Milestones (Amy's diary)

... I don´t think I´ve ever gone on the prowl for salad late at night :p

:rotflmao:
 
Day 3 of seven and I'm not finding it easy. My body is calling out bread! bread! and I have cracked far enough that I had a small bread roll with my egg-and-tomato-and-eggplant breakfast, and then 115 calories' worth of crackers since then. Dinner is planned to be that previously-mentioned reliable green brassica ;), but... can I make it through to tomorrow without cracking again?

(Survival strategy: I've been out and bought emergency supplies of carrot, lettuce and pineapple, to have something I can munch on.)
 
Well, I very nearly made it! I had one more slice of bread with my evening meal, which I wish I hadn't.
On the other hand, having the carrot there to munch on was really helpful, and I'll continue using that strategy for the rest of this 7-day campaign. (My sister has warned me that if I eat too many carrots the palms of my hands will turn orange, but I think that's a risk I can take for now.)

Also on the bright side, the scales this morning hit a new low - still about three pounds from my interim mini-goal, let alone my next real milestone (the defined line between obese and overweight) which is ten pounds off. But still, it's down.
 
:D :D pineapple lovers this way! Though actually I like most fruit - except maybe custard apples - or ordinary apples if they're not crisp.

And thanks, both, Cate and Alligatorob, for your encouragement - and for noticing in the first place! One mild downer about the recent family visit was that neither of my sisters noticed the weight I'd lost since I'd last seen them, which maybe hasn't been TV-show-worthy, but has been enough to be visible, if they'd wanted to see it.

I'm not on any particular planned diet, Rob - I usually have a biggish breakfast, most often with an egg in it, but it could be tomatoes cooked up with capsicum or whatever on toast, and always fresh fruit, and a cup of tea, then often mid-morning coffee, maybe with crackers or a handful of pistachios (or sometimes sweet biscuits), lunch will be something like dhal or tofu and vegetables on rice (but not rice this week, because I'm having a week-long push to get the numbers down) and tea will be early and light - maybe a bowl of broccoli and a little banana. I allow myself as much fresh fruit as I like, and as much lettuce, green beans (raw) and tomatoes, too - oh, and carrots, also raw.

That's when I'm by myself - eating with others often intervenes, and then I eat like everyone else - like last week, when I was cooking for four, roast vegetables by request, where I ate everything except the potatoes (why did I leave it this late in life to discover roast brussels sprouts? Yum!). And then had leftover roast veg in a slice of bread for breakfast. :D )
 
:D:D pineapple lovers this way! Though actually I like most fruit - except maybe custard apples - or ordinary apples if they're not crisp.

And thanks, both, Cate and Alligatorob, for your encouragement - and for noticing in the first place! One mild downer about the recent family visit was that neither of my sisters noticed the weight I'd lost since I'd last seen them, which maybe hasn't been TV-show-worthy, but has been enough to be visible, if they'd wanted to see it.

I'm not on any particular planned diet, Rob - I usually have a biggish breakfast, most often with an egg in it, but it could be tomatoes cooked up with capsicum or whatever on toast, and always fresh fruit, and a cup of tea, then often mid-morning coffee, maybe with crackers or a handful of pistachios (or sometimes sweet biscuits), lunch will be something like dhal or tofu and vegetables on rice (but not rice this week, because I'm having a week-long push to get the numbers down) and tea will be early and light - maybe a bowl of broccoli and a little banana. I allow myself as much fresh fruit as I like, and as much lettuce, green beans (raw) and tomatoes, too - oh, and carrots, also raw.

That's when I'm by myself - eating with others often intervenes, and then I eat like everyone else - like last week, when I was cooking for four, roast vegetables by request, where I ate everything except the potatoes (why did I leave it this late in life to discover roast brussels sprouts? Yum!). And then had leftover roast veg in a slice of bread for breakfast. :D )

I have had that happen to me when my family doesn't notice some of my weight loss. They notice when I put it on though! :rolleyes:

This all sounds very delicious, Amy. My mouth is watering. How do you make roast Brussels sprouts? I just got some from the store today and was going to steam them but hey, maybe you'll share? :D
 
Agreeing on the :rolleyes: about family members, and their inconsistent monitoring!

Brussels sprouts... first up is a major warning - this is NOT diety!! Eating roast veg last week is part of why I'm spending this week eating as modestly as I can.
But one of the people I was cooking for asked for them, so I went looking on the internet for how, and came up with:
- Pre-heat oven to about 250 (celsius) or 475 (fahrenheit), to very hot, in other words.
- Cut sprouts in half vertically.
- Put a good dollop of olive oil in a roasting pan. Or maybe "a good slosh" would better describe what I actually did.*
- Place sprouts cut side down in the pan, if a few leaves come loose, that's okay, they'll roast up into crispy bits.
- I cut slices of garlic and scattered those across, and salt and black pepper as well.
- Roast for about 45 minutes? Or maybe a bit less than that.

*It's the olive oil which makes this non-diety, of course. Steamed would be much healthier.
Though I've just done an internet search and found this:
Super Simple Roasted Brussel Sprouts - Slender Kitchen
which makes it sound quite feasible on a diet. :)
 
Thanks so much Amy! Mmmm. A “slosh” of olive oil does sound like it could jack up the calories. There are worse alternatives.
 
I absolutely love Brussel sprouts! We had some with our lunch today...
May I ask what's your view on roast Brussels sprouts, as above? Acceptable in the weight-loss aspect or not? I didn't have any of the roast potatoes (sob!) but maybe the Brussels sprouts were just as bad?
And you may well be right, on the sister front - we are (foolishly) a competitive bunch, though we love each other. I've always been the fat one of three, and maybe it's a little bit unsettling if I'm not so much as before.

Thanks ...
You're very welcome! :)
Re: calories - that recipe I linked to made do with just a tablespoon of olive oil, and calorie-counted to something reasonable, but I don't know how it would work out in the making.
 
G baked lots of veggies today & only used a little bit of olive oil & they were dry & nowhere near as nice as steamed. He added more oil & baked then a bit longer. Our verdict? Steamed is much, much nicer :)
 
Thanks, Cate! A report from a field test was exactly what I needed! :)
Who would have thought the humble Brussels sprout had so many different approaches? (I'm now all out of them, but very well prepared for next time!)
 
Haha. It was just good timing that G decided to have a go at baking them as he baked a whole heap of veggies. I love baked veg- carrots, parsnips, swede, mushrooms, tomatoes, sweet potato.... & had been dropping hints about having some. I think they have been the only baking fail for a long time. They ended up a little like semi-dried veg. G uses baking paper & only a little olive oil.
 
Well, here I am at the end of the week-long drive to get out of the post-visiting slump, and on to the mini-goal of under thirteen stone - and I didn't make it!
I did shake off the post-visiting gains, and did get to a new low of barely one pound over the mini-goal, but just couldn't make that extra leap. :(

Still, I do know it's possible. Maybe by this time next week.

(In a korma! I hadn't thought of that. :) And yes - cheers for olive oil as well - my favourite is Red Island. )
 
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