Meal plan w/c 23 Feb 09

Mon 23 - cajun chicken in gravy, mash, steamed veg

Tue 24 - smoked mackerel, bread, salad, lots of pancakes!

Wed 25 - lasagne, steamed veg

Thu 26 - fray bentos steak and ale pie, mash, veg

Fri 27 - something with tofu, going to find a recipe when I get home

Sat 28 - homemade pizza for lunch, tea at church in the evening

Sun 1 - at a friend's house for Sunday lunch, I expect it will be a roast

And the weekend

On Saturday we had visitors, my uncle and aunt came up for the afternoon. They still hadn't seen our "new" house - which we moved into nearly two years ago, so a long overdue visit! So the exercise I got in there was two hours housework (last minute tidying up and hoovering) in the morning, and an hour and a half stroll in the afternoon, showing them our local area.

It was nice to get out for a walk actually, as I think its been the nicest weekend weatherwise in quite a few weeks.

Anyway, they didn't leave till latish, I was thinking of doing some stretching exercises but too tired in the end so didn't get round to it.

Sunday morning I woke up with conjunctivitis, so that scuppered any plans for the day. I spent most of the day asleep. I didn't feel particularly ill but it's quite a strain on the eyes and head having one hugely swollen eyelid. You forget as well that with only one eye to look through you don't see perspective properly and sometimes have to try twice to pick things up!

Anyway, its on the mend today, but again no exercise done as I was feeling pretty washed out. I have a couple of busy days at work coming up now, so I think the plan will be exercise bike in the evenings and then hopefully will get out jogging again at lunch towards the end of the week.

Jogging update

I have now completed the (5 min jog + 1 min walk) x 4 three times. So I think I will move on to the next stage next week. Today I tried to go a little faster at times, and generally it made me start to develop a stitch. So I slowed back down and tried to breathe more deeply and it just about managed to ward the stitch off until the end of the running stage.

I'm now going to give up on the plan I have as I don't like the way it continues, and just increase my jogging time by 2 minutes after each three sessions, and slowly reduce the number of 1 min walks I take. In theory I could be jogging for 30 minutes at a time in 5 weeks! Kind of hard to believe. But then hey before Christmas I couldn't jog for more than 1 minute at a time.

Nearly a disaster today - I exercise at lunchtime, and I work in an office. Today there were only two of us in, and while I was out the other person went out for lunch, locking internal and external doors as no-one remained. Unfortunately I only take the external door key with me - it was jolly cold sitting in the foyer for 45 minutes!

Recipe: Chicken Rarebit

This is one of my favourite recipes at the moment, its suitable for a mid-week meal, it has only a few ingredients, oh and its full of calcium (er...well cheese anyway):

Chicken Rarebits (serves 4)

Ingredients:
4 skinless boneless chicken breasts
olive oil, for greasing
140g coarsely grated cheddar
1 heaped tbsp wholegrain mustard
3 tbsps milk
150g cherry tomatoes, on the vine
brocolli and new potatoes, to serve

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 200 C. Slice the chicken breasts in half horizontally so you have two thinner pieces that will cook quicker. Lightly oil a shallow baking dish and arrange the chicken in it in a single layer. Mix the cheese, mustard and milk together, then pile the mixture on top of each piece of chicken.

2. Place the tomatoes all round the chicken. Cook for 20-30 minutes until the chicken is golden and the tomatoes are squishy.

3. Serve with the brocolli and new potatoes. Suggest to everyone that they squash the tomatoes on their plates to blend into the cheesy sauce.

Variations:

- Any old tomatoes are fine if you don't have cherry vine ones.
- I prefer to use an oil spray rather than actual oil
- Brocolli and new potatoes are not mandatory, I always just eat a pile of whatever veg is lying around with them!

Enjoy

Menu plan w/c 16 Feb 09

Mon 16 - indian takeaway with friends

Tue 17 - tuna steak with sweet n sour sauce, mash and steamed veg

Wed 18 - chicken in white wine casserole, mash , steamed veg, maybe roast parsnip as I have about 5 parsnips that need eating

Thu 19 - chicken fajitas

Fri 20 - turkey pie, mash (small amount!) and steamed veg

Sat 21 - friends over for lunch which will be soup and sandwiches and stuff, so probably use up some ready meals in the evening, with extra veg on the side

Sun 22 - bring n share lunch at church, have agreed with a friend that I will take microwave rice, as she is doing a slow cooker curry

Stage four

Today I had a go at the next stage on the walk/jog plan. It was quite a jump up from stage three and I wasn't really on top form as I've had a niggly cold over the last few days, but nevertheless I made it, although quite slowly. Forgot to stretch at both ends though - really must try harder with that.

Warm up walk 6 mins
Walk/jog 24 min: (5 mins jog + 1 min walk) x 4
Cool down walk 10 mins

So that includes 20 mins of running - officially half of my 40 minute exercise is now actual running! Well - very slow jogging possibly, but I'm working on it.

I shall try and do that twice more this week and see how we go.

I haven't managed to get any strength exercises in for a while. I had visitors at the weekend and its very hard to get a moment to yourself when you have to entertain people.

A good run

Today's walk/jog plan went well.  I did the 3 mins jog + 1 min walk x 6 again today and it went even better than the first time.  I went slightly faster at the start this time whilst not overdoing it and I finished 2 minutes earlier than previously.  I may have to come up with a slight extension to my route.

However this evening I'm not feeling so good.  I think I may be coming down with a bit of a cold.  It wouldn't surprise me as two others at work have already come down with something within the last week.

I'm planning to run again tomorrow lunchtime but will have to see how I feel.

Soon I shall have to think about getting some proper running shoes.  I didn't buy any straight away in case I didn't get on very well but I think I will probably stick with it.  

Meal plan w/c 9 Feb

I'm a bit more organised this week:

Monday: chicken breasts roasted in gravy, mash, steamed veg

Tuesday: salmon fillet in soy mustard sauce, mash, steamed veg

Wednesday: thai green vegetable curry, basmati rice

Thursday: baked pork steak topped with a little stuffing, mash, steamed veg

Friday: (parents coming for weekend) shepherd's pie but with potato slices not mash, steamed veg

Saturday: pub lunch, and then a light tea later

Sunday: some kind of chicken casserole in the slow cooker, maybe with roasties, and steamed veg

Exercise update again

Its not been the best week for exercise - but that would be because of the snow that has fallen all week and ruined most of my outdoor plans. I had two days off work because the public transport was cancelled and I had no other way to get in. I got a lot of housework done that had been waiting a long time though!

I managed one run mid week - and I managed to get up to the next stage which was great! I did:

8 min warm up walk and stretch
24 mins - (3 min jog followed by 1 min walk) x 6
8 min cool down walk and stretch

And it was absolutely fine. I did make sure I started off slowly and didn't speed up until about jog 4. In fact I think overall I could probably walk faster than I am currently running. Never mind, its the minutes that count, the speed and distance come later.

The weather still looks very cold and icy at the beginning of next week so I'm not sure how well that will go either.

I did get on the exercise bike this week today, I did a new record today of just over 330 calories in 45 minutes. And my legs have finally stopped hurting from the Davina DVD!

Exercise DVD review part 2

I bought the new Davina DVD - Super Body Workout - for Christmas for myself, and I've finally got round to doing the second part of it. So Tuesday night I did the 40 minute Super Sculpt section, a combination of weights exercises and squats, plus a few abs exercises:

8 minute warm up
18 minute weights and squats section with 1 minute cardio intervals
6 minutes abs section
8 minute cool down

I think that equals 40 minutes!

The warm up was fun, the weights and squats section was excellent, quite a few new weights exercises, and as the exercises are combined lower and upper body its double the work and efficiency. However two days later my legs are still quite painful, ooh those inner thighs! Sometimes I found it difficult to concentrate on both my arms and legs at once but I guess that will come with practice. The cardio intervals are good to keep up the heart rate.

Davina seems to be the only person who uses weights on a DVD which is really good (as weights in my opinion are rather dull and a lot of effort on your own) however she does do quick reps, a high number, with a low weight rather than focusing on building up the upper body.

The abs section was fairly straightforward, but I find my neck aches after a couple of minutes and I can't complete all the exercises, again just practice needed. And the cool down was fine - fairly standard.

So I will definitely be doing this section again, a great toning workout but at present I think my legs will only be able to cope with it once a week max!

Meal plan w/c 2 Feb 09

Mon 2 - glazed lemon chicken with roast potato and sweet potato, and steamed veg

Tue 3 - tuna steak with cauliflower and brocolli cheese, mash, steamed veg

Wed 4 - baked italian coley, baked potato, steamed veg

Thu 5 - chicken and vegetable stirfry, rice noodles

Fri 6 - homemade pizza

Sat 7 - steak with homemade chips, steamed veg

Sun 8 - friend taking us out to dinner (late birthday present for me)

We really DO eat too much...

On Saturday I decided to do some baking. I'd had a very busy month at work and Saturday was my first chill out weekend since Christmas. So I decided to bake some muffins and had a look through my recipes. I fished out an old recipe card, one I'd inherited from Mum, for apple and raisin muffins. The card looked like it came from the 70's or 80's but the recipe seemed straightforward - and at the bottom it said 125 calories per muffin!

Wow I thought. I have a Starbucks muffin once in a while and the lowest calorie one clocks in about 275 (skinny something fruit or other muffin) all the way up to about 600 for a double chocolate or equivalent. As an aside my local have stopped doing the breakfast bran muffin which disappointed me a lot - although even that had about 550 calories. The day I found that out was a huge shock - lesson learnt that healthy does not always equal low calorie, and that muffins are essentially cake even if they are full of bran and pine nuts and things.

Anyway, I digress. I found my muffin tin and muffin cases and started cooking. The recipe said it made 16 muffins - my tin only held 12 but whatever, I'd make them a bit bigger. However when I had finished the mixture and started putting it in the cases I spotted the reason for the low calorie count - they were going to be tiny! The finished muffins (and I only made 11 in the end) filled about half of the muffin case rather than muffining over the top! I should have used normal fairy cake cases.

No wonder we were all thinner in the 80's - our muffins were less than half the size! Anyway, they tasted pretty nice. I would have taken a picture but Choc Chip was out for the day and had taken the camera and by the time I remembered, I'd eaten most of the rest or put them in the freezer.

It always bugs me that the sandwich shops have such massive pieces of cake - and the above would show this is not an unreasonable moan. People say to me, well just eat half and save the other half for another day. Unfortunately that never works - I think about the other half all afternoon and end up scoffing it anyway. I'd rather pay half price for half a piece.

The joys of cake.......