GI again!

At the start of the year I lost a stone and a half (which I'd put on in 3 months after stopping smoking - so probably easier to shift), following a general GI healthy diet. Since then although I've tried to stick to GI I've been bad, had a few takeaways/cakes/wine (quite a bit!). Haven't put anything on luckily - probably because I've been exercising!

So now I've given myself a shake and started RC's Kick Start plan. It restricts you to 1200 calories for 2 weeks but is quite easy to follow. You then go up to 1500. Started on Monday so I'll let you know if it's any good when I have my weigh in next week.

Hey Tranquility

I have just started the GI jeans Diet to yesterday , although i was already on a 1200ish calorie diet before i started but yesterday i found myself being rather hungry cos i was struggling to find something for 200 cals for breakfast ( i ended up having 155) and same for lunch (197), but dinner was fine , only thing was i have no idea if were allowed to snack but after my dinner id only used 773 cals so i had a sandwich cos i was a little hungry. I am not even sure if were allowed snacks. Its confused me a bit.

How are you finding it ?

Teresa

Hi Treez,

Nice that someone else is doing it too.

I'm finding it ok. I think I'm not feeling hungry as I'm in the 'zone'
My typical day is:

Either special K or allbran for brekkies.
apple about 10:30.
Lunch of a sandwich or meat and salad.
Another apple or piece of fruit at about 3.30.
Dinner about 7/7.30

Last night I made the pork and mango meat balls - really nice, I made half as only 2 of us but I did still make all the sauce as I don't think half is enough. Unfortunately my bf found it a bit hot so I could have used half a chilli! I'll probably try the beef stroganof tonight.

I'm struggling a bit calorie counting. My sandwiches tend to be about 300-350 cals I think so I am a bit over.

Make sure you have the 2 pieces of fruit mid am and pm - I find that makes a big difference.

Page 59 tells you what extras you can have, no extra snacks I don't think other than the 2 extra pieces of fruit. Although you must be able to have carrots/celery/cucumber sticks to snack on if you need to. I was a bit confused by that.

Let me know how you get on and if you try any of the recipies.

Thanks for the reply back hunni.

I emailed my instructer in the end about the fruit cos i thought that u could eat as much fruit as you wanted but she told me were only allowed 2 pieces of fruit a day thats it lol so i had an apple this afternoon and ill have one a bit later or some grapes , im finding i cant use up all the points i had Bran flakes with a sprinkle of sugar and skimmed milk for breakfast that came to like 179 and then for lunch i had a Tuna Sandwich which came to 250 and then a apple a little while later and for dinner i had a steam fresh chicken with tomato and herb veg and pasta.(packet meal) need to go shopping so coping with what i got for now luckily it was all low fat anyway cos i was on a diet beofre i started rosemary.

I havent tryed no reciepes yet but i might try the Turkey Stroganoff as im not eating red meat as im on Xenical too so red meats high in fat so im avoiding it all together or ill have a bad stmoach. I feel like im in the Zone too but just feel like its not really a lot to eat for lunch, breakfast i can handle it only being little but ,lunch seems tiny and my god i so look forward to my dinner so i can have loads of veg.

Good luck with this week.

Teresa

P.S. There is this thing called Fitday it works out your calories for you i think i see my mate on here was using it to work out cals.

Hi Tranquility and Treezuk

I'm one and half weeks into RC kick start now, still keeping it up!

Tranquility I think you must have been given a different book to me. I've only got a little booklet with thirty-something pages in. Can't wait 'til Tuesday to get the full plan.

I'v stuck to -

3/4 pint of milk 200k

Hot oat cereal with sugar 150k

Banana 100k

Sandwich - 2 slices of wholemeal bread, low-cal salad cream, thin meat and loads of salad 250K

Meat or fish with new potatoes and veg 500k

I'm measuring out my milk, and 3/4 pint is quite a lot, so I tend to have a drink of tea when I,m feeling hungry which does curb it a bit.

I made spag-bol last night, and it just managed to fit in with the calories.

Treez are you having potatoes with your dinner they fil you up a bit. The book recomends new waxy potatoes because they are lower GI.

My instructor is dead against jacket potatoes, and swears by sweet potato instead. I'll try these this week and let you know.

Carole

Hi as well Carole

You guys are obviously doing the group thing. I'm just working out of her book so it makes a bit more sense now

Let us know how you get on at the end of your second week Carole. In the book they don't say how much they expect you to loose on the kick start but recon it should be 2-2.5 pounds a week when you get to the 1500 calories, although I think that is a bit optimistic. I'd be happy to loose 1lb a week as long as it was consistent.

Good luck guys

hey carole & tranquility

I am finding it ok now i am making sure i eat fruit inbetween meals i seem to be getting the hang of it a bit more now. I had a Quick jump on my scales today just to see and it said 19st 9lb which is 4lb in 2 days , but i aint gonna take that to seriously im just going on the WI at Rosemary but its spuring me on knowing that my scales say that cos there +2lb out all the time which means i have defintly lost something but there not reliable but its good enough for me to keep going.

Hope your all doing ok

Teresa

Treeze - get off those scales!!!

I really have to resist doing it but I probably will tomorrow as it's been a week.

Hope you both had a good weekend.

We had a midnight drive meet round London on Sat night so I deliberately made dinner for 9pm. Got home at 4.30am and still didn't have anything else to eat. Would normally eat junk from a petrol station so very pleased with myself.



Don't know if you guys get the same recipes as in the book but I've tried:

Beef stroganof - Very nice, obviously not quite as good as the full cream version but I was very impressed. Needed to reduce it a bit though, as the sauce wasn't quite thick enough. BF thoroughly enjoyed too.

Port and mango balls - Made the sauce a bit hot so my bf didn't eat his! He has had it before though and likes it.

Beef and green veg stirfry, with hoisin - I did change the green veg from the recipe and I did with an additional veg stirfry. Delicious

Lamb burgers - ok a bit boring compared to the other dishes. Probably won't bother so much with this again.

Will try the pork and sage this week.

It was before she got on the Low GI bandwagon, but I have Rosemary's cookbook 'Eat Yourself Slim' and that's got some fantastic recipes in! It's one of those few cookbooks where, whatever you make from it works! Also for anyone who doesn't yet have the full GI Jeans diet - I'd recommend you get Rosemary's magazine as that always has recipes from the current book, in.

I lost nearly 3 stone in the mid 1990s with Rosemary - after having my first 3 kids. And last year after having another 2 kids, I lost the 3 stone all over again - also with Rosemary. It works. Also I kept the weight off easily for five entire years. I didn't regain any until I got pregnant twice in two years then had a stressful bust up with an ex so scary the police ending up doing him for harrassing me. So if you switch to the Rosemary way of eating, it's easy to stay with when the weight's gone, and barring big life events you should be able to keep the weight off for good.

I use a combination of her old books and GI Jeans, now, and also use recipes from Gillain McKeith, and Anthony Worrell Thompson's Low GI Cook Book. Last year I lost most of the weight on Rosemary's old diet, before GI Jeans came out. I found GI Jeans harder than her old diets.

I've no idea what I weigh now - haven't been on the scales for months. I was using them every day and that was seriously damaging! But I started Rosemary last year a big size 20. And today I'm wearing a size 12 skirt and GAP Medium t shirt, so I'm not worried! I did feel hungry with the GI Jeans and I've never ever felt hungry on my previous Rosemary diets but when I just stuck generally to the right amount of calories but varied things a bit from the other books I found it was fine.

Sweet potatoes are much lower GI than spuds. Rosemary's old diets were very keen on baked potatoes for lunch! No more! You can still lose weight eating them but then you have to watch the calories elsewhere and it's no longer low GI, is all!

PP - that's great inspiration, well done for losing so much

I've got AWT cookbook as well, and GM. I'm avoiding those for the moment as I'll use them more when I manage to loose the weight.

I find one of the hardest things is getting motivated to cook all the time. I hate ready made slimming meals, so would rather try the recipes. I actually enjoy cooking but I definitely need a bigger kitchen as I'm not very organised so end up running out of space!

I've got an old RC recipe book as well and I agree with PhatPhoenix that her recipes are great - always turn out looking like they should (bit like Delia Smith's!) Unfortunately my RC book is so old that its not low GI but the recipes are easily convertable to low GI.

I've been low GI'ing for about a year now and its turned in to sort of second nature. I don't even think about normal spuds any more - maybe once every couple of weeks I'll roast or boil some tiny new potatoes with the skins on but I cook sweet potatoes at least twice a week, sometimes more.

I love cooking and I use the AWT recipe books quite a lot. JMHO, but I think the first one is better than the second one.

Phat : thats great knowing it realyl works form someone whos been there.

Tranquility : I dont think we have the same book , i only have like teh booklet thing they give you at teh class, it does have the beef stronganoff in it and turkey which im gonna try but not the beef as im not eating red meat (due to xenical) oh and i tryed the chicken stir fry with soy sauce yesterday for my lunch (250 cals) was yummy and so easy to cook , just chucked chicking in cooked it till done , chucked veg in till hot and 4 tablespoons (2 each) of soy sauce and i was making it for 2 of us, it really filled me up. After the first initial day or so im now finding it easy im not even feeling hungry anymore so i think it was just getting my head around it and sorting out times i eat stuff which i have done now. Good luck for this week.

Plus im Sick (cold) so i don't feel like eating lol.

Teresa

Hope you're feeling better today Treeze.

Lost 4 lbs so I'm quite pleased

Tranquility thats great hunni , i cant be bothered to look at the scales anymore cos they dont seem to be moving much anyway but im eatingeverything right so im not really sure whas going on , only thing i cant think of is cos of the cold im only walking no other exercise cos im so warn out even the walking killing me. I am feeling a bit better today i just sound worse lol cos throats gone croaky and nose sounds like ive been submerged in water for about three hours lol.

I will let you know how my weight in goes tommorow i am going to the night time one god help me with the food all day im gonna be half the size of a house i expect but oh well cant make the morning one , just dont like the idea of an evening weight in with all the food of the day in your belly

Speak soon

Teresa

Traq : i just see your in surrey ? where abouts ? i live on London/surrey boarders.

Treez Hope you're felling better, and good look with your weigh-in tomorrow.

TranquilityWell done on the 4lb. Your recipes sound great. I wish I could come round there to eat.

I keep buying things like chillies, low-fat plain yogurt, and ginger (thats just this week) and then can never find the recipe I wanted them for!.
I must have done o k on the old stuff, because I've lost another 2lb this week. That makes 5lb in total best I've ever done in 2 weeks.

The best thing though is I get to go on the full plan with a lot more choice, and my cals have gone up to 1450 (can't have the full 1500 because of my size and height 5' 2").

Will update next week.

Carole