Mmmporkrinds

Hi there - Indian food has lots of good vegetarian dishes - curries made with spinach and potato, or paneer, or chickpeas or lentils - Dhal Makhani is one of my favourites. There's a recipe here which looks good but I haven't tried it yet: http://www.tarladalal.com/Dal-Makhani-(-Low-Fat-Recipe-)-3570r Also, crustless…

From a 'lay' perspective your calorie numbers seem OK to me - low, but not too low. (if you opened your diary so that others could see the sorts of food you're eating, it might be easier to advise). So long as in your heart of hearts you're feeling good and looking healthy, and can sustain it, I think it's fine.

One free option which is bordering on the enjoyable, is Couch to 5 K - more info here: http://www.coolrunning.com/engine/2/2_3/181.shtml One of the reasons I like Couch to 5 K is that it builds up over time - you start with easy stuff and then at the end can run 5K so it feels like you're making progress, which stops me…

Yeah Zumba is fantastic, I'm always sad when it's over. I had an uncle who was told he had to do some exercise after having heart trouble. He bought an exercycle but found it boring. So he planned and took a virtual cycling tour of the South Island (I'm in NZ). He mapped it out with contours and everything, and would mark…

As far as I can understand, it is part of the 'Arab Spring' - Wikipedia has an article here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Spring

mmm, bacon:tongue:

Hi! It seems you generally eat two meals a day, rather than three (though you do snack). What if you had three meals a day? Maybe having breakfast fairly soon after you get up? Might make you less hungry during the day (though of course there might be good reasons that's not ideal for your lifestyle or job etc.)

How about Bircher muesli? A bit different in texture to cooked oats. Some people love it and some hate it, but here's one recipe: •1 cup rolled oats •1/4 cup fresh apple juice •1/2 cup yoghurt •a sprinkling of ground nutmeg (optional) •a sprinkling of ground cinnamon (optional but goes very nicely with the apple) •1/2…

Brilliant! That's exciting - well done!

Thanks - it's nice to see some numbers on this. I walk 60 minutes each day getting to and from work, and am not sure it does too much for me since my body is used to it. Doesn't feel too much like hard work. When I run (eg after buses or on the odd occasion when I go for a jog) I puff and sweat, and that's what tells me my…

Wobble Cauliflower Frog Crumpet

Eggs are brilliant (omelette, poached egg, frittata, quiche, hard-boiled, plus use them in baking etc) Canned fish is good Quinoa is cheap and easy to cook, so is couscous Tinned chickpeas

Whole chicken (roast it, next 2 days use leftovers in sandwiches/soup/on pizza, make a stock from the carcass - good value) Frozen peas, sweetcorn, spinach Wholemeal flour Quinoa Rice Eggs (a versatile miracle food, chickens are geniuses for inventing them) Beetroot (fresh or canned) Sardines Olive oil Whatever veg are in…

I think whatever you're doing, if it's working for you it's probably OK. My thoughts for my own weight loss this time around, is I'm not in any particularly great hurry.

I don't know how many i've eaten but Vermilla, that has to be the cutest cat in the world on your photo!

Yeah I've done level one a few days and have to say I really enjoy it. It hurts and you puff and sweat and all those sorts of things, and have nightmares about Gillian, but it's all over in twenty minutes. And it does seem to work: I used to have to do the girlie-pressups but now am doing mostly the harder ones. I just…

I think it makes sense for schools to be concerned about kid's lunches - it seems sensible for someone to make sure kids eat OK, in cases where food provided by parents is really a problem, and it might as well be the school which deals with it. But I'd have been furious with the school in that case, because that lunch…

Sometimes people feel hungry at that hour because they haven't had enough of something - natural fats, proteins, carbohydrates or so on - during the day. So if you make sure each time you eat it has enough of those things, it's possible that you won't feel you need to snack late at night, because you're genuinely not…

George, from the Famous Five. At least I used to, when I was a girl

Great ideas, thanks everyone! This is also my excuse for a good Dutch oven, which I've wanted for a while :-) We are in New Zealand so it's just past mid-summer, and perfect weather for camping at the moment.

Mortar and pestle. Awesome.

I'm a WW drop-out too, though at the time it did work for me - I lost 12 kilos but then over a few years, 'found' it again. I agree that MFP gives you all the information you need without paying. Also WW seems to encourage you to buy in to the idea of 'it doesn't matter what you eat so long as you stay within your points'…

Don't get too discouraged - keep trying because I think each time you try, you learn more about it. I finally quit by reading Allan Carr's book. The original is called Easyway to Stop Smoking, and I read the later and expanded version, The Only Way to Stop Smoking Permanently. It worked for me (smoke-free 9 years now and…

Great ideas here! And my mouth was watering with the original recipe too. What about hollowing some of the bread out? - digging out a bit from the inside top bun and inside bottom bun? It would remove some calories, and might stop the filling from sliding out of the burger. I do that for sandwiches made out of French bread.

The mighty metropolis of Naenae, New Zealand

We aren't wild animals. You see a lot of fat dogs and cats. [/quote] I think the level of processing of food has something to do with it too (including pet food)

Hi there, I had a look at your food diary and on the whole it looks good. Only thing I noticed is that the bread you eat tends to be white, so probably refined. Maybe if you ate whole grain bread it might give you more good energy. I certainly think it's best to eat back the calories you burn through exercise, but best to…

I agree with the other posters and would add: take the 5 or 10 minutes to warm up properly; stretch your muscles in your legs and maybe also a brisk five-minute or so brisk walk to warm up. Might prevent pains in your shins later (but I'm no expert). Good luck!!

Hi there, great stuff on the exercise! If you're eating 1200 calories a day, and you're burning off 500 by doing workouts, your total calorie intake should be 1700 a day. It does sound weird, because you'd think it was good to eat as few calories as you can to lose weight. But really you do need to replace what you're…

Bumpetty bump! Thanks