Saturday 7 January 2012

Meet the veggies

There won't be any meeting of any veggies, I am afraid the title is a bit misleading and a result of a rather unfathomable obsession with Mr Bloom of Mr Bloom's Nursery and a very catchy tune entitled, astonishingly, "Meet the Veggies".

I'd link if I could. Google will help you if you care, but know not who he be or what I'm on about.

Anyway. It's a new year, again, and despite my defence of my birthday month as not being one for detox and deprivation, I do feel I need to address my general slothfulness and weight gain.

My weight has never been what you'd call a source of joy to me. It caused me considerable less duress than usual in 2009 when I shed all the excess weight to become normal weighted. Not thin, just not overweight. This was nice. Complacency set in as it tends to and I gained about 10lb over the next year and a bit, so last January I decided to shift it.

I joined Weightwatchers online, mostly because they have an iPhone app and I am a sad git. But also because it was Weightwatchers that helped me shed the three stone.

The excessive amounts of Tramadol I was taking while I was dieting may have had some appetite suppressant effect. Who knows. I shall deny that as a possibility. I ate less, I lost wheens of weight. My secret was to have Saturday off if I'd lost weight that week so if I really needed a treat, I'd have it on Saturday. Something worked anyway so I thought I'd try again.

2011 started, Weightwatchers started, 4lb lost and then I discovered I was pregnant. Woohoo! Freedom to eat doughnuts! WW were very nice and refunded my membership too.

In both of my pregnancies I gloried in the ability to pretty much eat what I wanted/could manage. After both pregnancies I was slimmer than before due to not managing much. After both pregnancies I proceeded to gain weight rapidly due to continuing to eat what I wanted and could now manage in copious amounts. The hunger took over.

So here I am. I seem to be hovering at a intermediate size just now which is not quite the size of a house but not far off. Approximately the size of a chalet or so. Either my scales are broken or I'm staying the same weight. Which isn't a good weight but it's not getting worse. I was pleased to discover that it hadn't crept up after a few weeks of not-weighing-myself denial, then I ate Christmas fayre voraciously and then was very sick (unconnectedly) for a few days. Result? Same weight as before the voraciousness.

Put it this way, I've got approaching two of the three stones to shed again, although it is a little over one stone to be back in the normal range again. But I did have a baby so I'll cling to that for a while. I have till her first birthday to legitimately have a paunch.

My paunch, my rules.

You would be correct to note that there has been very little mention of veggies.

For a couple of years I was vegetarian. Sort of. I didn't forsake gelatine or similar and I didn't stay off, erm, black pudding very long. Or haggis. It's flesh I have issue with, ok?

This came about by simply going off meat and fish. I remain off fish to this day partly because of ethical reasons, and stayed off red meat until I was pregnant when I really fancied burgers. Chicken and non fleshy meat things came back after a year or so.

But, due to another unfathomable obsession with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and the receipt of his veg cookbook for Chrismas, I'm thinking I'll go veggie again. It's easier to be diet friendly with vegetarian food, and it'll stop me eating snack scotch eggs.

Hugh did impress me by having a similar sort of argument to mine as to why we should eat less meat and fish (sustainability) and also because he likes to make the vegetable the star, rather than substituting with quorn or soya at every stage and having faux meat dishes.

Certain vegetables/pulses are fabulous. Cauliflower. Chick peas. Courgettes. Other ones that don't start with C. Hmm. Butternut squash. Broccoli. Edamame beans. Artichokes.

Definitely artichokes. They're hard to buy mostly. Grr.

Salad is also good. Iceberg lettuce is one of the greatest foods on earth so my salads always lack a little sophistication unless I have rocket in which case my salad resembles a pile of rocket.

And I am a big fan of mushrooms. Unsophisticated mushrooms though, I'm not that keen on ones that look like sea creatures. Mushroom risotto should be knighted for services to easy to cook and delumptious dinners.

Meat will be off the menu once I've eaten the stuff in the freezer and had a farewell Chicken and Cashew Nut. Sometime soon after my birthday. Maybe the first of February so I don't actively give anything up in January, just to make a point to nobody.

Meantime I'm going to experiment with a beetroot tart tatin and some fried polenta. And make a raspberry pavlova so that the raspberries purchased to be in a pavlova don't suffer the humiliation of being a healthy snack.

I shall also ponder at what point I stopped ogling attractive men and just moved onto "men".


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