Dieting Bloke - Starting again 2019

L1zardQueen wrote: »

Tip. You can change your name once without having to get a new account. It is under your profile/settings/change username.

Yeah, that was my once... no more changes remaining

LIQUID MEALS – 17TH JUNE 2019

One of my biggest struggles is preparing food for when I’m out of the house, given that I work in a office at least 3 times a week, it usually meant going out and buying food! Now whilst this was pretty nice to start with, in London you are lucky to find lunch any cheaper than £7. Unless of course you do a Tesco £3 meal deal of which I only have the simply Ham or Cheese since all other choices involve seeds in the bread and or fancy crap on them!

Meal Replacements Maybe?
I’d seen a few full on meal replacements and decided to give Huel a try, it wasn’t massively expensive (compared to buying lunch!) and seemed convenient. To start with I was kinda enjoying it, there was a strong oat taste to it (and surprise surprise, I don’t like oats!) and it did fill me up, though the side affects did include a bit of bloatyness and foul smelling gas. Now I’m not saying my farts smell of roses but this really did take it to another level.

It didn’t last long, apart from my wife gagging on my farts constantly, as it was powder and self mix I often found without a electric blender to hand, it was full of lumps and powdery bits not matter how hard you shook it. I decided to call it a day when I started to get dodgy looks from the desk opposite as I sat there trying to beat the lumps out, it must have looked like something that should get reported to HR.

Could Ready Made Be The Answer?
So a year passed by and my wind got back to normal, no HR cases were raised against me (though still get questionable looks when ever I move) and my wife can breath freely without gagging again (mostly…), then I saw a ready made meal replacement shake called Saturo.

Plain 500ml vs Chocolate 330ml


I then started to hunt around for real people reviews since the website made it sound perfect, which of course nothing can be! I tend to use YouTube for reviews since I’m better at taking things in visually (he says as writing a blog with one image in it…).

To my surprise there were only a handful of reviews when I searched, so of course I watched them all, they were all fairly positive with the only negative being the cost (which I guess is to be expected for this kind of thing). There was one thing that was clear, this is not a weight loss product!

This did make me question whether this is for me, especially since my main goal is to lose weight! But then I realised my goal shouldn’t be to lose weight, it should be to eat healthy which in turn, should result in weight loss. That was it, I brought way much more than I should have done before at least trying it, next thing I know I’m opening 4-5 boxes of Saturo and trying to find somewhere to store it all!


So What Does It Taste Like?
Surprisingly, it doesn’t taste of something I can pinpoint, Huel tasted of oats (yuck!) but this was, regardless of flavour, just, well, I can’t explain. The chocolate flavour did taste chocolatey and the plain one… tasted plain, there was a after taste which wasn’t horrible, but did take some getting used to. The main thing was it was like a milkshake, nice and smooth with no powdery bits floating around.

As you might have been able to tell, I’m really fussy about my flavours and textures, and whilst I wouldn’t choose this for its taste over a Burger King, I could go as far to say I enjoy them and could have them regularly.

And The Verdict?
After using it for breakfast and lunch, followed by pretty much anything I want for dinner, I lost 7lbs in the first week and started to feel myself feeling better health wise. Whilst this sounds great I know it won’t last for long, when ever I start dieting I lose a lot in the first week but then soon settles down to 1-3lbs a week, assuming i stay on track of course.

No one at work has questioned me over these bottles of food (yet…) and seem to mostly go unnoticed, which is something I was worried about following my Huel experience.

Though it should be noted I don’t believe this will be a long term sustainable option. They are rather expensive (approx £3.50 a large 500ml bottle which is 500cal) and , whilst they contain all the nutrients my body needs, I should really eat proper food.

I’m pretty happy with Saturo and would recommend you give it a try if you are even slightly thinking about it (and they are Vegan friendly to!).

BISCUIT ANYONE? – 18TH JUNE 2019

Working from home today which meant I had a bit more time to sort myself out, didn’t really go to plan though since I had a whole packet of Fox’s Golden Crunchy Creams for breakfast at a lovely 780cals.

Dunking Breakfast
The plan was to have something a bit healthier but the bread had gone mouldy, Bran Flakes just has the powder stuff you get at the end and meetings were about to start any minute, since I had already made a cuppa tea I thought I’m already half way there, just need biscuits for dunking.

What I wasn’t on planning on was finishing the whole packet (though secretly I probably was…), but before I knew it half my tea was gone, not because I had drank it, but because I was constantly dunking biscuit after biscuit whilst concentrating on the meeting.

I felt a little bad after but then remembered the goal was to clear the cupboards of junk food before the weekend. I decided to ignore the fact I’ll probably get moaned at later in the week by my wife because she wanted some, but my defence will be “I’m just trying to help you reach your targets!”, which of course she won’t buy, she knows I’m just a greedy git.

Super Spicy Lunch
Lunch time came and I hunted through the cupboards for something fairly healthy (at least better than a whole pack of biscuits!). There were a few healthy options but I thought it best to keep for when I’m dieting properly (which I know doesn’t make any sense!), saw some super noodles and thought they would be the best option



I was quite surprise the packet shows calorie amounts per half packet… I don’t know I know anyone who has a half a pack, surely there isn’t enough there unless it’s a very lite snack. But at 528cals I didn’t think it was to bad, though I’m lucky to not be on a carb free diet as this would have smashed it.

Now I like my food hot, very hot! At work there is a Vietnamese restaurant who do a awesome egg noddles and roast chicken dish (no idea how many calories!) which I normally have without salad (since it’s all fancy crap, some of which look like stinging nettles). But they put this chilli in which is fantastic, mega hot but keeps it’s flavour, some colleagues have to ask them not to put it on as they can’t handle it.

Anyway, I brought a jar of this chilli off them and I can’t stop putting it in everything, super noddles included. Though I’m still trying to get the amount right, normally I don’t put enough in but this time I think I put a little bit to much in.

Sat at my desk eating super noodles, watching a webinar, with tears rolling down my face.

Experimenting with a Pressure Cooker
We have had a pressure cooker for some time now but after its first few uses as a pressure cooker, it just became a very expensive slow cooker that got used every 2 weeks to cook beef.

We were due to have a Chicken Roast today as we ended up eating left over picnic snacks all day Sunday. I put the oven on to warm up (which takes at least half an hour as it’s a fancy big one… also a pain in the *kitten*!) then realised I should be using the pressure cooker!

Hunted online for some syn free recipes, all of which had fancy stuff with them, like seasoning and lemons… So I made my own up, which was basically copying the existing ones but removing fancy crap.



How it certainly didn’t look nice, could do with more browning to make it look better, but it was really juicy and lovely to eat. We also put in all the veg so literary all our dinner was cooked in one pot (apart from the gravy), only problem was everything has mixed together and was hard to separate so we pretty much had a plate of lovely sliced chicken with a side of mush.

Fancy Cheese n Cracks
Came to the evening and I was a little peckish, turned out dinner was only 310cals, so hit the cupboards again to see where I could make a dent in the junk.

I’m a simple man, and I like simple foods, this means I only ever eat simple cheddar cheese. Though my neighbours love all sorts of cheese and I started to warm to one of them, so decided to get some when we went shopping. Thing is I had no idea what it was… so had to guess based on the shape and size of the packet it was in.



I was right, my quest to be a little fancy was a success, was some french cheese that went well with crackers. Had it my daughters Christmas Paw Patrol plate she had used previously today, since I couldn’t be bothered to open the cupboard and get a clean one…

Overall a fairly ok day with a rocky start but a tasteful ending! Diary for the day can be found on MyFitnessPal for 18th June 2019