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.

MPM: 26th November 2018

I’ve had to switch my WW membership to online only for the time being. I’ve missed a number of meetings due to other commitments and was using this as an excuse to avoid the scales and not follow the plan properly. That ends now. I was following WW online when I first started this blog and did manage to lose weight successfully over a sustained period so there’s no reason why it can’t work again. I’ll see how I go between now and Christmas and then if I need to recommit to meetings in the New Year then I will, albeit might have to have a rethink as to which meeting I attend. There’s a local one on a Saturday morning which could be a possibility.

Meal plan - couple of bumps from last week and a takeaway on Friday, requested by D. Not particularly WW friendly (actually not WW friendly at all) so I’ll just have to make up for it elsewhere. Sigh.

Monday: starting the week nice and light with a comforting bowl of soup.

Tuesday: leftover roast chicken and black bean wraps.

Wednesday: salmon yakitori with sushi rice. Possibly some sort of cucumber side dish?

Thursday: Ottolenghi’s ultimate winter couscous.

Friday: fish and chips.

Saturday: Szechuan red braised pork belly - bumped from last week.

Sunday: a Diana Henry recipe - chicken and sweet potatoes with miso, ginger and spring onions.

Have a fabulous week all!

Slow cooker recipe corner: Vivek Singh’s Suriani home-style chicken curry

A slow cooker curry recipe is perfect for this time of year and this one, adapted from the BBC Food site, is lovely. Please, please do not be put off by the amount of vinegar. When you first combine the ingredients it will taste and smell slightly overwhelming. By the end of cooking it will have mellowed to the most delicious subtle sourness.

From the BBC website

From me. A career in food photography clearly beckons...

The original recipe can be found here and comes with a sweet and sour coconut rice accompaniment but if you are looking to keep points down, you could just serve with plain rice. Or cauliflower rice. Or whatever you like really...I can imagine it with a chilli and coriander spiked mash.

This is a wet curry / stew, even if you reduce it as per the below suggestion. It’s got no thickening agent so it’s never going to be a thick sauce but I don’t think that is the idea. Just thought I’d mention it in case thinner curries aren’t your bag. You could quite easily bung a handful of lentils in it if you like - this wouldn’t affect the points. Oh, incidentally, you could also use reduced fat coconut milk which would take the points down to 5 per portion.

Ingredients

Tbsp rapeseed oil
2-3 large chicken breasts, cut into chunks

Half a punnet of chestnut mushrooms, sliced
2 red onions sliced

Can of coconut milk
Cinnamon stick
6 cloves
4 green cardamom pods
4 garlic cloves, sliced
5cm piece of ginger, grated
8 green chillies, slit lengthways
15 curry leaves
2 tsp salt
Tbsp black peppercorns, crushed
5 tbsp sherry vinegar

Tsp garam masala

Serves 4, 10 Smart Points (WW Flex) per portion

As ever, these slow cooker recipes are more of an assembly job.

Heat the oil and add the chicken pieces, in batches if necessary, to brown on all sides.

Meanwhile, put the coconut milk, the spices and the vinegar into the slow cooker. Stir well, then add the sliced veg and the browned chicken.

Lid on, cook on low for 8 - 10 hours.

We then used a slotted spoon to remove the meat and veg, poured the sauce into a pan and reduced over a low heat for 15 mins, but this is not essential if you’re looking for ease and speed.

Stir through the garam masala just before serving.

Recipe corner: Tomato butter sauce and a creamy Parmesan dressing

Before we get to pizza, I just wanted to post this pasta sauce recipe. It apparently was all the rage among food bloggers in oooh, 2010 or so so I’m either late to the party (likely) or bringing sexy back (less likely). It’s very lovely though. It reminds me of tomato sauces that I’ve eaten in Italy - light and sweet and clinging. Very different from the almost jam like quality you get when starting a tomato sauce from a standard soffrito. It also has the very great advantage of requiring very few ingredients and very little effort. One need never reach for a jar of sauce again.

To go with it a salad dressing which harks back to the Caesar dressing that I first posted years ago, which utilises a molten egg yolk to create something that tastes far richer than the points would suggest. The Parmesan adds a ton of umami flavour, the mustard a good kick. And this basic dressing recipe would be a good base for any other flavourings you might want to throw in, depending on what your salad is accompanying. This recipe makes enough to properly drench two decent portions of salad which is great when there’s not too much else going on. Alternatively, you could settle for an elegant drizzle and probably get away with counting it at zero points.

Tomato butter sauce - ingredients

200g tin chopped tomatoes

18g butter

One small onion, peeled and sliced in half

Serves 2, 3 Smart Points (WW Flex) a portion

The instructions for this are blessedly easy. Simply stick all the ingredients together in a heavy bottomed saucepan. Set over a low heat and bring to the gentlest of simmers and then turn the heat down as low as possible - a diffuser works well here if you have one - for around 45 minutes. As it cooks, give it the occasional stir, ensuring the tomatoes are lightly crushed into the buttery juices. It is ready when little droplets of fat appear on the surface of the sauce - see picture below.  NOT the most prepossessing looking thing, but getting there. Discard the onion, season with salt if required and then serve over pasta.

A note: I tried making this with a shallot but I don't think it worked quite as well so I would urge you to go for an onion.  It won't give an overtly onion flavour but it is an important constituent part and I think that the shallot was just a little too mild to deliver.

Creamy Parmesan dressing - ingredients

1 egg

2 tbsp 0% fat Greek yoghurt

2 tsp rapeseed oil

Tsp dijon mustard

15g Parmesan cheese finely grated

Scant squeeze of lemon juice

Serves 2 generously, 2 Smart Points (WW Flex) a portion

You'll need a little processor for this.

Bring a pan of water to the boil and then lower in the egg and set a timer for three minutes.  Remove as soon as it is done and immediately stick it under the cold tap to stop the cooking.

Meanwhile, put the yoghurt, oil and mustard into the processor and give them a quick whizz to introduce them to each other.  Grate the Parmesan - you could skip this step and let the processor do the work, but your result won't be as smooth and creamy.

CAREFULLY peel your egg.  Have the processor close at hand so if you accidentally pierce the yolk while you are doing so you can ensure it all gets into the mix.  The white should be just about set but depending on the size of your egg may be a little bit snotty which works beautifully in the dressing but be warned if you're slightly squeamish (as I know some people are when it comes to eggs).

Blend again until the egg is completely incorporated and you have a smooth, pale yellow dressing.  Add the Parmesan, a squeeze of lemon juice, a pinch of salt and a good whack of pepper and whizz for a final time. Check the seasoning - it may require an extra hit of lemon just at the end.

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...

The wages of sin

Well, the scores are in and after shamefully missing not one but two weigh ins, and consuming more points over this last weekend than a good Weight Watcher does in a year I have gained...

2.5 lbs.

So that’s not bad at all. And every glorious mouthful was worth it. I will NEVER be the kind of person who attempts to point while on holiday.

Back to it now and I’m hoping that a good week can get that back off again. There are another thirteen weigh ins before Christmas - I could easily be a stone down by then with a bit of focus. Onwards and downwards!

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?

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.

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.

MPM: 6th August 2018

There are only so many times that one can write “Monday again” or, “Where did the weekend go?” or, “Can’t believe we’re eight months into the year!” without it becoming ineffably tedious. Suffice to say, please take all the above as read.

If nothing else, my returning to Weight Watchers has refocused our attention on meal planning which is excellent news. We’ve more or less completely stuck to the plan these last few weeks and have been eating extremely well. We’re also getting more of a sense of what works well with the current WW ideal – NB: if you like fish, chicken and pulses and can make them the main constituents of your dish, you’re going to be laughing all the way to the (Smart Points) bank. I also continue in my efforts to stick an egg on top of pretty much everything I eat.

This week, we again have no particular plans, other than Tuesday night, when we’re off to the cinema and I am angling to fit in a cheeky Nando’s, having discovered that a double chicken pitta is a mere 8 Smart Points. I have to admit I secretly quite adore Nando’s and yes, I know that I could cook something just as nice at home and not pay ridiculously over the odds for it, but I maintain that it is worth the occasional splurge, especially since there is a branch located very handily for our local multiplex. D is out for lunch on Thursday (probably Nando’s again, the lucky sausage. Fortunately, he is very partial to chicken) so keeping things light on Thursday evening.

Monday: Crab scrambled eggs with pan roasted asparagus.

Wednesday: Prawns with sweet potato mash and chilli vinaigrette

Thursday: Tuna sandwiches

Friday: Twice baked cheese soufflés, roast courgette and spinach salad with balsamic dressing, garlic bread

Saturday: Momofuku chicken wings

Sunday: Butternut squash, sage and amaretti ravioli

MPM: 30th July 2018

Another weekend gone – honestly, the year is slipping away. We had a nice trip out with family on Saturday, although after my slip up on Friday night, I was absolutely determined to be on plan which proved incredibly difficult with all the gin flying around (not literally you understand). Our hosts had chosen a Turkish “bistro” for dinner, which would not have been my first choice, but I ordered a grilled chicken shish kebab and it turned out to be absolutely gorgeous. I do think that looking at the menu in advance and having a plan is a good practice if you want to remain focused (although rather dull and worthy if you don’t). I barely looked at the menu when we arrived so I couldn’t be distracted by all the other goodies and thus managed to end the evening on track.

And, having hopped on the scales this morning, I am cautiously optimistic that, unless things have yet to catch up with me, I should be posting another loss at WI. I now need to make sure that my inner rebel doesn’t take this as a sign that I can quaff wine with abandon every Friday night and then pull it back by being sensible. Because it doesn’t take much for one night “off” to turn into a whole weekend “off” and that is a far more difficult position to reverse.

Other than tonight, when I am out seeing a friend, we have a full week at home which will be nice from a WW point of view, as it means I don’t have to have one eye on saving points for the weekend. Thus, I think that the meals for this week are an interesting and decidedly non “diety” mix of dishes:

Tuesday: Korean spiced beef and vegetable stew (a freezer dive) with rice and kimchi (apparently, a zero point food! Hurrah!)

Wednesday: A D choice – he is planning to make a punjabi kadhi, which is a spiced yoghurt soup. It was one of his favourite lunchtime dishes at Bundobust, but they removed it from the menu during a recent rejig. This should be interesting, as I have to say that it was never a particular preference of mine, but I’m sure that he can make it work.

Thursday: Aubergine Parmigiana. I’ve been having a fancy for this for a while. I haven’t decided on side dishes yet – I think that I fancy just garlic bread (if I have the points available) and a rocket and Parmesan salad, but was considering the possibility of wild rice.

Friday: Cod with Parma ham and lentils. An old blog recipe, this should work beautifully with Smart Points.

Saturday: Hot dogs! I’m going to get proper franks and proper hot dog buns and then load them with ketchup and American mustard and caramelised onions and sauerkraut. And I might even make a potato salad. Or just serve them with chips.

Sunday: Lamb loin with Parmesan mash and mushrooms. Proper Sunday fare, and an homage to a dish we ate in Paris may moons ago.

Here’s to another great week all round.

Recipe corner: Red lentil, courgette and cheese loaf

I have never been the greatest advocate of yawningly “worthy” food so this recipe is something of a departure for me. Years ago, for reasons lost in the mists of time, D and I decided to detox the Carol Vorderman way and spent a very miserable week eating really bad food. I think that we managed about five days before falling face first into pizza. Ever since, anything like “lentil loaf” which sounds suspiciously like it has been plucked from the pages of a “clean eating” (bleurgh) book has made my toes curl a little bit. Nevertheless, I would commend this particular recipe to your attention because it is, quite simply, delicious. It makes me wonder if I should be a bit more open minded – after all, I’m quite a fan of spiralising vegetables as well – but then I remember back to Carol’s recipe for hummus, which resembled nothing so much as wallpaper paste, and I quickly change my mind.

Anyway, this loaf is utterly brilliant for anyone following the WW Flex programme because lentils and other pulses are now pointed at zero, which means that a slice of this makes a really low point, satisfying meal especially with a bit of salad and perhaps a cheeky hard-boiled egg (also zero point. Everything I eat at the moment, I serve with an egg on the side.) Last time I made it, D fried slices in butter and had them in a sandwich which, he reports, was most excellent. But frying things in butter and eating them with bread is (sadly) not the WW way unless one has run a half marathon and has oodles of points to spare. Behold the loaf in all its glory:



And here, in cross section, with the afore mentioned salad and egg (plus a drizzle of salad cream and another of sriracha). This entire lunch box was 3 Smart Points:



A note on reduced fat cheese. I love cheese. The notion of reduced fat cheese makes me slightly sad. Reduced fat products in general can be awful – and I utterly reject such aberrations as plasticky low fat spreads and “lite” mayonnaise. But I genuinely think for cooking, especially midweek, bog-standard cooking, a decent reduced fat Cheddar will do the job perfectly well in most cases. Pilgrims Choice is fine, as is Cathedral City – I need to try some supermarket own brands and if I come across anything particularly good, I will report back. If you are not counting points then feel free to use whatever cheese you like. A nutty Gruyere might work well with lentils. If you are counting, what I would suggest here (if you are so inclined) is to sub a proportion of the reduced fat Cheddar for a good smoked cheese as it will give the most wonderful flavour to the loaf. I used 50g of a very, very smoky (full fat) cheese and 75g of reduced fat Pilgrims Choice and it still worked out at 2 Smart Points per portion.

Ingredients

175g red lentils
Tsp vegetable Bouillon powder
350ml water
Courgette, grated
120g reduced fat Cheddar, grated
3-4 spring onions, chopped
Tbsp sriaracha (or other hot sauce)
Tsp dried chilli flakes
Squeeze of lemon juice
Egg, lightly beaten

Cuts into 8 decent slices, 2 Smart Points per slice (WW Flex)

Put the lentils in a large pan (big enough, eventually, for all the ingredients), stir through the stock powder and then pour over the water and set over a low heat. Bring the pan to a gentle simmer and then cover and cook for 10-15 mins until the lentils have absorbed the water and formed a thick paste. Mine cooked incredibly quickly and needed a splash more water after just 5 minutes, so it is worth checking regularly.

While the lentils cook, preheat the oven to 180, line a loaf tin (I always tend to use loaf tin liners such as these, but greaseproof paper would do as well) and prep the other ingredients.

Allow the lentils to cool very slightly and then stir all the other ingredients through and pour into the prepared tin. Bake for 45-50 mins until set firm and browning on top.

Oxymoronic

I did actually give the Smart Points programme a whirl when it first came out a few years ago.  Back then it was slightly different in that daily and weekly point allowances were a bit higher but fewer foods were zero points (just fruit and veg as opposed to the fruit, veg, chicken, fish, eggs, pulses etc. of the current iteration).

 

I was against it from the start.  I lost weight very well on the Pro Points programme (this was the version of WW prior to Smart Points). In fact, when I was going to meetings in 2014, I lost a stone in my first four weeks of Pro Points, which is pretty impressive.  So I already had a natural resistance to the change. 

 

And I do stand by what I thought then which is – Smart Points is more restrictive than Pro Points and it does feel more like a “diet” if you try to eat in exactly the same way.  I remember that when I was doing Pro Points, I found it pretty easy to eat sensibly and still have a piece of chocolate after dinner or a mid-afternoon biscuit.  A daily treat.

 

But I think my mentality is slightly different now because my focus, my absolute priority at the moment is my health rather than weight loss (although no, I'm still not quite over my disappointing result - I'm only human!)  My poor old body has been rather through the wringer and I want to treat it well, to nourish it.  Coming at Smart Points from that angle has made me realise that the very phrase “daily treat” is a total oxymoron.  The dictionary definition of a treat is: an event or item that is out of the ordinary and gives great pleasure.  Out of the ordinary!  Which probably doesn’t – or shouldn’t – mean daily.

 

Realising this has made me far more receptive to Smart Points.  When I look back over my first week, I can see that the quality of my meals improved markedly, particularly with regards to vegetable and protein content, and snacks mainly consisted of fresh fruit.  There was a bag of salted popcorn on Friday evening (deliberately chosen and enjoyed) and that was it.  Other than the chocolate truffle I had to end my meal on Saturday evening, I don’t think that I had any sweet stuff (again, apart from fruit).

 

First week fervour obviously helps make this easier but I think that bearing this in mind will really help me get along better with the Smart Points programme.  It will be interesting to see whether or not the scales come round. 

A post weigh-in post

Well, I am surely glad that I did write my pre weigh-in post before I went to the meeting. Because the scales were not kind. In fact, they were positively bitchy, informing me that I had managed to gain a pound over the course of the last week.

I’m no stranger to gains – they’re a fact of life, and I try to be sanguine about them but, oh! This stung quite a lot. Such that I could actually feel my eyes get hot and prickly when I stepped off, even while I was cheerfully telling the leader that I wouldn’t let this put me off and would give it another good go this week. Then I went to the meeting shop and spent £7 on over-processed WW own products that are full of the type of sugar replacements that people with delicate tummies should probably avoid.

But while waiting for the meeting to start, I actually sat and read my own post and it did make me feel a lot better. So what if the scales are taking a while to catch up? I know, in my heart of hearts, that I did my very best this week, that I made good decisions, and that I took proper care of myself. Hopefully, good results will follow (said with gritted teeth).

In other news, someone emailed me a few weeks ago to say that this blog had been listed as one of the Top 5 UK Weight Watchers Blogs and Websites in 2018. I’m not sure how many UK Weight Watchers Blogs there are (probably 5), and I’m not quite sure that this has actually been a Weight Watchers blog for a while but hey! We take our victories where we can. And the thumbnail of Minx they have used is one of my favourites so it’s worth a click just to admire her.

Recipe Corner – Mussel Paella

D and I are exceptionally fond of pretty much any foodstuff that comes out of the sea and a pretty large proportion of our meals feature fish or seafood of some kind. Recently, his father gave us a huge bag of frozen mussels which we’ve been eating our way through and the following recipe (adapted from one in an old WW cookbook) entered our meal rotation as a particularly delicious way to use them. I should say that it’s only a paella in the loosest sense of the word (I sense generations of Spaniards looking around for kitchen implements to hurl at me for accosting it). I should also say that it would probably be equally delicious made with one of those frozen seafood mixes that you can pick up in the supermarket, or with fat prawns. Some finely diced chorizo sausage added at the initial stages would be good too, although obviously would up the points.

Ingredients

Tsp olive oil
Onion, chopped
Clove of garlic, crushed
Red pepper, chopped
110g risotto rice
½ tsp smoked paprika
½ tsp dried thyme
¼ tsp cayenne pepper
Pinch of saffron
50ml dry sherry
450ml chicken or vegetable stock
200g frozen unshelled mussels (defrost before using)
60g peas

Serves 2, 8 Smart Points (WW Flex) per portion

Warm the oil and gently soften the onion for a couple of minutes. As it starts to sweat, chuck in the garlic and the pepper and continue to cook, gently. Meanwhile, add the saffron to the sherry to infuse.

Stir through the risotto rice and the spices and thoroughly combine.

Add the sherry (which should now be a lovely golden colour) and allow to bubble off. Then pour over the hot stock, bring to a gentle simmer and cook for 15 minutes.

Next in are the peas, which cook for about 5 minutes. Then finally, the defrosted mussles for another minute or so – they require very little cooking so really you’re just warming them through here.

Et voila! (or whatever the Spanish equivalent is).