Accidental dinner out

My office is in an area of the city which is undergoing lots of redevelopment; scaffolding and dug up road everywhere!  Anyway, this is resulting in lots of nice eateries and cafes popping up around the office; most recently a Brasserie Blanc which I can see from my desk.  It officially opened last night so we decided at about 5pm to go for dinner :o)

We both had the starter from the specials menu; a sausage salad with tiny poached egg and potatoes:-

Which was pretty delicious.  The tiny piles of crisped wisps of onion were gorgeous!  The potatoes were just perfectly cooked and really tasted of potato, like the Castle Potatoes (a single, smallish potato still in its skin, sliced along the fat axis into 1/8" slices and, I think, roasted with no oil) I had with my slow cooked veal for main course.


Mr TOTKat (below) had steak for a main course and it was delicious!  Much better than the ones at Relais de Venise, L'Entrecote over the alley.

And it all went a bit pear-shaped after that and we ended up having loads of bread before the meal and at the end with cheese and dessert wine.  Oops!  Still!  It was a lovely night out and the food and drink was really rather good (though the cheese wasn't all that exciting, which was a tiny bit of a shame).  I don't think I'm going to be losing any more weight over the next couple of days :o)  (which is a good thing as I don't want to lose any more thanks very much!)

I have my domain back

After months of fiddling with ISPs, fighting black-listing and getting stuff to update in the right way and in the right order to work properly with Google Apps; I have my domain name back for web stuff now (it never went away for mail, so no worries there).  So.  Here I am back again.  Redirects should be magical for those using the old blogspot URLs.

Kitteh and cake

I had more cake:-

And then, the excitement of the day was a neighbourhood cat whining at being stuck on a roof:-

The Fire Brigade turning up and the cat panicking and buggering off over the roof to safety (of course):-

Muscle loss

2 weeks of no weight training; 1 week of no exercise at all and my weight is dropping despite being around maintenance kcals all week.  The worry is I may be losing muscle mass.  So, tomorrow morning I'll be taking a body fat measurement to see if I've lost measurable amounts of fat or that it really is muscle dropping off.

Had a little gymmage today though; 65 minutes - 1km warm up on the rower, 3x10 assisted pull-ups at 32kg assist, 12 minutes on the Wave machine; super-set 3x 60s planks with 3x 10 tricep dips; 3x 15 double reverse crunches and then 20 minutes on the cross-trainer.  612kcals and feeling really quite good apart from a real awareness of my coccyx area (probably from the double reverse crunches as I do lean on my coccyx quite a bit at the bottom of the movement).  Still have to call the physio tomorrow for a consultation though, as I really don't want to cause a long term problem by doing the wrong kind of exercise now.

Time for a nice hot bath and a domestic chore or two before tea and cake!

Cake!

Here it is... (1/8th of the cake is 180kcals :o) )

Recipe from BBC Good Food:-

Ingredients

• 85g Sugar, Caster
• 15g Cornflour
• 40g Chocolate, Dark
• 100g Yoghurt, Greek, 0% Fat
• 70g Flour, Plain, Average
• ½ Tsp/ Baking Powder, Average
• 1 Tbsp Cocoa Powder
• 100g Cheese, Soft,  Extra Light
• 3 Large Eggs
• 2 Tbsps Sugar, Icing, Average
• 1 Tbsp Strong Coffee, Black

Method

1.  Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Lightly grease and line the bases of 2 x 18cm sandwich tins with baking paper. Whisk the eggs and sugar until light and fluffy, about 5 mins with a tabletop mixer or 10 mins using an electric hand whisk. The mixture will have increased greatly in volume and be thick enough to leave a trail on the surface when the whisk blades are lifted.
2. Sift the flour, cornflour, cocoa and baking powder over the surface and fold in gently using a large metal spoon. Divide between the tins, gently spreading the mixture to the edges, then bake for 15-20 mins until the cakes are well risen, have begun to shrink away from the sides of the tins and spring back when gently pressed. Leave to cool in the tins for 5 mins, then turn out onto a rack.
3. To decorate, microwave the chocolate and coffee together on Medium for 20-30 secs until the chocolate has melted. Gently stir until smooth, then cool slightly. Beat the soft cheese with the yogurt and icing sugar until smooth, then spoon half the mixture into a small bowl stir in the melted chocolate and set aside. Place one cake on a serving plate and spread with the yogurt mixture. Cover with the other cake, then spread the chocolate yogurt mixture over the top.
4. To finish, microwave the 15g chocolate on Medium for about 20 secs until melted. Stir gently until smooth, then drizzle all over the cake.

Gonna make me a cake

Thanks to a link seen here to a light, fluffy chocolate cake (thanks mum!), I will be making chocolate cake tomorrow.  I was missing only the icing sugar from the ingredients, which is pretty easy to fix.  I do have a cake tin, so I could do each half in turn, but I thought I'd use up some more Amazon voucher balance, invoke free next day delivery and get a couple of tins of the exact right size and do it "properly".

Except now I just got the dispatch notice and it's going to my default delivery address.  Work.  *sigh*  Oh well.  I'll just have to do the cake tin shuffle and the whole thing take a bit longer.  Not a problem really.

Pics tomorrow.

Not much to report

Pretty much on maintenance with no exercise this week until I find out what I can and can't do at the moment.  I suspect I will be allowed to do quite a bit but I don't want to pre-empt and be wrong.

Off to the doc

That 800g was all gone this morning and I'm off to the doctor in a few minutes to get my coccyx looked at and see about some further pain management while it gets on with healing.

Back from hols

And "only" 800g gain (probably quite a bit of "transit" still going on) despite beer every single night (magic beer with no hangovers at all!) and piles of chips or huge hunks of bread at every other meal.  Wooo!

Oh and I broke my coccyx at the end of the first day's skiing, so that was fun... still, my HRM says 6,774kcals burned not including 4 hours of hill hiking the day after I broke my butt ;o)

(holiday photos here)

So, training for the triathlon on Easter Monday is more than likely out of the window.  I'll see what the doc says tomorrow about whether I'm allowed to do any weight training (lifting anything more than my own hands and arms and I can feel it in my butt-bone!) or running, never mind cycling.  I'm sure swimming will be allowed, though.

Final catch-up before skiing

Thursday was a rest day:-

B - greek yogurt with1 scoop, fruit compote and grape nuts
S - skinny latte and a banana
L - salad: lettuce, sweet pepper, celery, capers and chicken breast
S - carrot and houmous
S - Dorset Cereals extra high fibre bar
D - pasta with tuna, sweetcorn and low-fat cream cheese

Calories (kcal) [kcals to maintain weight (inc. exercise)	1736 1789]
Protein (g)	152.5 (36.3%)
Carbohydrate (g)	209.3 (46.6%)
Fat (g)	32.0 (17.1%)
Fruit & Veg	9.6

Totals since 15th June 2009:-
Exercise count: 225
Exercise duration: 133h
Exercise kcals: 74,011

While I'm away, I'm going to wear my HRM while skiing to see what the burn is like, but there's no food logging (data roaming charges are just silly) and no daily checks and balances so let's see what the state of affairs is when I've been off-piste, so to speak, for a week!  I won't be posting, but expect photos etc. when I get back.

And today (a bit of a guesstimate, given dinner out):-

B - greek yogurt with 1 scoop, blueberries and flaked almonds
S - banana
L - Chicken and Egg Noodle soup from EAT
S - cherry tomatoes and a latte
S - tangerines and beef jerky
D - out at an Italian down the road (probably beef carpaccio, followed by monkfish with pureed white beans and fresh veg and some wine)

Exercise - rest day

Calories (kcal) [kcals to maintain weight (inc. exercise)	1796 1783]
Protein (g)	136.6 (31%)
Carbohydrate (g)	134.9 (28.7%)
Fat (g)	46.3 (23.7%)
Alcohol (g)	41.6 (16.6%)
Fruit & Veg	11.2

Teensy bit ded

New routine day yesterday with the trainer.  And it's a killer.  I won't get the printed version 'til I'm back from hols, but we ran through it yesterday and ohboy!  Somewhat optimistically, I also ran part-way home; consequently, this morning, my legs are saying "hello!" to me a lot.  And my arms.  And my abs.

I ended up 760kcals under maintenance yesterday, up to and including dinner.  So I just -had- to have some cheese and biscuits for supper to get things to a less silly level.  It was a total hardship I can tell you!  :oD

No exercise today as it's a rest day and probably none tomorrow, but I have to run out to the shops at lunchtime to get more base layers for skiing, cause the weather is looking a little chilly for where we're going *cough*

Wednesday:-

B - greek yogurt with 1 scoop, blueberries and flaked almonds
S - banana
L - salad; lettuce, sweet pepper, celery, cherry tomatoes, capers, chicken breast
*gym*
S - 1 scoop in semi-skimmed milk
S - beef jerky
S - 4x nut, seed and raisin biscuits (no added anything horrible except soya lecithin)
*run*
D - beef chilli with sweet potato and carrot mash
S - oat cakes with stilton

Exercise - 61 minutes gym, 29 minutes running

Calories (kcal) [kcals to maintain weight (inc. exercise)	1703 2465]
Protein (g)	165.2 (39.7%)
Carbohydrate (g)	166.8 (37.6%)
Fat (g)	41.1 (22.2%)
Fibre (g)	23.9
Fruit & Veg	12.7

Endurance just ain't there

4 weeks to that there first triathlon and I've done bugger all running and cycling.   So, it's time to fit in some running to my week.  The easiest way to do it is to get off the tube a few stops early on the way home and run the rest of the way.  So I did.  I picked a stop 5km from the house and ran.  And ohboy was it horrible.  About 2km in and I was knackered, it was so hard to keep going, but right now I don't have the option of not building up endurance, so I pushed through it and got all the way home, with 3 stops for traffic lights, in 29 minutes.  Slooooow.  10.4km/h is not a good speed for me for 5km, but not to be totally unexpected after pretty much no running over the last 3-4 months.  I guess a pretty hard gym session on the legs earlier in the day (I've upped the walking lunges with 16kg kettlebell up to 20x30) didn't help either...

Monday:-
Exercise - 55 minutes gymmage, 29 minutes running

Calories (kcal) [kcals to maintain weight (inc. exercise)	1910 2545]
Protein (g)	146.0 (31%)
Carbohydrate (g)	183.6 (36.5%)
Fat (g)	68.0 (32.5%)
Fruit & Veg	11.1

Achey legs and bum, so yeah it's a great idea to go to the gym for a cardio session on the cross-trainer, Wave machine and bike this afternoon :oD

Today:-
Exercise - 55 minutes cardio gym

Calories (kcal) [kcals to maintain weight (inc. exercise)	1562 2227]
Protein (g)	141.2 (36.7%)
Carbohydrate (g)	151.0 (36.8%)
Fat (g)	45.2 (26.5%)
Fruit &Veg	9.9

Omnomnom smoothie

No gym again today due to needing to just not do that.  I've been 3 times this week and it's not like I'm not doing quite well with the fat loss - down to 25.2% body fat now!

A gentle day of laundry and paperwork today, with a nommy fruit smoothie in the afternoon:-

 

Made with banana, blueberries, blackberries, some yogurt, 10g whey and some semi-skimmed milk.  Gorgeous!

And there's a roast chicken dinner later with sweet potato, broccoli and gravy; nom!

Next week, I hope to concentrate on some endurance exercise for my legs and core to support skiing the week after.  Unweighted squats, lunges and Bulgarian split squats along with the Wave machine, cross-trainer and bike, and planks and reverse crunches.

Coulda been worse

Totally went over yesterday... I should have realised something was up when I felt pretty squiffy part-way down a "small" (175ml) glass of wine before heading to dinner.  So, we went to "Relais de Venise" and I had my steak blue.  After more wine, the decision to have cheese after the steak was a no-brainer and by the time we got home, the alcohol really hit my stomach quite hard and I had to try to keep the nausea down by having a couple of slices of toast.  So.  Bad day in terms of staying under maintenance (basically I was waaaay over maintenance by about 1000kcals!).  Hey ho.  And, of course, seeing as I felt pretty rubbish today and my wrist is still wonky, I didn't gym today.  That final pound isn't going to drop off any time soon, methinks.

So, today was the day my "success story" was to appear in the Daily Mirror.  And, lo and behold, so it did.  We bought a copy on the way in to work this morning and flicked through enough to see it was a full page article with a huge "after" picture of me down one side.  Of course, the article isn't quite accurate in places and it's certainly embellished here and there, but it could have been a heck of a lot worse.  I'm feeling a bit weird about it all and find it even odder that other people think it is an inspiring story and can help others to lose weight too.  But, if it does that then I'm glad to have helped even in some small way.

And there was one photo from the shoot that I didn't totally hate; shame they didn't use it *cough*

Cynically speaking, the article is really just an advert for the web site I use for keeping my food and exercise journal - Weight Loss Resources - but I have no problem with that at all as that site was essential for me while I was losing weight and it continues to be as I maintain that loss.

Exercise - rest day

Calories (kcal) [kcals to maintain weight (inc. exercise)	1326 1796]
Protein (g)	138.4 (42.3%)
Carbohydrate (g)	135.9 (38.9%)
Fat (g)	27.3 (18.8%)
Fruit & Veg	14.6

Heads-up!

Off out for dinner now so might not be able to post later...

I'll be in the Daily Mirror tomorrow - awful copy, slight errors all over it and god knows which photos they'll use (plus I've not seen the "after" ones) - but anyway... keep an eye out!  (not that you'd normally buy or read the Daily Mirror though, right? ;o))

*ache*

OK, so I may not have burned a zillion calories at PUNCH yesterday, but my arms are telling me about it all in great detail today; forearms and triceps, hello!  DOMS! That, along with the dodgy wrist meant I ditched the Swiss Ball jack-knives today for fear of the wibblyness in my wrist meaning I wouldn't be able to support myself properly. I swapped them for the utterly appropriate oblique crunches, 'cause, yeah, they're totally equivalent (*cough*).

I am really very very tired today, I only got 471kcals out of gyammage (usually get just under 500 for the same time spent) and I'm absolutely knackered.  The tube journey this morning involved falling asleep instantly and waking upvery grumpy when I had to change at Kennington because my lovely Bank train had morphed into a Charing Cross one.  One more weights session this week, one more cardio one on Sunday, a massage tomorrow and I'll dial it down next week.  It's been lots of weeks since I had a gentle week without being ill from those dodgy beans and I think my body would like a bit of a rest now. Plus, it's skiing the week after next and I don't want to be totally shattered for that!

...which reminds me, I must get some goggles!

B - greek yogurt with 1 scoop, fruit compote and flaked almonds
S - small banana
*gym*
S - 1 scoop in skimmed milk
L - salad; lettuce, sweet pepper, cherry tomatoes, capers, smoked salmon and lemon juice
S - tangerines and a skinny latte
S - beef jerky
S - a pear
D -  plum tomato and basil sausages with mashed butternut squash and sweet potato

Exercise - 53 minutes gymmage

Calories (kcal) [kcals to maintain weight (inc. exercise)	1669 2194]
Protein (g)	151.1 (37.1%)
Carbohydrate (g)	166.7 (38.4%)
Fat (g)	44.5 (24.6%)
Fruit &Veg	12.5

*weak*

I went to PUNCH today at the gym, expecting a full-on really hard workout.  And I guess it could have been had I not been a beginner, paired with a pretty unfit beginner.  Also, and this is why posting will be short for at least today, I've done something to my right wrist.  It doesn't hurt, just feels pathetic and I can't move it as much as I should be able to.  It didn't feel right during the class either.  It's not tight or anything, just weak and feeble.  Typing is difficult as I can't move my wrist as I would usually, same goes for mouseing.  It's got a support bandage on for now and I've got strapping for tomorrow in case I still have feeble wrist by gym time, but the dull ache in my wrist, elbow and shoulder that's starting up isn't filling me with confidence.

Exercise - PUNCH for 44 minutes

Calories (kcal) [kcals to maintain weight (inc. exercise)	1745 2163]
Protein (g)	158.5 (35.6%)
Carbohydrate (g)	177.6 (37.4%)
Fat (g)	53.6 (27.1%)
Fruit & Veg	11.2

Wetherspoons food--

 A nice average gym (with added 3x15 reverse crunches, 3x12 tricep dips and 3x12 Kinesis flyes) and a run home, that was the plan.  Except when I got almost all the way to the tube station I get off at to run home from there, I realised my house keys were at work as I'd packed light into my running rucksack and forgotten to transfer them to the rucksack.  Wah!

Actually, not so bad.  I ran to the Wetherspoons near home and set up camp there to wait for Mr TOTKat to get out of his hugely over-running meeting and let me in to the house.  Of course, I got to the pub at about 1/4 past 7, starving.  So I had to eat something.  The thing is, Wetherspoons food is horrible.  I ended up having a jacket potato with chilli con carne.  WLR says it is 775 kcals for a 615g portion.  There is no way on god's earth that the plate that arrived had 651g of food on it.  The potato was -tiny-; perhaps about 250g maximum, the chilli portion was about a heaped tablespoon, no more than 100g.  And, being generous about it, there might have been scraping 100g of salasd with dressing.  Perhaps a total of 450g there.  But without scales, what can you do other than believe the standard portion size?  *sigh*  And it wasn't even nice.  The potato was grainy and dry and the chilli quite bland.

When we finally got home, just before 9pm, I decided I was hungry again and had the chilli I was going to have for dinner anyway, just without any carbs or veg.

Mad amount of protein and no beer :o)  Lots of exercise, but an indeterminate amount of food in the end, so I'm taking worst case scenario...

Exercise - 53 minutes gym, 27 minutes running

Calories (kcal) [kcals to maintain weight (inc. exercise) 2370 2500] Protein (g) 195.1 (33.3%) Carbohydrate (g) 226.0 (36.2%) Fat (g) 78.2 (30.1%) Fruit & Veg 13.9