Scales, Stew & Stress! It's all about the S's today!

18th October 2012

Good morning, it’s 5am, dark, damp and cold outside, the weather has been all over the shop this week, we’ve had crazy winds, sunshine then pouring of rain, and it’s quite obvious winter is on its way, or maybe it’s actually arrived a little early, we are officially still in Autumn though.  I’m blaming this weather for my appetite this week, yeah why not, I I’ll add that reason to the other one ‘my hormones’ – what else could I use? Might as well have a stockpile of excuses!  Whatever the reason the truth is I haven’t been the best this week at all and it doesn’t matter what I blame or use as the reason the scales if they could will have their fingers firmly planted in their eyes singing “la la la, I’m not listening” because they don’t care what the reasons are do they, they just give you the reality of the numbers!  If I lose weight this morning it’ll be a miracle from god and I would say my first ever thank you prayer!

Will I be upset with a gain, a little, let’s be honest here NO ONE wants to be gaining weight, will I be gutted – nah, if it meant that much to me for it to be a loss, it would be a loss because I’d have stayed on track!  It’s obviously not important enough to me right now to focus on it 100% and make it a priority in my life! 

Getting upset, angry and all stressed out isn’t a great way to aid your weight loss, it’s not productive and seriously STRESS is in my opinion (and I’m sure there’s research out there that would back me up) worse for you and your body than excess weight!

So what I’m doing right now is relaxing and focusing on one thing at a time, my priority at the moment is eating good food and shopping wisely.  I’m tracking 100% to help me identify if I have any patterns that I can become aware of and be prepared for in the future. 

Now I’ve been toying with doing a Filling & Healthy day or two again but the logical side of me is saying no because the last time I did it, I started eating differently to how I normally would, but then it also says, is eating a bit differently a bad thing!  Fair point well made.  My main concern with the Filling & Healthy days is I take advantage of the low calorie bread and crumpets and portion sizes.  So maybe I will experiment and do one day, see what happens.  I’ll need to be honest with myself, I will know if I’m overeating, but I have to say with this weather and the appetite I’ve got at the moment, it’s extremely tempting. 

I’ve got a pan of stew on the stove, we all discussed it yesterday morning in the meeting – what do you put in your stews?  Stew has never been my forte, you know when you have a food memory, I have one in my head – I actually don’t even know if it’s a real one, or an idea of what I want my stew to taste like – but it’s a taste I’ve never been able to master.  So the final verdict yesterday was the following ingredients; potatos, beef shin, onions, carrots, parsnips, pearl barley and oxos, so these were the quantities I used yesterday as they didn’t give me quantities;

            600 g Beef, Braising Steak, Lean, Raw

            500 g Potatoes, Old, Raw
            150 g Pearl Barley, Dried
            380 g Parsnip
            4 medium Onion, All Types
            400 g Carrots, Old, Raw
            6 cube(s) Oxo Beef Stock Cubes
            1 medium Leek

It’s on the stove now and although it’s thickened up, it looks the part and it tastes alright, there’s something missing and I’m not quite sure what – any suggestions.  It hasn’t got that flavour I’m after – boo!  For me personally I’m not sure I I should’ve put the parsnips in.  It is however a massive pot of food, if I get 8 portions out of it that would only be 7pp each and if I was to do Filling and Healthy the only thing that’s got to be ProPointed is the pearl barley and oxos.

I’ve decided, stick with my ProPointing I think and just include lots of filling and healthy foods, that’s a win win really, I’m getting the good foods and I’m staying in control of my portions rather than using the F&H idea as a license to see the kitchen as a buffet bar!

Well it might be dark but I’ve still got to walk the dog and go to work so I better get a wriggle on.  If you have the perfect stew recipe, send it me please, stew as in cooking on the top not in the oven.

Have a great day, no stressing about anything.  Stress is like a wooden rocking horse – it gives you something to do but gets you nowhere. xx