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)