The FastDay Forum

Maybe we could use the turnip / swede dichotomy as a means of deciding where the border should go, @izzy, come Scottish independence

As for the measurements for herbs / spices - I tend to do this with my measuring spoons, *unless* it's fresh stuff, then I weigh things as the nutritional info tends to work in grams.

Monday, low-carb day two-hundred and thirty-nine, repair day

Weigh-in at start of day wt. 107.0lbs (analogue scales corrected ~105.5lbs); 0lbs loss
... t.measures - ub. 28.5, w. 25.5, t. 30.25, h. 34.25 inches

Report at the end-of-week 34 of low-carb : total low-carb weight loss 30.8lbs, and weight loss for the week 1.2lbs. No shrinkage / expansion.

Umm. Thanks V&P vary-fairy. At this rate I'll need to up the indulgence next weekend. Yay!

Otherwise it's been a sh*te day so far: OH isn't feeling too good, but is still wanting to cancel the pacemaker until he knows more (I sort-of agree with him, but it's rather disturbing all the same). Then checked my mail for jobstuff (none) and went on to swiftly pay my amex bill (which came into my mail today) before getting stuck into more jobstuff / databases. Except the latter hasn't happened as I spotted that Amazon have double charged me for the book that I was going to send back, but didn't - so had to contact them... Thought to double check another book that I changed my mind with and didn't send back: lo, they've double billed me on that one too! That's more than twenty-eight quid that they've nicked off me. I am not a happy bunny doggins today. And, all things considered, I really ought to be.

Pondering tonight's dinner - cauliflower cheese (courtesy of cauliflower delivery from BN yesterday) with a rich tomato and lentil sauce. Need to clear the kitchen first. Gawd, that takes me well over an hour and a half (and there's still the odd baking tray glowering at me, but I need to get cooking). Ah. The cauliflower is mighty wee, so decide that it'll have to be a one pot dish. And it did the trick nicely - perfect miserable day comfort food - enjoyed by the bestest neighbour and the OH alike.

Amazon has responded - two separate replies, with absolutely no reference to each other, saying pretty much "oh, so sorry, mistakes like this rarely ever happen, we'll give you your money back in a couple of days". Well, it's happened twice (maybe more?) to me, so it ain't that rare. But at least the problem is resolved, I'll just have to be much more careful about checking each item on my credit card bill when it's from Amazon.

So, not so long before I'm thinking of heading to bed I decide to look up "resistant starch" (this is the holy grail touted in "the Carblover's Diet") - and it *is* exciting stuff. I'm going to have to do some proper digging on this and give it the time that it deserves. If anyone out there has access to this paper, I'd be humongously grateful for a copy:

Crit Rev Food Sci Nutr. 2014;54(9):1158-66. doi: 10.1080/10408398.2011.629352.
Resistant starch and energy balance: impact on weight loss and maintenance.
Higgins JA.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24499148

........ Calories 655.01 Carbs 31.81 Fat 39.26 Protein 47.65 Fibre 10.98

cauliflower comfort bake, a FatDog concoction
cauliflower, tesco, floretted, 38c/C3.0/F0.9/P3.6/Fi1.8/100g
......... 228g 86.64 6.84 2.05 8.21 4.10
onion, red, co-op, fine sliced, 35c/C7.6/F0.2/P1.3/Fi1.4/100g
......... 72g 25.20 5.47 0.14 0.94 1.01
lentils, waitrose, 73c/C10.0/F0.6/P6.1/Fi4.4/100g
......... 265g 193.45 26.50 1.59 16.17 11.66
tomatoes, tinned, chopped, in juice, co-op, 20c/C4.0/F0.1/P1.3/Fi0.9/100g
......... 400g 80.00 16.00 0.40 5.20 3.60
basil, fresh, torn, 23c/C2.35/F0.64/P3.15/Fi1.6/100g
......... 5g 1.15 0.12 0.03 0.16 0.08
olive oil, 824c/C0.0/F91.6/P0.0/Fi0.0/100ml
......... 5ml 41.20 0.00 4.58 0.00 0.00
garlic flakes
......... several good grindings 0.00
chilli flakes
......... several good pinches 0.00
italian herb seasoning, dried
......... 5ml 0.00
fennel seed, whole, fresh ground
......... 5ml 0.00
s&p 0.00
cheddar, tesco christmas, grated, 410c/C0.1/F34.4/P24.9/Fi0/100g
......... 174g 713.40 0.17 59.86 43.33 0.00
cornflour, 343c/C83.6/F0.7/P0.6/Fi0.1/100g
......... 20g 68.60 16.72 0.14 0.12 0.02
soya milk, coop org unsw, 30c/C0.1/F1.9/P3.4/Fi0.6/100ml
......... 300ml 90.00 0.30 5.70 10.20 1.80
dijon mustard, Maille, 150c/C3.5/F11.0/P7.0/Fi1.5/100g
......... 10g 15.00 0.35 1.10 0.70 0.15
total for cauliflower comfort bake 1314.64 72.47 75.59 85.01 22.42
1/3 portion cauliflower comfort bake 438.21 24.16 25.20 28.34 7.47

Method: 1. rinse the cauliflower in salted water, roughly drain then ping, lidded, for 4 minutes, then drain thoroughly; 2. heat the oil in a medium size pan and soften the onions; 3. add the lentils, tomatoes, cauliflower, herbs and spices, and s&p; 4. mix, heat, transfer to a grill-proof dish and put, covered, under a low grill to keep hot; 5. mix the cornflour with a little cold water; 6. put the soya milk on the heat and add the cornflour mix, bring to the bubble whilst stirring so that it doesn't stick; 7. add the mustard, seasoning and two thirds of the cheese - keep stirring! 8. once the cheese has melted in the sauce, pour the sauce over the veggie mix, sprinkle the remaining cheese over the top and put under a hot grill until golden brown and bubbling; 9. serve with a wee leaf salad, and maybe bread for the carbivores

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

Tuesday, low-carb day two-hundred and forty, feed day

Weigh-in at start of day wt. 107.4lbs (analogue scales corrected ~106.0lbs); 0.4lbs gain
... t.measures - ub. 28.5, w. 25.5, t. 30.25, h. 34.25 inches

Drat - I had hoped to get away with Sunday's pizza, but sadly (albeit not unexpectedly) the carbs are having their revenge. Grrrr. I was wondering: if one were to continue with carbiferous eating, at what point does the carb water weight gain stop? If the gain were prolonged one would become huge, and it would do terrible things to the laws of physics, so it has to cease somewhen soon, but I'm curious as to how much extra carb water weight one can take on. Going by Tim Ferriss' experiments, I suspect that it's about 8 pounds that it will max out at. Nasty, very nasty. If I wanted to allow for it so that I never went near the eight-stone-zone (i.e. always under 7 stone 12 aka 110lbs) I'd need to make my target considerably lower at 102lbs (7 stone 4) - eek! Don't think that I'll go there... well... or might I?

Now to much less scary thoughts: tonight's dinner. We have lots of savoy cabbage (again, BN delivered another bargain one last night). And I have various cheeses that are going to walk out of the fridge if they're not eaten soon. So I'm going to try Gayler's baked reblochon (it's a goats cheese, apparently) in savoy cabbage recipe, with random cheese substitutions (including goats cheese, but not reblochon) and various other adaptations - no bacon for a start - from his "Passion for Cheese" (p.42).

Postie has been and gorn - still no packages for the FatDog, one package is now a couple of weeks outstanding. Hrrrumph. Right, cease dithering FD: do your log, ablute and off to work... Actually, I should maybe careful with the word "ablute" as, it seems, the urbanites / hipsters / streetsters have mutated its meaning somewhat, same as they morphed the meaning of "nice". What do you mean that was the Victorians?

Another case of "best laid plans" and all that - and that's after I'd dawdled home via Mr. Akram's and the supermarkets to get the extra bits for the recipe. Even my second recipe option went by the way-side (watercress and other green stuff with cheese soup), and instead the co-op's mushroom open ravioli came to the rescue of my sore feet (again), and the watercress was, more rightly, salad. So, come Thursday, the carbs will, once more, cast their grim shadow over the scales. Bother. So instead of another cheat's pear pudding, I'm having to "make do" with a creamy coffee and an extra square or two of 85% Ghanaian... Still, the cabbage thingy will be brilliant as a push-a-repair-day-dinner-to-the-limits tomorrow.

And, at least, I've been "mindful" of what I'm eating as I've logged it all, bite by bite. If I hadn't, methinks I'd easily have had an extra two portions each of nuts, chocolate and / or vino - that's not to say that I won't anyway, but it'll at least be knowingly.

And, dear reader, knowingly I did... two quorn ham & cream cheese cigars (a highly recommended low-ish carb indulgence - with plenty salt and pepper they'll sate the most obdurate craving after 15 minutes, or even less) plus an extra glass of wine. So there. Sigh - when will I learn? And what is *wrong* with Tuesdays that I go so off the rails?

........ Calories 1849.10 Carbs 76.71 Fat 107.62 Protein 44.28 Fibre 21.03

I boiled the bejeebers out of the turnip!!!!! The texture was just so much better.

Think that will need to be my mantra from now on, and for green beens too

Dear FatDog, I keep reading about how glorious your flaxseed crackers are but I can't find the recipe - any chance of a repeat or do you have a place where all these recipes are stored?!

Thanks!

One problem, @loversghost, is that I use the name "linseed" rather than "flaxseed" - they are, however, *exactly* the same thing!

Plus, the search facility seems to have gone to xxxx since the forum moved from 52fastdiet to fastday - even using google site search (from google.co.uk) isn't seeing stuff any more (one for @Moogie, perhaps?).

Anyway - recipe originally listed here on days 81 and 82 (Thursday & Friday) progress-f4/topic6427-195.html#p97606

But the simplest is 10g ground linseed plus 10ml water and a tiny pinch of salt, mixed, spread *evenly* on non-stick surface and pinged for 30 seconds then at 10 second intervals thereafter (your microwave will behave as your microwave does, not the same as the one I'm using!). Very easy to burn. If you're doing greater quantities, the ping time is longer. Etc.

Enjoy.

[Moogie]

The Google search box on the lefthand side should be working. The one at the top is on my list of things to fix and I believe I know what to do to sort it, sorry meanwhile.

Wednesday, low-carb day two-hundred and forty-one, repair day

Weigh-in at start of day wt. 108.2lbs (analogue scales corrected ~106.25lbs); 0.8lbs gain
... t.measures - ub. 28.5, w. 25.5, t. 30.25, h. 34.25 inches

Booooh. I know that I was somewhat overindulgent yesterday but this is a bit much V&P vary-fairy (nearly a pound for a couple of hundred calories?) and, if it is vengeance for Tuesday's over-carbing that's not supposed to kick in until tomorrow! Whimper. My over-carbing on Sunday was pretty moderate (81g) maybe it needed to be higher to serve its purpose of shaking things up? Don't think that's really a good excuse for throwing out today's repair, but I'm sufficiently miserable today to use it as such. Whimper.

Hunting for idiot-proof SQL Server management information and discover, incidentally, the joys of Kindle on a tablet computer. And procrastinate big time (whilst conning myself that I'm working) by down-loading all sorts of exceedingly useful free stuff... yes, yes, including SQL Server books, but also cookbooks and meditation guides and the likes... Trouble is, I'm not sure where any of it is actually stored and I'm exceedingly "space challenged" on my system drive". Then, more serendipity, I find the download link for the USDA food database (I've never looked that hard for it, but if I'm to get this recipe thing going the data will be essential) - the full shebang plus an abridged spreadsheet version: exceedingly useful. You can tell that I don't want to reach "the moment of truth" can't you? Will SQL Server create a database on my SD card or not?... Prayers to the great god of being-kind-to-FatDogs.

So off I go to work-up the recipe for tonight's dinner

That received 9/10 from the bestest neighbour and the OH thought it was excellent, very tasty; and I thought it pretty good myself. Happy enough with that.

........ Calories 731.30 Carbs 21.63 Fat 53.99 Protein 38.49 Fibre 13.79

baked cheeses with savoy cabbage, inspired by Gayler's cabbage & reblochon in a Passion for Cheese (p.42)
cabbage, savoy, tesco, whole leaves, 32c/C4.1/F0.4/P1.7/Fi2.4/100g
......... 153g 48.96 6.27 0.61 2.60 3.67
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
chestnut mushrooms, 1/6'd, 16cal/C0.4g/F0.5g/P1.8g/Fi1.1g/100g
......... 253g 40.48 1.01 1.27 4.55 2.78
oyster mushrooms, medium sliced, co-op, 10c/C0/F0.2/P2.3/Fi2.4/100g
......... 96g 9.60 0.00 0.19 2.21 2.30
dried mixed mushrooms, tesco, 210c/C26.4/F1.7/P21.9/Fi32.6/100g
......... 10g 21.00 2.64 0.17 2.19 3.26
onion, red, co-op, fine sliced, 35c/C7.6/F0.2/P1.3/Fi1.4/100g
......... 50g 17.50 3.80 0.10 0.65 0.70
chives, fresh, chopped, 30c/C1.85/F0.73/P3.27/Fi2.5/100g
......... 10g 3.00 0.19 0.07 0.33 0.25
olive oil, 824c/C0.0/F91.6/P0.0/Fi0.0/100ml
......... 5ml 41.20 0.00 4.58 0.00 0.00
brie, tesco, christmas, 290c/C2.1/F22.4/P18.5/Fi1.8/100g
......... 117g 339.30 2.46 26.21 21.65 2.11
taleggio, f.f. semi-hard cheese, diced, 330c/C1.1/F27.0/P20.4/Fi0/100g
......... 124g 409.20 1.36 33.48 25.30 0.00
goat's cheese, hard, Village Green, crumbled, 408c/C0.1/F29.5/P23.0/Fi0/100g
......... 47g 191.76 0.05 13.87 10.81 0.00
walnuts, raw, co-op, medium chopped, 654c/C7.0/F65.2/P15.2/Fi7.0/100g
......... 40g 261.60 2.80 26.08 6.08 2.80
nutmeg, dried ground
......... a few good pinches 0.00
s&p 0.00
total for baked cheeses with savoy cabbage 1503.60 39.18 107.53 79.36 29.88
308/964 portion baked cheeses with savoy cabbage 480.40 12.52 34.35 25.36 9.55

Methods: 1. put the dried mushrooms in a wee bowl, add hot water to soak and set aside; 2. de-vein the cabbage leaves, wash in salty water, drain roughly, ping in a lidded dish for 4 to 5 minutes until the leaves are tender, then drain well and set aside to dry off; 3. heat the oil in a non-stick pan and sweat the onion for a few minutes then add the chestnut mushrooms, cook for a few minutes and then add the oyster mushrooms and the dried mushrooms (drained - use the soak water later as "gravy" if you like); 4. add the squash and tattie and stir-fry that for a few minutes (or ping it, as I did, from frozen for 5 minutes); 5. layer the cabbage, squash & tatties, mushrooms, cheeses (pinch small bits off the brie and scatter), walnuts, nutmeg, chives, and s&p as creatively as you will - I finished on top with a layer of cabbage, squash & tatties, lots of cheese and s&p; 6. bung in a pre-heated oven at 200C for 20 to 30 minutes, do a final browning off under the grill if needs be.

Oh heck. I've just discovered the "Delphi complete works" collection on Kindle - can't resist the complete works of Jack London (that includes political pamphlets, poems, plays etc. as well as the usual 22 novels, plus all his non-fiction stuff). Wow. All for 99 pence. Shame it's still downloading after 3 hours - will need to leave wee Valentine on overnight. At least the OH can't complain about my books taking up space in his hoose this way! Yay!

Stupid of me to try it at this time of night I suppose, but the great god of being-kind-to-FatDogs was in residence and was feeling extremely generous! I now have a 'food' table in a new database sitting on my 32GB microSD card (drive D:) which has more than 20GB to spare, and I have a new hugely capacious 64GB microSD card on its way. Unlike the internal drive whose free space is shrinking rapidly. I *have* to find how to redirect my kindle files to somewhere other than the system drive or I'll be scuppered. But many woofs of celebration for the database stuff - that's the first techy database thing (hardly demanding I know) that I've done in a couple of years since burnout. Woof, woof, woof! That's a happy FatDog away to bed at just gone two... Sweet dreams.

Wonder if I could prevail further upon the generosity of the being-kind-to-FatDogs god and ask for a nice number on the scales tomorrow, or would that be being too greedy?

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

Thursday, low-carb day two-hundred and forty-two, feed day

Weigh-in at start of day wt. 108.0lbs (analogue scales corrected ~106.25lbs); 0.2lbs loss
... t.measures - ub. 28.5, w. 25.5, t. 30.25, h. 34.25 inches

Well, greedy it must have been, as my post-repair day loss was a teensy 0.2lbs. Sniff. Methinks the fairies and gods have run out of favours for me - I just hope they're being nice to one of yous instead. It's as if the diet-devil is taunting me, baiting me, tempting me into throwing in the towel in disgust. I honestly don't know how you long-term plateau-dwellers hang in there - you're better (wo)men than me!

If I stick my "rational" head on (what? at this time of the day?) then I am, actually being totally and utterly unreasonable: 108lbs is exactly my target average and 108.0lbs is my weight this morning - so what *is* my problem? I'm *MEANT TO BE MAINTAINING* for goodness sake!

Anyone out there with Asus Transformer / Windows 8.1 experience? I've a really weird one for you: if I have multiple windows open and I'm typing, say, in the google box, the "active window focus" will shift to somewhere else and away from the one I'm typing in (can't actually see where to, and the task bar indicates that it hasn't shifted at all)! It is *exceedingly* disconcerting. Am wondering if it's one of the cursor keys or the trackpad playing up. Possibly the touch screen too, of course. Google is not being forthcoming. Will need to detach the screen and see if it still happens - trouble is, it's only doing it intermittently, so I'll be into "one cannot prove a negative" territory. I. Do. Not. Need. This. Just. Now.

'Tis behaving just this minute, so lets see if I can't at least get my weight-log done. Yes, but only just. It'll be "good" for a few minutes and then, just as I'm thinking it's sorted, shift "focus" in the middle of my typing something - argh! Can't cope with it. Haven't a scoobie how to fix it. Upset? Yeah, just a bit - think I might have a wee weep.

Ah - I've found the google-grail search term, perhaps: "active window deactivation". It's an *old* Windows problem (possibly back to XP, so that's sort of a relief - it's not Valentine misbehaving) - now for what's doing it and how to fix it... 'tis a different matter.

To work - various *stupid* travails render me pretty miserable by the time I arrive at the bookstore - bless boss number two, who was sympathy personified and even made me a cup of tea. Survive and without ever failing a smile for our customers - me, I'm nae bad at this retail stuff.

There was *such* a tempting pack of seeds & nuts in the co-op on the way home this evening - just 2.9g carb per 100g. FatDog's heart went a-flutter... then realised that such numbers were complete bunk (of course) - given that most none of the individual components of mixed seeds, almonds, hazelnuts etc. have carb levels much below 7 to 9 grams per 100g. Sigh. I *hate* duff nutrition information. Especially when one tells the manufacturer about it but they leave it there anyway. Charlatans.

Lovely friends by this evening, talking legacy computing things and Scottish politics, whilst meantimes dinner was a crazy half-carb-fest of baked sweet potato, onion and garlic dip, with mixed beans, cheese and salad type stuff... followed by far more vino with nut and chocolate accompaniments than acceptable for a weekday, and finally nailed with FOUR cheese OATCAKES. Will be caloried and carbed out - but I've given up caring. So there.

........ Calories 2458.41 Carbs 114.47 Fat 142.48 Protein 62.67 Fibre 26.74

Not sure what that was all about - eating to drive away the blues perhaps, or "vengeance" on the scales for not doing what I thought they should do? Whatever drove it, it was a pretty impressive bit of self-sabotage.

Fortunately I didn't take my Ferriss "mad day of indulgence" last weekend so Thursday's insanity was actually "within the rules". Mind, that was just good fortune as I wasn't even thinking about that at the time - naughty FatDog.

You can access your Kindle on a Kindle and on any other device you have downloaded the app to. Yes you can store your book in the cloud but although I can remove them from my Kindle I haven' t worked out how to do it from the iPad yet. There is a way of putting them on a USB because someone has given me one with a load of books on-I have no idea how you do it as I think you have to be very tetchy to get round the Amazon settings because they don't want you to do it. I think there is a program designed to do this but I am not sure what it is called.
If you don't like windows 8 I believe one of the free upgrades lets you do something to make it work like windows7. So my tetchy SIL tells me.
I have avoided 8 and find 7 quite user friendly.

Friday, low-carb day two-hundred and forty-three, repair day

Weigh-in at start of day wt. 108.4lbs (analogue scales corrected ~106.5lbs); 0.4lbs gain
... t.measures - ub. 28.5, w. 25.5, t. 30.25, h. 34.25 inches

Given yesterday's madness, that's a reasonable number to read upon the scales methinks.

Have just heard from the meditation centre and they want me for interview next week - with a bookkeeping test after the interview! Eeek! Will need to brush up my rusty old bookkeeping skills as they have lain unused since the late mid-nineties, that's more than a decade of corrosion - leaving not much more than a dusting of oxidized red powder. What do you reckon is the half-life of knowledge?

Contact number one boss man at the bookshop to see if he'd be up for doing a brief post-mortem on the interview I did with him a wee while back. Yup - happy to. Oh good egg - will see him tomorrow p.m. then.

FatDog determines that she'll try to read at least half of one of the bookkeeping books before the day is through (I'd fortuitously ordered them from the library last week). And furthers this aim by going out to look for multivitamins & minerals (I've run out, and the OH says that tescoids not only no longer stock my kiddie chewable ones, but don't stock vitamins at all) - find none. But do find (and buy) Antonio Carluccio's Vegetables in the Oxfam bookshop (four quid). And then have a culinary accident in the co-op, just can't resist a good bargain me: find two of their "Truly Irresistible" "Limited Edition" (eh?) roasted mushroom and garlic pappardelle for 99p each (usually £3.99) and a bistro salad 89p (usually £3.00) - so less than three quid for a "special" meal at home (shame about the carbs, but least said the better). Sadly it really wasn't worth it - either in respect of the pennies or the carbs: I have never had such a bland pasta dish in all my days, even the OH reckoned that "it tasted of nothing".

Did manage to get through the first third of Tollman's "A Guide to Bookkeeping and Accounts - The Easyway", but only just: it is *dreadful*, IMHO it fails on many levels from erroneous tables, appalling layout, to incoherency. I skimmed the rest and couldn't see any point in continuing with it - it did nothing to remotely polish off the rust or reduce the red powder (that's a *really* bad effort at a chemistry pun by the way). Next up, Alex Byrne's "Practical Accounts and Bookkeeping" - hugely simplistic so far (p.35) and it doesn't get to double-entry until more than half way through (p.157), but I'll give it a shot. I suspect that the centre will be using double-entry - studied DE at college more than 30 years ago - but I've only ever used single-entry in practice. Eek. And if Alex fails me I'm stuck with just the Dummies - which actually gets rather good reviews.

Well, that's me somewhat over-stuffed with bookkeeping: up to page 93 with Alex at gone half-one - that's only about a third of the way through but too tired to do more. Getting there though; I'd expect to have it all eaten (but not necessarily digested and assimilated) by cooking time tomorrow. Speaking of which - what on earth am I cooking tomorrow? Bestest neighbour brought round some naans the other day, so Indian curry of some sort would be in order, with low-carb chapatis for the non-carbivores. Might dig out an "easy" cauliflower one I did a while back, and just modify it with a few extra veggies.

........ Calories 882.08 Carbs 84.46 Fat 42.22 Protein 39.70 Fibre 12.93

Bestest luck with next week's interview FatDog! x

Bestest luck with next week's interview FatDog! x

SNAP!

Ballerina x

This interview will go well, we are ALL sending positive vibes for you x

Saturday, low-carb day two-hundred and forty-four, weekend feed day

Weigh-in at start of day wt. 108.4lbs (analogue scales corrected ~106.5lbs); 0lbs gain / loss
... t.measures - ub. 28.5, w. 25.5, t. 30.25, h. 34.25 inches

Report for the end of week 43 on 4.5 : 2.5 - 1.2lb gain this week (total loss 37.6lbs); no shrinkage or expansion.

Ho hum. "Revenge of the Carbohydrates" - do you think they'll make a film of it?

Even though the FatDog *knows* that this is water-weight (near 115 grams of carb on Thursday and another near 85 grams yesterday - ouch!), it is *still* disconcerting, especially as, despite of Thursday's madness, the week ended with a calorie deficit of about 1800. But, even if it weren't water-weight, what on earth am I stressing about: 108.4lbs is 1.6lbs *below* my target maximum?!! Sigh. Need to shift out of the "lose-groove" and into the "chillax" - I am meant to be in maintenance-mode, after all!

Busy day ahead. Want to get a goodly chunk of the second accounting book "consumed", then see the boss, whilst having a *concerted* bash at being mindful all day (throwing in a meditation session for good measure), and cook dinner. Think dinner will be a variation on the "shahi gobhi masala" that I did back in July last year, using whatever random veggies I can pull out of the freezer as well as my wee cauliflower.

Well, I didn't get much (if any) further with the accounting. Saw the boss and he was excellent - said nowt that I didn't know, but was hugely reassuring. I was as mindful as I could be through the day. There was a book about "how to be kind" in Oxfam - I'm not sure, but methinks that, as a generality, I *am* kind (and I certainly try to be), so the idea of needing a whole book of the hows and whys to be kind struck me as rather a sad indicator of where we're at...

And I cooked. Curry it was and, IMHO, a blooming good one. Courtesy of crossed wires, we ended up with five dining rather than four, so portions were perhaps a little on the light side, but it stretched with a wee bit naan, salad and yoghurt to go; fed everyone oatcakes, nuts and chocolate after in the hopes of filling them up - that seemed to work. And I had three lots of coffee-and-cream after dinner. Oh dear.

........ Calories 2894.59 Carbs 94.48 Fat 177.36 Protein 63.70 Fibre 28.01

veggie curry, a FatDog concoction
garlic, rough chopped, 149c/C33.06/F0.5/P6.36/Fi2.1/100g
......... 12g 17.88 3.97 0.06 0.76 0.25
ginger, rough chopped - fine across grain, 90c/C17.8/F0.8/P1.8/Fi2.0/100g
......... 23g 20.70 4.09 0.18 0.41 0.46
s&p 0.00
cauliflower, bitesized florets, coop, 35c/C3.0/F0.9/P3.6/Fi2.5/100g
......... 206g 72.10 6.18 1.85 7.42 5.15
fine green beans, 1/4'd, coop, 30c/C3.2/F0.5/P1.9/Fi2.9/100g
......... 187g 56.10 5.98 0.94 3.55 5.42
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
coconut oil, 39cal/C0/F4.5/P0/Fi0/4g/5ml
......... 25ml 195.00 0.00 22.50 0.00 0.00
onion, red, co-op, fine sliced, 35c/C7.6/F0.2/P1.3/Fi1.4/100g
......... 63g 22.05 4.79 0.13 0.82 0.88
onion, white, co-op, fine sliced, 40c/C7.6/F0.2/P1.3/Fi1.4/100g
......... 92g 36.80 6.99 0.18 1.20 1.29
coconut oil, 39cal/C0/F4.5/P0/Fi0/4g/5ml
......... 20ml 156.00 0.00 18.00 0.00 0.00
soya milk, coop org unsw, 30c/C0.1/F1.9/P3.4/Fi0.6/100ml
......... 45ml 13.50 0.05 0.86 1.53 0.27
tomatoes, tinned, chopped, KTC, 19c/C3.0/F0.1/P1.1/Fi0.7/100g
......... 400g 76.00 12.00 0.40 4.40 2.80
almonds, ground, 640c/C6.9/F55.8/P21.1/Fi11.8/100g
......... 33g 211.20 2.28 18.41 6.96 3.89
chilli flakes
......... 5ml 0.00
coriander, fresh ground
......... 15ml 0.00
turmeric, dried ground
......... 5ml 0.00
coconut, desiccated 635c/C6.4/F62.0/P5.6/Fi13.7/100g
......... 25g 158.75 1.60 15.50 1.40 3.43
pure via (stevia based sweetener) 2c/C0.47/F0/P0/Fi0/0.5g/5ml
......... 5ml 2.00 0.47 0.00 0.00 0.00
chickpeas, KTC, 115c/C16.1/F2.9/P7.2/Fi4.1/100g
......... 240g 276.00 38.64 6.96 17.28 9.84
garam masala, dried ground
......... 5ml 0.00
total for veggie curry 1471.58 116.74 87.32 48.43 46.28
1/5th portion veggie curry 294.32 23.35 17.46 9.69 9.26

Method: 1. render the ginger, garlic and wee bit s&p into a paste using a processor or mortar & pestle; 2. coat the cauliflower in half the ginger & garlic paste; 3. heat 25ml of oil in a non-stick pan and saute the cauliflower for about 6 minutes; 4. meantimes, wash the green beans, crudely drain, and ping for 3 minutes, drain properly; 5. ping the carrot & swede mix for 4 minutes; 6. add these veggies to the cauliflower and stir fry until they're just beginning to turn golden then set aside; 7. heat the second lot of oil and soften the onion; 9. add in the remains of the ginger & garlic paste and stir a bit; 10. meantimes, blitz the soya milk, tomatoes and ground almonds and add this too; 11. then add add the chilli flakes, coriander, turmeric, stevia, and coconut; 12. simmer for a few minutes then return the cauliflower and other veggies along with the chickpeas and garam masala; 13. gently simmer for a further five minutes or more; 14. check seasoning and serve.

The lemon was overlooked - I'd maybe use tamarind next time anyway.

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

Sunday, low-carb day two-hundred and forty-five, weekend feed day

Weigh-in at start of day wt. 108.4lbs (analogue scales corrected ~106.5lbs); 0lbs gain / loss
... t.measures - ub. 28.5, w. 25.5, t. 30.25, h. 34.25 inches

After yesterday's excess rations, I'm not *quite* sure how the scales aren't showing a gain! But I get the feeling that I've hit the maximum water-weight gain from a continued high carbohydrate intake, so there won't be any further water-weight gain even if I continue on the same monster carb intake... Well, that's my guess. I'd actually rather take my carb intake back down and not put it to the test.

Have been torturing myself the whole day with bookkeeping and interview stuff - to what ends I'm not sure, other than a goodly frazzling of nerves. However, I *think* that I might finally have "got a grip" in one respect: I need to view this as an opportunity to show how bloomin' good I am for the post, and not view it as an awful / horrid / terrifying / inquisitional ordeal. Trouble is, I'm having an affy hard time putting my last *utterly dreadful* interview performance behind me. Back in my techie days, I had sufficient confidence in my technical abilities that it was only personnel / the personal that was likely to snag me (and then the techie guys would over-rule HR - I really was rather good). Nowadays I've zero confidence in owt, and though I do know how to use a spreadsheet, set up a database, answer a 'phone and empty a bin (along with being a seriously pedantic and accurate record keeper - just see my food log) these things don't have *quite* the same clout. I'm actually excited about this job and, as it's a positively life enhancing organisation, I would genuinely like to work there - but how to get that one over without sounding like a sycophant? Fatalism about the interview doesn't seem appropriate somehow, but still I'm hoping that "what's for me won't go by me", and I'll simply have to try and still my nerves and do my best.

So, food today has not been high on my list of priorities - other than to eat it. And considerably more than I meant to - especially given yesterday - but I'm *determined* to be relaxed about it (?!). Lovely sainser's Greek salad, plus quorn etc. But I was teased and tormented by OH's dinner of fried eggs & beans etc., so then made my own OLS bread and had two eggies on toast as well...

These last four days have been completely out of order - some 8300 calories between them, which is nearly enough for a week of 1200c/day! Thank goodness this WoE is so forgiving - repair tomorrow - but I don't think I should be repeating this performance in the near future, one really *can't* have *two* binge days in one week. Saturday's downfall was the coffee and cream - so I'll blame the VBF for leading me astray (VBF can drink 600ml of the creamy stuff and it doesn't even touch her sides). Well, there's nothing like trying to abrogate responsibility for ones misdemeanors - it's actually not something I really do and, in this case, 'tis quite hopeless as it was me who drank the cream, nobody forced me

........ Calories 2054.10 Carbs 69.06 Fat 119.37 Protein 62.83 Fibre 18.92

[janeg]

wee bit late FatDog but arrabest, whit's fur ye willnae go by ye.
And fingers crossed- sometimes you just 'know'. Hope this is the one

Good luck FatDog I know from recent experience what these interviews can be like, it's much worse preparing for them than actually doing them, especially if you've had bad experiences in the past.