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Diet Water?

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Drinking water is a key part of a lot of diets and it should be a key part of your diet even if you’re not trying to lose weight.

Water has zero calories. Not a single calorie. None. Nada. Zilch.

So when looking into the value of water for diets I was surprised and a little shocked to discover that there are a couple of companies out there selling “diet water”.

You couldn’t make this stuff up!

diet waterSeemingly a company in Japan has been selling it for the last couple of years.. the mind boggles!

There’s also a few companies selling flavoured water that are obviously targetting the slimmers and dieters. This one, for example, offers a range of different waters depending on your um . .. needs..

 

Eating Reasonably Well While Travelling

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Grilled Tuna SteakI cannot avoid travelling quite a bit for work. And I need to get past my worries and concerns about what I can and cannot eat while “on the road”.

For the past 3 weeks I’ve been “out and about”. During that time I’ve been relatively careful about what I eat, but not obsessive.

The worst days are those, like last Friday, when you don’t get a proper meal all day (apart from breakfast) and end up snacking when you can.

Good days are when you get 3 good meals during the day and manage to avoid junk.

So apart from the “travel days” I’ve managed to strike a certain rhythm with respect to what I eat.

Breakfast is key. I simply have to have some kind of breakfast or I’ll be really hungry by late morning. When you’re staying in hotels there’s usually plenty of options available. The Hilton chain gives me access to their executive lounges which don’t have exactly “amazing” breakfast choices, but they usually have coffee, juice, cereal and some kind of bread.

Lunch will depend on where I am and how much time I have available. While I would normally settle for a very light lunch of soup and bread when I’m in the office, when I’m travelling that usually isn’t an option and grabbing something relatively good, but not gigantic seems to work.

Dinner of course will vary, but I did quite well over the last few weeks.

I learnt quite a bit from my trip to the US earlier in the year and since I was travelling in Costa Rica and Germany this time round the quality of food available was quite a bit higher. Good salads, simple grilled meat (without sauce) etc., made for a relatively good combination.

Unfortunately the one area that I still haven’t really found a solution to is actually tracking my intake while “on the road”. The only thing I can do, realistically, is to keep an eye on quantities, so only having one serving from a buffet instead of “going nuts” seems to work (to a point).

Alcohol, of course, probably doesn’t help. A week in Germany, for example, is basically a week of drinking lots of nice beer!

 

 

The Dreaded Weigh-in

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withings wifi bodyscaleI’ve been “on the road” for the last few weeks, which is also why there haven’t been any updates on here.

This morning was my first weigh-in since the 6th of March and I was dreading it.

The last few weeks I’ve been travelling for work and between travel, late nights, alcohol, food etc., I was worried that I’d have put on quite a bit of weight.

It wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. Yes – I’d put on a small bit, but it’s less than a kilo, so it’s not “drastic”.

Today I’ll go shopping and return to eating according to my diet plan.

I’m not planning on travelling again until the end of May, so I’ve got nearly 2 months to work on reducing my weight.

Cooking Is Addictive!

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Tomato sauce with spinach & mushroomSince I started on this diet I’ve been cooking almost every single day. On a “bad” day I even prepare my own muesli!

It’s become an obsession with me .. so much so that I’ve found myself getting frustrated with my kitchen equipment. End result being that I’ve replaced the chopping boards, invested in some new pans and have finally got a proper set of pyrex oven dishes. (I did have a couple of oven dishes, but they were huge and totally impractical for cooking for one). I’ve also found myself spending a lot of time looking at kitchen gadgets. While a lot of them are completely pointless (who needs a special device to slice bananas??), others are really handy. Like the one I picked up recently that will crush garlic without you having to peel them.

As I spend more time working on the diet I’ve also got more adventurous with the recipes. It’s not hard to make a reasonably good dish into something with a little bit more “oomf”. Adding some fresh parsley or olives can give it a bit more taste and unless you go “mad” you won’t make much difference to the overall calorie count for a given dish.

I think my mother quite enjoys this “new me”, as I end up doing most of the cooking when I head down to see her every few weeks. She may not be on a diet, but there’s no reason why she can’t eat the same food as me, as it’s not bland or boring.

So the next phase of my cooking will be to start doing more stuff using the oven – now that I have “normal” sized pyrex oven dishes to use.

I’m really looking forward to it!

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Honey With Walnuts

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Irish made honey with walnuts

Irish made honey with walnuts

I love honey, so if I wasn’t allowed to eat it from time to time I’d be quite upset.

Fortunately I am allowed to have it, so when I came across an Irish brand offering honey with various fruit I grabbed a couple of jars.

The one pictured is honey with walnuts, which is absolutely gorgeous – and walnuts are meant to be good for you, so it’s “win win”.

The company, which is based in Co. Kilkenny, offers an interesting selection of honeys with different fruits:

  • Sarah’s Zesty Honey with Ginger
  • Sarah’s Warming Honey with Cinnamon
  • Sarah’s Zingy Honey with Lemon
  • Sarah’s Joyful Honey with Orange
  • Sarah’s Scrummy Honey with Sour Cherries
  • Sarah’s Tasty Honey with Walnuts
  • Sarah’s Beautiful Honey with Blueberries
  • Sarah’s Heavenly Honey with Raspberries

They’re all incredibly decadent, but they’re also natural and organic, so pretty good for you (in moderation).

I like being able to support Irish business when I do my grocery shopping and these rather decadent honeys fit the bill nicely 🙂

Cholesterol Reducing Milk?

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Avonmore dairies have been offering Heart Active milk for the last few months (possibly longer) and it piqued my interest.

According to my doctor I have high cholesterol, so I need to reduce it. (Though “high” seemingly isn’t “dangerously high” as yet.. )

So a milk that could reduce my cholesterol levels? I was brought up drinking milk and while I might not drink it “raw” as often these days as I used to it’s one of those things that I really like.. I guess growing up on or close to farms might have rubbed off!

I don’t know much about cholesterol, though I know if your levels are high it’s not good for you (unless you think having a heart attack is fun, in which case you probably need a new hobby!)

The BBC has a pretty good overview of cholesterol, though the more I read up on the subject the more complicated it appears. The bit that I do take note of, however, is any advice on reducing it or keeping it low.

So if there’s a milk that helps reduce the absorption of saturated fat etc., then I’ll give it a try..

Only downside is that it’s a wee bit more expensive than your normal low fat milk.. But then again so are most of the cholesterol reducing products I’ve come across

 

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Tasty Irish Soups

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Irish made spicy lentil soup

Irish made spicy lentil soup

One of the downsides to eating “properly” is that while you can change what you eat, you can’t add hours to the day ..

So, for me at least, lunch has to be a relatively simple option. What that means is that most days I opt for soup with some bread (wholemeal of course).

Over the last few weeks I’ve become a bit of an “expert” on the various soups available in the the mainstream Irish supermarket chains (SuperQuinn, Dunnes and Tesco) and to be honest I’ve found some of their selection a little lackluster. Mushroom or tomato soup isn’t exactly “adventurous”!

Last weekend I came across an Irish brand that do really tasty soups (see photo on left). They’re incredible, though you do pay a little more for them at around €2.70 a carton (though I think it’s worth it).

Of course they’re from County Cork (as am I!), so maybe I shouldn’t be surprised.

Cork is also home to Cully and Sully who also have a very nice range of soups, though I think most of them are a bit on the high side calorie-wise (though I could be wrong .. )

 

 

 

 

 

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