Sunday 30 December 2012

Skinny recipe #2 Cheats honey & mustard chicken

Hello!
 
 
 
I wasn't feeling too well today so I wanted a lot of vegetables but was slightly limited. I decided to use one of the low fat honey & mustard Chicken Tonight sauces. I've never tried the low fat one before but to be honest, I can't tell the difference! I don't like using store bought sauces but they're always handy to keep in the cupboard.
 
Here we go!
 
Serves 2
 
You will need:
2 chicken thighs (or chicken breasts)
Low fat honey & mustard sauce (Chicken tonight)
2 tbps frozen sweetcorn
2 mushrooms
Salad/rice/baked potato/mash
Casserole dish
 
Method:
  • Preheat your oven to 200C/400F/gas mark 6.
  • Score lines on your chicken thigh (you can use breast if you prefer) place in a dish, not a tray, and cook in your preheated oven for 20 minutes.
  • After 20 minutes, take out your chicken and add half the jar of honey & mustard sauce. Add 2-3 tbsps of frozen sweetcorn and 1-2 sliced mushrooms. Stir and then cover with foil. Place back in the oven until cooked (approximately 30-40 minutes unless using chicken breast, as it'll cook quicker).
  • Whilst the chicken is in the oven, prepare your side. You can have this with salad, rice, baked potato or mash. Struck likes to have his with rice whereas I prefer mine a little healthier and have carrot & suede mash. To make this, I peel, chop and boil the carrot and suede in a pan until soft. When the chicken is cooked, mash with a little butter and season.
  • When the chicken is cooked through, plate and serve with rice, mash, baked potato or salad.
Depending on the side you cook, the calories will vary. My meal above was 420 calories which was really good for such a filling meal.
 
**TIP** Serve your meals in bowls where possible, as you can reduce your portion size and trick your brain into thinking it's a regular sized plate of food!
 
Let me know if you try this recipe! x

Skinny recipe #1 Homemade Fish & Chips

Hello!
 
 
This isn't the healthiest meal ever but we had some fish to use and I fancied trying a different recipe!
 
I made two slightly different versions. One for vegetable lover me and my notsokeenonvegetables other half, Struck.
 
Let's get started!
 
Serves 2
 
You will need:

1 regular potato or 1 sweet potato
Rapeseed oil
Salt & pepper to season
Low calorie olive oil spray
Smoked paprika
Cayenne pepper
2 x fish fillets
1 egg
5 tbsps flour
5tbsps breadcrumb (fine)
1 cup frozen peas
Mint sauce (optional and to taste)
Butter (optional and to taste)
Small pan
Baking tray x 3
Blender/masher (optional - for mushy peas)
 
Method:
  • Preheat your oven to 200C/400F/gas mark 6 and if possible, preheat a top oven to 220C/425F/gas mark 7.
For normal chunky chips:
  • Put a baking tray in the (220C) oven to warm up.
  •  Cut 1 baking potato (per person) into large chunks (skin on/off is down to preference).
  • Boil a pan of salted water and pop the chunky chips in for 3 minutes. After 3 minutes, drain and set aside.
  • Toss the chunky chips in 1 tbsp of rapeseed oil then season with salt and pepper.
  • Carefully tip the chunky chips onto the preheated oven tray and pop back in the oven. Set a timer to turn in 15 minutes.
For sweet potato wedges:
  • Wash the potato and cut into wedges.
  • Prepare a baking tray by spraying it with 1 cal olive oil spray all over.
  • In a bowl, spray your wedges with a couple of squirts of the olive oil spray and season well with salt, pepper, smoked paprika and cayenne pepper (last two are optional).
  • Place wedges on the sprayed baking tray and pop in the (200C) oven. Set a timer to turn in 15 minutes.
For the breaded fish:
  • Using any fish fillet (we used trout), set up three plates. One with flour, one with beaten egg and one with breadcrumbs. I mixed both paprika and cayenne pepper into my flour AND my breadcrumbs to give it a little more flavour.
  • Coat the fish in the flour on both sides, shaking off any excess. Then coat the floured fish in the beaten egg evenly. Once coated in egg, lay in the breadcrumbs until both sides have a nice, even coating.
  • Set asides on a baking tray and continue with the rest. One fillet per person!
  • Once done, wait until the 15 minutes is up and take out your wedges/chunky chips. Turn over and then place back in the oven on a lower shelf for a further 15-20 minutes. Pop the fish on the middle/top shelf for 15-20 minutes.
Note: you could change the spices to lemon and herb!
 
For the peas:
  • Using frozen peas, cook as instructed.
  • For those who do not like mushy peas, serve when ready with a little butter and seasoning.
  • For those who do like mushy peas, drain and add back into the saucepan or bowl, add 1 tsp of butter and 1 tsp of mint sauce, then blend or mash!
Once the fish has cooked, plate up and serve with slices of lemon for a twist!
 
Calories are approximately 600 (depending on fish/potatoes and other ingredients), which isn't too bad for a large meal like this!
 
Let me know if you try this recipe out! x

What to eat...

Hello!
 
 

 
The word 'diet' tends to freak people out a little.
 
"My new years resolution is to go on a diet"
"As of Monday, i'm on the diet"
"Nope, can't have that... on a diet"
It's always used in a negative way!
 
You shouldn't diet, you should change your lifestyle.
 
I have tried diets but hand on heart, I never stick to them. Regardless of the weight loss, I do love a cream cake (or any cake for that matter) so I'd always fall at the first hurdle. It's also near impossible to be on a diet around an occasion - birthdays, Easter, Christmas or New Year. They all have their temptations that are just waiting to stretch our waistline.  
 
Although you could say I was and still am (after Christmas) on a 'diet', I try and make it more a lifestyle change so that once I've reached my goal, I can maintain my weight a little easier instead of binge eating on tasty things and pilling it all back on again.
 
My goal was and is to have approximately 1200 per day. Some people may argue this is too little, especially if you're exercising but it works. I would try and stick to 1200 calories a day and try and burn off 500 calories in exercise!
 
Using the application mentioned previously (My Fitness Pal) I was able to measure my daily calorie and exercise intake as well as my weekly weight loss.
 
It really was amazing to see what food had high calories in them, especially drinks. I looooooove takeaway coffees. I used to get a large coffee on the way to work a few times a week but soon stopped when I realised that a large SKINNY latte was pushing 200-250 calories. I could eat a nice filing breakfast and have an instant coffee for that, which would keep me full all morning.
 
Changing your eating habits and changing your lifestyle isn't about banning certain foods, it's just about controlling your calories and burning off the naughty treats.
 
At the very beginning, I became slightly obsessed and ran myself into the ground because I pretty much banned anything nice - no takeaway coffee, chocolate, cake, tasty yogurts etc. I had to take a step back and realise that a muffin wasn't going to pile on the pounds so long as it was in moderation. So I became more flexible with my eating. If I fancied a McDonald's for lunch (approximately 1100 calories) then I would only have a bowl of very low calorie soup in the evening.
 
It's all about balance and exercise.
 
Now, you couldn't do this every day otherwise you'd never lose any weight but occasionally is fine.

So...meals.

I would recommend you eat as many healthy and fresh ingredients as possible as it'll make you feel better both inside and out, will keep the calories down and make you stick to the diet.

BREAKFAST IS SO IMPORTANT!

 
Breakfast may seem like you're eating unnecessary calories, especially as most cereals are high in calories but it plays a massive part of weight loss.
Breakfast will kickstart your metabolism and get things moving.
Most people complain they cannot eat that early in the morning but start forcing yourself to eat little bits and build it up. I used to hate breakfast but now I wake up with a rumbling tummy.

Good breakfasts to have are:
Fruit & fibre with skimmed milk (170ish calories)
Toast (low calorie bread - 50 calories per slice such as Danish or Nimble)
Instant porridge, possibly flavoured with skimmed milk (250ish but filing - Waitrose)
Mixed fruit and yogurt (100-150 calories - Sainsbury's and Weight Watcher yogurts)


Snacking is also a good thing!
Fruit or veg are the obvious snacks but cereal bars (the low calorie options) are also good and can be more satisfying.

My recommended snacks:
Alpen bars (70 calories)
Weight watchers fruit crumble bars (80-90 calories)
Snack-a-Jacks (90ish calories)
Fruit (apple - 50 calories / satsuma - 30 calories)
Veg (carrot - 20 calories)
Nuts (high in calories but good fats/calories)
Crackerbread (19 calories per slice)
Note: only have one bar or a small handful... don't go crazy!


Lunch is the easiest meal of the day.

As I'm usually at work, soup or Ryvita is the easiest for me.
I've tried a few 'low calorie' soups and be warned, the Weight Watchers ones are awful iin my opinion.
Lunch recommendations
Any Waitrose Love Life soup, especially tinned or fresh
Ryvita with low calorie cream cheese & chutney
Cuppa soup & low calorie bread roll
Salad (with lots of lettuce) and a non-cream based dressing (honey mustard is great).
 

Dinner always seems to be the biggest issue.

You can still have your favourites, just change the ingredients a little.
Here's a few things I have for dinner and how I change them!
Beef Stew - add loads of vegetables, beef and stock to a slow cooker and leave on slow all day Eventually you'll have tender beef, a lovely stock and yummy vegetables as well. I have mine with carrot & suede mash.
Spaghetti bolognese - instead of using beef mince, use turkey mince as it cuts the calories by nearly half! Use less tinned tomatoes and use beef stock instead, which will help flavour the turkey! Don't go overboard with the pasta, if anything, cook less and perhaps have a low calorie yogurt after dinner instead.
Fish & chips - Any fish or potato works for this. Lightly bread a small piece of fish (any fish works) and oven bake for 20 minutes. Using either baking or sweet potato, cut into chunks/wedges, spray with low calorie olive oil spray and bake for 30 minutes turning once halfway! Serve with peas (or mushy peas if you're fancy).

And finally... Desserts.

This is one of my favourites. It's under 10 calories a pot and is so tasty!
There aren't many low calorie puddings but you just have to be inventive.
Here are a few options:
Low calorie jelly (10 calories per pot)
Skinny cow ice cream
Angel delight made with skimmer milk
Low calorie rice rudding
Weight Watcher desserts

 There are options out there and 'dieting' isn't always about cutting out the tasty things, just balancing what you can and can't eat every single day!

I would start out quite strictly in the first few weeks, just so you get into the swing of things but slowly start introducing nicer things into your everyday diet making sure you exercise.

**Remember, it takes 3500 UNBURNED calories to put on one pound**

I hope this has made you realise that 'dieting' isn't all about lettuce and water, it's just about balance, moderation and exercise!

I will start putting some recipe and food ideas up to help x

Saturday 29 December 2012

Where to start....

Hello!
 

 
Everyone works slightly differently, especially when it comes to diet and exercise.
 
This is what I did!
 
  1. Decide that you want to lose weight - you must make sure you really want to lose weight, otherwise you'll give up at the first opportunity you have.
  2. Join a gym - only sign up for the minimum contract length. This may be a little more costly at first but if it really isn't for you, you won't have to pay out for another year!
  3. Find a gym/diet buddy - exercising and dieting can be really difficult on your own, especially if you're a mum or live with someone who isn't wanting/needing to lose weight.
  4. Buy some new clothes - whether this is an outfit in your ideal dress size and/or some new gym clothes to inspire you to go, both work!
  5. Plan your meals - work out your weeks meals so that you don't just pop in to a supermarket on your way home from work. If you're tired and hungry, you're bound to eat unhealthily.
One last tip... download or sign up to My Fitness Pal on your phone, tablet and whatever other device you can think of. It's free and really opens your eyes to what you are eating!
You can input your weight goals, record your weight and input all food/drink you have consumed throughout the day. You're able to include the exercise you have done for that day and it works out how many calories you've burned.
Note: the calories may differ on the app from the machines at the gym, so overwrite with the machines info!
I still use this application and couldn't live without it :]
 
Now all you need is the motivation to stick with it, which is a whooooooooole other post.
 
Hope this helped a little x
 
 



A big, fat hello!

Hello!


 
This was me in 2009.
I didn't own a set of scales back then but I'm pretty sure I was pushing the 16/17 stone mark and at 5'3", I wasn't exactly tall enough to carry the weight well.
 
Towards the end of 2011, I decided enough was enough. I was in a happy relationship, was happy in my job so there was no excuse to shed a few pounds (or stone in my case). The night I decided was after seeing my friends pictures on facebook. I didn't realise she was on a diet but seeing how she had transformed from a size 20 to a size 8 was amazing and really inspiring.
 
I dieted for a little and ended up losing a stone and a bit. Nothing major was changing though and I was losing motivation.
 
A very close friend then persuaded me to join the gym with her and although I will admit it was hard in the beginning, it was the best decision I've made and money very well spent.
 
When I started the gym, I was 14st 13lbs (197lbs).
 
Throughout the blog, I'll explain my journey in a little more detail but for a little
(th)inspiration...
 


I am still 5'3" (perhaps not in those shoes though) but I now weigh 10st 10lbs (160lbs). 
There are a lot of height/weight calculators out there but my ideal weight range is between 8-10 stone (112-140lbs) which is a large range. So long as I'm heading in the right direction, I'll know when I'm happy and need to stop.
 
Now you know all about me.. on to the point of the blog.
A few people have asked how I have achieved my weight loss and have asked for my gym routine or recipes, so thought this would be the ideal place to note everything down as and when I think of it.
 
I really hope this blog helps you to achieve your goals, whether it's weight related or just to learn a few new recipes!
 
Enjoy :] x