2011 - The Big Fat Diet Thread

[yorkylass]

Turkey, Pepper and Pasta Bake

Serves 4     Points per serving 5 1/2

450g minced turkey
1 large onion,   chopped
1 garlic clove,   crushed
1 large red pepper de-seeded and chopped
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
2x400g canned chopped tomatoes
200ml water
170g pasta shapes
salt and pepper
half teaspoon mixed herbs
50g half-fat cheddar cheese  grated

1. Preheat the oven to Gas mark 4/180c/350f
Heat a non stick frying pan until hot then dry-fry the turkey mince, stirring well for 7-8 minutes until cooked and crumbly.
 
 2. Add the onion, garlic, pepper and oil. Mix well, cover and cook for 5 minutes, until the vegetables have softened.

3. Stir in the tomatoes, water, pasta shapes, herbs and seasoning. Bring to the boil and simmer for 2 minutes.

4. Spoon the mixture into a cassarole dish. Cover and bake for 40 minutes.

5. Uncover and serve hot, sprinkle with the grated cheese.

Hope you enjoy, this is one recipe the whole family enjoys!

Yorkster xx

[Mifford]

awesome thanks - and seeing as how I'm about to go food shopping this morning I may just pick myself up some ingredients while I'm there

I have butternut squash in the slow cooker at the moment.  It's basically chopped butternut squash (meant to be pumpkin but I couldn't get any), chopped onion and I've added asparagus and mushrooms although they aren't in the recipe.  Cover with just enough chicken stock (about 500-750ml) made with hot water.  You are meant to add a herb bag of bay leafs and cinammon sticks etc but I didn't have half of it so I've sprinkled some cinammon in there.  Then stick the slow cooker on low for about 5 or 6 hours (that'll be all day in my case!).  Finally add some double cream and blitz the whole lot in a blender.  In order to keep this lower in fat I'm planning on adding a spoonful of low fat natural yoghurt rather than cream which should give it a nice zing too and after searching on the internet I've found that it does provide protein so should cover that side of it.

The whole thing comes out at about 1.5 points for the yoghurt and that's it!  I'm going to make myself some bread in the breadmaker to go with it to pad it out a bit and also to increase the points as otherwise I'll be too far under today.  Seeing as how I had half a galia melon with yoghurt, walnuts, a glass of orange juice and a cup of tea for breakfast I still have about 12 points to use up for lunch so it means I can start using up a little bit of the stuff left over from Christmas without feeling too guilty  

My goddaughter is popping in later too so while I'm out food shopping I'm going to pick up another Wii controller so I can challenge her to Just Dance as well - that should help kill a few more calories seeing as all my best intentions to exercise have so far failed to materialise! doh!

[Brass]

Yorky and Mifford you both put me to shame! 

I dragged myself out of bed at around 11:00 this morning and I've had a banana and a cup of coffee... (and two ibrupofens) 

[koalabear]

Brass, I'm also having problems dragging myself out of bed at the moment. Hope you feel a bit better now after taking the ibuprofens. Other than that, a banana and coffee sounds good for the diet, doesn't it?

My diet hasn't started yet I'm gradually building up inspiration, which I hope will return once I'm no longer hypo again.

My husband came home after work yesterday with 2 bags full of homemade waffles his father had baked. Luckily I'm not too crazy about them, but the only way we can stick to a diet is by not having anything tempting in the house. My husband needs to lose weight too.

Your recipes sound great everyone, really useful. I'll write more about the Heilpraktiker diet soon - I lost a lot of weight on it last year without going hungry and on the whole it was an easy diet to follow, even when you eat out.

[Mifford]

Koala can you put them in the freezer? at least then you'll only have the odd one rather than have them screaming at you to eat them.

And Brass don't feel put to too much shame ... I just totally blipped again and finished off the rest of the christmas pudding which only made me even more hungry so it was followed by a packet of hula hoops!  I'm justifying it to myself on the basis that this food needs removing from my house if I'm going to stick to not eating such rubbish in future 

What's really freaky though is I don't usually eat all that stuff and I gain weight but over Christmas I only gained 2 or 3 lbs ... it's not a great motivator for not eating it!

[Rosemary]

Well I may be joining you but as I've still got a lot of Christmas goodies here there's not much point until they've gone. I haven't been near the scales either so not sure what the damage is yet. I do know that when my thyroid was going under I retained fluid and felt fat and dizzy. Now it's up a bit I've lost that and felt so much better in myslef. it wasn't fat, but water so make sure you are on the right dose of thyroxine. Good luck to you all and I'll be back when the choccies have gone.

Rosemary
x

[Brass]

OK mifford - I wont feel too bad - just as well as I had a couple of crackers with some stilton at lunch time (special treat brought from the UK and I couldn't let my hubby eat it all could I)  apart from that I've not been too naughty... oh apart from the dates   could quite happily have a few more crackers too 

welcome aboard Rosemary xx

[Mifford]

turkey recipe thing is in the oven with the addition of asparagus mainly because it needs using and saucepan is on the hob with a couple of bits of frozen spinach, 3 little brocolli florets and the last of my frozen peas in order to free up some space in the freezer.

I've been really good today and am feeling very self-righteous. Whether it will last until I go to bed is a totally different matter 

I have given myself renewed inspiration though - I have calculated that it is 42 weeks before I am due to go to Hawaii and if I can lose 42lbs that will leave me exactly 7lbs above my maximum ideal weight range and I know that at that size I can definitely wear a bikini and I will be back in a size 12.  So I have a new goal of 1lb a week until the end of October - which sounds like a ridiculously long way away but to keep my goal in sight I now have a picture of my friend and her kids stuck to the cross-trainer (not that I've been using it yet but once I get a bit less tired and the weight starts to come off I will be) and another picture that my friend took of the beach near her on the fridge to remind me what my ultimate aim is.

1lb a week - definitely achievable even with a thyroid problem methinks 

[Mifford]

I can now confirm - turkey recipe - absolutely DELICIOUS!  I discovered as I dished it up that I didn't have any cheese so I topped it with some parmesan instead but still really really tasty.

I reduced the portions to make it suitable for one person but still couldn't eat all of it so I have some left in the fridge to have for lunch tomorrow with a salad.

thanks Yorky this will definitely be added to my cooking repetoire in future

[Chatcommander]

Right, I am back on plan as from tomorrow.  I have been to slimming world class today and am just determined to get the christmas pounds off and would love to lose 2 stone by Easter.

The indian curry book by SW is really good, I find them my favourite meal because you can add so many vegetables.

This turkey recipe sounds nice thanks 

[Kath1808]

Hi All

Just started back on here after the Christmas break and would love to join you all in the healthy eating plan of 2011.

We have more or less finished all the Christmas goodies now, so I think I will officially start on Monday, it's much easier for me to start at the beginning of the week. Better start getting rid of the Christmas .....

Look forward to hearing how everyone is getting on.

Love Kath xxx

[Mifford]

so did a sneaky weigh in this morning ahead of my official first week on Monday - I'm 2 1/2 lbs down 

I'm guessing it means my thyroxine increase has started to work and I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that it's still at least at that level by Monday but seeing as tonights dinner is ratatouille with a couple of slices of home baked bread it had better not go up by the end of the weekend!!!!

As long as I can find the time and energy Monday evening I've decided I'm going to go and join the local WW class again as well - I'm intrigued to see what the new system is as I've read that you can have unlimited fruit on this one without having to count it and I think having the discipline of knowing someone is going to be weighing me is going to help me be more vigorous in my efforts as well.

[Brass]

diet shmiet!  I've been rubbish this week... my heart just wasn't in it when I realised we still had cheddar and wendsleydale left from christmas... so I think this week will just have been training for next week.

Well Done Mifford!!! 

[yorkylass]

Hi all, well, I'm starting weight watchers today!

Got everything planned for today, if I don't plan things I find it so much harder.

I went to WW classes about 6 months ago, stuck to it completely and was gaining 1-2 even 3lbs a week. So when I got weighed this morning I had a big shock.

I've actually lost 6lbs since before christmas. To be honest, I haven't had much of an appitie though. I will now I know I'm limited, sods law innit! lol

So, I'm 13 stone exactly, going to give myself a goal of 2lbs this week. Something achievable. My ultimate goal is to get to 10 stone, so got quite a way to go.

So glad you enjoyed that turkey recipe Mifford, it's a firm family favorite here, the moment my 14 year old knew I was doing WW again he punched the air saying "yes, can we have that turkey bake".

So focused, I think it's really helped me planning starting, it's given me time to get my head in gear, time to get a meal plan together and get the groceries for that plan.

No excuses, will look forward to reading how you ladies did this week.

Also, got myshape for xbox kinect and going to do half hour on it each day, about 6.30pm so if I run out of steam it doesn't really matter, it'll be bedtime soon.

Yorkster xx

[Mifford]

Yorky are you doing the new WW pro-points thingy? I was going to go along tonight to see what the new plan is all about but I have a friend popping in about the same time so won't be able to make it.

I've decided to do a live-it rather than a die-t.  I found last week that the days I wasn't so rigid and was more relaxed about what I ate I lost weight and felt better but the days I was sticking to it religiously my weight went up and I didn't feel so good!  Plus there were days when I was having to force myself to eat as I hadn't had enough points and other days I was struggling more so I've decided that rather than stick religiously to a diet as such I'm going to try this week just eating healthily and exercising and just reducing my portion sizes.  its how I'm going to have to maintain it further down the line so I may as well start now and I'll see how it goes by the end of the week.  I will be keeping an eye on the points to make sure I don't go off track too much but not worrying about them so rigidly.  Today for example I've already worked out what to take out the freezer for dinner so know roughly how many points that is and I checked my breakfast points to see how many they used up but I knew I was having smoked salmon salad for lunch with a low fat M&S mousse and some plums so I've not counted them.  It may be slightly more than I should have but I suspect its probably slightly less but I'm not going to worry about it.  I had a handful of nuts and raisins as a mid-morning snack as well but I haven't counted them either - I know I haven't gone overboard with them and I'm going to try and listen to my hunger so I don't end up so starving I have to eat more and quicker food and also so I don't eat when I don't really need to.  I think my body has forgotten to listen to what it actually needs so I'm going to try and retrain it if I can.

On the bright side the end of the week I ended up 2lbs down from last week (no idea where the other 1/2lb from mid-week went!) and I'm also down by 0.2% body fat which is the reading I've become more interested in - as I exercise more my muscle tone will return and it might make the actual weight readings deceptive.  The body fat percentage will show when I'm gaining lean muscles so will be losing size even if I'm not losing weight.

Good luck to everyone else starting this week - between us we CAN do it!