Maintenance Week Six

I have had a very exciting week this week - I was at a work conference for three days at the Hilton Birmingham Metropole.  Obviously, my prime reasons for being excited were the presentations, workshops and fantastic networking opportunities *snorts with sarcastic laughter* but I was also excited by the prospect of good food and good leisure facilities.  Not to mention the fact that Jules is working in the West Midlands at the moment and we'd arranged to spend Tuesday evening together.

Sadly, with one or two exceptions, the conference food was not good, and I was very disappointed - I expected a lot better from a Hilton.  In general it was bland, badly presented and badly served mass catering with a lot of very basic mistakes being made.  Some of the hot food not being hot was one mistake, and a distinct lack of cutlery was another...knives seemed in short supply for the entire three days! 

However, the leisure facilities were fantastic, and as I'd done no exercise at all last week I was determined to make the most of them.  Accordingly, Tuesday evening saw me and Jules in the hotel gym.  My running so far has been very ad hoc (I'm kind of training to run 10k but not officially) - I've been really enjoying the ad hoc-ness actually - and has mainly consisted of trying to run further each time rather than trying to run faster.  So I decided to take advantage of having access to a treadmill to do some speedwork and a tempo run.  Tuesday evening was speedwork day - I ran a very easy mile, then ran for a minute on setting 6.0 on the treadmill (I couldn't work out how fast that actually was!), and then ran for a minute on setting 6.5.  I managed to repeat three times before deciding that if I did it again death - or at least vomiting - would be a very real possibility and finished off with a very easy run to 2 miles.  The whole thing took me about 30 minutes (ironically slower than I would have run it if I hadn't been doing speedwork, but never mind!) and I felt BRILLIANT afterwards...talk about the runner's high, I was absolutely exhilarated.  Jules and I decided to have room service afterwards, and pizza and Haagen Dazs leapt off the menu at us (how does that happen?!).  We ordered one bruschetta, one pizza and one salad between us and a little tub of Haagen Dazs each.  And they were amazing!  When Jules phoned down the lady who took the call asked if we'd mind waiting about forty-five minutes as the pizzas were cooked to order, and it was worth every minute of the wait - the bruschetta were delicious little morsels of tomato, goats cheese and pesto, the pizza was as fresh as anything, with lovely light dough, lots of Mediterranean vegetables and olives and just enough cheese, and the salad was fresh, tasty and drenched in a beautiful dressing.  I don't usually have dressing on my salads so it was a big treat!  The Haagen Dazs needs no words...the whole thing couldn't have been more perfect after a hard exercise session.

In spite of our pizza feast I was still glowing from my run on Wednesday morning and well ready for my breakfast (and also, I have to say, paralysed in the calf region, the treadmill must exercise different bits of the legs from running outside!).  And breakfast didn't disappoint.  There was a vast range of food, and I decided to start with muesli and low-fat natural yoghurt as I was really fancying some protein.  The basic muesli was nice, but there were also dishes of dates, pecan nuts, hazelnuts and sultanas and what I ended up with was AMAZING.  The dates and pecan nuts gave the whole thing a sticky-toffee pudding taste and the yoghurt really hit the spot.  I followed this up with a bowl of chopped melon, grape and pineapple (bliss) and then decided that the loaf of speciality bread which was sitting temptingly in a little warmer was just too tempting to resist.  And I was so glad I didn't...it was GORGEOUS.  It was wholemeal, and I think it was made with walnuts because it was beautifully moist and had a lovely nutty flavour.  Oats on the outside finished it off to perfection...well, no, the butter and honey with which I slathered it did that!  I don't eat bread much, so this was the most decadent and delicious treat.  I relived the taste sensations throughout the entire morning, and resolved to treat myself to some speciality bread for weekend breakfast decadence next time I was passing a farmers' market or other such outlet.   

Possibly due to my gargantuan breakfast I decided that a serious exercise session was in order on Wednesday afternoon.  I took myself off to the gym, but rather than using the weights machines, which I'm not a fan of, I made up my own arms and core circuit (decided to leave my poor legs alone!).  I warmed up on the rowing machine, then did 3 sets of 10 press-ups, 3 sets of 10 bicep curls, 3 sets of tricep dips (have I got bicep and tricep the right way round?!), 3 sets of 10 sit-ups, 3 sets of 10 oblique crunches and 3 minute-long planks (well, I think the first one or two were minute-long, the others were just aspirational!).  I repeated once, and that took me up to half-an-hour so I called it a day.  It's amazing how quickly you lose fitness - for various reasons I hadn't been to Body Tone for four or five weeks and I could really feel it.  My muscles were sore for days afterwards too, so I definitely gave them a good work-out!  After my circuits I did a quick change and treated myself to a delicious soak in the jacuzzi.  Then I hopped into the pool for 30 length-lets (it was a small pool!), 15 breast stroke and 15 front crawl.  It took about 15 minutes.  Then I had a truly amazing session in the sauna.  My room in the hotel was very cold (an arctic gale was blowing round the edges of the window) and I'd not slept very well the previous night because I was so cold, so it was truly blissful to be properly warm.  I stretched out full-length on the bench and basked in the heat and the smell of hot wood.  My aching calves liked it too!

I was so desparate to get on the treadmill one more time before the end of the conference that I was up at 6.30am on Thursday morning - which was quite impressive to say that it was the "Gala Dinner" the night before.  There was definitely lots of food (Mediterranean vegetable tian, Chicken Florentine and Blueberry and Lemon Shortbread Stack - not bad at all) and lots of a rather nice Australian Shiraz, and there may also have been disco dancing.  I cunningly put the quilt from the other bed in my room over me as well as my own though so I was toasty warm all night and slept like a log.  I decided that anything I did exercise-wise would be a bonus, so with that in mind attempted to run for as long as I could on setting 6.0, which I'd worked out by then was a 10-minute mile pace.  This is the pace that I want to run my 10k at, so I was slightly perturbed that I couldn't keep it up for all that long, I kept having to walk for a minute or two every 15 minutes or so.  That could just have been because of the late night/wine/early morning combination though.  I managed about 2 miles more or less at a 10-minute mile pace so it was a good first tempo run and interesting to feel what a 10-minute mile pace is actually like.  I treated myself to a few minutes in the jacuzzi and then the sauna afterwards - blissful again! 

The hotel food hit a new low on Thursday, which led to me coming home starving hungry and demolishing everything in my path - as a result I was seriously surprised to weigh in at 9st 0lbs, BMI 21.9.  Body fat is 29.3% this week!  I think I might have to be careful next week to offset all my food and wine in spite of this result! 

By Book or By Crook Recipe Review: Courgettes Stuffed with Spiced Lamb

By Book or By Crook is a very nice website which I discovered through one of my favourite bloggers, Cherry Menlove.  All the recipes look delicious, but I'd just snapped up three very reduced courgettes from Co-op, and my decision was made: Courgettes Stuffed with Spiced Lamb. 

It was a welcome departure from Winter cooking, as a) it wasn't a stew, b) it wasn't made with Winter vegetables (I love eating seasonally, but I am SO over celeriac...) and c) it was full of delicious Spring-like flavours.  It was easy to make, and very very tasty.  I shall defintely do this recipe again, and I'm looking forward to trying other recipes from this website.

Making the stuffed courgettes was very easy.

I mixed the lamb, red onions, tomato, mint, pine nuts and spices together - the smell was heavenly.  The spices were sweet and exotic and the mint was fresh and cool...bliss.  I happened to have some feta cheese hanging around in the fridge rapidly approaching its sell by date, and I added that too.  Lots of seasoning went in too.

Then I scraped out the middle of the courgettes with a teaspoon and snugged lamb mixture into its little beds.  The recipe said to then pour over 2tbsps olive oil, but to reduce the number of points in the dish I didn't (and it still ended up tasting delicious).

Whilst the stuffed courgettes were baking I made the mint yoghurt - 0% fat Greek yoghurt (still obsessed...), chopped cherry tomatoes, chopped mint, salt and pepper.

I served the baked courgettes very simply on a bed of rocket. 

They were AMAZING.  The lamb was sweet and spicy and fresh all at once, and the mint yoghurt was an amazng accompaniment, again very fresh tasting.  The rocket added a lovely kick.  I can't wait to have this again - it would be delicious with aubergine as well as courgette. 

Maintenance Week Five

It's been a very unusual week.  For the first time in a long time I've done no exercise at all.  Not a sausage.  Icy roads and the tail end of a bad cold have kept me from the bike and Body Tone respectively.  As a result, I weighed in at 9st this week even though I stuck well within my daily and weekly points (body fat was up to 30% according to the scales!).  Not a problem, although I must admit I do like to see 8st when I weigh in, even if is 8st 13lbs!  I'm determined to do a LOT more exercise next week though - no exercise is not good! 

BBC Good Food Recipe Review: Mexican Chicken Stew

I decided to cook up a Mexican feast for my official birthday celebration meal - Mexican food is always exciting!  I'd had my eye on this Mexican Chicken Stew with Quinoa and Beans for some time and it didn't disappoint.  Another really easy, tasty dish from BBC Good Food.

All you had to do to make the dish was fry red onions and peppers ( I love the way Mexican food is always so colourful)...

...add chipotle paste (fortunately I tasted before adding, because the recipe said 3 tablespoons, and I only used 2 teaspoons and it still blew my little socks off!), tinned tomatoes and water...

...pop the chicken breasts in and simmer for 20 minutes or so.

While the stew was simmering I put the quinoa on to boil (add the pinto beans at the last minute) and made guacamole!

I was a bit too over-excited by the time the stew was ready to take any photos, but the recipe made three more portions for the freezer which was a big bonus as it was delicious - spicy, tasty and fresh thanks to the coriander and lime.  And the quinoa and pinto beans added a lovely earthy dimension.  I look forward to eating this again!

Pudding was a nice cup of tea and a home-made chocolate brownie, which was part of an amazing birthday gift from a lovely and generous friend.  It was pure perfection!

 

Maintenance Week Four

Ugh, what a week.  I've had a cold, in spite of which I've cycled to work twice, I've had a tooth out and I've done a load of extra hours at work (and still haven't got everything done I need to do).  On the plus side, it was my birthday on Wednesday (the day I had my tooth out) and I got so many lovely cards and texts and messages and pressie, I felt very lucky and spoilt. 

I treated myself to a little birthday present too:

Size eight slim-fit jeans!  I've worn boot-cut for about the past eighteen years so this is a serious departure.  Especially when worn tucked into boots, but Alastair says they look okay.

Even better, when I weighed in on Thursday - having stuck to 26 points all week in a post-holiday manner - I weighed in at 8st 13lbs, BMI 21.1 and - freakishly seeng as I haven't had liposuction - body fat percentage 21.4%.  I have been having my suspicions about the body fat percentage function on the scale I use to weigh myself for sometime and this has not served to allay them!  I'm going to start tracking my body fat percentage and seeing what other strange anomalous readings I get!

Maintenance Week Three

I spent Maintenance Week Three in Tunisia!  I had a wonderful holiday with Mum and Dad, with much good food and drink, sightseeing, spa and exercise time and rest and relaxation.  I'll post about everything we saw and did in a separate post, but as far as the food goes...it was fantastic!  We stayed in a large international hotel with a mainly - although not exclusively - English clientele and both breakfast and evening meals were self-service with hot and cold buffets.  There was a fantastic range of food, especially salads, and it was easy to eat both healthily and interestingly (which is not to say I didn't treat myself a lot!).  A lot of the hot food was targeted at the English market and was, therefore, not too adventurous but there was always a North African section which I enjoyed visiting every evening.

Each morning for breakfast I ate natural yoghurt with honey and sultanas, half an orange, half a grapefruit and a handful of dates.  The citrus fruits were fantastic, juicy, sweet and so tasty, and the dates were amazing.  Not at all like the dates we get here!  My breakfasts were supplemented as and when the fancy took me with a croissant or a pain au chocolat, bread, beautiful white butter and quince jam, or delicious French-style crepes (with maple syrup!).  Not all at once I hasten to add.  And...there was coffee!  Amazing, strong coffee in ginormous quantities with hot milk .  I was in heaven. 

Lunches were enjoyed out and about, and were usually a salad topped with either tuna or chicken, but the evening meals were where we really pushed the boat out.  To start with there was an amazing range of salads (these pictures don't show the half of it!).  Every day there were grated carrots, shredded white cabbage, shredded red cabbage, raw leeks, tomatoes, lettuce, radishes and beetroot, and on top of that there were always at least four salads made of things like chopped cucumber, ham, feta cheese and tomatoes, or boiled potatoes, or rice, peas, peppers, cucumbers and tomatoes.  There were also pickled veg and olives, and at least one protein-based salad, usually chicken, sometimes tuna and sometimes egg. 

I loaded up my plate with huge amounts of veggies, a tiny bit of carbohydrate and a tiny bit of protein...and sometimes accompanied it with bread and that amazing white butter. 

I usually had something from the North African section of the buffet for my main course...couscous didn't appear until two days into the holiday though, so when it did I got very over-excited.

The couscous was served with tagine of lamb and vegetables.

The other Tunisian speciality we sampled was something called brik.  Ours had potato, onion, egg and parsley in it (I asked the chef, and told him how delicious I thought it was). 

The desserts were always patisserie, crepes or ice-cream.  

Usually I only want a taste of sweetness after a meal so most nights I only had one little patisserie in a restrained manner...except when I had two, and on one notable occasion when I had three, and a big scoop of ice-cream!  Well, I was on holiday!   In the interests of expanding my cultural horizons I also sampled makroudh, a local date-filled pastry.

Delicious, especially with coffee.

 

To accompany our evening meals we had an extremely good Tunisian red, which was easily as good as a similar French or New World wine.

We also went to a wine-tasting and sampled many more...that was fun!

What can I say about all the photos...I get excited by wine!

Exercise-wise I did really well this week.  The hotel had a lovely saltwater pool, and I swam three times.  I got up to 50 lengths, alternating front-crawl and breast-stroke (I think that was the day after the multiple puddings...).  I also fitted in a run on the shores of the Mediterranean!  I ran from the hotel along the beach to the little local town then back along the road.  It was a brilliant run...running on sand is hard but my muscles told me it was good exercise a couple of days afterwards, and after running on the sand running on the pavement felt effortless!  I'm not sure how far I ran, as Map My Run does cover Tunisia but not in enough detail to work out where I'd been, and I didn't look at the clock before I sent off, but I'm guessing it was about 5k.  I love that bit in the middle of a run when you feel like you could run forever...I am dying to increase the length of my runs. 

I even took a photo of myself after my run like a healthy living blogger (that spare tyre has got to go...)!

Rather handily, the holiday ran Wednesday to Wednesday (by accident rather than design, I'm not that OCD about Weight Watchers) so I was able to weigh myself the day after I got back.  I'd weighed myself before and after on Mum's scales and there looked to be about half a stone difference, so I was thrilled to bits when I got on the Boots scales and they read 9st 2lbs!  BMI 22.2, body fat 27.3%. Excellent result after a wonderful holiday.

Maintenance Week Two

I have very little to report for Maintenance Week Two, largely because when I should have been weighing myself I was in Tunisia!  I didn't manage to weigh myself before I went, but suspect I might have lost a pound or two - I was variously afflicted with a strange virus that's been going round the office and with toothache so I struggled to eat 32 points a day and didn't manage it on most days.  On the grounds that I wasn't doing as much exercise as usual and that I'd be bound to eat and drink copiously in Tunisia I didn't force myself.