Asian prawn soup - fast diet dinner

I do like flavoursome food and especially on my fast days. It's somehow more satisfying.

I made an asian-inspired soup with bits and pieces that i had in my fridge and freezer.

I spiced things up with this handy little tube of flavour.

Here's what I did -
I added about a tablespoon of the Thai paste to 1 litre of vegetable stock (you could use fish stock if you had some. I just use Vegeta vegetable stock powder).

When this comes to the boil add a couple of handfuls of green beans cut in 1 inch pieces (or 2.5 cms if you prefer metric).
Cook for a minute or two then add 1 cup sliced oyster mushrooms (or any other mushrooms) and the sliced stalks of a head of bok choy.

Cook for another couple of minutes then add 200 grams of cooked peeled prawns, and the chopped leafy bit of the bok choy and half a bag of beansprouts.

When it's all warmed through ladle into bowls and garnish with chopped coriander and spring onions.

 Very quick and easy!

Serves 2.
170 calories per serve.

Fast day bean and vegetable soup

It's cold.
It's winter.
And that calls for a hearty dinner.

Soup!

Here's what I did and you can do it too - 

chop 200 g peeled butternut pumpkin (squash.
chop 1 large peeled carrot.
slice 1 large leek (wash the leek really well)

Put them all in a big pot with 1250ml water and 400g tinned tomatoes. You can use vegetable stock if you have some, I just use a couple of teaspoons of vegeta powder.

Bring to a boil.
cook for 15 mins or until the carrot is softish.

Add a cup of chopped spinach (I used silverbeet) and a can of mixed beans (drained and rinsed).

Cook for a few more minutes until the spinach is wilted.

Add a handful of chopped fresh herbs (I used parsley and basil) 

This serves 4.
130 calories per serve.

The fast diet week 3

It's been tough...I'll admit it!

The second day last week was tough...but I got through.

This week was a bit of a fail as I was meeting a friend on Tuesday for a day out and so we fasted from lunch Monday to lunch Tuesday.....BUT I didn't account for morning tea, well actually coffee!
Well just coffee would have been OK....but at the Vienna Coffee House? With their wondrous selection of cakes?
Nah!
What was I thinking!

Anyway it's no use beating yourself up about it....I had a lovely day with my friend.

breakfast day 6

dinner day 5

 Bean chilli with white corn tortilla.

dinner day 6

Sweet and sour tofu and vegetables.

I must admit that by the time dinner comes I sooooo appreciate it - it tasted so delicious.

In which we embark on the Fast Diet.

Have you heard of the Fast Diet? Or the 5:2 diet?

It is not a speedy way to lose weight but rather a way to use fasting or reducing calorie intake to lose weight.
OK, so what's new?
Aren't all "diets" about restricting calories and losing weight?
Well, yes...but I believe this may be different.
I'm not one for fad diets.
That's not to say that I haven't been on some faddy one's in my day! (Oh, yes, I remember the Scarsdale diet!)

But we saw the documentary Eat, Fast, Live Longer by Dr Michael Moseley on TV a few months ago and it seemed very convincing.
The health benefits of intermittent fasting as well as the weight loss aspects were appealing.
Fasting is something I thought I could never do - "I get too hungry", "I get shaky if I don't eat regularly", "I like food too much"!

But maybe I could try....I have very poor self- control so I pretended to "fast" on a day or two....when nobody was watching.

Then, blow-me-down! didn't G suggest that he should do it!
He is a bit worried about his weight, although to look at him he doesn't at all look overweight and he is very fit.

I, on the other hand, have become fairly chubby - so much so that I don't recognise myself in photos! (Who is that little dumpy woman? Oh, its me!)

So last week we embarked on this journey.

With the help of a few books - I find buying books always helps!

 I have a huge selection of recipe books but having the fast diet recipes really helps.
Also I have the fast diet by Dr Michael Moseley and Mimi Spencer which is a great explanation of the diet and has a comprehensive calorie counter.
Plus I had previously found The Ultimate 5:2 diet recipe book by Kate Harrison which has another swag of ideas.

So we began!

breakfast day1

breakfast day 2

breakfast day 3

dinner day 3

I am trying to follow the protein and plant plan on fast days.
The plant bit comes pretty easily as I love vegetables and we always have big veggie meals.
We don't eat meat, but we do eat fish, eggs, cheese etc.

I've been  waiting a bit later to have breakfast - I'm not an early riser anyway.
I aim to have a protein rich breakfast and also eat foods with low GI.
I've never really got into the whole GI thing before, but now I can see how it can help control the hunger pangs.

Normally I have home made muesli for brekkie which is probably not too bad but as it is homemade I'd have to work out the calorie count of all the bits and bobs I put into my muesli.
So it's easier to follow some of the breakfast ideas in the books.

For dinner (which I keep forgetting to take photos of, as I rush to hoe into it!) we've had a rataouille with chick peas, a vegetable soup, and a tofu miso soup. I adapted the recipe from the ultimate 5:2 recipe book for udon noodle soup, substituting kanjac glucomannan* noodles for the udon noodles and adding extra veggies - bean sprouts and asian mushrooms.

*also called zero or shirataki noodles, they are made from glucomannan which comes from a type of yam. They have a measly 6.4 calories per 100g.

I try and make the meals as appealing as possible, arrange the food nicely on the plate and eat slowly to enjoy every mouthful, with NO reading, NO watching tv or playing on the interwebs to distract me.

If I feel hungry I have a glass of water.
If that doesn't help or if I feel cold (it's been a bit chilly here) I have a cup of tea or herbal tea.
If I really need to eat something I munch on a bit of celery or cucumber.

So far so good.

So to know how we are doing we need to know where we are starting from.

Last weekend we weighed ourselves -
T - 80 kg
G - 78 kg
(that's right I weigh more than him!)

Waist measurement -
T - 104 cm
G - ?

So we'll see how we go!