Month: March 2016

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How much do I want to succeed?

This morning I am 69 lbs away from dropping below 200 lbs. Down 28 lbs since January and down 77 lbs from my heaviest.

blouse-looseToday I discovered that there were now clothes in my wardrobe that were getting too loose. I refuse to ever fit back into them so I hastily put them up for sale on eBay. This process, to me, is all part of my own personal metamorphosis. Those clothes represent the big me, I want to change them as I shrink, banish them. I’ve kept by a couple of items. One white striped blouse that absolutely now swamps me. When I bought it a year ago, I didn’t wear it as it was a little too tight around the bust and it was gaping…. it felt so strange to think that just 28 lbs had made such a difference. TODAY was the first time I began to notice that there wasn’t as much of me as there used to be. Oh how thrilling that was!

HOW MUCH DO I WANT TO SUCCEED RIGHT NOW?

More than anything. But it has to be that way to succeed at something. I’m giving this my all. My brother recently bought me a Fitbit. I currently live by my Fitbit. It motivates me to keep moving, to drink more water, climb more stairs, give my heart a cardio workout, eat enough even. A FREE weekend pass to Pure Gym in Nottingham dropped into my e-mail box the other day. I immediately took advantage of using this knowing that the weather would hinder taking exercise outside. Every morning I was in the gym for 7:30 am…I WANT TO SUCCEED SO BADLY!

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I can’t bear the thought of returning to the crippling back pain I would experience (as I was approaching 300 lbs in weight) when trying to walk any distance. I can’t believe now how many years I lived with that on and off and never thought I was important enough to make THAT the most important thing to succeed at in my life.

But I’m doing that now.treadmill

The best present I can give myself this year will be the gift of health. I will jump on the scales on Christmas Day and it WILL be under 200 lbs.

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No longer in the 270’s.

FINALLY, after much vegetable chomping and recent walking through country parks and the streets of Nottingham, my weight dropped into the 260’s… I seem to have been 270 something for ages, the reality is just a few weeks but it did seem such a long time (especially having spent the last few weeks with 73 Easter Eggs on my work desk.) Click here.

The poor kind folk of Instagram were treated to YET ANOTHER close up of my feet (complete with chipped pink nail varnish) standing on the bathroom scales to announce my triumph to the world. My Instagram page is here.

And here I am again, subjecting you lovely people to yet another self absorbed update from the life of a cheese and chocolate addict who seems to have had everything under control for several weeks now. I’m not stressed, I’m calm, and I feel quite happy.

If my life can stay on an even keel now, maybe I really WILL be able to continue to successfully lose my weight and become a healthy person.

Thank you for listening. I’m off to eat more beetroot (yes really!)

Thanks for the love.

C xxxxx

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The Original Lord Woolton Pie – Recipe No. 151

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I’ve made a couple of versions of ‘Woolton Pie’ which you will find in my list of re-created recipes here BUT after much research I think now I’ve found the original recipe.

I love Lord Woolton Pie. Thing is I go bonkers for pastry and a generous serving of this comforting vegetable pie with a thick brown Bisto gravy made with the vegetable water, was exactly what I needed today. My tummy is full and a lie down on my bed is in order while playing some 1940s music on my lap-top.

Lord Woolton Pie – it seems a fitting send off to National Pie Week!

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Lord Woolton Pie

1lb cauliflower
1lb swedes (I used parsnips)
1lb carrots
1lb potatoes
Bunch of spring onions chopped
2 teaspoons of Marmite (yeast extract – or you can use a stock cube)
Tablespoon of rolled oats
Salt and pepper to taste once cooked.
Parsley (fresh or dried)

For the pastry

8oz wholemeal/wholewheat flour
4oz mashed potato
3oz margarine or lard
2 tsp of baking powder
couple large pinches of salt
Dash of water if needed.

Method

Chop up the vegetables into chunks with those that take longest to cook into smaller pieces.
Place in pot and bring to simmer with just enough water to reach 3/4 of the way up the veg in the pot.
Add in Marmite and rolled oats, salt and pepper and cook until tender and most of the water has been absorbed.
Place mixture in deep pie dish and sprinkle with fresh parsley (or add dry parsley to mixture and mix in)
Make the pastry by mixing the flour with the baking powder and salt and then rubbing in the margarine.
Mix the mashed potato in to form a dough and knead (add a little water to the mixture if too dry)
Roll out to form pie crust and place on top and decorate then brush with milk.
Place in oven at 200C for 30 minutes or so until top is form and browned.

Serves 8

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Another weigh-in – Started some very basic morning exercise – VIDEO

So I’ve bought a couple of new exercise items from Tesco’s which cost me just £10 in total. They were a bit of an impulse buy but I figured I’ll just make some cuts in other areas over the coming week or two and I do so want to get started with some gentle toning. I can’t afford to go back to the gym right now but hope to do so in the near future once I’ve worked out my budget again and put a few things in order.

We had plans to go to the carboot this morning but when I woke up early and everyone was fast asleep and I looked at the beautiful day I thought it would be nice to just do a couple laps of the park, nice gentle exercise to ease me back into things and plus the fact I’d spend no more money! So that’s my plan for later this morning…. a walk in the sun!

Getting back to toning…. the items I bought from Tesco’s were a resistance band for £3 and a kind of balance disc thingy which cost me £7. As I have no muscle tone whatsoever I thought these may help me start the ball rolling and I managed to do about 20 reps with the band and 5 minutes on the disc in total.

Later today, because it’s the end of National Pie week here in the UK, what better way to celebrate than cooking a nice big ‘Lord Woolton Pie’. I’ll share the photos later.

Have a great Sunday!

C xxx

 

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Plum Charlotte – Recipe No. 150

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Here’s a super frugal wartime recipe made out of stale bread and fruit that’s going a little soft. As I had two of these things in my kitchen and I’m always finding ways to make ends meet, when I saw this recipe I knew it was just what I needed.

As I’m trying hard to reduce my weight and become healthier, I reduced the below ingredients by half to make a small pie that would make two generous portions (and this also ensured that if in a moment of weakness I gobbled it all up then not so much damage would be done). By the way I didn’t. I ate half with no custard. It was absolutely DELICIOUS! I really did want to eat it all though…

The cost of this dish was about £1 and calories about 800 for the whole pie ( if making the full size pie using the ingredients below it will be around 1600 kcals so about 400 cals per serving)

Plum Charlotte

1 lb (450g) fruit, weight when prepared (eg. several plums and 1 large apple)
3 oz (75g) sugar
8 oz (225g) bread
2 oz (50g) margarine.

Method

Cut apples into small slices, no need to peel. Half and stone the plums. Place fruit into a saucepan with half the sugar and a couple of spoonfuls of water and simmer for 5 minutes.

Heat margarine up in a saucepan until melted and hot. Break up the bread into coarse breadcrumbs with your fingers and add to the margarine in the saucepan and stir, add the remaining sugar and a couple of spoonfuls of milk to ensure bread is mixed and slightly damp.

Place fruit mixture into pie dish, cover with breadcrumb mix.

Place into a pre-heated oven (180C or 350F).

Cook for 30-40 minutes until top is brown and crisp.

Serves 4

PS: A BIG THANK YOU to JOY who knitted me a lovely tea cosy for my teapot. Doesn’t it look GREAT!!!

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Pink Layer Party Cake – Recipe No. 149 (Mother’s Day Tribute)

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A perfect Mother’s Day morning. Eating pink cake for breakfast and drinking tea from a vintage pink china cup. AND I got to spend an hour or two faffing around taking photos of this authentic wartime recipe and updating my blog to share it… I hope you’ll share it around too and bring a smile to a mother’s face, after-all what is there NOT to like about pink cake and pretty china.

So this recipe was followed 100% to the book. First I’m going to moan. The sponge was kinda firm and chalky (as it contained strawberry blancmange powder) and the icing (which was also made out of blancmange powder) slithered off the cake and all over the plate leaving my sponge with a soggy bottom. This wasn’t the best wartime cake recipe I’ve tried, not even near it.

But there was one redeeming factor….it was PINK. (after I’d added some extra drops of red food colouring)

The recipe actually ONLY made one sandwich tin’s worth of cake. In the end I cut in it half, and sandwiched both halves together with LOTS of strawberry jam to make HALF A CAKE (which is probably a good thing…)

And I did thoroughly enjoy two slices for my breakfast and as I drank my tea and ate my cake and pondered on the moving sentiment written inside my eldest daughter’s card to me this morning (she’s 27 BTW), a solitary tear slipped into my tea-cup. Being a parent takes you on a journey one can never truly describe, it’s a selfless road that never ends, until it does. And then I contemplated how lucky I am as a woman, how strong and amazing ALL women can be…and then I ate more pink cake and smiled.

Here’s the recipe.

Pink Layer Party Cake

1 cupful of self-raising flour
1/2 cup full pink blancmange
1/4 cup caster sugar
2 dried or fresh eggs
2 oz margarine

Method

Beat sugar and margarine together.
Mix flour and blancmange powder together.
Add beaten eggs and flour mix, bit by bit to margarine and sugar mixture. Beat well.
Add to two small sandwich tins (or one larger one to make 1/2 a sandwich cake) and bake for 20-30 minutes at 180 C.
When cold sandwich together with a generous quantity of strawberry or raspberry jam.
To ice the cake boil together 2 tablespoons of caster sugar with 2 tablespoons water and a teaspoon of margarine until dissolved well. Allow to cool until lukewarm then add blancmange powder (you’ll need most of the packet) to create the icing to top the cake with. Leave to cool and thicken more before adding to cake top.
I added some drops of red food colouring to sponge mix and icing.

 

HAPPY MOTHER’s DAY!

 

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Weigh-in March 5, 2016 -doing great!

Am happy!

Every day I’m keeping a food diary and my eating has been under control 100% for at least 10 days now and I’ve now lost 22 lbs in the last 2 months. I’m reducing sensibly but strictly at the moment as losing weight is a priority as is eating lots of good nutritious foods. I’m supplementing my diet with milled flax seed on my daily porridge as well as two flax seed oil capsules and a vitamin D tablet and a handful of walnuts or almonds. I’m getting plenty of calcium and protein through my food and am really beginning to feel quite good even though I’m 274 lbs (19 stone 8 lbs) and have 78 lbs to lose to get to my first goal.

Hope you enjoy my 5 minute video diary, there are shout outs to a few people on there including a little more info on what I eat on a daily basis at the moment.

C xxx

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