Stoptober - are you doing it?

6^th October 2018

Going through things you never thought you’d go through will only take you places you never thought you’d get to.

Well I said I wasn’t doing Stoptober but turns out I have without realising, I’ve stopped overspending on my food shopping, it’s made me realise, it’s a habit that I’ve got into, I like to try things because they’re new or look good, or because they’re a bargain.  This last week I’ve felt more satisfaction from actually thinking ‘okay what can I do with what I’ve got’, how can I make something taste good.  Yesterday that was a bag of red lentils, I’d got an open jar of balti curry paste in the fridge (it said use within 3 days but blah it was fine).  I fried up a couple of diced onions, added a diced celery stick, grated carrot, couple of chopped mushrooms, all what where left in the fridge then stirred through the paste.  Cooked the lentils separately then added them to the onion pan, stirred it all together with a bit of the fluid from the drained lentils.  I then stirred through some low fat crème fraiche and blitzed it all together with my hand blender.  Delicious it was, can be used as a curry sauce or soup, I had it last night with white fish (an 80 pence whoopsie from my freezer) and cauliflower (a 10p whoopsie).

I’ve got a lot of onions that need using so today I’m thinking I’ll use a tin of stewing steak and a few of them.  I think I might roast some of them, I love roast onions and if I eat them over the weekend, you lot won’t have to smell the effect they have on me!  There’s a couple of burgers in the freezer too, there’s a meal. 

I reckon I can do another week at least from what I have in the freezer, there’s packets of salmon, a couple of frozen fish pies, another pizza base, some potato waffles, not forgetting the frozen veg and I’ve frozen some of the curry sauce/soup I made yesterday, which reminds me I need to label them.

Now what I’ve realised this last few days is if I want to use the contents of my kitchen to fund the food bank, I’ve got to make changes to my behaviour, I’ve got to stop myself from walking in those shops or from buying that food when I go in for the papers.  I struggled yesterday when I saw a couple of trays of chicken breasts in the whoopsie section, but I stood and had a conversation with myself and realised they weren’t worth the whoopsie price anyway. 

It’s the same if you want to lose weight or make any changes to improve your wellness, you have to get out of your own way, acknowledge what you’re doing that’s not working and do things different.  Lose the ‘poor me’ attitude!  You can’t eat the way you’ve always done and expect a weight loss.

Psychologically you might find yourself thinking ‘I can’t survive on this’ but the truth is you can, you don’t want to, which is a completely different conversation.  I don’t want to have to think about how to use those last two mushrooms before they go off (well actually I do because something goods coming from my effort) but you get what I mean, it would have been so much easier on Thursday night to stop off at my favourite chippy and have chips and curry sauce for £2.10 but I said to myself, that £2.10 can buy something for the food bank and you’re not actually that hungry because you had that home-made pizza at lunchtime, instead I went home and had something else, I’m not going to lie, I can’t remember what I did have but I wasn’t hungry so it wasn’t much, think it might’ve been a bag of crisps.

Now I’ve just realised I have a confession, I’ve been using the change from Weight Watchers to WW as an excuse not to think about the Smart Points in things.  I’ve taken the ‘don’t have to focus on weight loss’ to the extreme this last week or so and I need to stop it NOW!  I might not want to focus on weight loss so much but I sure don’t want to focus on weight gain either.  I’m going to get back to sticking within my allowance with my meals, I know it can be done as I’ve done it before.  That curry worked out at 6SP portion, the white fish was zero.  My breakfast had been an omelettes with courgettes and a bit of protein cheese in, that used up one of the courgettes, one left to use and the rest of that crème fraiche so that might have to be today’s dinner actually, maybe with pasta, make a garlic sauce, the stewing steaks in a can, it’ll keep.

Yeah the money I’ve saved on not shopping will help with a sizeable donation to the food bank but as a reward to myself I had a mega massage yesterday, Charlotte from the Chi Rooms really eased my aching back and my wrist which was really hurting, it was so good, I truly recommend you treat yourself to a treatment, she’s got an offer on this month I noticed,

🍂🍁 Autumn Offer at The Chi Rooms 🍂🍁
Combination Spa treatments are an excellent way to give yourself a feel-good boost so we’re combining a back, neck and shoulder massage with a luxury facial throughout October & November!
Only £30 for 60Minutes
Call or message to book 💆🏽‍♀️
01922404300

Check out her facebook page https://www.facebook.com/The-Chi-Rooms-329387747084510/

Anyway I need to get ready for work, my alarm didn’t go off this morning so already running late.  Have a good day BeYOUtiful!