Hairy Bikers, healthy fish and prawn gratin

This is out of their new healthy eating book, and so I thought we would give it a go as it sounded yummy.

All the kids, Ali and myself love seafood, and we are especially fans of lovely prawns, num num.

This was lovely and easy, just hacking up some fish, chopping up some onions, making some breadcrumbs and grating some cheese, then throwing it all together. I did the chopping as it hurts me to watch Ali cutting food, its like watching a 3 year old that is holding a knife for the first time. Add to that the fact that I can chop a bag of potatoes in the time it takes him to do one.

Ali then cooked it all to make some lovely deliciousness. We are both trying to lose weight, so I have been doing some research, and we will be avoiding too much bread and mash. So what does Ali say, firstly some nice bread rolls would go well with the dish, secondly a nice deep buttery mash top would be nice with it, men!

The gratin was lovely and also very simple with just breadcrumbs with a small amount of cheese, I didn't miss the mash at all, and the kids loved it. The sauce was a little runny, but I think that was something Ali did, not the recipes fault.

However overall it was great, and we accompanied it with carrots, broccoli and courgettes. Baby Elliot as usual refused to be fed, but he stuffed a good amount of peas, fish and broccoli into his little gob. The older two had seconds, and even Caitlin ate most of it.

As this was so easy I will certainly be doing this one again soon.

The time is now, ready steady go.....

I have had a lovely glass of wine and a nice slab of Christmas cake as a fond farewell to my piggy ways.

I had a look at the NHS BMI calculator and I am official over weight, so it seriously is time to start shifting the pounds. I don't know quite how things have got to this level, but now is time to put a stop to it.

I always said that I would never go over 10 stone, then after a few babies this turned to 11, and then to 12. Last time I weighed I was about 12 and a half, but its time for the official weigh in first thing in the morning, so that will be the weight that I will work from.

Assuming I am 12 and a half and I need to lose 3 stone, I have looked up the best weight lose per week ( to keep it off). The guidance is between 1 to 2 lb a week, so losing 42 lb should take between 21 and 42 weeks. I wonder what progress I will have made by 4th June and by 5th October.

Fingers crossed, lets hope by those date that at least some progress has been made. Wish me luck

Its heading towards the dreaded/ highly anticipated new year

I know crash and fad diets don't work, but with 3 stones to shift its going to take some doing to get back down from elephant size to hippo size.

My other half and I have agreed that things can't carry on as they have been, and its time to make some changes for the better. We will most likely get a little competitive, as we both have a similar amount to lose, so he can eat my dust and watch me shrink.

We both really enjoy fresh food, and we both love our fruit and veg, so for us its more about potion size, making sensible choices and getting our butts moving.

It does freak me out a little when I look at some of the advice pages, I am a girl who likes a plate size slab of steak, and a whole pack of cheese, and that's not to mention the wine and sweet stuff. So when I see that they recommend a match box size piece of cheese, and a playing card size piece of meat my hair does stand on end a little. I eat those quantities just picking while cooking.

We are definitely going to go pretty much wine free, except for special occasions and our special (and rare) child free nights out.

We are also definitely going to try to eat more soup, with the hope that the promise it will keep us fuller for longer will actually pay out. Its the bread that goes with the soup that may be a bit of a challenge to avoid.

We are also going to encourage our fish eating love. As a family we tuck into fish once a week, so we will bump this up to twice a week when possible.

Its nearly time to start those changes, tick tock tick tock.

I Surrender!

I have one shockingly bad so far with the weight loss plan, oh dear.

With Christmas so close I am going to focus on the research and planning for the month, rather than starting to try and be healthier at the most challenging time of year.

I don't have much will power at the best of times, but with chocolate, wine, stollen and advocate all on the cards for the next few weeks, I don't see the point in resisting their siren call. Here I come yummy food.

So enjoyment and fun for the next couple of weeks, and then being a good girl after that ( hopefully)

A little rant - dress sizes

I have never been fussy about what size clothes I buy, and in fact I often find that buying a bigger size looks better and helps to hide those lumps and bumps.

However after going to a very posh strees market the other day I started thinking. I overheard a conversation on a handmade clothes stall:
Woman "this is nice, its a medicum, what size is that"
Vendor " a medium is a size 10"

Now in what bonkers world is a small ( size 8), a medium( size 10) and a large a (12). Based on that they will have to create a new dress size just for me, maybe it will be entitled elephant or sealion size!

So being a bit obsessional I googled average UK size:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/average-dress-size-of-women-increases-to-14-715277.html

Phew, at a size 14/16 I am in fact average ( on the large side of medium), and not actually a whale.

This is gross sorry

I am clearly rubbish at the wieght loss and being healthy thing, so I have a new plan.

My disgusting children brought home a diarrhoea and vomiting bug from school last week, kids are the most foul little bug spreaders ever! They quickly passed it on to me, and I have been rough rough rough.

Their baby brother also is leaking out of his bum like a tap, which I thought at first was the teething thing, but now I am not so sure. Anyway looking on the bright side, atleast running around changing his bum keeps me busy and stops me even fancying food for a loooonnnng while after each nappy change.

Anyway living on the loo, and not even being able to bear the thought of food when ill has got me thinking. Perhaps I should be encouraging theses bugs into the house, and then I will definitely be a size 10 within weeks!

Another little slip, ops

It seemed like a great idea to buy lots of the Asda offer of 3 boxes of chocolates for £10, so I am nice and ready for the hundreds of teachers, LSA, cub and rainbow leaders, childminder and so on presents that we give out at Christmas time.

I am more than happy to give a little token of our appreciation, but I hate paying full price. You may then think that it is indeed sensible to buy them up when while we can.

My issue comes in that I accidentally unlocked the house, went to the garage, found them in the cupboard, opened the box, and then accidentally ate the whole box in two days.

Do you get the impression that I suck at this weight loss challenge thing.

Busy busy busy

I think its very true that the busier you are the less you eat.

I have been back to work after maternity leave for 2 weeks now. I have not been doing great on the not eating thing, but somehow I have finally seen the scales starting to shift in the right direction. A few pounds down hip hip hooray.

Being busy in the day helps, but I think its the working in the evenings that has really made the difference. I have to admit to being an evening comfort/ boredom eater, so being busy stops me heading to the fridge.

A teeny tiny marginally better day!

Lets ignore the chocolate eclaire that I may have accidentally purchased and stuffed into my little piggy face this morning.

With the slate wiped clean of that little bit of a fall from grace I did ok today. A nice long dog walk in the woods ( and the rain and the wind) has got to have shifted some fat.

Lovely steaming hot faggots and veg for tea. I know that faggots and gravy are not great, but on the side of a plate piled high with green beans, peas and carrots I will forgive myself.

Status - wobbly bits sadly still very wobbly

Do you like the four feral children blogs???

If you like reading about my pathetic weight loss attempts, then you may like to read the other "four feral children" blogs:

http://fourferalchildren.blogspot.co.uk/

Our great fun adventures in the outdoors

http://fourferalchildrenbookreviews.blogspot.co.uk/

the books we love and hate

http://fourferalchildrencluelessmummy.blogspot.co.uk/

and my thoughts on parenting.

We also have just started a facebook group that you may like to take a look at:

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Four-feral-children/382313158508278

I think I may be on the wrong challenge......

This weekend I think I may actually be on the wrong challenge, I have obviously accidentally enrolled on the mummy weight gain challenge.

The day started well until we came up with the bright idea to have a roast beef lunch. We very very very rarely cook a roast, and so we thought this might be a nice treat for us and the kids.

 

 

 

Indeed it was lovely, and I do love my veg, so I ate plenty of swede, spring greens, carrots and parsnips. Sadly the spring greens were cooked with bacon and the parsnips and carrots were roasted, so I don't think thats a good way to eat veg!

 

I further compounded my failure by returning to our Sunday afternoon family tradition. I am very tough with the kids about what they eat ( sadly not so tough on myself), but if we are at home on a Sunday we go pancake crazy.

 

 

 

I am blaming my husband for this one, he is a great pancake cook, so its all his fault. I am not a huge fan of the thick American style pancakes, but you can eat my dust when there is a plate of English pancakes in the vicinity.

 

I may have failed on the weight loss, but English pancakes with sugar and lemon, yum yum yum.

 

I am not doing great but to be fair I am not currently putting on any weight, so atleast thats something.



 

Does a Toby carvery buffet breakfast help you lose weight?

 

ok ok ok, its been a rough week.

However to be fair:

Tomatoes are very good for you ( and I had lots of those, ops not sure they are so good when fried!)

Baked beans count as one of your 5 a day

I hate sausages, so managed to avoid them.

A little protein is supposed to help you lose weight, so maybe the 6 slices of bacon and black pudding can count as "a little protein"

Marmalade and lemon marmalade must have seen a piece of fruit at some point, so I am counting those as healthy

Drinking lots of fluid makes you less hungry and helps weight loss, so maybe the 3 cups of tea will help

As you can see I am clearly getting desperate to justify my dismal failure.

Keeping busy=good, Tiredness=bad

With a teething and extremly grumpy baby ( who has not stopped crying day and night for the last 3 days) you would think that I would not have time for those naughty treats, or to eat anything!

Sadly the exhaustion that comes from teething related sleep deprivation combined with very little time to cook, means that those naughty high sugar snacks have won the battle today.

Does this count as being good???????

I run a toddler group, and part of the role involves buying the snack and setting up the food ready for the mums, dads and kids.

Now as you can imagine those 2 lovely trays of biscuits call to me, I promise that they do actually beg me to eat them.

Being a little naughty I tend to buy the biscuits I like the most, so chocolate digestives and custard creams here I come.

I will often pick at the biscuits while walking around the group and making teas and coffees, so I guess my normal intake is about 4 or 5, tut tut. So the question is, is having just 2 biscuits instead of 4 being good?

Baby weight or just too many cakes?

Once upon a time I was a very skinny young lady, and more importantly very fit.

Fast forward 10 years, 4 pregnancies, countless sleepless nights, endless mummy guilt, an online job, plenty of cakes, wine and chocolate. I now find myself with 3 stones of excess baggage to shift from my now very large backside.

With a 9 month old who still wakes at night and a ridiculously busy life I still tend to live off of sugar. In fact I spend my waking hours surfing from one sugar high to the next. This is obviously not great on so many levels, but I am not certain if I am yet ready to shake all that baby weight, and to leave all those bad habits behind me.

However being 35 now I know getting rid of my monster backside is only going to happen if I get on with it, and its only going to get harder the older I get.

I am not a hugely active person, and I don't forsee myself heading to the gym or whatever excercise classes are currently on trend. However I can certainly get on with more dog walking.

So I may or may not start to take a chunk or a small bite out of the 3 stones, lets just watch this space......