Let's Talk About Food

I'm hoping to get the meal planning finished today, which will give me time to organise the next supermarket delivery and maybe fit in a trip out to the farm shop at Bradford on Avon to pick up some fresh veg. It really is strange times when a potential shopping trip for food can raise my spirits!

I've completely reviewed the meals I eat regularly and also checked the contents of freezer, fridge and cupboards to assess how radical the changes need to be. I'm focusing more on the weight loss side of things but trying to incorporate changes that I think will help with the diabetes prevention based on the advice given so far, which is that it's not necessary to give up any foods but to make sensible choices on the inclusion of carbs, thinking about how often certain foods are eaten, how much is eaten in a meal, and how certain foods are cooked.  

I think I'm in a good starting position and the changes shouldn't be too extreme! I think I already have a reasonably healthy diet: I gave up added sugar a couple of years ago, don't regularly eat cakes, pastries or sweets, and I never keep temptation in the form of biscuits, chocolate and crisps etc. in the house. I already do most of my cooking from scratch, bulk cooking where I can so I don't rely on ready meals and although I used to opt for takeaway meals more frequently than was good for me, that's been kept to the occasional treat since we've been in lockdown and is something I'm happy to stop completely if it proves necessary.

So, what changes am I going to make? Well I'm going back to calorie counting which has proved successful for me in the past and for starters will weigh everything as it's really easy for amounts to slowly get bigger and bigger. It'll be a diet based on whole foods with more meat free meals and increasing the amount of fish in my diet. I want to focus on ensuring I am eating the recommended 5-a-day, which is one aspect I struggle to achieve and is why the planning is taking so long! I'll work towards eliminating processed foods, not that I eat a lot of them anyway, although there will always be room for bacon, gammon and ham in my meal plan! It's also important that the changes I'm making don't trigger more migraines or diverticulitis flare ups, and I'll have to rethink if that happens.

I do need to add more variety, hence the recent recipe search. I've found a good selection from my books (Doctor's Kitchen 3-2-1, & Pinch of Nom) and from the internet (Slimming Eats, & Two Chubby Cubs) and will be making full use of my new book, the Carb & Calorie Counter to help with the monitoring. The format of this book also makes it simple to see how to easily make tweaks/substitutions, something which I'm sure I will do as the year progresses (and many thanks to Eileen for the recommendation). I haven't finished calculating the calories where it's not listed on the recipe, so that will be ongoing. If you do have any tried and tested recipes I'd love to hear from you please, especially for easy lunch ideas.

I've decided that I will delay moving to the new regime while I eat the remaining freezer meals and foods that either don't fit it with what I want to do or where I'm not sure of the calories (because I haven't been weighing ingredients!). This will probably take about two weeks and I think it is likely to put a stop to any weight loss for those weeks but it's better to do it now and get it out of the way.

Not food related, but the other essential part of the weight loss is establishing a decent exercise routine. I'm currently aiming for a minimum of 30 minutes every day and so far have achieved this, doing a combination of YouTube videos, walking, and torture time on the exercise bike (it's a tiny saddle!).

So, the big question is ... have I considered everything? If you have any weight loss/exercise tips I'd really appreciate any help you can give me.