5:2 Friday#3

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So this is a STOP PRESS moment. After I wrote last week's post and claimed I was stuck at a weight loss hump, I got on the scales and realised that I had somehow managed to lose about 6 pounds somewhere - and had pretty much dropped a stone since I started trying to sort my weight out. So technically, I'm was where I wanted to get to, give or take.The scales confirmed this a couple of days later, but then bounced up (not massively so, but enough) again, which does leave me wondering just how sustainable this is - I mean it's getting weight off, short term, but I'm not sure I'm really tackling the day to day habits that lead to me putting it all on in the first place. I need to think this out a little more, so for now I'll keep on going.

Here's what I ate on my fast days this week.

Day 1 - Monday

Breakfast: A pink grapefruit and a kiwi.

Trying to make it look artful doesn't make it any more filling

This was a rash idea - by the time I'd dropped the kids at school and walked the dog, I was completely ravenous and had to have a coffee with milk, and a banana for fear of going into some kind of hunger melt down. I had work to do, after all. It could have been worse - there was chocolate cake knocking around - but this demonstrated that I really do need something more then just fruit inside me first thing. I'd kind of hoped to get away with a smaller breakfast and make up for it with some Ryvita at lunch time as well as some Greek yoghurt in my soup (living on the edge), but it was not to be. Ho hum. The grapefruit & kiwi was a mere 81 cals, but the coffee and banana bumped my morning intake up to 183 cals in total.

Lunch: my surprisingly delicious swede soup. 71 calories. I would have had some Greek yoghurt in it (0% fat of course) and possibly thrown on some toasted cumin seeds, but I'd over caloried topping up my breakfast. May be next time.

Tea: I'd intended to make a rather sophisticated shredded red cabbage and orange salad, but when I cut in to the cabbage it was clear that it had been in the veg basket too long... I was trying to work out what to have bearing in mind the contents of the cupboard and fridge, and was reaching for the noodles, when I realised that I could continue the 'vegetables as carbohydrate' theme and make leek and carrot 'noodles' by thinly slicing them lengthways and quickly cooking them in boiling water. I used 2 leeks and a carrot, and then dry fried about 8 mushrooms (sliced) with a squeeze of lemon juice, salt and pepper, and topped my 'noodles' with this and a drained 105g can of salmon. I LOVE tinned salmon. More salt, pepper and lemon juice (I'd have used some soy sauce if I'd had any) and it was a pretty tasty meal - and all for just over 200 calories. I had a passion fruit too, bringing the total to 218 calories.

Total: 472 calories

Day 2

Breakfast: Bearing in mind the disaster on Monday, I had a shredded wheat with 100ml milk - 121 calories.

I suppose I also need to count the fizzy Vitamin C tablet I had in the vain hope of stopping a cold in its tracks, and the milk I had in my post-dogwalk coffee - about 150 calories all in, then.

Lunch: Mmm this is starting to look a little uninspired, isn't it 

3 slices of Ryvita, 2 with salt beef, one with a scrape of marmite, and a sliced tomato, followed by a passion fruit - coming in at 154 calories. May be the novelty is starting to wear off...

Tea: Everyone else was having egg, chips and salad, because the chickens are now in overdrive, so it was easy to fit in when the other 3 wanted their eggs cooked differently. The Husband had poached, Blue wanted soft boiled and Pink an omelette. I am nothing if not accomodating. Having cooked to order, I made myself a spinach omelette and had a big plate of salad which included 40g of broad beans. The eggs and broad beans amounted to 178 calories. I had a handful of spinach and the salad won't have amounted to much calorie wise so I'm saying that it most likely came in at around about or less than what I had left for the day - no more than 196 calories

Other than the white coffee I had in the morning, I drank mainly hot water with slices of lemon and black lapsang souchong (I know, so refined) tea.