Friday 12 April 2013

5:2 Friday #2

Another 2 fasting days under my belt, this week although I'm thinking of trying 3 for the next couple of weeks just to get me over a hump. The same hump I hit the last time I had weight to lose. Whether I do or don't try and get over this hump, though, I'm definitely feeling much better about myself and my clothes fit again.

Fast Day 1

Breakfast: 162g stewed apple (stewed with a sprinkle of cinammon and an empty vanilla pod to mellow the sharpness of the apple), 100g 0% fat Greek yoghurt and 10g pumpkin seeds - 195 calories



Lunch: 400ml of the lovely spinach and coconut soup that I made with the last of the spinach from the garden, with some chopped coriander and a squeeze of lime juice added. 119 cals



Dinner: A chunky red and yellow pepper pasta sauce served on a mound of spaghetti err cabbage. Thinly sliced and steamed, I was never going to be fooled into thinking it was actually pasta, but this meal was brilliant - the sauce was so low in calories that I could have quite a lot, and even some grated parmesan on top. Happy days.

The sauce was made by de-seeding 2 peppers (one red, one yellow), peeling two shallots and 2 cloves of garlic and slicing them all up - shallots and onions thinner than the peppers - covering with water in a pan and simmering till soft and most of the water had gone - took about 15 mins. Added a tin of chopped tomatoes, a little water (to swill out the tin mainly) salt and pepper, bubbled up a little more and then served.  1 serving of this sauce is about 58 calories. Yes really. Unless my maths is completely rubbish.

The cabbage thing is a tip I took from Steph at I'm Counting UFOs, whose 5:2 Friday I'm linking up to with this post. 150g steamed cabbage contains a mere 34 calories. That's quite a lot of cabbage for not many calories - and as long as you don't over cook it, it's quite nice.

It even looks a little like pasta - if you don't look too closely


I had 186 calories available for dinner after the other 2 meals, and the cabbage and sauce only amounted to 92 calories, so I pushed the boat out and added some capers (a dessert spoonful had about 4 calories in it) and 10g of grated parmesan (40 calories). Then I went wild and ate a passion fruit, pushing my daily total to 507 calories.

Fast Day 2:

Breakfast: As before, although I reduced the yoghurt by half to give me more flexibility later in the day: 163 calories

Lunch: Tomato and lentil soup. My starting point for this is this recipe in the London Unattached blog which is a good resource of 5:2 recipes. My version had smoked paprika rather than chilli in it as I wanted the kids to eat the soup too. Time was tight at lunchtime, so I ended up frying 2 chopped shallots and a clove of garlic in a teaspoon of rapeseed oil rather than simmering them in a covering of water. I used 2 carrots, peeled and chopped and a good sprinkle of smoked paprika. I used a Kallo organic chicken stock cube diluted in 1 litre of water, and added 70g lentils before simmering for 20 minutes then blitzing. I also served it with a 20g blob of 0% fat yoghurt but it still came in at 133 calories for a substantial 325 ml portion.



I made flatbreads for the kids to have with it, and they really enjoyed it. Worth putting the extra lentils in I think, as it kept me going for longer. That said, although it felt like a decent lunch, I was ravenous around 4.30, so I had 10g of miso paste in a mug of hot water which was around 12 calories, and the rest of the day I drank my new favourite tea - Clipper white tea with vanilla. It's pretty good if you like that sort of thing.

Dinner: A poached egg served on 150g steamed purple sprouting broccoli and 100g steamed spinach, with salt and pepper: 126 calories




I make that 434 calories for the day. Rock & roll.



5 comments:

  1. I am intrigued by the 5:2 thing and so will watch your progress with interest. :) That tomato and lentil soup looks lush!

    ReplyDelete
  2. The stewed apple for breakfast looks delicious!

    ReplyDelete
  3. You are doing so well!! And get you going crazy with the capers. You live on the edge RJ! All the meals look lovely (I like cabbage!) and I maintain that you put a poached egg on anything and you're on to a winner :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. thanks for the link back! I love that lentil soup, I make all sorts of variations around it! One tip if you are getting hungry is to try chia seeds. I can't eat them as I'm allergic to them, but they are hydroponic and absorb loads of water. So they make you feel very full!

    I also make a 'pasta', mine is done with courgette ribbons, but I think I'll try cabbage next!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, I can see that soup has loads of possibilities. I've never come across chia seeds but I will look out for them - where do you find them? I'll definitely try 'courgette' pasta too. The cabbage version was pretty good.

      Delete

I LOVE comments - please leave one. Unfortunately, I have been getting hideous amounts of SPAM so please can you do the word verification thingy?

UA-44695690-1