Chicken burrito with extra cheese

Day 1

Breakfast - Emmental Feuillete, bottle of fresh orange juice.  FAIL

Lunch - Chicken burrito with extra cheese and guacomole and a can of coke.  FAIL

Dinner - Wine. FAIL

Oh dear EB.  Oh dear, oh dear.  Not the start I'd hoped for.  Suspect I'm going to need a bigger bikini.

Relationship Destroying Ways...

Well now, hasn't it been a while? 

As will now be clear from the change in profile description, its been all change for Ellesbelles, and MB has now become ex-MB and the reluctant dieter has become an even more reluctant dieter.

But fear not!  With renewed vigor, I'm dusting off the lycra and getting the scales back out of the cupboard, this time in a quest to look super hot for summer, as opposed to trying to look super hot for someone who clearly didn't give a rat's ass anyway.

So Ferris (and ex-MB) can now kiss my lardy ass, as there's no way I'm going back to his horrid, relationship destroying ways, but I will still dip in and out of some of the slow carb ways with a view to being 7lb lighter in the next few months...

Does not involve sausages

I am here today with a fully belly and virtue in my soul, along with a big fat (carb free) dollop of smugness.

My breakfasts, as you know are a trial.  I don't enjoy them, and I'm not that good at eating stuff I dont enjoy.  I can (and frequently do) skip meals rather than eat something I don't fancy, which I know is every bit as naughty as eating a whopping great big slice of chocolate cake with a side order of fries.  At least that's what they would have you believe, even though it sounds like nonsensical tosh to me.

However, I decided the other morning to see if I could get creative and come up with some suitable, portable breakfast goods that don't make me wanna gag, that still (by and large) fit the programme. 

I DID IT!

I trawled the net for some recipes, and ended up with a combination of a few different recipes and came up with a hybrid of breakfast sausage/scotch egg.  Now before anyone screams at me, yes I know sausage is not really alloweed, but its a darn sight better than a chocolate croissant, so give me a break, yes?

The creation is now lovingly known as "Dinosaur Eggs", for reasons which may be apparent from the picture...

Anyway.  The (not perfect) recipe is as follows:

4 large hard boiled eggs shelled
8 skinned sausages (look for quality sausages with lowest rusk content possible)
1 onion - finely chopped
handful of mushrooms - finely chopped
squirt of ketchip (yes, yes, I know its naughty, hence the not perfect comment above)

Mush all the ingredients except the eggs and divide into four.  Take an egg and wrap the sausage mixture around it, taking care to ensure the are no gaps.  Repeat for other three eggs.

Place on a wire tray and bake for 20-25 mins, or until sausage meat is cooked.

You'll see from the picture that in fact my meat casing did come apart in the cooking process, not sure why that was, but actually I think it made them look cuter!  Hey, I don't get out much, little things please me.

The end result was deeee-lish.  Although I do accept that this is perhaps because I've been living on protein shakes for breakfast for simply too long...

I'm now working on a similar recipe that does not involve sausages - perhaps minced pork would work? - so that I can make these an official Ferriss friendly morning staple.  Also thinking that wrapping them in bacon might be a nice touch too... essentially I'm aiming for a full English wrapped up in handy bite size pieces!

And now that breakfast is sorted, who is willing to work on a carb free substitute for cheese and onion crisps?

Tomorrow's lesson, if I can be bothered, is slow carb stuffing and mashed non-potatoes...   Martha Stewart has nothing on me.

Letter to Tim

Dear Tim

I wonder if you can help me.

I have been trying oh so, oh so very hard to stick with your monstrous diet.  I admit that when I do manage it for more than 3 hours at a time it does make me feel healthier, lighter, less bloated yada yada yada but I'm afraid my constant bad mood is outweighing the benefits just now.

Take yesterday.  I was not in a position to eat an SCD breakfast as had to be in work early (and we've already discussed my inability to force down food within 30 mins of waking).  I therefore allowed myself a small bowl of natural unsweetened Greek yoghurt. On any other planet this would surely be acceptable but not to you so I felt guilty all morning.

Breakfast fail.

Lunch.  Was starving, and felt that as I'd failed anyway I might as well have a burrito.  I then spent afternoon feeling guilty too.

Lunch fail.

I had a seminar afterwork so did not get home til 9pm.  I was tired, grumpy and not terribly hungry (due to burrito) so certainly not in the mood to crack on with lentils etc.  I therefore chose instead to go without supper.

Dinner fail.

So you can see yesterday did not work well, primarily due to YOU NOT GIVING ME ANY OPTIONS FOR BREAKFAST!

Sort it out Tim, or I'm off.

Ellesbelles

Don't tell my catholic mother

Today's entry is a sad offering people.

I started well.  Spent the night with MB (shhhhh - dont tell my catholic mother) so had very SCD supper of bacon and mushroom omelette with spinach and butter bean salad.  Oh, and red wine (of course). 

When we got up for work he went downstairs and started the days prep.  "Do you want an egg honey?" says he (OK, artistic licence there - he'd never call me honey.  And after last time he'd probably never offer me an egg either). "No thanks chickenpie - but I'd just LOVE a protein shake".  Yep, artistic licence throughout.

But I struggled through and drank the bloody thing.

And the cup of tea.

And then needed a pee throughout the entire tube journey into work.

Life was so much easier with a sausage bagel.

Starved by his nearest and dearest

So chaps, did you miss me?  :-)

The more astute amongst you, or perhaps by that I mean those of you who know what month it is, will have noticed that I've been AWOL for some time.  Well let me assure you that my absence has not been because I have been filling my face with fajitas, nor have I been nibbling the naughties.  Oh no.  I have been a busy busy girl, what with one thing and another, one of those things being MB's recent surgery.  However that is not to say that I have been an avid follower, because, as you know, I cannot tell a lie.  I have had good days and bad, and I would guess that there were probably more bad than good.

Now as you may recall MB's prospective surgery was one of the things that made him turn all weight nazi on me in the first place.  He felt he needed to lose a few lbs to aid recovery, and I'm sure there is some merit to the argument.  So, being that I am the best girlfriend in the world and all,  I decided that I would do all I could to help him in his quest post op, and I therefore "moved in" with him for a few weeks whilst he was on crutches to aid with the every day tasks like shopping, cooking etc.  Let me be clear though.  Whilst I suppose am a reasonable (or as some of my kinder friends have described me, "enthusiastic") cook and I do have a few tried and trusted dishes that I seem to be able to pull off without fear of causing death or even serious e-coli, I'm absolutely no threat to Mr Oliver.  Mr Ramsay sleeps soundly at night, and even Fanny's followers don't fear me and she's been dead for the best part of 20 years.  But I digress. 

Whilst off his feet, I thought I would take over the Ferriss frenzy on MB's behalf and rustle up some delicious Slow Carb feasts for us.  I planned 4 hour body slow carb recipes such as tuna tartare with homemade bean salsa.  I planned beanburgers.  I planned braised chicken with tomatoes and cannelini beans.  Are you surprised to learn it did not go to plan?  No?  Nor me.  Everything tasted bland and, to be brutally honest, rank.  The bean burgers were less bean burger than they were bean mush.  The tuna tartare didn't materialise at all as I just couldnt summon the enthusiasm.

Part of the problem is that Inspiration is not easy to come by, if you dont like beans.  But I did my best and to be honest I think we both lost some weight as it was all so rank most of it went in the bin.  My poor patient, needing his strength to recover, was being slowly starved by his nearest and dearest.  Not to mention the fact that I had one or two other "mishaps" on the nursing front leading him to believe that I was actually akin to Kathy Bates in Misery, something that has made me chuckle for weeks now.

However all is not lost.  I've learned from the lesson.   So long as I stop trying to be inventive I can manage OK.  Today's lunch, for example, was an exquisite little lentil salad (OK, it was lentil and couscous and it had goats cheese in it, but there was only a smidgeon of both these contraband items so I am not losing sleep over it) with huge pile of gorgeous Honduras prawns. Yuuuuuum.

Dinner tonight is to be fillet steak with butter beans, mushrooms, broccoli and samphire.  Tomorrow I am planning on a salmon teriyaki style dish with pak choi and edamame. 

So perhaps all is not yet lost.

I need to update my stats, will try to remember to do so tomorrow.

These Noisy Pachyderm

Hello friends

As those who know me will already be aware, I've been poorly for the past few days.  I woke with a screaming mo-fo headache during the night on Monday, my darling MB was up and down bringing me tablets, water etc, but nothing shifted it.  Needless to say the 6.20am was not a welcome visitor.  However, a brisk walk to the station cleared off some of the cobwebs, and a few of the tapdancing elephants in my skull seemed to take a bit of a nap.  Unfortunately, there were apparently quite a few of these noisy pachyderm up there and some were wide awake, so whilst the pain toned down a notch from "I want to pull my brain out through my nose" down to "OK, if I sit in the dark and don't speak or blink it is just bearable", it remained constant.

This posed a problem for me.  Firstly, I was at work, and as I am only in for a few days this week it is mega, mega busy. 

Secondly, and as you have already heard me say - and yes I know, you've heard it many, many times - I HATE the breakfasts on this plan.  Sliding  beans, spinach, lentils etc down my throat when I get up is something I dread and it makes me feel queazy all day.  I can just about manage an egg, if I must, on a good day, but when dumbo is kicking out his best Fred Astaire moves in my head it just aint happening and there is no way I can swallow that without knowing for certain it is going to come back for an encore.  So I skipped breakfast and apparently that too, is very, very bad.

By mid-morning I was feeling really sick and decided that Ferriss or no Ferris, I have to eat and it aint gonna be a lentil. So I bought a tuna sandwich (wholemeal bread) and a carton of orange juice.  I felt better for a bit, but soon back to bad.

This palava went on for two days.  I was almost crying with the pain and I therefore decided to scrap the diet altogether (until then I'd been very good with my protein shakes, my ham and beans for lunch, my riceless chilli for supper)  and I popped out to Starbucks for an iced full fat latte.  Oh yes, and a brownie (shhhhhh, I haven't told anyone that bit).  Literally within 30 minutes my headache was gone - it seemed these naughty noisy elephants just wanted a cup of good old caffeine to quieten them down.

So today, I am feeling on top of the world but have decided to tweak my diet slightly.  I am no longer engaging in the nonsense that is Ferriss friendly breakfast, but instead I will partake of a normal (albeit moderate) petit dejeuner which may be toast, it may be cereal, it may be fruit, it may be yoghurt.  It may be whatever the hell I fancy on any given day. And it will be accompanied by my one and only full caffeine coffee of the day - the rest of the time I will be drinking either decaf or herbal tea.  But then lunch and dinner I am back on the plan, like a good girl. 

I have also made two further changes which I think will help my reach my goals.

I now keep a 1.5 litre bottle of water on my desk and I am determined to finish at least one of these a day (bearing in mind I already drink two or three glasses a night at home - I drink a glass before bed, I then take one with me and have another when I wake up).

The other and far more exciting (for me) step is that I have also now implemented my kettle bell swings.  I have only done the 8kg so far and to be honest I think the weight is a little light, but I do 25, stop then do another 25 twice a day.  So committed am I that I even did them when i got in at 1.30am this morning!  I know I can do more than that both in terms of weight and reps, but I want to go slowly so that I build my strength bit by bit, rather than risking injury.  I actually really enjoy the mini workout too, so now that I've been doing this a while I am going to increase to perhaps 35/35 and see how I get on.  When I get to 50/50 on the 8s then I'll up the weight to the 10kg and see how that goes.

Watch this space, I'll be posting pics of my perfectly peachy posterior in no time...

Ellesbelles xxxx