Back to skool

Well, we've just returned from a lovely couple of weeks in Scotland and the gloominess of the weather here this morning couldn't have matched my mood more if it had tried. I love a bit of pathetic fallacy. It's been an extremely chilled out fortnight - not doing loads, but pottering, eating (of course) and, er, book buying. When you come back from holiday with nine more books than you left with, you may well have a problem. But, in my defence, Bookcase in Carlisle was an absolute bibliophile's dream. And I was supporting the local economy in Tobermory by picking up a few there as well...(we won't mention the fact that D and I also made a little pre-holiday trip to Waterstone's the day before we left because that would just make me look like some sort of addict).

The highlight of the trip from a food perspective had to be another meal at the very wonderful Inver which I may well cover in a separate post. But after nearly a fortnight of no real cooking, it was glorious to be back in the kitchen yesterday and we had that homeliest of homecoming meals: roast chicken with various trimmings including a simple creamed spinach that I will share with you (and my future self for posterity).

September (I know it's nearly over, but let me claim it still) is always a good time for fresh starts and while we were away, D and I talked a bit about lifestyle changes that I feel I need to make. Long term readers of this blog will know that I have never, never been a fan of exercise but the sedentary lifestyle occasioned by near permanent working from home, not to mention the fact that I turned 40 at the end of last year, means that any meagre fitness I ever had seems to be slipping away and there is absolutely no excuse for it. The only time I've ever really enjoyed exercise was years ago when I was a member of a gym - I like classes and I love swimming - so I've screwed my courage to the sticking place and arranged for an introductory session at a local club this week. The chap on the phone asked me to describe my current fitness levels. I could only pause before laughing and saying "Pants". I hope they like a challenge. It won't be cheap but I can afford it and I should be investing money in this sort of thing - i.e. myself, my health, my future, rather than continuing to create the UK Book Mountain in my living room.

And as a further incentive, I have booked a personal styling consultation at the beginning of December as a little Christmas present to myself. I randomly saw an Instagram reel of this gorgeous, plus size woman extolling the virtue of tucking your top in (yes, really) and when I looked at her profile I saw that she worked as a stylist and personal shopper in the Leeds branch of John Lewis! So again, courage screwed, I booked a slot. I'm in desperate need of a little push to get me out of tracksuit bottoms and loungewear. And I should have a couple of months of gym-going under my belt by then - enough to make a bit of a difference in confidence if not in shape.

Thus - and let us come back to the pathetic fallacy - as the sun has appeared in the last hour, so am I feeling a wee bit better about the fact that the holidays are gone and winter is coming. Life plods on but there is still much to look forward to.

Recent Eats - the lockdown 2.0 edition

This post has been sitting in my drafts for a while. I started on it a couple of weeks ago, but kept losing heart. I would start a sentence and then drift off, only to find myself staring blankly at the screen.

It's been so long that the title now only just applies. We are, apparently, approaching the end of Lockdown 2.0 in England, although given that my area (along with many others) lurches straight into Tier 3, we probably won't really notice. 

Gah, I don't want to moan. I really don't want to moan when I am safe, my family are safe, I am gainfully employed, able to work from home and, delighted that someone (either the supermarket supply chain managers or the Great British Public, who knows?) seem to have learned the lessons of Lockdown 1. We have been able to get supermarket delivery slots throughout and last week, the shopping contained flour! Two types! So, you know, what's to complain about?

Still, (because it is my blog and if I can't be self indulgent here...) my mood has really plummeted this week. One of the first signs is when I struggle to read and I haven't (until last night) managed to pick up a book in days. I've watched quite a lot of Christmas films - and even a Christmas sitcom - on Netflix, which has been nice. But I've still found myself sitting in floods of tears for no reason whatsoever. It feels terribly selfish and not a little pathetic when so many people are experiencing real problems and real heartache but I think all of us have taken a bit of an emotional bashing recently. I'm missing my family and my friends terribly - I've seen my Mum and Dad once since March and my father in law once and, other than that, it's been D and the cat. 

Sorry - this all turned into a bit of a pity party. It was my original intention to write about what we've been cooking lately, not snivel into the ether. When I flicked back through my most recent photos, all I managed to find were pita breads and stew and dumplings, which makes for rather beige pictures (not that anyone is here for the food photography!)

Pita or pitta?

The pita breads are by Dan Lepard, and the recipe can be found online here as well as in his book "Short and Sweet". I am finding, more and more, that I turn to Lepard for baking queries and this book is an absolute godsend. His brief-knead-and-leave method of bread making is unconventional but works very well - I would certainly urge you to forever eschew the store bought pita and go for these instead. They are a leetle labour intensive, but well worth it (and, I can confirm, they freeze beautifully).

Stew and, more importantly, dumplings

The stew in question is my late mother in law's panacalty. Or, rather, our take on it. Corned beef, and chunks of root veg in oxtail soup (!) with suet dumplings on top. I make it slightly faffier than just bunging everything in a single pan - roasting off the veg for a bit of extra flavour, caramelising onions for sweetness, finishing with a little mustard. We also use D's homemade corned beef rather than the tinned stuff...altogether, it's a lovely, lovely thing. And very much of the North East. 

I'm sure that there are more things to share but I have bored on quite enough for one Friday afternoon. Sending huge love and virtual hugs out into Tinternet to everyone out there who is struggling, be it a little bit or a whole lot. I wish you all a weekend of good food, cat cuddles and Strictly (or whatever it is that makes your world feel a little less crap). 

Into the twenties

Towards the end of last year I was pondering the future of this blog.

When I first started, I had a vague USP - or at least an SP, as it was hardly U. I was someone who enjoyed good food who was following the Weight Watchers diet. It was supposed to be a record of losing weight while cooking nice meals. It was also a nice way of interacting with other people in the diet blog community.

Well, times have changed. I may still be Weeble shaped but I no longer follow Weight Watchers and have come to believe that, for me at least, anything which involves endless counting and measuring of food is not really a good idea. And many of the blogs I followed back then have disappeared, their authors with them.

I still wanted somewhere, though, to act as a virtual recipe repository and a record of special meals. So I toyed with the idea of a new blog and even went so far as to investigate domain names. But, nah.  There might be stuff on here that makes me squirm a little bit (encouraging the use of half fat butter and cheese to make macaroni cheese springs to mind) and I wish that it didn’t have WW in the title (would anyone believe me if I pretended that it stood for something else? World Wide? Whimsical, Wobbly?) But it’s mine, dammit. And I am very fond of it, crappy food photography and all.

So, this year, as challenged by D, I am going to blog more regularly and make sure all our favourite recipes and meals are recorded. I might even go back and revise some of those earlier abominations dishes.

Happy New Year to all, may your 2020 be a good one (and may your shadows never grow less).

Meal planning and catching up

*Slinks back in with a new post.  Torn between starting with abject apology for absence (which always feels slightly self-aggrandising since it pre-supposes that anyone actually missed self in the first place) and just acting like it never happened.  Wrestles with dilemma.  Deletes and rewrites and deletes same chunk of text multiple times.*

Anyway (in lieu of any excuses, I’ll opt for an aggressive stance), in this day and age how many people still read blogs?  Especially little backwater blogs like this one where the writer still uses their original Blogger template and eschews any sort of decent photography preferring to stick with everything look like primordial sludge.  The blogging scene ain’t what it was all those years ago. Feel free to shoot me down if I’m being an unreasonable cowbag but I reckon that it used to be about sharing personal experiences with like-minded people in a nice, low-key manner and creating a little virtual community of kindred spirits.  Now, you get people who actually put the career of Influencer on their passport (or would do if you still had to list your career on your passport).  So everyone who has a blog wants it to be the biggest, shiniest, shoutiest blog in the world in order to attract attention and, thus, money.  Oh, not to mention the bloggers have to have a presence all across social meeeeeja.  Which kind of puts paid to the fact of anonymity.

I think that it’s a little bit sad.  But then, I suppose if someone had Discovered me and offered me ludicrous sums of money / amounts of free stuff to write about what I love, thus saving me from a life of Desk Bound Drudgery, I would probably have taken them up on it.  So maybe it’s just envy talking.

ANYWAY.  What’s going on with me?  Work – busy, busy, busy.  But good.  Food – we’ve cooked some really lovely stuff lately that I hope to get round to posting, but there may not be pictures because I think I have to really give up on the whole pictures thing.  I’ll just illustrate everything with a photo of my cat.  Weight – well, still there.  At this stage of the game I think it’s going to take a serious bout of novo virus to kick-start things on a downwards trajectory again. 

And as for meal planning this week…

Monday: as long term friends will know, we often have ready-made soup on a Monday night.  This is partly a hangover from our 5:2 days, ensuring a relatively low calorie start to the week.  It also means that after getting through Monday we don’t have to worry about any elaborate cooking.  But D finally cracked and said what we were both thinking – soup can be a bit dull.  So now, Monday is going to be soup-and-bread-and-cheese night. We’ve got some chicken and vegetable broth along with a lovely looking piece of Caerphilly to enjoy.  I’ve had some baguette dough defrosting in the fridge since this morning – I’ve not tried freezing it before, so not sure how it will turn out but am hopeful it will work well.

Tuesday: currently, spiced monkfish with chutney and flatbreads, but this may end up bumped to the weekend.

Wednesday: spaghetti carbonara – D is out for a couple of pints after work but I should be able to whip this up quickly when he comes home starving.

Thursday: roasted vegetables with couscous and feta.  We used to cook a stove-top version of this on a regular basis when I was a student.  It was the go-to “We’ve been eating rubbish for several days and require some proper nutrients” meal. 

Friday: we’re both out for a leaving do, so no current plans in place.

Saturday: might end up being the monkfish.  Otherwise, we have steak in the freezer all ready to be turned into steak sandwiches.

Sunday: D has a yen for chicken Kiev.  So he’s going to make that.  He has done a homemade version before and it worked out very well, so I have high hopes for this.  What could be nicer than crispy chicken drenched in garlic butter?

And that takes us nicely back round to Monday.  Quite a meaty weekend, so might need to balance that out with a few more veggie based meals next week (never a major hardship).  Hope whatever you find yourself cooking and eating is lovely. A bientot! 

A bit of mixing and matching

I have recently successfully applied for a new role at work which means for the first time in my illustrious career, I will actually be line managing staff.  I have successfully avoided this for nearly fourteen years, so this is quite a big deal for me.  It seems to me to be a disgustingly grown-up type thing to do (NB: I may be turning forty next year but I am still waiting to feel like an adult and suspect that it may never happen).

Anyway, I’ve had a very busy few weeks: first there was the preparing for the interview and then doing the intervew and then afterwards the worrying about the outcome of the interview which obviously all took up quite a lot of time.  And then when said outcome was revealed there was the slight panic that I have a lot of work to try and wrap up in a relatively short period.  So the little time in the day that I used to carve out for blogging seemed to disappear. 

Anyway, it always seem slightly self important to explain one’s absence from the Blogosphere, as if people out there were genuinely wondering why I hadn’t posted a meal plan or a vaguely food / diet relate ramble, so I will drop the subject without further ado.

The fact that I am moving to this now role on the 3 June (it is more a symbolic than an actual move since my new desk will be located about two rows away from my current desk) has got me all excited for a Fresh Start.  All perennial dieters love a Fresh Start.  Mondays, of course, are Fresh Starts on a miniature scale.  The first of a month is also a Fresh Start and I get especially excited when the first of a month falls on a Monday because it is a Fresh Start Squared.  A new job sits outside of these and yet it is still a lovely opportunity to Draw A Line. 

I’m just trying to work out at the moment what this Fresh Start will look like so that I can take full advantage of the opportunity and the explanation of my new plan is rather convoluted, so bear with.

I realised the other day that if I had lost a mere half a pound most weeks since I started blogging, then, even allowing for, say, a couple of pounds the other way at Christmas and over the summer I would be over ten stone lighter.  I never needed to be over ten stone lighter so, in fact, I would be at goal and maintaining.  And yet, along the way, half a pound would have felt so puny and insignificant.

To lose half a pound, you have to create a rough calorie deficit of 1,750.  If you spread that over weekdays alone, that’s just 350 calories a day!  350 calories is nothing!  With this in mind, I started thinking – what about if I just tried to shave a small amount off my calorie intake from Monday – Friday with an aim of just drifting down by half a pound a week, but doing it in such a way that was genuinely sustainable, would genuinely have a minimal impact on my life.  And this is the combination of techniques that I came up with:

Intermittent fasting: a common manifestation of this is 16/8 which means you limit the window during which you eat to just 8 hours a day.  So, my plan is to stop eating after dinner (usually around 8pm for us) and then not eat for 16 hours (which takes me to noon the following day).  Some days it might be later, some days it might be earlier, but it doesn’t matter; the key is just to get that 16 hour fast in. 

Weight Watchers: from the breaking of the fast until, say, six in the evening, my plan is to count points, with the broad aim of having around a third of my total allowance during this time.  This shouldn’t have a major impact since I’m usually at work and taking a pack-up so by sticking with plenty of zero point fruit and veg and lean protein, I should be able to eat something fairly decent.

Then, for just two hours a day, no rules apply other than trying to eat mindfully – i.e. not for the sake of it, not too much (very akin to the principles of HDE).  I might even keep a paper food diary just to help encourage this mindfulness (nothing like putting you off eating an entire tube of Pringles if you then have to write it down).  This means that we can cook and enjoy an evening meal – and many of the meals we have are fairly healthy and low point anyway because the years of WWing mean that I tend to keep portion sizes down and veg content high anyway – without having to measure every swig of oil, without having to avoid certain foodstuffs because they are just not diet friendly. 

There is additional flexibility in that there is no reason why the two hour HDE window has to be in the evening – so if I want to go out for lunch with my team, for example, I can do that and then count points for the afternoon / evening.  Which, again, is easy enough.

I reckon doing this should be enough to get me the 350 calorie saving that I need.  Of course, this also means that weekends are free too, but again, the eating needs to be mindful because I would need to be aiming for roughly maintenance calories in order to preserve the deficit.

If I could achieve this, it would be a stone by Christmas.  It sounds pitifully slow but I refer you back to my earlier point – time passes and it’s all very well to lose weight more quickly but if you can’t sustain it over a long period then it’s all for nothing.  It might go back on, it might not but you’re never going to reach the end point because there are too many barriers.  Sustaining something, anything, has always been the issue for me and I think that is because deep down I want the freedom to cook and enjoy good food more than I want to be thinner.  I need to use the tools that I have to make minor tweaks to almost fool myself into changing.

I’m going to give it a whirl anyway, and will report back when I’ve got a month or so under my (managerial) belt.

New year, new you?

What is it about January 1st that makes us all think we will suddenly ditch our every bad habit and arise from the ashes of our previous failures like a glorious, slender, beautiful, healthy, mindful, balanced pheonix?  I've lived through enough Januaries now to know that it NEVER happens and, also, that the darkest, wettest, coldest more miserable time of you is probably the period in which you are least likely to succeed in instituting lasting changes.

With regards to weight loss, I long ago tried to ditch the "I want to weigh xxx by yyy" because, well, that way certain madness lies.  And it most definitely has improved my general relationship with food such that I have managed to end the last two years lighter than when I began them, which is progress in the right direction. 

My experience trying WW Flex last year was a really positive one.  I lost weight and felt like I was eating really well.  But after a couple of months, the old itchiness started creeping back in.  I started resenting the constant measuring and tracking and starting yearning for all those things that just didn't fit naturally into the programme.

Previous to that, I managed to lose weight successfully, and keep it off, using intermittent fasting and here, too, I see many benefits.  You get all the unpleasantness out of the way across two days and the rest of the time you learn to practice moderation.  And you really do - no longer are you stuffing in a full size pizza because "diet starts tomorrow".  But the fast days were really, really hard - I'm horrible to be around when my blood sugar gets too low - and increasingly I was making excuses to skip one or both fasts a week.  Which means you're then just eating normally all the time - which is fine if you're maintaining but not if you have weight to lose.

It strikes me that by combining the two I might be on to a winner.  One fast day a week - not fun, sure, but doable.  To counter: one "day off" built into the week: a day to cook that roast pork belly recipe that won't fit in to your daily points, or get that takeaway or eat that doughnut.  Five days a week of counting.  Maybe four - if I can get away with a day and a half "off" (generally Friday evening and Saturday) and still lose a pound a week, I'd be perfectly happy.

So that's the long term plan.  But, for now, I'm using January to lay the groundwork.  I'm not back to pointing yet but I have instituted the one day a week fasting.  For the rest, I'm concentrating on getting back to eating in a regular, moderate way after the madness that is the latter half of December.  Snacks are out, midweek drinkies are definitely out (alcohol reserved for weekends only).  Plenty of vegetable based meals.  A proper routine at bedtime and in the morning to get my sleep sorted out.  More steps daily, even if it just means getting of the bus a stop early.  Little, healthy habits.  It's not dramatic or exciting but I think, from now, on I'm treating January as less of a fresh start and more of a gentle transition.

Post Christmas blue(berry scone)s

Seasons greetings to all! We are now in the period of the year where, if your household is anything like ours, you will be barely moving apart from the well trodden path between the sofa and the kitchen. Secretly, you will already be planning the health kick to end all health kicks on which you plan to embark at one minute past midnight on January 1st. And then you remember that you’ll have a fridge full of NYE leftovers at that point so best hold off until you return to work.

Today is my birthday. Most of the year, I dislike having a birthday so close to Christmas but, I must admit, there is something nice about having an event to look forward to post Boxing Day if only to punctuate the naps. I woke to the smell of blueberry scones in the oven - there are few better smells than home baking and, I might almost suggest that it beats the more commonly evoked scent of bacon frying into second place. But I digress. Behold these beauties which were sweet and buttery and perfect with a cup of tea. They were an almost exact replica of the old Starbucks berry scones that I used to adore back in the day and which the bastards saw fit to stop producing (in the U.K. at least).

Hopefully everyone had a wonderful Christmas dinner? Our duck legs were as delicious as ever (I don’t really understand why we only tend to cook them once a year). And D’s last minute brainwave of making shredded duck and black pudding bonbons, very lightly flavoured with Chinese five spice, was a genius addition.

We were due to spend Boxing Day eating a Christmas dinner proper with my parents. And, indeed, D managed it. But I took to bed mid afternoon with a stomach like a washing machine - a potent combo of my gnarly digestive system in uproar about the surfeit of rich food and drink that I had dared to subject it to, and that wonderful monthly visitor that makes it such a pleasure to be female. I am rather sad about this, although 24 hours of barely eating seems to have calmed things down slightly and my Mum did package up some turkey and sausage-meat for me to enjoy a traditional post-Christmas sandwich. Hopefully, it will be sorted out early in the New Year (the gnarly digestive system rather than the being female bit) at which point I might buy a turkey breast and offer to cook them a not-Christmas dinner in recompense.

That aside, it has been a lovely festive season and I have once again been reminded of how lucky and blessed I am. A blog is a funny thing - even one which is ostensibly about dieting and food will often come to be treated as a sort of confessional and that means the focus here might be skewed towards the less positive aspects of my life. This year, like all years, has brought its issues and struggles but also its gifts and it will be the memory of these latter that will endure.

A pre-Christmas catch up

I cannot believe that Christmas is almost upon us and I, for one, am nowhere near prepared.  How goes it for you, dearest readers?

Most of our Christmas dinner preparation is underway, thanks to D.  The duck legs are sitting quietly in a box of fat in the fridge, the braised red cabbage and clementine ice cream are in the outdoor freezer alongside a couple of pots of turkey curry to enjoy in the fuggy period between Boxing Day and New Year.  And this weekend, I will be turning my attention to Christmas crumble: there will be a layer of apple, a layer of mincemeat and then a crumble topping flavoured with orange zest, cinnamon and chopped nuts. 

Dieting quietly fell off the agenda a good while ago so at the moment I'm all about the damage control which is not easy in an office when there is a permanent supply of Christmas snack foods.  My team actually held a mince pie bake off last week.  I went off piste and submitted a batch of mince pie brownies, which I thought were fairly epic, but they were proved a gamble too far and failed to win on the basis that they were not mince pie-ey enough.  My genius is clearly not appreciated.

Burgeoning waistline aside, I must admit that I have struggled to get into the spirit of things so far this year.  I always used to adore Christmas but now wonder if I'm just getting a little bit too old to buy in to the magic in the same way that I always used to.  Maybe not having children means that you just lose that sense of wonder.  Or maybe the fact that Bella Italia have seen fit to put Christmas Dinner lasagne on their set menu this year (I don't like to swear on this blog but WTAF?) has just made me feel that everything has gone a little bit too far.

Anyway, I hope to be on again at some point to run through my dishes of the year (I'll bet that'll have everyone on the edge of their seats for the forseeable) but in the meantime, I leave you with a picture of my beloved Minx being long suffering in a Christmas scrunchie - looking at which makes me think that perhaps I can still muster a little bit of festive wonder...

Friday miscellany

I'm due to do a monthly weigh in catch up this week but I've been avoiding it just like I *cough* avoided my weigh in on Wednesday evening.  Yes, I bunked off and yes, it was because I knew that I was likely to post a gain.  This is WW 101 - whatever happens you go to your weigh in.

At least I've kept myself vaguely accountable by reacquainting myself with my bathroom scales after a few days of avoiding eye contact.  So I know where I am.  And, as of this morning after a couple of good, solid days of tracking that is at a new low, so I have already reversed any damage.

However, lessons to be learned, as ever.  I did the classic thing - I let a bad day turn into a bad week.  We went out for a lovely meal on the Thursday night (review to follow shortly) and I never managed to get back on the wagon.  As always there are plenty of excuses masquerading as justifications but the bottom line was that I wanted to cheat.  There will be many more cheats and many more gains, but, in future, I will try and ensure that Thursday, the first day of the WW week, is on track in order to set myself up with the best possible start. 

**

Tempting me back to the straight and narrow by making it too delicious to refuse, D made bangers and mash with a WW friendly twist this week. He took an entire head of garlic and slow roasted it for around an hour and a half until the cloves were soft and creamy. Simmered two drained tins of cannellini beans in a little vegetable stock until warm and soft and then blitzed them along with the garlic, a swig of lemon juice and plenty of seasoning. Voila, zero point mash.

Depending on how loose you want your texture, you could add a few splashes of water or stock. Or, if you’re feeling decadent you could whack in a knob of butter and/or a swig of olive oil. A brilliant mid week alternative to mashed potato if you’re trying to keep your points down. Although I would never advocate replacing them (spuds) altogether.

**

I'm sure that I had something else to say and now I have completely forgotten what that was.  Anyway.  Hope everyone else out there in Blogland is well, and happy, and looking forward to the weekend.  D and I intend to climb Roseberry Topping on Sunday although he informs me that this is a walk rather than a climb to which I say - pshaw and, also, how many points do I earn if I cough up a lung?

Friday miscellany

I have been dieting for...well, pretty much my entire adult like and I STILL cannot decide whether or not daily weighing is a good thing or a bad thing. 

I like that it is a mini resolve boost every morning.  But it doesn't matter how much I tell myself that day to day fluctuations are unimportant, that it is the overall trajectory that is the key, if the number goes up and there is no good reason for it, it sticks in my bloody throat.  I was up 0.6 lbs this morning despite that fact I was a point under my dailies yesterday AND did over 12,000 steps.  I KNOW that I did not suddenly acquire half a pound of fat somewhere, that it was one of those little fluctuations that happen perfectly naturally, but you try telling my puny little monkey brain that.  It's throwing a tantrum and demanding a bacon roll to cheer itself up.  Sigh. 

**

Speaking of daily points - I haven't even lost a stone yet and I've already dropped two points from my daily allowance, such that I am now on the very lowest one.  The weeklies will be next to go - and they disappear in chunks of seven.  My leader...sorry, coach we are supposed to call them now...tells me it is a GOOD THING when you lose points because it means that you're doing something right.  I beg to differ.

**

Did I tell you that I've signed up to do a 5k race in December?  Let's pause and let that sink in a second.  Me.  Running 5k.  In public.  With a number pinned to my chest.  Well, not my actual chest but...

I decided that it had to be done and so I picked a Christmas themed race, along a flat route, where entrants are promised mulled wine and chocolate baubles at the end.  I plan to wear reindeer ears (cooler than a Santa hat.  Not cooler as in down-with-the-kids cool but cooler in the actual sense).  But I'm still at the stage where the thought of doing it makes me laugh nervously.  I'm well on with the Couch to 5k, so I should be completely ready in three months times but..hahahahahahaha.

**

Current fad: flavour infused coffees.  This one, which I bought from Holland and Barrett, is delicious:

They don't contain any calories or sugar so, unsurprisingly, are not very sweet.  If you're expecting a full on mocha effect you may be disappointed.  But a really pleasant way of zuzzing (is that how you spell it) up one's morning coffee when one is trying to avoid the siren call of the Starbucks just next door to the office.  I've currently got one by Beanies, a chocolate cherry flavour, which I don't think is quite as good and is slightly more expensive, but they have a much larger range and I can't help thinking that gingerbread infused coffee would be perfect come December time.  You know, a few months down the line when we're talking about Christmas and I'm PREPARING TO RUN 5K IN PUBLIC.  Yeah, then.

**

Happy weekend tout le monde!!!

The on / off switch - am I fooling myself?

Somebody posted a message on WW Connect the other day and I wrote a response which I suspect sounded horribly preachy. The scenario was this: someone said that she kept joining WW, losing a couple of stone and then going “off-plan”, gaining the weight back and then having to start again. What could she do to break the cycle? To which my response was: you have to stop thinking of it as being on and off plan. The way you eat when you’re following Weight Watchers is the way you eat, full stop. The longer you think of WW as something that you will do for a while, to get to goal, and then stop, the longer you will be stuck in a cycle of losing and regaining the same weight over and over again.

Wouldn’t you want to punch me? I did try and add lots of smiley faces and said several times that this was only taken from my experience. But still.

The thing about Weight Watchers that breaks you in the end is the fact that you have to be so switched on all the time. Everything needs to be weighed and measured (well, nearly everything). If you want it to work you have to assiduously monitor every drop of oil or sprinkle of cheese. It’s a lot more difficult to eat on the hoof, especially from non-chains. It is, sometimes, pretty exhausting. I can see why people burn out. I can see why I burned out. But I don’t object to the food and I think that is probably why I am much better nowadays at maintaining my weight then I was when I was younger. Something, somewhere is sticking.

I was thinking about this particularly because I had a day “off” on Saturday – planned and deliberate. We went for a nice walk, stopping off at a few pubs along the way. In the last one, we ate chips with lots of salt and a good slather of mayonnaise. We made chicken wings for tea that had been slowly confited in fat and then dunked them in a rich blue cheese dip. Happy days. It made my comments to the woman on the message board seem rather hypocritical. But then, on Sunday morning I knew that I was back to it and despite the fact that I was hungry yesterday, and my treacherous body wanted to eat toast all day, I stuck to pointing and weighing and measuring and tracking. Monday morning, I was showing a small (0.6 lbs) gain for the week. But there’s a big difference between half a pound gain’s worth of planned indulgence and a two stone slide back down the scale. I think.

Frightened of slim?

I have always tended to gain weight in periods of emotional difficulty and distress. When I am happy – or, even, just not excessively miserable / stressed / anxious, I maintain without even having to think about it. I’ve been doing a little bit of navel gazing recently because I am genuinely intrigued as to why this is. The brain makes very powerful connections that sometimes we’re not aware of until we start picking at them.

Firstly, and most obviously, “comfort eating” is a thing because of chemical reactions in the brain caused by certain types of food. And, equally, the reason most of us have particular foods that we turn to in times of need is because there is some sort of happy association – possibly with childhood. But I’ve recently started to wonder if, for me, there’s another element to it – which is, on some level I think that being overweight is a safer, happier place than being slim.

When I was growing up I was a plump, clever teenager. I was surrounded by a nice group of likeminded friends and a loving, supportive family. I was bookish and musical. I didn’t really have boyfriends or, indeed, much interest in boys at all until I was quite a bit older. I was happy and fulfilled; I never thought of myself as one of the pretty, popular set but it didn’t particularly bother me. Except, of course, the media (even back then) bombarded young girls with the idea that being slim is the only acceptable aesthetic and so, probably even without really thinking what the outcome would be or why that outcome would be desirable, I dieted. I got thin.

Here’s the kicker though – I don’t think that being thin (and when I was seventeen / eighteen I was actually thin rather than slim) ever made me any happier and, in fact, the constant restrictive eating and the battles with my concerned parents and teachers combined with A-levels and university entrance interviews made life really rather stressful. I started to regain weight.

A few years later, I lost it again. Now I was in my early twenties and at my first job fresh out of university. I worked in a warehouse office, answering phones to delivery drivers (oh, the glamour!). It was a very aggressively male environment. I was young, I was female, I had a habit of dressing slightly provocatively (you can take the girl out of Essex…) and for the first time in my life I found myself the serious object of male attention. Looking back, I think that I was terrified and utterly out of my depth. I constantly felt that I was playing at being the cheerleader when really I wanted to run back to the library and hide. Again, it was not a happy time for me. When I met D and settled down with him, the weight began to creep back on – and I do wonder if, in part, it was my subconscious’s way of saying that I was now “off the market”.

It’s surely no surprise that, if the two main periods in my life when I was slim were both unhappy ones, I might eat not just to make myself feel better in the moment but to maintain a status quo that, on some level, I think will bring me more happiness? I’ve never really thought of that before, but it does make sense.

So how to overcome this? I think my current approach of focusing on the health aspects rather than the aesthetic ones is the right course for now. I also think that I need to ensure that any goal setting is health related rather than predicated on an aspirational dress size. There will be no skinny jeans or bikini hung on the back of the wardrobe door (although, in all honesty, I think I could get down to 8 stone and you wouldn’t see me in a bikini. I have never been comfortable with the idea of essentially wandering round the beach in your underwear. And I never go to the beach. So…)

The most important thing is to be alert and aware. Back when I was doing CBT a few years ago, my absolute favourite phrase was “Hold your stories loosely”. It means that we are all capable of change, of rewriting our own truths. So what steps can I take now to convince my brain to disassociate being slim with being scared and miserable? Answers, as ever, on a postcard!

Full Disclosure

Friday night, for the first time, the wagon teetered. And the culprit was my old Nemesis, wine.

I’m a little disappointed in myself, of course - after two and a half weeks of exemplary behaviour and smug attendant blog posts, I shouldn’t have succumbed to the thrall of crisp, chilled Sauvignon Blanc. Aside from anything else, the Smart Points value of a glass would make your eyes water.

But I’m going to look at the positive side of things. I got up on Saturday, with a slight headache, and got on the treadmill before breakfast to do a Couch to 5k session and earn back some of those points. And, I did not use it as an excuse to write off the entire weekend; last night, while out with my in laws, I stuck to Diet Coke and slimline tonic and my preplanned menu choices, tracking everything. So that is good, that is progress. It remains to be seen how the Mean Girl Scales will react.

A pre weigh-in post

So, first week nearly over and in a few hours it will be time to hop up on the scales.  Whether they are the Scales of Doom or the Scales of Joy remains to be seen. 

I wanted to make sure that this post was written and up before the weigh in, so that I can look back on it regardless of the result.  Because, whatever the scores on the doors, this has been a successful week.

As I hoped, operating within a structure has been really good for me.  I have been eating properly for the first time in a while and my fruit and veg consumption has rocketed as I embrace zero point snacks.  This has had a knock on effect on my mental health – I feel much calmer and more in control.  And physically, my stomach has been OK.  Not perfect, but OK. 

I have had a lovely weekend with friends and managed to enjoy myself without going ridiculously overboard, without adopting a “Screw it, I can’t point so I’m going to eat and drink everything in sight,” attitude and, hugely, without having a drink.  I am a girl who loves her alcoholic beverages: to get through an entire sociable weekend watching other people tuck into large glasses of Pimms while sticking to water is a pretty big deal.  But I made the decision that it wasn’t worth the points and it wasn’t worth the potentially catastrophic effects on my beleaguered digestive system and I stuck to it.

So whatever the scales have to throw at me today (and I’m genuinely in the dark) I’m going to try and remember that, by any other measure, this has been a GOOD WEEK.

Head - meet sand

I'm avoiding the scales for a few weeks.  Possibly because I've not been feeling 100% lately (I remain in terrible thrall to a delicate digestion and it is becoming rather wearing), the fact that the scales have remained stubbornly static is making me disproportionately annoyed and upset.  So I am giving myself permission to back off for a while.

In times like these, my mind turns to alternative methods of dieting which would get me to where I want to be a little quicker than this circuitous journey on 5:2.  I starting Googling the Keto Diet* the other day (high fat, low carb), flicked back through our Dukkan book and wondered whether I could combine 5:2 with 16:8 (which would mean on non-fast days only eating within an 8 hour window).  But I think, actually that I just need to give my head a wobble, to stick to what I'm doing, to up the exercise and to concentrate on the fact that I've found something that works (albeit slowly) and has improved my relationship with food a hundredfold.

*Anyway, if I started on an eating plan that allowed me to eat unlimited cheese I would literally end up TURNING INTO CHEESE. 

Two steps forward, one and a half steps back

I ended the month of January slightly lighter than I started, which I take to be a good thing. 

The cheese-topped, chips-on-the-side nature of our holiday in Scotland, not to mention the fact that we only managed one fast day during the week before we went (because we got into holiday mode slightly too early) means that I would have been entirely unsurprised to see a net gain on the month.  What I have noticed about my 5:2 losses, though, is that for all that they are slow (so slow!) they seem to stick far better than when I was losing weight more quickly with WW.  A fall from the wagon may occasion a gain, but not a particularly dramatic one.  Not like the memorable occasion, many years ago when I gained five pounds one week and then lost seven the next.  I wonder if I was blogging at that point?  I can't see a post called "Flying in the Face of Science" but I definitely felt as if I was. 

I know the blog is quieter than it used to be.  Actually, blogging in general seems to be quieter than it used to be.  And a lot of the blogs that are out there are very big and shiny and full of beautiful photographs as opposed to back in 2010 when people just got behind the keyboard and typed away on their unglamorous but entirely functional BlogSpot platforms.  It's a shame, because I think the sense of community has disappeared a little bit, and I think a lot of the people who still are blogging are doing it less to reach out and more with a view to becoming the next Big Thing.

But, to my original point.  The blog is quieter than it used to be partly because I don't really feel like I am on a diet any more.  5:2 has fitted in to my life relatively seamlessly.  There's only so many times that I can write about how fast days are tough and I feel very hungry but it's worth the freedom that it wins me on the other, non-fast, days. 

Still, I also started writing this as a place to record recipes and to record experiences, and I've not intention of giving that up because a Book Deal may yet be forthcoming!  Well, not really, but because I love being able to look back and remember stuff I've eaten and places I've been. And, you never know, someday I might reach my elusive Goal Weight and I can't think of a better, more proper place to record that achievement than this little corner here. 

So, as ever mes amies, onwards and downwards.

Foggy Friday

Bloody hell, another week as positively whizzed by and we're already nearly half way through January!  Out first week of fasting yielded me a pound loss (hurrah!) and D a magnificent 3.8 pounds.  He's being quite strict on non-fast days as well, so the result was hard earned and well deserved.

All has been quiet chez nous; I've practically been hibernating since the start of the year and I have no intention of doing very much this weekend either.  There are books to read and films to watch and cats to cuddle and cups of tea to be consumed and very content with that I am too.  However, we are rousing ourselves at the end of next week and decamping to Mull for a week.  A week which we will probably spend mostly reading, watching films and drinking tea, just in a different environment and without the cat. 

It turns out that lots of things shut on Mull in January.  Actually, in other parts of Scotland too, since we are stopping off in Ecclefechan (home of the famous and delicious Tart) and planned to visit a famous Scottish person's birthplace which is situated there, only to have our intentions frustrated by out of season opening hours.  So we're going to Gretna Green instead because I've never been and it's on the way. 

If you're still ploughing through the remains of the Christmas turkey, I've got a marvellous recipe to share which post I will schedule now while I am thinking about it.  If you're not, how go your New Year Eatings? 

Have a lovely weekend all. 

2017 - the year in review

And so, Christmas has been and gone and with it the final hurrah of 2017.  I spent most of the year’s dying days snuggled up at home doing little more than watching crap on Netflix and eating chocolate biscuits.  I weighed myself this morning; up 5lbs from the beginning of December which I am quite peaceful about considering that we abandoned 5:2 and any pretence of moderation right at the start of the month.  I am hoping to get most, if not all, of it shifted by the end of January.  Today sees me on my first fast day since…well, weeks ago, and there are even rumours that the Treadmill in the Garage will be grinding back to life very shortly.  As ever, I will keep you apprised.

Before we venture forth into 2018, as always, it is worth having a quick look back.  Firstly, weight loss and health matters – I committed to 5:2 at the start of the year on the basis that:

a) I still need to lose weight

b) Weight Watchers did not agree with me anymore – the constant counting and measuring and weighing and planning was, ultimately, not doing my mental health any good and

c)  Any other formal “diet plan” would likely be just as bad. 

5:2 seemed like the answer to the problem, in that it would require fierce commitment for 2 days of the week, but the rest of the time I could pootle along as I pleased. 

Well, it has worked in the sense that I am 2 stone down over the course of the year.  It’s not what you would call an amazing result, but it is a result nonetheless, and given the number of weeks where we’ve sacked off one or both fasts for reasons both spurious and genuine, I am pleased.  I have genuinely eaten well on non-fast days – aiming for moderation rather than restriction has really helped me develop a peaceful relationship with the food that I eat for the first time in my adult life. 

And talking of eating, D and I have agreed that some of our favourite ever meals were consumed in 2017.  We were lucky enough to visit several amazing restaurants and to pick a favourite is very, very difficult. 

The stand-out, in the end, is The Raby Hunt, which we visited at the beginning of November.  It has two Michelin stars and it is not London based – the conjuction of these two facts do tend to imply quality – but we have learned that Michelin stars do not always make for the best eating or for the best dining experiences (in our opinion.  Clearly not in the opinion of the mysterious Michelin inspectors who I fondly imagine cruising the country’s dining scene in pinstripe suits).  Raby Hunt, which I wrote about here, is just absolutely fabulous.  And the dish of razor clam and celeriac and almonds is probably, probably the best thing that I ate all year.

Razor clam and celeriac at The Raby Hunt

But there are honourable mentions to be made too: the thought of the lamb at Lake Road Kitchen in Ambleside still makes my mouth water all these months later.  And we had a last minute contender in the form of scallop with fermented celeriac at TheBlack Swan at Oldstead just the other week.  It’s rather odd – I didn’t even think that I liked celeriac that much, but in expert hands, it turns out that it is rather sublime.  I probably need to cook with it a bit more.  We also absolutely adored 64 Degrees in Brighton – another superlative lamb dish, this one served with gochujang.

Lamb at Lake Road Kitchen

Dessert of the year probably, again, goes to one of the offerings at The Raby Hunt, but I can’t help but remember with very great fondness the fabulous miso caramel ice cream that we ate at Skosh in York.

Miso caramel ice cream at Skosh

Our own home cooking has, naturally, encountered new influences and ideas throughout the year (gochujang and sushi rice are now both permanent fixtures in our storecupboard), but I honestly think that one of the nicest things that I made was this summery broad bean dip.  I am already looking forward to broad bean season rolling around again so that I can make this dip by the pint.

Broad bean dip at home

We managed to make a bit more use of our extensive recipe book library, but want to ramp this up for 2018 and are aiming to cook a new dish at least once a week.  What with that and plans to visit (among other places) Joro in Sheffield and Where The Light Gets In in Stockport, I think 2018 will shape up to be pretty damn fine itself.

Christmas Eve Eve

It’s nearly time for the Big Day and here at chez Seren we are practically ready to go. Despite the fact that it is just the two of us for much of the holidays, we have an absolute mountain of food. We don’t need to go shopping again until March.

I’ve been full of cold all week, coughing and spluttering all over the place, so am feeling utterly justified in taking to my bed this afternoon with the cat at my feet and “The Holiday” on the iPad. D and I managed a brief flurry of activity earlier on though, and between us have rustled up a batch of turkey curry, smoked salmon pate, pea soup (using the stock derived from slow cooking the gammon) and our Christmas Day dessert - mince pie baklava. Yum.

Whatever you and yours are doing for Christmas, whatever you’re eating, wherever you are, many, many best wishes from me and here’s to much more deliciousness in 2018.

No news is no news

Not quite sure what happened there but I appear to have blinked and found myself in October.

When I sat down to write this, I tried to figure out why I sometimes feel that I have less to say nowadays.  I'm certainly not eating or cooking less.  I've realised that one key difference is that I am a much more confident cook than when I started blogging seven (seven!) years ago.  Although we still meal plan, the plan tends to be more fluid.  Both of us abhor food waste and will often tweak things to a greater or lesser extent in order to accommodate leftovers, or ingredients that look set to lapse from sadness to inedible at any given moment.  Some of the nicest meals that we have eaten in the last few week have been just thrown together.  And I always feel a bit of a cheat, blogging a dish if it is full of splashes and dashes rather than properly measured ingredients.  But I'm not sure why - Nigel Slater, a food writer whose prose I adore even if I do find his TV persona a little grating, has built an entire bloody career on such a methodology.

So, I am going to try and be better about putting up posts that just describe a successful coming together of ingredients.  Something less formal than a recipe, just a vignette.

Of course, the ability to freestyle more is almost certainly a result of me not following any sort of formalised diet plan.  I think the last time that I was a paying member of Weight Watchers was a good eighteen months to two years ago (I'm sure that a quick trawl back through the archives could tell me if I really cared to know).  Interestingly, I am certainly no bigger for forsaking my membership and probably a little smaller thanks to some initial success on 5:2.  But, as every catch up post that I have done recently seems to repeat, after a good couple of months I seem to have spent the rest of the year trying to reclaim the 5:2 mojo and failing, for various reasons.  Sigh.

Still, I am in a good mood today and unwilling to get too introspective about things.  It's been a beautifully calm weekend of reading, baking and Strictlying.  There's a pork belly joint being pressed on the dining room table ready to be served with braised lentils and a punchy caper sauce.  The cat is chasing a fly. Life is full of quiet, Sunday pleasures.

Very Sunday