Spicy sausage & chorizo

For this recipe I have teamed the dish with Pasta but you could use it to top a Jacket potato or just in a bowl with some bread. A great winter warmer dish.

Serves 4

INGREDIENTS
2x Tesco Finest Hickory smoked pork sausages (or similar)
50g Spanish chorizo sausage
1/2 tin Tesco mixed taco beans (or other beans of your choice)
1 tin Chopped tomatoes with herbs
1 medium onion
1/4 red bell pepper
1-2 cloves garlic
2 tsp tomato puree
1 chicken stock cube
2 tsp worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp olive oil
200g pasta

METHOD
Dice the onion and fry in olive oil for approx 5 mins to soften. Dice the pepper and add to pan with onions and fry for a couple more mins. Add crushed garlic and fry for another minute.

While that is frying remove the skins from the sausages and make into bite size balls (about the size of a pound coin). Dice the chorizo.
Put 3/4 of the tin of tomatoes in a jug and blend with a hand blender. Add the stock cube, worcestershire sauce, tomato puree and about 1 mug of boiling water.

Remove onions etc from pan and add to jug of tomatoes etc.

Using same pan fry the sausage balls until starting to brown the add the chorizo and fry for a minute or two.

Pour Tomato mixture back into the pan and add the rest of the tinned tomatoes and the beans.

Simmer for 15-20 mins. While simmering prepare the pasta according to pack instructions.

To serve, Divide the pasta between four bowls and top with the sausage mixture.

413 kcals
54g carbs
18g protein

Burger King!

Remember about 4 weeks ago, I said I really fancied a Burger King? Remember though that I said I wanted to lose more weight first? I lost it, and it is indeed Burger King time :-) I am now 3 stone lighter than I was this time last year which I am really pleased with. I've still got another 2 stone to lose but I'm confident I'll do it. But for now I am really looking forward to that burger, I will have it for lunch on monday. I may set another goal perhaps for a lovely pizza and garlic bread, but that can wait until after Christmas now. Christmas, now there's a thing. The plan is to enjoy all the lovely food and drink available but to enjoy in moderation. I will try to stay away from "empty calories" like chocolates and biscuits which can really rack up the calorie count before you know it. I'll probably put on a few pounds like everyone, so it's just about not going really stupid I suppose.

Looking good!

I went shopping today to buy a party outfit for the festive season. I hate shopping for clothes at the best of times and was not looking forward to it at all. I just wanted to share my day with you.

After much searching, I found a nice top in Next so I went to try it on. I took an 18 and a 16 into the changing rooms and was very happy with how the 16 looked. That cheered me up quite a bit. This time last year I was struggling to fit into an 18! So now I needed an nice pair of trousers to go with it. I got two pairs in the end as I wasn't sure whether the first pair would go with the top or not. Annoyingly though I had to buy them both in a size 18. I could have got 16's but I would have looked like a pound of sausages! The 18's are too large really but at least there will be room for when I eat ha ha! What bugs me is that I have been wearing size 16 jeans for a few weeks now and they are actually getting lose. Sizes eh, I'll never understand them. That's why I dont take too much notice of what size I wear as long as I look good. I think it is usaully better to buy a bigger size than try to squeeze into something and bulge out of it.

I was feeling quite good about what I had bought, so I bought some blinging accessories to finish of the look. I even bought some earings, which if you know me well you will know I very rarely wear. Just for insurance purposes I bought a shapewear bodysuit just to iron out the wrinkles :-)

When I got home I thought I would try on the whole look all together. Turns out the first pair of trousers looked good. The Shapewear was awesome and if I do say so myself, I looked pretty good :-)

So all in all, I am a very happy bunny this evening and looking forward to wearing my outfit next week. Only downside is that I will probably only get a couple of wears of the trousers before they are too big. I may have to go back and get them in a 16 too!

Turkey & Leek bake

Turkey & Leek Bake

Ingredients:
500g Turkey breast
6 carrots
2-3 leeks
1 tin chicken & veg soup (or similar)
3 tsp chicken seasoning
1 tsp dried parsley
1 tsp dried thyme
1 chicken stock cube
2 tbsp flour
1 tin water
1 glass white wine
450g potatoes thinly sliced
Fry light
Butter/oil

Method:
Melt a little butter and oil in a pan (oil stops the butter burning). Chop and fry the leeks and carrots for 5 mins. (Add the herbs after a minute or two).
Dice the turkey breast and season then add to the pan. Brown the turkey.
Sprinkle in the flour and stir well. Cook for a couple of mins.
Add the wine and simmer for a couple of mins. Add the stock cube
Add the soup then fill the tin with boiling water (from the kettle is fine). Add to the pan. (Add a little more water if neccesary).
Simmer for 10 minutes
Transfer to oven on a low heat for around 40 mins.
Transefer to a baking dish and stand to cool for 5 mins.
Top with the sliced potatoes. Spray lightly with fry light.
Bake on a low heat until potatoes are golden brown.

Serves 6
Kcal: 305
Carbs: 38
Protein: 20

13 weeks gone

34lbs lost.

Very happy with progress. Averages at 2.6lbs per week which is what I have been aiming for. I put on half a stone during the 5 days in France but thankfully shed it pretty quickly once I resumed my normal habits.

Calories are tracking at approx 1700 per day. My cooking skills are getting better too and I am getting quite a good variety of recipes now. Anyone who says diets are all about eating salads and soups is crazy (although I do eat quite a few soups). I have recently cooked beef and ale stew/casserole (as seen on this blog), a lovely leek & bacon gratin, meatballs with pasta, cottage pie. Good wholesome autumn comfort food.

I have a real craving at the moment for a Burger King but I am trying to abstain for a while longer. I really want to look good for Christmas so I have decided that if I lose another half a stone before Christmas I will have the BK, but only if it is a few weeks before Christmas because I will be eating enough crap over Christmas without adding that to it.

The workouts keep getting tougher! I am finding now that my wrists are struggling with the weights more than my muscles so my next project is to do some exercises specifically to strengthen my wrists. On the other hand my knees are notibly stronger. When I started doing squats I needed to hold on to something to keep my balance as my knees were so shaky, now not only can I do them without support but I have introduced 5kg dumbbells too!

I really want to start doing some running soon to start training for next years Race For Life. The weather is very off putting though. How I wish I had a treadmill.

Oh well, onwards and upwards......

Beef Casserole

This one isnt really a diet option but is not bad either at around 420 kcals per portion but remember you may want to add a side dish of carbs eg potatoes or bread. And on the plus side it does contain lots of veggie goodness :-) Also a note on the amount of servings, sorry but those are the ingredients which were on offer so if you want to scale it down I'll let you do the math.

BEEF CASSEROLE

Ingredients:

760g Diced beef
2 bags (900g) mixed casserole veg
200g mushrooms (halved or quartered)
70g pearl barley
1 400g tin of Oxtail soup
1 packet minestrone cup-a-soup
1 beef stock cube
250ml good ale
1/2 tin water
dried mixed herbs

No clever tricks with this one. Throw everything in a casserole dish and cook it slowly (around 4 hrs on gas mark 4). Put the stock cube and the cup-a-soup in the soup tin (once you've emptied it) and mix with boiling water to disolve then add to pot.

Serves approx 7

Still making progress.......9th week

I've lost around 16lb now. This is still less than I had hoped for but not bad at 2lb per week (was hoping to lose 3lb on the occasional week). On the plus side, I can now see my body changing shape and I have dropped a size in jeans. I am thinking that maybe the weight loss is not so dramatic because I am working out and building muscle as I lose fat. To be honest, my shape and how I feel is more important to me than my actual weight anyway. I use my weight only as a guide to my progress.

I can feel my body getting stronger during my workouts too. Its not always easy to guage because the workouts change every couple of weeks to stop my body adjusting to them, but I have increased weights and reps on many of the exercises and I know I am doing some things that I wouldnt have been able to do at the begining. I thought my knees would be my biggest problem as they have been poor for years but I am suprised to find that actually my shoulders are giving me the most pain. I find myself making lots of noises during the upper body workouts (and lots of expletives!). It doesnt seem to be having any long term damaging effects on my joints though and I remain positive that if I can strenghten the joints I will get less pain eventually.

Diet wise I am loving the foods I am eating and am never hungry. I am aiming for around 1750-1800 kcals per day although on some days over 350 of those calories are from alcohol and on saturdays over 1000 of the calories are from cider :-) Today was a no alcohol day and I ate the following:

Bowl of Cheerios
2 Ryvita with 2 thin slices of edam
Homemade beef soup with 2 wholemeal slices of bread
small handfull of almonds
clementine
Banana
small handfull of raisins
turkey meatloaf with potatoes
small low cal cereal bar
3 mugs of low cal hot chocolate
(unlimited tea and water)

Romary conley's magazine is a great source of recipes too.

On saturday by comparison I eat closer to 2000 kcals (otherwise I would have no nutrition, only cider!) This is an example of a saturday's food:

2 slices wholemeal toast with scrambled egg made from 1 whole egg and 1 egg white & mushrooms
2 wholemeal toast with marmite
banana
cod in parsley sauce with pasta and broccoli & peas
approx 7 half pints of cider (thats 7 halves not 7 and a half)
The other good news is that as I build more muscle, my metabolism will get faster and I will either a. lose more weight or b. be able to eat more calories without gaining.

So in summary, its all good so far. we are going to France next week though and there will be astronimical amounts of good food to be eaten. My plan is to be a little bit careful but also to enjoy the lovely food on offer. Life is for living after all. Also starting to think about christmas and how to handle that :-/

Diet update

So I have been on this new healthy eating plan for five weeks now so hows it going?

I have stuck to the plan fairly well. There have been a couple of BBQ's in that time and some other very heavy drinking sessions too! I have only missed one or two training sessions where there have been last minute changes to routines, but for the most part I have tried really hard.

I have started playing Badminton once a week with family which is really enjoyable. We are all rubbish at it but at least it gets you moving. I have had to scrap a couple of running sessions and bike rides due to the weather but have done something else active in the shed (gym) instead.

I have found that the weight loss was lower than I was hoping for. Some weeks I have lost 1lb and others I have not lost at all. I am aiming to lose 2lb per week. So with that in mind last week I lowered my calorie intake a little bit. Now instead of 2084 calories per day I am working at around 1800 to 1900 depending on whether I am exercising on that day and whether I am drinking alcohol.

I have lost 8lbs over the five weeks. I was aiming for 11lbs at this point. It would be hard on myself to feel disapointed with that though I think, especially with the social events thrown in to the equation. I am hoping that now I have lowered the calories a little I will see some better results.

I can feel my clothes getting baggier which is lovely and I did up a pair of jeans which I previously couldnt get past my hips the other day.

Also on a good note, my body is being reasonably kind to me. I am aching a bit but not too much that it puts me off exercising which is good. Week seven is when the workouts step up another level though so not looking forward to that!

I have been invited out to someones house next week for dinner/buffet where the food will include chicken nuggets and sausages, so I am told. I dont think I have eaten a nugget in about five years! I am not looking forward to eating such proccessed food but you have to be polite dont you. I suppose it will make me value my cooking a bit more he he!

Winter veg soup

Winter vegetable soup
This is a nice warming chunky soup which is very satisfying.

Ingredients:

450g Carrots diced
420g Peeled & cubed potatoes
2 sticks of celery chopped
1/2 onion diced
2 cloves garlic chopped
4 tbsp peas
50g lentils
1 brocolli & cauliflower cup-a-soup (or similar)
1 minestrone cup-a-soup (or similar)
2 stock cubes
3 tbsp olive oil
Herbs and seasoning to taste (I use mixed herbs)

Method:

Heat pan and add olive oil. Fry first 5 ingredients until softened a little.
Put soups and stock cubes in a large jug or bowl with herbs and add about 2 litres of boiling water. Mix well then add to pan with vegetables
Bring to boil then simmer until potatoes are about half cooked (not crunchy anymore)
Removed about 4-5 ladels full of vegetables and some liquid and put in a jug or bowl. Use hand blender to blend until smooth. Add blended veg back to the pan.
Add peas and lentils and bring back to the boil. Simmer for around 20 mins or until peas and lentils are cooked. (also check carrots are soft).
Season to taste and serve.

I split this into 6 regular portions and 1 small portion. Based on dividing by 6 the nutrition is roughly as follows:

250 kcals
40g carbs
7g Protein

Healthy "cream" of tomato soup recipe

Tomato soup

Although no cream is used in this recipe, a thick, creamy consistency is achieved by using potato and skimmed milk.

This recipe is taken from the book "Food for fitness" by Anita Bean

Ingredients:
1tbsp butter/oil
1 onion chopped
1 large potato chopped
2 garlic cloves crushed
1/4 tsp each of dried basil, thyme, dill
salt & black pepper
600ml (1 pt) Passata
1 tsp canderel
350ml skimmed milk

Method:

Heat butter/oil and cook onion, garlic, potato and herbs for 5 mins.
Add everything else except milk and cook until potatoes are soft.
Liquidise the soup.
Add milk and heat through until hot again.

Nutrition:

110 kcals
18g carbs
5.3g protein

Turkey meatloaf recipe

Turkey Meatloaf

Ingredients:

400g Turkey Mince
2 medium onions
1 red pepper
1 tin chopped tomatoes
100g cherry tomatoes
250g passata (or blended tin tomatoes)
1 tin kidney beans
50g lentils
1 Chicken stock cube
35g Paxo breadcrumbs
1 tsp canderel
1 tbsp worcester sauce
(some) Butter/oil
chicken seasoning
Mixed herbs
Cumin
Paprika
Salt & black pepper

Method:

Finely chop 1 onion and soften in a little oil or butter. Add A large pinch of Cumin and Paprika. (I also added a pinch of turkish spice blend) as the onions cook. Once softened, remove from pan and leave to cool.

Chop the second onion into larger pieces and soften in a little oil or butter. Dice the pepper and add to the onions to soften.
Once onion and pepper are softened, add the following to the pan:
Tinned tomatoes
Passata
worcester sauce
Canderel
Lentils
Kidney beans
Stock cube

Add a couple of mugs of water.
Simmer on a gentle heat for 20-30 mins. Add salt & pepper to taste

Once all ingredients for the sauce are in the pot you can start on the meatloaf. The first batch of onions should be cooled by now.

In a bowl, add the onions, all the mince, breadcrumbs, about 2tsp of chicken seasoning, 2-3 tsp mixed herbs and a little salt & pepper. Mix everything together then shape it into a sort of rectangle shape (I do this on a chopping board).

Lightly grease a baking dish with oil or "fry light". Transfer the meatloaf to the dish then spray "fry light" over the top and gently rub in (or use a little oil).

Cook on a medium heat for something like 30 mins (sorry not very good with temps & times). When it looks about 3/4 cooked add the sauce to the meatloaf in the dish and cook for another 15 mins or so.

Thats about it I think. As always, ask me if I've not explained anything. I got 5 portions out of this. I served it with a small wholemeal roll. I was stuffed! This is a great winter warmer meal and you could even just eat the sauce as a meal on its own with some crusty bread.

It is a nice cheap meal, the mince cost £2 in Tesco. You can probably get the rest of the ingredients for a couple of quid. It is reasonably low in fat and full of nutrition.

I estimate the nutrition if split into 5 (excluding bread) to be roughly:

374 kcals
35g carbs
30g protein

Try it, and let me know if you enjoyed x

Chicken casserole

Ok, Im not very good at receipes. I usually just throw stuff in and see what happens but I'll try really hard to explain exactly what went in to making todays concoction. I managed to get 5 portions of casserole and 4 portions of soup from one 1.5kg chicken which cost £4 in Tesco. (A portion for me is 2 ladels full give or take a bit).

Ingredients;

1.5 whole chicken
2 medium onions
6 carrots
2 sticks of celery
1 knorr packet of vegetable soup (the ones that do 4 servings)
2-3 chicken stock cubes
50g dried red lentils (the ones that dont need soaking)
50g pearl barley

Method (try my best):

First I cooked the whole chicken in the oven (follow guidelines on packaging) the night before. Save the juices.

Chop 1 onion and 1-2 carrots. Soften them. I steamed mine in my microwave steamer beacuse I dont want to add extra fat but you can fry them in butter until softened. Then add approx 100ml of water and blend until no lumps remain but still fairly thick.

Put empty vegetable soup packet into a jug and make up using 800ml of boiling water (from the kettle is fine). Add 1 stock cube and stir well. Add the soup to the blended carrot and onion. Add herbs and season however you like.

Chop remaining onion, carrots and celery and add to pot. Add lentils and barley to the pot. Remove all meat from the chicken (picking out any bones) and add it all to the pot. (Incase I forgot to mention anything, by now everything except 1-2 stock cubes should be in the pot).

Cook slowly until the onions are translucent and the carrots soft. The longer you leave it, the more the chicken will break down into little shreds, so leave it as long as you like.

From this I took 5 portions and put into pots ready for freezing. (when you reheat it, you may need to add a little extra water/stock because the chicken soaks it up)

Leaving the last portion in the pot top it up with stock using spare stock cubes until you have the desired consistency for your soup (you may want lots of meat and a little juice or to make more portions, not so much meat and more juice). Warm through for a little longer then dish up.

I have added up the nutritional values of the ingredients used and think it works out roughly like this assuming you make 5 casseroles and 4 soups:

Calories: 347
Carbs: 31
Protein: 26

Values are quatered for the soups obviously as you have split one casserole portion into 4 soups.

I hope this all makes sense. I would love for someone to try it and let me know how you got on!

The plan

I read a book called The Complete Guide To Strength Training by Anita Bean. I know what you are thinking all ready, I dont want to be a body builder, right? Let me assure you, it is practically impossible to become a body builder by accident. Most people who actually do want bulging muscles dont even acheive the look they desire, genetic make up also has an influence on your body's capability to bulk up. Unless you have a very specific training program you will not accidently end up with bulging biceps. So forget any worries along those lines.

Having said that, If you are looking for some miracle diet or something that wont take much effort, you are definatley in the wrong place. I have never really followed a pre planned diet structure, weightwatchers, low fat, low carb etc Partly because I dont like many of the foods suggested but also because I have always believed that you should be able to have healthy balanced diet.

So what this book does is explain what a healthy diet consists of, how many calories should you eat, how many carbs, how much protein, how to eat balanced meals and so on. It then goes on to explain different exercise methods and which ones are most suitable to meet your goals whether you want to lose weight, gain weight, increase speed or indurance and so on. I love this book because it gives me all the info I need to make sure I am getting a healthy diet and an effect workout program without damaging my body (any more than it is already lol). I must add though that I never take a single source of information as gospel, so I frequently cross reference what I read with information available on the internet and make adjustments where neccessary.

So here are the numbers:

My resting metabolic rate (RMR) (thats how many calories my body needs if I just sat on the sofa all day) is 1629

Taking into account my lifestyle (not including periods of actual exercise) which is classed as sedated because I am mostly sitting with some walking at work, my calorie needs become 2281

Then we add to that the fact that I will be exercising which takes my needs up to 2452

So if I ate 2452 calories a day I would maintain my current weight (calories in = same as expended)

In order to lose weight I need to reduce this to 2084

All of these calculations are explained in the book but you can find plenty of calorie calculators online.

Of the 2084 calories I should include 550g of carbs and 138g of protein

Ideally I should eat 6 meals per day

The exercise consists of:

3x sessions of weight training per wk (2 sessions for first 3 wks)
2x 30 min bike rides per wk
1x 20 min run/walk per wk (building up to 30 mins)
1x 30-40 min cardio workout per wk
1 day of complete rest (hooray!)

First thoughts

I find it difficult to comprehend eating over 2000 cals and still losing weight. I have found it difficult to reach 2084 cals per day without eating unhealthy foods. It is even more difficult to reach the carb and protein requirements. the problem with that is that in order to keep the GI count low (avoid sugar hits) you should eat carbs and protein together. I could eat lots of chicken but I have to have it with carbs and then the calorie count starts to go up!

Since I know I will never give up drinking, I have to account for the cals and carbs in the drink too. Then it becomes hard to eat a healthy diet and not go over the calorie count for the day!

A typical day looks something like this at the moment:

Breakfast: cereal or porridge
Snack: 10 almonds & 20g of raisins
Snack: 1 Ryvita 30g cheese
Lunch: Ham pasta salad, clementine, pear
Snack: Egg mayo sandwhich (1 egg, 1 small wholemeal slice, extra light mayo, no butter)
Snack: Banana
Dinner: cod baked in tomato with medium jacket potato
Snack: small Low fat fromage frai
Beverages (excluding alcohol): 4x low cal (less than 50Kcal) hot choc, 2-3 teas with skimmed milk & no sugar, unlimited water.

I think you will agree that you would struggle to be hungry with all that lot! (some of the snacks go out of the window on days that I know I will be drinking alcohol).

I have told myself that I will do everything by the book for at least 4 weeks before changing anything. Then if it is not working I will make some adjustments. I will keep you posted :-)

Welcome

I have decided to set up this blog because some of my friends are interested in my attempts at weight loss. I was posting litlle bits on facebook and in my other blog such as recipes and things. Problem is, I dont want to be a diet bore so I decided that I will keep that info seperate from my other outlets. This means I can post more detailed information such as full recipes rather than brief outlines as well as info on my exercise routines. Those who are interested can read on and those who arent wont be bombarded with loads of shite.

So for those of you still here, I hope you find it interesting.