Taking care of me!

Saturday 6th January 2024

Normally in January I make a month of excuses, 'it's a busy month', 'it's my birthday month', 'I'm skint from Christmas', 'I'll start in February'!  Not this year, this year I'm taking care of myself from January 1st, slow progress, my tracker has improved every day since I started and yesterday was the best so far by far. 

I started my day with tomatoes on toast, 17 cherry tomatoes to be exact, I ate one before I cooked the others in the microwave, they had been on the side in the kitchen since we went away and they were still perfectly edible.  I'm loving the cheese triangle replacement for the butter, it's doing the job nicely and actually it has more flavour to it. 

I then spent a bit of time on housework before coming to sit in the living room to do a bit, I can't even remember what now but himself was sprawled over the sofa 'dying' still and watching crap on Youtube, so I 'suggested' he went back to bed as he was still poorly and rest is best.  Thankfully he did and I watched a bit of my crap tv and caught up on some of The Voice whilst putting together a shopping list and a couple of meal ideas. 

At one I went to have my nails saved, I'd prebooked the appointment at Glamazon before I went away and my nails were all battered and broken so I was hoping they could just make them not so ugly and thankfully they did.  My plan is now to keep them finger length for the foreseeable as they grow and get some health back in them.  They looked better once she'd manicured them before the polish even went on which made me feel instantly better.  It's madness because I went for 50 years with the ugliest, shortest nails and I didn't care but they've bothered me the last week being all yucky, they make me feel good now, having nice nails, it's proof to myself that I can change and break bad habits, not once over the last week whilst they've not had polish on, have I wanted to bite them!

Aryn and I went shopping next to stock up on healthy stuff, we bought fruit and veggies, I've got melon and pineapple which I'm going to chop up later.  I ate satsumas and a banana yesterday, that's impressive for me, I enjoyed them too.  

Once back, I spent a couple of hours cooking whilst he continued dying on the sofa, it's lingering for sure but he is much better than he was, it's in his sinuses that's what's making him feel the worse, I'll get him some Vicks today, any suggestions for anything else gratefully received.

Foodwise, I put a hot pot in the oven, simple ingredients, just 1kg of chicken thighs, I left the skin on, there was 7 thighs in the pack so I did the 'create recipe' under my meals and said it had 7 portions, of which I had 2 for my dinner for 266 calories.  The other ingredients were, 340g onions, 300g carrots, 530g potatoes, 5 chicken oxo cubes.  It could've done with more flavour for my liking, a few more oxo cubes maybe, but with salt and pepper afterwards it was okay.  I also cooked a bag of kale and put that in the bowl underneath when I dished up.  I love Kale but it's the one thing himself comments (moans) about when we have it, he's like, 'what's this stuff, seaweed', me 'no it's Kale', him 'yeah but is it from the sea?', me 'no, it's a form of cabbage, just eat it, it's good for you, it'll make you better!'

 

They both sat force feeding themselves as I inwardly smiled because whilst I was out having my nails done, they'd been to McDonalds so weren't that hungry and this wasn't the food they'd have chosen to eat lol, tough! 

I've also made this pan full of tastiness for today, I think I'm going to serve it with rice but I may be a rebel and do mash because I've fancied mash for days now.  

  

What is it you ask, well I was going to do the garlic chicken recipe from our website, but instead I used Quorn (half price in Sainsburys this week) and it tastes damn good, this is the ingredients I used.

Garlic Mango Chutney Quorn 

Total Calories , feeds 2 = 318 calories

Takes half hour plus marinating

Large bunch fresh coriander

8 garlic cloves, crushed

5 tsp garam masala

3 tbsp mango chutney

600g frozen Quorn pieces

1 tbsp vegetable oil

2 onions, thinly sliced

2 x 400g tin chopped tomatoes

Cut the stalks from the coriander and set leaves aside. Finely chop the stalks and mix with the garlic, garam masala, chutney and a pinch of salt to form a paste. Mix it with the Quorn pieces, it won't mix well but do your best.

Heat the oil in a large non-stick frying pan or wok and fry the onion for 5 minutes or until softened. Add the Quorn and marinade and turn to coat in the onions. Add the tomatoes and simmer for 10-20 minutes or until cooked, stirring regularly. Chop the coriander leaves and stir into the sauce.
I'll let you know how it goes down with the males in the house tomorrow, but I've tasted it and I like it a lot!
That pretty much sums up my day, I finally sat down with a glass of wine and we started watching Mr Bates v's the Post Office, we've got just over one episode left I think, we were really enjoying it but both tired we went to bed just after 9. I've managed just shy of 8 hours sleep. My apps saying I was only awake 29 minutes throughout the night, I'd disagree as my pain is really keeping me awake at the moment, I just can't get comfortable sitting or lying at the moment, I'm hoping it'll ease off now I'm not carrying logs daily and doing all that diy crap.
On that note, I'm going to get ready for my day ahead, got the huddle this morning, looking forward to that, then I've got 3 baskets of washing staring at me that needs folding and putting away. Oh the cats are so glad to have us back, they're both sleeping by me now and Coco is really clingy, Minnie has interacted with my sister whilst we were away but Coco just runs off and hides, bless him, so he's glad to see me, he's even getting used to himself, although that's taking longer.
Let's have a great day, do your best, you haven't got to be perfect! I ended on 1130 calories which is the lowest this year, that won't happen often, I did enjoy a couple of glasses of wine in that too, managed a litre of water, and about 6 portions of fruit and veg, so a huge improvement there.
One step at a time.
Mwah, luv ya
Love me x