Day 42 Sunny Afternoon and thoughts on the presentation of food

Hehe. I've been inspired to listen to the Kinks!

Gorgeous weather for autumn today - sunny with a little bite in the air. A friend, P, turned up on my doorstep unexpectedly at lunchtime. So we spent an hour having coffee and a chat in the garden. He was very complimentary about my appearance, so it seems even if the scale doesn't seem to be budging, the form is changing, hurrah! :) The compliment allowed me to forgive him for sabotaging my lunchtime swim - will get that in the rest of the week and the weekend now.

Exercise today: lots of dancing around to tunes off the radio! Seem to be in a jiggling kind of mood today :D

Food stats for today: SW Green Day Syns 24 and calories 2048.

I had porridge with honey for breakfast, followed by strawberries & raspberries in a dusting of vanilla sugar mid morning. Lunch was romaine lettuce (yummy crispy!), a couple of slices of ham, a blob of taramasalata, the last of my pumpkin/sesame/sunflower seed rich bulghur wheat salad and a pita bread. Teatime snack of cafe latte (no sugar!) and banana smeared with peanut butter. Piri-piri pan-grilled chicken breast, yoghurt mashed potatoes, heaps of broccoli and cauliflower with Bisto chicken gravy for dinner.

Lots of water, yay! And a couple of mugs of roobios tea. The variety I have at the moment is the vanilla scented one, soooo nice!

I made too much mashed potatoes, and this time I left half of it in the pan! Yay! I am getting better and better at this portion controlling!

So have some mash leftovers for something else tomorrow. Hmm, salmon fishcakes? Will see what I fancy making. :)

The other thought I had about today's menu is that it could easily have become a 1800 calorie day if I'd had less chicken or left out the pita bread. Or left out the bulghur wheat salad or the banana peanut butter... ohh choices! :)

I do like food, and I do like eating nice food. And I truly believe for this to be a sustainable lifestyle change for me, everything I eat has to be delicious, have wonderful aroma, look fabulous and be good for me. Art on a plate, an olfactory delight to the nose, and a savouring in the mouth. As few processed foods as possible. Heh - and the angelical knowledge that it is healthy and good for my body.

I have never wanted to even try out very low calorie slimming regimes, although the idea of magically melting away vast amounts of weight in a few months is appealing. Purely because I KNOW I'd be totally unhappy drinking and slurping down what to me is essentially highly processed slop. With all the sight, smell and taste of chemical sawdust. :( My siblings have tried both the Cambridge Diet and Lighter Life, and had spectacular results. And gained much of the loss back. And I used to feel so upset on their behalf although that was what they wanted, to do this diet!

So here I am, doing it the long way, the little steps way. Because I want this to be a sustainable way. I want this to be a permanent change in how I view food. I want my perceptions and attitudes to food to change. I want to keep food as that delightful friend I love to see. And to make sure it doesn't become my punching bag, or my solace, or my saviour from bad feelings any more.