The ready meal option

Scales are weird. A sneaky look this morning after an extremely indulgent weekend has the numbers showing down on where I was after last week’s second fast. I’m not arguing with it. I did weigh myself three times just to be sure…

Now that I’m getting back into the habit of regular fasting, I’m following the pattern I found worked well previously, of not eating at all during the day and then having a 400 – 500 cal meal in the evening. On days when I’m working in London, particularly if the kids are home and I’m not eating until late and exhausted, a ready meal is a great option. The advantages are that they are calorie counted, nutritionally balanced and super quick to heat.

I’m rather sad to see that WeightWatchers appear to have discontinued their “Steam and Serve” frozen meals, which were a regular standby and super cheap. I will have to instead stock up on some Cook! “OMG pots”. These are absolutely delicious with over a dozen varieties to choose from. They freeze and reheat from frozen perfectly so great to have on hand in the freezer. At around £4 per meal, they are not cheap but so yummy I think they are worth it.

http://www.cookfood.net/menu/ranges/omg-range

My other standby is Marks and Spencers, as there is one at the station I commute from so I can pick something up on the way home. Most of these don’t freeze, so have to be bought and eaten within a day or two. I like their “Balanced for You” range which are high in protein and fill you up nicely.

http://health.marksandspencer.com/our-health-ranges/balanced-for-you

I’ve recently had the opportunity to try some meals from the Fast Diet Kitchen range. These are long-life ready meals that can be kept in the cupboard, designed for you to eat two a day – usually a soup and a main meal. They cost between £4.75 and £6 per day, depending on how many you buy at one time. I’m not sure what the real connection between this supplier and Michael Mosley is, but their website states:

Our soups and main meals are there to support those who read the book and follow the advice given by Dr Michael Mosley and Mimi Spencer, and we believe this is reflected in the seamless branding and messages across the two sites and extends to a collaborative approach on our social media outlets.

http://www.fastdietkitchen.co.uk/our-story/

I can see the attraction, it’s all counted and balanced and easily stored without freezing or refrigeration. However, the two I have tried so far were very disappointing. I’ve had the Butternut Risotto – couldn’t taste any butternut, very bland and no texture – and the Moroccan Meatballs – slightly better but still kind of sloppy. Not a patch on the OMG pots from Cook. These will stay in the cupboard and no doubt get used in emergencies, but if I’m only going to eat one thing on a fast day I want it to be something delicious, and these just don’t live up to that standard. If they really are recommended by Mr. Mosley and his team, he needs to rethink his endorsement!

On next week's blog, super quick tasty low carb replacements for rice and pasta. I'm on a mission!

Is there anybody out there?

Hello?

*tap tap*

Is this working?

It’s been a while…

This time a year ago I was at my lowest weight in I don’t know how long. The intervening 12 months have been pretty full on, and fasting was not a priority. In fact, most of the time it wasn’t even on the To Do List. The last time I posted here, in September, I had regained around 5kg (9lb) of the 13kg (28lb) I had lost.

I’d spent most of the summer of 2014 incapacitated after the surgery on my ankle, having just moved house. I was just getting back on my feet (quite literally) when I found out I was having to up my hours and responsibilities at work, with a corresponding increase in stress. By the time I got to January I was in pure survival mode, getting though one day at a time, battling depression and anxiety as I went along.

My last crazy work day was Thursday 16 April, when the big project completed and my life could start returning to something approaching normal. On Monday 20 April I stepped on the scales, and I wished I hadn’t. Not only had I regained all the weight I had lost before, I’d added another 7lbs for good measure. That would explain the constant pain in my knees, as my poor joints struggled to support my increased weight.

I was faced with a horribly familiar decision. I could accept where I was and learn to live with it, I could try alternative methods to lose weight, or I could start 5:2 again. Having failed to keep off what I had lost on 5:2, I didn’t exactly feel like a poster child for its success. My few attempts at fasting over the previous 6 months had been abject failures, resulting in nausea, panic attacks and tears.

But somehow, having survived the insanity of work, the decision didn’t seem so tricky after all. I didn’t eat that day, and completed a second fast later that week, while in the office. I was craving sugar and having to stop myself picking at food that had easily re-established itself as habit, but I wasn’t that hungry, I wasn’t feeling sick, and I was feeling so much happier.

That was 3 weeks ago. I didn’t fast last week due to a number of social engagements, but I got back on track with a full fast yesterday, which was even easier than before. I reckon I’ve dumped the extra 7 lbs by now, and my knees are already thanking me. Just another 28 to go… it’s hard not to be disappointed about having to go over the same ground again but it would be worse to let things go the other way.

So here I am again, onwards and downwards.

Day One: The what

The instructions say you should write stuff down. I don't have a problem with this. I like writing stuff. Especially stuff about myself. What could be more interesting than me? While I am therefore writing this solely for my benefit, and have no expectation that anyone else will read it, I rather like doing it in a public way. Writing as if addressing a complete stranger makes me delve a little further into explanations and meanings. I can't assume that my reader knows what the hell I'm going on about, so I'm more likely to be thorough with my blatherings, which in turn is good for me as it forces me to analyse more carefully.

So what am I doing here? Today is Day One of a new approach to eating. I am not going to call it a diet, because: reasons. Diets are boring, depressing and ultimately futile. The BOOK (the bible of my new approach, of which more later) quotes someone as describing it as a strategy. This I like. Strategy is a good description.

Some definitions of strategy from the oracle that is Wikipedia:

• Strategy is a high level plan to achieve one or more goals under conditions of uncertainty.
• "a pattern in a stream of decisions" 
• "strategy is about shaping the future" 
• the human attempt to get to "desirable ends with available means"

So yes, I have goals, I have a high level plan, I have available means and life in general is always uncertain, so I think I'm all there with the strategy.

Starting with the goal then. The goal is to live a life with less pain, less illness, more health, more energy, more happiness. The strategy to achieve that is to lose some weight in a structured way that medical research shows to also give rise to the stated goal.

The plan is to follow The Fast Diet http://thefastdiet.co.uk/. Except I'm not calling it a diet because the word makes me want to stick my head in a bucket of water. So maybe it's the Darkling Plain Fasting Strategy. I'm hoping it doesn't actually need a name because it's just going to be how I live a normal life, from now on.

Before getting into the how of it, I want to cover the why first. Obviously I know why, or I wouldn't be here, but I want to have a record of why I am starting out on this caper so I can refer back to it should the going get rough.