Stella Does Healthy Eating

Starting Over, Yet Again

2011-02-01T19:40:00.000Z

It probably comes as no surprise, considering my last post was the 11th of January, that I haven't exactly been doing an awful lot of healthy eating lately! As usual I went off the rails, skipping gym sessions and over-indulging far too often and just never managed to get back on track - every time I tried, something came up, a night out, a missed meal, a hangover, a birthday, not having enough time to meal plan/cook/track my food/get to the gym... each time I've had a blip I have continued with it instead of getting back to where I was before. Living by myself while my boyfriend and I try to sell the house and I look for a job back in Glasgow has made me very lazy! No car means I haven't been doing a weekly food shop and not having to worry about feeding two of us has meant I've just been grabbing whatever I fancy each day. Which apart from anything else is far too expensive to continue doing!
Fortunately I have managed to maintain my weight, but it is up from where I feel comfortable and my clothes are too tight so it's time to do something!

I'm following the *Bitch Cakes* philosophy and not worrying about the number on the scales and how far or how often it changes down the way - I know I'm not likely to consistently lose 2lbs every week, I know there will be weeks where I lose a lot or a little, there will be weeks my weight stays the same, and there will be weeks where I will see a gain - that doesn't matter. I don't want/need to be perfect, I just have to keep going and not give up when I do lose my way. I'm not going to put a time limit on losing weight, it will happen as it happens.
And, I don't have a goal weight in mind. I don't really know what my ideal weight is, I'm just going to go off how I feel about myself.

I am using Sainsbury's Diets to track my food and exercise - I might be eating too much but at least I can see where I'm going wrong and the site is quick and easy to use so it's not too much trouble. I'll get another wee post about this up tomorrow and show you a screen shot of the food diary too.

I'd like to say I'm going to get back into updating my blog(s) regularly but I honestly don't know know if I'll have a lot of time for blogging. I'm keeping busy (distracted) with my 365 Photography Project on Flickr, here's January:

I'm also spending my weekends down in Glasgow so I can spend as much time as possible with my little sister while she is in hospital, and will continue to do so once she is back home (that's her above fast asleep, and above that is my other sister, they are 4 and 7 and are the most adorable little girls ever!). Obviously blogging will not be a priority right now.

♥ Stella

Diet Time

2011-01-11T15:19:00.000Z

Well it is January after all, we're supposed to be dieting, detoxing, joining gyms, buying work out DVD's, giving up chocolate or booze, quitting the snacks and cutting the calories.

I'm not really one for "diets" or "detoxes" these days, but I have piled on fair few pounds over the holidays - I started gaining around the end of October I think, that's when I had last weighed myself. So when I was contacted and asked to trial Sainsbury's Diets I thought it would be a great time to try it out! I'm technically on day two, but day one was wrecked by poor catering facilities on an unexpected training course and some delicious nuts so I'm counting today as my first proper healthy day. There's a couple of ways you can use Sainsbury's Diets - put your preferences into your profile and follow a suggested meal plan, or make up your own and use the food diary, which works similar to other food/calorie diary's. I think you can also kind of mix and match the two, add some of the suggested meal plans to the food diary and then enter whatever else you eat - I'm still familiarising myself with the site though.
I'll post a bit more once I've been using it for a while, I'm using it for a food diary rather than the menu plans as I'm happier creating my own, but I will be looking to the meal plans for ideas and using the recipes too.
At the moment membership is discounted between 20% and 50% depending on what plan you chose, the cheapest option works out at £1.50 per week and the most "expensive" is £2.40 per week! The offer finishes at the end of March and prices go back up to £3 a week so it really is cheap, I was expecting it to be more expensive considering the facilities available.

I have also just started Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred! Day one was tough, I haven't exercised in such a long time, but I'm told it's not just me and it is a tough workout! It was good fun, looking forward to trying it again this evening!

♥ Stella

Happy New Year!

2011-01-02T11:59:00.000Z

Happy New Year blogland! I hope everyone has had a lovely Christmas and enjoyed their New Year celebrations!

I don't know about you but I am definitely ready for a bit of healthy eating and exercise! I also had my Birthday right in the middle so haven't stopped over-indulging since the 24th!

I decided I will keep this blog going, along with two others! I don't want to be hung up with weight and losing it, but I do want to lose some and I don't want to post about weight loss on my food or photography blogs.

I'm beginning to ease back into normal life with my healthy kick starting properly on the 10th - I'll be back at work and it will be easier to slip back into a routine and we will have eaten the last of the Christmas/Birthday foods by then! I hate waste and I know I'll eat it if it's there so this makes sense for me.

My other blogs are
http://www.samanthaskitschen.com/ where I'll be blogging mainly about food and foodie things with some recipes here
http://samsmithphotography.blogspot.com/ I'll be blogging my Flickr 365 project and perhaps some other photos in between.
http://twitter.com/#!/SamsKitschen for my tweets
http://www.facebook.com/home.php? I do have a Facebook page but it gets a little neglected!
http://www.socialmenu.co.uk/home/category/food-writers/samanthas-kitschen/ and finally (I think!) as a featured writer on Social Menu

♥ Stella

Samantha's Kitschen

2010-12-01T15:19:00.000Z

As promised here is the link to my new blog - Samantha's Kitschen, which you can find at www.samanthaskitschen.com

Enojy!

♥ Stella

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

2010-11-29T20:32:00.000Z

Hi guys! So sorry I haven't updated for so long - I just haven't been feeling it lately. I was blaming the weather and cold, dark nights, but really, my heart's just not in it anymore.

I started blogging when I was losing weight, I was posting my daily food and exercise diaries and using my blog to help keep me on track and make be a bit more accountable. But I've lost the weight now - yes I would still like to lose a few pounds but I've felt that way for about a year now and nothing has change. My blog has served it's purpose and now it's time for a change.
I no longer want to be accountable for my weight - I'm fit and I'm healthy a few pounds really are not important and I should feel like I need to lose them - no one has made me feel this way, just writing a blog about healthy eating and weight loss that has.
I no longer want to stress about what I'll eat for breakfast and lunch every day and worry about having the same things a few days being boring, or worrying about the fact I haven't posted my food for a while because it is boring. I want to just... well, eat what I want really. If it's blog worthy I'll share, if not, I wont.

I've been feeling like this for a while but didn't really know what to do or where to go with it. I don't want to give up blogging as I really enjoy it and it seems a shame to "give up" on Stella Does Healthy Eating - but I have outgrown it so I am going to start a new blog. It's still going to focus on food - but just food as food, not healthy food or healthy eating or calorie counting or fuel. I bloody love food, pretty much all food - it's why I found myself wanting to lose 2 stone after all! Writing about and photographing food for Stella Does Healthy Eating has made me love it even more, that and exploring new foods and has turned me into a bit of a foodie - and I'm not going to deny it anymore, it's what I am and it's what I'm going to be! I'm not going to restrict myself to just blogging about food though I'll be throwing up a bit of everything.

I have been thinking about this for a while without really knowing what I wanted, it was only when a friend over at The Greedy Girl re-launched her blog as a foodie blog, because that is what she loves and why should she feel guilty for it? - that is what made me realise I really should just do it!

I hope you will stick with me! I'll post the new link up here once I'm all set.

♥ Stella

Loss

2010-11-13T11:37:00.004Z

Weighed in this morning and I am down half a pound! Not bad considering I ate way too much this week! But I’m not going to get complacent and think I can carry on eating like this and losing weight! I also lost half an inch of my hips so it’s nice to know that things are finally going in the right direction!

I mentioned the other day that I might have some news that was keeping me busy and away from blogging. Well I can now share that news! Three years ago my boyfriend and I moved from Glasgow up to Aberdeen, 150 miles and over 3 hours travel time from our families and friends. We were only going to stay here for 1 year but things turned out quite well and we decided to stay and bought a flat together. Recently I have been feeling quite unhappy here, I have some great friends and I love our house, but Aberdeen is just not for me. I have been desperate to leave. Being unhappy in my job even more recently hasn’t helped either so we decided to start thinking about moving back ‘home’ to Glasgow. My boyfriend was just mooching about online and found job down in Glasgow, basically doing what he is doing now but with more money and over less hours – so he applied and yesterday was given a start date of 22nd November! I don’t know how he does it – he had a complete career change 6 months ago so it’s something he has limited experience in and all his qualifications are in a completely different subject area! He is pretty amazing though :)
This weekend and the next week will be spent getting the house ready to sell and on the market as soon as possible – the housing market obviously isn’t great right now but it’s actually still OK in Aberdeen and from what the estate agents we’ve had round have said the market value has increased since we bought and they would expect us to be able to sell for market value, which is all we want really, we bought the house to live in, not to profit from.
It’s going to be tough going for interviews in Glasgow while I’m still working and living here since I have a 3-4 hour journey each way depending on the interview location. It’s not going to be easy getting time off to go down since I’m an accountant and we’re coming up to the end of the year. I think, emphasis on ‘think’ as everything is a bit wait and see how it goes right now! I think I will wait until after Christmas until I start seriously looking for work in Glasgow. Might see if I can register with a couple of agencies and try get a good few interviews set up for the same week and take a weeks holiday…. who knows! I would prefer to sell the house then move to Glasgow and be available to job hunt full time as I think that would be less stressful, but since my boyfriend and I will be spending at least half of every week apart until that happens I might not want to wait until the house sells – if only we could know exectly how long that would take!

Onto some food then.
I had the last of my Spiru-tein shakes, I have found all but one of the flavours a bit chalky tasting, I’m not sure if that’s just this brand or if it’s down to the type of protien – which is rice, pea and soy. I think I will stick with My Protein or Maxitone until I can afford some Sun Warrior

For dinner last night I made a Teriyaki Beef Stir Fry with Udon Noodles, I was delicious! We used a large rib-eye steak cut into very thin strips and cooked it for about 1 minute at the end of the stir fry so it was still lovely and pink. I stir fried red onion in groundnut oil, added sugar snap peas, mange tout, udon noodles, Jim Beam Teriyaki sauce then the beef. Took about 5 minutes to cook!

Fod desert I had a Lint chocolate truffle and a couple of glasses of coconut rum with coke

And then finished off the evening with Champagne and Tiny Toblerone’s.
I don’t have many photo’s for yesterday because breakfast was an Eggnog Latte from Starbucks and lunch was a sweet chilli chicken deli sandwich thing from McDonalds – not really healthy or worthy of a photo!

I’m off to start tidying the house! What do you have planned for this weekend?

Still with me?

2010-11-11T12:31:00.000Z

I hope so! I have been a very lazy blogger since I got back from Belfast! There's a lot of other stuff going on though, which I'll share soon! Oh and I have an excuse, one of the bulbs is gone in the kitchen so the lighting is terrible for photos and I'm leaving for work in the dark and coming home in the dark so outdoor photos aren't going to be any better :(

I did get two good days at the weekend though so I'll quickly share those (I was going to post on Saturday but this is me just getting round to it!)

Rude Healthy granola for breakfast, which I won from Celery & Cupcakes when she had a competition on her blog - thank you very much, it's delicious! And quite light compared to other I have tried, but still very satisfying due to all the healthy grains. I eat my cereals with rice milks usually, just now I'm using almond an dhazelnut Rice Dream - love it! Lots of coffee, as always! I had a bit of a panic when I thought I had lost the milk steaming nozzle from my espresso machine, again, but thankfully it had just been tidied away somewhere sensible and I enjoyed several latte's at home before popping out to Starbucks for a gingerbread latte in a RED CUP!!! I love Starbucks Christmas drinks! What else did I eat.... there's been a bit of a Mexican theme, I had friends round on Friday and we had Fajita's, lunch on Saturday was Quesedilla's, followed by more Fajita's!! On Sunday we went out to Giraffe for lunch where I had a Chilli Beef Lasagne (the last picture) which was made with tortilla wraps instead of pasta! Safe to say I don't need to eat any more tortilla wraps for a while! And as if that wasn't enough for lunch on Sunday I then had a late dinner of fish and chips - lemon sole with sweet potato in garlic and thyme with tender-stem broccoli on the side.

In other news....

I re-joined Weight Loss Resources! You can find the link in my Blogs/Links tab at the top. Partly because I'm flaky and indecisive and change my mind a lot but also because after losing 30lbs with WLR, then gaining back 10lbs and not shifting anything for months I decided to end my WLR membership. I've spent the last year maintaining my weight and making half-hearted attempts to lose a little more but I'm now at the point where I'm getting a little fed up of that so decided to re-join and make a proper effort to do something!
I'm not going to put pressure on myself to reach certain goals by certain dates or to only eat certain types of food or achieve a set amount of exercise hours each week because I have found that difficult to sustain and it's very easy to feel down and miserable when I don't reach those goals.
I am going to be doing some yoga, some weight training, some running, some cycling and whatever else I fancy - hopefully I can find a Zumba buddy for Saturday mornings too!
Food-wise - I'm aiming for healthy foods, nutritious foods, plenty of fruit and even more veg, I'm not cutting anything out but will cut back on junk foods and those foods that leave me feeling bloated and tired. I tend to aim for around 40% carbs, 30% protein and 30% (healthy) fats, but that is just a guide! I am easing myself back into calorie counting with my first week focussing on just logging everything, my second week I'll continue logging everything and make sure I stay within maintenance calories over the week, after that I should be back into the habit of logging properly and will start to shift my focus to weight loss. I'll be working towards a 0.5lb loss per week initially but this may change depending on how I feel!

♥ Stella

Holiday

2010-10-30T08:53:00.001+01:00

Should have posted this yesterday but had battery issues.

I am now officially on holiday! I flew into Belfast with my fried Lori yesterday, on the quickest flight of my life! It was only about 15 minutes! We weren't fully up in the air for long enough for them to even turn off the seatbelt lights. We arrived to glorious rain! And spent the evening chilling at Jill's place. Few glasses of pear cider were drank, plenty of nibbles were eaten and I made us a butternut squash risotto for dinner - I was cooking vegan for Lori but in the end decided to se two pans and throw some chorizo into one, it was just too tempting.

I don't plan to blog much while I'm away but I'll see how it goes. I'm home on Wednesday but will probably spend the day catching up on sleep!
Hope everyone has a nice weekend!

-Stella Does Healthy Eating-

Yoga Buzz

2010-10-26T22:44:00.000+01:00

My yoga buzz is lasting well! I woke up this morning and just felt *good*, despite it being 5.50am! I'm starting to stiffen up a bit now but I definitely have a general feeling of lightness and calm. Which is good considering I'm usually stressed and anxious! Knowing that I only have one more day of work before I go on holiday is probably helping too!

I'm still not back up to speed with food photos but I've got tonights dinner and tomorrow lunch a breakfast which is good start I think! Oh, dinner last night was the most amazing takeaway! It's a Nepalese place nearby, Gurka Kitchen. We tend to order a couple of starters instead of mains as they are just so amazing! Last night was Choila - chicken for me, lamb for my boyfriend. It comes with onion, spring onion and a beautiful mix of spices in a very light sauce, just enough so that it's not dry, all served up in a small plain naan. No picture since no matter how good takeaway food tastes, it just isn't photogenic!

But tonight it was risotto! Just using what we had in the fridge so it was a tender stem broccoli and chorizo risotto!

I wasn't sure about the broccoli and chorizo combination but it turned out beautifully! Can't go wrong with a risotto really - weird that I used to avoid making risotto because I was scared it would go wrong!

After dinner I tossed a munchkin pumpkin in some cinnamon and agave syrup and roasted in the oven for tomorrow's lunch

I just mixed it with some cous cous, raisins and drizzled over some chocolate orange balsamic vinegar

Hope it tastes as good as it smells!

And, doing this backwards, for breakfast I have full fat Greek yogurt thinned down with some semi skimmed milk. I mixed in some frozen raspberries and topped with pumpkin seeds and cocoa, berry and flax mix

Speaking of breakfast, I was lucky enough to be picked as a winner in Jemma's Rude Health Giveaway over on Celery and Cupcakes. I can't wait to try it!

♥ Stella

Keep Calm and do Yoga

2010-10-25T20:25:00.000+01:00

I ended up using yoga at the gym tonight to pose away the work stresses - worked fantastically and I only thought bout work once during class when I thought "oh I haven't thought about work for ages now" and then immediately forgot about it again. It was such a lovely feeling coming out of class all calm and stretched and loose and relaxed. Then I got to the gym exit where there is a little metal button you push to get out, got a shock of it, swore and promptly lost all sense of calm!

This is just a super quick post as my boyfriend is just getting in and has bought something for dinner - I have been instructed to put the oven on but that's all I know - it's going to be pizza isn't it?

Do you do or have you tried yoga? I've done a little bit now and again in the past but never gone to classes before - this was my second one and I hope I can get in quick enough with the booking system to make it regular. It's a really good workout - although it's calm and relaxing it's tough and sweaty and I usually end up with sore muscles afterwards which I never expected from yoga!

♥ Stella

Lets do this!

2010-10-25T12:04:00.001+01:00

Sorry again for the lack of posting! I'm having a totally horrible time at work right now and struggling to keep on top of everything in life. But I have a holiday coming up which I am so looking forward to and definitely need really badly!
This Thursday I'll be getting the train down to Glasgow to see my mum for half the day/evening (wish it was longer though!) And on Friday I'll be meeting my friend Lori to fly to Belfast and spend a nice long weekend with our friend Jill! I haven't seen them since August when we all spent a few nights together in Glasgow - I posted about it here, though it feels like it's been so much longer. It's going to be a mostly relaxing weekend (thank goodness actually!) since Jill is recovering from an operation. Well, with one pretty big exception!

1 week from tomorrow we will be something ridiculous like 6 rows from the front of the Lady Gaga gig in Belfast!! *does happy dance*
It's taking all my strength not to get up and run round my office singing Telephone!

I'm debating whether or not I want to try smuggling in my DSLR camera in to get some good photos. I know I could have got away with it when we went to the Lady Gaga gig last year but I don't know if it's worth the risk.

I don't have any food photos for you today as I have been so lazy/busy I just haven't bothered. Bad of me I know! Anyway I'm off to eat my breakfast for lunch since I had no time this morning, despite having been in work for well over 5 hours! Still, the morning has passed pretty quick, just hope the next two days are the same!

I have decided to drag my lazy arse back to the gym (which is what my post title refers to if you were wondering!) once I get home - pound out some frustration on the treadmill! Hopefully I'll be back later with a gym and dinner post! Have a good day!

♥ Stella

Just Dance!

2010-10-21T11:29:00.001+01:00

Morning Blogland! Sorry I didn't get round to posting last night, I had a dinner fail so had to cook a second one and I spent too long playing Just Dance 2 on the Wii!

Just Dance is so much fun! I have zero coordination and I definitely can't dance, but it really doesn't matter! The graphics for the songs are pretty cool and absolutely hilarious, I just watched a few without actually playing the game because I was laughing so hard. Menus are really simple and it's easy to find your way around and loading times are reasonably quick. Song list is excellent I think, wide variety and something for everyone. You can also download more tracks from WiiWare which is a great feature - I have Singstar for the PS3 and have downloaded loads of extra tracks for that. Rather than buying a new game I can spend the same amount downloading exactly what I want. I may need to see if there is any Lady Gaga available to download!

Image from here

I only properly looked at the Just Dance mode last night, but there is also a Battle Mode (I think that's what it was called), where you can have up to 8 players, and a Just Sweat mode for using the game as exercise - I think this is going to be the mode I will mostly use. It's great exercise and a lot of the routines are quite aerobics-y and each song has a sweat rating and difficulty rating. If you are hopelessly uncoordinated like me you may find some of the moves quite difficult to get right - but it really doesn't matter.

In Sweat Mode you can set yourself up a plan for how many songs you want to achieve each day or week and there's a sweat meter as well to give you a rough idea of calories burned.

The only kit you need are the Wii (obviously) and a standard controller, no need for any add ons or the Wii Fit board. It picks up movements well, but it is still possible to just wave the controller around and score points - but what would be the point in that?

I have to say, having not tried any dance games other than the old PS2 ones with the roll up dance mat, it's not something I would have bought. When I got the email though and had look at the site and some of the videos I thought it would be a good laugh for girly nights in with some wine and cocktails, but now I have had a go I'm sure I will use it far more often for getting a bit of a sweat on instead of my Pump it Up dance/exercise DVD. I love that it's interactive and keeps track of your progress - but I am a bit of a numbers geek anyway!

My boyfriend is out tonight so I'll be trying out the Just Sweat mode and I have a couple of girls coming round at the beginning of next month so there may well be a drunken Just Dance session coming up!

♥ Stella

Straight, straight, straight

2010-10-19T22:04:00.000+01:00

My hair that is, I went from this

To this

This this

And then 2 hours later it was completely straight again :( So, I have learned that I can have curl hair for the first two hours of a night out if I wash my hair 3 days in advance and fill it with curling cream and hair spray then spend 20 minutes putting hot rollers in and leave them in for 1-2 hours. I think I have to accept that my hair is straight!

Other than playing with my hair, changing the look of my blog (again) and studying I haven't really been doing a lot. I did meet with a friend last night to discuss gym plans, we're going to start going to a couple of classes together - starting with yoga on Monday and hopefully spinning on Tuesday. I decided I really need get my arse in gear and start lifting weights again. I'm about the same weight as I was last time I took photos/measurements but my hips and legs are much bigger than when I was lifting weights.
I also finally made my meal plan

All are recipes from new book - what better way to get plenty of variety then spend a week eating things I've never cooked before?

Today and yesterday I had my final ( :( ) pot of 0% Total Greek yogurt for breakfast with blueberries, oats and ground cocoa, berries and flax

And for lunch I have been eating cous cous with squash, carrot, red onion and cinnamon

I have been making use of the free fruit at work for snacks (apples, satsumas and bananas) and Nakd bars. Still haven't been drinking more tea and I thought I was down to just 1 cup of coffee a day but have just remembered I've been to Starbucks the last two days for triple shot grande almond latte's and over the weekend I made several trips to Costa for roasted hazelnut latte's - which by the way are amazing! Much better than the regular hazelnut which I was surprised by.

Dinner tonight was a use up what's left in the fridge meal so bacon, sausages and a fried egg - yum!

Last night I had the beef "goulash" I made in the slow cooker on Sunday, with a big dollop from my last tub of full fat Greek yogurt - I don't know how I'll cope without a supply of this stuff! I'm going to have to start having something different for breakfasts I think!

Now I'm going to ~~study~~ watch some TV with a cup of redbush tea and a couple of squars of Lindt dark chocolate with sea salt

Tomorrow I'll be posting about Just Dance 2 for the Wii, I received a copy yesterday but the time has just flown by this evening and I didn't get a chance to try it out. My boyfriend will be home tomorrow so I can get him to have a go as well!

♥ Stella

Long Weekend

2010-10-17T22:07:00.001+01:00

Evening blogland! Hope everyone has had a good weekend? This one has felt surprisingly long, which is nice! Still wish it were longer though, there's just so much I want to do and so little time, but I did manage to get a good bit of studying done which I feel pretty good about. I'm not convinced I'll pass this exam first time round, it's pretty tough and my worst subject, and all the background knowledge I should have from university...well it was my worst subject back then so I went for the question guessing method of studying and got lucky with my choice of selective revision - if only I'd known back then that it would come in useful after the exams! I do want to be realistic and accept I may need to resit as I think it will help me not to be so afraid of failing. I'm trying to stay positive though, I have only failed one exam before - Forensic Medicine. I fainted in one of the lectures (seeing the crime scene photos and hearing the detail from the police was just so much more real than I was prepared for) and never went back, then I felt too sick to finish the exam - it was so bad I started a whole other course rather than just re-sit the exam! It's funny because before I started my Accountancy degree I had applied to do either Forensic Psychology, Criminology or Forensic Sciences, instead I stayed on for another year of school and ended up wanting to do Accountancy or Law. Probably a good thing I had a change of heart!
(incase you are wondering what Forensic Medicine has to do with Accountancy, we had one course where we could choose anything from any department - it was a fascinating course and I have no idea why I freaked!)

Anyway, that's just a little bit more about me :)

I'm still struggling a bit with eating on this crown and think I may need to go back to the dentist, it just doesn't feel right.

So not much in the way of food to share. Wasn't hungry for breakfast so had a roll with bacon, egg and brown sauce for brunch - that did not last long enough to even consider photographing!
This afternoon I made another beef goulash which should be lovely and tender for dinner tomorrow. Again, I didn't have the correct ingredients - squash instead of potato. Which resulted in a busted up peeler :( I tried microwaving the squash for a minute to soften it up but it was still really tough to peel - as you can see.

Poor guy, he looked so pleased with himself.

For dinner I was in the mood for something warm and comforting, and easy to chew! I had a flick through my Melinda Messenger cookbook and found 'My mum's sausage and bean casserole' sounded perfect! We got some lovely free range sausages (97% pork, the ones with not a lot of pork scare me a little!) and I fried up some onion with sausages, bacon, bakes beans, tomato purée, Worcestershire sauce, some mixed herbs, salt and pepper, then baked in the over for 20 minutes. To be honest, it's not the sort of meal I would have very often, but it did taste great and satisfied the criteria of warm, comforting and easy to chew! Melinda introduces the recipe with:

Mum had a particular talent for rustling up something tasty and reasonably healthy on a very tight budget... I think this recipe is a great example of making the most of the few things that were often left in the fridge or cupboard"

My version certainly wasn't cheap and I rarely buy sausages or baked beans... and I wouldn't file it next to my healthy recipes... but I enjoyed it and I think the most important part of eating, for me, is that I enjoy what I eat :)

I've also been enjoying smoothies in my Halloween cup today! I love it!

I couldn't resist playing with the lighting!

And now I'm off to watch the new Desperate Housewives and hope that this works:

♥ Stella

Today's Menu

2010-10-16T12:41:00.000+01:00

Well, technically it's yesterdays but my internet was down so I couldn't post!

Lots of coffee with full fat milk, hot chocolate, smoothies, chocolate mousse and soup. This would be an example of not eating healthily I know, but it is an example of someone who had a sore tooth on either side of her mouth :(
I had to have two crowns - on one side the crown was fitted yesterday so my gum was pretty tender and my teeth don't quite line up as the tooth with the crown had to be drilled down to fit the crown, but it takes two weeks to make the crown which means the tooth on top had time to shift position slightly, it should shift back in line soon enough. On the other side I had the tooth drilled down in preparation so I had an achey jaw and very sore gum. But that side is fine today so normal eating can (hopefully!) resume!
I don't know about anyone else but I also get anaesthetic blues and tend to feel quite down and miserable after the dentist so I spent the morning watching Desperate Housewives and reading Company magazine to help cheer me up - then I spent the afternoon studying ethics to balance out the trashy TV and gossipy mag! Speaking of Company magazine, if you haven't' already you can check out my article HERE

I'm heading off for a wander round the shops, a roasted hazelnut latte from Costa and a movie with my boyfriend. The rest of the weekend will be a bit of relaxing and a bit of studying. What have you got planned for the weekend?

♥ Stella

Getting better...

2010-10-12T20:27:00.000+01:00

Finally! I still feel a bit not right but my appetite and desire for food is back! Yay! I celebrated with prawns! I had a Pad Thai last night and tonight I made prawns à la Sam, which a friend recommended to another friend looking to use up some crème fraiche today and I remembered I had an open tub of full fat Total Greek yogurt in the fridge looking to be used up so thought I would jump in on the prawn action too!

I cooked up some tagliatelle while I fried garlic, spring onion and cayenne pepper in olive oil then added some prawns with lemon, salt, pepper and parsley. Drained the pasta and stirred in a few huge dollops of Greek yogurt and once that was hot stirred in the prawns and spring onions. Oh ans I made a last minute decision to throw in some chorizo too!

Great stand by meal as it's all ingredients I pretty much always have in the kitchen and tastes amazing!

Other than that, I have been eating lots more Greek yogurt with fruit and granola and lots of porridge with dates and dried apricot. I'm starting to crave vegetables now!

Last Sunday I posted up some of my aims for the following week, needless to say with the way I was feeling I didn't even think about them! I'm still off the gym for now so will leave that out for the rest of this week. I'm going to do a meal plan tonight for the rest of the week and I have been logging this week so just need to stay on track with that. I haven't started drinking more tea yet, but I have been drinking a lot less coffee.

I'm going to log of now and get meal planning and attempt to curl my hair again - I'm determined to make the curls stay in!

Does anyone else have hair that just refuses to do what you want it to? I curl it and it ends up straight, I straighten it and it goes all wavy... very annoying!

. ♥ Stella

My name is Stella and I’m addicted to coffee

2010-10-07T16:14:00.004+01:00

This is my first post using Live Writer so I’m keeping everything crossed that it turns out OK! I’m not quite sure about image sizes and positioning yet!

I had a moment of excitement over the weekend (still catching up!) when I found some Bear Granola Nibbles in Peckham's, they are normally hard to find up here in Aberdeen! I’m particularly looking forward to trying the Cocoa Cherry Pie!

I also stopped by the international market for some gorgeous flavoured coffee’s. I got Coconut Creme, Chocolate Truffle, Maple Walnut and Christmas Special – have tried them all and they are fantastic! I wish I’d bought more now, there was a 10 bags for £18 deal. The international market comes every 3 months so I’ll be stocking up next time. Though If I can’t wait they do have a website here. Often i find flavoured coffee can be pretty disappointing and not really taste of much, or the coffee the use isn’t very nice but this stuff has neither of those issues.

And I got a couple of packs of vanilla Munchy Seeds pumpkin seeds – love these! Sadly haven’t seen then in the large tubs so I’m savouring these little packs.

And I got a little treat too – Reece’s Pieces! Fortunately I haven’t seen these in large packs as that would be very dangerous!

I really shouldn’t be buying any more foody things through as I already have an over-flowing cupboard so ‘stella food’ to work my way through

Hoarder much??
Onto actually eating food then… I don’t have much to post really as my appetite is still a little all over the place so here are the ones that were worthy of photos:
Breakfast sundae!

Total Greek yogurt mixed with lingonberry jam on the bottom and in the middle, plain Greek yogurt on top, layered with strawberries and granola and topped with fresh figs plus vanilla pumpkin seeds.
Butternut squash, red onion and tomato tart

Fresh figs topped with 0% Greek yogurt, thinned with a little semi skimmed milk, topped with honey and oats – really loving fresh figs right now!

And I’m going to leave it there because Live Writer seems to be making this whole experience unnecessarily stressful! I do hate Microsoft! And I just had to back and edit the whole post as only two of the pics were showing - Live Writer FAIL!

Has anyone else using Blogger found the search function isn’t working so well? Sometimes it’s fine but mostly when I search for thing I know I have posted about it comes up with nothing or several posts where I have mentioned the thing I’m searching for are missing from the search results. Like Naks bars for example, only 4 posts come up in a search but I know I have eaten way more than four bars and therefore the word Nakd should appear in more than 4 posts!

Insert witty blog post title here

2010-10-04T17:52:00.000+01:00

I was going to try and come up with something to do with the Nakd bars and cook book I received recently, but since it's a 'Family Cookbook' I decided against the Nakd gags!

So I said I would do a catch up post but it turns out I didn't take very many photos, just a few random shots here and there:

Favourite yogurt combination, chopped nectarine with thick Total Greek yogurt, raisins and white chocolate chips.

Even better when served with fresh squeezed orange juice.

I've been trying to consume lots of fruit, veg and just vitamins in general so have enjoyed a few smoothies with rice milk, frozen banana ans fresh strawberries

Friday night's dinner was beef enchilada's with lots o' cheese! I never get tired of Mexican food!

Porridge made with rice milk with peanut butter stirred through and topped with Total Greek yogurt and Ikea Lingonberry jam - this is up there in my top 10 favourite porridge toppings! It was far too much though and my cat Jeff was hassling me so I was naughty and gave him the leftovers.

He scoffed it so fast I barely had time to snap a picture of him enjoying his porridge!

Cous cous salad, raw chopped carrot, courgette and onion mixed with plain cous cous and a tin of sardines in tomato sauce. This was good but I prefer to have sardines on their own with something on the side rather than mixed in.

Yet more Total Greek yogurt (I have eaten so much but still have for large tubs and 4 small tubs left!) with some granola and a chopped nectarine.

This was a Weight Watchers recipe, can't remember exactly what went in it but there was definitely lamb mince, courgette and halloumi. I used the left over mince and sauce on spaghetti then next day which was fantastic! I actually wasn't too keen on the courgette skin after it had been roasted but loved the filling on spaghetti

And another bowl of Greek yogurt with nectarine and cinnamon.

That's just a few snaps from the last week and a half, there was loads more, good and bad!

before I forget a few people had asked where I got the guar gum from, I did answer in the comments but I know it's easy to miss replies there. I ordered mine from ebay actually. I just looked for an ebay shop that sold lots of similar products and a good track record, I can't remember the seller but I chose with with a lot of feedback and it was 100% positive. The xanthan gum should be easy enough to find in most supermarkets. Both gums are pretty cheap, only a few pounds each and I use 1/4 tsp guar gum and 1/8 tsp xanthan gum per smoothie so it lasts a long time.

Since my last post I received another envelope of Nakd bars (free and totally unexpected) this time it was the new flavours fully clothed.

I do love all three flavours, but Cocoa Orange remains my favourite, followed by Coca Mint, Cashew Cookie and Pecan Pie! Basically I love them all and would be happy with any one of the flavours! The Berry Delight is a nice addition to the gluten free range as it's the only fruity bar, it makes a nice change and will come in handy for avoiding sweetie cravings as it tastes really sweet and juicy! I wasn't sure about Cocoa Delight after my first taste but I tried a second bar and was very impressed, it's a much more grown up sort of taste, like a nice high % bar of dark chocolate, only chewy!

I was also lucky enough to receive a copy of a new cookbook, I love cook books and have a ridiculous amount of them as well as many folders filled with recipe pages torn out of magazines and printed from the web. I was delighted when I received an email asking if I would be interested in trying out a new cookbook - of course I would!!

I was sent a copy of the new Melinda Messenger's Family Cookbook to try out, along with a discount code for 20% off for anyone who is interested - MMCook10 This is for the New Holland Publishers site which I can't actually get to load right now, hopefully it's just my browser.
The book includes the following sections:

I particularly like the Weekend Lunches as that is one of my weak points, having a proper lunch on the weekends, it's so much easier in the week when I have to be organised and pack something the night before.
I haven't made any of the recipes yet but have read through a few of them as well as the introductory text for each section. It's nicely written and seems easy to follow with nice personal touch too. Even though it says it's a family cookbook I would still get a lot of use out of it when it's just the two of us at home, it's not specifically aimed at people with kids though does have a lot of suitable recipes that kids can help with too and the Trying New Things chapter is an interesting idea.
I'll post a wee bit more over the next few weeks as I start trying out some of the recipes.
The only downside is that there just aren't enough pictures of the food! Obviously I love food pictures! In books where only some recipes are photographed I do find that I tend to end up making only the ones that do come with pictures. I'm not really sure why as it's not like I ever expect mine to look anything like the picture in the book!
I do love Melinda's porridge page where she says "the fun is in the fine-tuning" and goes on to talk about the best part - add-ins and toppings! :D I'm going to try her suggestion of banana, dried apricots and cinnamon, sounds simple and delicious!

I'd better finish up now as I have a free meal at Wagamama tonight! 2 courses and two drinks each as it's a new store opening - I know, in Aberdeen!? I'm so excited! I do still feel pretty rough but I can't bear to turn it down!

♥ Stella

Regular Blogging?

2010-10-03T20:51:00.000+01:00

I think it's safe to say regular blogging is not my strong point! It's annoying really, I miss posting for a day or two then quickly get out of the habit of doing it and then I keep putting it off for days and days, or 11 days in this case! Ooops! Ah well, sometimes life just gets in the way doesn't it? Being ill since Thursday hasn't helped either, food has been very random, a mix of healthy foods and junk foods and I literally have not done a minute of exercise since Monday!
I'm a bit annoyed about the food to be honest, I was at the dentist on Friday and she prepared a tooth for a crown but I need to wait two weeks to get the crown fitted, so I have a horrible stubby little tooth that's pretty weak and I can't eat on the right side of my mouth! I thought this would mean I would eat less and be less likely to eat the awkward unhealthy foods like crisps and sweets, but it's actually not been a problem at all so I'm having to rely on self-control - oh dear!
On Monday I wanted to try out the Fitness Yoga class at the gym but it was full so I signed up to Gliding Blast instead - I had no idea what it was at all but was only half an hour long and started at the perfect time for me. Then I checked the Yoga bookings and saw there was now one space and signed up for that too! Oh how I regretted that decision! It was totally fine at the time but the next 3 days I was in agony! Honestly, I've only hurt that bad and for that long maybe twice before! By the end of day 3 (Thursday) I started getting even more sore but it turned out to be because I was coming down with something. I'm not sure what it was/is so I'm seeing a doctor tomorrow, hopefully it'll be something straightforward. I'm currently at the stage of being convinced I have a stomach ulcer, but it's most likely just a bug, I think! Anyway, I did want to make this the week I got back into going to the gym regularly but the pain and being ill meant that didn't work out. Try again this week - persistence, not perfection, is the key after all.
I did *love* the yoga class though and can't wait for my next! It was ashtanga yoga and a really tough workout, I wasn't expecting that and did think I probably wouldn't enjoy it. I surprised myself with how much of the class I could keep up with it and learned that my balance is actually not that bad! Co-ordination remains my weakness, I struggled with the warm up to the Gliding Blast class! It was a class based around body weight exercises so co-ordination didn't really come into it, but in the warm up she was doing side step-y things and then added an arm movement and I just lost it completely! Stuck to legs only for the rest of it... this is why I don't do classes!! The Gliding class was a bit silly, you use little slidy pads to make squats, lunges, press ups etc more difficult basically, but I liked that it was short and that yoga starts 10 minutes later so I'll be signing up to both when I can.

Since I've been struggling to stick to my plans I'm going to try and do a post once a week where I get my plan for the week ahead set out and review how I did with the previous weeks plan. It wont be a rigid plan, more of a framework or something.
This week, starting Monday I am aiming for:

Keeping my food diary for at least 5 of the 7 days, everything I eat I need to get into the habit of logging. It's too easy for me to see I have gone over and think there's no point in filling the rest in, but I know that just means I'm more likely to eat rubbish for the rest of the week! And yes I am counting points with Weight Watchers. I know a lot of people seem to look down on this, which is weird because far less people had a problem with me counting calories, which is essentially the same thing. I don't like that it is hard to stay within my allotted points if I eat healthy foods that are high in fats - avocado, nuts, seeds, but butters, full fat dairy products, coconut oil, but as long as I know the reasons I am going over the points allowance are good then that is fine. I also already know how to eat to ensure I get a good balance between protein, fat and carbs so I don't need to worry about that really, I can tell if I'm eating too much from one group and not enough from another by how I feel. I am fed up of counting calories and counting points has been good for a change, I still don't love it, but I've gained weight that I want to lose, needs must...
Exercise 3 times for at least 30 minutes. It's not a lot. It's better than nothing and I don't know how well I'll feel for the week so I'm easing in with a small goal here.
Make a full meal plan. I want to plan all my meals and snacks, I often only plan dinner which leads to me being disorganised with breakfast, lunch and snacks, which often leads to making poor choices. I work full time and I leave home at 6.40am, I find it too difficult to get up earlier than I already do to give me time to eat breakfast at home, plus the thought of eating at 6am makes me feel ill! I can't stomach food first thing, I need a coffee and time to fully wake up before I can eat. This means packing breakfast up to eat in work, as well as lunch and a couple of snacks. I need to make sure I prepare and pack everything the night before or else I'll end up being tempted by the vast canteen, amazing made to order sandwiches or Starbucks cakes in work - it's tough to resist!
Stick to the damn plan! This is the hard part actually! I have a bad habit of thinking I just don't fancy what I've planned to have, but I don't know what I do fancy. Nine times out of ten if I just eat what was planned I really enjoy it anyway. I'm not going to be totally rigid with it and I'm happy to swap a couple of days around, as long as I use up all the food I bought for the week on healthy meals and snacks. If I plan properly I will only have the foods in to make the meals planned so this should be easy enough
Stop spending so much money on unnecessary food and drink. I swear I have issues around spending, I just can't help myself. I have convinced myself not to spend money on clothes since hopefully they wouldn't fit in a couple of months time, I've managed to cut way back on buying magazines as they just weren't getting read. But I have replaced these with spending on food and drinks in between the weekly food shop, I don't needed it, I'm wasting money and I'm gaining weight!
Blog more.
Drink more tea and less coffee. For no reason other than I don't need to add anything to tea, it doesn't make me feel mental if I have too much, and I have loads of the stuff!

That will do for now! I have another post on the way, just a bit of a catch up with food but don't want to make this post too long!

Hope everyone has had a good weekend - I can't believe it's nearly over!

♥ Stella

Fruit Salad

2010-09-22T20:48:00.001+01:00

Evening blogland! Thanks for the quinoa ideas! I definitely want to get a bit more adventurous with it, today I used it for a fruity salad and it was beautiful! I knew it was a pretty healthy grain but I hadn't really looked into it in any detail so didn't realise just how good it was - thanks Tam! Thinking about trying it as breakfast over the weekend too, for a bit of a change from yogurt!

Anyway, onto today - I want to watch "Food: What Goes In Your Basket?" on Channel 4 so I'm going to make this quick food run-through!

Oh and before I forget, if you like you sometimes struggle with phases of overeating or binging you might find this post by Bitch Cakes interesting

Today was the horrible, busiest, most stressful day of the month at work so I made sure I got food prepared the night before that would be enough to stop me being tempted by chocolate and sugary things in general - it worked!
Breakfast was a bit later than usual so I was starving by the time I got round to it!

Total Greek yogurt with maple syrup (I'm obsessed!!), ground flax and banana chips - love these! They are so nice mixed into yogurt as they go kind of crisp but gooey at the same time.

For the first time in ages I remembered to have a proper snack mid-morning, blueberries and blackberries, the blueberries were beautiful, the blackberries were far too sour! I do quite like sourness in fruit sometimes but these were just nasty! Still at them though [/fiveaday]

Then came lunch! :D Lunch was Ah-Mazing!

This made me very happy! Quinoa cooked in water with garlic and cumin, with salt and a little pepper. Toasted pine nuts and added chopped dried apricots, raisins, cranberries and some spinach. Mixed it all in with the quinoa and dressed with lemon juice, honey, cumin, ginger and cinnamon. Added some cooked chicken breast and some raw spinach (the raw spinach is much nicer than the cooked when eaten cold)

Recipe came from a Weight Watchers mag (5 points if you're interested). I made two portions so will be repeating this tomorrow.

I think next time I make it I'll add some finely chopped carrot and use less apricot, less lemon in the dressing and some real ginger instead of powdered. Oh and just skip the cooked spinach altogether.
I thought it looked like a pretty small portion but I was stuffed! Pleasantly stuffed though. Everything about it just tasted so good, I don't use cinnamon enough in cooking, I mostly use it in deserts, oats and yogurt.

Afternoon snack was good old hummus with carrot and mange tout

I haven't had this for ages, it was seriously missed!

Dinner tonight was another chorizo fritatta as we have about a million eggs and the chorizo needed used, we also threw in some chicken, courgette, onion and mange tout. And of course cheese!

Yum!

Watching Sunday's X Factor as I type - I'm loving Tobias and Your Song - this guy here I love that song!

Yeah, anyway.....

After dinner I was feeling a bit "munchy" so I made a super thick mousse style protein shake - cookies and cream protein, rice milk, vanilla, cocoa and guar gum and xanthn gum

It was delicious, so creammy! But it was too soon after dinner so I only managed a few spoonfuls :(

And I've just eaten a Trek flapjack, just because I saw it in the cupboard and couldn't get it out my head!

Fruity salads, do you like them? Never really been a fan of fruit in a salad (unless it's a fruit salad obviously!) but I think I am now converted!

♥ Stella

Good Start

2010-09-21T21:42:00.000+01:00

This week has got off to a good start and I'm feeling really motivated - I'll be honest though, I have been eating too much, but I have kept it healthy. I've just been so hungry so I'm going with it for now. I've logged everything I have eaten and I'm going to make that my main focus this week. I know a lot of people don't agree with counting calories or points but to get this last bit of weight off and keep it off it's what I have to do. Hopefully I eventually wont have to, but for now I do.

I had a cheeky weigh in this morning and have lost the 2lb gain, but I'll wait and see what happens at the official weigh in on Thursday evening.

I have had yogurt with dried fruit and maple syrup for jam for breakfast today and yesterday, snacked on satsuma's and milky coffee in the mornings. Lunch yesterday was an attempt at a home made wrap filled with humus and raw carrot, mange tout and mushroom. It was pretty good but the wrap was a bit thick and rubbery so I'll use less of the mixture next time.

I never knew how good raw mushrooms tasted! Think I prefer them raw to cooked. My mum will probably fall off her chair when she reads that, until a couple of years ago I hated mushrooms, I physically couldn't eat them without retching and feeling as though I was actually being sick, now I'm willingly eating and enjoying them raw!

Dinner yesterday was a carbonara but I didn't photograph it since I messed it up and it didn't look nice and wasn't warm enough for me to hang about! Tonight I made a HEAB inspired dinner - fried some bacon, added some veggies and cooked in the bacon fat then added two eggs and kind of scrambled them in. I added a Pad Thai sauce.

My boyfriend had his with noodles, I just had a larger serving of veggies. It was delicious! I wasn't sure about it while cooking as it did look a bit.... disgusting at one point! But no, I think I have great dinner here! Took a few minutes to cook and using ingredients I'll almost always have in the fridge so will make a good last minute meal.

And since I don't really have anything interesting to say I'm off to make my lunch for tomorrow - fruity quinoa salad! Have you tried quinoa? Did you like it? How do you eat yours? I'm loving quiona!

♥ Stella

2010-09-19T21:26:00.004+01:00

Before I start rambling on about food I'd just like to quickly say thanks for all your comments around my Weight Watchers weigh in, I figured it's prob a bit late to reply to comments now but I do want to reply to this one from Alison at Running From Running To:

Surely it's weeks like these that it's most important to go? Then you get the accountability and the support from the group.

I was temped to not bother going to the meeting, not because I was worried about the weigh in, but because I knew I definitely hadn't lost anything so felt like there was no point. But what Alison said is absolutely spot on - that is the reason I joined Weight Watchers - I can count calories or points by myself, it's the accountability and support that I'm going to the meeting for. Talking about it with like-minded people helps keep me motivated and knowing that I have that meeting makes me think twice about how much I want a piece of cake or pack of crisps - but I also know no one is going to judge me if I decide I do want to indulge every now and again. We're all there for the same reasons and it's good to be reminded of that!

Now I could pretend that after my meeting I was highly motivated and ate like a saint all weekend, but truth is I did my usual and ate a lot of junk food! I didn't bother photographing the junk but here are the best bits!

This is where it went wrong - a sugar-filled breakfast on Saturday of three mini delicious flapjacks from my Graze box, they didn't keep me full for long so I had the little focaccia bread that was also in the Graze box too.

We went for a walk into town to get a Birthday present for my Dad and on the way home I had a tripple berry vitamin water to hold back the hunger (all those calories in the flapjacks and focaccia seemed like a waste at this point

Lunch was great! Chorizo fritatta with mange tout and pepper with a little bit of leftover quinoa salad, so satisfying! Followed by another milky coffee to keep me warm whilst lying on the sofa for Lost-fest. We bought series 5 as we haven't yet seen the last two series since we didn't have Sky and regular TV don't look as though they're going to show it now. Annoyingly for him him boyfriend already knows how it all ends but I'm still trying to avoid finding out before I see it.

I made dinner around 11am, we had some beef that needed using up so I very loosely followed a beef Goulash recipe, but I was missing most of the ingredients so made a lot of substitutions! I browned the beef in olive oil with some flour, cayenne pepper, tandoori masala and some beef stock then added the slow cooker along with some onion, carrot, sweet potato and a tin of chopped tomtatoes, then left cooking until 6pm. I served with a dollop of full fat Total Greek yogurt. It was amazing!! The beef was so soft and the sauce was so creamy! The sweet potato had almost disintegrated into the sauce, yum! I'll be making this again, might even try paprika and do it properly!

We ate it with a baguette to soak up the liquid, I was stuffed but it was so good I could've eaten it again!

So far so good, not the best breakfast but also not the worst and all my meals fit within my Weight Watchers points allowance. But then we settled down on the sofa for more TV (we had decided to make it a lazy weekend!) I had a bowl of full fat Greek yogurt with peanut butter and jam mixed in, a pack of chocolate buttons, a handful of Haribo and half a measure of Baileys (it was all that was left in the bottle!)

Today I just had lots of coffee's instead of breakfast and for lunch I made a super thick smoothie in a bowl with a Tropical flavoured Spiru-tein shake, rice milk, guar gum and xanthan gum and topped with dried mango and brazil nuts. The smoothie was lovely! Not as tangy as I'd expect for a tropical flavour shake but would definitely make a nice, versatile smoothie base. The colour was a bit scary though, it was quite luminous in real life!

I'm still loving the gums! Takers smoothies to a whole new level! :D

I snacked on a 9 Bar and then had a fry up for dinner - bacon, sausages, egg, beans and fried bread - there was no chance of me hanging around long enough to take a photo of that! I've also just had another one of the Nakd bars which to be honest I don't think I'm that keen on! I know another blogger has tried the same one and really liked it so I'm going to wait until I've tried the second one before I make up my mind, it could just have been the fry up taste still in my mouth, but I think there might just be an ingredient I'm not keen on. The sample bars don't have the proper packaging so I don't know what the ingredients are yet.

Is anyone else like me with sugary foods? I really struggle to just have one, it sends me off on mad cravings for more! I usually treat myself to something at the end of the week which sends me crazy over the weekend. I don't want to cut out all sweet treats so I really need to learn to control myself a bit better. I'm especially bad if I have a drink, I don't even need to be drunk but after a few drinks I just don't care about food and will eat anything! I think I forgot to post but on Thursday after our night out I had a real craving for Chinese food so stopped in at the takeaway from some crispy salt & pepper chicken on the way home - as I expected it wasn't even that good - complete waste of calories!

. ♥ Stella

And the Results Are....

2010-09-17T21:58:00.000+01:00

I gained 2lbs!! Ooops! I had lost 2.5lbs so put most of it back on. I'm putting 1lb down to unfortunate time of the month bloat as I usually gain 1-2lbs. So not too bad considering. I want to work hard at cutting the junk this week. Though I must confess I haven't made much of an effort at cutting the junk tonight! My boyfriend got some good news so we were celebrating that tonight with desert (toffee pecan tart thing) and tortilla chips with a sweet potato and harissa dip and now I'm having an apple vodka with lemonade! The rest of today has been good food-wise, and I've really enjoyed every single thing that I've eaten.

Today was my flex Friday so I was off work. I dragged myself out of bed with a nice double espresso latte with steamed milk and a Berocca Boost.

I just love the whole ritual of making coffee! I've been buying whole beans and grinding them as I use them and have been using the milk steamer on the coffee machine instead of just microwaving it, makes all the difference.

Once I was fully awake I made Heather's Protein Ice Cream for breakfast. I used rice milk, chocolate orange protein powder and half the cocoa powdrr, but otherwise just followed the recipe. I missed a trick by scoffing before adding toppings and just ate it plain :( Still gorgeous though! It was my first time using guar gum and it made such a difference, can't wait to play around with it some more!

I found that when I was using only the xanthan gum the smoothies were coming out very voluminous but also really full of air and a bit of a weird texture, and really shiny, the guar gum combined with the xanthan is great!

Lunch was another portion of quinoa and roast veg salad, with chicken and savoury toasted seeds

Poor Jeff was very jealous, he only got tuna for his lunch :(

With lunch I had a bottle of Firefly green tea with peaches and white grapes from my Holland & Barratt haul:

I decided to spend what I normally spend on Graze boxes in a month on some goodies for making my own to save some cash. I was put off doing this before because I thought it would be too expensive to get a big enough variety but H&B had lots of discounts and offers on so this lot only cost me £20 and most of that was the drinks! The huge bag of banana chips was only about £1.50 for 500g! That will last me ages!

This afternoon I had a Teapigs chocolate tea

Last bag, I really need to re-stock but it'll need to wait until next month :(

Since dinner was going to be a late one I had a late afternoon cup of coffee (regular French press with cold milk this time) and sampled one of the Nakd bars - oh wow! I'm hoping they'll do a mixed box with all the current and new flavours, don't think I'd be able to choose just one!

Dinner was worth waiting for! Pumpkin and Chorizo Risotto! I just followed this recipe but added chorizo shortly after adding the rice. It's pretty much amazing with or without the chorizo! Crappy photo though as I was too hungry to bugger around with the light/camera settings.

Now if you'll excuse me there's an ice cold apple vodka waiting for me!

Have you tried Nakd bars? Are you a fan? Obviously I love them! The gluten free bars are my favourite but I also adore the Trek flapjakcks!

♥ Stella

Naked Nakd

2010-09-17T18:08:00.000+01:00

This morning I received a parcel from Natural Balance Foods, the guys who make the gorgeous Nakd bars, containing 3 of their new flavours! They haven't announced what they are yet so I wont mention the flavours just now but I can say that they sound amazing! I tried one of them this afternoon with my coffee and I think I have a new love! I think I might even prefer it to the Cocoa Orange!

Once I've tried them all I'll post up what they are and let you know what I think! I'm looking forward too reading what all the other bloggers think of them too :D

I'll be back leter for a proper post and update on last nights Weight Watchers.

♥ Stella

Think Thin!

2010-09-16T15:52:00.000+01:00

It's Weight Watchers weigh in tonight - send positive vibes my way please! :D

I'm not expecting a loss this week given how much I've eaten over the last two weeks and I have a cold so my appetite has been crazy for the last few days. I was tempted not to go as it seemed a little pointless when I know I've gained, but I kind of feel like I should go along and fess up and promise to do better next week.

I've definitely been a lot better behaved with food today. Breakfast was 0% Greek yogurt with oats, cocoa, berry & flax mix and a tsp of jam mixed in last night. I had a goat cheese Babybel to snack on along with a half cappuccino/half hot chocolate mid-morning and another this afternoon with some dates. For lunch I made a roast veg and quinoa salad with a tub of Graze savoury toasted seeds poured in - the seeds were great in this for a nice bit of crunch! I was very temped to go downstairs to our Starbucks and get something chocolate and cakey when the chocolate cravings hit earlier but thankfully I was too busy this afternoon to leave my desk!

♥ Stella

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