Oops!

So I set the Star Chef to make us a lovely sausage casserole for when we got home last night.  When I came through the front door at the end of the day... hm... no smell of yumminess.  *confused*  The thing was sitting there, still saying "06:00" and not cooking or counting down.  And that should have been my clue... Not. Counting. Down.  The 6 hour preset start time I'd put in was not, in fact, a 6 hour count down to the start of cooking but the time it would -finish- cooking.  6am today!

So.  Having checked the actual manual, I re-set it to finish cooking at 10am today and keep warm (for up to 24 hours after finishing) so it should start just before I left the house this morning.  And it did.  Phew!  So.  Yummy casserole will happen tonight instead. (and we went to the local Italian for dinner last night instead - I had 1/2 a thin and crisp tomato/garlic bread, canneloni and a couple of small glasses of Prosecco)

Holiday(s) - Part II

Friday came around again and off we set back down to Cornwall again.

I felt a bit sick all the way there... what if it was the wrong week again? (of course it wasn't, I'd heard the woman say we were booked for 24th, so... well, it never stops the fear though, does it?)  The journey wasn't too bad and we knew the way already so that was handy.

Everything was right this time though and having unpacked the car, we headed to the local pub for dinner.  Heavenly fish and chips, though I'd originally wanted the beef lasagne there wasn't any left so I gave in and had the fried option.  I had more than half of the batter, which says a lot for the quality of the batter as I usually leave at least 2/3rds of it unless it is phenomenally light and crispy.  And having discovered Tribute ale from the St Austell brewery in Part I, we tucked into a couple of pints and finally relaxed.

I think I cooked dinner all of twice in the whole week - we picked up some local beef and duck at the food fair in Truro at the weekend and had steak early in the week and duck right at the end.  In between was a lot of pub dinners and a trip to Rick Stein's "The Seafood Restaurant" in Padstow (with a round trip taxi journey at £110!).  Stein's was great.  Really great.  We had the 7 course tasting menu with wine recommended by the sommelier and every course was really lovely right down to the puff-light pavlova at the end which left us not feeling stuffed at all, just nicely full and happy.  And, for a top-notch restaurant tasting menu it wasn't desperately expensive.  Very happy customers.

Oh, and on the one day of glorious sunshine, we hired a couple of mountain bikes from the Bike Barn and cycled the "Coast to Coast Trail" - 22ish miles of almost flat track and trail through nature reserves, along a river, past an old arsenic mine and, of course, a coast at either end.

Deviation

I did have a sneaky run on Sunday and then yesterday cycled into work, had a weights session during the day and cycled home again.  So, after 8 consecutive days of exercise, I've decided it's a good idea to rest today rather than cycle in, do open water training and cycle home again.  My body is complaining at me.  It doesn't help that Mr TOTKat and I spontaneously went for dinner at our local Italian last night and the 1/2 bottle of wine (or less, I just didn't seem to be able to drink much of it) hit me quite hard again.  I really enjoyed the evening, but made a bad choice with my main course of lasagne.  Nothing wrong with lasagne per se, it was just mostly pasta and not a lot of filling so it was stodgy and heavy.  The scales have been surprisingly kind this morning!

B - MP Total Breakfast with skimmed milk and blueberries
*cycle*
S - greek yogurt with mango and Dorset Cereals fruity muesli
*gym*
S - 1 scoop MP Max in skimmed milk
L - lettuce, peppers, tomatoes, celery and chicken breast
S - cottage cheese on 2 oat cakes
S - banana and strawberries
S - fruit, nut and seed bar
*cycle*
D - calamari, lasagne, white wine and a latte

Calories (kcal) [kcals to maintain weight (inc. exercise)	2890 2999]
Protein (g)	169.0 (24.4%)
Carbohydrate (g)	291.4 (39.5%)
Fat (g)	88.8 (28.8%)
Fibre (g)	22.5
Fruit & Veg	9.7

Slight diversion

Wednesday was good.  I had another go at my current weights routine as my trainer needed to reschedule but I wasn't properly recovered from the bad-ass negatives I've been doing.  Another prawn dinner, only this time I put in 1.5 chillies as the 1/2 chilli I had last time wasn't enough.  Heh.  *sweat* *pant*  ohyes it was good :o)

Exercise - 54 minutes gymming

Calories (kcal) [kcals to maintain weight (inc. exercise)	1666 2251]
Protein (g)	133.7 (32.7%)
Carbohydrate (g)	176.8 (40.6%)
Fat (g)	48.5 (26.7%)
Fibre (g)	33.8
Fruit & Veg	16.8

Thursday was a rest day and dinner out.  I had sparkling water in the pub before dinner, then a nice Bellini and some wine during dinner.  2 bottle between 4 of us and I didn't keep up with the boys, so I definitely had less than 1/2 a bottle through the meal.  However, this morning... hangover.  Not headachey, just really tired, a bit sick-feeling and constantly hungry.  *sigh*  Dinner was really nice though.  I had beef tartare with toasted bits of bread to start (see! looks gorgeous, doesn't it?) and Sea Bream with chicory and fennel for my main course.  No dessert and still not too badly over maintenance kcals for the day.  And a quite impressive protein grammage for a non-exercise day too!

Calories (kcal) [kcals to maintain weight (inc. exercise)	2048 1791]
Protein (g)	155.2 (31.2%)
Carbohydrate (g)	144.2 (27.1%)
Fat (g)	66.7 (30.1%)
Fibre (g)	22.1
Fruit & Veg	12.1

Not really feeling the journal vibe

I'm really not feeling the journalling vibe at the moment.  Probably mostly because I've been out and not been doing very well on the keeping things sensible front.  So.  Quick round-up and probably a couple more days of quiet if I'm still not up to it tomorrow.

Monday... I had a great gym.  We went out to dinner (I had goats cheese terrine, steak with spinach and cabbage, and stilton and water biscuits at the end) to celebrate something.  I ended up lots of kcals over maintenance (2962kcals, 750kcals over maintenance) mostly due to the Bellinis before and the champagne during dinner.  We stayed out in town - fantastic blaggage on where we stayed but that's a story for another day.

Tuesday... rest day; we couldn't be bothered to cook so we ended up with takeaway.  I was still very comfortably under maintenance kcals (1646kcals, 140kcals under maintenance), but...

Wednesday... the scales punished me big-time.  Back up 1.5kg again.  Yeah I had saltiness in the takeaway, but seriously.  *sigh*

Gym today was good and bad.  I was "helped" by some guy who told me that seeing as my planks looked so comfortable (hah!) I should try lifting alternate legs, or doing Superman planks.  Yeah.  Thanks.  I do know how to progress planks and actually I was trembling during those planks.  However, my arms did feel amazing during and after my clean and presses, buzzing/fizzing/vibrating; nice!  AND, my negative motion pull-ups are getting better and more controlled.

I got a freebie from Ocado the other day; a new snacky bar thing, branded by "Elizabeth Hurley".  I was very skeptical and then I read the ingredients and there actually wasn't any crap in it.  I tried it today after my protein shake after gym as I was still hungry (I'm having one of those "permanently hungry" days :o/)  Very sickly sweet but pretty flavourless in the end though.  It was supposed to be banana and chocolate flavoured but it was just bland and sweet.

So, not impressed and wouldn't bother actually buying these.  There are plenty of other, better products on the market already and, yeah it may have "only" 100kcals in a bar but there's nothing special about it, it didn't taste of much and it was only 26g.  Many many other, better fish in the sea.

Dinner today was not too bad in the end, despite the fact that Halloumi goes rubbery pretty quickly after cooling down.  The mango went very nicely and mint in the dressing topped it off nicely.  But, like all of the rest of today, I'm still hungry.  I am.   It's not fair.  I wish I wasn't.  But I am.  And all I really want right now is crusty, white baguette with spread, not even butter.  I could nip out and get some from the Sainsburys down the road, but I'm not going to.  This week has started off badly enough already (though the food on Monday was really good and clean too, I drank a bit too much wine) and I'm not sure how much of my current weight is transit/water etc.  So I do want to be close to my loss kcal target for the day.

B - greek yogurt with 1 scoop MP Max, fruit compote and flaked almonds
S - banana
L - salad; lettuce, celery, cherry tomatoes, beetroot, sweet pepper, Food Doctor Herb Boost, chicken breast
*gym*
S - 1 scoop MP Max in skimmed milk
S - Elizabeth Hurley bar - chocolate and banana
S - carrot and houmous
D - salad; lettuce, mint, olive oil, vinegar, mango, toasted pine nuts and grilled Halloumi

Calories (kcal) [kcals to maintain weight (inc. exercise)	1765 2220]
Protein (g)	140.8 (32.3%)
Carbohydrate (g)	137.6 (29.6%)
Fat (g)	73.7 (38.1%)
Fibre (g)	23.9
Fruit & Veg	12.2

Difficult week ahead

The weekend was great... lovely champagne on Saturday morning, best beef ever at The Cinnamon Club - a beautiful, perfectly seasoned and cooked piece of Wagyu beef(* - full menu below).  I'm  a bit miffed that we didn't get any photos of us, but there was a nice one of me:-

So.  This week.  I have the all clear from the physio so can get on with gymming etc. in theory.  But.  The first triatholon of the year (for me) is on Monday.  So I can't really go nuts.  I need to focus on swimming, running and cycling (hah!) this week and not overdo it, so no gymming allowed.

Loose plan:-
Monday - fast 400m swim, tumble-turn practice (done)

Tuesday - 5km run after work (done)
Wednesday - long cycle on the gym bikes (to toughen up my bum!)
Thursday - fast 400m swim, tumble-turn practice
Friday - medium cycle on the gym bikes (done on a real bike); 4km run after work (done - 5km), carb taper
Saturday - rest, test bike, carb taper
Sunday - rest, carb load
Monday - RACE!

There's really not enough time between now and Monday to make much of a difference than toughen my poor bottom for the cycling a bit.  The fast swims are to get back used to the feel of fast swimming after that long old 5km one.  Running will give me confidence that I can actually run more than anything else!

And here, in its full glory, is the menu from Saturday evening's dinner...

Tasting Menu with matching wines

Norwegian king crab and tamarind salad, cured organic salmon
Orvieto Classico Superiore, Castello della Sala, Umbria /Latium, Italy, 2006
-

Tandoori red snapper, coriander chutney
Torrontes, Fabre Montmayou, Mendoza, Argentina 2006
-

Steamed chickpea cake
-

Pomegranate and mint sorbet
-

Hunter’s style rabbit tikka with dill and mustard
Pinot Noir, Fraser, Murdoch James Estate, Martinborough, New Zealand, 2005
-

Baked wild African prawn with ‘kadhai’ spices
Marsanne, Saint-Joseph, M..Chapoutier, Rhône, France 2007
-

Fillet steak of Wagyu beef with stir-fried morels, saffron sauce
Cabernet Sauvignon, Jumbuk Vineyard, Clare Valley, Australia, 2001

-

Apple desserts
Coteaux du Layon St Aubin, Dom des Barres, Loire Valley, France, 2007
-

Coffee and petits fours

Accidental dinner out

My office is in an area of the city which is undergoing lots of redevelopment; scaffolding and dug up road everywhere!  Anyway, this is resulting in lots of nice eateries and cafes popping up around the office; most recently a Brasserie Blanc which I can see from my desk.  It officially opened last night so we decided at about 5pm to go for dinner :o)

We both had the starter from the specials menu; a sausage salad with tiny poached egg and potatoes:-

Which was pretty delicious.  The tiny piles of crisped wisps of onion were gorgeous!  The potatoes were just perfectly cooked and really tasted of potato, like the Castle Potatoes (a single, smallish potato still in its skin, sliced along the fat axis into 1/8" slices and, I think, roasted with no oil) I had with my slow cooked veal for main course.


Mr TOTKat (below) had steak for a main course and it was delicious!  Much better than the ones at Relais de Venise, L'Entrecote over the alley.

And it all went a bit pear-shaped after that and we ended up having loads of bread before the meal and at the end with cheese and dessert wine.  Oops!  Still!  It was a lovely night out and the food and drink was really rather good (though the cheese wasn't all that exciting, which was a tiny bit of a shame).  I don't think I'm going to be losing any more weight over the next couple of days :o)  (which is a good thing as I don't want to lose any more thanks very much!)

Coulda been worse

Totally went over yesterday... I should have realised something was up when I felt pretty squiffy part-way down a "small" (175ml) glass of wine before heading to dinner.  So, we went to "Relais de Venise" and I had my steak blue.  After more wine, the decision to have cheese after the steak was a no-brainer and by the time we got home, the alcohol really hit my stomach quite hard and I had to try to keep the nausea down by having a couple of slices of toast.  So.  Bad day in terms of staying under maintenance (basically I was waaaay over maintenance by about 1000kcals!).  Hey ho.  And, of course, seeing as I felt pretty rubbish today and my wrist is still wonky, I didn't gym today.  That final pound isn't going to drop off any time soon, methinks.

So, today was the day my "success story" was to appear in the Daily Mirror.  And, lo and behold, so it did.  We bought a copy on the way in to work this morning and flicked through enough to see it was a full page article with a huge "after" picture of me down one side.  Of course, the article isn't quite accurate in places and it's certainly embellished here and there, but it could have been a heck of a lot worse.  I'm feeling a bit weird about it all and find it even odder that other people think it is an inspiring story and can help others to lose weight too.  But, if it does that then I'm glad to have helped even in some small way.

And there was one photo from the shoot that I didn't totally hate; shame they didn't use it *cough*

Cynically speaking, the article is really just an advert for the web site I use for keeping my food and exercise journal - Weight Loss Resources - but I have no problem with that at all as that site was essential for me while I was losing weight and it continues to be as I maintain that loss.

Exercise - rest day

Calories (kcal) [kcals to maintain weight (inc. exercise)	1326 1796]
Protein (g)	138.4 (42.3%)
Carbohydrate (g)	135.9 (38.9%)
Fat (g)	27.3 (18.8%)
Fruit & Veg	14.6

*waddle*

Bit on the lardy side this morning and after the weekend I just had, it's no surprise! Last week ended around the lower 67kgs and this week starts around the lower 68kgs.

Felt coldy on the back half of last week, head cold and finding it hard to get enough air in to run up stairs etc. Still. Saturday we went out shopping a bit and ended up having a wee drinkie in Claridges bar while waiting to see if we could get afternoon tea in the tea room. 3.30pm deadline for that possiblity came and went so we carried on drinking and decide to get a bottle and some sarnies sent through from the tea room. by 7pm we were a touch sozzled and decided to nip home, via one of the local Italian restaurants for a bit to eat in the evening (having agreed we'd just get some toast when we got home *cough*). 2am, I woke up feeling iffy. After half an hour went back to sleep. 4am; woke up with cold sweats and dinner decided to make a swift exit via all available routes. 5am; back to sleep. 6am woke up for another half an hour then back to sleep. 8am,;woke up and considered breakfast as I was starving. Had porridge made for me and ate it with gusto. 9.15am we were changed and off out to the Clapham 10K.

Ran the 10K (furthest I've ever run) in 57:37! Having said I'd like to do it in under 60 minutes and I'd be chuffed with a time in the 58s. Cue huge grins and a race back home to get showered and changed and back out into town to run an errand before heading for lunch at the nice French place in the village. A nice, extended lunch with wine and then home to snuggle and snooze in front of the TV.

Last week's numbers:-
Exercise count: 4
Exercise duration: 03:02
Exercise kcals: 1,883

Numbers from 15th July 2009:-
Exercise count: 127
Exercise duration: 68:03
Exercise kcals: 37,328