Chicken and Cashew Nuts

Chicken and cashew nuts

Takes 30 mins

Propoints per serving: 6

Serves 4

***********

Ingredients

1 teaspoon sunflower oil

40g cashew nuts, halved

2 teaspoons sesame oil

 

350g Chicken breasts

2 carrot, peeled and cut into thin batons

150g baby corn, cut into thirds

100g mange tout, halved

2 garlic cloves, sliced

A bunch of spring onions, cut into 2.5cm lengths, reserving some, sliced finely, to garnish

2 tablespoons soy sauce

1 tablespoon dry sherry

300 ml chicken stock

1 tablespoon cornflour

 

Heat the sunflower oil in a wok and gently brown the cashew nuts. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside.

Coat the chicken in the sesame oil, then tip into the hot wok and cook for 3 minutes, stirring occasionally, until browned.

Add the carrots, baby corm, mange tout and garlic and stir fry for 2 minutes.

Stir in the spring onions, soy sauce and sherry and cook for 1 minute.

Return the cashew nuts to the wok, add the chicken stock, cover and simmer for 5 minutes.

Blend the cornflour with 1 tablespoon of cold water, then stir into the sauce until slightly thickened. Serve immediately.

Back on Track... again!

Today was a good day... well relatively so.
I ate a proper breakfast before I left for work, and had a yoghurt on my tea break at work... I had gotten into the FILTHY habit of having TWO slices of toast with REAL butter! Shocking!  That's one of the big changes I need to cement.  Fruit or yoghurt.  NO toast, no scones, no yummy brown bread!!
I had a pitta for lunch, that wasn't particularly low in pp, but it wasn't the worst decision I could have made.  And then I had one of my favourite dinners... chicken and cashew nuts.  I'll throw up the recipe in a minute.. just in case anyone might read this!
My brother called down earlier, and I may have gone a bit to town on the biccies, but I'm ok with it.  I didn't stop at the shop on my way home (another bad habit), and there was no trip to the shop after my lunch for chocolate either. 
Baby steps. that's the way to go!!
I also went to the gym, and did day1 week 2 of the C25K... I did notice the step up from last week I can tell ye!!
Here's to another good day tomorrow!

Ouch!

Yes, that's the sound of me banging my head when I fell off the wagon.  Easter Sunday it happened, and four weeks later, I'm actually coming round.  I don't like to think of the damage I've done, but at least now, I've woken up. 

Mini- goals are out the window... well at least the time scale is.  Right now, I just want to concentrate on eating healthily, and minding myself.   Needless to say, I'm quite disappointed in myself, but there's no point crying over it now... Just have to dust myself off, and start over- well not over exactly, I haven't put on three stone or anything... just maybe a half one or so.

This is my long week at work, so won't be weighing in this week. I'm going to start with a small few simple and very positive changes. 

• I've bought a nice little notebook for tracking.  And a fancy new pen with several colours.  I'm going to track track track.  I'm going to write treats in red to show how many pp are being used on niceties. 
• I'm going to plan my meals for the whole week, and get organised. 
• I'm going to drink more water- no fizzies for me this week

That's all.. quite manageable.

It's soooo embarrassing to admit to cyperworld that I've f**ked up once again.  But I have to admit it... then I'll have some hope of not doing it again.

The start of the end? or a new beginning?

I need help... My newfound resolve of last week was short lived.  I've been overeating all week.  It was at its worst today, when I seemed to decide to just give up.  I've been at weight watchers for 15 months, and although I made good progress for the last while, for the last 10 or 11 months, I've gotten nowhere, and it seems as though I'm wasting my time and my energy (not to mind my money).
This morning I decided to cut my ties with Weight Watchers.  And now, I'm having second thoughts.  I can't even decide to drop out decisively!!
I know I'm dropping out for the wrong reasons.  If I'd reached a place where I was happy with my weight, and felt I could maintain solo, that would be ont thing.  But I haven't.  And I cant.  I KNOW that if I stop even pretending to be a weight watcher, I'll pile on the pounds again.  And I don't want to.  But I cant seem to make myself knuckle down to following the plan either. 

Tonight, I did something weird.  I undressed, and used the timer on my camera to take some naked fat photos... I promise I'm not going to follow this statement with posting them or anything!  They weren't anything I was proud of, and I didn't really enjoy looking at them.  They may have proved to me that I do need to keep going though  (I kinda wish I could have kept them to spur me on, but obviously I know that would be weird, and I'd be institutionalised if anyone found them!!). 

So this week, I'm going to do several things to try and get someway back on the right track....

• I'm going to give up chocolate again.  Cold turkey.  I can't handle small bits, so I'll have none
• I'm going to exercise at least three times between now and this time next week.  Proper exercise- red in the face, and actually sweating exercise.
• I'm going to go filling and healthy.  I'm not having much success at tracking, so I'm going to change tack on this one.

Wish me luck folks!

Vegetarian Lasagne

This is one of my favourite lasagne recipes.  It's from the Operation Transformation of last year (2012).  Before I made it the first time, I thought I'd hate it, and really miss the meat, but I never have.  It's a handy dinner to make the night before, for days when I know I won't have much time for cooking after work, and as it has 4 portions, it's 2 days dinner (for two adults).  The only problem now is that my son loves it, and sometimes we have to make four adult portions, and two baby ones, so there's less to go round!  I usually just eat it on it's own, but a side salad and or some garlic bread made with ww bread, and low fat butter makes it a meal noone could complain about!!

I will confess that I usually use a jar of white sauce rather than making my own... I made my own once, and it was a bit runny, so I ended up using extra flour to thicken it.  With the extra, there wasn't much difference between the pp of the homemade vs that of the jar... (and the bought version was tastier!!).

Serves: 4
pp per serving: 9 (this may vary for different brands of product)

Ingredients:

• 1 medium onion, diced
• Large bag spinach, washed
• 2 x 400g cans chopped tomatoes
• 10-11 Wholewheat lasagne sheets
• 1 tbsp vegetable bouillon
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1 tablespoon tomato purée
• Pinch of paprika
• 1 teaspoon oregano
• black pepper
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 100g Grated low fat mozzarella cheese
• Light spray oil

For the white sauce:

• 20 g butter
• 2 tablespoons flour
• 800ml low fat milk

Method:

1. Heat the oil in a large pan and fry onions for a few minutes.
2. Add chopped tomatoes, vegetable stock and half of the washed spinach. Close lid and let the spinach cook into the sauce.
3. Stir the sauce and add the rest of the spinach once the first lot has wilted down.
4. Stir in tomato puree, garlic, paprika, black pepper and oregano. Let it simmer for 3 minutes, stirring occasionally. Set aside until needed.
5. To prepare the white sauce. Melt the butter in a pan.
6. Add the flour and milk, stirring all the time. This sauce is meant to be very liquid and only a minimum quantity of butter and flour is used to keep the calorie content down.
7. Use spray oil to coat oven dish. Place a layer of white sauce in the bottom of the dish and cover with a layer of lasagne sheets.
8. Pour more white sauce in the bottom so that the lasagne sheets are covered. Add a layer of vegetable mixture and over that another layer of white sauce and on top of that another layer of lasagne sheets.
9. Carry on with white sauce and spinach mixture and lasagne sheets for another layer or two so that the last layer is spinach mixture. Sprinkle the mozzarella cheese over the top.
10. Cover with tinfoil and place in oven at 200 °C for approximately 40 minutes until lasagne is al dente.
11. Serve.

My Steps to Goal

I've totally lost sight of where I want to go, and how I want to get there.  I used to have a list of mini-goals, and I LOVED ticking them off every couple of weeks.  I don't know why I stopped doing that... probably because I got kind of comfortable, and I bought some new clothes, and I didn't really see a need to be so "into" weight watchers... people were telling me I looked great, and I got comfortable... that was enough... right? WRONG! I'm over two stone over weight.  I may have looked alright.  I may have looked a bit better than before... but I didn't look like I'd reached my goal. 

So here's my current list of mini goals....
Last Wed, I weighed in at 14st 7.5 lb.... a half lb off three stone down.

1. "Re-earn" my third stone, - 14 st 7
2. Obese to being overweight BMI- 14 st 6
3. Under 200lb- 14st 3.5
4. Back to where I was when I was at my lowest this time- 14st 2
5. Seventh silver seven/ 20% of bodyweight lost- 14 st
6. In the 13's... can't remember the last time that happened!- 13 st 13.5
7. My 50lb cert- 13st 13

That's my first few goals anyhow... it's a stone all told, and I'm not sure how long it will take me.  I'm almost afraid of timing my goals, because I've been dancing around the same few pounds for almost a year now. 
I've just joined Skinny Doll's latest challenge to lose a pound a week until the June Bank Holiday.
So here goes... I'm going to TRY to achive those first three goals by the May bank holiday- that's a 4lb loss in 4 weeks.  I'll try to achieve goals number 4-7 by the June Bank Holiday. 
I've been talking about these goals for AGES.... it's time to do it!!!

Where to Even Start?

"Hello my name is ck83, and I am a chocaholic".

Admitting it? Surely that's the first step? The hardest part?  I wish... the hardest part for me continues to be keeping my hand out of the chocolate box!

There'll be pleny time for life stories later, but for now, just to get started, here's a bit of background.

In January of last year, 7 weeks post partum, and filled with enthusiasm, I (along with my baby, and my mother) joined my local weight watchers class -not (I admit) for the first time, but for what I intended to be the last.  I weighed in 5 and a half stone overweight (I was 4 stone overweight pre-pregnancy, btw).  I wasn't a bit surprised by this, but I really wanted to do something about it.  My enthusiasm came, in part from the fact that I'd been intending to join ww since early in my pregnancy- relishing the prospect, if truth be told.

I took off... I pointed, I tracked, I exercised.  I did it all with vim and vigour.  And I lost weight.  I lost 7.5lb the first week.  In fact, I lost my first stone in a month.  My second took longer... maybe six weeks.  My third stone was gone sometime in May.  And then it slowed... I lost another five pounds, but it took until August.  That was ok. It was all going in the right direction.

I went back to work post Mat Leave in mid August... and downhill from there it went.  I couldn't get the motiviation, or indeed the time to exercise.  I couldn't seem to drive past a shop without going in to buy something nice (or two, or three somethings).  I put on a half stone in the space of a few weeks.  Then I'd cop on and lose a few pounds.  Then I'd put on a couple.  I've never gone more than 8lb above my August low, but I've never gotten back there either. 

I recently gave up chocolate (and most other nice things) for Lent.  And completed it quite successfully- the occasional hot chocolate excepted.  Towards the end, things slid a bit, I had the odd nicety, but never chocolate.  I really felt during that period that I was back on track.   I was starting to track properly again, I was losing a few pounds here and there, and most importantly, I was feeling good about myself.  Then Easter came, and I swear, for the last 6 days, I've been eating all the chocolate I missed out on during Lent.  All the time.  Just can't stop. 

So now I need to have an intervention.  I need to do something, before I find myself back at square one:  Obese, miserable, and banging down the door of the local charity shop looking for my size 18's back. 

I took a bit of inspiration from my weight watching friends on boards.ie and decided to start this blog.  Somewhere where I can document my progress, share my food finds and recipes, and most importantly, have a rant if I need it, without feeling like I'm lowering the mood of my favourite thread all the time!

Welcome to my blog reader, and thanks for reading.