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.

June 12th 2013 part two

Today has been a mixed bag.

On the one hand, I'm incredibly sore still from last night's P90X experiment, but on the other, I have managed to get another 4 miles of walking under my belt. So I guess it's not all bad.

Tonight I'll be having a chill night. I need to rest, I've had a week of nearly constant exercise and my body is screaming for a rest, so I'm going to visit my friends tonight and just kick back. Tomorrow though, back to the grind, back to the gym, and back to kicking ass.

Yesterday I promised you all that I would give you the recipe for my super-amazing, great for you chilli con carne. Well, here it is in all it's glory:

This chilli is high in protein, low in fat and pretty good on carbohydrates. It makes four portions and is easily freezable. It's also a great meal to cook up in the morning, leave all day and reheat when you get in from work. In fact, it's better when you heat it up a second time (don't ask me why, it just is).

Ingredients:

• 500g Turkey Mince
• A red onion
• A bell pepper
• two or three cloves of garlic
• 1 or 2 jalapeno pepper(s)
• 120g of mushroom
• A tin of baked beans
• A tin of Red Kidney beans in water
• a tin of chopped tomatoes
• Tomato puree
• Oregano
• Mixed spice
• Mild chilli powder

Preparation time: 30 mins

Makes: 4 portions

Start by finding a large pan (I use a huge soup/stewing pan) and drizzle a teaspoon of oil in the bottom of it. Then crush the garlic, dice the onion, mushroom and pepper and slice the jalapeno peppers, removing the seeds (if you like it REALLY hot, leave the seeds in). Throw it all in the pan and start to brown it all.

When the vegetables have started to brown, throw in the turkey mince. Break it up in the pan and make sure it gets mixed in with all the veg. You want the turkey to take on the flavour from the garlic and the heat from the chilli.

While the turkey is starting to cook, open the tins and wash the kidney beans in a colander. The turkey needs to cook until it goes a light brown colour and you can't see any blood left. The turkey should clump into little balls of meat. When you reach this stage, take the pan off the heat and drain off the residual fat. Turkey mince has less fat than beef mince and what fat it does have, comes out as soon as you cook it, so you're effectively left with fat free meat once you've drained as much of the fluid out as you can.

Return the pan back to the heat and pour in the kidney beans, baked beans and chopped tomatoes. Mix it all up now and kick the heat up to full. You should notice that it looks quite watery right now, this is about to change. Squeeze in a good dollop of tomato puree (tomato ketchup will also work here, but it's worse for you), as much as you feel you need. Then a generous sprinkling of oregano and mixed herbs. Stir for a couple of minutes and reduce the heat slightly to let it simmer.

Have a taste of it. Salt and pepper to taste, but what we are interested in here is the heat. If it requires more punch, add the mild chilli powder until you're happy with it. Then drop the heat right down and let it simmer. You need to stir it occasionally. I normally wait until all of the fluids rise to the top of the chilli, then I stir it all back in. As it simmers, it begins to thicken up. It normally takes a further five to ten minutes for it to reach the ideal consistency. It should be thick and heavy, not thin and watery. It should clump together nicely.

Once it's reached the right consistency, take it off the heat and leave it for a further five minutes. Use this time to prepare your plates and the food you're having with it. Then it'll be ready to serve.

Serving Suggestion: Because I am on a carb reduced diet for this month, I can't have rice with this chilli. The chilli itself is relatively high in carbs, being about 35g of carbs per portion, so rice, wraps or tortilla chips are out of the question with it. I am combining it with super foods to make it extra great for me. In this case, I had broccoli, green beans and spinach with it and it was fantastic. An absolutely gorgeous meal.

If you're not being as restrictive as I am, then this goes great with white rice and a little sprinkling of cheese on top.

Please do give it a try and let me know what you think in the comments box below.

June 11th 2013

Today was a day spent in pain.

Mostly because I overdid it at the gym last night. For the first time in a long time I used that machine which simulates climbing stairs. Boy was that a mistake. It had my legs, backside and back in agony all day.

But, I'm not going to complain as I'm still on a high because of my weightloss so far.

Today at work I managed about 4 miles worth of walks without the pain that came last time I did such a lot of walking. I would have managed more, but I was very conscious about how far I'm walking at work, I don't want to be away from the office for too long, lest I get in trouble.

Food wise, I haven't really deviated from my normal chicken, pepperoni, ham, egg and spinach lunch box. It's still nice, I still love it, it's still all protein and hardly any carbs which suits me down to the ground. For dinner tonight, it was chilli con carne, with broccoli and slim green beans on the side. Again, high in protein but still very low in carbs. And bloody delicious to boot. Yum.

I'm actually going to write up the recipe for my chilli con carne at some point this week, I think you guys will really enjoy it. It's cheap, simple to make, makes about 4 portions and is easily freezable for months after cooking. It's fantastic.

Tonight I was planning on going to the gym, however, after nearly 2 hours pissing about trying to update my phone, failing and then having roll it back, it now seems a bit late to be going to the gym. I reckon I might try P90X for the first time tonight and see if it works for me.

If you don't hear from me in 24 hours, assume it's killed me.

June 5th 2013 part two

Seriously tired...

Today hasn't been anywhere near as intense as yesterday was. I've managed one walk today. My feet are still blistered and sore from yesterday, which puts the kybosh on walking.

I was planning on doing a bit of exercise at home but, I didn't. Simple enough. I'm far too tired. In fact, my eyes are still burning, I'm that tired.

I didn't have any nuts with me at work today so I came home from the office hungry enough to chew through a wall. On this diet of mine, I'm allowed up to 100g of carbs a day, though the idea is to minimise that as much as possible. My lunch (which was the same as yesterday) contains about 4g of carbs, so I have pretty much my entire day's allowance to play with.

So tonight's tea consisted of chilli, broccoli and potato waffles. That's right, potato waffles. Going off the package breakdowns, the portion of chilli worked out at 50g of carbs, the broccoli is free and the waffles were only 30g of carbs in total. Really nice, really different dinner and completely within the constraints of the diet. Win.

Tonight is the weekly visit to a friends house where we normally engage in beers to break up the week. Now, for the last 4 weeks I've not been drinking anyway and bringing pop but because I'm being so strict I can only really bring water. Big bottle of flavoured water it is, then.

However, I maintain, so tired...