Weight Loss the Old Style Way! Part 7. Please read posts 1 and 2 before posting.

lovetopaint

Hi everyone, todays weigh-in 11st 1lb- no change from last week.
Reasons are:
-too much fatty food/snacks, and sugary cough sweets.
-not enough wii fit, sleep, will power, forward planning.

I must address the above, as need to loose a pound by next week to stay on long term goal.

Regarding cost of low fat foods etc, I agree that to buy say lean meat is more expensive than less lean meat etc. Only way I get around it, is to make it go further by padding out with veg and beans etc.

Plus the right mind-set finds a way around most obstacles to loosing weight. Keeping the right mind-set is where the battle is.:EasterBun By the way, I love this thread, really keeps me going .

MrsWoolfe

:DHi all!

in terms of eating healthy on a budget, I've been adding pulses into everything- DH reckons there isn't a meal I can't get pulses into! I still eat most things but focusing on bulking as much as possible with pulses keeps the costs down and the fat/calories down too.

For eg we very rarely now eat just sausages and mash/veg I tend to slice up sausages fry in a v small amount of oil and make a lentil & sausage casserole- sounds like winter food and can be but I adapt it in the summer -less sauce/stock lots of veg puy or brown lentils work best for this. In the winter I make it with more sauce and sometimes some seeded rolls on the side in the summer a bit lighter with a salad- Aldi are good for salad bits.

I tend to try and make the meat go further and like dishes where it's being used more as a flavour. I do a mean chorizo rice dish- small amounts of chopped chorizo/onion/garlic fried (v little oil as some will come out of the chorizo too) boil some rice- add chopped tomatoes/tom puree to pan (v little you don't need a whole tin) add in beans of you choice- I like kidney, rose coco and black-eyed peas here- mix together and YUM!

I also mix up my own museli mix, again found decent packs of mixed seeds/nuts/dried fruits in Aldi added to bran flakes( which I normally wouldn't eat on their own eugh) and oats and because it's packed with things I like- goji berries yum- I'm happy having that in the mornings or a handful sprinkled over some greek yoghurt Mmmm... sounds expensive but I spent around £10 on all of the bits for it initially and that was @ start Feb and I've still got half of the ingredients left.

HTH

MrsWoolfe

mlz1413

welcome to the newbies.

when I started dieting I wrote a food diary for a week and was amazed by the fatty / salty things I was eating having always thought I ate quite normally.

I then made an effort to eat 3 times a day, ie B: Cereal or Toast / L: sandwich and a main meal of around 600 cals anything else had to be fruit and if I didn't fancy fruit then I wasn't hungry!

The other thing I did was work out all the calories in the food I ate, this included the oil for cooking, marg on my toast, the milk for my tea - really surprising how these mount up but are so easy to reduce by swapping to l/fat options or if you have a non stick frying pan simply not using.

If I cook sausages I don't add any fat as I have a non stick frying pan, I just let them brown and then as they heat up !!!!! (censored!! the word means to use a fork to make holes in!) them so the fat starts to run out and helps them cook.

I brown my mince off in water and then strain the water off before adding tomatoes which are juicy enough to stop the meal burning.

kateweb

I'm working full-time, go out most nights straight from work and am trying to lose weight and save money. So I'm aiming to take lunch and dinner (and breakfast, really) to work every day! I agree I don't find soup a terribly summery lunch, so the sort of lunches I've been packing are:
- Roast vegetable cous-cous (home made cous-cous; only takes ten minutes and 1 batch (125 gm) makes 3 days lunches)
- Tuna and cannellini beans (mix two tins together - done) with pitta bread
- Hummous and pitta with sticks of carrot/pepper (no prep except chopping vegetables, which I try and do while making something else)
- Vegetable lasagne (home made from a Sxxxxs recipe; no bechamel sauce, which makes it easier and much healthier, and their quantities made my lunches for a week).
- Tuna nicoise salad (leftover green beans and new potatoes from a bigger meal, plus tinned tuna and mixed leaves)
- Rice salad (leftover rice mixed with sweetcorn, pepper or cold veg like baby sweetcorn/mange tout, with low fat dressing)

Salads are easy and quick to put together at work, but bagged salads are expensive and don't seem to last very well, so I'm trying to avoid those. I've also been planning to try making falafel (a tin of chickpeas, beaten egg and some spices, so very cheap), maybe to put in a wrap (£1 for 8 from Txxco) with salad and yoghurt.

For breakfast, the market had huge bowls of plums for £1, so I stewed those (1 tspn of sugar and 1/2 tspn of cinnamon) and have had them cold for breakfast every morning with a big spoonful of low-fat yoghurt. I had some basics in the cupboard, but my food shop this week cost £2.39 at the supermarket, then £2 on fruit at the market.

floyd

Welcome to the new folk :T

Katy, I still eat meals like sausage, mash and veg and chicken pie with puff pastry and veggies but I control my portion size very tightly. Rather than buying low-fat versions of anything, we have full fat, just less of it and more of whatever veg is in season to bulk it out. We don't eat meat too often as it does tend to be higher in fat and calories than the veggie alternative but when we do eat it, we buy really good quality sausages with a high % meat or a free range chicken and stretch it to make a roast, a pie and a batch of soup. Both OH and I work very long hours but still manage to cook from scratch every day while still sticking to a balanced diet.

My lunches tend to be something I have batch cooked at the weekend and frozen in portions like veggie chilli and brown rice, thai veg curry and jasmine rice or leftovers from the day before. If I have sandwiches or salads I find I get very hungry by 3pm and don't feel full even after eating it. I think with me its a psychological thing that if its hot, its a 'real' meal :rotfl:

Pleased to report that I have lost 4 lb this week, hooray its starting to move again

B: Porridge with skimmed milk

L: HM Veggie chilli and brown rice

HM Singapore chow mein (no pork just prawns)

S: HM rhubarb crumble and custard made with skimmed milk. Also had a Yeo Valley Greek Yoghurt with Honey at lunch time

Good luck everyone :j

MrsWoolfe

Hi all!

I totally agree with the good quality meat thing- we eat a lot less meat than we used to- or I certainly buy at lot less, but we don't feel the lack of it. We tend to make it go further I think with adding in lots of veg/pulses.

I really thought that cutting down on meat was going to be a hard one as DH really loves his meat, but it actually hasn't been an issue- maybe because we did it gradually? I certainly never sat down with him and went " right we're cutting down on meat"!:D We have a really good local butcher and we try and go once a month or so and stock up- (I have been crazy busy recently though and haven't been since middle Jan- the stocks are getting low lol!) also handy to be able to ask about the different cuts of meat and the best ways to cook them, I'm a bit sad and I quite enjoy my little chats with my butcher he always asks how I got on with a recipe and asks what I'm planning on with what I've bought, little things but they make a difference!

I haven't lost much this week 1llb but that's still something:D that takes me to 23lbs since mid Jan:jso I'm half-way there and I'm happy...I've nearly got "my" face back lol:D I forgot I had cheekbones:rotfl:

Whilst I'm busy trying to lose weight DH is trying to put on ( he was 2 stone underweight) and he has now put on 7 llbs:j I'm so proud of him for tackling things and making the effort to eat healthily and look after himself.

hope everyone is well!

MrsWoolfe

Boodle

My eating has not been great, but even though I weigh too much anyway, the scales have not gone up.

Breakfast: slice of hm date cake with a cup of oat-milky tea.

Ok so I'm wiping that slate clean and moving on from here lol

Lunch: will be a nice big bowl of mixed salad with a small handful of toasted almonds, dressed with some balsamic vinegar.

Dinner: will be roasted vegetables and some green lentils with a medium portion (about 40g) of couscous

If i am hungry in between, I will drink water and maybe a coffee mid-pm to fill up. If I feel I am about to pass out (!) an apple always does the trick to pep up my sugar levels.

Fredula

I said I'd join this therad a while back but totally forgot about it so it's in my favourites now I've got 5st I'd like to lose and I'm starting right now! My skin is aweful compared to what it used to be, and I feel like I can hardly move in my clothes, so I know it's time to do something about it. Plus the heartburn :P

So to get me started I'm going to have a good old go this week and I'm going to try and have 3 meals 2 snacks with 2ltrs of water per day. I'm also going to walk part the way to work and part the way home (I started that last week anyway and I'm quite enjoying it) and as it's bank holiday I'm going to try and do a bit of cycling I shall check in tomorrow and say what I've eaten/done. Hopefully start the wii fit again too!

lovetopaint

Serves 4


20ml cider vinegar
60ml natural yoghurt
half tsp english mustard (ready made)
half tsp sugar
pinch of salt
1 tsp olive oil (optional)


Whisk all ingredients together and serve.

lovetopaint

Great to read everyones posts. The yoghurt dressing has passed the DD's taste test as well as mine so hopefully useful to someone. Most recipes call for more oil, a bit does give it a smoother texture. Sometimes I just use a nice vinegar on its own as a salad dressing.

This weeks pound is proving the hardest yet, but I am determined!
Good luck everyone.