So, what's my strategy for not putting on weight? First and foremost, it's all about portion control. I never deny myself anything. I always have butter rather than margarine. However I have learned (and it HAS taken a few years!) not to overdo it. My Mum always said "All things in moderation" when we were growing up and it was sage advice. Here is an example. As some readers may know, I LOVE peanut butter kitkat chunky bars. When they were discontinued I was so heartbroken I emailed the manufacturers to ask why, and was told demand was too low to justify relatively high manufacturing costs. When they relaunched them recently with a competition to find the 'chunky champion' I voted my little heart out and was over the moon when peanut butter got 47% of the vote and was chosen to be permanently relaunched. You get the picture. Anyway I have HALF a bar every weekday when I am at work. I find a whole one is just a bit too much. People are amazed I can eat half a bar of chocolate and save the other half for another day. But I can. We try to only have chips once a week, and crisps at the weekend. We only have puddings on Sundays and for special occasions. When you keep treats really as a treat, they become more of one.
Also, I do really love vegetables, especially greens, I feel a bit wierd if I go a day without eating something green. Another great quote I remember hearing once was "Green food = good. Beige food = bad." And although I love sweet things I would always rather have an extra helping of veg than an extra helping of pudding. Sometimes I can have my five a day in one meal. My husband maintains that its all the vegetables I feed him that are keeping him healthy despite smoking and drinking lots of red wine. It all balances out.
While on the subject of wine, I've found that as the years go by I am getting to be more and more of a lightweight when it comes to alcoholic beverages, and although I love the taste I am not able to drink as much without feeling the after effects. These days I would rather have a lesser amount of something a bit special than lots of a bog standard 'three-for-a-tenner' bottle. If I do find my clothes getting tight, just cutting out the wine for a while and the associated crisps and snacks which seem to accompany it seems to do the trick and help me lose a few pounds. I use wine and liqueurs in cooking quite a bit, but you get the taste without too many calories and often the alcohol is cooked off.
And there is chocolate. My children and I always have chocolate first thing in the morning at weekends, it has become something of a tradition in our house. However we don't have massive bars of dairy milk, just a little chocolate stick from Lidl - they have a sort of creamy filling, come in packets of eleven and are just enough to feel like a treat but only about the size of one kitkat finger. Chocolate, like wine, is something where I prefer quality rather than quantity. I'm a member of the Chocolate Tasting Club and can make one box of quality chocolates last four weeks, even including sharing them with my family. They are so deluxe you only want two at the most in one go, and they are far more satisfying with less calories than a big bar of mainstream chocolate.
Breakfast is really important to keep me going and I always have it, usually granola or weetabix but I also love an egg on toast. Sometimes I scramble eggs but mostly I cook one or two in a small non stick milk pan with a tiny bit of oil, on a medium heat with a saucer on top, sort of fried but healthier. If I've been making macaroons, a leftover egg yolk (or two!) can be added to make it extra proteinaceous!
True, I enjoy making puddings and sweet treats, but I also really enjoy sharing them. A large part of the joy of cooking is making friends and family happy by cooking them something special. I'm happy with a small piece of whatever it is, so that there is plenty for everyone else.
I've learned to stop eating when I'm full, but this doesn't make for waste, because I often have any leftovers for the next days lunch. Our family creates hardly any food waste, everything that can be composted is, and at the time of writing our food waste bin is less than half full in three weeks.... but the food waste issue is something to be discussed in a future post.
Here's a picture of today's new recipe pudding: pear, almond and amaretto tart (from the new Lorraine Pascale book), and one of the proteinaceous breakfast:
Thank you for reading, more soon....
Caroline x
Portion control and self control - seems so easy when I read about it but SO hard to do - in life, at least until recently, I've been fairly successful in most aspects and am always curious as to why this one has been beyond me...
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