While cooking this evening I came across a packet of table salt that was in one of the cupboards.
It’s odd. I haven’t used it in months. I completely removed salt from my diet back in January and haven’t had any reason to use salt since.
Instead of salt I either use nothing or freshly ground black pepper.
I honestly don’t miss it
Last night I watched “Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead”.
If you’re concerned about your weight this film is worth watching. It’s not “preachy”. It’s not boring.
The film tracks Joe Cross, an Australian, as he spends 60 days in the US drinking juice and not eating solid food. As he travels around the US he meets plenty of other people who have weight issues including Phil Staples.
By switching to juice only both men were able to lose significant amounts of weight and keep it off. It’s both an eye opener and very inspiring.
Watch the trailer below to get a “taste” of what the film is about.
[youtube]http://youtu.be/Gv3vEXy_EwU[/youtube]
There’s more information about the film on the official site. I saw it on NetFlix, but it should also be available on iTunes and elsewhere.
The blender I’d ordered last week arrived a couple of days ago, so I had to get more fruit and vegetables to “feed” it. Unfortunately getting some of the fruit and vegetables that Jason Vale & Co recommend wasn’t possible in my local Dunnes Stores, but I was able to get some new ingredients to experiment with.
So over the last couple of days I’ve been making juices with fresh ginger root.
The recipe below is what I had for breakfast this morning.
Compared to a lot of the juices I’ve been having over the last couple of weeks it’s a lot lighter and sweeter.
While it’s incredibly tasty it might be a bit too light for a full breakfast, so I’d probably consider it as more of a “snack” or something to drink with other food.
Clean the carrots. I generally use a peeler to remove the outer layer and then top and tail them with a knife
Slice up all the fruit and vegetables so that they'll fit through the juicer
Nutritional data calculated using MyFitnessPal
The colour and taste of this juice is fantastic!
My mission for today is to find a source of fresh beetroot and a few other ingredients that I was unable to find in Dunnes Stores. Hopefully either SuperQuinn or Tesco will stock them. If they don’t then I’m not sure what I’ll do 🙁
For the past couple of weeks I’ve been making fresh juice for breakfast every morning. I really like it. Sure, it’s a small bit more time consuming than making a bit of toast or having a bowl of cereal, but I don’t think I’ll be looking back.
Why?
Because it actually seems to be working ie. I’m losing weight and I’m not starving.
But using the juicer does mean that I’m a small bit limited in what I can do. The juicer will only work with fruit and vegetables that are soft enough to juice ie. that have a relatively high amount of liquid in them. If you want to make something with bananas or avocado, for example, you can’t use a juicer.
What you can use, however, is a blender.
I don’t know much about blenders. I’ve seen the “Will it blend?” videos, but I’m not ready to fork out several hundred euro for a blender.
Having said that, I’m also not going to get a blender that will break after a bit of slightly heavy use. That would be a false economy.
I spent a couple of hours last night browsing Amazon UK, eBay and a few other sites to see what was available.
Bottom line – you can spend as little as 20 euro and as much as several hundred, but there are a couple of things that you need to watch out for.
A lot of the blender based recipes are for smoothies and other fruit and vegetable based drinks that include ice. So you need to make sure that the machine you choose can handle ice. Not being overly scientific about it you need a more robust and powerful motor.
The Philips HR2094, which is part of the same product line as my juicer, seems to fit the bill and is also one of the products that Jason Vale recommends.
In terms of price and features it’s a fairly good model from what I can see:
Hopefully it’ll be delivered before the end of the week, though I took the free delivery option from Amazon UK, so it could take up to a week.
Once I’ve got my new “toy” I’ll be able to expand the range of juices and smoothies etc., that I can make!
I am a self-proclaimed coffee addict.
In order to feed my addiction I have several coffee making devices at home, including the plunger style cafetière from Bodum.
Unfortunately one of them met with an accident in the last week or so. The “beaker” was glass and it appears to have been dropped (not by me oddly enough) and of course it’s now broken.
Fortunately I had a spare Bodum cafetière that someone gave me as a present (I like presents!) so I can still make myself a decent mug of coffee.
So the obvious thing to do was to look into getting a replacement beaker.
Bodum sell spare parts for all their coffee makers via their website and a lot of other sites also offer them. The odd thing, however, is that the cost of replacing the beaker is almost as much as the cost of buying a new coffee maker! The cheapest coffee maker is about 20 euro, while a replacement beaker is about the same price.
So what are the other options?
Chatting with a few people via Twitter and Facebook I discovered that there are cafetières with plastic beakers. I’m not 100% sure if that would be a good idea, as the plastic might mess with the taste.
The other option is to use an unbreakable coffee maker. There’s a few on the market that are made of stainless steel or similar material including the Bodum Columbia:
Of course there is a bit of a jump in price and a couple of people have reported that they can’t really see how much coffee is in the pot!
Nice to know that there are options out there though!
Since I started my 2012 attempt to lose weight I’ve made some progress, but I’ve also had a number of bad periods.
One thing, however, that I have learnt is the importance of both portion control and tracking what you eat and drink.
I tried the Tesco Diet for a few months, but found it wasn’t really suited to my either my lifestyle.
In the end I dumped it, but kept the account on their system just for basic tracking. In the end I dumped that as well.
I’m now using a few other tools to track consumption, sleep and exercise / movement.
MyFitnessPal is simply excellent.
They’ve got a very good database of food, including a lot of Irish products. They also have a pretty slick and easy to use mobile app.
One of its handier features being the option to scan barcodes. Why spend ages trying to work out what something is when you can scan the barcode and get the data immediately?
You can also eat “a la carte” and simply input the ingredients you’re using when you’re cooking.
At the moment I’m “suffering” from a certain amount of “data overload”, but I’m also seeing progress.
As a bit of a “geek” being able to track it all using a few services and gadgets is “cool”, but in the end it’s the lifestyle changes that will make me or break me!
If you’re watching your weight then you probably pay quite a bit of attention to what you eat. When you’re shopping you might tend towards the “light” or “fat free” or “sugar free” products that adorn so many supermarkets’ shelves.
Unfortunately some of the labelling is more than a little misleading.
An example I came across in a local shop this evening was in relation to jam.
I spotted some jars proclaiming that they were “sugar free”:
So if there’s no “added sugar” what were they using?
Checking the label revealed:
So they’re using Sorbitol instead.. Ok, but it’s a laxative? Why does this bother me a bit?
Another company, who happen to be Irish, also offer a jam with “no added sugar”, or rather “100% all fruit”:
So what are they using instead of sugar? As they proclaim proudly on their site:
Only the natural sweetness of concentrated grape juice is used. This natural grape juice sweetness produces a delicious fresh taste!
The difference in price? Negligible – literally less than 10 cents.
I’ve no idea if there are any nasty side effects to grape juice, but I somehow doubt it ..
