Great Australian Diet - Week 1

Mr Mel and I have been on the 'Great Australian Diet' for a week now, and happy to report we both have lost weight:

Week 1
Mr Mel -2.2kg
Me -1.8kg

The fist week happened to coincide with me having to travel to Victoria for my cousins engagement party, and Mr Mel heading for a boys day at the Golden Slipper in Sydney, both had a high probability of being blowouts diet wise.

However happy to say we were pretty good, Mr Mel more so than I (oops).  I only get together with my parents, sister & Aunt a few times a year, and my cousins a few times every 5 years or so, so it was always going to be celebratory, which in our family means eating & drinking!

Have to admit I did enjoy the nibbles of cheese & biccies very much, and the slice of pre-party pizza, ok slice & a half!  But I did restrain myself, moreso than usual!

Mr Mel also had a not too bad weekend, Chinese for dinner was his only blowout, along with a couple of beers at the races.

So all in all, what could've been a weekend to set our diets back to where we'd started, turned out to be not too bad dietwise, and great weekends overall.

Lifestyle's a better description but diet will do!

Today we're back into it, fruit for breakfast, fruit & salad sandwich for lunch, tonight we're cooking an Asian Noodle Soup. We poached 4 chicken breasts last week to use on sandwiches, and have 2 left, so they're going in the soup.

Ingredients:

• 4 cups chicken stock
• ¼ Chinese cabbage finely sliced
• 1 small Red chilli finely sliced optional
• 2 tablespoons Coriander chopped
• 1 bunch Bok choy shredded
• 1 tablespoon reduced-salt Soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon Fish sauce
• 125 g Hokkien egg noodles cooked
• 1 cup skinless Chicken cooked and shredded
• 1 cup Bean Sprouts
• 1 spring onion sliced

Method:

- Combine stock and cabbage in a large pot and bring to the boil.

- Simmer over gentle heat for 5 minutes or until tender.
- Add chilli, coriander, bok choy, ginger and sauces.
- Divide hot noodles and chicken between 4 deep serving bowls.
- Ladle soup mixture over noodles, add bean sprouts and garnish with spring onion.

Hopefully I'll remember to take a pic of the end result before we devour it!

So after a week we've lost a couple of kgs, but the main thing is the mindset, we're both enjoying exercising more (me @ Curves, Mr Mel walking twice daily), and we've got our heads in that all important 'we can do it' space that can be a struggle to get to and maintain.

Our looming deadline is of course helping with our motivation, but the overall feeling of not being so lethargic and heavy feeling, even after a week of moving more and eating better & less, is great motivation.

Till next time,

C'mon Dr John!

In our overall quest to get healthier, and our immediate aim to lose weight for our wedding, Mr Mel and I have decided to do 'The Great Australian Diet' by the curly haired sometimes out there doc, Dr John Tickell.  You may have seen Dr John torturing the delish Karl on the Today Show?

I have joined Curves and have lost about 2kgs in the 3 weeks I've been going, that's without being strict on diet, Mr Mel has started to walk twice daily.

The diet is quite strict in parts, but it's a 91 day plan, and given it's around 115 days till our party, it's not too big a sacrifice, hopefully!

Last night we made a batch of the Minestrone Soup, haven't tasted it yet, but it smelt ok, the ingredients were:

• One large clove garlic
• Two medium potatoes
• Two large carrots
• Two pumpkin wedges
• Two zucchini
• One stick celery
• One parsnip
• One brown onion
• One large leek
• Five to six cups beef stock
• Two large diced tomatoes
• Two bay leaves
• One tablespoon canola spread
• black pepper
• One can red kidney beans (strained)
• 250 grams frozen baby peas

We're both having it for lunch and dinner tonight, so hopefully it's tasty.  We're also hoping Dr John can be our guiding light!  We've got the motivating goal, just need a bit of a kickstart to get going!

Till next time,