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Time to lose weight

I am no longer pregnant, my bleeding came and I am feeling so much better that I truely belive I was 4-5 weeks pregnant before it.

But now I’m not pregnant, it is a good time to drop some kilos before I am, again…

Many years ago I received an email from someone in the health sector that contained the “Sacred Heart Memorial Hospital Drop Diet” which I believe was provided to to overweight heart patients so that they could drop weight quickly before surgery.

Basic Fat Burning Soup:

  • 3 large onions
  • 1 green capsicum (bell pepper)
  • 1/2 bunch celery
  • 1/2 large head of cabbage
  • 1 large can crushed tomatoes
  • 1 ptk french onion soup mix
  • season with salt, pepper, curry, parsley, etc to taste (spices only which do not add caleries)

Cut vegetables into small to medium pieces (or put through blender). Cover with water. Bring to the boil fast for 2 minutes, turn down to simmer and continue until vegetables are tender.

Day 1: All Fruits except Bananas. Eat only the soup (as much as you want) and all the fruit you want except bananas. For drinks – unsweetened tea, cranberry juice or water.

Day 2: All Vegetables. Eat all the vegetables that you want along with as much soup as you want, but no fruit. Eat only one potato, no butter or sour cream.

Day 3: Mix day 1 & 2. Eat all the soup, vegies, and fruit that you want. No Potato.

If you have eaten as directed you will find that you have lost 5-7 pounds (2-3kg)

Day 4: Bananas & Skim Milk. Eat as many as 3 bananas and drink as much skim milk as you can, along with your soup.

Day 5: Beef & Tomatoes. You may have 10-20 oz (280-560 grams) od beef ands a can of tomatoes or as many as 6 fresh tomatoes on this day. Drink 6-8 glasses of water. Eat your soup at least once this day.

Day 6: Meat & Vegies. Eat all the beef (or chicken or fish) and vegies that you want, but no potato. Eat your soup at least once this day.

Day 7: Brown Rice, unsweetened fruit juices and vegies. As much as you want. Eat your soup at least once a day.

At the end of the seventh day you will have lost more than 15 pounds (6kg). Stay off the diet for at least 2 days before resuming.

Definite No-No’s while on the diet: Bread, Alcohol, carbonated beverages. Stick to water, unsweetened tea, coffee, and unsweetened fruit juices & skim milk (only on the days they are allowed). NO FRIED FOODS OR BREAD.

Eat the basic fat burning soup anytime you feel hungry and as much as you like. This soup will not add one single calorie. The more soup that you eat, the more you will lose.

———————-

I did try it at the time and dropped a significant amount of weight in a week as promised, but I haven’t revisited it since. Since then I have gradually stacked on the pounds and now weigh 94kg which is 4 kg more than when I got pregnant 2 years ago.

I figure that I need to lose at least 5kg before I get prenant again, 20kg would be better :)

I’m going to make up the soup and replace at least one meal and snack a day with it, and not worry too much about the rest of the diet and see how it goes. I will record my progress at least once a week here to shame myself into continuing with it.

Posted in Health, Pregnancy. Tagged with .

Maybe Baby…

For the last couple of months we have been trying for another baby, and now my husband is ready to disown me.

My very irregular period was due today at the latest (day 41). It can be anywhere from 28 days, but lately has been around the 36 day cycle so that is what I’m using to calculate.

For the last couple of months I have had the early pregnancy signs, nausa, tiredness, but no luck the bleeding turns up eventually. However it has never been this bad, or this late. My Husband tells me he was convinced I was pregnant last week after I started throwing things, which is not normal behavour for me :)

I am almost convinced that I am pregnant because of the nausa, tiredness, hunger, crying, and other vague symptoms my body is throwing at me – However the prenancy tests are saying no…. I did one last week and that was probably a little early, but the box says up to 5 days before the period is due. So I said what the Hey! – Negative.

I did one this morning convinced it would be positive, but NO! So I am left wondering…

Having consulted the Oracle that is Google, it seems that it can be quite normal not to have a positive home pregnacy test until week 6 ( you can get false negatives, but false positives are pretty much unheard of) and still have a normal uncomplicated pregnancy.

So I guess I will try again next week, until then I’m out in the land of limbo where I am probably pregnant, or sick, or just very stressed…. Unless “Aunt Irma” comes to visit in the meantime.

*sigh*

(Yes that was a reference to The IT Crowd)

Posted in Pregnancy.

More Bread

So that batch of bread didn’t last long!
2 Days and 2 loaves later, so I made a bigger batch rather than the last half batch that I made.

Also made Ginger Shrub, which is basically ginger boiled in vinegar then made into a syrup with sugar, then added to water or soda for an almost Ginger Beer taste.

Posted in General Ramblings.

Bread and stuff

So the store bread went moldy, and I gave it to the dog.

This meant that it was time to make a batch of fridge bread up, then bake a loaf and keep the rest in the fridge for pastry, and pizza bases.

In a large container mix together in the following order:

  • 3 cups warm water
  • 1 tbs salt
  • 1 1/2 tbs yest
  • 6 cups flour (I subsituted 2 cups oats for 2 cups of flour)

Leave on the bench for 2 hours to rise, then pop in the fridge. Pull out some dough whenever needed and pop into a hot oven.

Yum, yum – I just managed to not eat the entire loaf straight out of the oven.

Posted in General Ramblings.

Food So Far

Finished off the BBQ Chook, finished off the sliced ham, had frozen mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes.

Pack of frozen spring rolls, and packs of 2 minute noodles. Still plenty of food to go.

Today I steamed the apples that were getting a little old, and pureed them to make apple sauce which I will freeze in 1 cup quantities, to add to the pureed pumpkin I already have there. Must do some baking soon.

Posted in General Ramblings.

Yogurt and Cheese

Having acquired the Easy Yo Yogurt maker from my mother (that she got for Christmas many years ago and has never taken out of the box) I decided to make Yogurt that I can then drain for labnah (a lot like cream cheese) which is sometimes called quark.

The yogurt maker is basically a huge thermos which you fill the bottom with boiling water, and has a little stand to keep the contain of yogurt (or soon to be yogurt) out of the water.

The lot of yogurt I made with full cream milk turned out fine, a little runnier than I like in a yogurt but not bad. I didn’t boil the milk or anything, took the milk and the yogurt starter out of the fridge mixed them well in the container and popped it into the yogurt maker.

I also tried to make a batch from powdered milk which didn’t turn at at all, I think I got the ratios of the milk powder to water wrong. I made up the milk powder with boiling water, then waited for it to cool before adding the yogurt starter and putting in the yogurt maker. I think it might have been too hot when I added the starter, it was all separated and gluggy when it came out of the yogurt maker.

I drained the first lot of yogurt overnight and it made a loverly cheese which BabyBug had on his toast this morning.

I guess I will just have to try again to make it with powdered milk.

Posted in Kitchen. Tagged with .

Pantry Month

I have been meaning to post pics of the finished Kitchen, but haven’t been able to find the camera so I guess it will have to wait.

The cupboards are full, and we are all getting over the flu, so it must be time to have another pantry month where we don’t buy food, and live off the bounty to be found in the pantry, fridge, and garden, for a whole month.

First to eat the leftovers and clean out the fridge and cook and freeze any veges that are starting to turn.

This will be a good chance to turn over the stock pile, and use up the stuff we don’t normally use – then not buy it again :)

Posted in General Ramblings. Tagged with .

Kitchen Makeover

Now we have the new bathroom, we can strip out the old bathroom, and make my kitchen 3 times its current size. Yay!

I had the carpenters in today and they fixed the water damage on the external wall, installed the new window and removed the kitchen wall.

Here is what it is looking like now.

DSCF1042DSCF1041

DSCF1040

Now to level the floor, line the walls.

Having played with the measuring tape the table will fit under the window, with the fridge on the wall next to it. Then the pantry on the wall opposite the window, maybe remove the door and put in a baby gate, and a bookcase behind the now absent door.

I guess we will see how it fits.

Posted in General Ramblings. Tagged with .

Popcorn

After burning my 5th batch of popcorn I figured that I needed to get a popcorn maker and was thinking about who I could hit up for a special birthday present.

However I finally worked out what I was doing wrong! I was skimping on the oil. Need to have a lot of oil, enough to almost cover the corn kernals, then get the oil very hot add the corn and turn down the heat to medium.

On a side note I found out that baby corn, the type you use in chinese cooking and eat the whole cob while it is tiny. If you let it mature and dry on the stork then it becomes popcorn.
I planted some the other day, here’s hoping that it works.

Posted in Kitchen.

Olive Dip

BabyBug loves his Hommus, and he loves his olives so I decided to try making an Olive Dip for him.

He loves it.

Basically it started with what I happened to have in the fridge.

  • 8 Pitted Kalamata Olives
  • 3 marinated semi-dried tomatoes pieces
  • 1 ghurkin (I might try it without this next time as it gives it a little bit too much bite)
  • 2/3 cup labnah (drained yogurt cheese) or cream cheese

Blend them all together and serve with crackers or cut vege sticks.

Posted in Kitchen. Tagged with .