Curiously Charis

I had a goal in mind. Lose 9.5lb in 25 days. Can't be that hard right?! I have my holiday at the end of the month, I thought it was a good enough challenge for the timescale. But this is me we're talking about. Not only am I slow to lose weight anyway, I also hate restricting my diet too much. A nice, normal achievable goal for me is 1lb a week, then I can still have a few treats, so long as I workout, too. There was pretty much no way I was going to achieve this - still, I set my mind to it. How good would I feel on the beach on holiday if I got to my goal?! Well, turns out it wasn't to be. Friday weigh in one - maintained. Friday weigh in two - down 2.5lb. Hallelujah! Friday weigh in three - down 1lb. Friday weigh in four - up 1.5lb. WTF?! As you can see, I didn't make it to 9.5lb. As I realised I wasn't going to reach my goal, I did the unhealthy thing and decided to beat myself up about it. I thought to myself - "If only I'...

Peppers stuffed with quorn mince  So, this week was the week we struggled a little bit. And mostly, it wasn't really the choices for the dinner we were cooking, but the lack of options for eating out, buying our lunch or having a takeaway. I went to Costa for breakfast this morning and had a long sigh looking at the egg and mushroom sandwich. It's just not a sausage sarnie is it! If they'd have sold a veggie sausage sarnie, I would massively have gone for it. I guess there's just not the demand for it - so there's not the choice! My version of huervos rancheros  But dinners have been good again - apart from all the cooking from scratch meaning the dishwasher has had to go on everyday haha. Swedish quorn meatballs!  This week for dinner we've made a veggie ploughmans, mac 'n' cheese, quorn stuffed peppers, Swedish meatballs and Huevos Rancheros amongst other things, but lunches have been difficult again. I made wraps, Phil had s...

Katsu tofu curry supplies! We've now done 16 days of vegetarian goodness and we're still feeling good! Apart from one morning when Phil had to have chicken nuggets (we went and got some quorn ones for lunch...) and me really fancying some sort of Chinese (well, I suppose you could have beancurd?!) We've not had any wobbles. This week we've had all kinds of food... A homemade leek and broccoli pasta bake, halloumi and portobello mushroom peri peri flatbreads a la Nando's, Linda MaCartney mozzarella burgers and a Tofu katsu curry and vegan schnitzel. All good all in all! Pretend 'Nando's' halloumi flatbreads  Lunches have still been tough. I've had feta and red pepper tarts with salad, as well as some salad boxes from Morrisons, which have quite a bit of veggie stuff in - from falafel to couscous to noodles. A working lunch as always! Meanwhile, Phil has been having soup and cheese and onion rolls, he loves the minestrone soup...

I love Christmas. And I love, love, love Christmas food. But come January 1, I'm dying for some fresh foods. I'm all down for salads and roasted Mediterranean vegetables and definitely don't want to see any sprouts. Nor any sort of desserts with raisins in. Stollen, Christmas Cake, Christmas pudding... why so many raisins?! The other thing I get bogged down with at Christmas time is the amount of meat I seem to consume. On Christmas Day, we're not just happy with a turkey, sometimes we'll even have three-bird roasts, and not content with the amount of meat we're necking we then have pigs in blankets, delicious meat-wrapped-in-even-more-meat concoctions. And sausage meat stuffing, this year ours was covered in bacon too! After all the big meals and the leftovers, I'm definitely in need of a break from meat come New Year. So it's time for a month off. I feel like there are a lot of very good reasons to eat less meat - ethical, environmental ...