English: A photo of a cup of coffee. Esperanto: Taso de kafo. Français : Photo d’une tasse de caffé Español: Taza de café (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Good quality coffee is worth paying that little extra for.

Unfortunately most Irish supermarkets don’t stock much beyond the mass produced coffees from the big brands, so I usually pick up “nice” coffee when I’m travelling.

Luckily there are a growing number of specialised shops popping up in Irish towns and Carlow is no different. “Tea & Coffee World” in Carlow opened a few months ago and offers a very nice range of teas and coffees, including some very tasty flavoured coffee.

I’m currently drinking a nice mug of hazelnut coffee

This post originally appeared on Losing Weight Improve Your Waistline - It's All About Getting Healthy & Sticking To A Diet

These days, thankfully, things have changed and even my local corner shop stocks fairly “exotic” cheeses. Some are Irish, others are imported.

One of my favourite recent discoveries is an Irish cheese company from Cork called Carrigaline Farmhouse Cheese. Their smoked cheese is out of this world and totally addictive. Of course eating large quantities of cheese isn’t exactly compatible with a healthy weight loss regime, but if you like cheese then you might as well enjoy good quality Irish cheese!

The company makes three different flavours, the smoked one, which I’m addicted to, a garlic and herb one and a “semi-soft” cheese.

If you can get your hands on any of them you won’t regret it!

This post originally appeared on Losing Weight Improve Your Waistline - It's All About Getting Healthy & Sticking To A Diet

I like meat. I love eating pretty much every type of meat imaginable, so the idea of me becoming vegetarian or vegan just wouldn’t fly.

However that doesn’t mean that I eat meat every single day and that I can’t enjoy good food made with lots of fresh vegetables, pulses and other tasty non-meat ingredients..

This week, for example, I’ve been mostly eating salads and vegetarian pasta dishes in the evening, while during the day my lunch is primarily vegetable focussed. With the weather slightly warmer, by Irish standards, switching to eating fresh salads is great. They’re quick and easy to prepare and you can vary them by swapping around extra ingredients and using your imagination.

Soups on the other hand are something I always buy in. As Paul suggested, making soups isn’t that hard, but so far I haven’t risen to the challenge!

Today’s lunch was Cuban Black Bean soup from Just Food (looks like they’ve revamped their website, though it’s still not exactly stellar!)

Calorie count: 172 calories for a 400g container of soup

Amount of meat included? Zero.

“Cooking” it is simple, just pop it in the microwave for a couple of minutes and you’re done.

But more importantly, in my opinion, the soup is damn tasty!

While my weight loss progress hasn’t been stellar over the last few months at least I’m not piling on the weight and I’m happy with what I’m eating, which is very important for me.

Eating more fresh fruit and vegetables can’t hurt, though I haven’t dumped meat from my diet and I have no intention of doing so.

This post originally appeared on Losing Weight Improve Your Waistline - It's All About Getting Healthy & Sticking To A Diet

They’re made in Wexford, which is quite close to where I live in Carlow.

This morning I picked up two pots of yoghurt for breakfast, as I didn’t have enough fresh fruit and vegetables to do my own juice.

I picked up a pot of their rhubarb yoghurt and another pot of their blueberry yoghurt

The rhubarb weighed in at around 121 calories, while the blueberry one was about 180

While my own homemade yoghurt would be nicer in some ways, picking up a ready made good quality product works for me – especially when it’s this tasty

And the calorie count isn’t too elevated:

You can find out more about their products here.

This post originally appeared on Losing Weight Improve Your Waistline - It's All About Getting Healthy & Sticking To A Diet

The US site and online shop is now offering a “buy now” option, though there appears to be a two week backlog.

If you’re based in Europe, however, you’ll have to wait another few weeks.

The new device should prove popular with a lot of users, as it is wearable on your wrist, so you’re less likely to lose it and more likely to wear it at all times.

The Fitbit Flex can do pretty much everything the Fitbit One does, with the exception of tracking stairs climbed:

Fitbit device versions compared

It’s a pretty slick looking device:

The Fitbit Flex retails for USD$99.95 / UK79.99 (though some sites are listing it for lower)

This post originally appeared on Losing Weight Improve Your Waistline - It's All About Getting Healthy & Sticking To A Diet

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been cooking quite random dishes of my own concoction. Partially because I like experimenting and partially because I keep ending up without the right combination of ingredients for “normal” recipes.

This evening, for example, I had some leftover tomatoes that were “on their last legs” ie. if I didn’t use them they’d have gone off. So I combined them with garlic, onion, mushrooms, peppers and a leftover jar of anchovies.

To give it a bit more “kick” I also threw in a couple of diced chillies.

Served with some wholewheat pasta, courtesy of Gianni.. it was very very tasty.

All fresh vegetables, freshly cooked.. I’m not sure on the calorie count, but I suspect it’s not stupidly high.

This post originally appeared on Losing Weight Improve Your Waistline - It's All About Getting Healthy & Sticking To A Diet

Anyway here are some facts about caffeine illustrated

15 Things You Should Know About Caffeine

Via

This post originally appeared on Losing Weight Improve Your Waistline - It's All About Getting Healthy & Sticking To A Diet

Unfortunately, as I’ve already mentioned, it’s not that tasty as a juice unless you combine it with other fruit or vegetables.

Depending on what you have in the cupboard you might end up being a bit limited in your options. In my case I’ve run out of several items that I’d normally have, so tomorrow’s juice will be a mix of beetroot, carrot and orange.

This post originally appeared on Losing Weight Improve Your Waistline - It's All About Getting Healthy & Sticking To A Diet

The Fitbit One shown compared to a coin

I travel quite a bit and I often end up moving through different timezones.

If you’re using a Fitbit this is important.

You need to remember to update your Fitbit to have your correct timezone. I’m not sure how well the Fibit system compensates for big timezone changes overall, but if you check your progress every day it’ll look rather odd unless you adjust the timezone. If you don’t the Fitbit will happily record that you went to bed in the middle of the day and were really active all night ..

Of course some people probably do live like that

This post originally appeared on Losing Weight Improve Your Waistline - It's All About Getting Healthy & Sticking To A Diet

Over the weekend I picked up a couple of nice slices of tuna steak that had been reduced by 50%. Why were they reduced? Due to it being a long weekend!

There are a lot of ways you can prepare tuna steak. Last night I opted for a combination.

I grilled the tuna steak on my George Foreman for a couple of minutes and served it with a very simple tomato sauce. The sauce was a simple combination of shallots, garlic, herbs and tomato. Adding in a serving of pasta and the end result was delicious!

This post originally appeared on Losing Weight Improve Your Waistline - It's All About Getting Healthy & Sticking To A Diet