WHAT'S FOR TEA? - Weight Loss Part 7

Dinner for most of us is usually the largest meal of the day. Mine was, more often than not, a plate full of carbs, pasta to be precise. Pasta has been a big part of my stable diet since I went to college when I was 17, and probably one of the primary reasons for my weight gain over the years. 

I, of course, had no idea what harm it was doing. I had no idea that just having pasta with some tomato and basil sauce and grated cheddar for dinner several nights a week was not a good idea. Of course, the portion sizes got bigger over the years as well, which didn't help. Worse still, if I tried to reduce my portion sizes, I'd just end up starving and eat lots of crisps or biscuits. I also had no idea how addictive carbs were and why I needed more all the time.

So why was I so reliant on pasta? Well, when I was a student it was a cheap easy meal to make. It's not that I didn't know how to cook, I did, I just didn't know much about nutrition. Then there's habit, I was a creature of habit (still am), used to eating the same things all the time. And, last but not least, there's the whole business of cooking for one, which is another challenge altogether. I certainly rarely have the motivation to spend a long time in the kitchen when the only person I'm cooking for is me. You get very lazy very quickly, and soon find ways of cooking a meal with little effort. 

Luckily, I've never been partial to ready meals...

When I decided to once more try and lose weight my first thought was: "Whatever changes I make I cannot allow myself to go hungry!" Why was this important? As I've previously mentioned, the main reason why dieting has failed me in the past was because I wasn't eating enough. I was basically starving myself! And if you're on a diet which results in you being hungry all the time, it is impossible to stay focused, let alone have enough motivation to stay on the diet. What I really needed to work on first was what I was eating, not how much I was eating.

The first step I took was to look at how I could still eat my favourite go to staple pasta dish, but also lose weight. This, as it turned out, was quite easy. I halved the amount of pasta I normally cooked and replaced it with veg. Whatever I had in the house, it didn't matter. Courgettes, carrots, mushrooms, peas, broccoli and cauliflower were amongst the veg often featured. This meant I was still eating the same portion size to eliminate the danger of going hungry, but at the same time, dramatically reducing my carb intake.

I also have a bit of an addiction to cheese, and when I had previously tried to reduce how much cheese I ate, I failed! I decided this time to not even attempt it. Instead, I changed the type of cheese I had on my pasta from cheddar to parmesan. The theory being, because you grate parmesan a lot finer, even if you pile it on (which I do), you eat less.

This theory of eating differently not less seemed to be working as I lost half a stone in the first two weeks, so I have applied this where ever possible. And over time, I no longer needed to eat as much food. I stopped eating when I was full, not when my plate was empty. But the leftovers were never wasted.

Another example of fine tuning something I already eat is pizza. I love pizza! 

If I was told I had to give up pizza to lose weight it would likely be a deal breaker! 

But it's all in the dough! How much and what type of dough you use. The circumference of the pizza doesn't matter. In fact the size of my pizza and the amount of topping I pile on has not changed one bit.

What did change was the thickness of my base. I also went from using white flour to half white, half wholemeal, and finally to wholemeal flour alone. The amount of dough I used decreased gradually as well. I make my dough in the bread machine and the recipe usually makes enough for six pizzas. This has gradually gone from being divided into six to eight, to twelve to 24, yes 24 dough balls. So the amount of dough I now use is a quarter of the size it used to be. This results in a wafer thin base because I'm rolling it out to the same size as I was before, as you can see in the picture below.

You can of course just make a smaller pizza, if you don’t fancy such a thin base, and have a side salad with it. I like just pizza though!

The key things to remember when changing what you eat are:

·      Less carbs

·      Less sugar

·      More veg

·      More protein (particularly eggs and chicken)

·      More fibre

Replacing carbs with veg and increasing your fibre content, in my experience, are key to losing weight without going hungry. If you are not sure how to tackle this, take a look at the meals you prepare on a regular basis and have a think about how you can modify them. Cauliflower, for example, is an excellent carb substitute. You could make cauliflower rice instead of using normal rice. If like me you love macaroni cheese, replace half the macaroni with cauliflower. Like mince and tatties? Again, halve your tatties and replace with cauliflower. The options are endless!

For those of you who only have to cook for one, my biggest tip is to batch cook! And get well acquainted with your freezer. I’ve found butter and Ice cream containers are an ideal size for freezing batch cooking. But if you don't have any, don't go buying ice cream just to get the tub! Someone will have to eat the ice cream first...

*DISCLAIMER: Just a wee reminder that this is what has worked for me. There's no guarantee that it will work for everyone as we are all different. I’m not a professional!