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). 

Recipe corner: a basic template for houmous

It's been an up and down few weeks since I last posted.  In reality, very little has changed.  Our household (me, D, the cat) remain much as before the lockdown in the UK started lifting.  Because we are in the very fortunate position that we can both work full time from home, and have pretty much been able to get all shopping delivered throughout, we have decided to keep more or less to ourselves for the foreseeable.  Although the world has become very small, some days - most days - that feels OK.  I miss my extended family and I miss my work colleagues and I miss sitting in a bar with a pint and a packet of Scampi Fries, but the longer this goes on, the more "life before" takes on a certain dream-like quality.

But there are down moments.  I was broken by cake a couple of weeks ago.  It was good cake too - Nigella's Clementine Cake which is usually pretty foolproof but, on this occasion, because I was trying to deal with it alongside cooking something else, I rushed and it didn't come out of the tin properly; I ended up with half cake, half crumbs.  Such a small thing but I had a proper, screaming tantrum.  And then, for the next few days, found myself bursting into tears at random intervals.  To be clear, I don't think this was really about cake (and, in retrospect, it may have had a lot to do with hormones) but it made it obvious that I'm not 100% OK.  I don't think anyone in the world is 100% OK at the moment.  The fact that I'm OK an awful lot of the time puts me among the very, very luckiest of people.

Anyway, I post the below recipe more for my future reference than anything else - but if you are a houmous fan and have never made it yourself then I think it is well worth it if you happen to have a decent little food processor handy.  The secret to the perfectly whipped texture is, of course, the liquid that the chickpeas were cooked (or canned) in.  I came quite late to this realisation and had all but given up making it before I found out because I only ever produced an oily, claggy disappointment of a mess.  It's taken me a few goes to get the proportions quite right but I think that I'm there now - so I record it for posterity.  

This recipe produces, to my mind, the perfect basic houmous.  All the flavours are in harmony, nothing is too strident.  Once you have that you can play around with your flavours. I didn't weigh out exactly how much this produced, but in terms of volume was probably about the equivalent of the size of standard pot you buy in a supermarket.  Precise, eh?

Note: A true aficionado will probably:

a) remove the skin from the chickpeas before blitzing but, I'm going to be honest, I am not that person.  The results without removing the skin are perfect for my unrefined palate and

b) shudder in horror at the prospect of "flavoured" houmous.  But again, I am not that person.  Caramelised onion houmous is my particular favourite - and it goes beautifully with cheese.  So there.

Ingredients

50g dried chickpeas, soaked in cold water overnight

1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1/2 fat clove of garlic, finely grated or crushed

3 tsp lemon juice

2 tsp tahini

Tsp sea salt (or, a generous pinch if you don't tend to measure such things)

NB: if you are using tinned chickpeas, this amount dried equates to about half a drained tin.  Simmer them gently in the can liquid for 10 mins or so to soften slightly and then proceed per the recipe.  Then buy some dried chickpeas and try it that way next time - you'll never go back!

This is barely a recipe but...

Drain the soaked chickpeas and then put them in a large saucepan, add enough water to cover them by about a centimetre, add the bicarb and bring to a boil over a medium heat.

Boil until soft - by which I mean it will crush easily, with minimal pressure, between your thumb and index finger.  The timings will depend on your chickpeas - I gave my last lot just half an hour, but it can take longer.  Keep the water topped up to roughly a centimetre or so over the pulses throughout and skim off any of the grungy looking foam that rises to the top.

When cooked - drain RESERVING THE COOKING WATER.

Put the chickpeas in a little processor - nothing else initially - and blend to a coarse paste.  You then want to add enough of the cooking water to create a perfect texture - and should do this gradually, a tablespoon at a time.  I have found that my optimum texture comes from between 5 and 7 tablespoons of liquid.  What I would suggest is take it down to ever-so-slightly too thick (for me, I would check at 3 or

4 tablespoons).  Then add the other ingredients so you can gauge what effect these have.  And only then finish adding enough water to get it to where you need it to be. Remember, it may vary as it is partly dependent on how much liquid the chickpeas have absorbed during soaking and cooking.

Now you have your basic houmous you can go mad!  Drizzle with olive oil and strew with pomegranate seeds!  Whack up the garlic!  Throw something entirely incongruous (like, say, caramelised onion chutney that needs using up) in there.  Have fun.  And eat smeared on pitta, or toast, or just with a spoon.

With love to all of you out there who are not quite OK.  Rather like the weather today, things remain changeable and sometimes rather gloomy, but the sun, always, inevitably, indubitably, comes out in the end.

2018 - the year in review

As with most years, 2018 was like the curate’s egg – good in places.  For the most part, it involved a lot of keeping on keeping on.  Work ramped up and became considerably more stressful in the latter few months for various reasons beyond my control – bad.  I struggled a bit with my continuing digestive issues which began to have an impact on my mental health – tedious beyond belief for all concerned.  But there were no big upsets, or dramas or traumas – good.  We had a couple of lovely trips away, including a few days in a little shepherd’s hut in York which I never got around to detailing on here – excellent.  Yet again, I have managed to end the year lighter than when I started it, mainly thanks to a successful re-acquaintance with WW back in the summer.  That may have trailed off a bit of late but I am keen to get stuck back into it now we are emerging from the month of December, when somehow it becomes normal to eat mince pies for breakfast.

Dishes of the year is a tough one to call.  We went back to Raby Hunt and loved it every bit as much the second time around but given that many of the dishes were almost exactly the same as the ones that we had eaten previously, I don’t feel quite right to hand over another coveted trophy to them. 

An early contender was most definitely the stunning duck dish that we had at Joro in Sheffield.  We liked it so much that we recreated it at home for our Easter Sunday lunch, and I am not convinced that our version wasn’t even better!


The duck at Joro

The duck chez nous

But, to be honest, the thing that still stands out for me is this little fellow.

Pizza, Jim, but not as we know it

This was the scallop sashimi, spring truffle and togarashi spice “pizza” that we ate in Skosh back in June.  As mentioned above, I never really got around to talking about our York trip in much detail but we were lucky enough to eat some wonderful food and this dish was just head, shoulders and upper chest above pretty much everything else we’ve eaten this year.  Put it this way: we liked it so much that we immediately ordered a second one.  It sounds weird, it sounds like everyone’s idea of badly done “fusion” but the combination of flavours, the delicately balanced marriage of the sea and the forest floor, was absolutely sublime.  Skosh changes the menu pretty regularly, so I doubt I’ll ever get to have it again.

Dessert of the year came in the closing moments, and it may sound ridiculous when we’ve eaten at some truly wonderful venues, including Il Ridotto in Venice where we were served the most glorious, challenging pudding combination of truffle, ginger and pumpkin which was as strange and wonderful as it sounds.  Yet nothing can compare to the dessert that D made me for my birthday this year – the sticky toffee parkin.  A mash-up of the traditional sticky toffee pudding and the Yorkshire parkin.  I have the recipe and I will be blogging it shortly.  If you like sweetness and spice then you will adore this, I promise.

Sticky toffee parkin

And an honourable mention to the Guinness cake that I ate during my first visit to the Rusty Shears.  The thought of this still makes me smile.

More icing than cake

At home, we’ve been dousing everything with sriracha and coriander and green chilli chutney – sometimes both at the same time.  My palate is becoming better and better at tolerating heat and I’m really beginning to learn how, like a pinch of salt or a drop of acidity, it can really bring cooking to life.  If I was going to commend one recipe to your attention this year it would be the chutney / sauce / salsa / whatever because it is such a good fridge staple.  I can think of few savoury dishes that would not be enhanced with a hefty splodge of this stuff.

As ever, I’d like to thank everyone who pops by and reads my little blog.  I still enjoy writing it after all these years, as a chronicle of adventures both at home in the kitchen and further afield.  And while it may not be a diet blog per se, it still stands as testament to the fact that I will never quite give up on trying to nudge the scales down to unremarkable levels. 

To all of you I wish a very happy New Year and here is to great things for all of us in 2019.

Weight loss diary: September 2018

It’s been a while since we had an update so let’s get straight to it:

Weeks 1-4: -8.5lbs
Week 5: -2lbs
Week 6: -1lb
Week 7: -1.5lbs
Weeks 8-10: +2.5lbs
Week 11: -3.5lbs

Total: -15lbs

Not bad at all. Even with a three week blip I’m still averaging at just under 1.5lbs a week. Excellent. It’s not the fastest, sexiest tale of weight loss ever but it is a very sensible, sustainable one.

There will be many more blips but I need to make sure that I arrest them before they turn into three weekers. That’s too long to be off plan and (I always say this but it always bears repeating) I feel SO much better when I’m in the zone. It is hard work to plan and track but the benefits are myriad: better digestion, better sleep, better mental health...it makes you wonder what kind of moron wouldn’t make the effort...

Weight loss diary: July / August 2018

I haven’t been doing weekly weigh in updates as I was worried they would be rather tedious for…well, everyone but me. Instead, have a monthly update!

The scores on the doors for my first month on WW Flex:

Week 1: +1lb
Week 2: -4lbs
Week 3: - 2lbs
Week 4: -3.5lbs

Total: -8.5lbs

Additional notes:

During this month, I tracked all but one single day, which dedication is borne out by these results (first week aberration aside). I ate out at non-chain (and therefore difficult-to-track-with-any-degree-of-accuracy) restaurants on three occasions and guesstimated each time, obviously with some degree of success. I’ve eschewed alcohol for the most part, which I think has made a big difference in making the points go further.

I believe that is a slightly slower rate of loss than when I started back on Pro Points in 2013. But I am five years older and my start weight was a good few stone lighter, so it is not very surprising. I also think that I am probably eating better, although it is obviously very hard to know for sure given that I have killed so many brain cells off with gin between then and now that my recall is probably shot to pieces.

One thing is for sure. I went back to WW because I felt, very acutely, that I needed to do something positive for my physical and mental health and, for me, it was most definitely the right decision at the right time. Over the course of just four weeks I have seen a demonstrable improvement in…well, pretty much everything, and the fact that I have lost over half a stone on top of that is just wonderful. I don’t expect that either the current rate of loss or the current level of enthusiasm will continue unchecked but for now, things are looking good.

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!

Sunshine, lollipops and a new blog post

Long-time no blog!  It is probably a little self-indulgent to say that I hope that I haven’t been missed – but I feel it is slightly justified given that lovely Hazel left a comment on my last post saying she missed my Meal Planning Mondays!  I promise to reintroduce them forthwith.  With regards the radio silence:

 

Reason the first – my digestive discomfort issues have been continuing.  I have always prided myself on the robustness of my digestive system and this has been unpleasant and disconcerting.  I finally plucked up the courage to go the GP and it is probably something very simple related to stomach bile (sorry if TMI) post gallbladder surgery.  It is not uncommon and can be controlled with medication.  So once anything more sinister is ruled out (and giving that all of this has only kicked off post surgery it seems highly unlikely) I will be rendered as right as rain by the wonder of our NHS.  Happy days.

 

Reason the second – which is related to reason the first.  Long term readers will know that, from time to time, I have a bit of an issue with anxiety.  Or rather, Anxiety, because anxiety is when you’re a little bit worried about a presentation that you have to do at work the following day and Anxiety is when you are frightened to leave your bedroom for reasons that are obscure even to you.  It’s frightfully common nowadays – the go-to mental health issue de nos jours, so I feel like something of a cliché but there you have it.  Fretting about my health and always trying to ensure the nearest toilet was within easy access in case of emergencies combined with my existing predisposition and made me…well, a bit shaky.  I don’t want to dwell on this too much – if it’s boring and tedious to me then it is undoubtedly boring and tedious to you.  Needless to say, fasting went by the wayside (low blood sugar is the last thing you need when you’re wobbling anyway) as did much cooking or, indeed, taking much pleasure in food.  (Sorry for the melodrama – can you understand why I didn’t post now?)

 

I haven’t weighed myself in a while but from the feel of clothes and suchlike I think it is all relatively stable but I’ve not been eating particularly well and that is stupid, because one of the best things to do for your mental health is to ensure that your diet and fitness are on point.  So that leads me to reason the third why I’ve been a bit reluctant to blog.  I’ve decided to go back to WW for a bit.

 

I know that I swore off it and I truly believe that, in the longer term, intermittent fasting will enable me to maintain my weight without being a slave to the pointing and weighing and measuring.  But I also believe that just for now, a bit of structure, something to focus on, would be a Good Thing.  And if I can ditch a few pounds in the process it will be an Even Better Thing.  I don’t intend to be evangelical about it.  I will eat out and have nights off – life is too short to never eat another takeaway.  And I will continue to monitor the situation.  If the return doesn’t justify the effort well, then, I’ll stop.

 

I’ve already signed up for the app and will be going to my first meeting tonight.  I’m intrigued about the new plan – it seems to be edging ever closer to Slimming World with more zero point foods – including lean poultry, fish, eggs and pulses.  I struggled initially when WW switched from Pro Points to Smart Points so it remains to be seen if the further changes make it more or less doable.  Regardless, a healthy project is just what I need at the moment to take my mind off my own navel. 

In which I re-commit to 5:2

I've been thinking about what I did at the start of the year that worked so successfully.  And what I can add to those techniques in order to be even more successful.  Here's my list so far...

1) A food diary.  Practically every day in January, I carefully recorded what I had eaten.  It might sound a little obsessive but it never took long, and I kind of enjoyed it.  It focuses you; even though no one else was reading it, I wanted the food that I recorded to look good...let's be honest, who wants to actually have to write that they've scoffed half a pack of Hobnobs?

2) Alcohol.  I've mentioned this before, I'm sure.  I love a drink.  But my weight loss noticeably speeds up when I cut it out.  I'm not going to promise to cut if out altogether, but for "5:2 2.0" there will be absolutely none on school nights (unless for a very particular reason) and I will limit consumption at the weekends by focusing on higher quality, low volume.

3) Meal planning.  Whatever diet you're doing, meal planning is pretty key.  I also need to make sure that I'm planning lunches and breakfasts as well - I'd like to limit snacks and treats and a surefire way to do that is to make sure that I'm eating properly at meal times.

4) Ah, yes, snacks and treats.  The odd biscuit or packet or crisps or piece of chocolate is absolutely fine, but I need to keep an eye on consumption levels.  I'd like to limit myself to one "treat" a day, maybe relaxing slightly at the weekends. So that could be a biscuit with an afternoon cup or tea OR a packet of cheeky cheese and onion when I get home OR a few Maltesers after dinner.  Not all three.

5) Exercise.  Yes, this again.  Lesley has nagged me about it before and with good reason - I need to make time for this and commit to a proper programme of activity.  There's a hotel across the road from my office with a proper pool - I'd love to treat myself to monthly membership so that I could fit in some swimming.  I'd also quite like to try some yoga classes, as I think this would help with my anxiety issues as well as being good, gentle exercise,  but I'm not going to shell out a penny until I've proved to myself that I can make exercise part of my schedule.  We have a treadmill in the garage, I have the couch to 5k app on my phone - it's free, it's easy, it's effective there is NO EXCUSE.

I reckon if I can stick to all these edicts, as well as two fast days a week, I can get things moving again in six weeks.  Game face on!

Excuses, excuses

So, I promised a bit of a retrospective post to talk about 5:2 and how the year was going.

I have talked on here on a couple of occasions about how 5:2 is hard but not that hard.  Fast days are rubbish but they are doable if you are organised and if you just get past the fact that being a bit hungry is not going to kill you.  I'm therefore a bit disappointed that our fast days have got a lot more sporadic in recent weeks.

There is a bit of a reason - or is it an excuse?  I always strive to be honest on this blog, albeit optimistically honest (is that a thing?) so I might as well say that, particularly since the break in, my anxiety levels have been high and I've not always been feeling 100%.  I've been on anti anxiety medication in the past but I don't like that as a solution so I'm trying to deal with it myself.  And I've noticed that low blood sugar can exacerbate physical symptoms of anxiety so I've been a bit wary of fasting.  Ha, written down that looks exactly like an excuse!

My weight has remained pretty stable throughout - I'm currently a couple of pounds shy of a two stone loss for the year.  That's amazing BUT the majority of that loss came in the first couple of months.  That is not amazing.

I've made peace with the fact that I am never going to be a skinny girl again, but I would like to lose enough that I am an unremarkable size and, more importantly, enough that I am not endangering my future health.  I really want 5:2 to work for that because I am shit scared of the alternative.  The alternative is going back to a more regimented plan - a Weight Watchers or a Slimming World.  And that makes me want to cry; I love being liberated from counting, from obsessively measuring out every teaspoon of oil or knob of butter.  I actually enjoy going to the fridge an being able to sling something together from bits and pieces of leftovers and not having to worry as I go along that it will involve more points than I have left for the day.  I cook and eat well and have found my own natural balance (as evidenced by the fact that, even without fasting, I have maintained my weight).

But, if 5:2 isn't going to get me to where I need to be then I have no choice.

So, here's the deal.  I am re-committing to 5:2 wholeheartedly for the next 6 or so weeks, which takes us to the end of August.  It would be nice to knock off half a stone or so in that time, although any downwards movement would be good.  If I haven't made any more progress then I'm going to have to start on an alternative route come September.

It's blogged and therefore I have to stick to it, right?

Of cabbages, kings, diets and...fried chicken

The very lovely Steph has been writing a lot recently about CBT with relation to food and eating disorders and it makes for interesting reading. I was particularly struck by what she has to say about being a WW member and how it contributed to having a wacky approach to food because it has been on my mind of late.

The holy grail of the diet world is two fold - to be a healthy weight AND to have a relaxed relationship with food. At the moment, it feels like when I am NOT following WW, but just eating in a natural, instinctive, normal way, I hit point number two. I maintain my weight without difficulty, I gravitate towards a balanced diet, my portions are sensible, my appetite regulated. The moment I start up with the pointing, that goes out of the window. Food is defined as good or bad depending on whether it fits into that day's allowance. Days are also defined as good or bad - or perhaps on or off is a better term. When you're on, it's fine, but when you're off, you spend the time in a sort of feeding frenzy, consuming all the foodstuffs you won't be able to have when you're back on, whether or not you really fancy them at this point in time.

Is this making sense to anyone but me?

The problem I have at the moment is that to be mentally healthy, I don't think following a diet plan (this sort of issue is by no means exclusive to WW) is the right thing to do. But to be in better physical health, I need to be slimmer - no two ways about it. And I don't know how to balance both. I'm trying something a bit different at the moment but I don't want to say too much until I've given it a fair shot. I'm planning to stick with it for the next six weeks (which also happens to be Lent) and assess where I'm at come Easter, at which point I will share more with you.

Right, that's that.

In other news, our quest to find the best brunch venue in Leeds may be at a premature end because I can't imagine anything beating this:


It's Korean fried chicken with wild rice, kimchi and pickled cucumber topped with a crispy fried egg and it is served at a recently opened venue called Ox Club. The menu is DREAMY. But even in the face of such delights as ricotta pancakes with honeycomb and berries, or corned beef and kale hash, both D and I had to order the chicken and neither of us could stop making yummy noises the entire time that we were eating it. The service is friendly but laid back to the point of almost comatose - I wouldn't recommend this place if you like to be in and out quickly. But if you're happy to linger over coffee (which I think is fine at brunch) then go! Eat fried chicken for breakfast! Be glad you live in such a decadent age!

Foodie on a diet: 2015 round-up

Cats, books, life is good

2015 has not always been a very easy year.  In fact, at times, it has been downright unpleasant.  I can't say that I am sorry to see it go.

And yet, in its final weeks I find myself happier and more content than I have been for a very long time.  I look at my life and I like what I see.  I am excited for the future.

Anyone who has experienced any sort of depression will know that it can feel like being in the centre of a dense bank of fog.  Well, right at this moment, I feel like I've walked through the fog and have emerged at the top of the hill where the sun is shining and the view is great.

Let's not pretend that I have made any sort of progress on the weight loss front this year - but, I am in a really positive state of mind to crack on next year.  And I also think that just being able to cook and eat instinctively has been good for me - relentless tracking can be a bit joy sucking at times. But I'm ready to start up again.  And, to make life easier, D is also keen to get fitter and healthier in 2016.

There is lots and lots to be thankful for and lots and lots to which we can look forward, and that is a good thing.  To all the lovely readers of this blog, whether you have commented this year or not, a very warm thank you, a virtual glass of Baileys and a heartfelt wish that you and yours have a wonderful Christmas and a great start to the New Year.

Sugar tax - really?

I like Jamie Oliver, and I like the fact that he is keen to use his celebrity status to make a difference to peoples’ lives.  But some of the aspects of his latest campaign (to add a “sugar tax” to fizzy drinks and to ring fence the proceeds for use in tackling childhood obesity) niggle at me a little bit.

Firstly, I work in tax.  Tax is complicated.  Logistically, the tax department is not set up to be able to “ring fence” profits.  And, really, can you imagine if it was?  The public pay tax and they have to be able to trust the authorities to use the pot of money in the best possible way – that’s the way that our current democratic system works.  We don’t ring fence cigarette tax to treat smoking related diseases, nor the tax on alcohol to provide support for alcoholics, and I don’t think that we should.  It sounds to me (and maybe I am scaremongering) like a step down the road to where we only offer health services to those who have “paid” for them.  

The second point about tax is that it is very difficult to draft legislation that will do exactly what you want it to do.  So, in order to tax fizzy drinks, we have to define fizzy drinks in law.  And then, the fizzy drink manufacturers will no doubt try to find ways to ensure that their products do not meet the legal definition.  Will it be done on proportion of sugar?  Level of carbonation?  Fruit flavour?  If recipes can be tweaked so that they fall outside the definition, you can bet your life that they will be in order to be more competitively priced on the shelves.

And tax issues aside, this feels like the thin end of a very unwieldy wedge.  First fizzy drinks, then will we target sweets, chocolate, cakes, biscuits…any foodstuff with a proportion of sugar that someone (Jamie?) has deemed too high?   Will this include sliced bread and bottled sauces and soups and baked beans?   

Look, obesity is a serious problem.  We all know that.  And we also know that dieting is not the answer – the dieting industry is worth billions and more of us are fat than ever before.  Prevention is way, way better than a cure – and prevention at an early age is paramount.  We, as a nation, should be protecting our children from all of the health issues associated with obesity.  But punitive taxes don’t feel like the answer to me.  It’s one thing to tax cigarettes and alcohol – and I say that as someone who has been known to indulge in both.  As an adult, if I choose to exercise my right to engage in a habit that impacts detrimentally on my health, than I pay for it.  Tax on sugar though?  What about all the people who are not obese, who exercise sufficient control over their calorie intake, who exercise, who live a balanced lifestyle and want to indulge in some confectionery as part of that balanced lifestyle?  Why punish them?  And, actually, is it the state's job to dissuade children from drinking cola?  I mean, I hate to be one of those people, but when I was a child I simply wasn't allowed to have fizzy drinks unless it was the weekend - and even then, it was to be regarded as a treat rather than an everyday staple.

Education must be a big part of the answer.  The more people cook from scratch, the more people understand what they are eating and what the impact of that will be on their waistline, and, quite frankly, the more emphasis placed on the many and varied health issues that are caused by obesity, hopefully, the more everyone will rethink their approach to food and nutrition.   We also need to be looking at the mental side of the coin – some people are overweight as a result of (at least in part) mental health issues.   Food and drink are coping mechanisms for a lot of people.  I don’t think that anyone would actively choose to be fat – so surely that begs the question why are so many of getting fatter?  And if the answer is that we are a nation of stressed, time poor people who rely on convenience foods and sugar rushes to get us through the day, then I don’t think that having to pay an additional 20p for a can of lemonade is going to make a discernible difference.

Getting back to blogging one Meal Planning Monday at a time...

 

Sometimes, life gets in the way of both blogging and dieting.  And sometimes, it is not so much life as me...I get in the way of it.  I think that I have fallen out of love with things recently, got a bit stale. I need to think carefully about how I can regain the amazing mojo that I had not all that long ago. 

Without going too much into it, I've been feeling a bit off.  Long time readers will know that I am someone who has to keep a careful eye on my mental health and I haven't been as vigilant as I should of late.  And it can be a vicious cycle to fall into - I start to feel a bit low, a bit disinclined to look after myself as well as I should and that then feeds the devil on my shoulder and my mood continues to dip. 

I am, I know, amazingly lucky in many ways, especially in my family and my husband who is unstintingly supportive.  I also know that the tide will turn, as it always does and I will bounce back full of enthusiasm and then everything will be easy.  That's what I am holding out for - the day when it becomes easy again. 

In the meantime, there is still meal planning!  This week, D is out on Friday, and we are both dining out on Saturday.  So five days to think about...

Prawns with a chilli viniagrette and sweet potato and coriander mash
Leftover lamb biryani
Red pepper and goats' cheese alfredo pasta
Pea and ham soup
Tandoori chicken, creamy lentil dahl, home made flatbreads

As ever, more meal planning fun over at Mrs M's - and sorry for the slightly self indulgent whinge at the beginning of the post!

Time to Talk Day 2015

Today, some of the UK's leading mental health organisations are asking people up and down the country to take five minutes to talk about mental health.  The good news is that by reading this blog post you are doing just that - so have a gold star from me...

  

I've made no secret on this blog that I have had wobbly patches over the years and I have been blessed by great GPs and people around me who were willing to hold my hand when I needed them.  So I thought it important to acknowledge this campaign.

The thing about suffering from depression, or anxiety, or similar disorders, is that they are intangible.  You break a leg, you wear a plaster cast.  You catch a cold, you cough and sneeze.  Even something less immediately obvious, like diabetes - you have a blood test and then you are in possession of a piece of paper that says that there is something wrong.  When I was first diagnosed, quite a long time ago now, I requested a full gamut of tests because I was desperate to find a physical cause for the fact that my mental faculties were all over the place.  I remember almost crying when they all came back normal - a dicky thyroid, low iron levels, these were medical problems.  Being too anxious to function properly - that was not.  Which meant on top of feeling god-bloody-awful I felt incredibly guilty as well.

Depression can be triggered by a traumatic event, by grief or by stress but it is separate and distinct from all of these things.  And while everyone, sufferers most of all, want to hang on to a straightforward idea of cause and effect I don't think that ultimately it is helpful to focus on that to the detriment of coming up with coping strategies.

I don't really know what the point of this post is.  Just, I suppose, to encourage anyone who may stumble across it to take a moment to look at the Time To Change website, or to think about someone in their circle who may be struggling with some of these issues.  There is a wealth of information and help out there - and a good GP should be your first port of call if you or anyone you love is not waving but drowning.

And thank you, dearest reader, for taking five minutes from your day to read this post.  Normal service (whatever that may be) will be resumed shortly.

Mental health awareness week - my two penn'orth

Last week was Mental Health Awareness week, which completely passed me by. It was also British Sandwich week, which, to be honest, I am far more likely to have noticed since I love sandwiches (and don’t tend to keep on top of mental health issues). But I didn’t want it to go completely unremarked upon, especially since the theme this year was anxiety which is an issue with which, sadly, I have had some considerable dealings.


The first time I had a full on anxiety attack I thought that I was going to die. Does that sound melodramatic? It feels melodramatic writing it down like that. But, nevertheless. I became intensely aware of every single function in my body – my heart, pounding, my stomach, churning, I had to concentrate on the act of breathing because if I didn’t I thought I might just stop. I was on a train to York, a journey that I had made a hundred times, and on this occasion the ambient light and noise was almost unbearable. Every sense was heightened to an uncomfortable degree, every limb tingled and trembled. I remember sitting, rigid, eyes closed, and just counting to ten over and over and over again. I had the sense that at any moment I might lose the capacity to understand language but as long as I could count, could remember the sequence of numbers, I still retained basic comprehension and it was all I could think of to do, so I counted and I counted.

When I got home I couldn’t do anything except lie prone, counting and crying. D came and sat with me, but I couldn’t bear for him to talk because the thought that at any minute I wouldn’t be able to understand him was overwhelmingly frightening. I tried to sleep but was too edgy and the dark held too many unnamed terrors. The next day, a Saturday, I phoned NHS Direct and wept down the phone at the poor lady who told me to go to A&E where a nice doctor gave me some betablockers to try and ease the physical symptoms. To be honest, she could have given me Smarties – at that point I just needed the comfort of seeing a medical professional and receiving the tacit reassurance that I wasn’t about to keel over with an advanced case of Death.

The trouble with anxiety attacks is that once you’ve had one you live with the constant fear that it will happen again, although nothing since has ever compared to that first experience. As I have got more used to them I have found that I can recognise the symptoms fairly early and, for the most part, actually talk myself down before sheer blind panic takes hold. When it comes to anxiety issues, knowledge really is power.

Even now, having experienced it first hand, I am slightly doubtful about the ease with which the terms “depression” and “anxiety disorder” get used. Like my mother before me, I am a natural born worrier with a tendency to fret about little things – this is not an anxiety disorder. Having a stressful time at work and coming home and bursting into tears over a stiff g&t is not depression. Sometimes we need to recognise our normal emotional reactions for what they are – no more and no less.

That said, if anxiety is taking over, if the thought of getting out of bed is just too much to cope with (bed being a designated safe place) then help needs to be sought. The right doctor is a very important part of the solution, so I would always encourage people to make sure that they are comfortable with their GP – and if they are not, request another doctor. You need to be prepared to be honest and raw with them so a rapport is crucial. Equally, medications – the effects and side effects can vary massively from person to person so don’t be afraid to ask to try different ones after an appropriate bedding in period – I went through four or five before settling. Talking therapies can be a great help and are available, as far as I know, in most health authorities, although the waiting list can be significant. A lot of doctors will recommend CBT for anxiety issues, and it can be helpful, but again, a lot of it will be to do with your relationship with the practitioner – the first time I tried CBT it did nothing for me at all. As an alternative, Helen Kennerley’s book “Overcoming Anxiety” was recommended to me by several people, so might be worth checking out while you wait for a referral, or decide whether CBT is the right kind of treatment for you.

Finally, I thought I would mention in passing (it being pertinent to the blog) the now pretty well established link between obesity and mental health issues. The direction of causality does not seem to be confirmed – i.e. no one is sure whether being depressed make you fat or being fat makes you depressed or if the truth lies somewhere in the middle. In my experience it is very, very natural to want to self medicate with food and drink when you’re going through something like this; when Outside is just too big and scary then wine and Kettle Chips on the sofa are comforting and safe. But they’re false friends - I know from bitter experience that if I eat well and get regular exercise then I am less vulnerable to those anxiety demons. And I think there is some comfort to be found in the ritualistic side of planning meals and concentrating on nourishing your body in order to soothe the mind.

For more information – or rather, for information, since I don’t flatter myself that my own ramblings count for very much at all in this particular field, the mental health foundation website can be found here.  No one should ever have to suffer this alone when there are resources and people out there to help.