Cruise day 142 – PV

Morning weigh-in 89.7kgs – AARG!

• Daily GAIN– 0.3kgs / 0.66lbs.
• Total lost 22.6kg/ 49.72lbs

Watercheck – 1.8l including coffee & water.

Breakfast

• Oatbran porridge
• 2x low fat pork sausages
• Mug of coffee with sweetener
• some raw veggies from my veggie munch box (carrot, celery, cucumber & capsicum sticks)

Morning snack

• mug of coffee with sweetener

Lunch

• Chicken fajita nuggets
• Dukan friendly chocolate custard pudding
• Raw veggies from veggie munch box

Afternoon snack

• Mini Cathedral City cheddar cheese (not light)
• Pepperami

Dinner

• Spicy taco mince using lean beef, with a tablespoon of salsa and a tablespoon of fat free fromage frais

Exercise

• 60 mins walking to and from work, and to and from the gym
• 65 mins on the cross trainer at the gym

My god this diet takes up a lot of time.  Food prep. Exercise. Blogging. Nutritional values research. Shopping. More exercise. Cleaning out tupperware boxes. More food prep.  Then go to bed and start again.

I get up early in the morning to cook my chicken, chop my vege if I’m on a vege day.

I stop by the supermarket every other day to pick up fresh ingredients, and then when I get home, I have the choice of either going straight to the gym (or the walk, though it’s too dark to walk outside of an evening now) and coming home for a later dinner, or cooking dinner straight away and going to the gym on a full stomach. Or in tonight’s case, cooking dinner, then going to the gym, then eating dinner.

Decisions decisions.

And after a few days of Very Good Dieting, I’m up again on the scales this morning.  I know, vege days’ll do that to you. Plus no exercise yesterday cause I was getting sick of the amount of time this takes up in my life.  I’ve done no Nanowrimo since Nov 2nd. And it’s dark outside for most of the time I’m home, boo!! I hate this time of year, at least until Christmas season starts properly.  Once the German Market is up and running in Edinburgh and our Christmas decorations are up, then I’ll be able to cope with the darkness a little better.  Usually I have NaNo to keep my spirits up and keep me focussed in November, but this year I can’t quite cope with the split focus.

**later**

Sorry about that rant.  I was feeling a bit cheesed off in general, at how much effort I feel like I’m putting in, and how little progress I’ve made this month.  I’ve just come back from the gym and had a good session on the cross trainer, and I’ve had a bit of an epiphany.  See, all my other “low carb” friends are doing just that – very very low carb.  They don’t care about the fat, because at very low carb levels, fat doesn’t really get metabolised in the same way.

I have been seduced by their reasoning, and have been having more fat than I ought, really.  I’ve been having non-low-fat cheese and other dairy products, but that’s not what Dukan is about.  Dukan does allow a relatively higher level of carbs than most other “low carb” diets, and so you have to be more aware of fats.  Moreover, I’ve been forgetting that the idea of this diet is to get you used to low levels of fat in your food, almost creating a “fat taboo” so that when you start easing carbs back into your diet at Consolidation, you don’t start packing the weight back on.

So.  I’m going to give the cheese a rest for a few days, and up the exercise, and see if I can’t get myself at least into the low 88s by this time next week.

Are ya with me? 😉

Recipe: chocolate custard pudding

Chocolate custard pudding
(makes two servings)
Suitable for Cruise, Consolidation & Attack
ONE serving counts as TWO tolerated food servings

Ingredients

• 35g Birds Custard Powder (NOT the instant custard with added sugar)
• 2 teaspoons low-fat cocoa powder (with no added sugar)
• 500ml skimmed milk
• ½ teaspoon instant coffee granules

Equipment

• Medium saucepan
• Fine wire sieve
• Two jugs/bowls (one broad one for mixing the custard powder in cold milk, one narrower one for mixing the cocoa powder in hot milk)
• Tupperware containers at the ready for swift packaging, if you’re not eating it immediately

Method

1. Measure out 500ml of milk in a jug.  Pour most of it in the saucepan, but leave about 50ml in the jug, and put 50 ml in the other jug
2. Put saucepan of milk on to heat up (don’t let it boil!)
3. Stir the birds custard powder into the milk in the broad jug, and set aside
4. Heat the remaining milk in small jug in the microwave, until hot enough to easily dissolve the cocoa.  Add cocoa, stir like a mad thing, breaking up lumps with the back of a spoon against the edge of the jug.  Once the cocoa has mostly dissolved, add it to the saucepan of milk, and stir constantly.
5. Once the saucepan of milk looks like it’s about to start boiling, take it off the heat, and slowly pour it into the broad jug with the custard powder, stirring the mix constantly.
6. Return mix to the saucepan on a very gentle heat, and keep stirring until it thickens.  Never let it stand too long or you’ll get a nasty skin on top.
7. Once it’s all thickened, add sweetener to taste, and the tiny bit of instant coffee.
8. Stir it all in, then pour mix through the strainer back into the broad jug – this catches any nasty teensy lumps which threaten to ruin your custard experience.
9. Serve immediately, or package into Tupperware containers  and seal lids straight away.  Leave to cool, and then allow to set in the fridge overnight.

Tips

• If your mix is too runny, try adding a little extra custard powder next time, or repeat steps 2 and 5 – DON’T PUT THE CUSTARD POWDER DIRECTLY INTO THE MIX!! Always pour the mix onto the custard powder that’s been mixed with a tiny bit of milk.
• And be careful not to add too much custard powder, I’ve had it go rock solid in the past!! It will thicken a little more as it sets.

 

Recipe: Chicken Fajita Seasoning

Blatantly swiped from Toasted Special’s fabulous recipe

Ingredients

• 2 tsp sea salt (smoked if possible)
• 2-3 tsp granulated sweetener sugar
• 2 tsp ground cumin
• 2 tsp ground coriander
• 1 tsp oregano (preferably the Mexican variety)
• 1 tsp ground black pepper
• 1 tsp paprika (smoked if possible)
• 1 tsp dried onion powder
• 1 tsp dried garlic powder
• 1 tsp chipotle chilli powder

Mix together the ingredients (I used a mortar and pestle to make me feel more like an Olde Timey Apothecary) and store in an airtight jar.

Method one:

1. Brown chicken, onion and capsicum in a pan
2. Add 1-2 tbsp of fajita mix (to taste, basically)
3. Enjoy with salsa and zero fat craime fraiche

Method two (my fave):

1. chop chicken breast into small nugget sized pieces, toss into mixing bowl
2. toss with the fajita mix and 1/2 tbsp of oatbran until all the pieces are coated
3. Cook under a hot grill, until a lovely dark golden brown, and enjoy as chicken nuggets

Many thanks to Toasted Special for the brilliant recipe – I’ve been enjoying it tremendously.

Cruise day 68 – PP

Morning weigh-in: 98.0

• Daily LOSS 0.1kg/0.22lbs
• Total lost 14.3kg/31.46lbs

Watercheck – 1.4l by 18.00pm

Breakfast

• oatbran porridge
• 2x microwave eggs
• cup of tea

Lunch

• 1/2 packet of tesco chicken breast with salt & pepper
• Mini babybel light

Dinner

• 1 small chicken breast

Exercise

• 3 hours hillwalking south of Edinburgh
• 3 hours standing in the kitchen, cooking up a storm!

OMG I’m knackered now.  Not only did I spend 3 hours hillwalking around Edinburgh today, but I also just spent about 3-4 hours chopping, cooking and storing two LARGE soup pots – one full of chicken vegetable soup, and one full of lean beef bolognese sauce.  Enough of both to help us survive a siege for at least 2 weeks.  I’ve been on my feet all that time – so I’m counting that as exercise, albeit not too strenuous! 😉

As for the results on the scales this morning – I’m cool with that.  I’m still atoning for my sins on Friday, so I’ll accept just a minor loss.

Still smiling!

The Progress Tracker

So, a few people have started making use of my Progress Tracker spreadsheet, so I thought it might be nice to share it with the world, in case there are some people out there who are not as native with Excel as others… 😉

DOWNLOAD THE WEIGHTLOSS PROGRESS SPREADSHEET HERE

Depending on whether you’re in MetricLand or ImperialLand, or whether you’re a MetricLander living in ImperialLand or vice versa, you may want to edit the spreadsheet to suit your needs, deleting un-needed columns – but this provides a nice starting point.

So.

Step 1: Work out whether you weigh yourself in pounds or kilos, and select the relevant worksheet – either Imperial or Metric

Step 2: Fill in your target weight, and your height (this is needed for BMI calculations) – both highlighted in yellow at the top of the sheet.

Step 3: Each day, fill in your daily weigh-in weight (you can just as easily put in your weekly weight, just be sure to change the date column accordingly.  Also, this will mean that your 7-day rolling average will be more like a 7-WEEK rolling average.

Step 4: Enjoy tracking your progress! 🙂

I’ve included the first 8 days of the progress tracker, so that the 7-day rolling average is there too.  Once you get past 8 days, you’ll have to learn how to fill down the formula columns.  If you’re not sure how to do this, just let me know.

I’m a MetricLander living in ImperialLand, so it’s nice to have an idea of how many pounds I’ve lost when I talk to colleagues.  It also provides a whole lot more milestones – “yay, I’ve lost 10 lbs!” “yay, I’ve lost 10kgs!” “yay, that’s two stone out of the way!” “Yay, that’s 30lbs gone!”

Whatever way you look at it, recording your progress is the best way to keep a long-term view on your diet, and let’s face it: weight loss was never supposed to be a quick-win – it’s a long, drawn out process, and sometimes looking back on how far you’ve come, helps you to keep your motivation up for the long road ahead.

Good luck all! If you need any help with editing your spreadsheet, feel free to ask a question in the comments.

Dukan Diet, Day 0

Hello World!

So, the time has officially come, I’ve reached threshold.  Like many out there, I’ve tried a lot of different ways to lose weight, but somehow nothing seems to work, or when something does, I always end up bouncing back to where I started, and then some.

But with all the buzz (both positive and negative) around the Dukan Diet, I’ve decided to try it out for myself.  I went out today and bought a kilogram of oatbran, and am about to go shopping with my better half, J, for lots of meat – MEAT!! Good thing I like meat so much.

Also on the list is eggs, low-fat cottage cheese, and… well, that’s it, for the attack phase, at least.

A quick Cliff’s Notes for those who haven’t come across this diet before – the diet is made up of four phases – Attack (protein only), Cruise (protein + veggies), Consolidation ( protein plus veggies, but less strict) and Stabilization (one pure protein day per week).  What makes it different is that, unlike most low-carb diets, this one attempts to re-introduce carbs back into the diet gradually in latter phases, so that you can start eating like a “normal” human again, without all the weigh piled back on.  According to the calculations given in the Dukan Diet book (yes, I bought a BOOK about a diet!!) each phase lasts as follows:

Phase	Duration	Description	Goal Weight loss
Attack	5 Days	Five days of pure protein, to shock your body into action.  No carbs whatsoever, and pretty much no fat either.	2.2 kg
Cruise	269 Days	Alternating days of pure protein and days of protein plus vege.  Still no carbs in this stage.	36.2 kg
Consolidation	384 Days	Begin to add some carbs into the diet, once the goal weight is achieved.	None
Stabilisation	Forever!	Mix of protein, carbs and veggies, but keep on day of “pure protein” per week.	None

So, here’s the Dukan’s vision of how my diet should work:

Yeah, yeah, I know. Not to scale.  I’ll be doing my own little Excel spreadsheet as the diet continues, to try to keep myself motivated, and I’ll share it with you all.  Even if I just post the bare bones each day, ie current weight, food intake etc, that’ll do me.  I’ll attempt some recipes, and report back if I can…

Until tomorrow.

PS: Kicked the action in this evening in preparation for tomorrow – cooked a week’s worth of Oatbran Pancakes, roasted a chicken (and shredded it, saving the meat but discarding the skin), and dry-fried one leftover chicken breast from dinner. There’ll be plenty of chicken meat to go around this week.  J even approved of the pancakes…

PPS: Dinner tonight with J – one Last Supper of carbs, yummy fajitas with all the trimmings of guacamole, sour cream, salsa and cheese.  No more of that for me for a while!!