Why would you eat revolting food?

If you're going to eat chocolate, at least eat nice chocolate, right?

Breakfast: Oats so simple Golden Syrup porridge
Lunch: vegetable tempura / Chilli beef with sticky rice
Dinner: Baked paprika turkey breast, roast new potatoes with steamed veg
Snack: Packet of maltesers

Today has been an interesting day – Rather than ‘Cloudy with the chance of meatballs’ (I’ve never seen the film, I just find the title really random) it’s been more, ‘A voyage of self discovery’, although I appreciate that makes me sound like my Drama Friend, so won’t go on and on about it!

After I posted last night, I decided I’d continue to be productive and decided to clean out a lot of rubbish in my car. It’s certainly not dirty, however as I’m the only one who drives it and usually the only person in my car, I’ve got my gym kit in the back seat, a bag with some empty tubs in it, a couple of bottles of water thrown onto the back seat… etc etc. One of the paper bags I grabbed had a couple of unused Birthday cards in it.. I’d bought them for friends, forgotten I’d bought them, bought more cards and used them… As well as the two birthday cards, there was also a bag of ‘Mozart chocolates’ that one of my work friends had brought back from Germany for me – about 4 months ago.

Now, I’ve got very little will power when things are literally in front of me – which is why I’ve not been buying chocolate, crisps or icecream as not having them in the house removes that temptation for me. To be faced with marzipan chocolates is sheer torture as 1. I like marzipan and 2. I like chocolate. When I discovered them, I put them back in the bag and took them into my house to throw them in the bin.. except, I didn’t throw them in the bin as all I wanted was – Marzipan chocolate. It was almost as if I’d gone from not being hungry to being starving and the only thing that could possibly sate my hunger were these chocolates that I’d just discovered in my car…

I sat on the sofa, and ate one – It was quite unpleasant actually. Being in a car for the last 4 months and some of those days being over 30 degrees had meant that the chocolate had blanched. They were also really crumbly and tasted incredibly artificial… I ate another, and another, having to eat them over the actual bag as the chocolate was so damaged, it wasn’t sticking to the marzipan. After the 6th one, I finally came to my senses. Why on earth am I eating something that I’m not enjoying? They’re revolting… they’re actually not nice and considering I’ve not had chocolate for WEEKS, why am I bothering to eat really disgusting chocolate? If I eat chocolate, at least make it nice chocolate for crying out loud…. And that was it, I threw them in the bin.

I then took them out the bin so I could take a photo of them :-) And then threw them back in the bin, which is where they have stayed….

I don’t feel guilty and actually, I’m fine today – I’m not feeling as if I need to punish myself, nor eat a lot of unhealthy food – One thing I was wary of is that my lovely work colleague and I were having lunch today and had decided to go to our favourite Thai restaurant as it’s the last day we will ever work together at the company (I’m working from home tomorrow and she’s on holiday on Friday) I was actually feeling quite anxious about the choices I would make on the menu – What were the healthiest choices? Would I go crazy and pig out as I ate the minging chocolates last night? How can I ensure I stay focused on my healthy eating yet go to a Thai restaurant for lunch?

Well, I think I did OK - not amazing, but not totally badly - My lovely friend and I had 2 courses. For starters, I had vegetable tempura. I was weighing up tempura over chicken satay with peanut sauce, which I know isn't the most healthy thing in the world, but tempura batter is fried? But what if I don't eat the satay sauce? But then the chicken would be dry, surely?

I had no idea, I made an educated guess as to what would be the healthiest and now I'm back at my laptop, I can Google it to see if I was right.

Estimated calories and fat
Vegetable tempura - 320 calories / 18g of fat
Vegetable spring rolls (3) - 167 calories / 6g of fat
Chicken satay (3) - 250 calories / 5g of fat
Prawn tempura - 116 calories / 1g of fat

Different websites say different things, so I'm certainly not going to believe the figures above 100%, however it's safe to say that I think I chose one of the most lardy things on the menu... Hrmm. I honestly didn't think it would be that bad, after all, it's got the word VEGETABLE in it! It's certainly a lesson to me and something I'm happy to learn - So, the next time I go to a Thai restaurant, I'll probably choose the chicken satay or the vegetable spring rolls as opposed to the vegetable tempura.

The main course was Chili beef with vegetables and sticky rice. I usually had a massamum chicken curry, but as it's made with coconut milk, I assumed that it would be rather high in both fat and calories and on this occasion, I was actually more accurate. 

Estimated calories and fat
Massumum curry - 295 calories / 12g fat
Chilli beef with rice - 354 / 4g fat

I know from the above it looks like I was wrong - however the Massumum curry is just that.. the curry, and doesn't incorporate the rice. Stick the calories on from the rice and it's more than the chili beef...

Either way, it's more than I usually eat for lunch and after we'd eaten, we actually took a detour to Marks and Spencers to allow me to grab some vegetables for tonight - I picked up some marinaded turkey breast yesterday so my plan is to have that with some roast baby potatoes and steamed veg for tonight... As well as picking up some vegetables, I decided to pick up some maltesers - I don't even know why I did it, however I think there's something in my head that I'm trying to work through - as if I can eat chocolate 'if I want to', and it's not a bad thing... I'm not a bad person and so what?

They're currently still in my bag and I've not stuffed them all in my face.....yet. Tomorrow I'm working from home again, so I'll pick up some really healthy food for lunch and not grab anything unhealthy. 

I think I'm getting nervous as it's just over 2 days until I leave my job and I'm feeling a bit unsure about stuff. It's silly really, I've managed to hold it together for months when I've been having a really awful time at work, so to lose it now and go back to my old habits would be absolutely stupid. 

So tomorrow is game face - Get up, be healthy and get focused.

I really, really want chocolate

I don't think I've had such bad cravings for ages

Tonight has been a really nice night. After surviving work, I drove my lovely work colleague round to a mutual friends house and we spent the evening catching up, feeding the donkeys that live in the field next to her house, stroking her cats, eating food and watching 'interesting' things on TV. 

It wasn't as warm as it was during the day, so sadly we couldn't really sit outside, however after a nice cup of tea and hearing how our friends new job was going, we headed outside to say hello to the field of donkeys that live next to our friends house. Our friends house is AMAZING - It's just her and it's the most beautiful 3 bedroomed house in a very 'posh' courtyard with a huge garden that backs onto fields and just has the most amazing views. She rents it, and I think I recall her saying it was about £1,800 a month rent which is a lot more than I pay for a 2 bedroomed house in a slightly different area, however she loves living there and the landlord allows her to have 4 cats, 3 of which I was able to stroke tonight :-)

She put some spicy potato wedges in the oven and opened all the lentil and houmous crisps. I tried my best to eat as slow as I could, however I still think I ate too much - In the grand scheme of things, it's not exactly the crime of the century but even when eating the crisps and spicy wedges, my brain was telling me, 'This isn't good for you'. Thing is, I should be able to eat crisps and wedges every so often and not feel guilty, but I did.... And as such, I don't think I was focussing on my friends and what they were saying as I was getting really worked up over what I was eating.

After eating a LOT of the crisps and wedges, I managed to stop myself from eating more, but it took a lot of willpower - especially as I wasn't stuffed and could have eaten more. It sounds like my friend loves her new job and it was nice hearing about how happy she was - especially as I used to manage her and in January this year, I was told by my Boss I had to dismiss not only her, but another 3 people within my teams as we were 'refocussing on other business areas' (translation: Noone was really monitoring cash flow and the company was in a really bad position and it was getting to the stage we wouldn't be able to pay wages....).

We then watched some interesting programs about bad tattoos and STI's caught by people who had drunken one night stands, before I drove my work friend home. 

I was half way back to my house, when I had a massive urge to drive to Tescos and buy a huge bar of chocolate - I don't know why, it was as if my brain was saying 'You've eaten unhealthy food today, you may as well continue'. I can't explain it, it was so strong and I had what could only be described as an internal argument with my head.

'You should be allowed to eat chocolate if you want, it's not as if you've been eating it for the past few weeks'

'But I am not hungry'

'However you have a desire to eat chocolate and as long as it's not all the time, it's fine'

'If I eat chocolate, I'm not going to lose as much weight and I want to see a lower number when I next step on the scales'

'But one bar of chocolate won't hurt in the long run'

'Maybe I'll buy a small bar'

'Why not just buy a big bar? You don't have to eat it all'

'There's no way I can stop half way through eating a big bar of chocolate'

'Then just buy a big bar'

'No.. as I don't want to feel guilty tomorrow'

And that's how it ended. 

I'm now back at home, with no chocolate, still wanting chocolate but as I've changed into my Pyjamas, I don't think there's any danger about going out and getting any. I have no idea why I currently have such a massive craving for it - I'm half way through my menstrual cycle, according to 'My days' app on my phone, I ovulated yesterday so I don't have PMT or anything like that and I'm not feeling overly emotional. It's almost as if my body just wants something really sweet.

On the one hand, I feel really proud of the fact I've not 'given in', however on the other hand, I'm worried that I'm not being realistic. Eating a small bar of chocolate shouldn't make me feel so guilty or anxious, it should be something I can do and just chill out about. I wouldn't bat an eyelid if someone was eating chocolate, so why can't I do it? Why does it have to be 'all or nothing?'

I'm going to drink my cherry Pepsi Max, watching South Park and head to bed at a reasonable time. I'm also going to reflect on why I feel so anxious and have such inner turmoil about 'bad food'. I shouldn't be looking at food as either 'bad' or 'good' and as I want this to be a lifestyle change, certain foods shouldn't be off limits. 

Easter... at the end of May?

I never thought that I'd be given an Easter Egg today...

After this mornings 'disappointment' with my car, the day got much better - especially after I emailed my boyfriend a picture of my pathetic exhaust pipe and he suggested you can buy 'bolt ons' which I assume are the treasured possession of a lot of teenage boy racers?  So, on Saturday we will take a trip to Halfords and hopefully make my car look like it did before 'exhaust-gate' happened.

Having left work at 5:00pm, I travelled to Twickenham to see my friend - well, she's kind of my sisters friend, however I'm getting to know her a lot better and she's an amazing woman. She's also a very talented eyelash technician who has done eyelashes for models, actresses and travels all around London making people have longer eyelashes. 

I've had it done about 5 times, I believe - The first time they were way too long and I ended up taking them out less than 24 hours after I had them done. It was a total waste of money and I thought I'd never do it again, however my sister convinced me to try again and ask them to be a lot shorter (8's and 9's apparently... which is the length in mm) and I LOVED them. 

Due to having twice as much hair as 'normal' white people (as evidenced by my

afro-hair and the need to get it chemically straightened every 3 months) turns out, I also have twice as many eyelashes! This means they look really full, but it takes my poor friend 2 hours to stick the fake ones on. Thankfully we had a good catch up as I haven't seen her for over 4 months and the time went really quickly.

Upon leaving, I noticed she had an Easter egg on her living room shelf and announced 'Lesley, you're a better woman than me... you've managed to have so much willpower, you've still got Easter Eggs left!' to which she replied,'No, it's not me being good, I just hate dark chocolate - do you like dark chocolate? have it, have it!' I'm perfectly happy eating dark chocolate, white chocolate or any chocolate to be honest, however it feel as if temptation had just jumped 100 feet in the air saying 'EAT THIS EGG' which I thought was quite funny.

I did take, as I didn't want to be rude, however it's already left my house again and is now happily residing with my partner - He lives very close to me and is very supportive over my healthy eating, so had no issue 'adopting' the chocolate. This is the perfect solution as whilst I'm motivated at the moment, I'd rather not have a huge chocolate egg in the house as I'll be so concious it's there and the slightest 'down' moment, and I might reach for it - Why put yourself in that position?

Dinner? Well, it was a rather rushed roast chicken slices and the M&S egg and spinach pot, which apparently has been available in PRET for a while (M&S... ripping off coffee shops... shame on you!) Once I'd left my friends house, I quickly ate it in the car, before driving the hour back home and arrived back at 9:00pm.

I'm now drinking a cup of green tea, watching the Big Bang Theory, trying to work out when to book my super-exciting-fun cervical smear test, as I received a lovely reminder letter, telling me it's been 3 years since a nurse investigated the cavern down below. May as well get it over and done with, so I'm going to sort it out tomorrow - I can't say I'm keen on them, but I do believe they're a necessary evil and I'm grateful that I live in a country which takes cervical cancer seriously.

So excited that it's Friday tomorrow - My organic box of Vegetables from Riverford should be delivered tomorrow morning, so it will be fun finding out what new and weird fruit and vegetables are included this week..... 

Who's looking at you, kid? :-)