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Luckily, no swear words were required on my part. Mainly because I lost the princely sum of 2.5 POUNDS. Woo-ha! Originally it did just come up as being two pounds, then I realised I was wearing a rather chunky (if very pretty) necklace. (£4 from Primark bargain hunters!) which weighed a whole half pound once taken from around my neck. So, that brings my current weight to 14 stones, 1 pound. I am rather glad my prodigious pasta eating has finally proved good for something, even if I did go home last night and indulge in a rather large, but absolutely delicious tasting glass of chilled White Wine.
Next week? Adventures in MEAT. I could bloody murder a steak. Not literally mind. For one thing, I have absolutely no idea of how you go about hunting and killing a cow.
- Music:Steve Malkmus-Jenny and the Ess Dog
Now, you may or may not know this already, but I earn (some of) my living moonlighting as a Food Journalist. Every now and then I write for the Observer's wonderful Word of Mouth food blog (http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/food/author
Because of my love of my cooking-and consuming the things I concoct-I want to make this blog more than just about me discussing the pros and cons of attempting to lose weight. (For the record, so far so good, even if I did crumble before the temptation of a Solero Ice Cream last night after discovering that it only contained five "syns"). Therefore every now and then if I manage to concoct a culinary delight which is both enjoyable and doesn't pile the pounds on, then I intend to share it here. Just think of me as a South Mancunian Nigella Lawson.
Anyway, last night I fancied a Curry. You know those days when you're sat at your desk at work and you know exactly what you want to make once you get home and spend the entire day craving it incessantly? Well yesterday was one of those days. What I wanted, nay NEEDED was a massive Curry.
Now, as I'm sure you'll all know, a major problem with Curry is that due to the amounts of ghee and fats used in the cooking process, you can end up with something on your plate which may be delicious but doesn't do your waistline any good in the eating process. I've attempted to bypass that here by using natural yoghurt and plenty of fresh grated Ginger root which I believe adds a nice kick to the overall sauce. If you like something a bit creamier, you can use half fat Coconut Milk which creates more of a Korma type sauce. I also used Chickpeas for this as I love my legumes, but if they're not your cup of tea, Chicken or King Prawns would work just as well.
Miss Cay's Spicy Chickpea Curry (makes enough for between 2-3 people)
:: Half a chopped onion
:: 2-3 finely chopped/minced garlic cloves
:: 1" of grated fresh ginger (A piece about the size of your thumb should do the trick)
:: 1 tsp turmeric
:: 1 1/2 tsp garam masala
:: 1 tsp cayenne pepper
:: 1 tsp allspice
:: 1 tsp coriander
:: 1 good big handful of fresh chopped coriander
:: One tin of chopped tomatoes
:: One Red Pepper
:: One Green and One Red Chilli
:: One small tub of fat free Natural Yoghurt.
MAKE IT!
Chop the onions, peppers and chillis and mince the garlic. Fry over a low heat until brown.
Add the spices and stir around for two minutes or so until the flavours have started to develop.
Add the tomatoes and the chickpeas and simmer gently for a minute or so.
Add the natural yoghurt and grate the ginger into the pot.
Simmer gently for five to ten minutes.
Sprinkle with plenty of chopped Coriander and serve with steamed basmati rice.
Once done it tastes absolutely delicious, and is even better if left overnight and eaten the next day as it allows the flavours to develop. I would have taken some pictures of my culinary prowess, but unfortunately I have not yet gained the techniques to take adequate food pornography-esque pictures of my masterpieces. They always end up looking like plates of mess or giant pop art interpretations of Pacman.
Anyway. On a lighter note, I get weighed for the first time tonight. I feel rather like a pig going to market, but that's just something I'm going to have to get over I suppose. Oink Oink.
- Music:Bill Callahan-Honeymoon Child
As a rule, it tends never to be a good thing when you weigh yourself and scream FUCKING HELL, HOW MUCH?! when you see the figure presented on the scales before you. Particularly when you're surrounded by a clutch of middle aged women and your own mother who will come running over to see what all the hubub is about. However, I did this when I got on the scales for the first time in six months at my very first Slimming World meeting last Thursday.
Yes. You heard me right there. Slimming World. I have been known to be very scathing about slimming clubs in the past, mainly because I've always felt that they're the work of charlatans and conmen who slurp the hard earned money from your pockets to feed you their burnt plastic and guilt flavoured cereal bars. Also, I tried attending Weight Watchers at the beginning of last year and it failed-mainly because I was using up all of my points on booze (I can resist every temptation except red wine)-and also because I objected to being forced to pay for every little thing they attempted to throw at me. Not content with fleecing you for a fiver every week, you're also expected to fork out for Weight Watchers booklets, access to their website to track your progress and to buy their food products at every avaliable juncture. I may be fat, but I am also thrifty (blame my Northern genes). After the third time of being expected to fork out for superfluous products, I told Weight Watchers where to stick it.
I also have a bit more faith in Slimming World. Misguided faith this may be, but over the past eighteen months I have seen my mother (who started out at exactly the same weight as I am currently) lose almost five stone. Granted, she is a bit of a zealot about it, but when faced with results like that, I defy anyone not to be impressed. It also helps that I have it on good authority that she stills goes out for dinner once or twice a week and enjoys a bottle of wine or two every now and again. My younger sister also started following Slimming World's eating plans at the beginning of this year and whilst she is way more hardcore about it then I could ever envisage being (the woman lives off pasta, diet coke and baked potatoes. I intend to be a little more adventurous with my own diet) she also has managed to lose two stone of weight in the past six months. Then-and perhaps this is the most important thing-there's the support element that this provides me with. Knowing that there are two people close to me who I can turn to for advice and encouragement because they're going through it too really helps me out. I work with my sister as well, so I know she can keep a beady eye on me to ensure I don't break out the Magnums when I know no one is looking.
Slimming World works by having two key eating plans, divided into Red days and Green days. On Red days you can eat as much lean meat and vegetables as you like, but can only have controlled amounts of carbohydrates such as Pasta, Rice and Potatoes. On Green days you can eat as many carbohydrates as you like, and controlled amounts of lean meat. On each days you can eat as many vegetables as you like, but products such as cereals, cheese, milk and bread are regulated. You can effectively eat anything you like, but products outside the plan have a "Syn" value. You can have between 10-15 "Syns" per day. Because I'm a Carb Queen who doesn't tend to eat all that much meat anyway, I shall mostly be sticking to Green days.
What I am going to miss however, is Wine. Particularly now it's Summer. I love Wine. Absolutely adore the stuff, certainly more than that most traditional of feminine comfort foods, Chocolate. It's Summer now, and one of my favourite things to do in this weather is sit in the shade with a good book and a chilled bottle of White and merrily get through the lot in an afternoon. I love spending weekends curled up on the sofa or in the park with the fella drinking Wine and giggling over stupid things. If Wine were a bloke, I'd marry it no questions asked. You get the picture.
The problem with Wine though is that it is the work of the devil for the lady wishing to lose weight. One bottle of White Wine is worth two whole days worth of "Syns" whilst a Gin and Slimline Tonic barely makes a dent in the calorie stakes. A small glass of Wine is only 4.5 "Syns" but unfortunately when I go out I am a woman who can very rarely stop at merely one glass and go onto something else. So, unless it's as a special treat at the end of the week, Wine is one of those things I am going to have to wave a very sad goodbye to.
Looking at it realistically though, this is probably a very good thing. My dearest darling genetic structure has not only blessed me with an immense capacity to put on three pounds just by looking at a cream cake, but also with something I call "the critical mass theory." Effectively, when it consumes enough booze it just passes out. Cold. I have lost count of the amount of times I have fallen asleep in bars, taxis, modes of public transport, friends houses and the rest as a result of this. Wine (and the rather high dosage of antidepressants I'm on) only exacebates this, meaning that on more than one occasion I've woken up in various places such as my bed/parent's house/boyfriend's house with no recollection as to how I got there. Not only is this very very embarassing and worrying, it's also incredibly dangerous. Gin and Slimline Tonics may not be the most rock and roll of beverages, but I'm willing to lose my edge for the ability to wake up on Saturday mornings and remember what went on the night before.
Anyway. I've been on this plan since last Thursday now and, if we can forgive Saturday night's minor blip of a pint, a dance to some Country & Western music in a field and a tub of Hot and Sour soup, it appears to be going quite well. What is slightly worrying though is the minor addiction I appear to be developing to Diet Coke. Oh well, at least it's not Crack eh?
- Music:Lambchop-The Daily Growl
For better or for worse, I have decided to go on a diet. This is not an easy thing for me to conceed to, mainly because I hate diets, probably because I've been reading Naomi Klein's The Beauty Myth recently. However, over the past few weeks, things have come to a kind of breaking point. These have included:
:: A student hairdresser calling me "fat" whilst giving my hair a chop (Yes, perhaps in retrospect I should have slapped her silly, but at the time I decided to just laugh it off whilst inwardly seething with rage).
:: Going shopping last Friday and coming to the awful realisation that not only did any of the lovely Summery clothes I was interested in suit me, they also didn't fit me. Even in a Size 18. I eventually ended up running around a changing room in floods of tears with a dress stuck over my head which I could barely struggle out of because of my mighty breasts and rather large back.
I've also been looking in the mirror recently and not being entirely over the moon with what I see. Mainly because of my tummy. Some women hate their thighs, I hate my tummy. It's just this massive wobbling amorphous mass of flesh which appears to keep expanding in size every time I put something relatively tasty into my mouth. Hence, because being a struggling Journalist I am too poor and in too much debt to be able to afford lipsuction anytime soon, something drastic needs to be done.
Now, I just want to make one thing clear before I go on. I don't hate myself. In fact, after years of struggling with depression, I've actually only just started to like myself. I'm not too bad looking I suppose, I'm relatively funny, I can string a halfway decent sentence together every now and then, and I've been informed that I make a mean cake (even if I can no longer eat it). I'm also blessed with a loving boyfriend, amazing friends and wonderful-if occasionally exasperating-parents who I know love me regardless of whether I was eight stone or eighteen stone. I am not doing this to change society's perceptions of me, because some bitchy newspaper columnist thinks that fifteen stone women are the new underclass or to score a hot date. I am doing this for MYSELF. Also, I feel I could benefit from being a bit healthier. I know for a fact that I drink too much, and could certainly do with consuming my five a day everyday rather than once every week when my Vegetarian Boyfriend does the cooking.
Perhaps more importantly, this doesn't mean that I fully endorse the dieting industry as a whole. Whilst I'm well aware that this may make me appear to be a hypocrite seeing as I have started attending one of the UK's largest Slimming Clubs, I do feel that the diet industry does have this horrible way of making overweight women feel like second class citizens who can only enter the gilded realm of being happy fulfilled human beings by losing a stone or two. Take that vile Weight Watcher's advertisement currently on television as an example. A middle aged man pushes his two children on a swing telling the camera that now his wife has lost weight, he's got the woman back who he fell in love with. What a twat. Every time it comes on I feel compelled to scream at the television that if he'd made his wife feel wanted to begin with, perhaps she wouldn't always be turning to cake for companionship.
One important fact about this blog is that I'm going to be keeping it public. So, feel free to comment, jeer, offer advice and support, or just leave bizarre spam Japanese Haikus. But most of all, if you want to read this then fine. But bear in mind, no one is forcing you to look at this. After all, it's just the internet.
So, as Will Smith and Jazzy Jeff once so ably rapped; "Here I go, Here I go, Here I Here I go. Yo." Wish me luck chaps. I'm going to bloody need it.
- Music:Santogold-L.E.S Artiste
