Diet Diary: Post Special K Plan!

Okay its time to formulate my post Special K Plan.  So here is my plan.  Following on from the Special K diet I am going to make sure I eat breakfast every morning, it really is the most important meal of the day folks!  For lunch I am going to have a tuna mayo salad, the salad will be cucumber, pepper, sweetcorn and lettuce with a side portion of cous cous.  Snacking will be fruit and rice cakes only.  Then in the evening my meal will be approx 700 calories MAX!  That should put me on approx 1200-1400 calories a day putting me at a 600-800 calorie deficit a day.

Let me explain.  1 lb of fat equates to roughly 3500 calories.  So with me having an average of 700 calories deficit a week my total deficit for the week should be 4900, which means I should lose just over 1lb a week.  Overall I am looking to lose 14lbs.  Now I have had this calories controlled diet for a while now and not really lost much weight which is why I gave the special K challenge a go.  Basically I can only come to the conclusion that my metabolism is at a stand still.  So this means, Exercise, Exercise, Exercise!  

I have 2 new daily mantras.  The first is from Cassey Ho from the Blogilates channel on youtube. This mantra is "Train Insane or Remain the Same" She has some fab workout videos so you should really check her out and a lot of these are HIIT workouts which are great for losing weight.  She also has a website you can access here 

My other personal fave at the moment is Danny J from The Sweaty Betties.  My mantra from her is "Don't be a Bitch", when it hurts carry on!  Again she has some fab workouts on her youtube channel.  My fave is the Tabata style shoulder blast and this is her website

So here is my workout plan for the next month.  I am also going to be taking on The Sweaty Betties September Challenge and incorporating this into my workout routine.  I know its practically October, I will be doing the same steps over October instead.

Monday - 1 hour Zumba + 3 sets of 30 sit ups
Tuesday - 2 of Blogilates Pop Cardio workouts and The Sweaty Betties Tabata Shoulder Blast
Wednesday - walk/jog 1.5 mile, x1 Blogilates Pop Cardio & Resistance Training using Total Gym
Thursday - 20 mins Zumba and Sweaty Betties workout #2
Friday - Resistance Training, 3 sets of 15-25 push ups, x1 Blogilates Pop Cardio
Saturday - 1 hour Zumba
Sunday - REST!

So that's my plan.  I will list weigh in results in 2 weeks and then again at the end of the month and let you know how I got on with the challenge.  Wish Me Luck!





 

Tagine Cooking

For those of you who follow me on facebook you will have seen I have been a fan of Tagine cooking recently.  About a year ago Colin bought a book on Tagine recipes and Moroccan cooking.  Its an excellent book with a variety of dishes to suit all tastes.  Below are the recipes I have tried recently.  You will need either a Tagine of heavy based casserole dish (and lid) for these recipes  I have also made flatbread with these. Now there are so many different flatbread recipes, some with yeast some without, some wholly plain flour, some self raising, some mixing wholemeal etc!  Basically if you don't like the recipe I post below just google search and you will find a ton of alternatives.  I like this recipe though because I had never made any type of bread before and this was so simple so I have stuck with it. 

Chorizo and Chickpea Tagine (serves 4)

You will need:

• 175g dried chickpeas (I guess you can use the tin type instead though?)
• 2-3 tablespoons Olive Oil
• 2 Red onions, sliced
• 2 Garlic Cloves, chopped
• Roughly 15cm Chorizo sliced diagonally
• 2-3 Bay Leaves
• Several sprigs fresh thyme #(I subbed for dried thyme)
• 1-2 teaspoons  Spanish Smoked Paprika (its really important you use the smoked as it is part of the flavouring)
• Leaves from a small bunch of sage, shredded (again I used dried)
• Juice of 1 lemon
• Salt and Pepper (for seasoning)

So first of all you need to cook your chickpeas.  If you have used the dried variety you will need to soak them overnight, if you use the tinned just drain the juice from the tin.  You want to put them in a saucepan and cover with lots of water.  Boil the water than reduce the heat and simmer for approx 45 mins.  You want the chickpeas to be soft but with a bite.  Drain and run under cold water and peel off any loose skins.

Now heat the olive oil in your Tagine or casserole dish.  Stir in the onions and garlic and saute until they start to brown.  The throw in the Chorizo, bay leaves and thyme, again sauteing until lightly browned.  Add the chickpeas and paprika and cover with the lid. Cook on a low heat for 10-15 mins.  Before serving ass the sage and lemon juice and stir.  Season to Taste and voila!

Chorizo Tagine with lentils (serves 4-6)

You will need:

•  2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 onions, chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, chopped
• 450g Chorizo 
• 2 teaspoons ground tumeric
• 2 teaspoons ground fenugreek
• 225g brown lentils (my local Tesco did not stock these so I bought red instead)
• 400g tin chopped tomato's
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• salt and pepper to season

Okay so first you need to heat your oil in your tagine or heavy based casserole dish.  Similar method to before and add those onions and garlic to lightly saute until they start to colour.  Add the chorizo slices and saute for 2 mins to flavour the oil.  Add the tumeric and fenugreek and lentils and stir to ensure even coat of spices.  Add the tomatoes and sugar and enough water to cover the lentils by 2.5 cm.  Bring the liquid to the boil, than reduce the heat and put the lid on cooking gently for approx 25 mins.  Check occasionally and add more water if needed.  Season to taste and your done!

Flatbread (makes approx 8 flatbreads)

You will need:

• 150g plain flour
• 150g wholemeal flour
• 1tsp salt
• 1 tbl spoon olive oil
• 120 ml water

So mix the flours and salt than add the oil to the water and give it a stir.  Add this to your flour mixture slowly then bring all the ingredients together until it forms a dough.  If the dough is sticky add more flour until it has a more doughy consistency.  Then dust a surface with flour to knead.  The best way to knead is to stretch the bread out, then roll it back towards you.  Repeat this several times.  The roll your dough into a long (but thick) sausage shape and divide into 8.  Roll these 8 parts into balls then again on your floured surface roll these out until they are about as thick as a 20p piece.  Heat your frying pan up (NO OIL) and when its hot add your flatbread (you need to do each individually),  A couple of minutes on each side should be enough and you have lovely homemade simple flatbreads!  I also recently made these to accompany a curry dish and they were fab!  Much healthier alternative to Naan Bread!

Review: Tesco Scan as you Shop

So, some of you may have been into your local Tesco recently and seen these strange new additions to your trolleys, a holder of sorts.  When I saw these at my local Tesco last week I thought they might be introducing the scan as you go technology I have previously seen at Sainsbury's.  

I was right, this week when I went to do my weekly shop I was accosted by a member of staff and asked if I wanted to give it a go and was given a leaflet of the terms and conditions of use.  These are common sense really basically informing you that you will be spot checked occasionally to ensure you have scanned everything and if you do knowingly steal (not accidentally forget to scan) then you won't be able to use the service anymore.  You also have to register for the service which involves scanning your clubcard and entering your post code.  Then your ready to go!

To begin you scan your clubcard and a scanner will be highlighted for you to pick up and use.  It really is simple there are a few buttons on the scanner itself.  One is to scan items, one is to remove items and there is one which has promotional information on about products you scan.  You simply go along do your weekly shop and scan everything as you put it in your trolley.  At the end you go to a special designated area which closely resembles a cattle cage and park your trolley in a bay alongside a touch screen (same as self-serve) till.  You then simply scan a bar code on that till to confirm you have finished your shop and it will upload the data to the till.  At this point I had to have a spot check as it was my first shop and these will be random in future.  A member of staff just scanned approximately 10 random items to confirm I had scanned them and then I went ahead and paid.  

So the benefits of this service:

1. It is convenient, you scan as you go along and then put items straight into bags rather than have a face off with an evil cashier who scans at the speed of light whilst you try to pack everything in a structured way.
2. You beat the queues!  When I went to the tills today the queues were horrific, however, I rather smugly walked on by to the special area for scan as you shop customers where there was no queue and was out within 5 minutes
3. If you have a weekly budget as I do then this is really useful as your total is shown on the screen as you go along including any discounts from promotions.  
4. Its easy!  It really is a user-friendly system.  

Negatives:

There aren't many negatives to the customer except:

1. As with the self serve tills you have to record yourself if you use your own bags for your green points.  I nearly forgot but luckily the staff member reminded me
2. If there are any promotional coupons such as the current ones for knives you have to ask for them or you won't get them, so again you have to have your thinking cap on
3. If you like talking to your cashier at the end of your shop than your not going to have that experience.

To be honest the Negatives for Tesco are way worse than the customer.  Yes they do random spot checks but you will have times when people whether accidentally or not do not scan items and then finish their shop without a spot check meaning a loss on Tesco's side.  They do have clubcard details for each shop but I imagine it would be difficult to attribute a no scanned tin of beans to one customer.  I also think it is gonna make the job of Stock Control very difficult since customers have to remember to scan different flavours separately.  So for example, if I was to buy 2 packs of cous cous that were different flavours I have to scan each one separately but I can imagine there will be people who will double scan one.  

Anyway, I really liked this service and will definitely be using it again for all future shops.  Next time your in Tesco....Give it a go!
 

Diet Diary: The End of Special K!

The Special K Diet is now over and the results are in!  But first I wanted to give a review of this diet.  I was also quite naughty and celebrated the end with a large Pepperoni Passion Domino's Pizza...sssh!!!!  

For those who haven't read my previous blog here is a breakdown of the Special K Diet.  For 2 of your 3 meals a day you can only eat Special K, I chose to have Special K for breakfast and Lunch and have a "normal" meal for dinner.  In between meals you can snack on fruit or Special K Bars. I chose to snack on fruit and sub the bars for Rice Cakes because those bars are so expensive and also quite sugary!  They also emphasise you should drink 6-8 glasses of water daily.  Kellogg's claim through this diet you can lose up to 6lbs and drop a jean size.  I also continued to work out during these 2 weeks alternating between Zumba, Cardio, Resistance Training, Tabata and HIIT workouts.

So Week One was fairly  easy.  I was honestly surprised as I thought eating nothing but cereal for 2 meals a day would leave me starving!  I made sure I had lots of fruit so not only was I snacking on something healthy but I sure as hell got my 5 a day!  I chose not to do a weigh in and measurements at the end of week one as I am trying to this every 2 weeks now as a general rule anyway.  Its way more healthy to weigh/take measurements every 2 weeks rather than obsessively monitor it.  Your also more likely to see results this way.

Onto Week Two.  I made some changes this week because honestly Special K tastes like crap.  Its really tough and crackly and has zero flavour!  So I chose to sub Special K with a Full English Breakfast.  JOKE! In reality I subbed it for Bran Flakes as I actually really like Bran Flakes and I would probably say they are better then Special K as they have all the same vitamins, low cal, low fat but also have a ton of fibre which Special K doesn't.  

To sum up the negatives of this diet, Special K tastes like crap so I couldn't endure the full 2 weeks with it and subbed for an alternate healthy cereal.  It also became very monotonous towards the mid way mark as 2 of my 3 meals a day were so bland.  I also found I couldn't look forward to lunch as I normally would.  Also for me I didn't get the dramatic results this diet promised but I will come onto that shortly.

But I don't want to focus wholly on the negatives as there are some positives to this diet even though I did not get the desired results. Firstly, it reminded me how important breakfast is! When I started work at the hospital as a support worker I always ate breakfast.  We would serve the patients and then sit down with them and eat breakfast.  When I got my Assistant Psychologist post I started skipping breakfast and instead snacked on fruit mid-morning to tide me over to Lunch but would still be starving and therefore feel hungry after Lunch still.  So one thing I have took away from this diet will be to ensure I have breakfast in the morning since whilst doing this I didn't need to snack mid-morning and felt full after lunch.  The other positive is it encouraged me to drink 6-8 glasses of water a day which I am notoriously bad at.  So I stayed hydrated.  Drinking water also helped tackle hunger pangs when I wasn't hungry and actually just wanted a drink.  

So the Results!  Although there have been some minor changes I don't know if these can be wholly attributed to the diet since I have been working out a lot. 

BEFORE                                                                  AFTER

Weight: 147lbs                                                       Weight: 145lbs

Chest:    36 inches                                                 Chest:    36 inches

Waist:    33 inches                                                 Waist:   30 inches

Hips:      41 inches                                                  Hips:    41 inches

Also my stomach measurement (from belly button around) before was 37 inches and is 36 inches now.  I will do another blog shortly on my post Special K Plan as this blog is getting too long! 

 

Diet Diary: The Beginning

The Special K Mission...

Okay, so here's the thing, I have recently been trying to lose weight.  I've cut my daily calorie intake down, being doing Zumba and resistance training and not really noticed any difference.  I have lost a couple of inches but 0 pounds! All in all I am not feeling very confidant and the lack of noticeable difference on my part is making my motivation wane.  So I was talking with a friend and she said she had success with the Special K Diet.  She said it was horrible but effective.

So, I have therefore decided to give this a whirl.  For the next two weeks I will be having Special K for breakfast and for lunch and a normal meal in the evening.  In between I will snack only on fruit or rice cakes.  I will also continue with my current exercise regime which is 2-3 sessions of resistance training and 2-3 sessions of Zumba per week.  

My weight starting this experience is 147lbs, My current measurements are:

Chest - 36 inches

Waist - 33 inches

Hips - 41 inches

Also my stomach measurement (from belly button around to back) is 37 inches.  My big target areas are my stomach and hips so I am hoping this diet will give me improvement in these areas.  

I will give a halfway update next week to see a) if there is any progress and b) describe how torturous the process is!

My First Review: Sky Atlantic's "The British"

The British are Coming!

As most people who know me are aware, I love history!  We in the United Kingdom have such a rich history and I find all aspects of it fascinating.  My fondness lies in the history of the monarchy, I know a little bit about most the Kings/Queens we have had but have always had a special place for the Tudor Dynasty, beginning with Henry VII and ending with Elizabeth I.  I feel this period spanning from 1485-1603 was a real turning point in our history.  

Anyway the focus of this blog is a show which debuted on Sky Atlantic this week (06/09/12).  I have been waiting for this show for several weeks now, having been enthralled by the teaser adverts which gave away little.  In some ways the show lived up to my expectations but in others it did not.  

Sky describe the show as: 

"Combining gripping drama, spectacular CGI and compelling commentary, The British is an ambitious and unmissable new series which tells the history of Britain and Ireland from the Roman invasion to the birth of TV and the Coronation of Elizabeth II in 1953"

The first episode covered the time period of 54BC-AD500, namely the Roman Invasion.  It covered key events such as the Massacre of the Druids, the creation of roads/townships, Hadrian's Wall and the eventual downfall of the Romans.  It also covered how although the Romans left, the religion of Christianity they brought with them remained and told the story of St Patrick.  

I felt the history content of the show itself was excellent, although there were a few random bits such as Stonehenge bursting forth from the ground in a way which reminded me of Danny Boyle's take on the Industrial Revolution in the Olympic Opening Ceremony.  I haven't studied the Romans since I was in school so it was interesting to cover this topic again as an adult and the show did leave me wanting to read more about this period.  I have always been of the opinion if a TV show/Movie (whether its a documentary or historical fiction)  leaves viewers wanting to research the period further then it's a success.  

However, there were some irritating aspects to this show.  The CGI which Sky describes as "spectacular" felt amateurish at times.  I honestly felt at times I was watching a bad straight to DVD movie.  Yet, this was not the worst thing.  I thought the show would be a narrative description of events with a dramatisation for visual effect.  Occasionally throughout the show there are commentators on specific periods/events.  Most of these are historians/specialists in their field, however occasionally you get the token celebrity such as Helen Mirren, Russell Brand, Jeremy Irons and Lennox Lewis.  Sky describe these contributions as "unique insights on how thousands of years of British history have shaped the people and nation we are today".  I beg to differ, these are clearly to try and cater to a wider audience and boost ratings.  Russell Brand describing how we are "a tenacious people" and Helen Mirren commenting on the Druid Warrior Women had be cringing quite frankly!

Nevertheless this show did enthral me and I will continue to watch the rest of the series, I may just have to keep the remote handy to fast forward any future celebrity comments.  There is still Jessie J, Frank Lampard, Tracey Emin and more to come I am afraid!

Next Week's episode covers 1066-1415 including topics such as the Black Death and the Peasant's Revolt.  I look forward to it :)

For more information about the show, see Sky Atlantic's website:

http://skyatlantic.sky.com/the-british/about-the-show

The Infamous First Blog...

First Blog and Best News Ever

 

This is my first time ever blogging.  like EVER.  I guess there are several reasons why, firstly I find myself with too many thoughts in my head, all the time!  So I thought I could hash some of them out on here for my own sanity.  Secondly, everyone else does it, not that I am in any way bowing to peer pressure but I figure I have lots of books, products I use so not only will you get my crazy ramblings but the odd review.  I always find reviews of products helpful informing my own purchasing decisions so why not spread the love.  Thirdly....

....Okay so it turns out there is only really 2 reasons. 

Anyway moving past my somewhat dubious reasons for starting to blog, I have some very exciting news to share.  My best friend Lorri got engaged yesterday.  Lorri and I have been friends for about 3 years now but in those 3 years she has become a very important part of my life.  I knew her from work and we spoke occasionally but she was there for me at a time when I really needed somebody.  My ex had broken up with me and I was in a pretty bad place, Lorri did everything a best friend should, listened to me whine on, was there for me when the tears came, and got me drunk...alot!    See below for evidence...

She got me through that rough time and we have some awesome memories.  Spending hours getting ready round her place, getting into town and already wanting to head straight to the curry house before we have hit the club, Lorri then moaning that I didnt remind her about her acrylic nails when eating her curry and having curry stained nails the following day.  Good Times :), Despite me moving to London and then Surrey, our friendship has survived, she is always at the end of the phone if I need her and I always look forward to seeing her, especially if it involves Noodle Bar.  Lorri is also the reason I havent had a bad haircut in 3 years....she is an awesome hairdresser!

So anyway here's to Lorri, my first blog is dedicated to you!  (and Matt too I guess :p ) and congrats on your engagement!  Your two deserve every happiness and I know you are going to be the most beautiful bride