Stabilization CONSOSTAB (shared diary)

[anjuschka]

Thanks Laura - the ostrich approach definitely required for me this week!!

On Sunday the family service was followed by a bring & share lunch. Lovely, but a real eye-opener to me on our (I mean 'society') usual diet: A couple of (boring, leafy) green salads, but everything else was waaaayyy over-carby: chilli with rice, Chinese noodles, pasta bake, Quiche, pizza, pasta salad, rice salad, potato salad, rolls, pastry things with potato filling.... There were some bits of green and red in the dishes but really it was one big carb-fest Yes did load half my plate with green leaves but even so....

And yes I know of course this is related to what you can prepare ahead, what you can afford to share etc... so it's not a 100% fair sample or comparison.

I am glad I could partake - well, I would/should have brought 'my food' otherwise. Dessert ditto - a nod to fruit, but cake, chocolate and ice cream prevailed

I also had a nice meal on Friday night (with wine, and a small ice cream for dessert), and some chocolate crispy cakes on Sunday (kids baking for Fathers day)... so the whole weekend was a bit of a letting-go. No surprises there

The crisp bread did not help ;-) it's very moreish in it's original version.

So now I'm regrouping and focussing I hope, and I have a clear (clean?) run until my next social occasion early July, so I will try and stick to proper conso eating (no more linseed, one fruit etc), with possibly the odd proper PV (and the PP of course) thrown in. There is possibly a neighbour's BBQ at the weekend but I can deal with that I'm upping my protein and reducing the Veg too.

I've already re-made the crisp-bread, still with some rye flour, but with oatbran. It worked well, but is not yet 100% friendly (still contains some linseed too: I'm having 1 TB worth of oat bran and 10gr of rye flour, 1/2Tb of linseed and 1/3 of ts of olive oil at lunch today). That's my next project when this lot is eaten. I already reduced the oil, and am wondering what will happen if I leave it out altogether.

Have a good week everyone!

 

[robinhood]

Wee update from me!

Friday - got through the kids' school fête including BBQ - I had planned to eat some sausages but by the time cooking/serving had been done (3 hours) I was past eating - had an apricot and some cheese then went home.

Yesterday was the youngest's exposition of the school project - very good, more setting up, more cake/drink served - none eaten.

Gymnastics show tonight (have made more cake!) but a fairly clean weekend as I've eaten normally mainly (just a glass of wine), however next weekend will be less-so, so Conso-style for me as from tomorrow then gala meals throughout the weekend.

Monday evening, another hike planned (with picnic) so that's easy as I'll make Dukan-friendly things and put some carbs in there to keep me going!

Headmistress of youngest's school leaving on Friday, so wee buffet planned on Tuesday. Easy enough to avoid everything though as I'll have a snack before I go and eat when I get home.

Will check in a bit more often with menus this week.

 

[robinhood]

Conso week going well, so far - scales down, am now 63. Menus in appropriate thread - still with 3 tbs oatbran though.

Now that summer is upon us, I'm exchanging porridge for Dukan bread, there's enough for two meals too which is a bonus, downside - I need the whole egg as there is extra bran.

This weekend - Saturday - BBQ (couscous in salad - carb meal 2), pizza
Sunday - roast lamb with gratin dauphinois for lunch, will try and get some veg in. (Not advised to anyone doing conso, you're supposed to spread out the carb/gala meals.)

Will possibly weigh-in next week as I'm sure the heavy weekend will put the weight back on me. Definitely a PP day on Thursday.

 

[dukandebut]

Sounds like a delicious weekend, Laura!

The spreading out of carb and gala meals becomes difficult during phase 2, where 4/7 days are affected. I ended up mostly doing:
Monday - carb
Tuesday - gala
Wednesday - carb
Thursday
Friday
Saturday - gala
Sunday

It's not very spaced out at all, I'm afraid.

 

[anjuschka]

So I suppose I'd better post an update too!

My Conso week(s...) going okay too - back to 65 when it had crept up another pound last Friday, despite a strict week from Monday before. I do hope that's a real loss, I'll definitely keep going like this for a while yet.

My Gala was on Sunday (party invitation) and consisted of two mini pizzas, a couple of olives and two small pieces of cake plus a glass of lemonade (garden party).

Carb meal: I did have a small portion of pasta on Weds night with the bolognese, and a 'reduced fat' chocolate mousse too .

No alcohol. 2-3 Tb oatbran, and not always bread or cheese. No more linseed, expect when baked into my bread ration. But still taking the cod liver oil capsules - when I remember, so not daily!
Paying attention to fruit - so if I have a morning juice then no more. Also no more fruit yoghurts.

The rest of the week I was 100% on track and only licked the spoon a tiny bit when baking the cake for the party and the cupcakes for school... (oh reminds me must post the picture I took of those!)

The only other 'treat' not 100% Dukan was 50ml of full-fat milk made into an ice lolly. (I can recommend the ZOKU ice lolly maker - I usually use skimmed milk for myself and whole milk or smoothies for the kids etc)

The bloating has gone - from my view from above at least!

Upcoming things: big concert day (I sing in a choir) out all day tomorrow, I've made some conso-quiche to take (with a total of 40gr cheese in what could turn out to be 4 portions). Yum it smelled delicious this morning

Wednesday work garden party with canapes - that will be my Gala but I think I can be restrained, and will probably stick to water!

I'll have my carb day today as I just defrosted a portion of chicken & chickpea stew, need to be quick tonight as another rehearsal to attend!...

Then nothing until mid-July for DD1s birthday party and her proper birthday the week after.

And I am really please with myself over last weekend - I managed to resist the 'oh well you've already had XYZ what harm will another do' voices on Sunday, and I had no biscuits or otherwise on Saturday either.

So for now I'm sticking with proper Conso, and hope to slowly return to where I should be, where I can maintain easily whilst doing Conso with small extras (=Stab...).

 

[robinhood]

Sounds like a delicious weekend, Laura!

The spreading out of carb and gala meals becomes difficult during phase 2, where 4/7 days are affected. I ended up mostly doing:
Monday - carb
Tuesday - gala
Wednesday - carb
Thursday
Friday
Saturday - gala
Sunday

It's not very spaced out at all, I'm afraid.

Ha, more spaced out than eating 3/4 of them over 24 hours! I'm sure I'll pay for it both with weight gain and feeling ill! Mind you, I'll keep the pizza fairly clean (not 5 cheeses) and if it's too hot I won't want gratin on Sunday anyway, so maybe a slight change to the menu in that case.

Anja, have you measured yourself? I'm sure you're losing weight (fat) and putting it on as muscle as that sounds a very restrained couple of weeks. I will admit to really missing the extra fruit this week, but if the scales are 64 kilos or less next Friday, I'll reintroduce the fruit again and continue with conso weeks + extra fruit when we have weekends planned (most of them bar the last one in July, then holidays in August).

 

[anjuschka]

Yes and even worse when it is gala - carb - gala plus extras in the day!

thanks Laura, no not measuring, but belts have improved one notch again - nearly back to where they should be!
Restrained weeks maybe but it was like this:
> Friday WI was up
> Lax Friday and Uber-carby weekend followed by
> restrained week with 1 small carbs (new potatoes!!) and fruit - so WI was up another pound
> THEN proper Restrained W-E and week but with one small Gala and carb and weight is now back to pre-carby weekend.

But as you know I had been experiencing a steady upwards trend before that so it was just more of the same really I need to get a bit more of a handle of my eating habits again Especially Fridays seem to be bad!

But yesterday PP at home was a doddle, not even tempted to stray despite feeding DD1 all sorts of nice things. So I *can* do it I just need to want to do it enough - don't we all....

Yes missing the fruit at breakfast - usually have them on my porridge / pancake with yoghurt.

And yes I know I probably look no different to everyone else but *I* know the difference so I need to fix it

And only a few more weeks until I start the running (C25K) experiment... I really MUST get myself to do that.

 

[robinhood]

So weekend was great, too much wine (oops) but food not bad. Saturday - BBQ turned out to be PV + tiny amount of carbs (turkey kebabs and half a sausage) with salads including probably 1 tbp couscous, no bread or cheese (was full). Evening, reasonable pizza, lots of wine, slice of chocolate pizza - definitely a gala. Sunday - more BBQ meat (bought too much) and gratin dauphinois (small amount), bread and cheese - so gala but a reasonable one. Sunday evening, salads.

Feel a bit bloated today (that will be the bread), going out for a picnic/hike tonight, so hopefully that will use up the excess glucides!

Today -
B - Dukan bread with yogurt
L - mixed salad, cold meat, courgettes, fromage blanc
S - custard
D - small pizza (bread ration - 60 gr) with tomato, tuna and cheese, apple, crabsticks while walking if needed

 

[m-mouse]

That weekend food sounds divine! What a good idea to use your bread ration for pizza. Is 60g what you're meant to have or is that just roughly 2 slices? Chocolate pizza sounds just too scrummy to think about! Have a lovely picnic/hike.

 

[robinhood]

Hey Manda, I think you can have 40-60gr bread a day on conso, but I rarely did/do and have rice cakes or something instead.

As we had pizza on Saturday, we make small half-size pizza bases for the kids, I made an extra one for me (I weighed the dough for me, but the kids' ones are probably round about that weight anyway - we pre-bake the bases so that the actually pizza doesn't take too long to cook - ensures the topping isn't burned as the base takes longer) and will just cook it in the main oven this afternoon. You get a decent sized pizza because it's rolled really thinly although I call it small because the pizzas we usually have are massive - we had to buy special pizza plates. You could do the same (and I have done) with Dukan bread as the base and use a spatula to spread the mix really thinly, once that's baked you add your toppings as usual.

 

[m-mouse]

I think my first gala meal will most definitely have to be pizza! Is pizza that big in France these days? I was hoping it wasn't that popular still so I would be able to avoid when we are over!

 

[anjuschka]

Happy anniversary to me!

Hey just noticed I have passed the 1-year mark! About a year ago I was just letting these last few social events pass (work garden party today, concert last weekend) before launching myself into my 4 days attack. And look where it got me I am wearing short 'cocktail dress' to the party this year, and feeling very good about it! Shame the weather is not quite up to it

Obviously these events were a bit earlier last year as I joined *this site* at the end of June'10

I've carried on my conso-style catch up this week, with some small carbs at the weekend (chicken with chickpeas, lentil soup, a bit of bread) and some peas fresh from the Garden, no way could I let those pass me by! I am having some fruit too - melon, nectarines, summery stuff but in moderation and staying away from the temptation of dried fruit.

Still no alcohol (DH is getting fed up with that), but last night I did have one chocolate biscuit

As far as I can tell, it's working, tummy is shrinking and I feel more confident about it. We shall see on Friday what the scales think.

So, I'd better munch my salad & boiled eggs (much nicer than it sounds and all veg is from our garden!) before the onslaught of the nibbles and canapes

 

[anjuschka]

As we had pizza on Saturday, we make small half-size pizza bases for the kids, I made an extra one for me (I weighed the dough for me, but the kids' ones are probably round about that weight anyway - we pre-bake the bases so that the actually pizza doesn't take too long to cook ....

Mmmhh nice, you are such a brilliant cook! I hope your family appreciate! Can I just check how long you pre-bake your bases etc. I am planning to pre-make/bake mini-bases for DD1 birthday party so we can have 'make your own' pizzas, and for that they really do need to be pre-baked (and frozen...).

Normally I just make and bake right away, and last time I tried freezing unbaked and then baking from frozen which was **okay** but not really a good idea.

 

[robinhood]

Congratulations Anja - a great milestone, have you been looking at before and after pics? You've done brilliantly!

As for pizzas, can't take the credit, Anja, but thank you all the same. Husband is the pizza baker in this house (I make the dough though). Our bases are rolled very thinly, a couple of mms, so I reckon they'd only take a couple of minutes in a traditional oven to pre-bake. We do ours in bread oven (much hotter) and it takes about 30 seconds - then the pizza with all toppings will take another minute or so - we all tend to make/bake our own - parents and guests (not children) but husband does the bases beforehand.

The pre-baked bases freeze well - I usually freeze them individually to prevent them sticking, then stack them up in the same drawer once frozen.

Here's to a great pizza party for your DD!

 

[robinhood]

Another weigh in for me today - STS, so am happy to stay with conso with extra fruit throughout the summer. I have kept the extra tbs of oatbran though. Next weigh in - first Friday in August.

Plans for the week ahead - reasonable weekend as we'll be doing the catering, so lots of Dukan-friendly on the menu, but maybe some wine in there but not too bad so will do PV + cheese on Tuesday and Green PV on Thursday.

Today - PV + carbs
B - Dukan bread and fried egg, tomato juice
L - cold meat, quinoa salad, yogurt, fruit
D - chicken legs, green salad, crispbread and cheese, fruit

 

[Topaz63]

So well done, RH. You aimed at same weight as me, you are there and I'm not. Too much swanning about for me and I'm doing more of it in next few weeks, with another wedding in France, then a week's hol in South West. But as long as I can keep from putting on, I'll just have to go on returning to Cruise till I get there.
Anja, yours is an inspiration as you keep firmly going.

 

[anjuschka]

Wow brilliant Laura - you make it so effortless!

And my weekly update is that I have dropped below 65 - PHEW. Not much, but progress nevertheless despite two 'normal' evenings last week and probably 3 TB oatbran every day (back to consostab). Personally I feel much better in myself / my shape, maybe it's all in my head! I think that I should have weighed myself on Wednesday morning when I felt my best ;-)

Have a good weekend everyone!

 

[robinhood]

Great that you're below 65, Anja, am sure it will continue.

So, weekend away was good - we slept in a tipi. As we were self-catering (obviously), we had lots of salads (tuna, egg, ham), BBQed meat, etc. Took kids out for ice creams probably more times than was reasonable, managed to resist (with no difficulty - not keen on ice cream) but did have a few glasses of wine over the 3 days.

Back home to a massive thunderstorm, lovely to watch (from indoors) so glad we weren't at the campsite when it happened - we were really lucky, we'd only been home a couple of hours when it started.

So, another week - we are invited out both Saturday and Sunday - different addresses - so both galas, no doubt. Will have a couple of carb meals during the week.

 

[m-mouse]

Not sure how well my dipping my toe into conso is going!! Couldn't face bread so have been having 60g ryvita or oatcakes instead. Have been weighing my cheese. Had one gala meal (last Friday) - currently up 6 lbs on last Thursday weight!!! Is my PP day tomorrow really going to sort that out? Oh dear - I may have to go back to Cruise!!

 

[robinhood]

Manda, it's all water weight - it will even out.

Just a word of caution though - I used 40gr bread rations for the first while and usually have 2 rice cakes or ryvita (which weigh less) as I'd need more cheese to have any more!