A day indoors

The bad weather that is affecting much of the UK has made it too difficult to leave the house today. The wind is very strong here, I have never seen a tree as large as the one outside my window bending to the extent that it is. I am slightly concerned that it might come down, although I don't think it would fall towards our building. 

So today will be spent indoors. The Little Monster doesn't seem to mind. She's currently watching her Sing and Sign DVD and loudly joining in with the songs. I am still pondering what to do with the day. At first, I considered clearing out the kitchen drawers but that would mean bags of rubbish left about the house until the Other Half arrives home after work. I considered craft activities but we did painting yesterday and the Little Monster was not very enthusiastic. In fact, it ended in a huge tantrum, leaving me rather unwilling to try again so soon. 

Usually I would think this to be the perfect weather for baking but, since I'm on a diet, that's not a very good idea either. I'm rather tempted to have a bit of a lazy day. Nothing actually needs to be done and it would give me an opportunity to work on my writing. I could get out the Little Monster's tent for her to play with. That should keep her happy for at least an hour or two. This sounds like a good plan, at least for this morning. 

It is now day five of my diet and it is still going well. I have stuck to all the rules, despite feeling a little unwell last night with a nasty headache. There was a great temptation to have something salty and savoury and fattening but I resisted and had an apple instead. I made a delicious vegetable omelette for dinner with aubergine, cabbage, tomato and garlic. I took inspiration from a recipe on the Tony Ferguson website but changed some of the ingredients as the Other Half finds the smell of cooking onion and pepper nauseating. I will save cooking the proper version for a lunchtime next week so that the smell has time to dissipate before he arrives home. This morning we were running a little low on bread so I had low fat cereal with skimmed milk for breakfast, rather than my usual plain wholegrain toast topped with tomatoes. I have not decided what to have for breakfast yet. I think perhaps some stir fried vegetables. There is enough bread left for the Little Monster to have cheese and tomato on toast. 

Yet another diet...

The Other Half arrived home the other day with a Tony Ferguson Diet starter pack. He's determined to lose some weight. I have decided to join in but without replacing my meals with the sachet shakes and soups. The diet involves eating much less carbohydrates and plenty of vegetables, some fruit and a portion of lean protein in the evening, plus two litres of water per day.

For breakfast, I've just had a slice of dry wholemeal toast with tomatoes on top and a glass of water. It was tasty and I feel reasonably full. I'll have a piece of fruit mid morning, salad for lunch and Shepard's Pie for dinner, using a Tony Ferguson recipe. I don't think I'll be able to fit in a proper workout today but I'll be walking to the shops and I've got some stale bread so I'll be taking the Little Monster to feed the ducks down at the river later. I'm aiming for at least sixty minutes of walking.

I really hope the diet works this time. The big difference between this and all the other diets I have attempted is that the Other Half is doing it too. He won't be tempting me by bringing home tasty treats. We can motivate each other. I'm also hoping that the diet will introduce us to some new healthy meals we can all enjoy. Many of the recipes in the Tony Ferguson aren't really suitable for us so I've been coming up with some myself. We need to have a portion of protein and two servings of vegetables for a dinner. My challenge is finding ways to make it tasty while sticking to the diet rules. If I can manage that, we can continue having these meals for our dinners even after we've finished the diet.