My Add-a-Meal Week....

[Yambabe]

...starts tomorrow.

So in readiness I've been shopping today, and if you don't mind I thought I'd use this thread to keep a record of my meals so

a) I can look back and review and possibly adapt for next time according to my weigh-in results next week

b) it might give some of you some ideas for meals when you are on one.

Plan is to be really good about weighing my portions and then to break down each day's meal into total cals, and also g of carbs, protein and fat. I'm not going to bother doing net carbs cos it's a right faff and I can't be bothered.

I've more or less stuck to the guidelines in the book regarding what to use, with two exceptions (and no, it's not cheese! Well, not exactly....... ) Firstly I have got some beansprouts cos I can't see them buggering anything up, and secondly cos I don't like milk and I couldn't find any plain fromage frais I've got some quark.

Wish me luck! I've got a night out (on water!) tonight and a weigh-in tomorrow to do before I start.

I'm a bit worried that I'm so excited about food, even just a bit of food.........:bliss:

 

[Mini]

Wishing you all the best Yambabe for the week ahead doing Add-a-Meal Week.

 

[justgina]

Good luck Yambabe, look forward to seeing your meals.

 

[Miss Demeanour]

Describing Quark as cheese is surely a breach of s13(1) Sale of Goods Act 1979.

That aside, I'm quite excited for you. I'm looking forward to looking at food from a whole new angle, and not taking it for granted. I think that's pretty cool.

 

[Magggie]

What are you following?
The "protein the size of a pack of cards" recomm by exante?

I will start to look for baked or marinaded tofu
failing that, plain quorn with added spices

have to stop now, making tummy rumble talking food

plus already hyped as a certain someone mentioned potatoe products on a different forum

 

[Miss Demeanour]

Tofu generally comes smoked, marinated or plain.

And in general - I quite like it (as an ingredient, with a strongly flavoured sauce or marinade), but I wouldn't recommend it for novices. It is a lump of nothingness, to which you have to add a flavour. the smoked version goes part way there, but it is essentially a carrier for other flavours. It's also a bit firmer if you freeze it and defrost it.

However the Cauldron marinated tofu pieces - nom nom nom - I can scoff them out of the packet...


And... oh yeah, hadn't noticed that until you mentioned it...

 

[Magggie]

Cauldron tofu pieces
check
holland n Barrett?

Can talk about that, as never eaten them, so I don't lust

I can spot a food related talk, advert, program like a dog hears a silent whistle from 5 miles

 

[Miss Demeanour]

The pieces - you can get them in most larger supermarkets too, in the veggie food fridge. Higher in cals per oz than the slabs of tofu, but they actually taste like something, so best place to start. Great to chuck in stir fries and curries.

If you don't get on with tofu (many people often don't because of the texture/lack of flavour) both tesco and asda (last time I checked - don't have one local anymore, irritatingly) do a reasonable range of TVP notmeat, as well as the usual quorn offerings.

Are you actually veggie, Maggie? (and therefore am I giving shopping directions to the converted?) I assumed you weren't, for some reason.

 

[Magggie]

I had a bad experience at aN all you can eat Chinese meal
everything veggie had big chunks of tasteless tofu in it
realy made me steer away from it
but recently read about the wonders of baked tofu

I love quorn in curries, the facon, the whole range really
never liked linda mccartneys, waaay too greasy

then there's those evil grassington stuff
and cauliflower grills
*retches*

 

[Miss Demeanour]

That's fair enough - Tofu at most Chineses leaves a lot to be desired. Even I regularly avoid it.

It's one of those food-stuffs I don't usually feed to civilians. I do my best with it because I volunteered to cut out an entire food group, and for me it gives an element of variety. However if variety of protein sources is not otherwise an issue (as it isn't for most people), I wouldn't normally subject them to it. It's quite advanced vegetarianism!

I used to cube it and bake (with a bit of oil) it as well, but completely forgot about that as i changed my recipe after having a nice tofu dish at a thai restaurant, once...

But would be interested in the recipe/source you found...

 

[Yambabe]

OK, it seems this will be more difficult than I thought! Getting the allowed ingredients up to 400 cals is a bit of a struggle, in fact today I'm nowhere near and I have prepared what looks like a fairly substantial meal. At this point I have done the preparation but not cooked it yet, will be eating about 6.30 with a glass of sparkling water.

Ah well, here goes anyway.......

Day 1 - Prawn stir-fry
One tablespoon of low-fat plain yoghurt, shake each of mild chilli powder & garlic granules. Stir in 150g of peeled cooked prawns and leave in the fridge for an hour.
50g pak choi, 40g courgette, 50g beansprouts, 40g chinese leaf, 50g mange-tout, 20g rocket all cut up finely.
Tablespoon of water in a non-stick wok, heat til the water is sizzling, tip in veg, stir & cook for a couple of minutes. When veg looks nearly done add marinaded prawns & cook, stirring well, til they are warmed through.

Total cals: 226
38g protein; 11g carb; 2g fat

That is going to make a great big plateful that I suspect I'm going to struggle to finish. I could have a plum or a kiwi fruit later, maybe with a tablespoon of yoghurt, but that would still make it less than 300 cals and I've only had half a shake and a soup so far today, got another half a shake and a bar to fit in somewhere too if I can.

Ho hum.......... hey, I wonder if I could make up the difference with cheese? Erm no, guess I'd better not.......

 

[Magggie]

Make up the difference with prawns?
More protein can't be bad ?

 

[Miss Demeanour]

It may look like a massive plateful, but the non-protein contents of your stirfry are largely water and cellulose, and have a very limited filling potential - carb and oil-free stir fries are quite deceptive like that. And the volume of veg also reduces with cooking.

So, go with the massive plateful.

Spare calories? I'd factor in either 1) some oil, for the EFAs, or 2) sweet chilli sauce. Cos I like it on a stir fry - it makes piles of vegetation more palatable, and I'm missing flavour right now

 

[Yambabe]

Just finished. Even with the reduction of the veg it was indeed a substantial plateful and I couldn't quite finish it (although I did pick all the prawns out! ). Going to leave it at that for now I think and see how I feel later, I feel full but not overly so at the moment.

Although I need to weigh and measure properly, my outline menu plan so far is:
Mon - smoked cod, cauli & broccoli, quark & herb sauce
Tue - tandoori chicken with shredded cabbage (white & red & chinese leaf) and a yogurt, cucumber & mint raita
Wed - crustless egg-white quiche with cottage cheese & broccoli, lettuce & cucumber salad
Thur - chicken breast stuffed with quark & herbs, spinach, rocket & cucumber salad
Fri - salmon with dill & baked courgette, mangetout & kale mix
Sat - Garlic & herb-crusted chicken, with whatever veg I have left

If you're still 100% packs I suggest you stay off this thread for now!

 

[Magggie]

Salivating
n I'm a veggie

I dreamt about food again last night

was all chasing around a building with OH
when all of a sudden

"oooooo a buffet"

 

[Miss Demeanour]

I'm enjoying it vicariously. I expect thorough reviews...

I'm not telling you what I was dreaming of last night. I'm still quite disturbed...

 

[Myr]

I'm not telling you what I was dreaming of last night. I'm still quite disturbed...

Lol,

Yes I too am looking forward to seeing this thread develop not least to get some ideas when it is my turn to do 'add-a-meal week' !

Love Myr xxx

 

[Quak]

I'm not telling you what I was dreaming of last night. I'm still quite disturbed...

I too am not telling what I was dreaming about, and it certainly wasn't food

On the add a meal week I was very boring, fish, chicken or turkey grilled or baked with some stir fried (in soy sauce) veggies plus a 0% pot of greek yog and some fruit.

 

[Yambabe]

I love to cook though, I'm missing "proper" cooking more than I'm missing eating lol!

So I thought it would be a bit of a challenge to work with the limited ingredients and come up with something tasty and imaginative every day.

I might be bored of it tomorrow and end up just grilling the meat/fish and steam the veggies after all though!

I'm also trying to get my head around portion control whilst I'm doing this, hence the careful weighing and measuring. If I can teach myself to recognise what a "healthy" portion is now I can carry this forward once I'm at goal and not over-fill my plate or my face..........

 

[Yambabe]

Day 2 - baked cod with cauliflower cheese

150g smoked cod, 1 tsp butter, 15ml semi-skimmed milk
150g cauliflower, 75g broccoli, 35g spinach
75g quark, handful parsley, chives, rocket

Wrap the fish, butter & milk in foil and bake or steam for approx 20 minutes. Steam cauli & broccoli, add spinach for last 5 minutes. Add herbs to quark in a pan, warm through & stir well. Pour sauce onto fish & veg.

301 cals, 27g protein 17g carbs, 4g fat.

1 peeled kiwi fruit & 2 tablespoons low-fat plain yoghurt for pudding (82 cals, 15g carbs, 4g protein, 1g fat)