The FastDay Forum

Wednesday, day one-hundred and fifteen, repair day

Weigh-in at start of day wt. 116.2lbs (analogue scales corrected ~113.75lbs); 0.6lbs gain
... t.measures - ub. 28.9, w. 26.2, t. 31.8, h. 35.25 inches

Hmmm. That's exactly the figure you were this time last week - and it had you reeling with delight. It's only the V&P vary-fairy at it; sadly I can't attribute it to the eeevil scales fairy (though they're possibly exaggerating things to indicate that the new battery is not optional but essential) because the analogues have headed back up too. But absolutely *no sulking* - you did not put on over half a pound of fat over-night, right? Right? FatDog goes off chuntering about "might as well be in maintenance for all the progress I'm making...". Hang on FatDog, maybe that's your maintenance plan?

So, the OH stumbled across a low-carb article in the Daily Mail whilst perusing all the papers in the supermarket, as is his wont, and is now convinced that eating high carb, as he does whenever he feeds himself, is bad for him. Yay! But now he's saying that he can't live without bread for his sandwiches - oh help. FatDog finally gets it together to try to make English muffins, with *yeast* (and soya flour, of course).

They were horrid.

And, in some strange abreaction, I ended up sliding into a major complete peanut breakdown (61g in total), followed by a minor chocolate breakdown too (16g), and a glass of wine. That was one seriously big cave-in, started by a tiny breach - day officially declared non-repair. Methinks, with the accumulating pathetic failures of the day - weight gain, no joy with sorting out gas meter shenanigans, not going out because of twisting knee yesterday (plastic & metal knees don't like being twisted), being busy *not* doing the things I really have to get going on, making revolting English muffins etc. - I must have decided subconsciously that I might as well go into sabotage mode and fail my repair day too. Oh well, there's always Friday.

I'm trying to think of some pithy and witty tag along the lines of "the peasants are revolting", but for 5:2 fasters in boing-boing mode, something like "the fasters are slowing down". Groan. I've failed even in that. More chocolate.

........ Calories 1078.54 Carbs 28.48 Fat 61.70 Protein 62.40 Fibre 18.71

==================================

Thursday, low-carb day one-hundred and sixteen, feed day

Weigh-in at start of day wt. 116.6lbs (analogue scales corrected ~113.75lbs); 0.4lbs gain
... t.measures - ub. 28.9, w. 26.2, t. 31.8, h. 35.25 inches

Humph - that's a whole pound gained in two days (1.2lbs in three); sure, I didn't repair yesterday but 1078 calories and 28g of carb is hardly a blow-out. I suppose the truly miraculous loss this time last week for my birthday was a little too much to ask for (and no, I really didn't do any of the weight-lifter's tricks like dehydrating madly to drop weight - though such wicked thoughts had fleetingly occurred to me!) and maybe this is just rebound.

Yesterday, I jestingly suggested that whatever I am doing might make a maintenance programme - but it won't do even for that if the weight keeps going up! That's the first time that I've had three sequential days of increase (indeed, methinks I've never even had two increases and a no change). I know, I'm not seeing the wood from the trees, and three days does not a trend make - I really ought to pay more attention to the signature at the end of my posts - but... but... Dear V&P vary-fairy is it you, or am I doing something wrong? Grrrrrrr. Howwwwllll. I've a bigger sulky pout today than Ruby on tGBBO - and that's saying something.

Here's a good example of why one needs to keep a pretty competent (accurate?) running total of calories on a feed-day. I thought that I: a) had more calorific 'space' than I actually had; and b) remembered whipping cream as being way less calorific than single cream - I was wrong. Thus I indulged in an otherwise unheard of post-prandial coffee-and-cream (near 200 calories, 1.5g carb), with chocolate. Foolish FatDog.

The sweet potato, cabbage and cheese bake (FatDog's major simplification of PG's turnip torte recipe, Passion p74, that I did with sweet potato a couple of weeks ago) was, however, worth *every* calorie and carb

........ Calories 1682.11 Carbs 58.44 Fat 100.44 Protein 44.06 Fibre 14.35

sweet potato, cabbage and cheese bake; inspired by PG's turnip recipe, Passion p74
savoy cabbage, narrow strips, 32c/C4.1/F0.4/P1.7/Fi2.4/100g
......... 443g 141.76 18.16 1.77 7.53 10.63
sweet potato, thin sliced, 95c/C21.3/F0.3/P1.2/Fi2.4/100g
......... 382g 362.90 81.37 1.15 4.58 9.17
extra mature cheddar, co-op, grated, 415c/C1.4/F34.5/P24.4/Fi0/100g
......... 75g 311.25 1.05 25.88 18.30 0.00
stilton, crumbled, 410c/C0.1/F35.0/P23.7/F0/100g
......... 80g 328.00 0.08 28.00 18.96 0.00
walnuts, raw, rough chopped, 654c/C7.0/F65.2/P15.2/Fi7.0/100g
......... 54g 353.16 3.78 35.21 8.21 3.78
cranberries, dried, 325c/C77.5/F0.3/P0.1/F4.7/100g
......... 30g 97.50 23.25 0.09 0.03 1.41
whipping cream, coop, 365c/C2.6/F38.7/P1.9/Fi0/100ml
......... 200ml 730.00 5.20 77.40 3.80 0.00
s&p 0.00
total for sweet potato, cabbage and cheese bake 2324.57 132.89 169.49 61.41 24.99
FatDog's ¼ portion of sweet potato, cabbage and cheese bake 581.14 33.22 42.37 15.35 6.25

Using sour cream or crème fraîche instead of cream (20p bargain) would reduce the calories by about 300. I still think that a little cinnamon and / or nutmeg might have been good and I'd also up the ratio of stilton to cheddar for a slightly bigger stilton hit, but guest diner disagreed, saying it was lovely as was.

Method: 1. using an oven-proof dish, layer the sweet potato, cabbage, cheeses, nuts and cranberries, interspersed with cream and seasoning, then ending up with a top layer of sweet potato and cheddar cheese; 2. bake in a pre-heated oven at 200C for about 30 minutes until the top is nicely browned and the veggies are soft.

And I'll second @izzy - Paul Gayler is a veritable gastronomic genius... I'm thinking about adding his Bite Size book to the four of his that I already have (Pure, Passion, Sauce and Cheese), even though it breaks my rule of not acquiring any more non-veggie cookbooks... And if potatoes weren't off the low-carber menu I'd be getting that one too, though when I think about it I suppose sweet potato, celeriac and turnip are good substitutes so that might go back on my wish list after all! Oops, I've just listed all his books on Amazon - not sure why I've not done that before - and I now *want them all*.

Fat dog may I refer you Carorees comments on famine mode where your body just down tools after a few months of restrictions, and demands more food NOW and hangs on to everything that comes it's way.
It's happening to me. I'm eating real food when I'm hungry this week, not especially fasting, and letting the Autumn Feed get over itself, with every intention of trying 20/4 on Monday and Thursday next week.
Hoping for better scale readings for us both x

Agree with @Azureblue that @Caroees thread on famine effect might be of interest to you and the relaxing followed by the odd 18:6 or as Azureblue is doing 20:4 which seems to be. @Ballerina preferred mode and might just hit the spot. Although you are already 4:3 so that would make you ADF which would be a tall order for short lass . Mind you in the 4 to 6 hours you are not calorie restricting so you can eat unrestrained. Just a thought.

I am having a cheese attach down under enjoyable at the time! All to do with bringing home the blue cheese and Stilton to make chunky blue dressing for my salads. All Azureblue's fault but wow what a lovely combo.

Friday, day one-hundred and seventeen, repair day

Weigh-in at start of day wt. 116.2lbs (analogue scales corrected ~113.65lbs); 0.4lbs loss
... t.measures - ub. 28.9, w. 26.2, t. 31.8, h. 35.25 inches

Boing, boing, boing...

OH picked up bargain casserole veggies last night so casserole it will be tonight. Might chuck a handful of red lentils in there to give it a bit of body, but otherwise it looks pretty close to a no-cook day, though I'll have a shufti at my cookbooks to see if there's an easy way to soup the soup up a little.

No casserole tonight after all - the veggies will live until tomorrow - as FatDog is going to do a linseed cracker and cheese fest with a wee bit salad to keep the carbs to the minimum for the day (though I might sneek in a square of chocolate so that I don't feel too deprived).

Thanks @azureblue and @gillymary for the heads-up on Carorees's famine stuff - I shall study that.

Oh, and the English muffins can't have been so bad after all as the OH did his squirrel thing and helped them disappear - he said he enjoyed them with peanut butter and marmalade. Goody.

My good feeding behaviour lasted until 10pm, when I succumbed to a bad attack of "but it's Friday night" apologism - I'm going to have to stop getting peanuts (at least the dry roasted ones). And red wine. I *have* to hold it to that breakdown and no more for a half-repair - not sure where I'm going to find the will-power - methinks I'll need to use the old "post this and then you can't consume any more" trick (again).

Stole a sneaky tiny nibble of OH's peanut buttered toast as he was passing. I'm in deep trouble as OH sweetly offered to make me a slice all of my own. Howwwwlllll... Grrrrfff mmmfffff urrruffff... Quick! Post!

........ Calories 752.07 Carbs 14.55 Fat 50.23 Protein 31.39 Fibre 19.38

Sleep tight all, FatDog

Saturday, day one-hundred and eighteen, weekend feed day

Weigh-in at start of day wt. 116.4lbs (analogue scales corrected ~113.75lbs; 0.2lbs gain
... t.measures - ub. 28.9, w. 26.2, t. 31.8, h. 35.25 inches

My report for the end of week 25 on 4:3 : 0.6lbs weight gain, and nowt off the other measurements.

Us humans are trained from our year dot to respond to reward systems (human engineered or natural ones) - gold stars for being good, black marks for being bad and, in later grow'd-up years, pay-rises and demotions etc. Is it any wonder that we respond emotionally to the scales going up and down? Down is, at least if one is trying to lose weight, a nice reward and up is a big black mark.

I remember, quite clearly, my emotional gubbedness as a child when I received a black mark (fortunately a very rare event) - and 'tis a black mark day today, for sure.

Intellectually *knowing* that this weight "gain" is a blip, that it is down to the vagaries of the V&P vary-fairy, makes *not one iota* of difference to my emotional response to the scales' reward system. Shocking really. Pathetic. Get a grip!

So, the "famine effect" and having a binge. Oooh, am I tempted?! I like Ferriss's idea of going for it once a week - he suggests Saturday, but I'd maybe opt for a Sunday as that's when the VBF and various other disreputable friends call by. Ferriss even reckons that after a couple of eat-until-one-feels-sick days one eventually binges less on one's binge days!

I do, however, have reservations about the binge approach (expressed in another thread) as binging surely does *rather* undermine the whole 'learning to eat sensibly / properly' ethos of 5:2. Furthermore, my slight blow-out last Sunday (1900 calories, 71 grams of carb) seems simply to have left me with the wrong sort of calorie deficit to start the week and a prolonged period of boing-boing on the scales.

Mebbe I didnae gie it laldy enaw?

I should be doing my friend's computer (or fixing my data) but first I have to make my latest book acquisition confession before I bust a suspender. It is rather a list! Trouble is I can't remember where I got to before, and the forum is down so I can't (easily) trawl through my posts. Perhaps I'll have to fix that computer after all. Grrumph.

But I can procrastinate a little further, by pondering tonight's root vegetable casserole - I'm not sure what to make of it and I have been mentally masticating ideas through the night. I was going to chuck in some red lentils, which could swing it to some generic Italian herb, Middle-eastern spice or 'Indian curry' direction. Then I wondered about doing a coconut milk base - with Thai seasonings - or satay, likewise. Or a good old fashioned 'stew and dumplings'. And now I'm utterly swithering. To my recipe books I go.

Ah ha! Maria Elia (Modern Vegetarian) does 'vegetable parcels with coconut braised red lentils' (p69) which combines lentil, coconut and Thai approaches. Yay! I'm thinking that I could use the flavours (the usual Thai-style seasoning suspects: tamarind, garlic, ginger, chilli, lemongrass, soy, lime, fresh coriander [and Thai basil, which I don't have]) but simplify the implementation into a one-pot (aka wok) stew. Totally the wrong vegetables, but who cares? Oops, have just spotted that Elia does a Thai-style root veggie casserole (albeit without lentils, p82), using a slightly curtailed set of seasonings, so I'm not *so* barking mad. Jolly dee. Think that's the plan then: Thai-inspired red lentil, coconut and root vegetable stew.

And thus it was... enjoyed by all. Numbers are still out with the red lentils methinks, and dry-roasted peanuts are banned from this house hence-forth - once I've eaten the remains of them

........ Calories 1726.87 Carbs 60.95 Fat 100.48 Protein 54.22 Fibre 17.58

ed. red lentil numbers now 'fixed'.

Thai-inspired red lentil, coconut and root vegetable stew, with nods to Maria Elia, The Modern Vegetarian
lentils, red, 332c/C44.9/F1.0/P28.4/Fi14.2/100g
......... 100g 332.00 44.90 1.00 28.40 14.20
coconut milk 197cal/C2.81/F21.33g/P2.02g/Fi0g/100ml
......... 400ml 788.00 11.24 85.32 8.08 0.00
carrot, swede, leek, potato & onion mix, co-op, 40c/C7.5/F0.3/P1.2/Fi2.1/100g
......... 590g 236.00 44.25 1.77 7.08 12.39
choi sum, tesco, chop stalks 2cm, remains rough chop, 14c/C1.4/F0.2/P1.0/Fi1.2/100g
......... 200g 28.00 2.80 0.40 2.00 2.40
coriander, fresh, rough chopped, 23c/C0.87/F0.52/P2.13/Fi2.8/100g
......... 5g 1.15 0.04 0.03 0.11 0.14
coconut oil, 39cal/C0/F4.5/P0/Fi0/4g/5ml
......... 30ml 234.00 0.00 27.00 0.00 0.00
tamarind paste, 57c/C14.23/F0.12/P0.09/Fi0.5/100g
......... 10g 5.70 1.42 0.01 0.01 0.05
chilli, green, fine chopped, 40c/C9.5/F0.2/P2.0/Fi1.5/100g
......... 7g 2.80 0.67 0.01 0.14 0.11
ginger, fine chopped, 100cal/C15.8g/F0?g/P1.8g/Fi?g/100g
......... 10g 10.00 1.58 0.00 0.18 0.00
garlic, fine chopped, 149c/C33.06/F0.5/P6.36/Fi2.1/100g
......... 8g 11.92 2.64 0.04 0.50 0.17
lemongrass, very lazy, 107c/C13.9/F4.2/P0.5/Fi6.0/100g
......... 15g 16.05 2.09 0.63 0.08 0.90
lime juice, 26c/C2.0/F0/P0.4/Fi0.3/100ml
......... 10ml 2.60 0.20 0.00 0.04 0.03
soy sauce, low salt, amoy, 52c/C9.2/F0/P3.9/Fi0/100ml
......... 15ml 7.80 1.38 0.00 0.59 0.00
mint, dried leaf
......... 3ml 0.00
basil, dried leaf
......... 3ml 0.00
coriander seed, fresh ground
......... 2ml 0.00
total for Thai-inspired red lentil, coconut and root vegetable stew 1676.02 113.21 116.21 47.20 30.38
1/3rd portion of Thai-inspired red lentil, coconut and root vegetable stew 558.67 37.74 38.74 15.73 10.13

Method: 1. par-boil the red lentils, rinse and drain; 2. steam the carrot, swede and potatoes in the microwave until near cooked, about 5 minutes; 3. meantimes, heat the coconut oil in a non-stick pan and cook the onions and leek until softened; 4. add the chilli, ginger, garlic and cheat's lemongrass and cook for another couple of minutes; 5. add the steamed root veggies and give it all a good fry, stirring frequently, for a further 5 minutes; 6. add the coconut milk, lentils, tamarind, lime juice and soy sauce; 7. cover and stew a little whilst you steam the choi sum stalks in the microwave for 2 minutes; 8. add the choi sum stalks and leaves to the stew along with the dried mint, basil and coriander; 9. cook for a further couple of minutes until the choi sum leaves are wilted; 10. check seasoning and then serve - carbivores might appreciate a little rice or bread.

==================================

Sunday, day one-hundred and nineteen, weekend feed day

Weigh-in at start of day wt. 116.6lbs (analogue scales corrected ~113.85lbs); 0.2lbs gain
... t.measures - ub. 28.9, w. 26.2, t. 31.8, h. 35.25 inches

FatDog fatter. Sigh.

Right. Red Lentils. I'm not convinced by the USDA lentil entries - the generic lentil entry has gross carb grams at 60, fibre at 30g, protein at 25g, calories 343 but the 'pink' entry (by which I assume they mean 'red') has gross carb grams at 60, fibre at 10g, protein at 25g, calories 345. Doesn't make sense. Most of the other sources lift their info from there, or from packet sides which have done the same. All equal confusion! The Canadian Pulse marketing board seem to know their beans having commissioned this report http://www.pulsecanada.com/food-and-nut ... s-aust.pdf so I'm going with their macro-nutrient break-down. Unfortunately they don't give calories, so I've had to 'derive' that from the macros (302.2, plus 10% leeway, which gives 332 kcal) for a final 332c/C44.9/F1.0/P28.4/Fi14.2/100g. Just wish I lived in Australia and was using McKenzies foods' red lentils; they appear to have done their own macronutrient evaluation and the carbs are a delightful 35g (http://www.mckenziesfoods.com.au). I'm still struggling to accept that red lentils are so carborific compared to, say, green. Oh well.

So, do I do a "Ferriss binge" today? I'm up to 15:30hrs on just my usual coffee with cream and not particularly hungry, but hankering after the idea of seriously crap bread, toasted, with lashings of butter and marmalade... Or nipping round to scotmid for a croissant - though, being Sunday, they'll probably have run out of them by now anyway. Think I need to consider the binge idea a little more thoroughly before going for it, to be honest. I'll see what I can find in the way of proper scientific literature - if you guys have any pointers that'd be great!

No red lentils in tonight's dinner... Just bargain veggies - carrot & swede mix plus butternut squash & sweet potato - in a 'middle-eastern inspired' stew. I thought it utterly yum, as did OH, but I didn't serve mine with a portion of bargain roasted 'winter vegetables' on the side - which rather rendered the VBF root-vegetabled-out. Flavours were deemed delicious though. So the recipe survives.

........ Calories 1668.72 Carbs 61.60 Fat 80.94 Protein 56.67 Fibre 19.71

I've not said this for an age, and should perhaps repeat it every now and again for the benefit of mid-thread dippers...

The quantities in recipes are those that I actually used, i.e. had to hand or measured out (e.g. dried apricots don't come in 5g graduated sizes) - please, obviously, see them as a guide rather than a requirement.

The numbers given directly after the food are nutritional values per 100g (or whatever it says at the end of the line, it might be mls or slices) and the ones on the next line are the quantity used (grams / mls / whatever as per above), calories and then grams of carb, fat, protein and fibre. I get these numbers off the packet in the first instance, then the manufacturer's site, Tesco and / or USDA, then other reputable supermarkets, and, finally (and only in utter desperation) elsewhere off the internet (with a slight preference for xxx marketing boards over sites that use self-reporting).

Any recipe that I do has to be relatively idiot proof.

First inspired by the apricot and carrot tajine from near two weeks back, this solution as to what to do with a bag of co-op prepared butternut squash & sweet potato and a separate bag of prep'd carrot & swede seemed pretty obvious by the time I arose this morning... It's a cross between two West African recipes from the World Food Cafe books 1 and 2 (p44 and 40) - one for roasted tatties with lots of 'sweet' spices and the other for a sweet potato stew. Lots of subs (e.g. dried apricots instead of pineapple juice, swede not cabbage), but that's half the fun, surely?

I'm still perplexed as to how a, seemingly, *huge* volume of veggies and stuff turns into a just-enough quantity to feed three...

root vegetables in a spicy peanut sauce, adapted from West African recipes WFC, p44, and WFC2, p40
butternut squash & sweet potato, co-op, prep'd, 40c/C6.2/F0.3/P1.0/Fi4.0/100g
......... 300g 120.00 18.60 0.90 3.00 12.00
carrot & swede, co-op, prep'd, 35c/C6.6/F0.3/P0.6/Fi2.8/100g
......... 450g 157.50 29.70 1.35 2.70 12.60
onion, fine sliced, 43c/C9.3/F0.0/P0.71/Fi2.1/100g
......... 141g 60.63 13.11 0.00 1.00 2.96
garlic, fine chop, 149c/C33.06/F0.5/P6.36/Fi2.1/100g
......... 11g 16.39 3.64 0.06 0.69 0.23
ginger, fine chopped, 90c/C17.8/F0.8/P1.8/Fi2.0/100g
......... 44g 39.60 7.83 0.35 0.79 0.88
tomatoes, tinned, chopped 15c/C3.0/F0.1/P1.0/Fi0.7/100g
......... 400g 60.00 12.00 0.40 4.00 2.80
peanuts, large salt coop, rough ground 625c/C10.5/F51.3/P26.4/Fi6.9/100g
......... 120g 750.00 12.60 61.56 31.68 8.28
apricot, dried, co-op, very fine chop, 185c/C36.5/F0.6/P4.0/Fi8.4/100g
......... 57g 105.45 20.81 0.34 2.28 4.79
coconut oil, 39cal/C0/F4.5/P0/Fi0/4g/5ml
......... 45ml 351.00 0.00 40.50 0.00 0.00
paprika, dried ground
......... 15ml 0.00
chilli flakes
......... 5ml 0.00
allspice, dried ground
......... 2ml 0.00
cinnamon, dried ground
......... 5ml 0.00
cloves, fresh ground
......... 8 of 0.00
nutmeg, dried ground
......... 2.5ml 0.00
black pepper corn, fresh ground
......... 2.5ml 0.00
bouillon, marigold, 243c/C29.4/F8.1/P10.5/Fi0.7/100g
......... 6g 14.58 1.76 0.49 0.63 0.04
water, 500ml 0.00
total for root vegetables in spicy peanut sauce 1660.57 118.29 105.46 46.15 44.54
1/3rd portion of root vegetables in spicy peanut sauce 553.52 39.43 35.15 15.38 14.85

Method: 1. heat the oil in a non-stick pan and fry the onion until softening; 2. add the garlic and ginger and fry for a couple of minutes; 3. add the spices and fry a further couple of minutes, stirring so they don't catch, until aromatic; 4. add the root veggies and fry for about 5 minutes until sealed / going golden, keep stirring; 5. add the tomatoes, then the bouillon, mix in well and stew, covered, until the veggies are tender, about 30 to 40 minutes; 6. add in the peanuts and apricots about 20 minutes into the stewing (you would do well to add the apricots at step 5 - I blitzed them along with the peanuts so had to wait); 7. check seasoning and serve with a goodly swirl of whipping cream (you guessed it, 20p bargain) / yoghurt / crème fraîche, and a snatch or two of (rescued) fresh coriander.

Do *not* serve with neighbour's bargain winter vegetable roast to carbivores of otherwise discerning digestions (especially if they've not long eaten an Innocent veg pot).
.
And I need to add the methods to the recipes - will do when I'm less puggled. xxx FatDog

Methods duly added - enjoy! False modesty aside, these two were both delicious and, with the glut of winter veggies in the supermarkets just now, pretty cheap to make too...

Don't worry fat dog. Sure this is just a tiny blip. I'm doing an inverse Ferriss this week. This is day 6 of binge (on holiday). Tomorrow I shall surely fast so I will not be trying that fab dish of yours until the weekend. Sounded yummy.

If only I could smell some of your dishes cooking FatDog! Just reading the list of ingredients, but especially the spices and herbs you use has me salivating like a werewolf! You must have an amazing store cupboard to be able to rustle up so many delicious dishes.....(not to mention a cookery book or two for inspiration? )

... aye, what cookery books?

The OH is being remarkably tolerant of my culinary explorations (he even admits to enjoying eating them!) which has necessitated (?!) the accumulation of rather a lot of books, utensils, store-cupboard ingredients plus herbs & spices etc. that his rather wee living space is struggling to accommodate!

I've a crate of tins, packets of dried fruits, flours, seeds, and etc. under the table, a mini-crate of herbs and spices under my chair (and more in a box on a book stack), oven dishes and trays on another chair, two large book stacks upon the floor behind me... you get the picture - organised chaos. Actually, I'm not so sure about the organised bit. If we did a re-organise, all of the stuff *could* be shelved, but we seem to have lost that round-to-it thingy (again)

The yummy-looking seeded loaf sitting at the end of the table is not helping my objective evaluation of the binge issue. I'd agree with you @izzy, binges would probably be a slippery slope to regular carbocalypses, not just on a Sunday but on 'special' days which would gradually increase in scope to include any day that has the letter 'a' in its name...

I've discovered that our two local 'Asian' corner-shops have the most amazing range of herbs and spices, all at up to one fifth of the cost of those in Scotmid and Sainsbury (e.g. 50g of star anise or 100g ground turmeric for 79p). Dead chuffed as I can't, easily, get to the proper Asian supermarkets on Leith Walk. So I now have a collection of rarely used but nice-to-have stuff that cost would have deterred me from getting in the past.

Monday, day one-hundred and twenty, repair day

Weigh-in at start of day wt. 116.2lbs (analogue scales corrected ~113.75lbs); 0.4lbs loss
... t.measures - ub. 28.9, w. 26.2, t. 31.8, h. 35.25 inches

Okay, just keep going in that direction. Not the other way. Right? Good.

Report at the end-of-week 17 of low-carb : total low-carb weight loss 21.6lbs, and last week 0.8lbs gained and no further shrinkage!

Out to the Royal Infirmary earlyish and return after lunch via the charity stores and pound shops in Newington. Get home, utterly ravenous, at sixish. I must have spent at least an hour in Holland & Barrett - gazing at their treasures and attempting to restrain myself (restraint lost, and my back *really* noticed the extra kilos as I made my way home).

Had taken the gluten-free cookbook (up-thread-mentioned Michelle Berriedale-Johnson) with me to read on the bus and thus decided to try my first ever shot at pancakes for dinner - gram flour ones, to make it extra exciting. And they worked! Especially after I bunged them under the grill, covered in grated cheese, garlic and chilli flakes, basil, s&p etc. With salad. Yum. I could so easily have eaten the same all over again (for taste / greed - I wasn't so very hungry).

Have just thought - instead of stealing OH's bread for a carb-fest break-fast I could make myself a pancake; a slightly lower-carb, and certainly more healthy option methinks.

........ Calories 508.40 Carbs 20.91 Fat 32.64 Protein 31.29 Fibre 6.97

gram flour pancake, no. 1
gram flour, 352c/C55.9/F5.3/P20.1/Fi4.7/100g
......... 20g 70.40 11.18 1.06 4.02 0.94
water
......... 40ml 0.00
s&p 0.00
total for gram flour pancake, no. 1 70.40 11.18 1.06 4.02 0.94

There was about a gram of butter too - added before the second pancake to stop it perma-welding itself to the pan... so that's another 7.2 calories but I'm afraid I can't be moved to revise my total...

Now what I need to do is work out how much soya flour I can substitute in there without making it a) taste horrid and b) not work.

==================================

Tuesday, low-carb day one-hundred and twenty-one, feed day

Weigh-in at start of day wt. 115.8lbs (analogue scales corrected ~113.5lbs); 0.4lbs loss
... t.measures - ub. 28.9, w. 26.2, t. 31.8, h. 35.25 inches

Phew. It can be a bumpy old road towards the end of one's weight-loss journey; actually, anywhere in the journey can be bumpy - I've simply been exceedingly fortunate in mine, so I've *no* reason to moan.

Having been smitten by the gram flour pancakes, me thought that I'd have a go at the gram flour pizza base from the same book. Hmmm. Either her quantities are wrong (possible, there are bad reviews to that effect on Amazon) or there's a really nasty dough-fairy in our kitchen and it *hates* me (or, erhum, I just mucked it up?).

MB-J uses 150g gram flour to 90ml water and 15ml olive oil - I wanted two-thirds of this so did 100g gram flour, 60ml water and 10ml olive oil. Idiot FatDog dissolved the yeast (1.25ml) in the warm water, with a little sugar (2ml), and then bunged it in a warm place to make sure it was 'alive' - it was, it bubbled - so *had* to use it all, leading to a mighty sticky sloppy mess...

After many threats of "you're going in the bin in a minute", cursing myself, and another 20g of gram flour and probably 30g of soya flour (I ran out of gram flour and got lost measuring the soya in the end), I *finally* ended up with something vaguely resembling a dough.

Worked hard at kneading mightily for (what seemed like) an eternity, and after 25 minutes gave up on the idea of the dough developing any 'elasticity' and just bunged it in a placky bag to (hopefully) prove. Though, given how rude I was to my poor little dough-ball, I suspect that it'll just sit there, lumpen-like, and refuse to rise (especially given that I contaminated the lovely recipe with soya flour).

I'm not sure whether to be ultra-optimistic and get the topping ready or just be damned and go out and buy a pizza (oh carbocalypse) - now that I'm all set up for eating pizza! And I so wanted to be munching on pizza during tGBBO too.

And lumpen the dough-ball remained (methinks it hardly rose at all in two and a bit hours) - but a base was needed for the lovely gently fried cavolo nero, onion, garlic and chilli, plus mozzarella topping that was waiting for it. So, out the dough was rolled (think I need some work on my rolling pin skills) and duly topped, sprinkled with oregano and s&p, baked (220C for about 10 minutes) and eaten with considerable relish. The cavolo nero could have been chopped finer and pinged for a minute or two before frying perhaps, to make it a little more tender, and the base was, obviously, not very pizza base like (slightly water-biscuity at the edges and nearer pastryish under the topping), but it certainly did the business as a base. Rather happy with that - will do again.

And thank goodness Little Miss Sulky didn't win - that would have made me really ill. There was a point this evening when the competitors were working a sticky looking mess which turned into a dough - I wonder if I should just have persevered with working my sticky sloppy stuff, rather than adding more flour? Must go hunt through youtube for pizza dough making.

Slightly over-carbed and under-fibred (must remember to hit the flax crackers rather than seconds of nuts for my post dinner munch) but not too badly off the mark:

........ Calories 1399.21 Carbs 60.50 Fat 80.15 Protein 64.69 Fibre 14.97

Posting now to save myself from a chocolate attack. Night all xxx FatDog.

Wednesday, day one-hundred and twenty-two, repair day

Weigh-in at start of day wt. 115.4lbs (analogue scales corrected ~113.25lbs); 0.4lbs loss
... t.measures - ub. 28.9, w. 26.2, t. 31.8, h. 35.25 inches

That'll do nicely, thank-you.

I must use (at least part of) my beautiful organic dark leafed cabbage that I bought on Sunday (along with the cavolo nero) from Stockbridge market. They must have seen me coming - muggins. I only wanted the kale, but the cabbage was so lovely and that's bang, another one quid fifty please. Oh dear, it seemed too rude to just walk away; as I said - muggins.

So dreams last night of blanching a few of the outer leaves and using them to make cannelloni tubes for a mushroom and walnut (or better still, chestnut - but I don't have any in my larder, and they are expensive) based stuffing with a nice flavoursome cheese sauce to go over. I suspect that there are gadzillions of recipes for this on the internet - it's an obvious concept - will see if I can find inspiration.

Wow! That's good timing - Paul Gayler's "Little book of pasta & noodles" has just fallen through the letter box. Yup - I totally succumbed to my "I want *all* his books" urge the other day: the damage for the books wasn't so bad (seven quid) but the postage was the same again, so that was a big chunk of my monthly budget whooshed away in one fell swoop (I've just three more I'd like to get: Bite size, Value gourmet and Flavours - next month maybe). But, gosh. No need to go to the internet for inspiration - this wee book is chock full of it - this is serious XXXX rated food porn.

@izzy I think you need to get this one (but I'm a complete Gayler addict now, so don't take my word for it - I expect I'll say the same when his soups and his salads arrive...); there are about fifty recipes all told and maybe a couple of them appear in his other books. Substitute sweet potato, zero noodles, cauliflower rice, cabbage leaf / aubergine lasagne, or even make your own gram flour pasta, and pretty much all of the recipes are low-carb convertible. I've not counted but I'd say considerably more than half of them are vegetarian, of those that aren't veggie very few would be impossible without meat / fish. I am so wishing that I could eat more than one meal a day and then I might be able to try them all before Christmas!

I think that a very mangled version of his potato and greens cannelloni (cannelloni stuffed with tatties, rocket, watercress with a bean ragout, p43) is going on the menu tonight along the lines of cabbage leaf cannelloni with bean stuffing slathered with cheese sauce. Means I don't even have to go out to get mushrooms, which will save me from the temptations of the charity stores.

........ Calories 586.16 Carbs 21.19 Fat 35.10 Protein 28.54 Fibre 14.54

I was *very* happy with this dish - guest and OH enjoyed it too. Myself and guest ate at 8.30pm as agreed all round - the OH dallied in Tesco, reading the papers, so came home over an hour late and, repair day notwithstanding, was *exceedingly* lucky that we hadn't eaten his portion (greed for flavour again, I wasn't hungry).

tomato & soya bean cabbage cannelloni with taleggio sauce; slight nod to Gayler LBoPaN, p43
soya beans, pre-soaked, cooked, 446c/C21.0/F2.9/P36.0/Fi9.0/100g (dry weight)
......... 80g 356.80 16.80 2.32 28.80 7.20
onion, fine sliced, 43c/C9.3/F0.0/P0.71/Fi2.1/100g
......... 77g 33.11 7.16 0.00 0.55 1.62
carrot, baby (chantenay), fine slice, 35c/C7.7/F0.3/P0.6/Fi3.0/100g
......... 160g 56.00 12.32 0.48 0.96 4.80
sun-dried tomatoes, rough chopped, 145c/C9.0/F9.6/P2.6/Fi5.6/100g
......... 50g 72.50 4.50 4.80 1.30 2.80
cherry tomato, ¼'d 20c/C3.0/F0.4/P0.8/F1.1/100g
......... 70g 14.00 2.10 0.28 0.56 0.77
olive oil, 824c/C0.0/F91.6/P0.0/Fi0.0/100ml
......... 15ml 123.60 0.00 13.74 0.00 0.00
garlic, fine slice, 149c/C33.06/F0.5/P6.36/Fi2.1/100g
......... 9g 13.41 2.98 0.05 0.57 0.19
chilli flakes
......... 4ml 0.00
rosemary, dried
......... 5ml 0.00
basil, dried leaf
......... 5ml 0.00
oregano, dried
......... 5ml 0.00
s&p 0.00
soya milk, coop org unsw, 30c/C0.1/F1.9/P3.4/Fi0.6/100ml
......... 150ml 45.00 0.15 2.85 5.10 0.90
taleggio, f.f. semi-hard cheese, diced, 330c/C1.1/F27.0/P20.4/Fi0/100g
......... 104g 343.20 1.14 28.08 21.22 0.00
green cabbage, organic, big middle rib removed, 32c/C4.1/F0.4/P1.7/Fi2.4/100g
......... 138g 44.16 5.66 0.55 2.35 3.31
total tomato & soya bean cabbage cannelloni with taleggio sauce 1101.78 52.81 53.15 61.40 21.59
FatDog's 1/3 portion tomato & soya bean cabbage cannelloni with taleggio sauce 367.26 17.60 17.72 20.47 7.20

Method: 1. heat oil in a large non-stick pan and saute the onions until they're softening, along with the carrot, garlic & chilli flakes; 2. add the tomatoes and herbs, s&p and cook for 3 minutes, then add the beans and gently cook on a low heat; 3. wash and roughly drain the big cabbage leaves and ping, lidded, for 2 minutes * then drain thoroughly; 4. flatten a cabbage leaf out and dollop a portion of the bean sauce onto it, then roll the leaf up and place in oven-proof dish; do likewise with the remaining leaves and sauce; this is messy 5. melt the cheese in the soya milk in the microwave, mix well then pour over the cabbage rolls; 6. bung under a hot grill until the cheese sauce is golden and bubbling.

* I did three minutes - the cabbage leaves were a little tough so we *think* that they were over-cooked (OH had to ping his and his leaves were even tougher).

After dinner linseed crackers with houmous went down well too. I was hoping to have cream cheese but my very recently opened packet had gone a shocking shade of pink in patches! Racking my memory for what it might be - Serratia perhaps - will have to dig my diagnostic microbiology books out...

==================================

Thursday, low-carb day one-hundred and twenty-three, feed day

Weigh-in at start of day wt. 114.4lbs (analogue scales corrected ~112.85lbs); 1.0lbs loss
... t.measures - ub. 28.9, w. 26.2, t. 31.8, h. 35.25 inches

Gosh! I've had a few big drops before but they have always come after big increases a few days before (i.e. post blow-out gains then normalisations). Don't think I've had a non-post-blow-out drop quite like this before - though the gradual creep back up from 14th October was rather a novelty too.

So, the V&P vary-fairy was very busy overnight: I'm not holding my breath - just crossing my fingers. There's hope, in that I'm back bang onto my trend-line according to the tracker - which has me reaching my new target in four weeks time. So, no Christmas club for me: I'd like to join the "still maintaining at the New Year club" instead.

I need to think of an easy (post work) but hugely impressive low-carb dinner for tonight. The veggie daughter of a long-time friend of the OH is coming by, and she's recently lost lots of weight and is, apparently, a low-carber (but doesn't cook, methinks). I'd like to help inspire her.

Well, that's another copy of Passion and the World in Your Kitchen ordered... I feel quite evangelical with the low-carb vegetarian WoL these days, and these are two of the best cookbooks to get folk going methinks

I've checked the recipe and my food log umpteen times, as the numbers seem too good to be true; but, as far as I can tell, they're correct. I'm surprised that no-one has shouted at me yet for the discrepancy between (carb+protein)*4 plus fat*9 for my calorie totals - or maybe you knew it was the wine all along

........ Calories 1362.86 Carbs 38.76 Fat 72.31 Protein 46.37 Fibre 13.98

broccoli, cauliflower and butterbean cheese bake
broccoli & cauliflower, co-op, floretted, 35c/C2.4/F0.9/P4.0/Fi2.2/100g
......... 470g 164.50 11.28 4.23 18.80 10.34
butterbeans, waitrose, 85c/C12.3/F0.5/P7.7/Fi6.4/100g
......... 470g 399.50 57.81 2.35 36.19 30.08
extra mature cheddar, co-op, grated, 415c/C1.4/F34.5/P24.4/Fi0/100g
......... 110g 456.50 1.54 37.95 26.84 0.00
maasdam cheese, 343c/C0.0/F27.0/P25.0/Fi0.0/100g
......... 75g 257.25 0.00 20.25 18.75 0.00
single cream, graham's, 188c/C3.9/F18.0/P2.6/Fi0.0/100ml
......... 140ml 263.20 5.46 25.20 3.64 0.00
whipping cream, coop, 365c/C2.6/F38.7/P1.9/Fi0/100ml
......... 100ml 365.00 2.60 38.70 1.90 0.00
almonds, ground, 640c/C6.9/F55.8/P21.1/Fi11.8/100g
......... 60g 384.00 4.14 33.48 12.66 7.08
tomato puree, 86c/C14.9/F0.4/P4.7/Fi2.0/100g
......... 50g 43.00 7.45 0.20 2.35 1.00
chilli, green, halved & de-seeded, 40c/C9.5/F0.2/P2.0/Fi1.5/100g
......... 23g 9.20 2.19 0.05 0.46 0.35
garlic, halved, 149c/C33.06/F0.5/P6.36/Fi2.1/100g
......... 10g 14.90 3.31 0.05 0.63 0.21
lemon juice, 26c/C2.0/F0/P0.4/Fi0.3/100ml
......... 20ml 5.20 0.40 0.00 0.08 0.06
cumin seed
......... 5ml 0.00
paprika, dried ground
......... 2.5ml 0.00
s&p 0.00
water
......... 50ml 0.00
total broccoli, cauliflower and butterbean cheese bake 2362.25 96.17 162.46 122.30 49.12
FatDog's 1/6th portion of broccoli, cauliflower and butterbean cheese bake 393.71 16.03 27.08 20.38 8.19

Method: 1. wash broccoli & cauliflower florets in salted water in a lidded microwavable dish; 2. drain, but not that well, then ping with the lid on for about 2 minutes then drain thoroughly; 3. blitz the almonds, tomato puree, chilli, garlic, lemon juice, cumin seed and paprika with enough water to make a thick runny sauce; 4. layer half the veggies / butterbeans / cream / cheeses / nutty sauce on top of each other in an oven-proof dish, season; 5. repeat with the rest of veggies / butterbeans / nutty sauce / cream / cheeses, with the latter two last on top, season again; 6. bung into a pre-heated oven at 220C for about 15 to 20 minutes, until it's bubbling and the top is going brown.

I was aiming for a repeat of my "dog's dinner no. 8" - not "hugely impressive" but the best I could muster given the co-op bargains that I found on my way home from work. Could have done with more chilli and garlic, and lots more cumin and paprika in my nutty sauce - which was the closest I could get to a home-made muhummara without red peppers, and almonds instead of walnuts! And all cheddar cheese would have been good - rather than the maasdam - but I ran out of cheddar and didn't think stilton would go (best neighbour said later that he thought it might have worked, I have my doubts). Still, clean plates all round. The carbivores had bread and butter to go with it and *then* had partially re-hydrated figs with honey, red wine (pinged to heat) and cream for pudding - the figs were, apparently, delicious and FatDog was sorely jealous (but managed to resist).

Afternoon fatdog. Nice loss this week. I'm a kale fan too esp cavolo Nero which I'm currently growing in pots in the garden. Here are some combos to add to your repertoire. (Nicked from my cookbook shelf)
Most river cafe dishes combine kale with cream, Parmesan and garlic assume to offset the bitterness. Granted they are pasta based, but sounds like you can adapt to low carb versions.
Nigel Slater uses mustard, caraway plus meaty and eggy options (not mentioned here). He has a nice stew with beans of choice, bay leaves, onion, carrots, garlic, tinned tomatoes, squash of sorts, Parmesan rind (in the stew) and cavolo Nero (I have omitted the pancetta).
Also simple side dish with lemon, zest, garlic and oil
Or with onion, sultanas and an orange juice, wine vinegar, capers and oil dressing.

Why do I always end up reading your dishes on fast days

Nigel Slater ... has a nice stew with beans of choice, bay leaves, onion, carrots, garlic, tinned tomatoes, squash of sorts, Parmesan rind (in the stew) and cavolo Nero (I have omitted the pancetta).

That's pretty close to the Ant Worrall Thompson borlotti bean stew that I've done / logged a couple of times : I've found the recipe in various guises, often under the name of Tuscan or Mediterranean, in many of my cookbooks and on line. Would seem to be a *very* popular dish - not surprised as it's been utterly delicious every time I've tried it (or variations).

onion, sultanas and an orange juice, wine vinegar, capers and oil dressing.

sounds yummy, wonder how I can low-carb that... FatDog

Friday, day one-hundred and twenty-four, repair day

Weigh-in at start of day wt. 115.4lbs (analogue scales corrected ~113.25lbs); 1.0lbs gain
... t.measures - ub. 28.9, w. 26.2, t. 31.8, h. 35.25 inches

Boing. Not unexpected but disappointing all the same. Not sure if this is just the V&P vary-fairy or if Thursday's reading was the eeeeevil scales-fairy having a spiteful tease. FatDog whimpers and sticks her nose into a cookbook for solace.

And what cookbooks FatDog has to nose-into... Three new Paul Gayler books arrived yesterday: Mediterranean Cook, Raising the heat, and Little Book of Soups, and Gayler's Little Book of Salads arrived today. Methinks the Little Book of series is heavenly - if I was smitten with the LBo Pasta & Noodles the other day, I'm doubly smitten today by the Soups and pretty impressed with the Salads (although there seem to be a few more familiar looking recipes in that one).

I'm not sure about the Mediterranean Cook: it's as much a 'how to' book as a recipe book - it includes what equipment one might need and how to use it and is a little patronising too, perhaps, e.g. does one really need a fifty word description of a fish slice? That said, some of the non-recipe stuff is interesting - but for a FatDog on the forage for recipe ideas it doesn't quite hit the spot and the recipe layout doesn't seem to have the clarity of the LB series or Passion for Vegetables / Cheese. I think there are probably some delightful recipes lurking in there - but it's nowhere near as easy to find them as in his other books and even the recipe headings aren't that clear. It has guest recipes from, I assume, Mediterranean specialist chefs - not sure how I feel about that: unimpressed? Oh, and it uses fold-over pages in places - awful.

Self-restraint was noticeable by its absence this evening, so a half-repair turned into a two-thirds-repair. Gram flour pancakes rolled round crowdie (Scottish cream cheese), quorn ham and whole-grain mustard along with rocket and vine tomatoes served with a nice glass of merlot maybe made me think it was an ordinary feed day... Still within my limits, I had linseed crackers to close dinner, but an hour or so later fell to greed / nut crave with a portion of almonds; then, repair day 'broken', another glass of merlot and, of course, more 85% chocolate.

Pancakes had me wondering if they could be substituted for pasta in baked (or any other) dishes and, since dinner, I have discovered that Med. Cook has a recipe for socca-pancakes - involving eggs *and* cream - which can be reheated in the oven. Hmmm. That's bookmarked. Ah, and one google hit says that the Italians used crepes for cannelloni somewhen in time.

Oh help! I've just found a recipe for roquefort stuffed fig salad with port vinaigrette and frozen avocado cream (LBo Salads, p 111). Oh help. That's another portion of nuts down my thrapple to save me from heading out on a raid to a 24 hour supermarket for the ingredients.

........ Calories 994.25 Carbs 38.76 Fat 54.10 Protein 40.75 Fibre 15.81

Saturday, day one-hundred and twenty-five, weekend feed day

Weigh-in at start of day wt. 115.8lbs (analogue scales corrected ~113.65lbs); 0.4lbs gain
... t.measures - ub. 28.9, w. 26.2, t. 31.8, h. 35.25 inches

Boing, boing, boing. Hurummph. I'm now in a dreadful sulk. And, to make it worse, the black dog was snapping viciously at my ankles as I got up this morning.

Might need to join the 'Prozac Nation'. VBF suggested that I see the quack last week to get 'medicated', but the black dog's visitations (albeit very dark and very scary) are so intermittent and random that I'm damned if I'm going on some dodgy chemical for my 'passing confrontations' with it. Suspect hormonal xxxx might be at play - affy reminiscent of pre-HRT days - which *could* be weight loss associated (fat storing oestrogen / non-gonadal hormonal production and all that; think I might have said that before up-thread - that's another 'lovely' feature of menopause: narggled memory:) )

Anyway, my report for the end of week 26 on 4:3 : 0.6lbs weight loss, and nowt off the other measurements. Though I really ought to revise those figures, especially hips as the number 34 seems to be featuring more and more.

Yes folks, that's a whole six months - half a year - on the good ole 4:3 (well, more like 4.5 : 2.5 in the last few weeks). Let me see if I can't banish the black dog with some "good news": starting weight on 1st May was 146lbs, so that's 30.2lbs lost and tape measurements show inch losses of under-bust 5.1, waist 6.8, stomach 7.2 and hips nearly 5. If I add all the inches up that's quite a lot of inches - reasons to be cheerful eh?!

That didn't quite work. So, if I'm to be "fat and miserable" I'll give myself a jolly good reason to be so - a mini-Ferriss-binge followed by a major scales drama through next week. Off to Scotmid for their mushroom open ravioli, which I've had my eye on for *ages*, stuffed mushrooms and a nice leaf salad.

Bother, no mushrooms (at least, not the ones I wanted) but bargain sun-dried tomato garlic flat bread instead ("fougasse", I'll have you know). Carbocalypse now. In best sulky / whiny voice: "I don't care".

Cheered up *no end* on the way home by meeting, and falling in love with, Rufus.

Think Rufus took a shine to me too, as he tried to follow me home, rather than go back into the pub with his companion. Rufus being a four month old basset hound. Gorgeous.

Dinner carbocalypse is ameliorated slightly by sharing with guest as well as OH. Delicious, and would recommend (but *not* cheap - they're charging Waitrose prices for their 'Truly Irresistible' range). Not quite @imcountingufoz's Mediterranean cruise and an 8lb gain, but it'll do for now.

Post dinner computer dabbling leads me to look up basset hounds as I was convinced that they were badger hunters and Rufus's master was certain that they were rabbit hunters. We were both right - from wiki: "The first mention of a 'basset' dog appeared in La Venerie, an illustrated hunting text written by Jacques du Fouilloux in 1585. The dogs in Fouilloux's text were used to hunt foxes and badgers." Later they were bred to go after rabbits.

However, what really excited me was this: I am a dog (no, *really*) and have always considered myself to be a basset hound because of my dwarfed and deformed arms and legs, and excessively long body (a form of achondroplasia) - turns out bassets *are* achondroplaisic, and have deformed joints (osteochondrosis - that's me) **and** they often have a bleeding disorder called Von Willebrands and I'm a bleeder too. And that's apart from temperament (stubborn, loyal etc.). See? Proof ^+. Woof! Woof! Happy FatDog.

^+ and now you know why I've not submitted my doctoral dissertation. Mad. Quite. Barking. Mad.

Well, as binges go, that wasn't terribly impressive (most un-dog-like). Think that the low-carb WoE is so ingrained that I struggle to eat bread now, and pasta thoroughly fills me (took an hour and a half to eat my dinner and gave half my bread to our guest). I'm working on it though: I've had a double ration of 85% chocolate this evening and I'm now at yet another glass of w(h)ine, plus a lump of Cambus O'May's Lochnagar cheese (co-op bargain - normally at four quid a lump it is, sadly, not a usual indulgence of mine) and a wee bit dried apricot. Mmmmm.... *that* was delectable. So much so that I might repeat it. Soon. Tonight even... Or maybe it'd be nice to go into next week *without* a calorie loss deficit (I know, double negative - but you lot know what I mean, I hope!)? Sleepy tea should sort me.

Listening to Rubinstein playing Beethoven's piano concerto no. 1 (too divine - thank you youtube) whilst following up on links from the "fat is good / bad" debate, particularly Aseem Malhotra's efforts. Found this site in my meanderings - warning: he's *very, very* angry, and nearly as random / mad as me - but bear with it and skim down as he has some excellent stuff on there, IMHO - http://www.thelowcarbdiabetic.blogspot.co.uk/ and root here http://www.lowcarbdiabetic.co.uk/ . Thanks to him for the heads up on the KSR2 gene mutation / obesity link.

Carbs too high and fibre too low - but nowhere near as calo/carbo-strophic as it might have been:

........ Calories 1697.40 Carbs 74.13 Fat 94.48 Protein 40.28 Fibre 14.70

==================================

Sunday, day one-hundred and twenty-six, weekend feed day

Weigh-in at start of day wt. 115.8lbs (analogue scales corrected ~113.65lbs); 0.0lbs gain
... t.measures - ub. 28.9, w. 26.2, t. 31.8, h. 35.25 inches

Eeeevil scales fairy was at it this morning - scales went from flickering at 115.8 straight to 115.4 (stayed on the latter for several readings), then moved to 115.6 and finally to a steady 115.8. Humph. As the analogues don't appear to have shifted downwards much (maybe enough for a half pound, maybe not) I'll go with the higher reading - then it won't be too much of a shock when something horrid happens on the scales tomorrow (I see the shadow of a black dog there, begone!).

Dinners for the next couple of days have been determined by bargains. FatDog's bargains from the last couple of days of trimmed fine green beans, baby chantenay carrots, prep'd squash & sweet potato look like a tajine for tonight. Oh, and of course there's my new "invention" of "swede rostigratin" to go with the tajine, the swede being a delivery from our freegan friend (rostigratin == really fancying a rosti but having a lot of bargain double cream to use up). We shall see. Then dwarf beans, cauliflower, more double cream and a big lump of Saint Agur (courtesy of bargain hunting neighbour) look like a cheesy veggie bake of some sort for Monday. Mmmmm.

Have just done a "Sunday breakfast" experiment (it's only 15:00hrs after all) - a pancake! Not quite of my dreams, but a little work might do wonders for it. So, 10g of gram flour and 20ml water, well mixed and 'stood' for about 15 minutes; then heat 1ml (yes, only a tiny quantity is needed) of oil in your non-stick pan and add your batter, let it solidify, then shoogle it about to avoid sticking, and flip over after a couple of minutes to do the other side. I used a few drops each of almond and orange oils in the hopes of having a flavoured delight - erm... nope, couldn't taste a hint of either until the very last bite. However, eating did seem to switch on the 'find food' switch - which I've (hopefully) turned off again with a coffee. And I'd forgotten how carborific gram flour was: 'forgotten' is possibly the wrong word - 'wilfully ignored previous knowledge' would be more appropriate. Might keep the "Sunday breakfast" for binge days only.

Methinks today is going to be my mini-Ferriss-binge (always thought that Sunday was the day for it)! Yay! Okay, I'm just a wee bit over so far, but I'm not stopping yet... Oooh, this is quite fun! Dunlop cheese and dry roasted peanuts come highly recommended! And a little more merlot. And 85% chocolate (gosh - such piggery - that's, *shock*, 16 grams of yummy dark chocolate that I've eaten and it's not even my birthday!). I do, however, turn into a pumpkin at midnight, so I'd better get a move-on!

Well, that was a good stab at it - went beyond the witching hour, so will just have to break-fast commensurately later tomorrow. It might have been excessive, but the macronutrient balance was nearly right: carb 19%, fat 70% and protein 11%; I'm intrigued as to the damage such a binge might wreak

........ Calories 2212.94 Carbs 77.64 Fat 124.95 Protein 44.04 Fibre 23.18

Oh dear all I can offer is

Thanks for the 2 links @FatDog makes me think I have to really diss the carbs and sugar. I am trying. My OH always says I am trying, ha ha. Anyway another great read FatDog and you really are doing very well even if you have slowed, don't forget that

I know I could bury myself in cookbooks which had a plethora of cheese and veggie dishes. Cheese is my go to when I am not fasting. Must be groaning those bookshelves, the ones you find and buy sound great. Your op shops sound much better stocked than out here down under

@izzy aren't Bassets huge, gorgeous but very big dog to hide under your coat