HEALTHY EATING - MY THOUGHTS

Do we ever tire of fad diets, most which are unhealthy to say the very least. Tried,tested and failed, repeat the cycle - remain overweight! Mr Atkins lose weight fast plan remains popular whilst clogging your arteries for a brief respite from blubber land, three weeks later back to square one. I would be lying if i said i have not spent quite a few years in the land of porky, but i have never shared any interest in fad dieting, i wouldn't be trying to write a food site if i was interested in dieting. However i am interested in trying to eat healthier, but still maintaining very tasty food. I stopped writing on this site for the best part of last year, due to trying out new recipes,repeating the cycle, getting fatter(most recipes stored and unwritten). A whole wardrobe that no longer fits resting quietly, gathering dust in anticipation of the day that blubber is a long distance cousin who has difficulties maintaining the relationship. The clothes in question for the most part are not cheap, mostly a hangover from days of brand buying and trying to look good - think STONE ISLAND,LACOST,GANT,HUGO BOSS, PAUL SMITH to name but a few, sat there waiting patiently, now sitting alongside DEBENHAMS and MARKS AND SPENCERS cheaper replacements, clothes bought for comfort rather than looks. The discovery of Jamon Iberico Bellota on a recent trip to Seville hasn't helped one bit, although a treat a healthy dose of Pork fat has always been more readily available, but when it is no longer a treat and bordering addiction you start to worry. Recent recipes have seen too much butter, while the fruit bowl looks on unconvinced that nothing will happen but a trip to the garbage. The other half announced just last week that we were to start dieting(yeah i know - sigh). I hate that word, not just for all that it stands for, what a load bollocks! The other half is looking at me like she usually does after i announce another crazy idea, the same look she gave me when i announced that we turn the house into an underground restaurant once a week(still working on that plan). As you could imagine a heated debate took place about the word play of diet, when i eventually managed to insert some words in to the conversation she started to listen. Diet is probaly one of the nastiest words known to our language. you happen to say the D word people snigger even your family and friends(let's see how long this lasts), with immediate effect the D word causes complications in all parts of the D participants life. Day one is a success story, day two fine, day three a little harder, day four you start supersetting Hobknobs with chocolate digestives! You can almost guarentee that a holiday or birthday celebration will co-incide with the start of the D. The D not only stands for Diet but another nasty word Denial. Once denial kicks in you know your in trouble, by denying your favourite foods you crave them more, when you crave you cave, normally resulting in a binge of huge proportions, the cycle begins again. My logic and reasoning shared with the other half - when she eventually decided to hear me out was to propose a lifestyle change, adjustment to our eating habits, my Beer drinking and re- introduction of exercise, a change that would not include the word denial. Now one of the reasons i am writing this is an unfortunate slip nine days before Christmas, has left me with a fractured Patella(Knee joint) and a dislocated Knee cap, with nothing better to do than eat and cook(i can still get around) the waist line has taken yet another beating! Five years ago i was a regular at the Gym mainly training weights and rowing 50k aweek, the weight was not an issue the clothing fitted, Beer could be consumed and food was consumed, but at regular intervals in smaller portions. I was trying to get through to OH that my problem at the moment is eating to much in one sitting, then not eating for several hours until hungry. All what happens is the food is stored as fat as the body does not know when nourishment will be next available. During the course of our conversation i touched on marketing crap, that food producers use to sell products; half fat biscuits and so on - take this scenario you buy a pack of half fat biscuits, kid yourself that this is a good product, you then eat one? You then say; well because it is half fat i will have another this is where the problems start, you have eaten two. Two half fat products make one full fat product, back to square one. Now for us to lose some lard we need to change our lifestyles slightly. This is a problem for myself as i do not and never have kept regular hours, when not working i stay up late and rise late, skip breakfast, somtimes lunch then consume a great big evening meal. Two hours after eating an evening meal i find hunger starts again. With the broken bones exercise is not realistic but a change in eating habits can help. The Other Half(OH) is in a lot more enviable position than myself, she only needs to lose one stone(she says more)to achieve a good weight and feel comfortable, i have to sadly say, i need to lose four stone to become comfortable again, and hopefully dust the label clothing off. The big question remains, how are we going to pull this off. I have always carried weight well, being over six foot and having a large frame/bone structure with lots of weight training in years past has enabled me to come over as a big guy and not a very overweight person. OH on the other hand loses a couple of pound and back to normal. Our plan has taken hold with a joint decision of smaller portions and healthy tasty food. In simple terms if you do not suffer from an underlying medical condition, losing weight is not some great scientific plan, just changing certain aspects of your eating. Take a country like Thailand where the national obsession is food and eating, you don't happen on many fat people yet they eat all day. Some of this i am convinced has to do with the absence in a large part of dairy and bread, but mostly with small meals consumed at frequent intervals, fresh ingredients, little meat and particulary a few years ago the absence of processed foods. Processed foods are evident, a trip to a 7/11 will show this, but most foods are cooked with fresh ingredients. Now i cannot for the want of hoping ever see that we could in our house change to the asian way of eating, for one we do not always have the access to all of the ingredients, plus we just do not have the street food culture in the UK, but what we can try and do is eat little and often, not deny our favourite food but cut down and still enjoy the wonderful thing that is food! Forget all the crap you read on the net about weight loss most of it designed to make you lose a few pounds, unfortunatly from your purse or wallet and not your waistline. We have started with a few rules, if we want something we can have it without guilt, and within reason. If we want to go out and eat we will, as this doesn't happen weekly it is not a problem. All food is cooked fresh at home, again not a problem as we don't generally buy processed foods apart from what everybody keeps in the store dried pasta and the odd tin of Tomatoes. But most important of all cut down on the amount of food consumed in one go, breaking down into smaller meals more frequently. It is not rocket science if you want to lose some pounds you need to eat. What you eat is what counts! I will post progress of our Healthy eating, but i have taken a vow not to weigh myself just yet. I will also post about the food we are eating and hopefully some good tasty recipes will follow. Any recipes i post will be in the most basic form and not refined, i will also not be trying the same recipe several times to make sure all parts work. Most recipes will not be

DIET FOOD

, but healthy foods which might include some oils,spices and herbs. I will not post about consuming Pork fat in secret or the odd binge, but then again i might just do that! For recipes please follow Healthy Eating tab in recipe index!