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Oh FatDog you are soooo appreciated - your humour, knowledge and help. Take a break or do a 'blog lite' for a while but we do need you, you are definitely not blogging in vain. I hope you feel brighter soon.
Fatdog. I need you to make my life over here feel normal! I have only two cookbooks here and as you know I love my veggies, so pleeeeze keep blogging. I know I'm quiet on the forums at the moment, but I'm still here reading your posts :heart: :heart: :heart:
Thank you all *so much*...
30 Jan 2014, 00:41
... that's transformed a gloomy glum evening into a warm glowing one.

I took so long typing the first version of this 'thank-you' for your lovely kind words that the forum logged me out and ate my message. grrrrrrr.

So I shall simply say a huge THANK-YOU to you all.

Normal service will be resumed shortly :) a humbled and moved FatDog xxx
I'm working back to Saturday (low-carb day 216) to Tuesday (low-carb day 219) - this is just a place holder... :)
Normal service resumed (well, as "normal" as it gets) :)

Wednesday, low-carb day two-hundred and twenty, repair day

Weigh-in at start of day wt. 112.0lbs (analogue scales corrected ~109.75lbs); 1.0lbs loss
... t.measures - ub. 28.5, w. 25.5, t. 30.25, h. 34.25 inches

Glum recovery mode. Due in no small part to the warmth of good wishes from you kind people. I really can't thank you all enough - a thorough deglumming of the FatDog.

Did today's intake log properly, recorded vital statistics in weight log for the last five days, demolished the nutrition label mountain, and started on the log and recipe work-up backlog... And determined that I'll go work in our wee local library on Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoons to have a proper go at structuring the recipes (and the rest!). Faint rays of positivity there, I do believe.

There's no major loss of recipes for the last few days as they were pretty much all re-runs / variations upon a theme: Caribbean salad, FD's special Burns Night cheesy mash (3rd time lucky?), variations on linseed crackers and OLS bread (accidentally did double egg and forgot the oil - huge rise but dry, excellent with cream cheese though), cheesy green bean & mushroom socca-omelette (I need a good name for this combination), and yet another bottom-of-the-fridge veggie gratin (aka vegetable muddle with creamy cheese sauce).

Only a half-repair, but better than no repair at all: 'twas all the cheese wot done it... oh, and the nuts - two lots of nuts on a repair day is not advisable:

........ Calories 854.90 Carbs 26.96 Fat 65.34 Protein 35.30 Fibre 15.11

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

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

Weigh-in at start of day wt. 112.0lbs (analogue scales corrected ~109.75lbs); 0lbs loss
... t.measures - ub. 28.5, w. 25.5, t. 30.25, h. 34.25 inches

Well, that's a tad disappointing but, I guess, it's probably payback for Tuesday's madness (an insane cheese, chocolate and nut fest, plus excess wine - a calorie blow out rather than carbs, methinks - will know once I've done the log). Oh well...

Now, what's for dinner? There's salad stuff that needs consumed: avocado, romaine lettuce and the odd baby tomato, so I might just do a fresh OLS loaf and have that with generous dollops of cream cheese... And it would be good to keep the calories and carbs on the low side. Hmm. Enough. I must off to work.

Double book accident: Le Carre's The Constant Gardener - have been told by many that I should read it, so now will, and yet another copy of the 5:2 Fast Diet - I lend it out and it never comes home - this one is staying home...

Dinner went pretty much as planned except I found bargain rocket, spinach & watercress salad in sainsers on the way home - irresistible. Oh, and I bought a tin of ghee in the co-op (odd thing for them to sell, to be honest, especially at the crazy low price of £3.50 for 500g) and hope to experiment with it to make paratha (http://www.korasoi.com/blog/2013/05/jalebi-paratha), along with a huge pack of garam masala (for 68p) with two unknown-to-me ingredients that had my fleas ticking: stoneflower and triphala.

Didn't get to any more log / recipe work-up backlog stuff but hadn't really expected / hoped to this evening: tomorrow I will work in the library and will crack it there :)

Don't quite understand how those calories mount up - well, I do really: I'll need to restrain the low-carb-head of "I can eat lots of cream and cheese and nuts with impunity", because I can't anymore (as I've shrunk, so has my TDEE). Creamy coffee first thing, cheese / nuts as my first-solids-breakfast at sevenish, dinner with avocado, OLS bread and cream cheese, not *hugely* excessive with the wine (but really too much for a weekday), more nuts, my 85% chocolate (quantities consumed are creeping upwards), and a *teensy* cocoa (instead of another glass of wine)... and that's how I'm 58 calories over limit. Darn. At least the carbs are acceptable, and love that fibre (OLS bread rocks!).

........ Calories 1758.01 Carbs 45.77 Fat 114.89 Protein 50.97 Fibre 24.89

Praying that the fairies do magic things with disappearing some of the flab (and associated pounds) overnight, sleep tight xxx FatDog
Great to see you back on form FatDog! Thanks as ever for all the recipes x
Hot night here @izzy not sleeping, sorry but that the difference, you freeze we bake. Cool change expected here soon may converse you might warm up a bit :smile:

Aw @FatDog has to :lol: at your fleas, was confused for a nano second then got with the program ... scratch scratch.

My, such wonderful details in the background but such a lot of work for you. Will be worth it when you look back or when you need it. So library sounds a good idea as you have come so far. Thanks for the link, such a beautiful blog to just look at but would love to make paratha too, what kind of flour is that, Not low carb I am supposing. I finally found gram flour, now just have to experiment with your recipes. Made up my own garam masala a couple of weeks ago as per usual and this time included dried Mr Lincoln Rose petals from my own garden, was chuffed as had not seen rose petals included, bit of my trivia but your garam masala purchase prompted me to share that

Hope that tail is wagging and those fleas are dancing, we do really appreciate your efforts even more
@izzy you *totally* had me there - nice one, it even made the OH titter...

And, methinks, @gillymary that Sanjana's http://www.korasoi.com/ site might be one of my *very, very* favourite recipe sites - something to aspire to, for sure. As you liked that one, this might tickle your taste-buds too http://vegangela.com/ - I'm not sure whether I've cooked anything of hers, but the pictures make me dribble... :)
Izzy, that made both of us howl with laughter, thank you

Ballerina x :heart:
Me too :0D
Friday, low-carb day two-hundred and twenty-two, repair day

Weigh-in at start of day wt. 111.8lbs (analogue scales corrected ~109.25lbs); 0.2lbs loss
... t.measures - ub. 28.5, w. 25.5, t. 30.25, h. 34.25 inches

Well the fairies were kind (not excessively, but certainly not unkind). Now I have to be kind to me too, and do a good repair day...

Orf to the library as soon as OH gets back from his meanderings (which could be hours, though he snappily said he wouldn't be long - possibly true as he's going to the gym with ex-wife no. 1 mother-of-only-son as soon as she rings - I fear he's wanting rid of me).

The library has five of the books that I requested in, yipee: Taubes' "Why We Get Fat", Yudkin's "Pure, White and Deadly", Holford's "GL bible", Kunes' "The CarbLovers Diet" (!!!), and, just the one cookbook, Sybil Kapoor's "The great British vegetable cookbook". Wanting to shufti at the first four to see if I need to Amazon stalk them for a penny, and the cookbook? Well, it is on my wish-list, but it'd be good to see whether I really *have* to have it.

Trying to be a gooder bookaholic-FatDog, I even resisted an immaculate copy of "Ottolenghi" for ten quid in the shop on Tuesday. Drooled over it, made a couple of flavour notes, liked the half dozen soup recipes, but decided that a) it had too much dead animal in it, b) waaay too much pastry work / puddings and c) there are full-on veggie books that I'd much rather have.

I'm beginning to despair - Tender has still not arrived, but stuff I ordered at the same time and days later has. Well, if it's not here by it's due date I believe I can just cancel it - will do so and just blow the bank and buy a new one for a few quid more (listing at £19.50 just now).

Ha! Just sorted out my flat's insurance (not the OH's, where I stay) - was paying nearly eighty quid a month for a one bedroom flat in a distinctly-not-fancy part of town - only noticed November's renewal at the start of this month, and have then procrastinated about it for far too long. There's nothing of value in the flat except for *a lot* of books (not the sort that collectors would want, just FatDog interests) and I can't imagine the burglars making off with many of them out the top floor window; oh, and the ex-flatmate, but I think they'd have a hard time stealing her, unless they looked like George Clooney. Crazy. Now down to forty-four quid with the same insurer - think I'll torment the bank next week and see if they can do anything lower, as that's still plain silly.

And book perusal was useful: came home with Taubes and Yudkin for some proper study (the OH has snaffled Yudkin and is speed reading it as I type). Rejected Holford - it's essentially just a low-GL diet with some bells on it, and I simply can't cope with his hubris or his mercenary streak. I think Kunes is deluded and dangerous - she's claiming that crisps and bread are good for you (devil in the detail - it's the resistant starch that's good, found in *green bananas* and the like, much less in crisps), might just get a penny copy to stab when I'm feeling the need to stab something; the references are included in the Amazon preview so I should check them out further before I damn her completely. Finally, Kapoor: lush - beautifully photographed, produced, written etc., but oh so sadly devoid of anything hugely new, even the flavour combination suggestions aren't that novel (I think, for example, Cotter and Slater do it *far* better). No shelf space for this one, I'm surprised to find myself thinking, and it's now knocked off my Amazon list.

Dinner was an emergency usage of some long forgotten, thus needed-used, broccoli (of the five packs I used three). And as I've not been blogging, I suspect I've not told you about the "great co-op bargain swoop" of a few days back: tins of chickpeas (eight of) and slushy tomatoes (eighteen of) for just 20p each! So - broccoli and chickpeas and? Well, gratin is obvious, so cheese and crème fraîche to go with it. Don't think stilton goes with chickpeas so dig out, from the freezer, the chunk of hard goat's cheese from our freegan friend. Add some nice spices and... yum! Pure dead chuffed with that one.

Well, not a perfect repair day, but a good effort at recovering my repair pattern:

........ Calories 613.92 Carbs 28.67 Fat 40.50 Protein 32.84 Fibre 11.05

broccoli & chickpea goat's cheese gratin, another FatDog bottom-of-the-fridge-freezer concoction
broccoli, bite-sized florets, sainsers, 29c/C1.1/F0.8/P3.1/Fi2.3/100g
......... 397g 115.13 4.37 3.18 12.31 9.13
chickpeas, ktc, 115c/C16.1/F2.9/P7.2/Fi4.1/100g
......... 240g 276.00 38.64 6.96 17.28 9.84
crème fraîche, "healthy choice", co-op, 165c/C5.4/F14.5/P3.2/Fi0.5/100g
......... 150g 247.50 8.10 21.75 4.80 0.75
goat's cheese, hard, Village Green, crumbled 408c/C0.1/F29.5/P23.0/Fi0/100g
......... 66g 269.28 0.07 19.47 15.18 0.00
extra mature cheddar, co-op, grated, 415c/C1.4/F34.5/P24.4/Fi0/100g
......... 32g 132.80 0.45 11.04 7.81 0.00
onion, red, co-op, medium fine sliced, 35c/C7.6/F0.2/P1.3/Fi1.4/100g
......... 56g 19.60 4.26 0.11 0.73 0.78
garlic, fine chop, 149c/C33.06/F0.5/P6.36/Fi2.1/100g
......... 11g 16.39 3.64 0.06 0.69 0.23
lemon juice, 26c/C2.0/F0/P0.4/Fi0.3/100ml
......... 10ml 2.60 0.20 0.00 0.04 0.03
toasted sesame oil, 827c/C0/F91.9/P0/Fi0/100ml
......... 15ml 124.05 0.00 13.79 0.00 0.00
cumin seed, whole
......... 10ml 0.00
fennugreek seed, whole
......... 10ml 0.00
paprika, ground
......... 10ml 0.00
chilli flakes
......... three good pinches 0.00
salt
......... several good pinches 0.00
total for broccoli & chickpea goat's cheese gratin 1203.35 59.71 76.35 58.84 20.77
FatDog's 1/3rd portion of broccoli & chickpea goat's cheese gratin 401.12 19.90 25.45 19.61 6.92


Method: 1. rinse the broccoli in well salted water, roughly drain then ping for a couple of minutes, then drain thoroughly; 2. heat the sesame oil in a non-stick pan and begin to soften the onions; 3. add the spices and garlic, stir a minute or two, and then add the chickpeas and stir-fry for another couple of minutes; 4. add the broccoli and lemon and stir-fry some more; 5. whilst the broccoli is still al dente, add the crème fraîche and goat's cheese and stir these in (less heat now), check the seasoning and add further salt if needed; 6. sprinkle the cheddar over the top and bung under a pre-heated grill to melt and brown the cheese; 7. serve with a large dollop of full-fat natural yoghurt.
Um, Fatdog, i've contracted you cookbookneeditis...
3 ordered from Amazon and to be brought out with brother in law.
The woderful Eastern veggie cooking by auntie Madhur ( had it years ago, left it behind and now NEED it)
An ottolenghi one- new to janeg
And a middle east one by debbie someone who blogs and the blog is lovely.
Also added the links from here onto food porn folder...
Oh my, ...!!!
Saturday, low-carb day two-hundred and twenty-three, weekend feed day

Weigh-in at start of day wt. 110.0lbs (analogue scales corrected ~107.25lbs); 1.8lbs loss
... t.measures - ub. 28.5, w. 25.5, t. 30.25, h. 34.25 inches

Report for the end of week 40 on 4.5 : 2.5 - 0.2lb gain this week (total loss 36.0lbs); no shrinkage or expansion (but feeling a bit "boggy").

Well, that makes for a very happy FatDog - one week to recover from a haggis blow-out plus a missed repair and a "bonkers Tuesday" - really not so bad (though it didn't feel that way mid-week). This maintenance plot appears to work, albeit bumpily, *especially* if one sticks to the repairs. However, I'd like my base level down so that my maximum weight on maintenance is 110lbs rather than 112lbs - maybe that's being a bit greedy, but I'd feel a little more comfortable there. Do think I need to trust this WoE more (it has more than proved itself), then I won't go pale with horror when the scales go up by three pounds - that's the clearest blow-out blip on my tracker to date and it was scary!

The VBF has been lurking on the forum for a wee while... has finally registered and is posting... and now... I'm going to *OUT* her! Ha, ha, ha! Fiendish laughter? Nah, 'tis with her agreement, of course. The sharp eyed of you might have worked things out anyway - amongst other things, the Channa Dal And Coconut Recipe was a dead giveaway. So, FatDog waves her paw at @Caitlin, across the city. Actually, I should wave at a friend of the OH's son too who, I'm lead to believe, is lurking here abouts as well: *waves some more* :) (Do register, please, it is a wonderful place!)

Ahhmmm. That's the insurance savings for this month blown on a pestle and mortar (genuinely needed - the wee whizz just *won't* handle small quantities), cookbook (much desired), nutrition book (somewhere between wanted / needed) and six months' supply of liquorice tea bags (absolutely essential!). That's not *quite* how it was meant to work, but retail therapy on a grey afternoon is *so* gratifying. Just please don't remind me of this indulgence when I've run out of funds at the end of this year.

Dinner plans for this evening: major priority is to use up one of the four cabbages we have loitering in the fridge - good thing they "last" so well, though obviously it's best to use veggies as fresh as possible. The tinned chickpea and tomato glut could do with a reduction (I've yet to work out where to store them all!) and I've bargain sweet potatoes from a few days back to use. Curry - using the usual suspects of ginger, chilli, turmeric, fennugreek, cumin, coriander, mustard seed, curry leaf, lemon juice and tamarind - comes to mind. Google pulls up a Madhur Jaffrey recipe for a chickpea, potato and cabbage curry (not obviously in her World Vegetarian book - I so *hate* bad indexes) so my concoction mightn't be too far off beam, though it will be a much sweeter and less robust affair. Bestest neighbour will be joining us, but don't know if others are coming too - will make plenty anyway as need to balance the cabbage quantity and I think this will freeze quite well.

And for the second weekend running, Sunday has been moved to Saturday and the VBF and our artist friend are by. Scunnered though, as all three had already dined before they arrived (yes, *really*, not because they were put off by the kitchen fragrances): particularly irked with the BN as he'd been "invited to dinner" yesterday and had no excuse. BN and VBF sampled (large and small) my culinary offering and deemed it edible. OH *seemed* to enjoy it (he wasn't being very communicative at the time). Me? I thought it pretty yum. I went to the trouble of "roasting" my spices properly this time (for the first time, actually - then used a wee ceramic bowl as mortar and the end of a rolling pin as pestle to grind them - oh, the lovely aroma) and, I'm not sure if anyone else noticed but I did, they were given far more depth. Anyways, as cabbage dishes go it was a winner.

That was a fine sociable evening and, it seems, Saturday is the new Sunday as it has shifted next week too. Very peculiar (well, for a FatDog with OCD). Shouldn't effect the WoE as weekends are, somewhat, wah-hey anyway - 'tis the psychology of it that might get discombobulated. We shall see.

Figures are guestimates as I've not worked up the recipe yet... Fat / Protein / Fibre figures are partially missing.

........ Calories 2224.79 Carbs 116.95 Fat 73.77 Protein 43.82 Fibre 17.16

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

Sunday, low-carb day two-hundred and twenty-four, weekend feed day

Weigh-in at start of day wt. 110.6lbs (analogue scales corrected ~107.75lbs); 0.6lbs gain
... t.measures - ub. 28.5, w. 25.5, t. 30.25, h. 34.25 inches

Not sure where the FatDog logging vanished to (yet again), but Sunday appears to have been void. I was here, I'm sure - doing stuff too...

Went to dine with good friends who we've not visited for *years*. They did a wonderful veggie tagine, fruit salad for pud, and cheese and biscuits to follow. FatDog couldn't resist, and had pud, plus cheese & oatcakes, but the killer was the totally irresistible pumpkin and ginger chutney (40 grams of carb in too many helpings of that alone).

Oh dear, but as binges go Ferriss would be proud of me.

Guestimates, as per Saturday, and Fat / Protein / Fibre figures are partially missing as before.

........ Calories 2843.75 Carbs 179.33 Fat 125.68 Protein 55.58 Fibre 17.65
Did wonder if you two knew each other ... is Edinburgh ready for you both??
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