I found it really hard in the last two weeks of my holiday
to maintain my work out plans and eating habits. This was partly because my time and meals
weren’t really my own as we were staying with family – everything that I ate
and did was based upon their own needs and that’s just the way it should be. So not complaining because what we ate was YUM! We
also spent a week in a rainforest cabin for our anniversary, where they made
your meals for you and the food just kept coming. We left with a lot of food in the fridge
uneaten.
So I feel like all the work I did before Christmas was kind
of wasted on one hand, basically I put on everything I lost – although I
haven’t checked. However, I know what I
was doing was working and although I feel fat again I also feel healthier. When
we were at the cabin we went for a hike up into the rainforest and it felt
really good. A few months ago I wouldn’t have done it. I also know that I’ll be
able to pick it up again pretty quickly. So now that I’m back at home I’ll
start again.
Before Christmas my sister-in-law did a few days of the
Dukan diet. If you
don’t know the Dukan diet, it is basically for a little
while (called the attack phase) you eat protein foods and not much else.
This works in the short term because your body takes longer
and works harder to convert protein into usable energy thus you end up with
less of the energy stored away as fat because it is being used up instead. That
is why many texts suggest you eat a protein rich food as a snack – it will
help fill you up and take a while to convert.
However long term, some obvious side effects are
constipation (no fibre), lack of vitamins and minerals (no fruit or veg) and
kidney issues (as it tries to deal with all that extra protein).
The Australian Guide to Healthy Eating shows that lean meat,
fish, poultry, eggs, nut and legumes (all give you protein) should take up about
an 1/8 of your food intake – or between 1-1½ serves a day for an adult woman –
up to 2 if you are male.
Example of a serve:
2 small eggs
½ cup lean mince
½ cup cooked chick peas etc
1/3 cup peanuts/almonds
65-100g cooked meat
One of the things I’m taking away from the Dukan diet is the
Galette. My sister-in-law made them for
breakfast, although I got her to add a little bit of parmesan cheese to add
some more flavour, it wasn’t too bad. Making it into a pancake- which is
apparently what a galette is – seems like a bit of time waster to me – plus you
have all that washing up to do just for one pancake – so I’m thinking it could
be microwaved in a bowl much like I do scrambled eggs, but I haven't tried it yet.
Galette
2 tablespoons oat bran
1 tablespoon of cottage cheese – we don’t have fromage frais
of quark here
50g of cottage cheese – we don’t have fromage frais
of quark here
1 egg
150g of thinly sliced ham
Sprinkle of parmesan cheese (not from the Dukan diet ha ha!)
Mix all ingredients together. Pour into pan and make a
pancake or microwave in short 20 sec bursts with stirring until cooked.
