking about that throw away comment of his now and then throughout the day.  He is exactly right.  Rather than stressing about every single calorie taken in or burned the thing that is probably most effective in my weight loss is staying consistent.  It doesn’t matter that much if I eat 1500 or 1600 calories in any given day as much as it matters that over a long period I am continually in that range. If I do that then the odd ‘mistake’ will be forgiven by my body.

I think that may have been what my inner dieting coach was telling me when it kicked me out of bed and put me on the exercise bike.

Other than that today was pretty good food wise.   I had my usual high fibre cereal with skim milk and fruit for breakfast, a big salad for lunch and a vegetable and bean chilli w/ steamed greens on the side for my evening meal with a low fat ice cream afterwards.  All of which came to 1585 calories.   I managed to cut down on my salad dressing calories (and fat) today by using very low fat fromage frais (like a creamier cottage cheese) instead of a creamy salad dressing and just mixed in some fat free dressing with it and it went a long way.

I suppose the weekend wasn’t all that bad. I didn’t count calories on Sunday and treated myself to an ice cream cone and that did make me feel guilty to a degree but it was the only really ‘bad’ thing that I had eaten all week. Still, the most important thing following a day when I haven’t counted calories is to get right back into counting them the next day because one lazy day breeds very quickly with me.

So, today I am proud enough that I managed to get myself right back on track. I find that if I don’t start the week doing things correctly then I am less likely to have a good week.

Anthony woke me up at 7am and asked if I wanted to go for a walk. I work from home and I don’t start until 9am so I usually am still asleep when he leaves but then get up at 8am and do some time on the exercise bike. Since he asked though, I got up with him and we went on a walk that lasted about 50 minutes. I would have done more calories on 40 minutes of the bike but I would happily give up burning a few calories to get 50 minutes of chatting with him as we walk. Even if it does mean getting up early…I think.

I ate pretty well too. I had cereal with skim milk for breakfast with two mandrian oranges on the side. Then I had a salad with a little bit of low fat ham and cheese on top and a fat free dressing for lunch. I have been having more meat that I generally like to have lately. So, I went for a meatless evening meal tonight and made ‘Moroccan spaghetti’. All of which left me with the total of 1,464 calories for the day. Hopefully that goes some way for making up for that ice cream yesterday.

For those of you on the look out for low fat recipes, here is the one for the meal we had tonight. It was a very low fat meal and it is really good for those of us that have insulin issues or follow low GI plans because all of the carbs in it are slow burning and low gi. You don’t have to use the whole wheat pasta but I do because it is really packed with fiber and as much as it is a bit gross, fibre is what both fills us up and helps to get rid of the fat.

Moroccan Spaghetti - serves 4

Ingredients:

11 ounces whole wheat spaghetti
1 red onion, chopped finely
3 garlic clove, crushed
1 cup mushroom, sliced
28 ounces chopped tomato, from a can
2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 pinch salt
1 pinch black pepper
10 ounces chickpeas, from a can, drained and rinsed
3/4 cup fresh parsley, roughly chopped
3/4 cup fresh cilantro, roughly chopped

Directions:

Put spaghetti in a large pot of boiling water and cook as long as the packet suggests. Mine takes 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat a non-stick pan and spray with low fat cooking spray.

Add the onions, garlic and mushrooms and sautee until they start to get soft which was about 5 minutes for me. If they start to stick just put in a splash of water. This is a good way to ‘fry’ things without fat.

Add the tomatoes, cinnamon, cumin, turmeric and salt and pepper and lightly simmer for about 8 minutes stirring frequently.

Stir in the chickpeas and heat just long enough to cook through, about 3 minutes.

Stir in the fresh herbs and just mix through until they start to wilt.

Add in cooked spaghetti and stir to make sure all of the pasta is coated in the sauce.

Serve.

For anybody that is looking for more low fat recipes, Recipezaar is a really good place to exchange them. My profile page is here but there are a lot of low fat / low calorie cooks there too.

Weekends can be a disaster for me with sticking to the diet.  I don’t really ever eat all that badly these days in the way of true junk food but I am less likely to count calories on the weekend and then slip into bigger portions and even big portions of otherwise good food can put on pounds.  I should be happy that these days my idea of the perfect weekend treat is to have some marinated artichokes rather than the chocolate and crisps of the past.  Yet, all the while I am having those yummy marinated artichokes I am thinking ‘oh my god, I am eating something packed in oil’.  Now, deep inside I know that it is irrational but I worry that I will stray too far.  Sort of like an alcoholic not being able to allow themselves one drink.

Weekends are hard for counting calories because we are more likely not to be in the house most of the day so there might be mystery meals out or we might have people over and then I don’t want to subject them to my low fat stuff (though that is mostly because most of my friends just won’t eat veggies unless they are hidden).  Even on the weekends when we are in the house the whole time it is still different because I am not the only one here for two out of the three meals, as is the case during the week.

See, I can rattle off so many excuses to give myself the weekend off from counting calories.  Since this weekend is one of the stay at home weekends I decided to make myself count calories.

I have done pretty well, really.  The basic run-down of what I had to eat today was:

Breakfast:

Sultana Bran Cereal (sultanas are like raisins) with skim milk - 247 calories

Lunch:

Big chef salad with low fat cheese and 2 slices of wholemeal bread - 504 calories

Dinner:

Low fat chicken curry with microwave rice -  761 Calories

Total daily calories:  1512

I reckon for a 237 pound, 5 foot 2 woman 1512 calories is pretty darn good especially for a Saturday.  So, what am I feeling guilty about?  The stupid microwave rice.

Firstly, I don’t usually have rice even though I really like it simply because it eats up calories and isn’t the most slow burning of carbs and I really aim for low GI stuff because I have insulin resistance. I will usually cook rice for Anthony ( my partner) but skip it for myself and have a green veg like broccoli or kale instead.  Secondly, I have worked hard not to go for convenience foods.  I now cook the majority of meals from scratch with the exception of a low fat/calorie cooking sauce now and then.  So, putting rice in the microwave for 2 minutes almost felt dirty in some odd way.  Then to top it all off that rice was 300 calories.

It amazes me that these days I feel nagging guilt when I eat something that is 300 calories.   I mean, I ate that over two hours ago and it is nagging me a bit still.  I am sure in the past I have put 300 calories of chocolate down my throat without even a second thought but rice (that was actually pretty healthy) bugs me now?  I suppose those nagging things are good on a level because they keep me on  track a bit but I do need to keep that second little voice of reason alive in my head to bitch slap the nagging voice on unreasonable guilt now and then.

As I said yesterday, Friday nights in our house lately have been low fat burger night. I am trying to invent different types of low fat burgers so we don’t go out and buy a takeaway. The last few weeks have been turkey burger so this week we decided to have an actual beef burger.

So, tonight’s low fat burger creation was Mushroom and Horseradish burgers. I blitzed the mushrooms up in a food processor to try to get them to sort of replace the breadcrumbs that people tend to put in burgers and also because they have a lot of moisture content I hoped they would also help keep the lean meat moist. I thought that the horseradish sauce might have packed a bit more of a punch but really it was a mellow back taste. So, I spread a little of the horseradish sauce on the burger bun to add a bit of that zip.

Mushroom And Horseradish Hamburgers

Ingredients:

1 lb extra lean ground beef
1 small onion, quartered
2 garlic clove
1 cup mushrooms, quartered
3 tablespoons horseradish sauce
1 beef stock cube, crumbled
1 egg white

Directions:

Put the onion, garlic and mushrooms into a food processor or chopper and blitz for about 40 seconds to a minute until everything is mixed and the mushrooms are finely chopped.

Put the ground beef into a bowl and add the mixture you just blitzed, the horseradish sauce, stock cube and the egg white.

Combine the mixture with your hands and then put into the fridge for about 30 minutes to let it firm up.

Take out of the fridge and form into four equal sized patties.

Then either fry them in a pan or do as I do and lightly brush them with very little extra virgin olive oil and grill them on a Foreman type grill. It takes about 8 minutes for them to be cooked through.

Serve.

Looking into the mirror right after waking up is always a dangerous choice but this morning it was even more shocking.  I woke up feeling like I could barely open one of my eyes.  I went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror to find Sloth from The Goonies looking back at me!

Seriously - look:

My one eye is so red and swollen that I can barely keep it open most of the time.  I am pretty sure it is just a stye because I had one a long time ago but regardless it is something that makes me glad that I work from home.  That said, it was one of the few days that I had to actually go out in the real world because I had to pay my credit card bill at the bank.  So, I tried to  get my bangs so far down over the eye that people would’t notice.  Of course they would notice my rather strange hair but I can deal with that.  I just tried to make sure I didn’t buy any Baby Ruth chocolate bars so that I wasn’t asked for my autograph.

It does hurt but it could be worse.  It could have been a UTI instead which is proof that if there is a God he is a man.

Because I have to write down everything I eat I decided to try to channel the obsession into something a bit creative and start attempting to make up healthy recipes and share them. I post them over on Recipezaar (great place for recipes) but figured folks here might be open to sharing the lower fat/ healthier recipes they have created.

Fridays are a nightmare for me diet wise. I can go all week with being really good and then my partner will come home and really want something junkie. He is very supportive of my weight loss efforts and will happily eat my veggie bean curries and like all week without complaint. So, a few weeks ago I decided to try to make Friday nights a bit of a treat night where I try out a different kind of low fat/ reduced fat burger in an attempt to give us a bit of a junk food feeling but not break the diet too much.

I will be trying out a new burger invention tomorrow night but this is the one we had last Friday night.

Thai Inspired Turkey Burgers

Ingredients:

1 1/2 tablespoons fresh lemongrass, chopped up
2 garlic cloves
1 tablespoon fresh ginger, chopped
1/3 cup green onion, roughly chopped
1/2 cup fresh cilantro, roughly chopped
1/2 teaspoon red chili pepper flakes
1 lime, zest of, only
2 tablespoons water
1 lb lean ground turkey
1 egg white

Preparation: 

Put the lemongrass, garlic, ginger, green onions, cilantro, chili flakes and lime zest into a food processor or chopper along with the water and blitz them until they are finely chopped and combined.

Add the mixture to the turkey and also put in the egg white.

Mix the turkey and the other ingredients together by hand until they are well combined.

Put into the fridge to chill for about 30 minutes for them to firm up a bit.

Take out of the fridge and shape into four equal sized burger patties.

Then either fry them off in a pan as you would normally do or do as I do and brush them very lightly with a bit of extra virgin olive oil and cook them on a Foreman type grill. It takes about 8 minutes or so for them to be fully cooked.

Serve.

I wasn’t sure if it was too late into my weight loss ‘journey’ to start a blog. After all, people do tend to do these things from the beginning and I am doing it halfway through my rather long journey. However, I decided that it is better late than never and that includes the blog.

I can’t really say when my start date was because I didn’t sit down and decide it was going to be the day I started to lose weight. For similar reasons I can’t say for sure my actual starting weight. I sort of played with losing weight for years. I would go on whatever diet (often weight watchers) and lose pretty much the same 15 pounds and then I just couldn’t get any lower than that. Then it would all come back on and bring a pound or more with it. I have known for a number of years that I have PCOS (polycystic ovaries) and I guess I was using that as my reason (excuse) to accept that I was getting stuck at the same weight loss each time.

Then on November 24,2004 my world totally and very suddenly changed. My husband, who I had been married to for 8 years and two days shy of 1 month, had a heart attack and died. He had been left disabled due to an accident some years before and those injuries contributed but he was a very big man that didn’t really watch his diet and that no doubt was the real contribution that  horrid night.

For the year or so after that I played around with weight loss a couple times again. I even joined a gym which for me was a massive step because just the idea filled me with horrible flashbacks to gym class. Still, I kept hitting that same place. Then one day after a night of really hating my lack of willpower and browsing pages about weight loss surgery I decided to swallow my pride and go to my doctor and ask for help.

She was very helpful and could see that I had lost some weight on my own and asked me if I would be comfortable trying Xenical. Now, of course I had read about Xenical and I was filled with visions of spending the rest of my life on the loo. Plus, in my life I have spent so much time in the BBW community and weight loss medications were always such a taboo topic not the least because so many people in the community had tried then and died. Still, what I also knew was it was one of the few around that didn’t mess with your brain but only your guts.

In desperation I decided I would really try with Xenical. I soon found out that if I stuck to the rules (less than 40 grams of fat a day) there were no loo related problems at all and the weight started to slowly move down. It took a long time but finally I had broken that barrier I had never been bellow but it was still moving slowly. Still, slow was better than nothing.

Then my real breakthrough happened about a year into taking Xenical and losing very slowly. It dawned on me that even though the materials I was given when I started taking Xenical set fat gram limits it didn’t mention calories at all. Calories had always been evil and calorie counting to be avoided at all cost in my past. At this stage though I was already writing down every thing I ate and counting fat grams. So, decided to count calories too. As soon as I started doing that the weight began to move much faster.

I don’t know why it took me so long but after finally taking calories into consideration I realised that even though I could have barely any fat in my daily diary I could still get a ton of calories. For example, pasta has very little fat but a lot of calories. So, I started eating to be low calorie and low fat and really if I watched the calories the fat fell in place. I like big meals and so I wanted to get the most food I could for as little calories. This lead to me ditching most of the meat from my diet and eating largely vegetarian meals. I am not at all a vegetarian but by keeping meat to a few times a week my weight and my lifestyle finally changed.

I am nervous because in July I will have been on Xenical for two years and in the UK you can only be on it two years and then you are required to stop. I am nervous about going it alone but the nurse that I see to get weighed every month pointed out that with how little fat I am eating and how closely I am counting my calories that Xenical has probably had little to do with my weight loss. In other words, it was training wheels that let me find the way to do it myself.

Still, I am nervous that maybe it was the need to go get weighed by the nurse every month that has kept me so strict with myself.

I have lost nearly 75 pounds but I have a very long way to go and it is going to be slow. That is why I am deciding to start this now so that maybe I won’t be going it as alone as I think I will be. Perhaps that will keep me on track and allow me to prove to myself that it isn’t the Xenical that has achieved this but it has been me and it will be continued.

I am getting married again on July 19th. The same week I stop taking Xenical so I want the start of this new life to be strong and confident.

Anyway, hello and I promise my normal posts will be a lot shorter..lol