What a Sunday looks like

Today’s food was a bit of a restart. I am still losing weight put the progress has slowed and I would like to maintain the rate of loss at around 2lbs a week. My average until recently was 2.5 lbs a week.

I have therefore gone to planning my week in more detail again and today was the first day of this routine, I had this routine for the first two months of actively trying to lose weight so I am really getting back to focused efforts.

I have realised that whilst they are great alternatives I had been relying too much on fruit and ‘no fat’ flavoured yoghurts. Even with picking the lowest sugar version of the yoghurt there is still a calorific value.

I am not a calorie counter and do not want to start now and the diet I follow does not advocate that. It advocates changing the balance of foods whilst eating to your fill.

For the next month the menu will favour a greater balance of foods that are harder to digest and with a smaller calorific value. I will still have a bit of fruit and yoghurt but reduce the amount significantly. Green veg in particular will fill the gaps this creates.

The menu today should illustrate the point. I won’t post the full recipes in this post but I will add them to the respective pages after this post is done.

Breakfast: as today was Mother’s Day Reuben was tasked with making his mum breakfast and he opted for smoked salmon and scrambled eggs on toast. He made a fine job of this. I made my own slightly lighter version. Instead of toast I had some sautéed mushrooms and I used creme fraich rather than milk in the eggs. Apologies for the half eaten food in the picture, I forgot to take a photograph after serving the food.

Lunch: home made tomato soup with a dollop of ‘no fat’ quark flavoured with tomatoes. This was a new recipe and was very tasty.

Snacks: I have had a couple of bits of fruit (1 banana and one plum) as well as a raw carrot.

Dinner: the main course was another new recipe. It was a chicken stew with carrots, courgettes and tinned tomatoes and flavoured with fennel seeds. I served it with steamed purple broccoli and mashed potato. I used Maris Pipers for the mash and used veg stock to mix and soften the potato. I used a stock pot and overdid a little so the potato was very soft and coloured by the stock. However it all got eaten so just have tasted good. There was a good amount left at the end and so rather than having a second portion I have put the left over purple broccoli into the stew and tomorrow, I will add some North African flavour and serve it for dinner tomorrow. Whilst the family will have couscous I will have cauliflower rice with it.

Although there is not a picture of it I made a pudding with chopped peach, raspberries, grapes and a large dollop of yoghurt. There is not a picture of this I am afraid.

I have a week planned with such a meal balance in place and we will see if it increases the weekly loss from the total of 1.5lbs in the last two weeks. Obviously if you are wanting to maintain your weight or add some weight on the same menu is still very good but allow yourself the full fat yoghurt and maybe some extra fruit as well as a treat or two.