June 17th 2013

Wait... is it Monday again? Who said it could be Monday again?

I seem to be getting out of the habit of blogging at the weekend. I should rectify that..

Anyway, this weekend was a quiet one for me. Given how much pressure I put on my body last week and the effect it had on me when working out on Thursday, I decided to rest over the weekend and let my body recover. I did manage to do a couple of miles of walking on Saturday morning, but over all, I kept the weekend relatively quiet.

On the food front, I stayed relatively on course with the diet. On Saturday we attended a friend's birthday barbecue (or Braai, for the South Africans in attendance) where I pretty much gorged on meat. Just meat though. Lots of chicken wings, sausage, burgers, all cleanly cooked and all carb free. Nothing more manly than a dinner consisting of meat, meat and more meat. I had a couple of burger buns but definitely had less than my 100g of carbs across the day.

Sunday, I was a touch more relaxed, in that for dinner I had fishcakes and potatoes, which was comparatively heavy on the carbs, but it was all good clean food, so I don't feel guilty about it.

Over the weekend, I also discovered something amazing. I've been struggling a bit with hunger on this diet and I do feel myself wanting to snack during the days at work, especially when people around me are munching their way through the day. So a friend recommended I try making spinach crisps. They give you the crunch and the flavour you crave, but they're positively good for you. They're also a doddle to make. Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:
A couple of handfuls of baby leaf spinach
1 tablespoon of oil (olive, sunflower, or vegetable)
Salt
Pepper
Whatever flavouring you want

Put the spinach in a bowl and pour the oil on top. You only need a tablespoon of it, a little oil goes a long way.  Sprinkle the salt, pepper and your chosen flavouring on top (in this case, I'm using chilli flakes) and get your hands in, rolling the spinach and flavouring around in the oil until every leaf is covered.

Pre-heat an oven to 125 degrees centigrade. Place non-stick baking parchment or non-stick foil onto a baking tray. Lay out the leaves individually, making sure they don't overlap. Place the tray in the oven and bake.

Check the leaves after 10 minutes. Some leaves will cook faster than others. You want them to dry out and the oil to dissipate. It took about half an hour of mine to be ready in total. If you want, you can turn some of the bigger leaves over halfway through.

Once they're cooked, take the tray out of the oven and let them cool for a few minutes. Once they're cool, serve and enjoy.

They're so good and very moreish. Give it a try, I really like them.

Onto this week and the pressure is back on. This weekend will the point I get measured for the suit for the work event so I need to keep the intensity up across the week to try and lose as many inches as I can. Today is weigh day so later on today I'll know how much work I need to put in to try and maximise what I can for the week.

Expect my stats and another picture this evening. For now though, go and try the spinach crisps.