Sunday 15 August 2010

A bit mopey

Apparently I've been a bit too far out of my comfort zone and now that I'm back in it, I feel a lot better.  I've eaten food I've made, regularly, and been to the gym, had lots of sleep, and vacuumed the house and now despite the quite impressive abs, shoulders, quads and arms DOMS, I feel good.  Good, but not great.  I think I really need a holiday and it's a while yet until we go.

I've cleaned and re-greased my bike chain and Mr TOTKat pumped up the tyres for me.  I've also pottered a bit in the kitchen, made some roasted red pepper houmous...

Roasted Red Pepper Houmous, Serves 6

Per serving:-
Calories (kcal)147
Carbohydrate (g)11.2
Protein (g)4.5
Fat (g)9.4
Fibre (g)2.0
Fruit & Veg1.1
  • 30ml Lemon Juice
  • 1 clove Garlic
  • 25ml Extra Virgin Olive Oil
  • 1 Can/240g Chick Peas, in Water, Canned, Drained, Organic
  • 25g Tahini Paste
  • 1tsp salt
  • 15ml Grapeseed Oil (or other unflavoured oil)
  • 2 Red Peppers
  • Black pepper to taste
 De-seed and remove the stalks from the peppers, chop roughly and place on a baking try.  Drizzle with 10ml of the olive oil and a sprinkle of salt and roast for 30-40 minutes in a medium oven until soft and darkened.  Remove from the oven and place into a mixing bowl with all of the other ingredients.  Blend to desired texture with a hand blender and season with salt and black pepper to taste.  Serve with toasted pitta or raw vegetables for dipping.

B - toasted Food Doctor wholemeal seeded bagel with Marmite and a poached egg
S - greek yogurt with strawberries and mango
L - two Waitrose wholemeal pittas, toasted, with roasted red pepper houmous
S - a slice of Sainsburys SO Organic stoneground wholemeal bread, toasted, with a tin of Heinz Beanz
D - chicken salad with lettuce, red peppers, boiled egg and new potatoes

Calories (kcal)
[kcals to maintain weight (inc. exercise)
1707
1790]
Protein (g) 111.3 (27%)
Carbohydrate (g) 223.2 (50.7%)
Fat (g) 41.0 (22.3%)
Fibre (g) 30.8
Fruit & Veg 9.4

I need to work on shifting the protein balance back up high again. It's always a bit tricky at weekends when I'm doing less exercise, but it's also tricky on days when I'm cycling as I have so many kcals I need to eat, it gets tricky to keep the protein % high and not have really expensive days in terms of food. Cottage cheese and yogurt help a lot there, but by themselves they're a bit boring, especially in terms of texture, so I end up adding fruit or oat cakes and up goes the carb level. I could try just flaked almonds or other chopped nuts I guess...

7 comments:

  1. The houmous looks delicious, I really should make my own more often especially as its so simple rather than buying the shop bought stuff all the time x

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  2. Hi. Me again..

    From everything I've read, food %s aren't as important as hard numbers, especially when you're eating a lot more (through exercise) or less (through dieting), as they'll be skewed anyway.

    For protein, anything between 1.2 and 1.8g / kg of bodyweight is bandied around for active people. Above that and science suggests you can't process it anyway (though you know science..) So for me, that makes anything around 100g good. I think from there, you're good to top up calories with things like oatcakes and stuff, as that's what you need for all the cycling :)

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  3. Laura: it took me ages to get around to making it myself and it's so quick and easy! It's always fresh when you want it, you know exactly what's in it -and- it works out very very very slightly cheaper than the shop bought stuff :o) As long as I make sure I've always got chick peas in, the rest is a matter of taste.

    Alison: ah, the bits I'd read said 1g per lb of bodyweight, so a teensy bit more, but yes, it does look like the actuals are the important bit for protein at least (I used to aim for 140g and these days with the amount I'm eating, that's almost easy!). Plus, as you say, as I'm doing a reasonable amount of cycling I am going to need the carbs to fuel that.

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  4. Made the red pepper hummus last night. I couldn't locate tahini in our supermarket, so I purchased a tahini peanut butter substitute instead. I also added in about three teaspoons of red chili pepper to add some kick. Fantastic recipe!

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  5. Nice twist on the recipe there! Was that Tahini peanut butter a peanut butter with added sesame paste/seeds or was it a butter made with sesame seeds?

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  6. Tahini was a peanut-butter substitute. Foods for peanut allergy sufferers has become a big business over here in the last 10 years. There are about a half dozen different peanut butter substitutes that you can get. I noticed this one accidentally when I was looking for the paste. I still cannot find the paste anywhere in my grocery store. Perhaps I'm looking in the wrong spots.

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  7. I think it might be tahini paste and the right thing then anyway - http://www.truestarhealth.com/Notes/1928007.html

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