A week in… One lb down, but many slip-ups! Six Weeks to OMG

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I can’t start this post off by saying ‘so, a week in to Six Weeks to OMG’, because I’ve found myself adapting the plan quite a lot, in all honesty. The cold baths are a thing of the past. I cannot bring myself to carry on doing them, and unless someone can actually prove they really do aid weightloss in a proper trial, I don’t think I’ll be bothering. I chalk it up as one of those extreme fitness tips that can only make you miserable in the short term, like wheatgrass shots (BLEGH). Really, you have to evaluate for yourself each individual aspect of the plan – and Fulton says himself you can pick what you like from his ideas – and decide whether you think they’re worth the effort.

Another thing that’s a thing of the past is skipping breakfast. I can’t do that, either. I like eating breakfast, and I have plenty of time to do it, so why not?

I am keeping up low carbs, plenty of exercise before meals, where possible, and balloon blowing. Oh, and lots of coffee and tea, but that’s par for the course.

I had a great weekend, though – which is code for ‘I slipped up’. My plan was to have a low carb Chinese takeaway (chicken in black bean sauce), but I also ate a bag of prawn crackers, and half a tub of ice cream. Then on Sunday, I ate a great deal of popcorn, and a cup of rice, along with some Cajun salmon. Amazingly, despite this, I managed to lose 1lb at least so far (I didn’t weigh myself at the very start – too scared!).

My low-carb food requirements have led to me checking out some of the Atkins snack range, including the Indulgence bars (coconut and caramel and peanut…or something like that!), and the chocolate shake. All of them are fine, but very over priced. They seem to have cornered the market, though – there are literally no other sweet snack foods that are low carbs. Most health food snacks are loaded with them, because they’re cereal based. That’s a bummer. You can buy them online at a reduced price if you hunt around, though – Amazon seems like the best place.

Anyone else following this plan with any progress to report?

Second verse, same as the first… But a bit more in tune (Day 2 on Six Weeks to OMG)

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Today was more like yesterday should have been, although I still tweaked a bit and am definitely not ‘going by the book’. So, here’s how it went:

Woke up, did 45 minutes of movement (stepping), followed by black coffee, and a cold bath. I didn’t sit back, or go the full 15 minutes – it’s just too hideous to contemplate, even when I’m hot and sweaty from stepping.

I waited about two hours before eating my breakfast, but for scheduling reasons I couldn’t leave it any longer than that. I had the same as yesterday, and was definitely hungry by lunch. This time I had three eggs in the omelette instead of two, and my ‘lunch’ ended up finishing about half four! I obeyed the half hour hunt, half hour wait idea – but I wonder how still you need to be for the ‘wait’ part – I usually end up making my meal during this time, so I’m not really doing nothing…

Anyway, I had a belly dancing class at 6.30, for an hour, so I waited a corresponding hour before eating dinner at 8.30. Same as yesterday, except I had more chicken, and swapped out the cucumber for courgette. So, not really falling on the ‘eat the rainbow’ idea of crop rotation in the book, but it’s very hard to buy a large variety of proteins and veggies without it getting expensive and wasteful. Luckily, I have an organic veg box on Fridays, so there will be new stuff tomorrow (but oh, so much more fruit than I can ever eat!).

Someone’s made a very interesting point on the official forum – when are you actually supposed to shower on this plan? Working from home, it’s just me for most of the day, so I can get my shower in in the evening, but I certainly can’t see how you can fit in a shower in the morning, and a cold bath, as you need to wait a few hours after having a cold bath or you might faint. Even then, you still need to do another 45 mins of exercise throughout the day, and unless you’re only walking, you’ll be working up a sweat then, too. Maybe you’re supposed to shower before you have a bath, but of course, then you’ll need to shower, then wait for the bath to run, then hop in. The whole thing is incredibly time-consuming and doesn’t fit well into any normal schedule at all.

Anyway, today my calorie mark was 1183, calories burned was 618, leaving me with a scarily low net of 565. My carbs were 61g for the whole day, hooray! Much better than yesterday.

If I don’t lose weight by doing that every day, I would imagine there’s something seriously wrong somewhere – but yet again, I wonder how much would be down to balloon blowing (easily the best part of the whole thing), cold baths and hunting and waiting, and how much would be down to huge amounts of exercise and carb restriction. I GUESS WE WILL FIND OUT, EH?

First day on the plan: Six Weeks to OMG

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Okay, first day on this plan (on Quake, the hardest ‘difficulty’), and already not going so well. This is going to be an honest review, though – which means reviewing myself, and where I slip up, as well as whether the plan slips up.

First of all, I didn’t get up on time because I was avoiding the dreaded cold bath. I love my morning routine, and messing with it really puts me on edge. Unfortunately, most of the plan’s most crucial parts take place in the morning, and galvanising myself to do all the most unpleasant bits first thing was beyond me today.

As far as I understand it, this should be the sort of routine I’m aiming for:

8am: get up, 15 minute cold bath

8.15am: drink black coffee

8.20am: first ‘period of movement’ for 45 mins

9.05am: begin the 3 hour waiting period of ‘water only’ before first meal

12.05: breakfast

3pm: second period of movement for 30 mins

3.30pm: waiting period for 30 mins

4.00pm: lunch

8pm: third period of movement for 15 mins

8.15pm: final waiting period

8.30pm: final meal

10.30pm: blow up balloons… and SLEEP

Those of you with an office job, or kids, or hefty commitments are probably hearing alarm bells right about now – I think it’s fair to say that this plan doesn’t really fit in with the traditional day’s schedule, which is based around meals in the morning, and midday, and in the evening. I work from home, so I have a lot more freedom to tweak my schedule.

But, back to how well this schedule reflected reality… I shamefully I admit I skipped the ‘skip breakfast’ part, skipped the first POM, and had my cold bath after breakfast. I didn’t wait three hours after waking up to eat, and I didn’t drink black coffee either. I even pigged out on chocolate in the evening. Other than THAT, I was perfect…

Technically, eating the chocolate wasn’t so bad, apart from the whole ‘avoid sugar’ part… I was still well within the carb allowance, which is a maximum of 120g per day. I came in at about 100g – let’s not talk about the fact that I was aiming for 60g.

The meals were easier than I thought. I usually rely on Muller Breakfast Corners for my breakfast – they’re only about 162 cals each, but they’re heavy on sugar and carbs. So, I ditched that in favour of greek yogurt (high in protein, and very thick) – and full fat, for a change. I’d always usually go for low fat when it’s available, purely to save calories, but as Fulton points out, low fat = high carbs. In the case of my Breakfast Corners, I can see straight away that was right. To 100g of Greek yogurt I added 1tsp of honey and a kiwi fruit – my only allowed serving of fruit all day.

For lunch, I had a two egg omelette for protein, then asparagus and mushrooms.

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Dinner was a cup of roasted chicken (with skin), 100g butternut squash roasted with cumin seeds and chilli flakes, 100g purple sprouting brocolli, 60g cucumber, and 30g feta cheese. I did not get on so well with the whole ‘small plate’ thing – I overestimated how much room everything took up. Maybe tomorrow I’ll put everything on the plate, then find out how much it weighs, rather than working the other way around. However, when you take into account the feta cheese, I think I did sort of all right on the 50% protein thing, for a first attempt, anyway. I seem to be hitting it about a third, in all honesty.

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Fulton is very keen that you not drink your carbs – but I can’t give up milk in my tea, and I’m not giving up sweetner or sugar in my tea, either. So some of my carbs go towards that – we’ll see how I get on. But, disregarding the chocolate debacle, I managed to keep my carbs in today at under 60g, and I really can’t tell anything is different. Maybe I can blame my poor, desperate body craving carbs on my chocolate binge, but really what happened was I saw it in my kitchen, and decided that for the good of mankind I should really eat it now, so I’m not tempted later. Best of intentions, I’m sure you’ll agree.

My exercise was very basic – Fulton reckons the best kind is walking, and rates ‘stepping machines’ as a class below. If you swing your arms, I can’t see the difference between a stepper and walker – and I know for a fact that stepping burns more calories. So, there was 45 mins of stepping for me today. There should have been 45 minutes more, but as I said, the whole morning routine was a bust.

You’re not supposed to count calories on this diet, but in order to count carbs I end up being able to track my calories anyway, so what the heck? Again, not taking into account the chocolate, I came in at under 1200 calories, but the exercise burned off 327 calories. The full 90 minutes would burn 655 – that’s a huge deficit, and no wonder Fulton feels confident in claiming you can lose big here. That’s not taking into account the supposed witchcraft of the balloons, the coffee, the baths, and the timings of eating and exercising.

Of course, I can’t write a proper review without talking about the cold bath. It was bloody horrible. I was preparing for the worst and hoping for the best, and it was about as bad as I thought it would be. I had to buy a bath thermometer from eBay for the express reason of torturing myself in the bathroom for 15 minutes, and to be honest, I’d love my money back. It felt almost warmish (if you have a good imagination) when I was swirling my hand in the 20c water to test it out… Then I stood in it. Cold… Yes, but okay to stand in. Then, after a couple of minutes, it was time to sit. ARGH. Cold. Horrible. Disaster. After three minutes, I was supposed to lay back and allow the base of my head to dip luxuriously into the icy water – well, that didn’t happen. I lowered myself shakily backwards (now, that’ll work your abs), and sort of hovered for a bit, before resting with the whole of my body above my bellybutton out of the water, arms crossed over my chest. Nothing on God’s earth would have compelled me to move any further under the water. The whole 15 minutes dragged by. If you ever feel that your life is moving too fast, and slipping away before your eyes, take a cold bath, and the clock will stop. Maybe it’ll come in handy if you need extra time for your tax form. The period following the bath is very strange, because your skin retains the sensation of coldness long after you’ve actually warmed up. At this moment in time, I find nothing refreshing about it whatsoever, unlike some of the other reviewers of the book lurking on Amazon. However, I am not a quitter, and I’ll be doing it again tomorrow…

The balloon stuff is actually pretty fun, so no problem there. I’m also taking fish oil capsules, and multivitamins, which completes the night routine.

Tomorrow, the morning plan is to exercise for 30 mins when I wake up, drink the coffee after, take a cold bath after that, to see if that makes it any more likely to happen…

Six Weeks to OMG: the concepts

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During my first read through Six Weeks to OMG, I took plenty of notes. I find it harder to dip in and out of ebooks anyway, and there’s actually nowhere in the book itself where everything is written down properly in a plan format to follow. So, for those of you interested, here are the basic concepts of the book (but of course, if you want to follow the plan,  support the author by downloading your own copy!).

Wave, Blaze and Quake

There are three difficulty levels for the plan, and Fulton makes some big claims for all of them. In six weeks, depending on which you choose, you should be able to lose up to 20lbs of fat. Fulton takes great pains to tell you that large amounts of weight loss can be dangerous, and that diets that claim to help you lose more are probably bad for you and would involve losing muscle. This in itself is weird to me, as most fitness experts claim that 2lbs of weight loss per week is the most you should aim for, as anymore than that will result in muscle loss. This is a fairly standard, industry-wide concept I’ve heard touted by everyone from Rosemary Conely, to Jillian Michaels, to Super Size, Super Skinny.  So Fulton is claiming 8lbs more weight loss in this period than most experts would agree is safe for the average person.

Another criticism is that he makes no allowances in his claims for weight loss for your starting point. Most people agree that it’s easier to lose weight the heavier you are, but this doesn’t come into Fulton’s blanket suggestion of 20lbs if you follow all of his advice for the hardest difficulty. Personally, I’d love to lose 20lbs of pure fat in six weeks, but I’m going to steel myself for a less dramatic result. And, to be frank, if I lost 20lbs in that time, I’d weigh less than I ever have before as an adult, including the time I lost weight for my wedding (which I did, gradually, over a period of about six months).

Skip breakfast

This is the one that most people seem to be up in arms about, but to be honest, this is one of the less ‘out there’ suggestions in the book, as far as I’m concerned. I’d read the same research about it not necessarily being harmful, but I’d never seen anyone claim it’s beneficial. However, if you follow Fulton’s advice, you probably won’t be eating breakfast until up to four hours after you get up, because you need to wait for three hours after your first ‘period of movement’, i.e. exercise, before you can eat, and this can last from 30-45 mins.

Skinny dipping

Of all Fulton’s ideas, this is the one that puts me off the most, and the one I’ll find the most difficult to do. However, he expressly states you can skip this and follow the rest of the advice if you want to. The idea is to take a cold bath (20c to start, then down to 15c at the end of the six weeks) for up to 15 mins every morning. The primary reasons for taking a cold bath is to stimulate fat burning for the whole day, and improve the look of cellulite. He states some studies for this, but I couldn’t see his citations were actually tied into a study specifically about weight loss, nor did the studies follow his methodology. Please, correct me if I’ve missed something. The timings, temperature and time of day all seem like stabs in the dark, even if they are based on studies, his ideas haven’t been studied themselves, which is very different. Or, at least, he never presents any evidence that people have done this in the past, and lost more weight by doing it. Nevertheless, if you research, you’ll see plenty of people who take cold showers or take winter swims for their health. So, I’m willing to try it.

Exercise

Fulton cutesily calls exercise ‘periods of movement’, possibly to stop you freaking out about the large amounts he calls for on his plans. On his lowest difficulty, you’ll be doing three ‘periods of movement’ a day, starting with 30 minutes first thing, then another 15 minutes before both of your meals – meaning an hour’s worth in total. The hardest difficulty sees you doing an hour and a half per day. Fulton considers WHEN you do this to be just as important as doing it at all, and employs a technique called ‘hunt and wait’, where you basically exercise for a certain amount of time (i.e. hunt), then rest for the same amount of time (i.e. wait). After this, you need to eat one of your meals – there’s no snacking allowed on this plan! Following his plan, you exercise for 30-45 minutes in the morning, wait three hours and eat, then have your lunch time meal after exercising for 15-30 minutes (and resting for a corresponding amount of time), then eat your evening meal after a 15 minute ‘hunt’, and the same waiting time. Fulton breaks down the best types of exercise in a surprising way, claiming that walking is better than biking, and the exercises that are the least useful (which use the least muscle, basically) are skipping, trampolining or sit ups. Now, sit ups aren’t really exercise as far as I’m concerned, they’re for toning, but I can’t believe that skipping uses less muscle than walking… Nevertheless, if you do at least an hour of ‘movement’ a day for six weeks, and restrict your calorie intake, weight loss is basically guaranteed.

Caffeine

In amongst the tortures of the morning routine is Fulton’s advice to drink black coffee to boost fat burning. It can contain no sugar or milk, or it goes against his advice to skip breakfast. I’d read about caffeine boosting weight loss before, so this one wasn’t out of the blue as far as I’m concerned. He combines it with green tea later in the day, which is something else that’s fairly familiar from weight loss gurus. Even my old favourite, Jillian Michaels, touts the use of caffeine to aid fat burning. Fulton’s suggestion if you don’t like coffee is to buy caffeine pills. Luckily, I’ve never had a problem with a low intake of caffeine.

Protein

Protein is king, and carb restriction is the name of the game for this diet, along with cutting out snacks and reducing portion sizes. Every plate should be at least 50% protein, and on the hardest difficulty, you can consume no more than 60g carbs per day. Veggies are not included, but there are some caveats to that (obviously, potatoes and other high carb veg like carrots and corn are not free and unlimited). Fulton tells you to eat no more than 4 iPhones worth of primary carbs a day, but also suggests you reduce your plate size to under 9 inches. I find it easier to actually track the grams properly, because unless you know what you’re doing, it would be very easy to go over the limit on carbs – they are hiding everywhere. To be honest, I found some of his advice conflicting – you can’t have half of your plate as protein if you’re eating unlimited veggies and reducing your plate size to under 9 inches – unless you just shove extra veggies in a bowl somewhere. I get the spirit of what he’s saying, but it felt a bit woolly to me in places. I would have preferred a guideline for the protein as well as for the carbs.

He also suggests you limit your fruit intake, as fruit isn’t as great for you as everyone claims – I’d heard this before too, in the form of the phrase “fruit is just fancy sugar”. On the hardest difficultly, you should eat low-fructose fruit only once a day during your first meal – and, as we all know, tomatoes are a fruit. This will prove fairly difficult for me, as I love to have tomatoes in salad, and I like lots of tomato based meals. I’ll have to bend the rules on this one at times.

Perhaps the thing I find the most galling about the nutrition is the lack of direction – i.e. recipes. He suggests that this is awesome and freeing, because diets are lame and you should create your own recipes, like some kind of skinny, free spirited domestic goddess. However, I call that lazy and corner cutting, especially when his primary audience seem to be teenage girls. After about two years in the weight loss arena, and never having restricted carbs before, I have to say I am totally in the dark as to how to create low carb meals, and some guidelines would have been great. He does list protein items (like yogurt, turkey, cod, etc) and he also does the same for veggies he wants you to avoid, but it wouldn’t have killed him to have given a few meal ideas. Let’s face it, the western diet is full of carbs – that’s why we’re supposedly all fat – and breakfast time especially is a total carb fest. Yogurt and eggs seem to be the safe bet at breakfast… I mean, lunch.

Blowing up balloons

This is another idea out of left field – blowing up balloons last thing at night is claimed to give you a flatter stomach. Of all the things in here, this seems to be the one that most people could do with little effort, commitment or thought – but whether or not it will actually work is another thing. Fulton has a study to back this up (as he does most of his claims), but still, no evidence that this, as part of his plan, will do what he says he does. He says he’s done ‘human experiments’, but doesn’t mention the who, what, when, or how. So it’s down to me, the brave guinea pig, to test this out, I guess.

Join me as I delve into this six week programme, which appears to have been created by the Willy Wonka of the fitness world.

The Skinny on Six Weeks to OMG

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There’s been a lot of hype in the media about a new weight loss book on the market; Six Weeks to OMG. After hearing some of the wacky tips it gives out, I decided to read the book for myself – let’s face it, looking st anything through the lens of The Daily Mail is a recipe for misinformation. So, I downloaded the book, £4.99, and read the whole thing in a day. My verdict was that it wasn’t all as crazy as it sounded, but there were still some things there that sounded a bit dubious to me. So, I logged onto Amazon to read the reviews, and to be honest, I came back feeling even more doubtful. I’m not dumb enough to make accusations, but at least one of the reviews there was calling ‘fake’ on the majority of the other reviews, claiming that they sounded very similar and that they were probably made up. I’d ask you to judge for yourselves.

 

Anyway, the major elements of the plan seem sound to me, so I’m setting myself up as a human guinea pig to see if any of this actually works. I’ll be reporting back on my progress as I go along… If anyone else wants to join in, please feel free to share your progress!

Book Review: Master Your Metabolism Cookbook

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I’m a huge Jillian Michaels fan. I managed to watch a series of The Biggest Loser US that she featured on, and I absolutely loved her attitude, her spark, and her committment to helping people lose weight and, in turn, change their lives completely. It was Jillian’s DVD workout 30 Day Shred that really kicked my weight loss for my wedding into gear, and ever since then I’ve only really ever used her workout DVDs – once you’ve sweated with Jillian, there doesn’t seem to be a workout to match it! I also love listening to her podcasts, too.

Anyway, as part of my ‘I Love Jillian’ kick, I picked up her recipe book, The Master Your Metabolism Cookbook. This is intended as a companion book to Master Your Metabolism, in which Jillian looks at the science behind nutrition and weight loss. Honestly, although I know bits and pieces, I’m not really that interested in the technical aspects of food and hormones – but I do love me a good cook book.

First of all, this book is US-centric. The food style is very American – things like black bean chilli, chicken salad, muffins, American pancakes, and the like. I think of it as modern classic style, the sort of thing you might get in an upscale American restaurant. This does mean that some of the ingredients are rare as hen’s teeth here (jicama, anyone?), or simply unfamiliar (black beans), but I’ve not found a great deal of difficulty in following the recipes, as I cook quite often from American sources.

Secondly, Jillian has some food foibles that are also fairly US-centric. She’s not keen at all on dairy unless it’s organic, because of growth hormones that are given to cows in America, which can then leach into dairy products. As far as I’m aware, these hormones are banned in Europe, so that’s one thing we don’t have to worry about. Jillian is also big on organic, which is a whole other discussion – but needless to say, if you’re not into organic, the substitution to non-organic is a no brainer! There are a few little other quirks, like a ban on strawberries, soy and pine nuts, because of their goitrogenic effects – this is the one I always break out when I want to emphasise what a minefield nutrition science can be. No matter what the food, there will be studies on the one hand showing it’s healthy, and on the other hand, showing it’s poison and will most likely cause you to get fat and die. This is why I tend to give myself free rein to make my own decisions – which means I can eat ice cream whenever I want – but that’s by the by!

As far as I’m concerned, the biggest downfall of this book is the lack of pictures. There, I said it. I know I’m not the only one who loves a good picture of the finished recipe. There are few books in my collection that I regularly refer to and tolerate despite a lack of pictures, and this is one of them (with USA by Sheila Lukins being another real favourite of mine). If no pictures is a deal breaker for you, then I’m afraid you’ll be missing out, because this is one of the most appealing diet books in my collection.

For a start, the titles of the recipes alone are enough to conjure up a mental image of what the finished dish will be like – and they sound beautifully appetising. How about greek yogurt cup with quinoa crunch and berries for breakfast, followed by tomato sandwich on garlic-rubbed toast for lunch, with spicy mahi-mahi and mango tacos for dinner? Don’t forget one of those famous fudge brownies for dessert! Seriously, the fudge brownies, along with the black bean chilli, seem to be the two dishes that Jillian most often refers to when she talks about her recipes, so I have an inkling that these are the two she makes most often herself!

Another reason I love this book, apart from the cooking style, and the gorgeous descriptions, is the fact that each recipe comes with health info about what benefits you can get from eating each particular recipe. Those fudge brownies? Not only do they improve your mood (well, that’s a given, right?), they also boost your metabolism, are heart healthy, AND anti-cancer. Now. Who would have thought a little brownie could fight cancer? To be honest, I feel like I’m taking these claims in the spirit they are intended – these brownies aren’t going to cure cancer, or even stop you getting it – but let’s face it, if you’re passing up a full butter, white sugar version for this honey-sweet, whole-wheat version (with added applesauce!), then you’re going to give your health a bit of a boost.

So, onto the recipes I’ve actually tried. I’ve modified a few of them, so I’ll talk about substitutions or changes, and give my impressions of each one below. After writing out this list, it’s become apparant to me how much I actually use this book, as there are some cook books I own that I’ve never made anything out of…

Steel-cut oats with apples and pecans

Steel-cut oats cooked with almond milk, and topped with cooked apple with cinnamon and maple syrup, and toasted pecans. I substituted steel-cut oats for porridge oats, and found that cooking apples were probably better here than eating apples, which didn’t break down and stayed as solid lumps. However, this is a really tasty breakfast – although at 280 cals, was quite high for me.

Greek yogurt cup with quinoa crunch and berries

Berries atop greek yogurt, drizzled with honey and topped with a mixture of quinoa, flaxseed, honey and olive oil, which has to be toasted in the oven. I bought flaxseed just for this, to try it out, and the combo of the flaxseed and quinoa had an interesting, slightly dusty taste with a tang of nutty, almost sunflower seed aftertaste. You end up with a lot of the quinoa crunch, and if you’re the only one eating it, then the listed storage time will run out faster than you can eat it – although I’ve stored it longer than that and had no problems. This is 216 calories, most of which come from the crunch topping.

Multigrain pancakes with berry-maple syrup

American pancakes made with rolled (porridge) oats, whole-wheat flour, almond milk, yogurt, buckwheat flour and cinnamon, served with berries softened in maple syrup. I’m a huge fan of buckwheat pancakes, so I really wanted to try this – and I love maple syrup, too! You end up with three small pancakes and 1/3 cup of berries per serving, for 340 calories, so this is fairly high. The recipe also makes enough for 6, so I’ve frozen some – we’ll see what happens when I defrost them! This is what I’d break out for a ‘special’ breakfast, but when I made them the first time, we ate far more than the serving size, as I didn’t find them all that filling. They were tasty, in a wholesome ‘you can feel this is good for you’ kind of a way.

Curried salmon salad pita pockets

This makes enough for two, so was a ‘make two, eat one now and save the other for tomorrow’ deal for me. It’s a combination of tinned pink salmon with yogurt, onion, honey, lemon and curry powder, on top of lettuce and cucumber in a pita pocket. Very tasty, although I’m always a bit weary of curried fish. This was definitely filling, thanks to the addition of the salad, for 264 calories.

Chicken salad with red grapes and toasted pecans

This is one of my favourites. For a start, I’m a fan of American style chicken salad, with grapes and a mayo dressing. Not surprisingly, this ditches the mayo in favour of yogurt, honey and cider vinegar, and bulks out with celery. You can either eat this as a half cup for 118 calories, or as a sandwich for 209 calories, and I thought it was delicious. The serving size was a bit small, though, but with the low calorie count, you can definitely double up!

Broiled tilapia with fresh herbs, mushrooms and tomatoes

This was probably the only recipe that actually disappointed me. I’m not sure what I was expecting, as the recipe is fairly simple – just fresh herbs, garlic, oil, and lime juice, and grilled fish with tomatoes and mushrooms. Very clean tasting – but definitely the sort of food you think ‘diet time!’ when you eat. Low in calories for a main meal, though, at 236 calories – but that doesn’t include carbs.

Black bean chilli

Of all the recipes in this book, this is the one I was most intrigued to try, because it’s the one that I’ve heard Jillian mention. I make a damn good chilli myself, that I love, which is about 448 calories per serving, not including rice. So, that’s pretty high! But Jillian’s is a carb fest, with black beans, thickened with bulgur wheat (which is listed as ‘medium-grind bulgur’ – I hope I substituted correctly!), so no need for additional rice – plus, it’s 297 calories a serving. It’s got a blend of spices and herbs including chilli, cumin, oregano, garlic, cinnamon and pepper, and also contains onions, green peppers, canned tomatoes, honey and orange juice. The main reason for me delaying making this for so long (I’ve had the book for over a year, and only made the chilli this weekend) was the addition of chopped chipotle chilli in adobo, which is a smoked jalapeno pepper in tomato sauce. I still haven’t found any of these, so I substituted a dried, then reconstituted, chipotle chilli. You could also probably use smoked paprika for the same kind of effect. Once you’ve made your chilli, the bulgur wheat makes it look pretty weird, and also soaks up all of the excess liquid, so it’s not runny at all. Again, the portion sizes are fairly small (the batch makes 8 servings), so when I made it, I bulked it up with a home-made salsa of chopped tomatoes, coriander, spring onions, lime juice and raw garlic. Jillian recommends you add toppings of non-fat yogurt, chopped spring onions, coriander and lime wedges anyway, so a spoon of salsa and 50g of non-fat yogurt did for me! It was fairly satisfying – again, one of those meals that tastes ‘wholesome’ rather than totally indulgently delicious.

Smashed sweet potatoes with coconut milk

I have to be honest and admit I don’t remember what this really tasted like.  Very basically, it’s mashed sweet potatoes and coconut milk, with a dash of cinnamon. I love sweet potatoes, so I have no doubt this went down a treat. Par for the course is Jillian’s dairy substitution for coconut milk, though!

Banana-almond smoothie

A blend of a banana, almond milk, almond butter, vanilla extract and ice cubes – Jillian also calls for ground flaxseed and I never add this – I just don’t really want to spoil the taste, because this is absolutely delicious. I’d go so far as to say this is actually better than a banana milkshake made with ice cream, which can be a bit too rich sometimes. I also have left out the almond butter, which doesn’t make a great deal of difference, but it’s definitely better with! I love this treat!

Oranges with lemon-vanilla yogurt cream

Another massive favourite of mine, this is really simple but so delicious. This is just a combination of plain yogurt, vanilla extract, lemon juice, honey, and an orange. You’re supposed to add lemon zest as well, but I often leave this out. As with many other recipes that call for Greek yogurt, I always just use normal, low-fat, plain yogurt. I can’t believe that such a seemingly simple mix of ordinary items can taste so good. Delicious!

Fudge brownies

A blend of honey, cocoa powder, white whole-wheat flour (I just used whole wheat flour, which I think is possibly the same thing!), apple sauce, olive oil and an egg, which is baked in a pan. Each brownie is 86 calories, and you can freeze these pretty well. They have a chewy, nutty texture, because of the flour, and are super sweet, because of the honey. They’re delicious – but they don’t have that crispy top, chewy bottom texture that real brownies have. I still really like these for a sweet treat, though – they’re great heated up and served with a scoop of low calorie ice cream!

So, there’s my review of the recipes I’ve created from this book. I highly recommend it for anyone who wants to eat more healthily, or lose weight. Despite the lack of pictures, this is a lovely book – and I know Jillian often uses recipes from it in other projects, such as her new Body Revolution programme, and her Freshology delivered meals use some of the same recipes, too. Get a head start and get the book!

Foodie trip: Fortnum & Mason

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I have to say, I’m a huge stickler for anything ‘British’. I’m a definite patriot, and there’s nothing more I love to do than indulge in quintessentially British experiences, like cream teas, picnics, visiting castles, and the like. I’m like a tourist in my own country, sometimes!

The outside of the shop

One of my favourite foodie places in London is Fortnum and Mason. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s like a foodie department store in Piccadilly, full to the brim with tourist-trap style products like biscuits in a tin, and the like. Because it has links going way back to the Royal family, and has a Royal warrant, the place is completely decked out to celebrate the Jubilee this year, with commemorative merchandise all over the place, including tea caddies, biscuit tins, and china. It’s the final day of February as I write this, and I’ve just realised I’ve been to F&M twice this year already – time to cut back and give another foodie destination a try, right?
Window display, full of Jubilee products

Anyway, here’s a snap of the window display, featuring the aforementioned Jubilee products, all decked out in F&M blue (also pretty similar to Tiffany blue, am I right? Gotta love that hue!). I am coveting the tea cup and saucer set, but let’s just say they’re a bit beyond my price range…

A view down the staircase

Here’s a view down the staircase of the beautiful heraldic animals on display in the shop at the moment. There was also a really cool display of crafts from people who the queen had given grants too, including a couple of beautiful displays of millinery.

Hats!

Food-inspired hats and fascinators

Do you see the detailing on these food-inspired hats? Gorgeous! I’m in the market for a hat for Ascot this year, but sadly – out of my price range again!

The real reason for my visit was to go to The Parlour with my husband. I’d been last year for my birthday, but it was a girls’ weekend and he stayed at home. Always good to have another reason to go back, right?

Banoffee sundae

If this isn’t reason enough to go back, I don’t know what is! This is their banoffee ‘cocktail ice cream sundae’, which is listed in their menu as “sliced banana, drizzled with Coole Swan Irish Cream liqueur, scoops of smooth banana, toffee and Amedei chocolate ice creams, whipped cream, toffee sauce and with malt”. Delicious, is all I can say!

Fortnum and Mason teapot

I also had tea, mostly because I just love their teapots. I actually found one on sale there this time – I’ll be buying extra lottery tickets so I can get one for the kitchen, I think… Hey, silver goes with everything, it’s an investment.

Needless to say, this was not a ‘fitness’ trip – although, the scales today say that eating a giant ice cream sundae, drinking a vanilla bean milkshake, plus downing coffees all day, snaffling a macaroon in a cafe, demolishing a bento box from the Japan Centre, and having okonomiyaki for lunch at Hyper Japan (and following it up with chocolate covered strawberries) had no ill effects. Well, it helps that I’ve been exercising like a fiend I suppose!

Sweet potato and black bean empanadas

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Being from the UK, I haven’t had many opportunities to eat empanadas – they’re not exactly common here, which is strange, because they were originally introduced to Mexico by Cornish miners. That’s right, empanadas are actually Cornish pasties in disguise! Once you realise this, you can totally see the link, as they’re pretty much the same thing: a tasty filling, wrapped around pastry, in a half moon shape!

I recently decided to try a black bean recipe for the first time in my life (black beans are also not a staple in English cookery!), as I’d been tempted so many times by a black bean chilli recipe in Jillian Michaels’ recipe book for Master Your Metabolism. As I had to buy a bag of these beans, and I had a sweet potato knocking around in the fridge from my organic veg box, I decided to give making sweet potato and black bean empanadas a go – and I’m really glad I did! I found them on Cooking Light’s website (I love that magazine, but you can’t get it here) under a section about great freeze ahead recipes. I’ve tested them out in the freezer, and they’re perfect to reheat later. Brilliant!

I’ve decided they make a great lunch, with a feta cheese, tomato, cucumber and rocket salad.

Here’s the recipe, translated into ‘English’, but you can also get the US recipe, and view the original, by clicking here. I kept in the cup measurements, because honestly, they’re much easier!

INGREDIENTS

  • 9 oz plain flour
  • 3/4 tsp salt
  • 1/3 cup rapeseed oil
  • 1/4 cup cold water
  •  1 tbsp cider vinegar
  • 1 large egg, lightly beaten
  • 1 dried chipotle chilli (you can buy these in Tesco)
  • 1 tbsp cumin seeds
  • 1 cup cooked sweet potato (about 1 large)
  • 1 cup cooked black beans
  • 1 bunch spring onions, finely chopped
  • 2 tbsp chopped coriander
  • 1 tsp chilli powder, or smoked paprika
  • 1 egg white, beaten

METHOD

  • Combine flour and salt in a bowl, and mix.
  • Combine rapeseed oil, cold water, vinegar and egg in another bowl, and then add slowly into the dry mix until just moist. Knead lightly in the bowl, then cover and allow to chill for one hour.
  • Rehydrate the chipotle chilli with boiling water and stand for 15 minutes. Then, chop finely.
  • Toast and grind the cumin seeds.
  • Combine the chilli and cumin with the potato, black beans, spring onions, coriander, chilli, and some salt. I processed mine to make it very smooth. Taste it carefully, and season to taste, because this mixture won’t really change much in the oven – it just gets warmer, rather than being cooked.
  • Divide the dough into 10 pieces, and keep the dough covered while you work.
  • Take one piece of dough and shape into a ball. It’s best not to do this with flour, as the shape forms easier without. But, you will need flour on the surface when you roll it out. Roll into a circle.
  • Fill the centre with 3 level tablespoons of the mix, then paint the edges with egg white, and seal.
  • Continue for all of your dough and mix.
  • Cut three vents on your empanadas, then bake in a preheated oven at 200c, on a baking tray coated with oil spray. Bake for 16 minutes, or until lightly browned.

CALORIES: 209 per empanada

When I froze these, I baked them for slightly less time. Then, just sealed them in a bag and placed them on a sheet in the freezer. When it’s time to cook, I defrost them and then heat them back up in the oven for about ten minutes.

Really, these are so tasty with a salad for lunch! I combine them with 35g of low-fat feta cheese, 1 tsp olive oil and a dash of balsamic vinegar, cucumber, lettuce and tomato, and it’s all under 350 calories. Quite high for me as a general rule of thumb, but I’m experimenting with eating more for meals and less for snacks! (Unhealthy snacks are now banned during Lent!)

Welcome to my world!

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Welcome to my new blog, which will be dedicated to some other passions and interests of mine – fitness, and fashion! Unfortunately, they don’t always mix together too well with food, but I’ll be uploading healthy recipes, snacks, tips and hints that I’ve learned about, and hopefully creating a place where I can document my interests and maybe share them with some readers!

A bit about me: I’m a journalist, I live in the UK, and I’m a real foodie. I got married a couple of years ago and lost a fair bit of weight for my wedding. Since then, I’ve been trying to keep on track and stay healthy! I’m not a saint, and I’m definitely well known for my ability to turn a humble occasion into a mammoth eating session, but that doesn’t mean I don’t eat for health, and work on my fitness too. And, of course, I love fashion, so I’ll be able to talk about that here, too!

I hope you enjoy your stay!

Tis a winter hiatus!

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Unlike some robust gals who bike through wind and hail, I only cycle for fun, so I’m going to take a few months off during the dark winter days! Good luck to you cold-weather cyclists – the only cycle I’ll be on this winter is my exercise bike!

See you in the spring!