If you have been following my blog or instagram for a while you will know that I have always struggled with my body and feeling confident about myself. I knew that I had developed some poor habits over the last few months and certainly noticed that I had put on weight. I hit the 9 stone bracket, which I am in no way saying is a heavy weight at all, but I'm used to being a constant 8st 3lbs - 8st 4lbs and I do not hold weight well, I look a lot heavier.
At this point I decided to re-evaluate my life and do a complete 180 on it! I had become too reliant upon the convenience of take-aways, drinking cups of tea instead of water or herbal teas and basically doing zero exercise. I needed a meal plan or something to follow to give me the structure I needed to continue with this lifestyle change.
I followed The Delicious Nutritionist 20 minute meal programme. The programme is £11.50 per week and you receive a mini Ebook with your meal plan, all the recipes with detailed instructions and some healthy swaps you can do if you can not find a product or do not have it in.
This is my little diary of the week and what I did during it to feel better and get more active.
MONDAY
Breakfast was a chocolate Cherry Green Smoothie - My first attempt is pictured above, I got a lot better throughout the week as I was able to add more cherries/ cacao powder to taste. The smoothie also has a scoop of protein powder in there to help you feel fuller for longer and if you are still feeling peckish you can have rice cakes with almond butter or any type of nut butter. I didn't actually need to have the rice cakes as I truthfully wasn't hungry, but that is mainly due to me never having breakfast before (I know I had some poor poor habits before, but I'm working on it).
For a morning snack I had a banana, which I did enjoy eating. Lunch was a gorgeous edamame bean and feta salad (I'm drooling thinking about how good this was). My afternoon snack was dark chocolate, any plan that allows you to have chocolate as a part of it is great in my book!!
Dinner was crispy broiled haddock (you can switch this for cod which is what I did) with Broccolini and Quinoa. I have discovered I am not a fan of quinoa so some brown rice would work just as well here. It is all about healthy switches and those switches in moderation, for example if brown rice has more calories reduce the brown rice to the same as quinoa or make sure you're tracking the calories so it isn't over.
I also drank one cup of tea in the morning, green tea with lemon throughout the day and drank 2 litres of water.
My starting weight on Monday morning was 9st 3lbs.
TUESDAY
Breakfast and snacks were the same as Monday (woohoo for the chocolate). This was also good as it enabled me to tweak the breakfast smoothie and get my body into the routine of actually having something to eat. The plans are tailored to you and your needs and can be as personalised as you need them to be - The Delicious Nutritionist is very good for that personalised element.
Lunch was dinner leftovers, again a huge bonus for those of us who find meal prepping difficult. The plan really does make it simple to stick to and keep going with.
Dinner was a 15 minute cabbage and shrimp stir fry - It really was delicious and I seasoned the cabbage really nicely so it was healthy and delicious.
Drinks during the day were the same with drinking 2 litres of water, one cup of tea in the morning and then green tea with lemon throughout the rest of the day.
WEDNESDAY
Breakfast and morning snack were the same smoothie and I smashed the recipe this time, but didn't take a picture because I was too busy enjoying the smoothie. But it was delicious, trust me.
Lunch was leftover 15 minute cabbage and shrimp stir fry. I did replace the shrimp for king prawns as we couldn't find any shrimp anywhere!!
Dinner was sesame trout (I switched to salmon), Bok Choy and quinoa (again I switched this out for rice). What I love about this plan is it has things that Andy will genuinely eat just with more carbohydrates or extras for this that make the meal more.
Drinks were the same with my water intake and green tea and around 4 cups of tea as I was in the office and not working from home.
THURSDAY
We got to switch it up here a bit with the Chocolate Avocado Smoothie, this was the best smoothie I think I have ever had - definitely one to be kept and put on the list of future breakfasts.
The snack was an apple cut into slices with peanut butter (couldn't find almond anywhere but opted for a natural peanut butter with lots of peanuts in it).
Lunch was the leftovers from dinner which was so yummy!!
Dinner was Pasta with spinach and turkey and it was another delicious meal that will be added to my firm favourites for the next few weeks as it was so flavoursome but very quick and easy to make.
I drank a lot of water with lots of green tea and reduced my cups of tea as I felt I overdid it on caffeine and I could feel a headache coming on, probably from the caffeine withdrawal.
FRIDAY
The morning started off well as I was in work so kept to the usual regime.
Breakfast was the same as Thursday as were the snacks, but lunch was the beautiful Turkey and Spinach pasta.
Then it went downhill....
So I had an appointment at 5:30pm so left work really quickly and then my hairdresser came to do my hair around 7pm. I thought my appointment would take longer than it actually did and had planned to eat after my hair, but my hair ended up taking so much longer than it normally does and my hairdresser left my house at 10pm. I was feeling sick as I was so hungry and we ended up ordering takeaway.
What I will say about this plan is how flexible it is and how easy it is to jump back on track when things go wrong.
Andy ordered a takeaway and instead of doing what I normally do where I have a rice and curry to myself. I opted to have the salad which comes with the curry and two scoops of rice with a little bit of the curry sauce and chicken. This was enough to fill me up without me feeling too guilty for jumping off the wagon. I had a quarter of a poppadom and a tiny chunk of garlic naan bread, whereas normally I could have two poppadoms and an entire naan to myself!
The plan has really altered how I view food and how I react to 'eating out' or takeaways. I certainly think more about the foods I am eating and whether there are alternatives that I can have instead. A mindset change that I think will be really positive.
SATURDAY
On Saturday we were invited to Wagamamas so we, of course, went off plan for breakfast and lunch. We skipped breakfast in the thoughts that we would have some calories left. I chose healthier alternatives of what I normally would so steamed gyozas instead of fried and I chose the chicken and prawn pad thai and ended up taking 3/4s of it home as I was so full. I had half a beer which was also great and I thought I was onto a winner in terms of keeping to the healthier ways.
I have since learnt that alcohol is a downfall and another lifestyle change I need to make. I had half a bottle of red in the back garden with some tapas when a friend came over. I then ended up 'out out' with Andy, had half a bottle of wine and 3 cocktails... All in all pretty disappointed with myself here.
SUNDAY
Sunday came and we had planned a visit to the seaside for a walk. BUT, who was too hungover to even get out of bed, of course that was me. I surfaced around 4pm feeling horrendous and had a takeaway like a right idiot. Didn't eat a lot of it, but that is besides the point... I fell well and truly off off the wagon and the only saving grace was probably sleeping to avoid eating anything further and drinking about 10 pints of water and a green tea to counteract the weekend of hell.
The thing I will say here is that the plan has really helped me identify areas where I fall down - the weekend is clearly one of those and drinking. So I now know that for next weekend I should probably food prep on Friday and avoid drinking as it isn't that hard to say no to a glass of wine and still have a great time.
WEIGH DAY
So Monday morning came around pretty quickly and I woke up bloated (of course I did after that weekend), whereas all week I'd woken up not bloated at all.
My face is definitely puffier, water retention no doubt from all the salt and alcohol, so I have a huge way to go to undo this weekends damage. I dreaded stepping onto those scales as I thought all that work down the drain but I was pleasantly surprised.
I now weigh 8st 11.8lbs so I have lost 5.2lbs in the last week. I will add a disclaimer here that around 3-4lbs of that is likely to have been water weight and that means I have lost around 1.2 - 2.2lbs which really isn't bad considering the crazy weekend I had and the fact I only ran twice in the week for exercise.
I have another week left on the Delicious Nutritionist plan and this week is shaping up to be better than last! We've even planned a walk and zero alcohol next weekend! I'm actually motivated now to see what another week of really hammering it and sticking to the plan can do (probably wonders). If this is the progress for just week 1 I am excited to see what progress can be made during week 2...
I shall keep you lovelies posted!!
Until Next Time
T
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