Girl's gotta dongle!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hello Dear Reader!

I'm never really that excited by tech but I have a dongle and I'm not afraid to use it. So, I'm back! 

I'll start with the frugal weight loss. I know, I know, we've been here before and I've turned from chubby to slim thing and back to chubby again and you read all about it and watched me do it. I know the advert is cheesy but this time I'm going to do it for the last time. Years and years ago, it took me three attempts to give up smoking and then I did it when I really wanted to end it. I'm in the same mental state about weight loss.

 If I think back to all the years I was in debt, I didn't do anything about it until I had to. I hate Santander but at the same time, they've made me a better person. I've been suffering from joint pain, it's not arthritis, just age and being over weight. The answer was urgent and had to be done, stay in pain or lose weight. It wasn't a difficult decision.

I've used the weight watchers plan before and lost a lot of weight. The usual happened, I just stopped doing it. Weight loss, like debt reduction, is about maths. You have to know what you are eating in terms of protein, sugars, fats and fibre. It means you have to know what 30g of cereal  or 50g of low fat cheddar looks like. You can't guess and think it will be OK and expect to know how many calories or as WW calls them, points are in your food. I get quite obsessive about most things, from a cleaning routine, to keeping scrupulous household accounts so calorie counting is just another set of numbers for me to enjoy keeping an eye on.

Since the beginning of the year, I've gone from 14 - 4 to 13 - 10 or a loss of 8lbs or 3.6 kilos. I'm already starting to feel lighter when I walk about. I use the weight watchers monthly pass where I've signed up online, use a mobile phone app to monitor my exercise and diet. I search online for the points value of the food and then add that to my list of daily food. I can have 30 points a day which equates to roughly 1500 calories as we have to eat 500 calories a day less than our bodies need to lose weight. I've also added lots of exercise to the equation and that's a whole other blog post and is such fun I want to tell you all about it now, but you'll have to wait!

 

Onto my frugal weight loss recipe for today and I'll 'point' it for you.

Spinach and Feta pie with Remoulade - 12 points per portion.

Remoulade

One peeled and grated celeriac - 0 points.

Lighter than light mayo (Aldi) - 1 point for 45g

Dijon mustard - 0 points

juice of one lemon - 0 points

Combine the lot - eat piles of it!

Spinach and Feta pie.

1 large onion - 0

1 bag of baby spinach - 0

200g feta cheese - (I had a quarter of the pie so that was 50g) 3 points

1 egg - less than one point per portion.

quarter of a teaspoon of cumin and same again of coriander, a sprinkle of nutmeg

1 sheet of puff pastry (I had a quarter of the pie) 6 points

2 teaspoons of olive oil. (divided by 4!) 1 point

Salt and pepper for seasoning.

Garlic powder (you can use fresh and add with the cooking onion.)

Wash the spinach - drain.

Dice and gently fry the onion

Add spinach and wilt down - this takes less than a minute.

Place in a large bowl.

Crumble block of feta into the bowl.

Beat one egg and add along with all the seasoning.

Unroll pack of puff pastry and arrange the filling down the middle. You can make cuts either side, as I did and fold it over like a plait or make a large pasty from it. (Google images of pasty to find the shape)

Bake in a hot oven for around 30 minutes. 

It's a massive stuffer of a meal and I could have got away with a lot less than a quarter of a pie. I'm also working off 10 points a day in the gym but as I said, that's another story. 

Back to weight watchers monthly pass. I get to go to the meetings 'Hello, my name is Jane and I'm an over eater, addicted to cakes and the favourite thing to do with my muscles is chew more food!' You know how it goes. I quite like them as I'm competitive and have to keep up with the weight loss pelaton and even like to make  it to the break away group every now and then. I also like to meet folk, so if you're in Liskeard and you see me at the meeting, then come over and introduce yourself as it would be lovely to meet you. So, I get to go to the meetings, use all of the online tools and I get the mobile phone app, which I predominately use to track what I eat.

They seem to do a different deal every month or so and I could tell you what I have paid and you might get a better offer. 

I think it's a lot better offer than those books and meetings alone and I find all of the information that I want online. 

Any one else eating dust along with the rest of us fat fighters?

Tomorrow, get me! I'm meeting a personal trainer for a one to one session (all part of the gym membership and you'll be stunned by how cheap it all is) and I'll tell you all about the exercise, the cheap gym, my bargain gym kit and how much fun people watching is from an eliptical trainer!

Until then,

Love Froogs xxxxx