This and that …… 1

” This and that “
These words bring back memories and a smile to my face. My only sibling C, my husband W and my children will remember so well that my Dad used to get a rise out of my Mom at least three times a day. She would get all huffy for a couple of seconds and he would grin in a self-satisfied way and stroll off.

How did he do this?
Every single time he stood up after breakfast he would say, ” Thanks Gog, what’s for lunch? “; after lunch he would do the same damn thing and say, “Thanks Gog, what’s for supper? “, and after … but you get my drift… My Mom would answer in an infuriated tone, ” This and That! ” and my Dad would smugly wander off to think of something else to draw attention to himself….

I really must invest in some new dictionaries. The Readers Digest Complete Word Finder and the Oxford Illustrated Dictionary – not surprisingly – do not have the word gogga listed but it does feature in the ” Tweetalige Skool-Woordeboek ” 1988 edition! An Afrikaans word meaning ” insect “, my Dad used the abbreviation “gog” as a pet name for my Mom – unusual in that neither my Mom nor Dad had any Afrikaans connections.

This is getting entirely off the point of this post – fiddling again!
Back to the matter in hand.

Succumbing to sheer laziness, I have had the following for breakfast, so far:
2 x Ouma Nutri Rusks (Intermediate GI)
1 x mug coffee (Jacobs Cronat Gold), with skim milk and 2 sweeteners (Equi-Sweet Blue)
   I also use Equi-Sweet Green but the green dispensers always seem to get jammed up.
   My all time favourite granulated sweetener Sweet Pea is only used on porridge and then only very sparingly.

Not too good hey? BUT not anything that I am not ” allowed ” to have. My point is that W & I work hard to have only ” legal ” foodstuffs in our home. I actually dislike calling food ” legal ” and ” illegal ” – comes from the days when Jean Nidetch founded Weight Watchers in New York yonks ago.

Even with my health challenges including DM II, there is no foodstuff forbidden to me – just have to know how to incorporate the item with other far better choices. Thus diluting/lowering  the glycemic effect of the (usually High GI ) item. We both like Checkers Decaff coffee and will tootle out later (when I can bestir myself to get showered and dressed) to get more.

What we will also do this morning is boil up 6 (Canola) eggs and I will chomp a hard-boiled egg with a teeny sprinkle of Low Salt and some freshly ground black pepper just now. Thus having 2 x carb + 1 x protein for my breakfast.

We keep to a maximum of 4 eggs each per week. These are often hard boiled. Sometimes we also spray a small non-stick frying pan with olive oil spray and fry ourselves an egg to have on low GI toast for breakfast. Once again, sprinkled with S + P as above, together with a dash of Worcestershire sauce.   A dash of  Light All Gold Tomato Sauce or Sweet Chilli sauce would be nice as well.  Note, I said a dash! 🙂 Once again, protein + carb = cool! We also sometimes use 1 x tsp olive oil heated in the non-stick pan and fry the eggs in that; giving an additional 1/2 fat to the day’s total. And yes, we do measure the oil.

Talking about toast – which I love to eat and my spouse does not – I am very particular about bread.
The simple rule is: If the label/packaging of the bread does not include the actual words ” Low GI “, I do not buy it. It’s just that simple.

My personal eating plan allows about 5 complex (starch) carbs per day. I have tried – oh how I have tried over the years – to like coarse bread that tastes like chipboard. OK, OK, as I imagine chipboard would taste! I know all about the linseed and soy loaves, the rye breads and the like. Just cannot get past one slice at the most. If I make my Ultimate Sandwich on rye, I tend to end up eating the protein and salad sandwich filling and not the bread!

We have settled on the following breads in our house:
Albany Brown Seed low GI (Yellow)
Albany White low GI (Lime green-do not confuse with ‘ ordinary ‘ green label one)
Sasko Low GI True Whole Wheat brown loaf
We buy the loaves and freeze them, taking out only what we require. Experiment with thawing times in the microwave and you will have lovely fresh, soft bread for the Ultimate Sandwich or whatever!

I would say that by changing your bread selections to only those specifically labelled ‘low GI’ you can reduce spiking of your glucose levels considerably. It is important to note that curbing spikes in glucose levels – in my experience – is as important for non-diabetics as it is for diabetics/pre-diabetics.

Do you get the munchies mid-afternoon? That’s low blood sugar folks!
My W-L plan lists two afternoon snacks – early afternoon (2-4pm) as well as a late afternoon snack (4-6 pm). I also have a mid-morning snack – making 3 snacks per day in all. This totally in keeping with lowGI/low GL eating guidelines.

Mid-morning is 1 x fruit + 1 x milk.
     I have a fruit (mostly a small crisp apple from the fridge) and 175 ml fat free fruit yoghurt.
Early afternoon is usually another fruit.
I love pears, grapes, kiwi, orange, all the berries. The peaches have been to die for this year and we have eaten a lot of them.
Late afternoon is 1 x Complex (starchy) carb + 1/2 protein.
possibly 3 Finn Crisps with PnP low fat hummus or cottage cheese or lower fat cheese.

Try it, it works!
Talk later, E

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The Weigh-Less Option……. 1

Good morning all

Hopefully this quick post finds you all well and chirpy this morning? 🙂
Here in Cape Town the days are slowly but surely closing in and winter is on the way.

One of my biggest resources and something I have not really mentioned much so far on this blog is the “The Weigh-Less Option”. By that I mean that I opted to ‘go back to Weigh-Less’ – as many people do – when I decided to take charge of my health and wellness.

Note please that I said ‘take charge of my health and wellness’. I did not say (or even think) that I decided to go on a diet again! I dislike the word ‘diet’ immensely and the word has not featured in my vocabulary for a very long time.

I returned to the Weigh-Less programme for one reason only – no! – make that two reasons.
Reason 1: The programme works!
Reason 2: Mary opted for GI/GL
Let me explain.

Mary Holroyd is the pint sized dynamo who founded the organisation on 25th February 1975. Today, 35 years down the line and in her early sixties, she shows no signs of slowing down and I am very much looking forward to attending a ‘Mary Event’ in Bellville next week. I last saw her ‘in the flesh’ in the late 1970’s when she addressed an open meeting in a church hall in Scottsville, Pietermaritzburg.

The programme as presented by Weigh-Less has changed and adapted to new nutrition guidelines over the years and the cherry on the top for me was when I noted last year that the eating plan was based on Good, Better, Best options with Best being low GI foods.

Perfect for me with all my lifestyle induced health issues and I hasten to add pretty darn perfect for anyone wanting to reach optimum weight and wellness. The formula allocated to me has been vetted by two dieticians as well as my doctor and very little if any tweaking of the plan was required.

My husband has joined me on my odyssey and is also achieving good results. I have put him on the same eating regime with slightly increased quantities of starchy carbs, fat and protein.

Am I being paid by Weigh-Less to write this piece? 🙂 Hell no! As you may realise by now, I write about what works for me. I get a discounted rate as a member of Discovery Vitality and I pay by monthly debit order so I do not feel the cost at all. The cost is simply factored into my monthly budget and that’s that!

I think they also have a contract type scheme on offer at this time. I will check it out and report back here at the weekend.

Do yourselves a favour, go out and get hold of the latest Weigh Less magazine at your nearest supermarket or bookseller. The 35th anniversary issue is really special and has all the lowdown on the Woman and Man of the Year winners and finalists. Something there too for the men in our lives!

Laziest cook on earth. 2

Keeping up with my laziest cook on earth appellation, I offer the quickest pud on the planet:

APPLE DESSERT (per person)

100g Unsweetened tinned pie apples
100g Nestle Dialite Vanilla Frozen Dessert
Powdered sweetener to taste
Ground cinnamon to taste

Prepare in individual bowls.
Sprinkle pie apples with sweetener and cinnamon, stir lightly.
Top with the diet ice cream

Nutritional Information: (apples)
GI: Low
GL: +- 11
Weigh-Less: 1 x Best fruit + 1 x Good milk
Energy kJ: 602
Energy calories: 144
Protein: 4g
Carbs: 32g
Fat: 0.1g
Fibre: 8.2g

Variations:
Use fresh or slightly defrosted berries – sans the cinnamon – divine!
All the berries are wonderfully low GI; with gooseberries & strawberries carrying a particularly low glycemic load.

Weigh-Less fruit portions per serving would be:
Strawberries: 150g (yeah! not for nothing do we always see Patrick Holford holding a strawberry aloft!)
Blueberries, blackberries, mulberries: 120g
Gooseberries, raspberries: 100g

If you feel so inclined, this dessert can be dressed up with some (Low GI) muesli sprinkled on the apples.
Instead of the diet ice cream, you could use Lite Long Life Custard – lovely!
NB to count the added kJ etc!

Laziest cook on earth. 1

One of the comments I often hear is that ‘dieting is expensive’.
‘The foods you have to eat cost a lot more’, they say.

Well people in all honesty that can be true (frozen ready cooked slimmers meals), but also NOT TRUE at all.

One of the foods that we should all eat a lot more of is beans; in fact all of the dried pulses, legumes and grains. Plant protein and in the main dirt cheap. As dirt cheap as food can get these days that is.

To that end, I would direct your attention to beans.

Contrary to what some people may think, baked beans on toast is a good healthy fat free/low GI/lower GL meal. Just make sure that the bread is low GI (if it does not specifically state ‘Low GI’ on the bread bag, I will not buy it) and that you do not slather the bread with butter or margerine. The tomato sauce is more than enough liquid to ensure you are not eating dry toast.

My Benutriwise calculates the nutritional information for this meal as follows:

BAKED BEANS ON TOAST – Serves 1
1 slice toast (Albany Superior Brown Seed Low GI bread -yellow label)
130g baked beans in tomato sauce (Checkers house brand Baked Beans in Tomato Sauce)

GI: Low
GL: +- 20
Weigh-Less: 1 x Complex Carb + 1 x Protein
Energy kJ 844
Energy calories 202
Protein 8g
Carbs 38g
Fat 0.76g
Fibre 2.77g
Sodium 464.2mg
Other nutrients featuring in this meal include Vitamins A and some of the B’s, calcium, iron and zinc.
Depending on the time of day, add a good green salad and you’re good to go!

The cheapest of all beans are the dried variety and in my next post I will tell you how to cook and freeze quantities of these plant protein powerhouses.

I will also publish my favourite recipe for “Old Fashioned Bean Soup”. Lekker – not many of my crowd dislike the lovely beans, bacon and potatoes in this thick, chunky winter meal in a bowl.

That’s cool man! – as we say this side of the mountain..

What’s cool?

My weight loss of 1.1kg this week! BMI now 32.7.
I should explain that I have 2 ‘weigh-in’ days a week – Thursdays at my Weigh-Less class and on Sundays when my husband & I weigh-in on our good electronic scale.
The experts agree that a target of .5 to 1kg per week is achievable and safe healthwise. My own weekly goal is .5kg and this I can achieve quite easily.

The comment I hear all the time is, ‘Great stuff Eileen – but how are you doing it EXACTLY?’ I will try to be more specific about this in my posts but it MUST be borne in mind that there is no ‘one size fits all’ remedy when it comes to our own unique health issues. Your health professional will help you to determine – WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF YOUR OVERALL HEALTH STATUS – the balance of protein, carbs and fat you should be consuming.

What could you do RIGHT NOW to kick start your own journey to better health and vitality?
For me, the short answer was to ‘UP’ water, fruit, veg and wholegrains and ‘DOWN’ unhealthy trans and saturated fats. That’s it.

I will be writing later today about how I record my progress. The experts all agree that keeping a food diary is KEY and I will be telling you about an amazing little software application I have discovered. Inexpensive, simple to use and developed right here in South Africa.

‘See’ you later – I am off to find my favourite brand of lite ice tea before my son IT buys up all the stock!

My Ultimate Breakfast

After much trial and error I have come up with, for me, the ultimate breakfast. Fat free, low GI, and sustaining energy until it’s time to eat again! You may like to try it.

Some days writing comes to me easily; and on days like today it does not! So I will just jump right in and post my breakfast ‘concoction’!
You will need:-

20g (scant 1/3 cup) traditional oats.
(I also use All Bran flakes as a change – larger quantity)
⅛ tsp Low salt
10g (rounded dessertspoon) raw oat bran
10g (rounded dessertspoon) lightly ground seeds (Miracles Plus Plus)
10g (rounded dessertspoon) goji berries – say “go-chee”!
1/3 cup (82ml) fat free milk
1/2 tsp cinnamon (I use organic for what it’s worth!)
1 x sachet Fibre Clear
Sweetener of your choice. Optional.
I use an outrageously expensive sweetener called Sweet Pea. A mixture of erythritol and stevia – looks and tastes like sugar. Zero kj; zero GI; zero GL!

Microwave the oats, salt and enough cold water to form a soft porridge.
Then add the raw oat bran, seeds, goji berries, cinnamon and Fibre Clear.
Add about 1/3 cup fat free milk and sweetener to taste.

Enjoy! I love my creation and it really does hold me until late morning or even lunchtime!