Diets, Diets and MORE DIETS!

I think I have spent most of my life from my late teens up until now consciously thinking about my weight and how I look as most girls/women do! CW and I spent many a time at university trying out new things at the gym, doing Davina workouts in the living room to hilarious effect and attempting to be healthy food-wise but nothing ever really stuck. Although spending most weekday evenings out at the union bar doing shots and living opposite a corner shop in our final year probably wasn't the biggest help! At one point we were having a chocolate bar a day which I would like to blame on one of our friends for starting as she is one of those lucky people who doesn't seem to gain weight! Anyway, we seemed to be constantly trying new things including some rather scary diets that, looking back on them, were mental! One of them had me only eating 500 calories a day and taking a herbal spray (what was I thinking...). They all seemed to work at the time but none were something I could stick to in the long run and the weight slowly sneaked back on. My love of food was too great to deny eating a whole bag of chocolate raisins!

The latest tipping point was when I met up with CW and some of our other uni housemates a few months ago and we all decided it would be a good idea to weigh ourselves. OH GOOD LORD. I nearly cried! CW had been trying out this snazzy new diet called the 5:2 diet which is basically 2 fasting/500 cal days a week and then 5 days of normal eating. This went well for a while until I thought it would be a good idea to have a bunch of chocolate on my fast day and then be really hungry the next day because my body hadn't got the goods it wanted. I would end up demolishing even more food than I normally would.

Then a few weeks ago, CW spotted a girl on Instagram who had an amazing body AND got to eat loads of food every day. We were sold at 'food'! Since then we have been eating whole/'clean' foods (raw foods, as they are or put into a meal) and trying to include weights into our exercise routine. I have to admit I live with a guy whose whole family run off this WOL (way of life) (minus the exercise) and not a single one is fat! I don't know why I didn't start doing this earlier?! Since starting this, CW and I have constantly been messaging each other with recipes and a LOT of photo's of our food/meals which I think has really helped us stay on track. 

Dinner tonight - Tomato and Red Pepper Omelette with Courgette

In summary, fad diets do not work as a long term lifestyle. All you need to do is eat the foods your body loves (no your body does not want a whole family sized bag of Malteasers) and get moving!

Some of the good points I have noticed since starting are:
- Increased energy levels
- Rarely hungry
- The bloated/food baby/stomach pooch has gone down
- We have lost weight without really thinking about it
- My skin is looking better (I think this might be the reduced amount of sugar in my diet)
- I look forward to going to the gym - WHAT?

I think the only downside is that you will end up buying more fresh produce which is more expensive than canned/processed stuff and the time you have to put into the meal prep but I think we secretly enjoy that, right CW? Sunday = Meal Prep Day = Yay! PLUS, once you have done all your meal prep you don't have to think about it for the rest of the week!

If you have any questions on how/what we are doing, feel free to comment below!

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CP

A Day of Food 10th June 2013

Today was the first day of week two of our new WOL (Way Of Life (ha)) and I had already prepped all but dinner the day before. Being this organised makes me feel like I don’t need to worry about maybe buying that sneaky chocolate bar on my lunch break on Monday morning when I would normally be stocking up my snack drawer with all sorts of processed junk from the shops. As CW said in her last post, the great thing is that another meal or snack is just around the corner which I think is why this suits us so well! 

Breakfast - Greek yogurt, cinnamon, blue berries and flaxseed

Mid-morning snack - an apple and a homemade protein bar

Lunch - Tuna, wholewheat pasta, cucumber and sweetcorn

Afternoon snack - Carrot sticks and Be Good To Yourself Red Pepper houmous

(Snack before cardio - Homemade turkey muffin)

Dinner - Grilled chicken, broccoli and sweet potato. There was a lot of food on this last plate which I didn’t quite manage to finish! 

I feel really full from all this food and I know exactly what’s gone into it since it’s all homemade (apart from the houmous!). All i drink during the day is water, although I am trying to get into green tea!

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CP

Meal Prep for Week Two

Breakfast and snacks

Turkey Muffins

Turkey Muffins, Lunches and Snacks

Food prep seems to be becoming my Sunday ritual and I love it because it makes me feel organised for the week ahead! I really struggle to not eat half the yummy stuff I am preparing though, especially those turkey muffins which I could demolish in under 2 minutes!

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CP

Almond Butter

I changed my overnight porridge to boiled eggs on toast on Monday as I am already having almond butter that day and don’t want to have too much even though it's amazing!

I bought it for £10 for a 1kg tub… (see below for website.) Not bad when I think how much that amount of pb would be from the supermarket and it’s better for you! (review coming soon...)

I love to have it with apple for a yummy snack and add it to my overnight porridge (Laurenconrad.com) for a bit of extra taste! Ohm.

I got almond butter from here…

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CW

CW's Meal Plan and Food Prep Week Two

Wow, meal plan looks good! Now all we have to do is…. Do it!!! Here’s mine for the week…. 

As u can see I have 2(ish) fast days, (a review on the 5:2 diet coming soon....) but if this week goes well I may reduce down to one! Also I’ve got a busy weekend which often proves problematic as I eat the world! Hopefully I can control my urges as I will have been eating high protein food and snacking, unlike usual where I’ll starve so I can eat the entire world at the weekend!

Meal plan and meal prep for some items!

Protein bar - http://toneitup.com/blog.php?ToneItUpand-039-s-Homemade-Protein-Bars-27

Overnight porridge - www.laurenconrad.com

Breakfast Smoothie (Peanut Butter and Banana) - http://www.self.com/fooddiet/2012/05/healthy-breakfast-ideas-slideshow?mbid=enws_row0430#slide=1

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CW

CP's Meal Plan For Week Two

I’m not sure how rigorously I’m going to stick to this meal plan this week but it’s worth a try! I’ve managed to go to Sainsburys and not buy any naughty stuff which is a good start! The next step went ok too which was meal prep! Now I have not much of an excuse to not stick to it!

Recipes used above:

Protein Bars - http://toneitup.com/blog.php?ToneItUpand-039-s-Homemade-Protein-Bars-27

Breakfast Smoothie (Peanut Butter and Banana) - http://www.self.com/fooddiet/2012/05/healthy-breakfast-ideas-slideshow?mbid=enws_row0430#slide=1

Green Smoothie - http://toneitup.com/blog.php?Stay-Healthy-This-Season-with-your-TIU-Get-Well-Smoothie-5644

Turkey Muffins - http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/video-jamie-eason-turkey-meatloaf-muffins.htm

4 Bean Chili - http://www.thegraciouspantry.com/clean-eating-4-bean-chili/

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CP