Home-Made
Posted: Fri 6 January, 2023 Filed under: Domestic, Food, Getting Organised, Thoughts Leave a comment »When I moved, I decided that I was going to be doing a lot more of my meals from scratch, and I’m happy to say that so far it’s been a pretty successful change.
At the old place I fully acknowledge that I’d got lazy – not crap food as such, but more of the prepared ranges (still with fresh ingredients etc., but packaged and just shoved in the oven for 20-30 mins) alongside steamed veg and so on. So not particularly unhealthy, but also… not exceptionally healthy.
I have an odd relationship with food at the best of times, to be honest. While I can be a foodie when going out (Michelin restaurants etc., although obviously that’s not every time I go out either) when it comes to my own meals I.. really can’t be arsed a lot of the time. I don’t go for fancy stuff that requires recipes and effort, because by about halfway through I’m just bored with it, and by the time it’s done I don’t even want to look at it.
Alongside that, food really isn’t a major driver for me – I’ve had to build a kind of routine around times to eat otherwise I can easily go through an entire day and only think at the end “oh yeah, I haven’t eaten yet”. It’s not a fixed framework, not like “eat breakfast at 7am, lunch at 12, dinner at 6 and throw a strop if that schedule is disrupted at all“, but it’s more about general “Have something in the morning, somewhere roughly lunchtimeish, and something in the evening” reminders.
As a result of those, the easy stuff became the norm, stuff I don’t really need to think about or make an effort with.
But when I moved I wanted to change that a bit, make use of the kitchen gear I’ve got (and the space I’ve now got where I can use it!) and cook more from fresh, see how I do. It’s all more along the “make several portions at once” plans like soups, slow-cooker stuff and so on, but so far it’s been successful and I’ve been enjoying it.
I can’t claim perfection – there are still days where “beans on toast” or “a sandwich” is perfectly acceptable, for example – but it also helps to have made enough [whatever] for three or four portions, so it’s easy to just grab and eat when I want to. (Another side of that weird food relationship – I don’t really care about what I’m having, so I can have the same thing for three or four days on the trot and that’s fine)
I might slip back to “easy” over time, but I’m hoping I won’t – because at least with the current stuff I know what’s gone into it all, and that can’t be a bad thing.
As with all things, we’ll see how it goes. But it’s been three months already, so it seems to be fixing itself in my head quite nicely.
Refridged
Posted: Tue 8 February, 2022 Filed under: Domestic, Food, Getting Organised 1 Comment »As mentioned in the previous post, I also ended up with a new fridge over the weekend.
On about Wednesday my (then) current fridge started sounding unwell, and running constantly – never a good sign. I messed around with the controls, lowered the chill factor to get it to turn off, that sort of thing. And while it did turn off, it was then back to running within about ten minutes. Diagnosis : most likely a fucked thermostat.
Now in fairness, I’ve had this fridge for coming up to 15 years, it’s been through at least two house moves, and had also had the issue of being frozen to sod for a while until I cleaned it out last year (which I suspect didn’t actually do it much good) and it wasn’t expensive in the first place, so it’s not like I’ve not had the value out of it or anything.
As a result, I ordered a new one from AO , which went (fairly) smoothly. The order itself was fine, but then over the next two days I got four silent automatic calls, which are distinctly frowned upon by OfCom . By checking the number online I figured out it was AO who were doing them – their “aftercare” department, apparently, which is really just the old “do you want an extended warranty with that?” scam. I complained to AO, who’ve now said that they’ll investigate, and who have taken me off their call list.
Thankfully, the delivery itself was fine. The delivery people arrived when they said they would, took away the old one for recycling, left the new one with me, and buggered off. Just how I like it.
And now it’s all plugged in and running smoothly again. Happy day.
Chucking Out
Posted: Tue 4 January, 2022 Filed under: Domestic, Food, Getting Organised, Thoughts 3 Comments »I really don’t like waste – but sometimes it still happens.
Over the Christmas/New Year limbo, I spent some time clearing out stuff, as it needed doing. On this occasion, that included clearing out the kitchen cupboard under the sink, and that’s where the waste kicked in. Various packs of crisps and the like, and they were all out of date (like, well, well out of date) and some part-bake bread rolls that had collapsed and compressed into horrific lumps of nope.
In the great scheme of things, it wasn’t actually a lot of value – maybe £30 all told – but it’s still annoying to throw it out. (Not that there was really anything else I could do with them)
It has, however, shown me the things I think I want to have as snacks and then don’t get round to actually eating, which helps in reinforcing (in my own head) why I won’t buy them again. So I suppose that at least this is a lesson that will work for longer term better effect.
Still makes me grouchy, though.
Raspberry Jammed
Posted: Tue 9 February, 2021 Filed under: Domestic, Food, London, Reviews(ish), Thoughts 2 Comments »I’ve been a fan of raspberry jam for a long time, and it’s usually part of my breakfast. I’ve tried most of the different brands and types over the year, although over the last few years I’ve settled more on Tesco’s “Finest” offering, which is pretty well priced and tasty. (Before that it was the Bonne Maman version, which was almost twice the price, and even now is £1 more expensive per jar)
Over the years, I’ve also always been interested in Fortnum and Mason when I visit London. I returned there in 2015 after far too long of not visiting, and have been back a few times since.
On that 2015 visit though, I saw they had some interesting jams – in particular, a golden raspberry one, and a purple one. I couldn’t get them at the time (because I was doing a ton of walking and theatre stuff, so wasn’t going to be carrying other stuff as well!) but on and off they’ve been on my mind since.
They are also ridiculously expensive – six-ish times the cost of my Tesco one, for a jar half the size! – so it’s a bit of a jump to be able to justify that kind of cost.
Anyway, back in October, I’d been to one of my favourite restaurants for my birthday meal (a saga in itself of rescheduling, lockdowns etc.) which is also effectively just round the corner from Fortnum and Mason. So, having done an epic lunch, and needing to walk, I went in. And having just spent a silly amount on Lunch (as well as a couple of drinks) it was probably the only time I could rationalise the price of those jams. So I did. (Although I’m still gobsmacked at the price of them)
They’ve sat around since then, waiting to be tried, and it’s only been in the last couple of weeks they’ve been opened.
All told, they’ve been good, but definitely not worth the price. The golden one is noticeably sweeter and soft-of softer than standard raspberry jam, and the purple one is slightly different in taste (and very much so in colour) but certainly neither one is anywhere close to being something I’d eant to have on a regular basis – even if they were the same cost as the usual ones.
I’m really glad I got round to buying them and trying them, and to now know what they’re like. But I can’t see me getting them again.
Healthy Figures
Posted: Mon 29 June, 2020 Filed under: Cynicism, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Food, Getting Old(er), Health, Thoughts, Weigh Less, Weight Loss Leave a comment »I said a while ago that I’d write this, and then never got round to it. (I also thought I’d written it before, but a couple of searches didn’t find anything. Which is odd.)
Anyway. Back at the start of 2018, I did my semi-regular checkup visit at the local GP, which all worked out as “fairly healthy in general“. As usual, the main ‘problem’ was that I’m significantly heavier than I “should” be. So I asked for help from the GP, asked what they could do or suggest. And the response? “Oh, you’re not obese enough to get NHS treatment“. Well OK, that’s about as helpful as a kick in the cock.
So, being me, I pushed for some referrals – I already wanted to lose weight, but that kind of attitude really steamed my piss, and I wanted to get some better figures and find out more about what was going on. I’ve been logging my food intake for years now, and also keeping track of what I walk and so on, so I knew beforehand that my usual calorie intake was around the recommended 2,500 a day mark (albeit with some days/weekends of excess) and I walk an average of at least 10,000 steps a day.
First, I got a referral to Slimming World – and the less said about that, the better. An unremittingly negative and unhelpful experience all round.
I also got a referral to the Dietician service at Bedford Hospital, which wasn’t much more positive, but did end up with some good connections and results.
With the service, we tried a set of calorie-reduction diet plans, none of which worked. However, through it I also got a connection to the Uni of Beds’ Sport Science department, where I was able to (finally) get one of the tests done that I really wanted – an RMR (Resting Metabolic Rate) test, to establish what level of energy I’m actually burning. RMR is basically a measure of the calories the body burns if it’s simply laying in bed doing nothing. No food intake, no exertion at all. It took about an hour to run from start to finish, and then a couple of weeks to crunch the data and produce a report.
So. My RMR is 2,800 calories a day – even if I just laid in bed and did sod all, I’d need more calories than the recommended 2,500 a day. Taking into account calories for digestion, as well as exertion, It’s likely I’m burning around 4,000 a day. (As it turns out, I did write about BMR/RMR – ten years ago!)
On the downside, this information never really sank in with the Dietician. They kept on insisting that eating less had to result in losing weight. And in all honesty, it should – but didn’t. Looking at the figures, I’m already taking in less than I’m expending, and dropping the intake simply widened the gap even further. All it did was leave me even more tired, and seriously grouchy.
It ended up with a bit of an argument as my sense of humour finally failed, I wrote a full bulleted list of what was happening (with all the information from above) and why I suspected things weren’t working. That actually finished things fairly positively, although they didn’t have any better suggestions once we were outside the standard answers.
Also along the way, I ended up joining a local group called “Gutless” for overweight men. It consisted of two hours a week, one of food education, and one of physical exercise and workouts. For me, I didn’t learn much from the food education, but the training was positive, and started me doing more than I had. And since the Gutless course finished, we’ve maintained the exercise routine with the same trainer, which has also remained positive.
All told, I feel happier with how things are – if nothing else, my health record contains the whole list of things tried from the Dietician, and the RMR figures from the Uni of Beds. It means that when the GP tries their “you’re overweight” thing again, they can see what’s been tried.
However, I don’t really know what the answer is. My food intake has stayed much the same (and some of those weekends of excess actually make me lose weight) and I do more, with the extra workouts twice a week, and the archery I’ve recently re-taken up as well as maintaining the walking I do. I’m far, far stronger than I was, my shape is better, my stamina is fearsome, and I feel far healthier – but somehow, my weight hasn’t actually changed in a good decade, no matter what I do.
I’d like to lose more some – it’s just that still, everything I try isn’t working. I think that at some point I’ll have to go back and get more data and ideas, but really I don’t yet even know the right questions to ask.
I’ll figure it out one day, I’m sure.
Lockdown – Health and Resilience
Posted: Wed 17 June, 2020 Filed under: Change, Domestic, Food, Health, Lockdown, Weigh Less, Weight Loss Leave a comment »Over the last twelve weeks, it’s been interesting hearing that a lot of people have put weight on, mainly through a lack of available exercise opportunities, and generally eating loads of crap food while “working” from home.
I’m happy to say that hasn’t been the case here – in some ways that’s really bloody annoying, and in others I find it quite reassuring.
My food intake hasn’t really changed – for obvious reasons, my restaurant visits and occasional weekends of excess haven’t been happening. (Although they’ve never really affected me either) But I’ve not ended up eating a load of junk – the cake, biscuits and crisps that a lot of people seem to have been going for in a big way – which also probably helps balance things out.
However, I’ve also not been exercising anywhere near as much. (This has been intentional, as I’ll explain in a bit) Over the last two years I’ve been taking a member of a local fitness group at least twice a week, as well as my own workout routines, fairly epic weekend walks and activities, and averaging well over 10,000 steps a day.
As a result of that lack of exercise, all logic dictates that I should’ve put on weight, with maintaining my intake but not burning off anywhere near as much as usual. But it’s not been the case – throughout this lockdown, my weight has varied by only about a kilo either way.
The reason I chose to stop doing the workouts and so on was to see what happened – again, logic would dictate that I’d have gained weight, and I wanted to find out. I did a lot of work in 2018 to find things that worked for me (and failed on all scores, but came out with more information and hard data/figures) although it looks like I haven’t actually written about that whole thing here. (so that’s something else I can write at some point soon)
It’s frustrating, because I’d love to find an easy answer for losing weight. It’s reassuring, because it does also show that whatever I’m doing is suiting my body – the fact that nothing has really changed shows that. Swings and rounadbouts, and all that jazz.