Skip to main content

Good Days, Bad Days and Salad Days



Today I’ve had a really good day, the sun has been out, we’ve been for coffee and whiled away an hour in a coffee shop, did a little shopping and did some ad hoc working on our respective laptops before dinner, with a spot of Billy Connolly or Bill Bailey playing in the background. It has been a relaxed and very enjoyable day and another upside has been that I haven’t felt hungry. Other than my coffee (174 cals) I ate nothing until dinner. At which point I was very hungry and I over-faced myself with a plate full.

Yesterday I had a “bad” day that is I went over my calorie allowance by 224 cals. I don’t consider this to be all that bad, I had under-eaten by a similar amount the day before and the reason I went over my calories was the consumption of a whole bottle of delicious red wine. I refuse to apologise for this because it happens very rarely and sometimes it’s fun to get slightly tipsy with my hubby. 

I say I over-faced myself today but I have discovered a new and very helpful taste. I made myself a plate full of food today but I’m happy to say that at least half of that plate was salad, the rest was a 150g cordon bleu chicken and 8 potato croquettes. I ate all of the salad first (and loved every bite) and found that I couldn’t eat all of the croquettes or the whole chicken fillet. Essentially I overate on salad and couldn’t eat the rest, which was of significantly higher calorific value. 

I’m loving my new habit of eating a ton of salad with a meal because I always eat the salad first, if I have made too much for myself then it’s the higher calorie foods that get left.
My new love of salad and other vegetation has prompted my creative streak to turn itself to the creation of salad dressings. Okay, I live in Cyprus so I should start with the traditional olive oil dressing but at 120calories/tablespoon it’s a little bit on high side while I’m trying to LOSE weight.

Dressing 1 – 50 calories (a bit high for a fast day salad)
1tsp       Olive Oil /extra virgin if preferred
1tsp       Balsamic Vinegar
1tsp       Warm water
Fresh ground salt and pepper to taste
1pinch Oregano
  
Dressing 2 4-5 calories – obviously not including the salad (much better for a fast day)
Prep; Rinse salad under warm water for thirty seconds (just long enough to lightly warm the salad leaves) and drain.
Grind salt, pepper and a mixture of preferred herbs/spices (pretty much any of the flavours you like with salad) and mix into the salad.
Coat salad with 4-5 sprays from a salad dressing style Frylite.
Voila! A dressed salad.

One of the best ways to change the flavour of your salad is to vary the ingredients. There is much more to salad than iceberg lettuce, mix things up with some rocket, romaine (nice peppery flavour), lollo rosso, rocket and my personal favourite, spinach (baby spinach leaves are a little sweeter and softer).
If you fancy a different flavour use lemon juice instead of balsamic vinegar (or even white/red wine vinegar). Grate a little bit of carrot or even radish into your salad leaves. Even adding the sprouting tips of broccoli is tasty.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Another Restart - with added health issues

Another Restart - with added health issues Photo by  i yunmai  on  Unsplash It looks like I'm starting again, this time even heavier than before. Nth time, the charm? 107.5kg It's not quite the heaviest I have ever been, but it's not far off. My heaviest was 110kg* I am worried about my health.  Since quitting breastfeeding at nearly two years, no hormonal birth control, and no major changes to my diet, I have gained a significant amount of weight that I can't account for with calories in/out. In addition, it has ALL gone to my belly. I am not joking. I wear the same bra size; I wear the same trousers (the waist won't fasten if there's no elastic) but I have turned into a barrel. Even at my heaviest, I maintained a consistent 1-2 dress-size disparity between hips & waist and 2-3 between bust & waist, i.e. my waist was always around two dress-sizes smaller than my bust and hips. I have a sneaking suspicion (more than a suspici
Post a Comment
Read more

Wednesday 14th January - Fast 3

I am regretting some of my food choices from yesterday. I woke up feeling very hungry with a slightly grumpy gut. That's not a good combination. I was a good girl yesterday, muesli for breakfast, it was quite late so I skipped lunch, and pasta chicken & pesto for dinner. I even weighed my ingredients for accurate calorie counting.  After I got back from my Greek lesson is a different matter, I had nearly 600kcal left for the day and we had nothing healthy in the house for me to snack on. I messaged my husband on Skype and asked him to bring me a chocolate bar home. I didn't think it would make that much difference, the guidelines for 5:2 are very clear that you can eat as you wish on non-fast days. Oh but I think the re-education of my body has already started, only a week into the plan. The chocolate (especially quite late at night) made my gut gripe and the corresponding blood sugar spike has me craving food today. The only thing keeping me straight today is the p
Post a Comment
Read more

Using the Right Activity Levels - (or don't lie to yourself)

How active are you? Can you answer this honestly, without padding it with extras you assume will constitute a higher activity level than you  actually  achieve?  You might think that being a parent of an energetic pre-schooler would keep you active, but the sad truth is that it doesn't. What about all the washing, cleaning, cooking, laundry, and playtime? It doesn't account for much besides the average daily movement. You need to  ACTIVELY  increase your activity levels for it to make any difference to your estimated calorie intake. Doing active things that are part of your daily routine is normal. Otherwise, we could quantify every trip to the kitchen to make a drink or walk to the bathroom as part of our regular exercise. This is not the case. TDEE vs BMR The  calorie calculator  that I use on my weight loss journey is from the 5:2 Fast diet website. It's one of the better ones for accuracy and tweaking for activity, and weight down to 0.1kg. When I input my
Post a Comment
Read more