Okay. I'm just painfully conscious how effing annoying I found the various daily food porn diaries on here when I was solely on the dust.
 
Hullo. I have to say I’m not really making the most of my new found freedom! Bran Flakes and raspberries for breakfast, mixed salad and a couple of pickled eggs for lunch, Cherry Pepsi Max and lots of water throughout the day. I’ve just walked through the door after another bludgeoning day at work, and I simply cannot be bothered with a meal, I’m that tired. Might just have a G&T and fall asleep on the sofa.
 
Well, using your newfound freedom to binge would be hugely counter productive! I mean, it might take you a while to get the balance right between eating healthily and not living like a gastronomic monk but it's probably better to err on the monkish side until your body has totally adjusted to proper food again.

I would kill for a pickled egg or two ;)

Well, maybe not kill. Maim.
 
Make some. Very low in everything, cracking treats for food week... ...I made them earlyish in my diet just to keep occupied. I probably posted about it, but maybe not.
 
Thank fate it’s finally the weekend. So stressed out. Aaaaaand relax.

I’ve been no saint this week. I’ve been eating things I had missed that are also fairly healthy. These things have included a lot of fruit! Punnets (I like that word) and punnets (there it is again!) of nice berries with yoghurts for breakfasts. Apples, bananas, melon - all high in sugars and way to carby for my previous plan. Muesli too.

I’ve also eaten lots of eggs in various forms, including an omelette and even tortilla española (home-cooked so I know exactly what’s in it, and of course it’s the best!)

Salads, lots. Egg mainly but also a low-fat feta salad so big I ate it in the mixing bowl.

I’ve had a chilli, a stir-fry, a curry... ...all homemade and with lots of veggies but certainly waaaaaay above my previous calorie counts and enough to make me feel stuffed. I’ve had squash, plenty of diet pop, even gin and tonic on more than one occasion. Plenty of W ater too though.

I have still avoided adding the potato/pasta/bread stodgy part to my plates (easy win innit) favouring more veg, and obviously I have decided not to eat cakes, biscuits, sweets, pizza and that kind of thing, but other than that I seem to be eating a lot and often. Too much probably as I’ve felt bloated on a few occasions for no good reason.

As for exercise, I’ve walked or cycled each day, but only for an hour. I’ve done a few weights but been fairly lax on that front this week to be honest.

This morning I woke up feeling like I shouldn’t have had so much fruit yesterday, and definitely shouldn’t have eaten dinner so late in the evening. I think I even have a bit of a sugary hangover. Sort of missing the zero guilt controlled feeling of solidly sticking to a plan.

So despite my previous promise, I weighed myself for the first time in a week this morning to check the damage so far.

I’ve lost a pound. So there you go. I certainly didn’t try to.

Poached eggs for brunch then, and half a melon. But no toast.

Have great weekends y’all.
 
Ooh, punnets of fruit.........the one thing I really miss at the moment!

Enjoy your new healthy diet...it sounds wonderful ☺️
 
To have lost a pound when being in control, yet feeling like you’re branching out and eating well is a real accomplishment. I look forward to reaching that point. The key is the junk and the pure carbs like pastas. I know these items are my downfall and something to avoid 80% of the time when back in the real world - it’s keeping away from them once I’ve had a taste for them - like a special occasion. I think I will be using Exante to reset.

Summer is great for salads and fruit. Have you thought how your diet will translate to winter months or are you happy to eat those types of food all year round?
 
Well, yeah, most of it I'll eat at anytime of year I think? I don't really have a seasonal menu as far as i know, other than more salad in the summer, more Quality Street and red wine soups in the winter? In the last few days for instance, I've made a thai curry, ratatouille with poached eggs, a big spaghetti bolognese using Quorn, veg and a load of kabuto pasta (mixed in a good sauce, kabuto works just fine, same goes for the rice), and used up the feta in a lunchtime risotto. I've also had more yoghurts and more fruit and seeds. Did a lot of work getting the vegetable garden ready and planting while it was warm. Had a couple of gins in the sunshine Saturday and Sunday too. The only things that I'm going to continue to avoid entirely are the obvious sugary junk that I really wish I had stopped eating years ago, anything obviously gooey/cheesy/fried etc... , processed stuff I used to just grab straight out of the freezer that simply has too many calories for me to offset, and - the biggest change but the easiest - just not filling a third of every plate with carbs! Packed lunch is now a chunky salad followed by a yoghurt and some fruit, so no unecesary bread either. It's all pretty obvious really, and I now look at people sitting down with a fairly healthy meal accompanied by a huge portion of chips and a glob of mayonaise, or a stack of buttery toast, and think how easy that part would be to cut out. I honestly think that in the UK/US it has just been programmed in to us from birth to assume a big pile of carbs and a high-fat/sugar dip will accompany every dish, that a dessert simply must folow every meal, that we must always have a loaf on the go etc... And so I've just stopped doing that really. But I had a Twister lolly from the ice cream man! :) Knackered this morning. Have already been at work for aaaaages, and am aching from a weekend of sunny chores.
 
It’s all work and no play here. I look better these days, but boy am I dull :)
 
I know you're semi-joking, but I don't think you're dull - I think there's a weird cultural thing around food/dieting that means we're sort of supposed to think that caring about what you eat / controlling what you eat / managing calories etc. is boring, anti-social, stupid, pathetic etc. But how the hell else are you supposed to understand what you're putting in your body? It's actually pretty messed up. Had a long conversation about this the other day with a friend who is much smaller than me but is still overweight and, therefore, trying to manage her weight better through controlling her calorific intake (which, ps, is working *because it does*). It was really nice to nerd out and talk about weight/dieting/food. But we were both pretty frustrated with the fact it's considered so uncool to be paying attention to how and what you eat. I mean, no wonder we are turning into an obese nation. It's the equivalent of giving people cars but no driving lessons and then lamenting all the crashes.
 
It's Monday and I'm consciously swerving the scales. I've continued to eat healthily all the time, while spending just a few unneccesary calories on some nice cold wine. Enjoying food. Lots of salads, but also curries, scrambled egss, and a brilliant hotpot. I've lost more inches, and that'll do as a measure for now. I shall be attempting some body-weight exercise this week instead of resistance/weights (so, chin-ups, press-ups etc...) Could be embarassing, but I have to set a benchmark somewhere!
 
Happy Monday!

I really do believe the number of the scales is a phantasm - it's a decent indicator that things are happening while you are in the "burn everything away" stage of the VLCD but if you're maintaining sensibly, you'll probably also be more active and hopefully developing some muscle too. After all, if you're getting into the clothes you want to get into then what does the number on the scales matter? If you start to feel uncomfortable then you'll know you've gone too far.

Good luck.

*envies your scrambled eggs*
 
Yeah I have to admit they are nice. No butter or toast, but added mushrooms and courgette...
 
Well I've been cycling, rowing and doing free weights for a while, and they're fun. But I'm useless at body weight exercises. I mean, just terrible. So my baselines will at least be very low, and I can only improve over time! I'm okay with that.
 
Still being fairly good, for those interested in a maintenance attempt. Yoghurt with fruit for breakfast, salad with seeds and some Quorn chunks for lunch, a banana as a gym snack, then veggie curry no rice for dinner. Had a good gym session, but was exhausted and really needed my curry afterwards. Need to keep the water up. On ‘plan’ it had become routine to have a litre morning, afternoon and evening, and then more as and when. Now I’d say if I’m not careful I can have half that. Not such a problem as I’m eating food, but not ideal, and worth noting as a maintenance side effect.
 
I read that as "a banana as a gym sock" ... which ... y'know. Sounds really bad.
 
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