Down Day

So I'm having a bit of a down day today...I think I'm feeling down and a bit stressed for a few reasons.

I'm hoping by writing it down I can sort things out in my head a bit and feel a little better!

1) Money

I'm feeling quite stressed about money, we're saving for the wedding at the moment, as well as everything for the new flat. Both things will be very expensive, and whilst the wedding has been budgetted for and I know what I have to save, the falt is currently a total unknown.

To add to this I bought a Pocket Finsbury Filofax the other day, and whilst I onl'y sent £14.99 on it (bargain!), I've realised I won't use it and I'm feeling stressed as I've spent money on it. I'm looking to sell it and hopefully make a little bit of money, so that might make me feel a bit better.

The problem is that at the moment, to save what I need to for the wedding I'll have about £20 spare every month, for anything else I need/want, including presents, clothes, travel, meals out etc. And I'm feeling that it's not really enough and I'm just going to have a sad year stuck at home doing nothing.

Resolution: Sell the Filofax, try not to stress. The end of this year will be a fantastic one for me with my wedding and moving into the first place that we own.

2) Food

I've posted before that I was losing weight and on a healthy eating plan. I've not passed my target and have lost around 4 stone! In terms of weight loss and my body I'm as happy as I've ever been and I love being smaller (and at 5ft the size I should be!) and having more energy.

But I'm still struggling with food and getting on the scales...I still want to eat all the food in the world, especially unhealthy things, but I'm ruled by guilt and so if I do eat too much or what I want I feel terrible.

I also feel awful if I get on the scales and they've gone up. I'm not sure what I'd think if I went above 7 stone. And I feel really good and happy if the number goes down, even though at 6st 9lbs I was technically underweight. I want to be back to that.

I can't eat a full sized chocolate bar, I haven't eaten one for over a year, 16 months...and I still can't bring myself to do it. When I started losing weight a Snicker's bar was a yard stick. In my new diet it was more calories than my breakfast, more than my lunch, maybe more than them combined. The same as having a pint of beer.

The thing is now, I will happily accept a pint of beer, but I can't get my head around a chocolate bar. I bought one the other day when I was only having a 290cal sandwich for dinner, but I was too scared to eat it.

Yesterday I ate too much, I was at a work thing where lunch was provided and I ate too many big and bready sandwiches, not to mention had 2 mini pastries for breakfast and a free glass of wine at the end of the day. Today I feel awful and guilty and I don't want to eat.

I'm panicking cause tomorrow I'm going wedding dress shopping with my mum and bridesmaids. We're meant to be going out for lunch, and in today's mindset I'm not sure if I can eat anything that's unhealthy. But if I fuss over what I eat my mum will pick up on it and make it a big thing. I'm scared.

I'm worried that if I carry on like this, panicking about what I eat, scared of putting on any weight that things might get worse...I don't want this to turn into an eating disorder.

Resolution: Again, try to worry less. As long as I'm not piling ont he pounds my weight can fluctuate a bit. I am also allowed to enjoy having treats every so often, as long as I balance them with heathier meals.

3) My Daddy

Very sadly my wonderful Daddy, who I was so close to and loved so much passed away last year.

I was at a Graduation Ceremony with work yesterday and it made me think of my own graduation, how proud he was of me. And I found it really hard. I was stood there looking at the students and their parents trying not to cry.

I've been finding it difficult lately, I don't think I've dealt with the loss completely yet, and I'm not sure how to.

Resolution: I don't know.

I can say that after writing that down and having a think, I do feel a bit better. The problems aren't magically sorted, but I feel ok.

Chicken and Spinach Cannelloni

A recipe from Save with Jamie, who has helped us with a few tricks to lower food bills, includes the calories in the recipes AND has made me fall in love with frozen spinach.

Yep, frozen spinach, and this is coming from the girl who hates spinach.

Save with Jamie

We roasted a chicken a couple of nights ago and were deciding what to do with it - the standard roast is pretty unhealthy - and opted for one night of chicken salad and then we decided on this recipe to last us for a couple of nights.

Now as always my pictures are a little thin on the ground...but I did remember to take one of the leftovers (yeah, sounds nice right?)

This is what Jamie made it look like...you'll see mine later

Serves 6

Ingredients

1 onion

olive oil

500g frozen spinach

2 tbsp plain flour

2 tbsp english mustard

200ml semi-skimmed milk

150g left over chicken

1/2 bunch fresh basil *

60g cheddar cheese

16 dried cannelloni tubes

1-2 pinch dried chilli

2 cans chopped tomatoes

* I ommited this, as it meant extra money spent and BF doesn't like herbs much

Method

• Preheat the oven to 180°F.
• Peel and finely chop the onion and put it into a large saucepan on a medium heat with a small amount of olive oil - I sliced the onions rather than finely chopping, but it made the stuffing more difficult

• Cook for 8 minutes, or until soft, stirring regularly and adding a splash of water, if needed, then stir in the spinach.

• Cook with a lid on for another 8 minutes to defrost, then stir in the flour and mustard.
• Gradually add the milk, stirring constantly for a couple of minutes, or until you have a nice creamy green sauce.
• Remove from the heat and season to perfection.
• Finely chop and add the chicken and basil leaves (reserving the stalks), then grate in half the Cheddar and mix well.
• A nice trick to get the filling into the cannelloni tubes easily is to transfer the mixture to a sandwich bag, snip off the corner and pipe the mixture into the tubes, or you can use a teaspoon, if you prefer - I tried using a tea spoon, but it was too big, I ended up using the smallest measuring spoon I had and my finger, burning them slightly!
• Once filled, place the tubes in one layer in a baking dish (roughly 10 x 12 inches). Wipe the saucepan out and return it to a medium heat.
• Peel and finely chop the garlic and tender basil stalks, and put into the pan with a a bit of olive oil to get lightly golden.
• Add the chili flakes, tip in the tomatoes and half a can’s worth of water, bring to a boil for a couple of minutes, then season to perfection and pour over the pasta.
• Shake the dish to distribute the sauce evenly, grate over the remaining Cheddar, and bake at the bottom of the oven for around 30 minutes, or until golden and bubbling.

Left overs - one whole dish and 2 spare tubes

I had to split mine into 2 dishes (one with 10 tubes and one with 6) as I didn't have a dish big enough fot all 16 tubes.

Overall I really enjoyed the dish and I would definitely have it again (but maybe as a lasagne to avoid the cannelloni stuffing).

Daily Diet - What I Eat Each Day

Along the lines of the health/weight loss side of things, I thought I'd let you info what I eat each day. For me what I used to eat in the day was a major problem, there were so many bad foods at work, and even when the office was cake/sweet/peanut butter M&M free, I always wanted to snack.

When I first started reducing my calories, I still snacked during the day, but these were planned snack. I really felt like I needed to snack and I couldn't survive throughout the day otherwise. I was in fact, very wrong.

For me it's about eating small amounts through the day, and keeping the calories low.

This is how I eat daily:

Breakfast

What: Cereal bar

Calories: try to keep it under 100

Time: around 10.00-10.30am (or as long as I can wait!)

Notes: I eat this when I get to work, I used to have breakfast at home and found myself wanting more food around the same time I now have my breakfast. Cutting out the breakfast at home cuts out unnecessary eating

Lunch

What: Warburtons Sandwich thin, with mustard (instead of butter) and a ham or chicken slice

Calories: around 200 (depending on the filling)

Time: first half around 12.30pm (or later if I can hold on), second half around 2.30-3.00pm

Notes: The sandwich thins are 100 calories each, which is amazing considering that a normal slice of bread is over 200 calories. If you like it, mustard is a great alternative to butter! I try and buy sandwich meat that says how many calories per slice it is, so I can work out exactly how much I'm having.

Mmm, looks yummy!

Snack

What: Crackers (2)

Calories: 20-35/cracker

Time: Whilst cooking dinner

Notes: Plain crakcers might sound boring, but I actually think they're really tasty! And they are pretty filling too.

Dinner

What: Something from the Hairy Bikers Diet Book

Notes:Try not to use all your remaining calories on this, remember that you've had other drinks throughout the day and you might want to leave room for pudding!

Also try to avoid large amounts of carbs, such as rice, pasta, noodles - these can pile on the calories!

Pudding

What: Yoghurt is great and some chocolate mousse pots are quite low calorie or I often have a little bit of chocolate.

Drinks

Never forget to include your drinks!

I drink a lot of tea, and as I only have a tiny bit of milk in it, I don't really count it. For soft drinks I have the 'zero' drinks, like coke zero, pepsi max, sprite zero etc.

But drinks like take away coffee, soft drinks ('full fat') or alcoholic drinks can be really calorific.

I hope that's helpful to those of you who are interested.

If you have any questions, let me know :)

Weight loss...success!

The last 6 months or so I've been on a calorie controlled diet to try and lose some weigh.

Since I left school and went to uni in 2007 I've basically been eating more and more food and the food became less healthy, and slowly over the time weight crept on.

It got to a stage last year where I felt horrible, I didn't like how I looked or how it made me feel. I'd made half hearted attempts to change in the past, but I never really tried that hard.

Luckily for me, my wonderful BF (boyfriend, he shall be knows as BF on here) suggested that we start doing a calorie controlled diet and eating healthier dinners.

Since then, with his help and support (and maths skills), I've been on 1500 calories a day as a maximum, I think I eat less on most days.

I've now lost just over 2 stone (or just over 28 pounds for those across the pond).

I still want to lose another stone, but I feel so much better already!

I want to share some tips and tricks with you, as well as what meals we like to eat.

My first recommendation is this book.

It's full of fantastic, tasty recipes, that are calorie controlled, filling...and frankly, yummy!

The Hairy Bikers have another diet book, which is worth getting, but not as good as this little gem. 

I track my weight using the Weigh Diary app, which is free, it's really simple to put in your weight, you can put in a goal, it shows your bmi and a graph of your weight loss.

It's really simple and easy, and you can even add a passcode!

I also have a list of Weight goals in my planner which I can tick off once I complete them.

If you're trying to lose weight like me...keep going, the rewards outweigh the struggle.

Some changes...

It's been rather some time since I last updated this.

I've decided that I want to change the direction of this blog from just a cooking blog to one that covers many more aspects, including organisation and health too. And by covering these topics, I mean my own battle to be more healthy and to live a healthier life!

Please bare with me whilst I get some posts going!
But getting a few followers and comments would be amazing :)

Enjoy,
Jenny