Cheat day update

Well, I've been on the slow-carb diet for around a month now and I'm actually getting quite sick of eating binge foods on Saturdays. I've eaten bags of pretzels, cookies, loafs of bread with Nutella, tubs of Ben and Jerry's ice cream, bowls of popcorn and plenty of beer and soda.

Only now I've come to realise how horrible these foods make me feel, so I'm laying off the absolute junk for awhile whilst still spiking calorific intake and indulging myself in a stir-fry with rice or a bowl of pasta.

Bread and Nutella actually gets boring after awhile

Chicken Bhuna Curry with Chick Peas

This is a relatively simple meal, but very tasty and especially filling. Literally all you have to do is cook the chicken and chick peas, add the sauce and stir in some fresh chopped coriander. 

Rustic Bean and Sausage Stew

Another meal I'm definitely going to have to make again. Relatively simple to prepare and consists of sausages, carrots, onions and garlic, three different types of beans, a can of tomatoes and some fresh parsley. 

All that needed to be done was to fry the veg in a large pan for ten minutes whilst grilling the sausages simultaneously and then adding the chopped tomatoes and sausages into the pan to simmer for a further ten minutes. Simple and effective. 

New Favourite Slow-Carb Snack

This has become one of my favourite new snacks when one lunch just doesn't cut it. Grilled chicken breast wrapped in parma ham and little gem lettuce dipped in hummus. Healthy and taste good = winning.

Cheat day No.2!

Today for my cheat day I made pancakes with bacon and golden syrup - smart. I had a nutella bagel for lunch and a Texas BBQ Domino's pizza for dinner, followed soon after by a bowl of butter popcorn and 

Choco Liebnez chocolate biscuits - delicious. I even topped off the day with a Dr. Pepper in the evening to kill that soda craving I get every now and then. 

Stir fry teriyaki chicken with spinach and lentils

This turned out pretty nicely. I marinated the chicken in teriyaki sauce for about an hour and then stir fried it along with the sauteed spinach recipe and the toasted sesame oil really made the sauce delicious. You can also add some Quinoa to this dish, which adds some extra sustenance and blends together nicely with the lentils and together they make a great substitute for rice. 

Stir fry beef with broccoli and spinach

This meal far surpassed my expectations, especially considering I'd never really liked broccoli before I made it. Pretty easy to make, just follow the standard stir fry pattern, soak the broccoli in boiling water for 10 minutes before you add it to the stir-fry. I basically just stole Jamie Oliver's recipe for the beef and broccoli and then added sauteed spinach with toasted sesame oil for some extra taste and vegetable goodness:)

Oh, also just for a bit of extra kick and colour I finely chopped a fresh chilli and threw that on top. It did the dish justice. Alternatively, for some variation, add cannellini beans and sesame seeds minus the chili for a little extra sustenance. 

Chilli!

Chilli with beef mince, red kidney beans, chick peas and tomato base. A new staple of this diet:)

Cheat day No.1!

Yup, I'm on a diet where I get to eat whatever I want on Saturdays and it makes me lose fat, how awesome is that. Here's some of the stuff I had on my first cheat day:

Nutella baguette for breakfast

2 Chocolate Souffles, takeaway Chinese including
sweet and sour chicken with loads of rice,
spring rolls and also Red Bull and Belvedere before
a night out.

Stir fry black bean beef with spinach and edamame

This turned out really nicely - probably one of my favourite meals so far. Easy to cook, too; it follows my basic method for pretty much all of my stir-frys:

1. Chop up a thumb of ginger, 2 cloves of garlic and 3-4 spring onions and heat up a wok.
2. Stick some olive oil in the wok along with the above ingredients. Cook them for around 2 minutes just until they start to get softer. 
3. Put some spinach in a bowl with around 3 tbs of water, cover the bowl and put it in the microwave for 3 minutes. At the same time start boiling/steaming the edamame, however it says on the packet.
4. Chuck in your meat. If you're cooking chicken, cook until it's sealed (no more pink anywhere) and then put in your stir fry sauce of choice. With beef just add the sauce after a few minutes. Add the spinach and edamame towards the end and stir everything around together.
5. That's pretty much it. You might want to marinade your meat in your sauce of choice for about an hour or so before you cook your stir-fry.