THE FORKNCORK DIET - formerly 'Inspiration Needed'

[DonalH]

I know it's a bit clicheed to start a diet at this time of the year but I do need to lose a few stone and now is as good a time as ever to start.

I am taking it very seriously so I don't want it to become a drag where I am not looking forward to meals. Breakfast and lunch are pretty much taken care of (fruit and cereal for breakfast and a fruit and vegetable smoothie thing for lunch). I want to be able to look forward to dinner though. I am not following any specific diet (as in Atkins etc) just common sense stuff, low in fat, dairy, simple carbs, high in greens, protein, complex carbs.) It must taste good though. So give me lots of chillies, garlic, ginger, mint, limes, horseradish, star anise, you can see where I'm going. I love pretty much all food types and nationalities. Which, I hear you say, is why I need to go on the freakin' diet.

So thats your challenge people............ First priority - interesting, tasty creative, Joint priority - diet appropriate

Help !

[unclepat]

Donal, I'm not sure what foods do it for you but the key is to balance a small amount of carbs with lean protein and get sufficient fats from the right sources. Also, eat green leafy veg with every dinner and substitute white rice, bread and pasta with brown. If you can round all that off with a bit of exercise, you're laughing.

Not sure if they will be up your street but a few dishes I regularly eat when training are:

Grilled mackerel or sardines with salsa verde and tomato salad
Seared rare tuna with cannellini bean stew and spinach
Poached eggs, home made baked beans, on brown soda toast
Home made brown pasta with grilled chicken, chilli, lemon & herbs
Thai chicken curry with brown rice ( use very little coconut milk)

Best of luck!

[Ernie Whalley]

I'm watching this one closely as I'll need to get shot of some weight after my knee operation.
I've found in the past that making up a big supply of minestrone (minus pancetta and pasta) and having, for a meal, a generous bowl with just one slice of brown bread helps.
Top tip is don't eat late in the evening.

[chefsmith]

I'm also watching this, I'm terrible for eating late. Get home from work sit down and realise haven't eaten all day so I snack at midnight.
That's my biggest problem to overcome with getting greens into me a close second.

I have gotten better with both over last couple of months, still eating late ish but no more take away junk.

[Hanna]

Wot UnclePat said. I've added a few other meandering thoughts below.

Running 5k three times a week, combined with slightly more sensible eating lost me 2 stone about 18 months ago. The recent festive season has undone a bit of that good work, so I'll be restarting again in earnest this week.

Nearly everything I cook avoids creams, butter, coconut milks, large quantities of oils, fatty cuts of meat, and the like. I try to keep to foods containing lots of chilli, bulked (in a non obvious way) with veg, containing lean proteins.

Do some weight work - gram per gram muscle tissue burns more calories than pretty much any other tissue (brain excepted). More muscle tissue = higher calorific burn. You don't need to do anything mental, nor do you need any specific equipment. Sit ups/push ups/lunges will all work.

Weigh your food - in particular your portions of meats and carbs. 1 serving of pasta is significantly smaller than you think it is. 1 serving of steak is a *lot* smaller than you think it is. Leave your scales on the kitchen counter and try this for a week - you'll get your eye in on what a portion is quite quickly.

Read labels. It can be alarming what you think is good for you, but which actually isn't.

Brush your teeth early in the evening, and after your dinner. You'll be less inclined to snack (a friend of mins swers by this).

Plan your meals in advance (as much as possible), and always have the basics in to make something - even if it's beans on toast. Leaving meals to chance means you *will* eat either bad food, too much food, or utterly unsatisfying food.

Deny yourself nothing, but moderate the bad stuff. "Dieting" doesn't work. Eventually, you'll fall off the wagon and the weight will pile back on. Try to adopt a more "wholistic" approach to it all - exercise, eating, cooking, everything. It's been proven to work more successfully in the long term.

Low fat butters and spreads are crap. Don't bother with them. Just try to use less of the good stuff.

Ditto sugar replacements.

Here are a few suggestions of dinners I cook on a regular basis:-

>Spag bol (I use a variation on a weight watchers recipe that's very tasty)
>Chilli - there's nothing in it except lean mince, tomatoes and kidney beans
>Pepperpot beef - seasoned beef, with kidney beans, peppers, white pepper, chilli, powdered ginger, garlic etc (from The Butlers Pantry cookbook)
>Chilli chicken ramen - nothing in it but stock, some noodles, veg.....
>Currys - lots and lots of them, in particular vegetable curries - all tomato based, none containing creams or coconut milk. I cook a lot of indian curries. I always use clarified butter, but I generally half the quantity called for in most recipes. It generally work out at about 1 - 1.5 teaspoons of clarified butter per person. Curry is an excellent way of maximising taste, minimising calories, if done correctly. The drop in fat does diminish taste slightly, but I think it's well worth the sacrifice.
>Spicy beanburgers, spicy turkeyburgers, harissa spiced chicken burger, spicy anything burger, all home made. Served with salsa, very small amounts of guacamole (avocado is enormously high in calories).
> Seared salmon with spicy puy lentil salsa (awesome:- basically, it's regular salsa but with puy lentils added in).

[unclepat]

Sound advice Hanna. One thing I forgot to mention earlier was pints. We all love em but they are hoors for putting weight on. Enjoy in moderation.

[Hanna]

Spoilsport.

[Diapason]

I'm off drink for January. That should mean I drop 60 or 70 lbs, right?

[chefsmith]

Im also off the booze since 26th, planning to go until end of Jan.

I'll be a rake come Feb :-)

Seriously, i keep forgetting how old im getting, in my head im still 22, but ill be 29 this year and it's scaring me. plan for this year is lose a good few kgs and get into a proper dentist routine.

[Hanna]

ChefS: Not to be smart, but you'll notice a definite slowing in your metabolism once you hit 30 - I know I did. It'll get harder and harder to drop the weight........

[burkean]

This is something that's pretty close to my heart right now.

At 28, after a few years of working in offices, stressful job, long hours - the boozing that comes with the territory obviously, foreign travel, shitty food at conferences - I wasn't quite getting fat. But I was definitely a bit squidgy round the middle. I'd gone from being a reasonably healthy 11stone (so tidliy within my recommended BMI) to heading over 12 stone. And my fitness was down too.

I kinda figured that if I didn't do something about it now, I'd probably never get to the level I wanted again and as it happens, I'm taking on anextra-curricular activity that requires me to maintain a fairly high level of fitness.

I've always been active and fit enough - e.g. a 20 mile hillwalk is no problem and I'd go running or swimming reasonably regularly. But even an increase in these activities and watching my intake of food a bit more carefully never really yielded any worthwhile results.

However since October, things have changed dramatically. I joined a new gym and changed my diet.

Gym first - it's a gym run by a bunch of boxing and movement coaches. It's not cheap but you get a lot of individual attention and they push you right out of your comfort zone. It's not based on fancy equipment. A pull up bar, skipping ropes, heavy bags and a few boxes. They work you like nothing on earth. It's hell at first, but within about 3-4 sessions, you start to figure out your level and you'll enjoy it. Sessions are for an hour and it's all about intensity. There are lots of theories about exercise so I'm not going to swear mine is gospel - but the training programme we use is based on lots of small bursts of high intensity training - say 2-3 minute circuits followed by a minute rest. The point is that these short bursts mean you continue burning fat after you've stopped. Apparently this is more effective than long, moderate intensity exercise. Some might disagree, but I'll happily say that it has procued visible results for me.

Now - the diet bit. This is crucial. First off, I never had a bad diet. Mostly all home prepared food, maybe a Pret sandwich at lunch and lots of fruit and veg. So it was more about reorganising my diet rather than radically changing it. Secondly - I don't just want to lose weight as I was never that heavy. I wanted to be fitter and stronger - being leaner was just a natural part of that. But it means that I'm also looking to boost muscle growth. So what's changed. In two words "carbs" and "protein".

I've slashed my carb intake. And when I take them. Rarely in the morning (porridge is the exception), never, ever at night. Why - because the body doesn't need raw fuel then. I try to have my calorie intake come from foods that do more than one thing, with my "fullness" coming from foods that will also meet my protein/fibre/vitamin requirements. How it normally works is:

3 eggs for breakfast - porridge also good too
Fruit to snack on mid-morning
700ml Soup for lunch - pre-made at home as bought version have terrible salt content
Fruit/nuts for at desk snacking
Double portion fish/meat with large serving veggies (get that protein and minerals in!)

I don't suplement my diet with any extras other than cod liver oil and an occasional Berocca when hungover or the idiots on my desk are all sick again. My immune system has shot up. I've had my best winter in years for dodging colds and flus. In fact I seem half bionic at the moment - I nastily nicked myself with a knife on Christmas Day and by NYE the skin was pretty much completely healed and the scab was gone! Which is a long way of saying that I'm happy with my vitamin intake.

A word on cholesterol - apparently it's all b0llox and just a scam to sell statins. Not sure if I'm convinced and since I happily continue to eat eggs and red meat, I take care to include cholesterol busting foods like walnuts and pomegranate seeds. Apparently wheat and grains are inflammatory of the gut and the human body doesn't derive much nutrition from them. So rice, pasta and bread feature very, very rarely. I was sceptical at first, but I'm convinced this now works. Bread has become such a treat these days.

So what to eat - as I refuse to compromise on flavour. I marinate all the time. Fish, chicken, pork - whatever. Stick it in lemon or lime or vinegar with olive oil and maybe ginger, garlic, chilli (fresh), spices, herbs - you name it. I set aside 2 nights a week when I can prepare soup and put my upcoming nights' dinner in a marinade.

Soups - I love this bit. December featured:
Leek and potato,
Chickpea, chilli, goats cheese and gremolata
Roasted fennel and tomato
Chorizo, chestnut and cumin (not sure how healthy this was - but it was a festive treat)
Beetroot and cumin with garlic yoghurt

Salads - I could list them all, but my main inspiration comes from the Moro cookbooks and both the Ottolenghi cookbook and the new Yotam Ottolenghi book "Plenty". These are brilliant sources for fantasticly flavoured food. You'd want to see the faces on my colleagues when I bring in a salad of chickpeas cooked in pomegranate molasses with pomegranate seeds and coriander - a little gem of a thing that looks so vibrant next to a flacid, bland, pathetic sandwich from the"deli" counter in Sainsburys. The famous Ottolenghi char-grilled brocolli, chilli and garlic salad has become one of my staples.

Curries as mentioned above are fantastic. I make lots of dahls and meat curries with cheaper cuts that stew for hours.

I noticed Italian Foodie mentions some low carb dishes on her blog - I'm going to try some of those too.

I'm genuinely amazed at how much this has all helped me got fitter, stronger and healthier. It's satisfyingly noticeable to the eye within a few weeks.

But Unclepat is dead right - you've got to watch the booze. It's a bona fide killer - sometimes a I try to have a gin and slimline tonic instead of pints, but I suspect I'm only kidding myself.

Best of luck to anyone getting in shape for the New Year. All those who say it needs to be bland or unenjoyable are simply wrong. And of course the benefits are so worthwhile...

[Hanna]

Might it be an idea to start a new, stickied thread with the more unusual/tasty/easy/satisfying lower fat/healthier recipes we enjoy?

[YumYum]

I'm trying to drop a good few pounds, so its good to hear that others are too. I've always found that making my own lunch helps considerably, as does soup. Cutting out bread (which also, for me, results in lowering the butter I smather all over it!) is also a good idea. A glass of water before eating reduces the amount you want to eat in one sitting.

DonalH - a friend of mine who is a foodie lost a stone and a half using India Knights book "From Pig to Twig" - the shopping list looks a bit demanding.

[italian foodie]

Happy new year y'all

Donal I lost a stone recently after reading a book called "Fat Around the Middle", I did absolutely no exercise at all which isn't a good thing I know but I've rectified that since losing the weight. The basic logic behind it is the demon carbs so YES I gave up pizza and pasta for 3 months and it worked, you give up all white carbs plus potatoes, root veg, bananas, grapes, beer, milk! It's all about insulin and how your body deals with it, it was quite an interesting read but more for the female reader I would think.

I found it really easy as you can eat everything else, it says to give up coffee but no can do so I kept that in, I came off it in Dec and am back to feeling bloated and yucky again so I'm back on it from today as I've a half stone left to lose and it is going if it kills me!

G'luck

L

[italian foodie]

Just to add, there are a few of us over on twitter doing a "twiet", we all register to http://www.fatbet.net and input our loss every week, if you can get a few people on board it's a great way to stay motivated! We have a prize of a cookbook at the end for the person who reaches their goal!

[Ernie Whalley]

Decided Hanna was right - this ought to be a 'stickie'

Can't join in until my new leaping and dancing weighing scales arrive (probably Saturday). The ones we have are absolutely bloody useless.

[Hanna]

Well, I'll start with one of my regular recipes, so:-

Salmon with puy lentil salsa

Ingredients (for 2)
2 salmon fillets

For the salsa:
75 g Puy lentils
15 g fresh coriander
2 large tomatoes
½ small red onion
1 red chilli, deseeded (or not deseeded - I likes it spicy so I usually include the seeds)
juice 1 lime
olive oil - the recipe calls for 3 tablespoons, but I use 3 teaspoons and find is seriously more than adequate
salt and freshly milled black pepper


Method

strip the leaves off the coriander stalks and reserve.
Tie the stalks together with a small piece of string (or with the longest stalk of coriander!)
Stick them into a saucepan along with the lentils and 225 ml water.
Bring to a gentle simmer and simmer covered, for 30-35 minutes or until the lentils are cooked/water absorbed
While the lentils are cooking, skin the tomatoes, deseed and chop roughly.
Add chopped onion, chilli and coriander leaves.

When the lentils are cooked, discard the coriander stalks and toss them (warm) in the lime juice and olive oil. Add the seasoning and taste to make sure you add enough. Now add the rest of the prepared salsa ingredients.

Cook the salmon (grill/seared)

Eat!

[Christine]

I’m not an expert but I love my food & wine, love cooking, love exercising & being fit and read extensively on the subject.

My 2 cents:

Don’t over complicate things. You don’t have to stay away from carbs, high GI, fat, you don’t have to time your meals or stop eating at night…these are old theories that have all been discredited and debunked (it’s true, read the current legitimate studies out there). You can eat ‘clean’ and lose weight or you can eat ‘dirty’ and lose weight. You can eat 6 small meals a day and lose weight or you can eat two and lose weight. As much as people want to argue it - it really starts with the old calories in, calories out and you can then tweak from there for your specific goals.

If you’re willing to take 5 minutes and do a bit of math, you’re on to a winner. Use a reputable equation like the Katch-McArdle one to figure out your BMR (basically what your body needs to survive at its most basic coma-like level), factor in activity level to get maintenance (what calories you need to maintain your current weight) and then go from there. You want to lose? Cut 10-20% of your maintenance calories. Don’t start off at a ridiculously low caloric number like 1200 because you’ll have nowhere to go from there.

This will work. If it doesn’t don’t assume you are the 1 in a gazillion genetic abnormality with a snail’s pace metabolism…you aren’t…you just aren’t getting your numbers right. If you want to go gently you can eyeball your food and portions. Get protein in with every meal (tasty, satiating and maintains muscle mass), don’t shy away from fat and flavour. Low fat sucks and is a shitty way to eat (personally, I worship at the altar of butter). There’s no reason to. Eat what gives you pleasure, but keep it within your goal caloric range. If you find you are stuck, weigh and record your food for a week. You don’t have to do this permanently but you’d be surprised how you can over/under estimate portion sizes. What you think is a tsp may very well be a tbsp. It is a real eye-opener.

You will lose weight this way even if you don’t exercise. But really, exercise is brilliant in so many ways. Find something you love or haven’t tried before. Get out of your comfort zone a little. Lifting weights and lifting them heavy can do much more for you than cardio alone. Excessive cardio will often just leave you a smaller but not necessary tighter or more ‘toned’ version of yourself (what is often termed ‘skinny fat’). Resistance training will redefine your body. You don’t need to be on a treadmill or in the gym for hours. Train smart: weight train (do compound moves ie whole body, rather than isolation exercises), incorporate some cardio/interval training and give your body recovery days.

Above all, eat what you love - but do it smartly. I think the biggest reason diets fail is because people end up depriving themselves, eating foods they don’t particularly like, they do something gimmicky for a short-term result as opposed to finding a way to eat with pleasure that they can do their whole lives.

[Melendez]

Decided Hanna was right - this ought to be a 'stickie'

Can't join in until my new leaping and dancing weighing scales arrive (probably Saturday). The ones we have are absolutely bloody useless.

I put on 12lbs instantly the last time I bought a weighing scales.

[chefsmith]

My weighing scales only goes upto 17 stone, i ahvent gained a pound in 10 years :-)