Month: August 2012

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Lord Woolton Pie- Version 2

After watching “The Supersizers Go – Wartime” I knew there was only one thing that I could possibly eat tonight and that was a Lord Woolton Pie… the pastry topped version with thick brown bisto gravy..

I followed the recipe below and I made three pies in smaller containers, enough for 6 people really except today I was as hungry as a horse so ate a whole pie and nearly a whole gravy boat full of the thick brown stuff smothered over the top.

I think I deserved it because today I ran at 5 mph for 5 minutes, ran for 10 minutes at 4 mph on a 2 incline and walked for 15 minutes at 3 mph on a 10 incline and put myself into the top endurance category for doing that… and burned off nearly 400 cals for my weight, doing so..

THIS is the BEST Lord Woolton Pie version by far. Cook the veggies well and season well too, lots of salt and pepper and dot over a little margarine before putting into the pie dish and covering with the dough.

Lord Woolton Pie- Version 2

1 lb diced potatoes
1 lb diced carrots
1 lb diced cauliflower
1 lb diced swede (turnip or rutabaga in North America)
Leek or an onion chopped
Fresh parsley chopped
1 or 2 teaspoons of marmite (yeast extract) or add stock powder to water or cook veggies in stock
1 heaped tablespoon of oats

Pastry

4 oz of wholemeal/wholewheat flour
2 oz of lard or margarine

Method

Dice up all the vegetables and just cover with water
mix in the marmite or stock and oats and stir
Bring to boil and simmer for 15 minutes until veggies are soft
Drain and then mix in plenty of salt and pepper and a teaspoon of margarine
Place in pie dishes or big pie dish
Make the pastry by chopping up the margarine into small pieces and rubbing it into the flour until it resembles bread crumbs
Add a little water and make a dough
Roll out the dough into the desired shape and until nice and then and place over the pie dish
Pierce the pastry with a sharp knife a few times
Glaze with a little milk or water
Place in oven at 180 C for 20-30 minutes until the pastry is golden brown

Serve with a nice thick gravy

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The Supersizers Go- Wartime

Thanks to Cat who left a comment on the 100 wartime recipes page about this TV series I completely missed… you will LOVE this! It’s funny and informative and how do you think a wartime diet affected their health?? I’ve embedded the 1940s wartime episode below for you to enjoy..

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Belted leeks

I bought myself a small bunch of organic leeks from the Bridgewater Farmers Market yesterday, after I had attended a quick volunteer meeting at the market for the Growing Green Sustainability Festival , taking place next week, where I’m looking forward to being a greeter (and hopefully not scaring folk away!)…

I found a Ministry of Food recipe for belted leeks and couldn’t wait for lunch time today and I’m pleased to say this quick and simple dish was delicious.

As always, I used a meat substitute for bacon (Tempeh) and a dairy substitute for regular milk (hemp milk) what with being a vegan and all…

Here is the original recipe…

Belted Leeks

  • 1 lb small thin leeks
  • 2 oz bacon rashers
  • 1/2 pint of white sauce
  • salt and pepper
  • dried herbs if wished

Method

  1. Trim and cook the whole leeks in boiling water until soft enough to eat (about 10-15 minutes)
  2. Drain well and save some of the leek water for the sauce
  3. Put the leeks in a heated dish and cover with the white sauce (see recipe for white sauce below)
  4. Grill the bacon and cut into narrow strips and arrange as belts over the leeks

(makes 4 helpings)

Recipe for white sauce

Use margarine or butter. Heat 1 oz of this in a pan and mix in 1 oz of flour, cooking over a low heat and then add in slowly while stirring, 1/2 pint of liquid (milk, milk and stock etc). Keep stirring and as the sauce comes to the boil it will thicken. Season to taste..

Some sights from Saturdays Farmers Market in Bridgewater..

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First proper hike in 23 years

I will not lie, today I have shed a few tears, on several occasions. Today I managed to do my first proper hike in 23 years, pain free. I am so happy and overcome with emotion about it all.

10 months ago, the extent of my walking was becoming limited in distance from the car park to the store and even that was so painful. My back which was suffering with a horrible lower crushing pain because of the huge amount of extra weight being carried on my torso..

I cannot explain to you fully just how liberating my new found freedom feels. This has to be one of the happiest days of my life in recent years.

I hiked 7 km today over rough terrain and the experience was amazing.

I’m not sure who to thank for this second chance but incase I ever should think about returning to my old eating habits I made this video diary complete with personal thoughts, so I would remember this day and NEVER put the weight I’ve already lost, back on.

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Exercising hard- damn hard

By other peoples standards, what causes me to become red faced and grotesquely sweaty, may just cause a few drops of perspiration to accumulate on their own brow, but I’m pretty proud of the effort I am putting in to lose the lbs.

I now exercise a minimum of 30 minutes a day, 6 days a week and most of that is aerobic.

Today I had a major breakthrough….I was due to tune in to the final session of week 3 of my “Couch to 5K” podcast program which would involve walking and jogging. Week 3 goes up to 3 minutes walking then 3 minutes jogging and I had been pushing my jogging speed to 5 mph and only “just” managing to complete 3 minutes.

When I got up to the gym I went to play my week 3 podcast and I had somehow managed to delete it…. gone! So instead I found some rather magnificent music from the movie “King Arthur”, shoved the ear buds in and decided to take the speed down a little and try some endurance.

With the treadmill set to an easy 3 mph I walked steadily for 5 minutes to warm up and then turned it up to a gentle 4 mph with an incline of 1 and started to jog. 8 minutes later for fear of doing something silly to my joints, turned it back down to 3 mph and continued to walk. “I just ran 8 minutes” !!! Woo Hoo! And then I dared to think I wonder if I could do a gentle jog for even longer?

After another 5 minutes of walking and spurred on by the incredibly arousing and haunting music, again I began to jog… 3 minutes passed, 5 minutes, 8 minutes, 10 minutes, 12 minutes…. Why was I still jogging and not hurting? Ok so I was sweating like someone had locked me in a sauna for 24 hours and painted me with beetroot juice BUT….. I got to 15 minutes and stopped for fear of Laura (from the couch to 5 k podcasts) somehow getting whiff of my naughtiness. I felt fine, I felt elated!!! I started jogging 3 weeks ago and had so far not run for longer than 3 minutes without stopping…

I needed this, I needed to know that I could stick this out

Have a great weekend!

C xxxxxxx

PS This weekend I am HIKING. YES HIKING!!! A 7 km trail, heading off with a back pack, some food and some water and some determination! If I don’t have a good weight loss this week I’ll throw rotten tomatoes at my bathroom scale!!

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Video- 1940s Experiment and C25K update

A sweaty update from the gym…

Just over 6 weeks to go until the year is up..

C xxxx

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Weigh-in week 45

This morning I am down to 230 lbs ( 16 stone 4 lbs). I remember this weight. Last time I weighed this little was when Emily was born and that was 15 years ago, yesterday!!!

I did pretty good yesterday considering. A couple of handfuls of plain potato chips was the extent of my naughtiness while Em and her friends devoured pizzas, quiche, birthday cake and ice-cream and other goodies.

Having only lost 2 lbs this week I’m now behind track to get to my goal. I’m going to increase my exercise to 5 hours per week and increase the amount of raw fresh food in my diet (I currently eat 50% raw) and use less sugar (Use very little anyway- never my full ration these days as I just find it too much)

Back to “couch to 5K” today at lunch! I NEED those endorphins!!

HOW ARE YOU DOING THIS WEEK? Please leave a message below- I LOVE reading about how other people are doing with becoming healthier and happier! It’s rather addictive don’t you think?

GOAL by October 1st, 2012: Live for one year using wartime food rations- 100 wartime recipes re-created- lose 100 lbs of fat

To date: 69 lb lost- 77 wartime recipes re-created

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By endurance we conquer..

The reality of pushing yourself hard. A gross sweaty mess. But that’s a good thing…

I forgot my headphones today so I couldn’t do the 2nd session of C25K (week 3) during lunch at the gym.

Instead I thought I’d do some 1 minute fast walking at 4 mph followed by 1 minute jogging at 5mph and I kept repeating that for 15 minutes or so. Then I found the incline button on the treadmill, brought my speed down to 3 mph and decided to focus on endurance… I’ve got a few little pains in my joints so thought walking again would be sensible.

Progressing quickly from an incline of 5 through to 10 I realized there was a lot to be said for “endurance”….

The famous explorer, Sir Ernest Shackleton once said “By endurance we conquer”…

Speed doesn’t always win this race we call life..

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We shall overcome… lots of things

I won an iPod shuffle!

I’m understanding many things about life right now..To get through it one has to become quite the athlete.

There are hurdles to jump, bridges to cross, rivers to swim and most certainly, many mountains to climb. Some mountains are bigger than others… some so large they seem impossible to climb and therefore it seems quite pointless to even take the very first step. But if we give up before we even try then where does that put us? Still right at the beginning… treading water.

One significant thing I have learned this past year, what this weight loss experiment and personal journey has solidified, is that, IF you want to succeed, make changes, move forward, change your body, indeed change your life, you have really do have to make CHANGES.

Now I accept that to lose weight and become a healthier, happier person, I will have to WORK VERY HARD to achieve it. There is no magical solution. The change HAS to come from within me as a person. I have to be willing to say no to the food that makes me fat, and each and every day decide I am the only person in charge of my destiny.

Today I started week 3 of the “Couch to 5k” (C25K) program. 5 kilometres seems like a mountain right now but that mountain seemed a LOT bigger just 21 days ago when my brain was reminding me that just a year ago I could barely walk a short distance from the car park to the grocery store and that I hadn’t ran in 23 years and that I STILL was obese….Luckily my heart won, it magnetically drew me towards taking a chance, to TRYING… And today I was running for 3 minutes at 5 mph, walking briskly at 4 mph then running again at 5 mph and continued this for my 30 minutes session. I DID IT! ANOTHER SMALL TRIUMPH!

Was it hard? Did it hurt? Hell yes, of course it did! But now I have fully accepted responsibility I know these are the things I have to do… And just minutes later, as my pulse rate dropped, and I blasted the cool air from the table fan on my face, those endorphins kicked in and I simply beamed with a sense of achievement.

And something else wonderful happened that boosted my feelings of wellbeing… I WON AN IPOD SHUFFLE!! Yes… pinch me! It is PERFECT for my “couch to 5 K” podcasts and I have loaded them up and I clipped the iPod shuffle to my bra and hit the treadmill.

All these positive re-enforcements are helping me tackle some huge personal issues in my immediate future. Sometimes the road seems so long and the horizon bleak but I know in life the weather ALWAYS breaks and the sunshine peeps through, draping the clouds in silver and kissing the faces of those who look towards it.

KEEP GOING… YOU CAN DO IT xxxxxxxxxx

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Weekly weigh-in and more about couch to 5k

Here is Laura- the voice inside my head 3 times a week.

Laura is the voice behind the NHS Couch to 5k program. She appears in a series of 9 weekly FREE downloadable podcasts to help you begin to exercise again, in a gradual, safe way. Regular cardio-vascular exercise (3 times a week), is an excellent way to strengthen your heart and in conjunction with a healthier diet, reduce the likelihood of coronary artery disease. Did anyone mention those AMAZING ENDORPHINS that kick in too? I NEVER knew you could actually become addicted to something healthy!!!

Weekly weigh-in

Damn and blast. Seeing no shift on the scale was NOT what I was expecting. I can only presume that I have eaten too much food this week despite all the exercise!! There is only one thing for it, back to writing EVERY SINGLE THING down that passes my lips!

As Laura would say on the podcasts

YOU CAN DO THIS!

C xxxxx

GOAL by October 1st, 2012:  Live for one year using wartime food rations- 100 wartime recipes re-created- lose 100 lbs of fat

To date: 67 lb lost- 77 wartime recipes re-created