The Garden Fence - help and support in tough times

monnagran

It's the never ending stream of recipes that intrigues me. There must be a finite number of different foods and there seems to be an infinite number of ways to put them together. I'm all for interesting twists on familiar foods but I do wonder what will happen when all possibilities are exhausted. There must be an end to the constant iinflux of new cookery books, surely. Please.

I have been on a constant diet since I was 16 and my mother's Womans Own published a calorie counter. This fails to explain why my weight has fluctuated wildly though in a steadily skyward direction until a few years ago I hit 16 stones. No, don't ask me what that is in kilos, I'm old. I'm also only 5.2 feet. No don't ask me what that is in metres, I haven't a clue. Anyway, I love food and baking so really struggled to give up any of the food I love.
The reason you have been treated to the previous boring information is that I have finally found the solution. Over the last 8 months I have lost 3 stones by eating whatever I like for breakfast and lunch and nothing else until breakfast the next morning. M I t s t m saying that she often only has 2 meals a day made me think that I couldn't deprive you all of this fascinating insight into my private diet battles.

Well, I think it is interesting.

I'll go and do something productive now.

x

moneyistooshorttomention

Personally - I very much doubt I'll ever find an end to interesting twists on food...

One yesterday was that my baked potatoes were new ones cut in half and drizzled with olive oil, sprinkled with sea salt. Then a generous amount of parmesan cheese grated onto them and baked for about half an hour.

It was lush:). I am going to do that again.

Earlier in the week I had a go at making chocolate brownies with sweet potatoes as one of the ingredients and a healthy form of sweetening (ie date syrup). I'm eating (yet another) one as we speak.:). Unfortunately - I've discovered I can manage to eat them straight out of the freezer:o. Yep...I shall be making them again too....well I had to make a whole recipe worth of them - ie because it involved one egg as part of the ingredients and if I'd made half quantity I would probably have had the odd half egg go to waste.

So - sorry Monna - but there is no end to new tweaks on things and personally my cookbooks go all the way from 19th century to 21st century and I've got absolutely loads of things still to try. I've got 2 of the "new style" genuinely healthy eating ones en route from Amazon currently - ie Hemsley and Hemsley ones. I think that way of eating has probably been around for about the last 5 years???

FurryBeastOz

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

Earlier in the week I had a go at making chocolate brownies with sweet potatoes as one of the ingredients and a healthy form of sweetening (ie date syrup). I'm eating (yet another) one as we speak.:). Unfortunately - I've discovered I can manage to eat them straight out of the freezer:o. Yep...I shall be making them again too....well I had to make a whole recipe worth of them - ie because it involved one egg as part of the ingredients and if I'd made half quantity I would probably have had the odd half egg go to waste.

I love these. Also very good made with avocado - a bit more 'fudgy'. Haven't tried them straight from the freezer. BAD mitstm - that's how I ration them:rotfl:

nursemaggie

Congratulations monna that is brilliant. I guess it is the variation on the 5/2 diet. Were you eating lots of things you just did not need in the evenings? I think that is most of us downfall. You know a couple of biscuits or a bar of chocolate don't seem much but we put on a few ounces every week and it eventually turns into stones.

I won't tell you how much 16st is in kilos that would be cruel. Losing the weight will definitely bring down your blood pressure.

silvasava

Monna - DH & I frequently have just 2 meals a day, breakfast and an evening meal. Neither of us likes to eat much at lunchtime as we are usually doing something active and find that we feel uncomfortable. We hav'n't lost weight but it certainly stays stable!

Floss

Monna we also often have 2-meal days, more often at weekends but it occasionally happens midweek when I'm so busy at work that I don't actually stop to eat!

monnagran

Yes, it's strange. I can be restrained all day when I'm busy but if I eat in the evening I just can't stop. I'll keep finding excuses to pop back into the kitchen and pick at things. Since moving in with DS and DIL I have only just started cooking the occasional meal for them. Otherwise I can keep out of the kitchen from lunchtime until the following morning. No picking and a slow but steady weight loss. It has slowed up recently but I think the lunches are getting a bit too large, time to cut back a bit I think.

All my life I have cooked for multitudes, in home and out of it, and picked, tasted and nibbled all the time. No wonder I resembled Mrs Noah.

There is the downside of suddenly finding I have considerably too much skin, but I suppose life can't be perfect.

x

mardatha

I tend to munch more at night too, don't eat breakfast so I can go until 11-12 noon without food, but from 6pm onwards I feel hungry.

Softstuff

The only way I manage to stay less than portly is to not eat 3 full meals a day, 7 days a week. Today for example I know I'll be having a coffee and half a cake out, then a small lunch, so no brekkie or dinner for me.

All these folks who can eat 3 full meals each day with snacks get me kind of jealous!

moneyistooshorttomention

Surprising how common it is to not have 3 meals a day then.

I thought it was just a case of me "getting driven to it" by not being able to find modern/healthy food to buy often whilst I'm out for the day since moving here (and rejecting the sliced "brown bread" boring sandwiches and chips fried in lard:eek: options that are often all that's available wherever I happen to be).

So - it's not just something in the history books then? I have a - vague - recollection that in medieval times people would often tend to just have breakfast and dinner and miss out on lunch (ie as they were working in the fields or the like) - though I couldnt swear to that fact. I thought in modern times everyone ate 3 meals a day - apart from those people who rush out the door to a particularly long day in the office without having breakfast first (with just a cereal bar or "coffee to go" in their hands).

I can feel a quick historical google coming on re meal patterns of previous centuries:rotfl: