Low-carb January - 20 days in

Hi readers,

How are we doing this week?? Are you well? I’m sending love!

If you’re reading this, you survived Blue Monday and a week of sleet, hail and scraping the car windscreen, and it’s now the weekend! Our third weekend of January 2018 – possibly the best yet?? Who knows! Let’s hope it is.

I’m checking in, firstly, to report on my progress with low-carb January. I’m closing in on three weeks low-carb now, readers, and feeling much better now. I have more energy than before and I don’t get palpitations walking uphill now (well, any more than I did before taking on the diet).

And my spots have cleared up – hurray! Also, I’ve notice I bloat much less than normal on this diet. Previously, I’ve never ever used the term bloating as I haven’t once noticed it happening. Normally, I roll my eyes when people refer to their stomach / food baby as bloating because it’s just FOOD and VITAL ORGANS inside you.

But, yeah, suddenly I’m eating low-carb and I don’t find my jeans pinching my belly bar. And I don’t have to undo them half way through the day – it’s a revelation. I think I’m just not bloating! Which is pretty cool. How are you doing, readers, if any of you took on a low-carb January too? Are you doing okay? Feeling good?

Hang in there!! Eleven days to go.

The only things I’m battling this week, readers, are vivid dreams. I’m dreaming proper film plotlines – they’re elaborate, emotional, complex. Then I wake up feeling a bit dazed and I spend the drive to work trying to piece together the full plotline and remember all its details. Puzzling what it could possibly mean.

I can’t say it’s the low-carb diet giving me such a wild dream life. Honestly, it’s more likely to be anxiety over how broke I am. But they’re certainly making life interesting! Have you been having any perplexing dreams, readers? Or maybe you just have a sense there was a big dream you had, but you can’t remember it now? Perhaps it will come back to you.

Who knows. This week, readers, I’m recommending my new fave song, IDGAF - Dual Lipa. I’m listening to this basically on repeat and learning all the words – it’s such feel good music! I relate. Also, a bit of an odd one, but By My Demon Eye – This Is The Kit. Because I like singing the part about gypsy wives. And I’ve rediscovered Changes – Tupac, which is a great track. Always worth a listen.

And, do go see Three Billboards Outside Epping, Missouri at the cinema, readers. If you liked Manchester by the Sea, if you enjoy dark humour, if you want to watch something which may have you laughing and crying. And will likely have you contemplating life still, days later, then I do recommend.

Also, recipe time. This week I write to you, readers, to recommend the Quick and easy keto plates section of the Diet Doctor website (click HERE). For anyone looking to eat low-carb without spending an hour in the kitchen each evening, this is a page full of recipes for plates you can throw together in no time at all.

I’m finding these recipes to be a godsend. After a long weekday at work, readers, then commuting, gyming, showering and washing my hair… turning the oven on just seems a hardship. I want to be enjoying my evening! And eating food before bedtime.

So, to be able to cobble together a plateful of colourful, flavoursome, low-carb foods in 15 mins max – this suits me perfectly! Take a look at some of the keto plates I’ve bene enjoying recently…

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RECIPES

Keto halloumi cheese and avocado plate

Click HERE for the recipe. 

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Keto fried salmon with asparagus

Click HERE for the recipe.

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Keto mackerel and egg plate

Click HERE for the recipe.

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Keto Tex-Mex burger plate

Click HERE for the recipe.

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Keto shrimp and artichoke plate

Click HERE for the recipe.

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Keto salmon-filled avocados

Click HERE for the recipe.

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Keto crab meat and egg plate

Click HERE for the recipe.

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Keto salmon and spinach plate

Click HERE for the recipe.

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Honestly, I wasn’t sure about the mackerel plate. But I don’t like fried eggs so I should have seen that one coming, really! And all the others I greatly enjoyed, readers. I cheated a little with the Tex-Mex burger and grilled a Quorn burger, instead of making one from scratch, but otherwise the recipes were all easy to follow and achievable in quarter of an hour.

What do you think? Would you give these keto plates a try, readers? Do they give you any fresh ideas for flavours you could pair together on a plate, perhaps?

These recipes can be lifesavers on a weekday! I’m predicting it’s going to be tough these next ten days to keep up my motivation for low-carb January, as we near the end. But, with some good recipes on my side, I’m sure I’ll battle on! Watch this space for some further inspiration for low-carb cooking.

Take care, readers, and have a wonderful rest of your weekend. Make it count.

Sing with abandon,

Hayley

Low-carb January - 7 days in

Hi readers,

How are things with you? Are you having a good weekend? Dare I ask – did you have an okay return to work this week?

High five to everyone who made it back to their desks this week for the first time since Christmas break! You’ve got the first bit out the way now – the return of the routine, and remembering your computer passwords again, battling your inbox, dismantling the forlorn office Christmas tree – and, with that behind you now, I’m sure you’ll storm next week.

My past week’s been a mixed bag, readers. We were all terribly sad to return to my work on Wednesday to the sad news that a colleague’s partner unexpectedly passed away over Christmas break. Felt funny, went in to hospital, and died. Nothing prepares you for such sudden shitty news, ever, readers. So, we’re all very sad for Sue at work.

It’s strange – this brings a new level to that first phone call back or first email with a client, when they say, “How is everyone? Did you all have a good Christmas?”. And the honest answer is: no, we did not. It’s a terribly sad time.

But, it’s a time to be alive. I think we’ve all been reminded that today really could be our last day, this might have been our last Christmas, we could die out of the blue at any moment. And it’s important to live in each moment.

@riuttahighland

I hope you take that with you, readers. A return to routine in January doesn’t have to mean you pick up where you left off, living the same days, just as things were before. Maybe take a look at your life and change it up for the better in 2018? Or, just try something different? Leave safety behind and do something wildly un-2017? Be a rock star in your own shoes.  

I intend to do the same! This weekend, I finally made it to see the Photomarathon exhibition in Sheffield, showcasing 250 photos taken around the city by random people on one October day. It’s been ages and ages that I’ve been wanting to go and see this, and it was really good. So, goal achieved there. I recommend!

And I also went to see the new Star Wars film at the cinema… which is SO GOOD, readers. I say: go see it! Whether you’re a fan of Star Wars or not, whether or not you’ve watched any of the previous films, it’s just a cool, funny, epic film out at the cinema right now, and you’d be missing out if you didn’t go see it. You’d be a fool! In my humble opinion: go and see Star Wars.

I’ve also been eating like a rock star since I last wrote to you, readers. It’s day 7 now of my low-carb January challenge and I’m still on board with that! I’ve been eating a LOT of salad this past week, I’ll share with you some salad highlights in a moment, and I’ve been feeling generally lighter and healthier than I have in a long time. Yayyayyay.

So, I’ve been pulling together this week a lot of 4-ingredient salads. I think, for me, this is generally a good number of different things to have on a plate to make a tasty, balanced meal, with a mix of different flavours, without overloading the plate with too much food.

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THE SALADS

First off, I enjoyed a tasty roast salmon, avocado, red pepper and spinach salad.

I also made a niçoise salad with tuna, boiled eggs, black olives and spinach leaves.

Plus, I pulled together a salad of grilled halloumi and butternut squash, with sun-dried tomatoes and spinach leaves.

And I’ve been meal prepping some Greek salads to take into work for lunch this week – these babies are feta cheese, black olives, red pepper and spinach leaves.

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Tasty stuff, readers. I recommend all of these salads! They’re colourful and flavoursome and filling – everything you need. And I’ve been drizzling my salads with a little French dressing from the Morrisons ‘eat smart’ range. So long as you don’t soak your salads in the stuff, I reckon there are only around 2-3g carbs in a serving.

And it certainly adds a little something to the large quantity of spinach leaves I’ve been consuming this week! Having accidentally ordered 600g spinach leaves on an online food order – not at all realising how many leaves that equates to – I’ve been on a mission this week to incorporate spinach into as many meals as I possibly can. It’s been a lot of leaves.

How about you, readers? Have you been tossing together some salads of your own this week? Eating as if you have four stomachs? Do you have any suggestions for low-carb meat-free 4-ingredient salad combos I could try?? Please – fire away!

Have I inspired any of you, maybe, to try and lower your carb intake in January? I will say – I’m one week in and have realised that dropping carbs isn’t something you can just casually do. It takes time and thought to prepare tasty meals, and to eat well, without involving carbs. It’s not to be taken on lightly.

But, if you’re up for the challenge, I think it’s a fun and engaging way to eat. It will certainly shake up the meals you put together. I’m trying all sorts of new things – like these VegiDeli mini sausages I picked up in Holland & Barrett the other day. They’re low-carb and great to have around on a weekend, for snacking on while you’re at home.

And I’m sure I’ll try lots of new foods over the course of the next month. I’ll leave you now to get on with your weekends, readers, but I’ll be back in touch soon with some more recipe inspiration for low-carb eating in January. Hope you have a great week ahead – sure you do!

Salad safely,

Hayley