Gingerjo’s Blog

It all went a bit pear-shaped on days 10-14 really, especially over the weekend.  There was a serious incident with a large bag of crisps and a pot of humous for a start.  Then there was the fact that I ran out of Oatibix at work so had to have a buttie for my lunch one day. Then there were a couple of episodes where a third bowl of cereal somehow found it’s way into my digestive system. However, at the end of the two weeks I have officially lost 3.5lbs.  I think that’s a fantastic result for so little effort. 

As diets go this one would be great if you’ve been on holiday, put on a few pounds and just want to get back to the weight you were before. I’m not sure it would continue working long term, or that it would be healthy either, but I reckon two weeks on, two weeks off or one week on, one week off is worth further investigation.  It’s the easiest (and cheapest) diet I’ve ever done.

I’ll certainly be eating breakfast from now on too - I feel so much better for it.  Initially I felt a bit bloated after every bowl of cereal. I don’t think my body knew quite what to do with it - I hardly ever ate wholegrain. It seems to have got the hang of it now though.  I definitely found the Oatibix most filling for longer - I think it’s because oats contain a lot of soluble fibre.  I also like the taste of Oatibix the best too. 

That’s my recommendation - 60g Oatibix with 200ml skimmed milk twice a day.  It’s dead easy and I didn’t really get hungry.  I also ate whatever the hell I wanted (within reason) for my tea, nor did I skimp on the portions.  I have noticed my portions getting smaller though, I just seem to get fuller quicker.  Maybe that’s a happy side-effect?

After the crisis on Sunday I decided to try a day of recommended portion sizes to see how I got on.  My colleagues were as horrified as myself at the miserly crumbs in the bottom of my bowl.  Needless to say I was starving only an hour after eating.  And you can imagine what happened what I went to do my weekly shop after work …

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Now I realise I should have done this at the start, but better late than never I guess.  I bought small bowls from Ikea last weekend - these bowls are half the size of normal bowls.  Everyone at work has commented on how small my cereal bowl is.  Not unreasonably I thought that one of these little bowls filled up would be about the right portion size.  Not so.  I’ve just weighed the various cereals I have at home and found that a recommended portion only half fills my small bowl.  HALF FILLS IT!  How small does the bowl need to be for Christ’s sake?  And why don’t they sell bowls the right bloody size? The consequence of this is that I’ve been eating DOUBLE the amount of cereal I’m supposed to be eating.

Moreover this explains why I’m overweight in the first place.  If you have a bowl you tend to fill or nearly fill it.  You assume that bowls are made to hold a portion of about the right size.  However, if all the bowls and plates you can buy hold twice as much food as you’re supposed to eat you are going to get fat pretty quickly.

Weight Watchers are missing a product opportunity here - they should sell a slimmer’s range of crockery and possibly cutlery too. Specially designed so that it’s difficult for you to fit too many calories on your plate.

I have to confess I’m rather annoyed and upset by this.  Basically now I need to start the diet from scratch again, weighing out all my portions and putting them in little plastic bags to take to work.  I thought this one was supposed to be an easy diet!

OK, so Sunday is also a traditional lying-in day for me.  Again I missed breakfast but I figure this is probably a good thing since I’m having a roast chicken dinner for my tea - lovingly prepared by my sister while Mark and I catch up on the episodes of 24 and Lost that we can no longer get on Virgin Media and that she has kindly been recording on Sky for us.  For lunch I thought I’d try the other cereal I bought on Friday - Kelloggs Crunchy Nut Clusters with Chocolate Curls.

Hmm, well, if you had an explosion in the Kelloggs factory there’d be bits of different cereals all over the place.  Perhaps then, trying to make the best of the situation and save company profits, the staff might sweep up all these mixed up cereals, add a few chocolate curls to make it all look planned and deliberate, and then package it all up in a nice box and ship it off to the supermarkets.  This may well be what happened. It’s like you had a bit left in half a dozen packets of different cereals and put them together in the same bowl just to finish them off, then you went a bit made with the sugar.  I can’t say I approve.  Plus it’s less than 3 hours since I ate them and I’m already hungry.

Last night I had to pop into Sainsburys to buy some tea so I took the opportunity to invest in a couple more packets of breakfast cereal.  Now that I’ve noticed such a difference between the ‘fullness factors’ given by Weetaflakes and Oatibix I’m curious to know how the other varieties measure up - what is the most filling cereal? which one keeps you going the longest? which one tastes the best? 

Saturday is traditionally my lying-in day so I got up late and then had to rush out so I missed breakfast.  However, for my lunch (at noon) I tried Bitesize Fruit and Nut Weetabix.  It tastes pretty good, but then I’ve always been a fan of Weetabix.  There is a generous amount of fruit (raisins) which makes the cereal plenty sweet enough and you just know that you’re getting lots of micronutrients from those almonds and hazelnuts. The Weetabix doesn’t seem to swell up quite as much as the Oatibix - the consistancy isn’t quite as gooey once it’s absorbed all the milk.

By 5pm I was practically knawing my own arm off with hunger. I had missed breakfast though so it’s not a fair to say that Weetabix isn’t as filling as Oatibix.  I shall have to do a proper lunch comparison between the two next week.

Today’s challenge was a lunchtime meeting with a laid-on lunch. It was very difficult to resist those little tuna mayo sandwiches, but I did it and as a reward I had to wait two hours for the meeting to finish before I could have my little bowl of Oatibix at 2.30pm.  My work-mates at the other end of the office had been able to smell the sandwiches and were very impressed by my abstinance. I was quite proud of myself, but frankly it’s going to take me a lot more than 2 hours of willpower to shift my excess poundage.

Today I was doing my volunteer training and had a day off work so I got up later than normal and had my bowl of Weetaflakes at about 10.30am.  Since I was due in Bolton by 1pm I had to have my lunch at about noon - another bowl of Weetaflakes.  By 5pm I was STARVING.  Normally I’ve been having Weetaflakes in the morning and Oatibix at lunchtime.  They then keep me going quite happily until about 7pm.  Weetaflakes it seems do not give you the staying power that you get from Oatibix.

Ok so it’s the end of day 1.  So far it’s been easy, but in fairness even I can manage 24 hours of food willpower.  For breakfast I had a bowl of Weetaflakes with 30% fruit which was surprisingly palatable.  Normally I don’t eat breakfast which I know is bad for me, but it’s partly because I’m usually late, no, it’s because I’m always late and the thought of getting up 5 minutes earlier to leave time for breakfast is too much for me to bear. I really hate getting out of bed in a morning.  Strangely I also find that eating breakfast makes me hungrier - it’s like I’ve opened the floodgates or something.

For lunch I had a bowl of bitesize Oatibix with raisins and chocolate which was yummy. I filled the bowl right to the top. I also ate it one bitesize Oatibix at a time which took ages.  It seems they are considerably more filling than the Weetaflakes though and I did think that I might explode about 20 minutes after I’d eaten them (I’m really glad I bought the small bowls).  I definitely won’t be filling the bowl right up tomorrow - it was quite an uncomfortable feeling.  However, they did keep me going all afternoon and I wasn’t hungry again until about 7pm.  That’s as much as you can ask from lunch really.

OK, posting this under Healthy Living is probably a bit misleading since I doubt very much if it’s actually healthy, but I’m going to try this Special K ‘Drop a Jeans Size in 2 weeks’ diet starting tomorrow.  Now it worked for my sister - she ended up living on Special K and chicken salad for 3 months and lost a couple of stone - I won’t be going that far.  Not being keen on Special K I’ve opted to try a couple of other cereals, made by Weetabix, for the moment.  I don’t think it makes much difference which cereal you eat because they are almost all under 300 kcal a bowl. I’ve even bought a couple of little cereal bowls to make the insignificant heaps of weetaflakes look bigger. 

Two bowls make about 600 kcal leaving 1200 kcal for my evening meal and tea and coffee during the day. The recommended total kcal intake is around 1800-2000 per day if you’re a female trying to diet - I’m at the top end of the scale because there’s a lot of me to begin with.  In principle it sounds easy.  Let’s see how I get on.

I’ve been experimenting in the kitchen in an attempt to find a tasty low fat way to turn spinach into a soup that doesn’t involve cream.  It’s my latest fad spinach - I can’t get enough of it. I’ve looked up lots of spinach soups on the internet but they all seem to involve cream which may taste yummy, but kind of defeats the object. The result was Kermit Soup…

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