Broken Promises...

Fail, fail, fail... and more fail. That pretty much sums up how I feel about my food intake at the moment. I keep promising myself I'll be a good girl and then I eat something I really don't need to eat. I break promise after promise after promise. I'm not putting on weight but I'm not losing it either. I have a couple of good days, then undo it all with a bad day.

It's got me thinking... what is with that??? What is frustrating is that I understand what I am doing. I know that I tell myself that some foods are bad and some are good, thereby enhancing my desire for the bad and my self-punishment for eating them afterwards. I know that I obviously don't consider myself worthy to keep the promises I make to myself. I know that small, correctly proportioned meals can fill me up and leave me satisfied and yet I keep using the slightest twang of hunger (or boredom, or thirst) as an excuse to eat more food. I know that I have put weight on and if I don't lose it again fast it will be harder in the long run. I know that I have the willpower to watch other people eat food and not need to join in with them.... and yet I am not backing all of my knowlege up with the correct action.

Knowing the path is different to walking the path. Yup, got it. So why is it so freaking hard to walk the path again, when I know without a doubt, and have in fact, tested this myself, that the path makes me HAPPY! It makes me feel:

- in control;
- powerful;
- attractive;
- confident;
- alive;
- sexy;
- like I can take on the world.

The path I am currently on makes me feel:

- fat;
- unworthy;
- unhappy;
- totally out of control;
- frustrated;
- self conscious;
- unattractive.

So WHAT THE F*&K AM I DOING??? This is 2011 - THE YEAR OF MEL!!! I only have about 5 weeks left, and I'm undoing the amazing achievement that I worked so.freaking.hard to accomplish.

OK - I am going to say this, I need help. I need encouragement. I need you to remind me that I can do this, because I seem to be able to forget it in an instant, conveniently when faced with cake. Any random texts or emails will be appreciated, because sometimes, despite my own (and popular) belief, it's hard to do this stuff alone. So, please help me be accountable to somebody else for a little bit, because I am totally failing at being accountable to myself.

Love you all.

M. x

Finding a Balance...

Hello again! I thought I would post, mid-struggle, as opposed to post-struggle, as is the norm for me. I'm not good at asking for help or letting people know when I am having a hard time, so I figure I might as well try something different! :)

The last 2 days I have been eating practically everything in sight, which is not helped by the fact that there has been food on the table at work all day long. I'm just grazing all day, rather than waiting until I am hungry and only having 3 meals. I find that I'm either on Cohen's or off Cohen's. I like my idea of staying on Cohen's but having the odd treat or night out (which is mostly like maintenance but with plan weights for most meals), and I balanced it well for the first 3 days, but then it all went pear shaped. Have to get back on the wagon but having trouble again, so I thought I'd come and admit it to you and then hopefully sort my sh!t out...

I think this is the crux of the whole issue for me. If I can master this then I will be OK. I need to master the grey. I've mastered the black and white this year, but now I need to find the balance.

Wish me luck!!!

M. x

P.S - the photo is of my Mojito and some snacks at the famous Hotel de Paris, just outside the Monaco Casino.

Back on Track...

Well hello again!

I must say that it is feeling good to be 'back on plan', even if I have eaten cake twice already, hahaha! I am feeling much more in control of my eating which is brilliant. The first day I stuck to it perfectly, then on Day 2 and Day 3 there were cakes at work and I had some both days. The difference has been that I am not punishing myself for doing so because this is actually how I planned it. By using it more as a structure than an actual diet, I've been able to have a bit of cake for morning tea, and then go on to have a normal lunch and normal dinner afterwards. In the past I would have had an unhealthy dinner (with wine) because I'd already stuffed up that day. Each night I was craving a glass of wine (BIG TIME!) but I managed not to have any and stick to my normal Cohen's dinner and I've lost roughly 0.5 kg a day, so 1.5 kg in 3 days. Much like I did on the first week of Cohen's last time. I know it won't work as well this time, I have drinks on Thursday night and dinner out on Saturday and my first week weigh in is on Sunday, but I know it is going to be much better than it would have been had I kept eating the way I was when I got back.

I must stress to those who read my blog that are on Cohen's for the first time - don't follow what I am doing now. What I am really doing is a combination of the maintenance rules with plan weights and if you eat cake or sugar or anything like that when you are mid plan, it will severely disrupt your hormone balance. So, 'don't try this at home, kids.' ;)

I am feeling much better about myself already because I feel like I am in control again - a feeling that I lost when I was in France. I totally got that I stopped loving myself when I lost control, and that is what made it so hard to get back to some reasonable eating structure.
 
By writing this down and making myself accountable to the people who read this, I feel I owe it to you, rather than myself, which is how I was able to get started without much self-love in the first place. But as I saw myself transforming and became proud of myself for achieving such a big thing, I started to love myself again. I lost control in France and then stopped with the love, hence it getting worse and worse.

So the past 3 days I've been making an effort to love myself. I cooked myself some lovely food, like stewed apples for breakfasts, Cohen's friendly marmalade for my crackers and prawn stirfrys for dinner. I brought myself flowers for the kitchen, I did my nails and other little things to make myself feel pretty, and it works! It's all about feeling like you are worthy. If you don't think you are worthy, you will stuff your face forever trying to make yourself feel better about it.

So that's my hot tip for the week - find a reason to love yourself. Do nice things for yourself. Treat yourself to a pedicure. Or do one yourself!

Hope you are all having a great week!

M. x

Back to Basics...

Well, it appears 5 weeks of sheer indulgence has caught up with me. ;) I am updating my blog today to signify that I am going 'back on plan'.

I have so much to tell you, where do I even start? The bottom line is that I've put on about 8 kg and am a total of 10 kg higher than my lightest weight during Cohens. 2 kg I put on before I left for France, and 6 kg I put on (pretty much in the first week) in France. Since then I've been yo-yoing up and down 2 or 3 kg depending on what I eat each day. I made a deal with myself that rather than panic, I'd enjoy the rest of my trip (and the food), and sort it out when I got back. Well, I've been back a week and have not had any luck so far in the 'sorting out' department. So, here I am.

You can see from the photo that the extra weight makes a big difference. It's not the most flattering angle for me but I feel bulky again and after feeling skinny for a while, bulky just doesn't work for me anymore!

I've been struggling a bit with the fact that it's not practical for me to go back on plan at the moment because of the number of social activities planned leading up to Christmas. I was so committed when on plan the first time, to the point where I didn't have any meals outside of what I made for myself for almost 5 months. Not only do I have Christmas/Social activities planned, but I always return to Adelaide and catch up with all of my family/friends over the Christmas break and it will be impossible to stay on plan, not to mention the fact that I just don't want to be at that point in time. So I've been half trying, allowing bits of this and that, and the day starts well and ends badly. So I'm going to try something new.

See, one of my biggest problems is that with diets (and in many other facets of my life), I only see black and white. That's why Cohen's worked so well for me - there were so many rules and I knew I couldn't bend them. Other diets, where I am given freedom to choose, I tend to fail at because I bend the rules too much and push it to the point where it doesn't work well. That's what I've been doing this week too.

So I am going to go 'back on plan' but inside of the commitment to honour myself, rather than the diet, while I am at it. What I want, is to get this nipped in the bud before it gets out of control again. I want to lose weight while still being able to catch up with friends and have a night out here and there and go to all of the Christmas lunches that are coming up without panicing about how I am going to bring my own lunch to the zoo on an upcoming work excursion. See, the fact that I have social activities planned was what was stopping me from going back on plan. Now I've decided to do it anyway, because hell, it's better being on plan for a month and having 5 social meals where I try to eat Cohen's friendly and have a couple of glasses of wine, than being off plan for a month and not getting anywhere. I accept that I am not 'doing it properly' and that it won't work as well, but I am going to use the structure to get myself back in control of my eating, and make it work for me. So here is what I am going to do:

1) Do 4 weeks of 'on plan' with weighing all food and obeying all the rules again; and
2) Start refeed on Sunday 4 December so I'm done by Christmas; with the following exception...

I will still attend Christmas/Social outings, as well as have dinner and drinks with my friends but I will make sensible choices.

The reason that I am writing this all out is because I need myself to understand that this is how I have planned it, and that there is no self-sabotage (or binging) required after a lovely (Cohen's friendly) meal and a couple of glasses of wine with a friend. I know that it will slow my weightloss, but I am choosing that over missing out for the moment. I've already been there and done the period of total sacrifice this year, so now I am going to try to make it work for me again and get used to normal eating again, after the crazy blow out of carbs galore in France. Cohen's is a great training program for the kinds of food that one should eat to maintain their weight, and I need to get back on that train right now before it leaves the station without me.

Wish me luck! I feel like I need it this time.

M. x

PS. I am actually terrified of posting this, because like I said, I have been trying to get on top of this for a week and to no avail. But I feel like I am more successful when I have to 'report in' to you guys, so I have to bite the bullet and trust in myself that I can do this again, despite the amout of times I've tried and failed this week!!!! xxx

PPS. I will put up more posts about France (and the food) when I get time, for now I just had to get this part sorted. ;)

Ma Vie à Villefranche

Bonjour mes amis! I can't believe that I have been in Villefranche for a week already. It's gone by so fast. I have been having such a good time and been so busy that it has been hard to find time to stop and write about it.

After school on Wednesday I went to get a drink with some other students from school and by the time we went for a walk along the water and had dinner it was 10 pm when I got home! Thursday night we all went on a boat trip to Monaco and Friday night there was a party at the school so it's been quite busy.

The boat trip to Monaco was great but I felt sick after a while. The sea was very choppy and the boat wasn't that big so I enjoyed about the first third of it and then wanted to go home! The view was extraordinary and on the way back I literally saw a red sun setting behind Villefranche. I have never seen anything like it - a huge red sun. I tried to take a photo of it but the camera couldn't pick it up and it didn't last long but it made the sea sickness well worth it.

The people on the course are great - a diverse group of people from many walks of life, mostly older than me. There are a few younger people here but I would say the average age is 50. On the first morning we all took a test and our name and age was on the front page and on a quick glance around my table of 8 people, there were four women in their 60s. There is one man here who is 80 and the youngest would be a girl who I would guess is in her early 20s. There are 10 people in my class incuding myself. Two women in their 60s, one man in his 50s, 2 men in their 40s, 2 women in their 50s, one woman in her 40s and 2 of us in our 30s. I noticed that they all seem to have considerably more experience with the language after a couple of days and I asked the teacher at the party last night if I was in the wrong class! She said that my initial test showed I was more Beginners 2 level but that there is no Beginners 2 class this time so they put me up. She said that she could see I was picking things up quickly and that she would have put me down to Beginners 1 if she was worried so I am lucky! I want to learn as much as I can so I'm glad to have the opportunity to get a good headstart.


I'm sad to say there are no hot men around, well, none that aren't married. One of the teachers is gorgeous, I can imagine all the girls fall in love with him (see right). The teachers are all very funny and it's amazing how much we all laugh and understand what is going on. I think the teachers must be trained to speak with the simplified vocabulary and they are all entertainers. Some of the translation issues are hilarious. We were discussing our favourite cuisine and one woman mispronounced 'Francaise' and said 'Francois', which is a boys name. The teacher said, 'you like to eat Francois??? Ooh la la!' and proceeded to back away slowly, it was hilarious.

Some things are normal, like the state of my apartment. As Dad would say, 'it looks like a bomb has hit it.' I've been having too much fun to tidy up! So here I am in Villefranche on a gorgeous Saturday afternoon, writing in my blog, replying to all my emails and cleaning my bedroom! I will update my blog when I can but it takes me a long time to put one together, maybe an hour? Sometimes more. Anyway, I shall leave it at that for now and post more when I can.

Hope you are all happy and well. :)

M. x

Le Institut de Francais est tres magnifique!

Bonjour! I thought I might put up a series of blog posts about my life here in Villefranche. One about the school, one about my apartment, one about the food, etc... as I find time, of course! I thought I would start with the school. I have just finished my first day of tuition, which is Day 2 of the course. All I can say is - WOW! Today was conducted entirely in French and I'm pleased to say that I understood most of it. I understand how things work here now and it is phenomenal - I've certainly come to the right place.

The Institut de Francais follows the a total approach program and they state that their 'one and only objective is to have you speak French as fluently and correctly as possible at the end of your stay.' Sounds good to me. The big question everyone asks is, 'how do they do it? In one month??' Well, the answer lies in a method developed after 4 years of research requested by the French government to combat the increasing number of foreign students and teachers coming to France. After determining what kind of French to teach (scholarly French? tourist French? business French?), they decided to teach the French that everyone speaks in France. They placed microphones in a variety of public places and gathered a large amount of data. They discovered that there was a collection of 50,000 words used. Of them, a list of 1,500 words were arranged according to frequency and that list constitutes what is now known as the 'French Fundamental Vocabulary.' So, this is what they teach! It's extraodinary. So it's not about knowing the right word for something - it's about knowing how to ask what the right word is for something. :)

I feel like I've achieved more today than I ever have, it's hilarious. I just had a little penny drop with one of the big verbs and the present/past/future tense, and already feel comfortable saying what has irritated me for the past 5 years. So funny as it seems hilariously simple and I don't know why I haven't got it until now but I am loving it. Class is hard in that it's very difficult to have the phrases naturally roll off the tongue - the physical resistance to the phrases is so obvious once you hear it and can repeat it in your head only to find your mouth doesn't follow when you try to speak. It's like trying to say a tongue twister fast when there are 8 other people in the room looking at you. But that is why I am here. I am sick of not feeling comfortable speaking French. Gosh, I've spoken more French today than I have in the past 10 years collectively. Not that it's good French, but it should be at the end of 4 weeks!

The school is absolutely stunning (see the photos) and the teachers are hilarious and friendly. Breakfast consists of bread (freshly sliced baguettes), croissants, several cheeses, yoghurt and jam. Lunch is a 3 course meal. Yesterday was a vegetable soup, roast chicken/potato/roast tomato/beans and chocolate mousse. Today was Nicoise Salad (the famous Nice salad with anchovies/egg/tuna), beef schnitzel/broccoli/pasta bake and pistachio ice cream. It's very hard not to eat dessert when a plate of it is placed in front of everyone and there are spares in the centre. I've tried not to eat the carbs as much as possible but c'est tres difficile! There is also, of course, always fresh bread on the table and so far I've resisted pouring olive oil all over my plate and mopping it up with bread, as everyone else seems to be doing.

I've been placed in the intermediate level 1 class which seems to suit me well. I'm very happy, I've always been in the beginner levels at the Alliance de Francais so I was pleased. I was suprised considering I felt like I did dreadfully in the tests yesterday - I had to speak for 5 minutes describing a picture for one task, and all I could get out were very simple (and lame) sentences. And I ran out of things to say before 5 minutes! Ha. Oh well. I'm pretty happy with where I ended up.

Now I've just got to work out a way to afford coming here every year. ;)


M. x

Bonjour from Villefranche!

Houston, the Eagle has landed. Here I am on the otherside of the world feeling like I am home. I love this place. I love that everyone speaks French and I don't hear English much at all. I love that it even feels French. Ahhh, I just love it. :) I have settled already and am loving my new home (even if it is only for 4 weeks). It's getting close to dinner time here on Sunday afternoon meaning it's almost 3 am Monday morning at home. I'm feeling pretty tired but have switched to French time already and am looking forward to school tomorrow.

Villefranche-sur-mer is a gorgeous coastal town just out of Nice and is full of locals and the normal French hustle-bustle. There are cafes everywhere you look and a gorgeous bakery and fruit shop just down the road from my apartment. Here are some of the restaurants down by the water. I took this photo yesterday afternoon (Saturday). The cafes are quiet as it's not yet dinner time and the people are all down at the beach with icecreams. :)

I took some photos of my apartment but just thought I'd share the important ones for now - my delightful balcony and the stunning view from it! The apartment is old but full of everything I could wish for. It even has a dishwasher! I have a desk for my laptop, a couch, a tv, a bed, a fully equipped (albeit small) kitchen and the usual bathroom with a washing machine in it. I'm all good to go! I haven't quite got the hang of the shopping hours here yet, I found a little supermarket but they seem to be open early and late and shut for the whole afternoon. I'm sure I'll work it out eventually but for now I know they are shut at about midday and also at 4:30 pm. Seems odd but the good news is that I think they will be open after school so I can buy food if I need to cook dinner. Not that I'll ever need to with so many places to eat around here.

I think my apartment has the best view possible (see left). I'm stoked with it but unfortunately I am quite a way down the hill from the school. When I say 'quite a way down', I don't mean that it's a long walk - it took me about 8 minutes to walk there today (including the time it took me to get down the 3 flights of stairs and through the 3 locked doors/gates to get out of my apartment building, plus the time it took me to stop and look at the map before I set off)... but it is a steep walk. I think it was 5 minutes of stairs. Let's just say I was puffing when I got to the top. Hopefully by the end of 4 weeks I'll be zipping up them in no time but for now I'll just have to remember to leave a bit earlier so I have time to stop panting before I walk through the gates to the school. Ha ha. ;)

It's 7 pm now and I'm about to go for a walk back down to the restaurants to have dinner. I'm going to go via the grocery store to check if it's open... wish me luck!

M. x

Melanie in Maintenanceland... or... Having your cake and eating it too!

Well hello there people! Sorry I've taken a while to update the end of my Cohen's Diet Journey - refeed technically finished on Saturday but I've been extremely busy. :)

What a journey it has been. I've learnt a lot along the way, I feel a lot like Alice in Wonderland, falling down the rabbit hole and having a big adventure. All I can say is I will never be the same again. The last few days have been a steep learning curve. I relaxed a lot over the weekend with Mum and Dad visiting and drank 5(?) glasses of wine on my last day of refeed and snacked through the day on Cohen's friendly food. My first day of maintenance I again had about 5 glasses of wine, bacon for breakfast, a banquet for dinner and chocolate for dessert. Needless to say I gained about 1.4 kg for my efforts.

We are taught that we should be able to enjoy ourselves like that occasionally and that we can do a 'carb reset' where we don't eat carbs for 2 days and the weight should come off again. I tried to do that on Monday and Tuesday of this week but on Monday, despite eating no carbs, I ate too much food in general and an awful lot of fruit (a natural carb) and Tuesday (yesterday) I ate cake!! Ha ha, easier said than done, but the cake was divine. What I learned is that I can have my cake and eat it too - on Monday when I ate too much food but no carbs, I stayed the same weight. Tuesday I ate 2 pieces of bread, a nut bar and a piece of cake and lost weight because I didn't snack and followed my maintenance rules on how to eat cake without it causing a big blood sugar crash. So today I have decided to relax. I think, as long as I don't start munching on food all day and have clear breaks between my meals, I will be fine. I am not the same person I used to be - I choose differently now. Even though I ate cake yesterday, I ate only fruit at the big morning tea that the cake came from. There were about 10 cakes and all sorts of other various sugary foods and I ate fruit. I had some cake in the afternoon, but the old me would have tried a few small bits of several cakes in the morning and snacked on the leftover cake all afternoon. Because I had cake after lunch, I also politely declined a kahlua and milk and a chocolate brownie in the evening. Previously I would not have said no to any of it.

I am off to France on Friday. Very excited and a tad apprehensive about not being in control of the food that is available to me. I'm also a little scared about how often I'll be able to choose wisely and how all the wine/cheese discussion classes will affect my weight - we all know I don't have a huge chance of saying no to them!!! But I know that I will enjoy myself and try to be good at the same time. I've come too far to undo it all now.

 

Wish me luck!! And thank you again for all of your support.

 

M. x

 

PS - Since I have achieved what I set out to do in this blog, I am removing everyone from the automatic email list. I will update again from time to time so feel free to check in, and by all means, if you want to stay on the list let me know. :)

Cohen's Diet Refeed; Day 17... or... Thank goodness this is nearly over!!!!

Wow - what a week! I went from 'going great guns' and having completely stable weight and enjoying refeed to ABSOLUTELY CRACKING on Saturday. I had a bit of an emotionally stressful morning and thought I got over it but I realised mid afternoon that I'd had 250 g yoghurt (I'd been having a spoonful or two each time I opened the fridge) over the day without realising it (good lesson to learn - no fridge snacking!). I couldn't stop myself from eating it and ended up eating the rest for dinner (the other 250 g) and not having my steak, and I ATE CHOCOLATE! I had a little pouch of Hershey Kisses that had been in my cupboard from a massage I had in May (that came with chocolates?) and I cracked and ate them with only one week to go. ONE WEEK!

I decided I needed to get out of the house (to prevent further eating) and go get some chromium tablets (they are meant to help with future sugar cravings) so went to the chemist and I walked past the lolly stand and they had a small bag (90 g) of sugar free licorice. Well, all I can say is that the past month of licorice cravings finally got to me. I bought (and ate before I left the car park) that too. Oh boy it was good. It was almost worth it!

 

Needless to say I completely stuffed up 'the delicate balance' that is refeed. The next morning I was up 600 g and the day after I was up 700 g! I was pretty annoyed at myself after that and took a few days to get back on track but it's all good now. The weight came back off and I have since eaten pasta, rice and potatoes!!!!! Oh, and BISCUITS! I ate 2 granita biscuits yesterday, and today I am going to have 2 scotch fingers. Oh how exciting. :)

The best part of all is that this afternoon I am going to have my first glass of champagne with my parents!!! They are coming over to pick up Bella so they can look after her while I am in France. AND TOMORROW IS MY LAST DAY OF REFEED! I will blog again next week when it's all over, and to say farewell before I head off to France. I leave you with the photos of my lovely food. Salmon and prawn pasta, pork and prawn rice and chicken schnitzel with chips! The schnitzel is on a big plate. Can't believe how much food I've been eating!

M. x

Cohen's Diet Refeed; Day 8... or... One of the craziest weeks of my life.

Hey everyone! Thanks for all of your messages of support, it means a lot to me. :) Refeed is going well! I've enjoyed having the extra food, I'm up to 3 pieces of bread a day now! My dinner tonight was huge (and probably the most expensive meal I've cooked myself in ages) and consisted of fillet steak, prawns and a whole bunch of asparagus. That's on a big plate too, and those prawns are big. :) I know the presentation is awful but I wanted to eat it while it was hot and just slapped it on there quickly. ;) Thought it was the best photo because it shows how much I am eating now - the asparagus is almost the full length of the diagonal of the plate so you can see it's huge.

My latest exciting food has been banana - wow, I forgot how nice they are. Pineapple has been rocking my world this week, as did my open steak sandwich that I had for lunch yesterday. I forgot how good it was to have meat and cheese together!!! Funny, I don't eat red meat much at all but I've had it twice in two days - I think it's a product of trying to work out which proteins go well together (I have to start mixing them now) and steak is such a winner. On Sunday I can add salmon (I'm going to pair it with prawns) and then on Monday I can have pork so I'll have that with chicken.

On the weekend I will be having pasta - woo hoo! Ha ha, can't believe how excited I am about what used to be staple foods. Fruit and pasta and mixing meat and cheese. Funny! I'm going to have pork with chicken next week and make a fried rice with it, so excited about rice too! Basically I have had to get used to feeling full again, which is a funny feeling when you've not been full for 5 months. I started this diet 5 months ago today - golly, who knew I could stick to it for so long.

As for my weight - I am holding steady, as is the point of refeed. I've added 2 pieces of fruit, 3 pieces of bread and about 150 g protein and 150 g veg to my day and I've lost 100 g all up for the week. I have been going up or down 200 g a day mostly, which is apparently pretty stable. A lot of people react to bread and some of the fruits which can cause them to put on up to a kilo if their body doesn't like something. Luckily I'm all good *touch wood*. Still have 10 days to go so we'll see. I still have to add in pasta/rice/potato, lamb/pork/salmon/scallops, milk, margarine, biscuits and wine...

As you can imagine, this has been the most complicated week of my life, with food measurements and rules from here to Christmas. Plus I have 2 weeks until I go to France for 5 weeks and all of the organisational issues that come with that, not to mention preparing work for my almost 6 week absence. Needless to say I've been a tad preoccupied. Oh and did I mention I am also enrolling to do Honours in Psychology next year and will probably have to move house when I get back from France? No? Well, there's that too!! Plus, my gorgeous housemate moved out on the weekend and so I've been reorganising and trying to fill the void (there is an Angela-shaped hole in my heart!).

Anyhoo - I hope you are all having less crazy weeks than me! You get out what you put in, and all of this stress is what is making this 2011 - The Year of Mel. I'm sorting out my body and self image (crazy diet), my career (enrolled in course this morning), my goals (going to France to learn French) and my home life (moving or getting a new housemate). All of which will set me up for an amazing 2012.

Watch this space people!

M. x

PS - I may have eaten (on occasion) an extra piece of bread (like when it was freshly sliced at Bakers Delight - come on - how could I not eat that thin bit of crust when I'd not eaten bread in 21 weeks??) or an extra banana (because they were so freakin' amazing) or an extra cracker (I miss them because I haven't eaten them for 3 days) or an odd extra bite of fruit here or there (just because I wanted to). You got it out of me. Oh and a few spoonfuls of the DELICIOUS homemade yoghurt I made yesterday, or an extra bite of cheese when I wasn't meant to have cheese.... I suspect I might actually have lost weight if I was sticking to this 100%. It's getting harder and harder in some ways, and getting easier now that I'm allowed more food so I am less prone to snacking...

PPS - I made blueberry jam out of my 100 g blueberry allowance and one sachet of Natvia (a stevia-based sweetener) and some water. It rocked my socks off. Especially on toast. :) xx

Cohen's Diet Refeed; Day 1... or... Welcome back bread, my old friend.

Well hello there! Can't believe I'm here. No, seriously. I started this diet with the firm intention that I get to refeed. I remember saying to my Mum, 'It's really important that I start and finish this diet properly, so that I can reintroduce all the foods properly so that my body learns how to deal with them again.' And here I am - doing just that. I remember absolutely panicking on the inside that this would just be another one of those diets that I committed to and never followed through with, and yet somehow I knew it would be different. I followed all my Landmarky principles and put measures in place to help pull me into the world of success - this blog being a huge part of it. Having to own up to you guys each week has been a huge help to me and I really appreciate that you all came along on this journey with me. :)

It's been an interesting few weeks. I got stuck at the same weight for about 3 weeks. I lost 0.5 kg twice and put on 0.5 kg once (my little binge fest) but I kept coming back to the same number. It's like my body just put the breaks on. So did my mind - I felt like I was going crazy. I kept walking around the supermarket with food I wasn't allowed to eat, having 20 minute conversations with myself (as I did the rest of my shopping) about how eating the non-allowed *yoghurt/nuts/dried fruit/fruit and nut bar* wouldn't make a huge difference, only to put it down on a random shelf just before I went through the checkouts. It was a strange time. I finally relaxed over the last few days, knowing that refeed was coming and that I'd soon be able to eat more food. Today is day 1 and I'm 0.5 kg lighter than I was at weigh in 2 weeks ago.

I had the most divine lunch - Mozzarella cheese with tomato and fresh basil on... wait for it... BREAD! White bread. Fresh from Bakers Delight - it was delicious! I notice how much I am loving simple food now. I'm starting to notice all of the junk and 'numbers' that are added into foods and wondering what food I can make myself so as to avoid it. I even brought my own yoghurt maker and am going to make my own yoghurt when this is all over.

I also noticed how quick I was to put myself down this week - I got my letter from Dr Cohen (the standard one you get when you get to refeed) which said, 'Dear Melanie, Congratulations on getting to your goal weight!' and proceeded to say what a great job I'd done. I immediately thought to myself that I was not that good since I didn't actually make it to the goal weight he gave me (I'm 9 kg away from the upper limit he set) and how I haven't done a very good job after all. Hello!!?? I've lost 24 kg. It's ridiculous how much weight I've lost. Who cares if I haven't finished - I'm stopping early to go to France - wooo-freaking-hooooooo!!!!!!!! I can come back and lose the extra 9 kg if I feel the need to, because, you know, I'm a person who CAN LOSE WEIGHT IF SHE WANTS TO! Maybe I won't even want to, because,  you know, I look pretty awesome right now!!! I walked into Guess on the weekend and fit into about 5 pairs of their size 12 jeans and looked fabulous! So yeah. That's all I've got to say about that. :)

So I enjoyed my blueberries with my yoghurt this morning and I loved my first slice of bread in 21 weeks. I have to weigh myself daily and add in various amounts of various foods over the next 18 days to a point where I am adding 3 pieces of bread, 2 fruits (that's 4 a day in total), extra meat and veg, pasta, rice, biscuits and wine. My food is going to double. Let's just hope my weight doesn't, he he.

I'll keep you posted. ;)

M. x

PS - I love purple cabbage.

Confessions of a Binge-a-holic...

Hello, and welcome to this week's blog entitled, 'Confessions of a Binge-a-holic...' You may be wondering why I am blogging early (apart from the obvious connotations attached to the title). The main reason is that I have been banned from my scales and so I won't be weighing in this week. Why, I hear you ask? Well, it all started on Saturday morning....

*queue harp strum and scene change*

*Warning: This post may contain swear words.*       (sorry Daddy)

Saturday morning I got up and went to yoga as per usual. On the way home I had my final blood test for my Cohen's journey. This was my routine 20 week blood test (albeit a week early) so that Dr Cohen can put together my refeeding program, check that my kidneys are functioning and make sure that I haven't been cheating. I got out of the blood test, got in the car to drive home and instead of eating 2 crackers for morning tea like I normally do, I ate the whole packet (there were 4 in there). Then I went inside and ate another 4. Then I ate a kiwi fruit. Then I told myself off, did a few chores, and then went back and ate a mango and another 6 crackers. Why? Well... I don't know. I think I went a bit nuts. It was a good old-fashioned binge. Haven't had one of those in AGES! As you can imagine, I was quite annoyed at myself. I then went out for the evening with some girlfriends to celebrate my birthday and am pleased to say that I managed to stay 'deviation-free' for the rest of the evening. NO WINE! No McDonalds on the way home (I thought about it). Seemed like it had just been a temporary blip. I thought I was just rebelling given that I knew I wasn't going to be checked up on again after having my last blood test.

Anyhoo, Sunday was my birthday. I told myself, 'the best present you can give yourself is a deviation-free day.' After all, I really want to lose a bit of extra weight before refeed next week. Everything was ticking along fine until after dinner, when BAM! I felt like a little robot switch had been flicked in my head and I marched downstairs and proceeded to eat 3 crackers and some mango. Dammit.

I drew a line in the sand at that moment and declared that I was 'getting back on the bus' on Monday. I had the day off, no stress, and 10 days until refeed. I put little post-it notes all over the house with *10 days to go!* and made a commitment to myself that I was going to stick to it for 10 days as there is only 10 days left of the program. Things were great until about 4 pm when I ate the apple I had been saving for dessert. I started to get a little worried but thought that going to yoga would distract me. I came home, ate dinner, ate the cracker I'd saved for dessert, and then ate 3 small kiwi fruits, 4 crackers and a mango. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucccccccccccccccccccck!

Needless to say that I am obviously having some sort of mid-diet-crisis. I rang the clinic this morning to have a chat to my wonderful Consultant (after, of course, calling my Mum!). I was expecting to cop an absolute bollocking but she was amazing (the Consultant; not my Mum - Mum is always amazing). My Consultant said that the first binge would have triggered the cravings for the last 2 days (once you overdose on carbs, you crave more carbs) and that I am obviously having a physical and mental block about losing weight (given I was the same weight all of last week until weigh in day and I'm now sitting on that weight again). Firstly, the mental block is just psychological around the usual self-sabotage and rebelling against pressure (France) and the physical - well, I haven't been this light since I was 18. She said my body is fighting against me by telling me that something is wrong and making me want to eat more. So instead of telling me to stick to my diet she has told me to eat more food. The idea being that my body will stop panicking about being thinner than normal and relax. So I am having my biggest meal at lunch now, with a bit of extra meat and veg, as well as an extra fruit. I am to do this for 7 days and during this time I am absolutely not allowed to weigh myself. She said I can't weigh until next Wed, but given refeed is on Thursday I will just wait until then. Bit scared about not knowing how I'm tracking, but all I can do is try and keep off those scales.

I am also a bit scared about having another binge tonight. I have saved 2 crackers and an apple so I'm going to make myself a nice dessert and hopefully I can control myself.

WISH ME LUCK! God knows I need it.

I should get my refeeding program in the mail by the end of this week so I might put up a blog about it, even if I don't weigh in. If not, I'll get back to you all next week.

M. x

PS - It's so hilarious that I thought I should mention; this week I've had cake shoved in my face about 12 times. I've managed to avoid eating the most divine smelling lemon cake, cinnamon tea cake, tim tams, tiramisu (OMG I LOVE TIRAMISU), chocolate croissants and WHITE CHOCOLATE MUDCAKE FROM THE CHEESECAKE SHOP (one of my favourites), and yet, I couldn't say no to kiwifruit, crackers and mangoes. Funny.

Cohen's Diet Weigh In; Week 19... or... Life's too short for shit crackers.

Well hello again! Week 19 - 0.7 kg and a grand total of 23.5 kg. Wow! I have 2 weeks until I start refeed. I want to lose an extra 2.6 kg and am not sure I will get there but most people lose a bit during refeed so I'm hoping I will too. :)

I have been absolutely fantasising about what I am going to eat when I am on maintenance. What will form part of my regular diet, what I will eat for treats, and boy oh boy, it's amazing how excited I am about toasted muesli. With dried fruit. And nuts. And yoghurt. Drool... Funny, the things I am excited about are not what I thought they would be. I thought I'd be busting to drink some champagne and eat some chocolate and bread, but it's all about the fruit. Oh and liquorice. Chocolate coated, I'm sure. Salmon with broccoli! Yum. I've been spending exorbitant amounts of time in the muesli aisle lately, and have decided that once I am on maintenance I will make my own muesli so I've spent hours formulating my recipe. HA! Not that I'm obsessed with food or anything...

I have also pretty much decided that I will go back on Cohen's when I have returned from France. This is for several reasons:

1) I'm sure I'll come back from France a little fatter than when I left;
2) I feel like I am stopping too soon and haven't finished yet;
3) I want to get back into the habit of eating in a Cohen-like fashion after 5 weeks of no control in France;
4) I am curious as to what weight my body will tell me to stop at;
5) I think it will work better after a bit of a break again; and
6) I do confess to hoping my thighs will get a bit smaller (even though I kinda like them now).

I think I will wait a week when I get back - pack in a few social catch-ups (with wine) and a night on the town (with wine) and then get back into it. It's such a good training program for good eating!

So - what do you think? Do you want me to keep up the blog if I do it again? Let me know if you want me to keep you informed or if you will be glad once it is over. ;) Please post some comments or email me!

As you may have gathered from the title of this post, I have switched back to the yummy crackers (as of today). I'd been eating low fat ones for about 3 weeks (thinking it might help) but now I've decided, life is too short for shit crackers! :) Both types are allowed on the program and I don't think it made a big difference so I've switched back to the tasty ones. Something had to give this week - I'm going to be celebrating my birthday by going out for a big night (sans wine) and going to see a movie in Gold Class (sans wine). Not to mention not being able to buy any snacks. Fancy that - birthday celebrations without using food or wine. Geez, miracles really do happen!!!

Hope you have a great week!

M. x

PS - This is a photo I took on Monday of this week. Thought you might like a visual update. I'll see if I can put up some before/after ones when I'm at the end - if I am brave enough! :)

Cohen's Diet Weigh In; Week 18.

Wow - week 18. That's just ridiculous, isn't it? 18 weeks with no bread, rice, pasta, alcohol, sugar, potatoes, chocolate... goodness me! This week I lost 0.8 kg which brings me to a grand total of 22.8 kg. Yay!

I guess I couldn't really expect a big week after last week's smashing effort, but I did eat some extra fruit this week when I was feeling sick with a headcold. It's quite difficult to tell if it made a difference though, given that I ate a bit of extra fruit last week also. I think I've also started to stress again a bit, which is a pain. So I'm not going to think about it too much and just try to focus on relaxation this week. I have a nice relaxing weekend planned and dinner with my lovely brother so I'm off to a good start.

Hope you all have a lovely week!

M. x

P.S - The photo is of the chicken 'noodle' soup I made myself when I was sick. Substituted cabbage for noodles and didn't even miss them!

Cohen's Diet Weigh In; Week 17.

Gosh, the weeks are just cranking on by, aren't they? Hope you are all well and happy.

This week I lost 1.4 kg! That's more than the last 2 weeks put together. Grand total of 22 kg - woot!

What did I change? I think primarily the biggest change was that I stopped stressing. Being told I could start refeed on 1 September really gave me the freedom this week to relax and I think that was the biggest factor. I also reintroduced cheese this week so I know that doesn't affect my weight loss and I am going to keep (very enjoyably) eating it until the end.

This week I started a "Cohen's Truth Sheet", which is just something I made up to help me manage my fruit and crackers. I totally got that I hadn't been managing them well at all. In not setting aside my allowance each day I was allowing myself to eat extra crackers under the guise of forgetfulness. Non-intentional of course, but looking back over the day and forgetting the one at lunch or breakfast meant I was (assumedly) often having an extra one when I couldn't recall if I'd eaten one or not.

As for fruit, boy am I craving it. It has become the most attractive thing in the world to me, no doubt because of the sugar. I've had a bit of extra fruit a few days this week. Ok... I admit it... I actually had a bit of extra fruit on more than a few days this week... OK OK - you've twisted my arm! Even when recording it I may have inadvertently/accidentally on purpose eaten the odd extra cracker too. Sigh. Trust you to hold me to account and force it out of me!! ... Anyhoo, where was I? ... Oh that's right, there were 2 days that we had huge catered morning teas and I didn't beat myself up about eating extra fruit because I dodged all the cake and sausage rolls. I even had to work hard to dodge the watermelon and blueberries and pineapple that I'm not allowed to eat! But I am writing it down each day so at least I am aware of it. Then, if I look back at the end of the week wondering why I haven't lost much weight, I can see if I've behaved myself or not. Funny how I seem to forget if I have...

In other related news, I cleaned out my whole wardrobe this week. 5 hours of trying on everything I own; I was exhausted in the end! I can't tell you how good I felt. I have 2 gorgeous CUE suits that I used to wear when I worked in a law firm and I've never quite fit into the pants of one of them. They fit now! Almost all of the size 14 clothes that were in my wardrobe are now being given away. I am a definite size 12. There is nothing in my wardrobe that doesn't fit and it feels great! There were a few items of clothing I was sad to get rid of, but it's worth it!! It's funny - I'd been storing up all of my big clothes thinking I'd do a huge purge at the end and that it would be a therapeutic celebration and a bit of an emotional "dumping" of my old life, but I realised this week that I didn't have to get to the end to do that, in fact, I needed to do it RIGHT NOW! ... Or right then, more accurately. Having all those extra clothes hanging around all of a sudden became a huge weight of crap I needed to be rid of and so now I am feeling de-cluttered and excited about my (old) wardrobe. I know I will need to do it all again at the end, but it felt so good to dump a whole pile of "emotional" baggage at this point now. :)

Have a great week everyone!! I begin my quest again to have a deviation-free week this week.

M. x

PS - OK, so this week started badly with an extra half a serve of fruit yesterday. You got me. Gosh you really are persistent this week - wish me luck for the rest of it!!!!!!!!

Zucchini Hashbrowns

I made a new breakfast this morning; Zucchini Hashbrowns. As good as normal ones? No. But not bad for Cohen's-friendly hashbrowns. :)

Ingredients:
- 75 g shredded zucchini/onion (in whatever ratio you prefer);
- 2 crackers (like Salada or Premium ie., 4 squares);
- 1 egg;
- dried herbs;
- salt & pepper; and
- fresh chives/parsley to garnish.

Crumble the crackers, beat the egg and mix everything together. Cook in small clumps in frypan with spray oil. I made 4 and they cooked just like pancakes. I think if I wasn't on Cohen's that I might substitute the crackers for actual potato (probably precooked).

Enjoy!

M. x

Cohen's Diet Weigh In; Week 16.

Hi all, hope you've been having a great week! I weighed in yesterday and lost 0.7 kg, bringing me to a grand total of 20.5 kg!

As you can probably guess, I was a tad disappointed with my 0.7 kg given how many big changes I made to my diet last week. Whilst I suspect that some of them did or didn't make a difference, I really can't make an accurate comment about it because I had a binge on Saturday night. I CRACKED! Cracked, I tell you. Turns out the pressure of losing weight in time for France combined with trying to crack the 20kg mark, not to mention trying to crack on past my old skinny weight (and a few other work/personal dramas thrown in for good measure), was all too much. So on Saturday night, when I had no food left for the day, I ate 2 crackers and 2 massive kiwi fruits. I know it doesn't sound like much, but when you are only allowed 2 fruits and 5 crackers per day, and they have to be had at certain times apart from each other, etc., having all of that in one hit would have given me an insulin spike like I haven't had in a while! That is what would have done some damage. Not to mention that it was almost the size of my dinner!

Disappointingly, I am out of integrity if I try to comment on whether or not all of the strategies I implemented last week worked or not. I am, however, going to make a few comments anyway. :)

1) Cheese: I had heard previously that cheese could restrict your weight loss and had experimented a bit with it before, by not having it for a few days (whilst weighing myself daily). I found that I actually tended to lose weight after eating cheese and concluded it didn't make a huge difference.

2) I'm not overly sure that swapping meals 2 & 3 make a huge difference unless I have chicken at both meals. Otherwise I seem to be eating about the same weight of food and don't think it will matter if they are reversed or not.

3) I seem to be having less cravings in the evenings and think that (a) either the sugar balance tablets are working or (b) I really was having too much Vitamin B6 before hand (see last week's blog for more details).

I also found out that too much stress and not enough sleep are two of the biggest reasons for the slowing of weight loss. Given that I have been abnormally stressed for about 6 weeks and not sleeping as well, it would be silly to think that these are not, at the very least, contributing factors. So my plan this week is to stress less and sleep more!

I have one HUGE reason to stress less this week - I have worked out what I am going to do about France. Prior to now (and you've no doubt read about it in this blog), I was hoping to do my refeeding program (where they introduce bread/pasta/rice/wine/sweet biscuits and other restricted fruit/veg/meat back into your diet in a calculated fashion so as to not cause alarm and weight gain), before I go to France. The program lasts 17 days but can take a bit longer if your body isn't adjusting well. Given I leave for France on 23 September, I considered I should start refeed on 1 September. Problem is, Dr Cohen is very straight about the fact that he won't let you refeed unless you are at the goal weight that he prescribes you. Now, regardless of the slight discrepancy between my goal weight and Dr Cohen's version of my goal weight, that leaves me a good 10 kg to lose in 5 weeks. Given my last two weigh ins at the clinic were 3.9 kg and 3.4 kg for the last two 4 week periods, it is highly unlikely I will get there. I spoke to the clinic yesterday and we made a deal - I can start refeed on 1 September so long as I get in contact with them when I get back. That way, if I am not at my goal or still have weight to lose, I can go back on the program for a month or so to finish it properly. YAY! Well, not yay about having to go back on the program but YAY - I can relax!! Now I know for sure that I will be taken care of and can start refeed on 1 September regardless of my weight, the pressure is gone! YAY FOR LESS STRESS!

I have done quite a bit of research on the refeed program and there are two major signals to the body that you are ready for it. The first (and most common) is that you are just suddenly starving. Like 'I want to eat a horse' starving. On the first part of the program we are fed just the right amount to force our bodies to burn our stored fat to use as fuel. When our bodies reach a point where they don't want to burn any more fat, they will start screaming at us for more fuel. The second most common signal is that it will feel like you've hit a wall and you will have no energy for normal, every day tasks. It is hard to pin point this equilibrium point with the scales, it really has to come from your body. There is a bit of evidence from people who started the refeed program as soon as the scales said they were allowed to, rather than waiting until their bodies signalled to them that they were ready. They have then gained back some of the weight and since redone the end of the program. It appears that, in general, these people have found it much easier to sustain their goal weight after having gone through the experience a second time and waiting until their bodies told them they were ready, rather than the scales.

After learning this, I was keen to get to the part where my body tells me I'm ready, and so refeeding before France actually gives me the freedom to enjoy France without stressing about not being at my goal. Now I can just see how I feel when I get back. I'd already figured I might need to go back on the program for a bit (if 5 weeks in France results in too much indulgence), so now I will relax and just see how I feel when I get back. Who knows, maybe I will relax and get close enough that I can maintain it anyway? Anything is possible. There are certainly plenty of people that didn't wait for their bodies to scream at them before starting, and are maintaining just fine. :)

So for this week I am going to stress less, sleep more and RELAX! Food wise, I've talked to the clinic and I am going to have cheese a couple of times a week again, and try to keep my softdrink/sweetener restricted. I also have to make sure I only have 5 crackers and 2 fruit a day!!!

Hope you all have a great week,

M. x

PS - I cooked some lovely fillet steak with mushroom sauce the other day. It was so good, even the photo was all steamy!

Gai Pad Gra Pow (Basil Chicken) with Cauliflower Rice

Wow, I love this stuff.

This has always been one of my favourite Thai Dishes. I have had to modify it for my Cohen's Diet as the normal recipe calls for sugar and fish sauce, but I didn't even use any sweetener and it came out beautifully. I thought I might pop it up on my blog so that you all may enjoy it. :)

Ingredients
- 120 g chicken mince;
- 10 g thai basil leaves (looks like a lot but it's the main part of the dish);
- 1 clove garlic;
- chilli (I used a pinch of chilli flakes but you could use whatever chilli you like);
- 1 small spring onion;
- 80g cauliflower.

Slice spring onion, chilli and garlic and stirfry in a bit of spray oil. Add chicken after a minute or so and give a generous sprinkle of celtic salt (I use this as the subsitute for the fish sauce). Cut cauliflower up finely (or grate). Either put it in microwave container and zap for 2 minutes (to make 'cauliflower rice'), or stir in with chicken depending on your preference. Once chicken is cooked, remove from heat and stir through the basil.

I made mine with 'cauliflower rice' as a bit of a novelty. Obviously you can use whatever veggies you like (and certainly a bigger quantity than I used), and even serve with real rice!! Enjoy! :)

M. x

Cohen's Diet Weigh In; Week 15.

I weighed in this morning and I was shattered!!! I lost 0.6 kg which brings me to a grand total of 19.9 kg! Waaaaah! Well... I'm not really shattered given that I've (nearly) lost 20 kg, just a bit miffed that I didn't crack the 20 kg mark and also that I have had my worst ever weight loss to date. But that's all the complaining I'll do. :) I'm actually not surprised, I'm stuck at the weight I couldn't crack 4 years ago and they do say that your body has 'memory weights' that it will try to maintain but it's all good, I'll smash it next week. :)

I had a fabulous chat last night with the head of the Cohen's Lifestyle Clinic that I'm signed up to. Thus far I've avoided them like the plague, because, you know, I don't like being told what to do. I told them I'd sign up but wouldn't go see them (they are waaaay over the other side of the city), so thus far I've done the whole thing by phone. I typically only talk to them once every 4 weeks which is when they record my weight, or if I have a question. I had not had a hugely great experience with them as the woman who was meant to call me once a month was pretty slack, resulting in me calling her each time she was late in calling me so my overall impression of them wasn't high. However, it turns out she's not there now (apparently they noticed she was crap too) and that the lady who runs the place has taken an interest in her clients.

Anyhoo, we had a good old chat and I told her about how I am going to France and need to start refeed on 1 September but don't think I'll quite make it. I was scared to tell her in case she tried to make me go to France without doing refeed and make me keep going until I reach goal weight when I got back (meaning I wouldn't be allowed to drink wine or eat croissants in France!?) but she was great! She's now made it her personal mission to make sure I do make it (yippee!), and has given me some new rules for this week (boo!). These include:

1) Only have yoghurt 4 mornings a week (cry). She wants me to have an egg for breakfast on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays. I like eggs but I LOVE my mango smoothies and this is going to be a bit sucky but will be worth it if it works.

2) No cheese this week. BOOOOOOOO!!!! I love cheese. So much. The fact that I can only have it 3 times a week makes me sad enough already but she said, now that I am down to the last fat layer, my body will burn the fat that I eat before it will burn the fat from my thighs and so she is banning me from eating cheese (which is the only protein in the diet that has fat in it). Cry cry cry. Friggin cry. And I have a feeling 'no cheese this week' will turn into 'no cheese until you finish'. Waaaah!

3) Cut back big time on the soft drink. (Cry again). I have been drinking (almost) the entire allowance of softdrink which is 1 L. I have 1 x 200 mL coke zero a day with lunch, and 2 x 375 mL sprite zero in the evenings. She wants me to cut back to one can a day. Sob. Sniffle.

 

 4) No Berocca. OH WHY!?? I love my morning Berocca. Too much B6 is what is, apparently, causing me to get the munchies at night time. I thought it was the boredom and the fact that I am alone, coupled with a dash of rebellion.

 

 5) No tofu. Dag nabbit. This was my new favourite thing. In fact, I actually made 6 serves of my lovely Tofu Masala (see my Week 13 Weigh In post for recipe and picture) last weekend and froze them. She said I can eat them (only 2 a week though - max) but that it's a weaker protein and better for me to eat chicken more often.

 

6) Swap lunch and dinner around so I am having a bigger meal at lunch. This rule I can handle (*wipes brow*).

 

Well, not only has she taken away all of the things that I love (*queue melodramatic music*), she has given me a bit of a vitamin readjustment. Firstly, I am to start taking some Blackmores sugar balance tablets. Apparently they will help with the sugar/carb cravings. I am to take them at morning tea, afternoon tea and just after dinner for a week or so, before weening down to one a day. I also have to take some magnesium tablets as I've been getting sore muscles. Get this though, vitamin B6 was in both the magnesium tablets and the sugar balance tablets so I ended up buying calcium & magnesium & D3 tablets which don't have B6. The sugar balance ones do but I'm assuming it won't have such an impact and somehow works with the chromium to regulate your blood sugar? Pfft. Sounds a bit fishy to me (and I can't be bothered looking into it further), so I have just alerted the clinic to the fact that there is, in fact, B6 in the sugar balance tablets and I am just going to do what I am told, for once. :)

 

To get to my goal weight by 1 September I need to lose 11.2 kg. To get to their goal weight for me I need to lose 14 kg. She thinks I'll get to her goal weight but before our conversation last night I thought I was going to come in short at around 9.2 kg (2 kg above my goal). She has me feeling pretty confident about reaching my goal with her help though - so watch this space!!!

 

Thanks for reading my blog, have a great week!!!

 

M. x

Mel's Cooking Adventures

I must say, one of the pleasures that I've been finding inside this diet is the pleasure of guilt-free eating. If I can make something yummy (for example, my apple slice!) within the Cohen's diet guidelines then I can eat something amazing with no guilt whatsoever or any worry that I am eating something unhealthy or not good for me in some way. I have really enjoyed making some things that I have already shared with you, like my big tasty cheese stacks, chicken schnitzel, tofu masala and coleslaw, and I thought I would share a couple of my new favourite discoveries with you. :)

Zucchini Pasta
- cut zucchini into fine long strips;
- dry on paper towel overnight in fridge; and
- stirfry with garlic, spray oil and salt.

I love this, it actually does taste a bit like pasta. I've eaten it several times, here it is with some seasoned chicken. I can't wait until I have a bigger veg allowance, I'd like to make this bigger so it is more like pasta with a topping. :)


Salt and Pepper Squid
- cut open squid tube and remove any cartilage you can find;
- score diagonal lines into inside of squid and cut into strips;
- place in little bag with 1 crushed premium cracker, salt, pepper and garlic; and
- stirfry in spray oil.

Oh how I loved eating this. I seriously felt like I was cheating, it was that good. It also works well in the oven for about 12 minutes on 190 degrees or so (fan forced). Doesn't look that great with the coleslaw colour-wise, but I eat that coleslaw with everything! ... and no my darling student husband, I still haven't bought that slicer so my cabbage still looks messy. :P


Balsamic Mushrooms
- cut up mushrooms;
- saute in 1 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar; and
- crumble feta and parsley over the top.

Oh My God. This is amazing. Was inspired one morning at work, thinking about a mushroom bruschetta I once had and I came home and made this in my lunch break with a manky bunch of parsley that had been in the fridge for about 3 weeks. The parsley ended up making the dish! I wish I was allowed feta more than once a week because this is amazing.


Chicken Nuggets
- mix organic chicken mince with 1 premium cracker, 1/4 teaspoon of mustard powder and some celtic salt;
- form into little nuggets; and
- bake in oven for 12 minutes on 190 degrees (fan-forced), turning once.

YUMMO! I made 5 batches of these last night and froze them. Good for a quick pre-prepared dinner. I think when I make them again that I won't mix the cracker in, I will save it to crumb the outside. See, I eat that coleslaw with everything! So quick, easy and tasty. :)


Egg Muffins
- finely chop 75 g total of spring onion, mushroom, asparagus and spinach;
- mix with one egg;
- divide into 2 muffin molds; and
- bake for about 15 mins on 180 degrees (fan forced).

These are pretty tasty. I freeze them and put them in the fridge to defrost overnight for an easy breakfast. I've even eaten them cold!

So there you have it. If you are looking for some healthy alternatives or ideas - enjoy!

M. x

PS - Thank you again for all of your support, I think creating this blog has helped me enormously to stay accountable and that wouldn't happen if I knew nobody was reading it so thank you to all of you who encourage me and read it. If you are still getting email notifications and would prefer not to, please let me know as I won't be at all offended. :)

Cohen's Diet Weigh In; Week 14.

Hi people! Another week bites the dust. 1.1 kg down this week, 19.3 kg total - woot! Getting close to 20 kg. :)

I am getting pretty excited and feeling pretty fabulous. I'm the thinnest I've been now since I was about 18 so that is exciting. I'm looking forward to the rest of the weight coming off soon and hoping to get it all done by the time I go to France. That means I'll have to start refeed by 1 September.

I drank 3 L of water each day this week but I'm not really sure if it made a big difference over the 2-2.5L I was drinking before. Prior to the slow down of my weight loss I was losing 1.0 kg on the 'off week' and I lost 1.1 kg this week. I'll keep up the 3 L though, just in case it does. My celtic salt arrived in the mail today so that was good timing - I'm going to tip out all of my old salt now and use it from now on. If you haven't read my post regarding celtic salt then click the link to check it out - it's good for you!!

I've started fantasising about the first sweet thing I'm going to eat when I go on maintenance. They say you should be able to have chocolate (50 g like a chocolate bar) twice a week or so and I'm looking forward to it immensely. I like that there are guidelines and that this stuff is not ruled out forever. I understand that I can't go back to eating the way I used to (I never really ate chocolate but I didn't eat enough protein and I ate too many carbs) and I love that this is a lifestyle change that includes the allowance of treats still. I'm under no illusion about it and it pleases me greatly. :) Speaking of chocolate, check out the photo of our morning tea at work last week - this is only what was left after an hour of 9 people eating it. I think I've done brilliantly to not cheat given we have one every week and this was a small spread compared to the others. The chocolate covered scotch finger biscuits were partiularly tempting this week, as were the mini mudcake muffins.

I hope you all have a great week, I think I should crack the 20 kg mark!!

M. x

Cohen's Diet Weigh In; Week 13.

Woo hoo! Had a ripper of a week and pulled a whopping 1.5 kg!! That makes for a grand total of 18.2 kg - woot!

Well, my little experiment has proven to me that all of those little things Dr Cohen says not to eat that seemed not important (like fenugreek, the wrong multivitamin and different sweeteners etc. in different soft drinks) really do make a difference. Bugger. It just goes to show really, if you want good results you really do have to do this program at 100%. If you are happy to coast along being on the program for longer than necessary then it's ok to do 98 or even 99%, but those last little things have almost halved my weightloss for a month. So I am definitely not eating out or doing anything unnecessary to affect my diet as I want this over with so I can have as much time on maintenance as possible before I go to France!

Now that everything is back on track I am upping my water to 3 L a day from 2 L. Let's see if that makes a difference!

Thanks for all of your support and encouragement, every little email or comment I get from you makes a huge difference to me. I was really excited last week to get a comment from another Cohenite - it's nice to know that my blog is inspiring others. :)

Have an awesome week!!!

M. x

PS - I made a kind of Tofu Masala, it rocked. Browned off the tofu in spray oil and cooked the vegies quickly with garlic/ginger/coriander/garam masala powders. YUM!

My all time best lucky find I've ever found in the whole of today!

Cohen's Coleslaw!!!

Found a recipe a girl put on the web called, 'Lazy Coleslaw' and she is so right. Quick, easy, and yum!

After playing with it a bit here is how I make it:

1. Slice cabbage and weigh to allowance. If I'm not feeling lazy I might also chop up some spring onion and celery;
2. Splash with white wine vinegar;
3. Add 1 level teaspoon of low fat mayo (that's all I'm allowed per day - it's tiny!);
4. Add a good grind of salt and pepper; and
5. Sprinkle with sweetener.

I turn it over a few times to mix in the mayo then I put the lid on and give it a bit of a shake to mix it (I normally make up one veg allowance in a disposable gladware container). I make a few in advance (I can only have one a day due to the mayo) and have it as a quick, ready-made veg portion.

I also discovered that it goes swimmingly with tuna, which makes for a very quick meal. YUM!

M. x