Diet day 28 ==> weigh-in

Woo hoo I lost weight!  I have lost 11lb since the 2nd of January.  I am very pleased.

Today I ate
BREAKFAST: Porridge
LUNCH: Tomato Soup (my homemade stuff), chicken, sun-dried tomatoes
DINNER: Tomato Soup

EXERCISE: 30 minute walk at lunch

Day 27 detox diet

BREAKFAST:

Porridge

 

 

LUNCH:

 

DINNER:

Soup

 

 

EXERCISE:

I got off my train one station early and walked home - 30 minutes door to door

 

Weigh-in tomorrow!

I am hopeful I have lost another lb since last week.

Treats for my colleagues!

 

Over the weekend I made a batch of Peanut Butter Cups.  I brought them into work and left them in our kitchen for people to enjy with a cup of tea or coffee.

 

Boy, did they go down well!  Everyone really liked them. 

 

I will leave it a couple of weeks and either make another batch of them or make something else nice and nibbley

Ikea & Yankee Candle

I had a lovely Saturday morning today.

First I went to Ikea and met Enid.  Ikea had loads of stuff on sale so we had a nice time just browsing.  My big(!) purchase was a set of 3 scissors for €1.20!

Afterwards I headed to the Blanchardstown Towncentre to buy food for dinner tonight - in Marks & Spencers.

On my way to M&S I popped into the Yankee Candle shop. 

I love Yankee Candles.  They have 5 new scents - my favourites of them were Paradise Spice and A Child's Wish.  I then had a good sniff of all the candles in the shop. One in particular was so nice it actually made me automatically break into a huge SMILE - Country Lemonade.  Try it next time you are in a Yankee Candle store.

I then continued on to M&S.  I am having Dad over for dinner tonight and I had promised him steak.  I was looking for flatiron steak but they were out of stock.  So then I was trying to decide between striploin, sirloin and fillet.  The fillet was the nicest but it was working out very expensive.  But then I noticed the Dine in for 2 offer (Main, side, dessert & btl of wine for €12.50) was on and rump steak was included in the offer.

So basically for the price of 4 fillets, I got 4 rumps, 2 sides, 2 desserts & 2 bottles of wine.  You can't argue with that. 

See my receipt below.  I got €55.27 worth of food for €27.89!

Day 21 - gotta get back on track!

Weigh-In today.

Only lost 1lb since last week :-(

Saying that, that is 9lb in total in 3 weeks which is not bad.

 

BREAKFAST:

 

LUNCH:

I have become obsessed with sundried tomatoes. 

But I am afraid the oil on them is slowing down my weight loss.  Any thoughts anyone?

 

DINNER:

Tomato soup

 

AND:

Ooops!  Couldn't resist some peanut butter cups

 

Sunday Baking - Flourless Chocolate cake

Can you believe I turned these 4 ingredients (castor sugar, eggs, butter & bournville chocolate) into....

 



....THIS!

 

I shall be making this again. 

It was incredible.

 

If anyone would like full directions/recipe just let me know!

Sunday Baking - Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups

INGREDIENTS:

Icing Sugar

Peanut Butter

Chocolate

(FYI I would suggest a better quality chocolate then the cooking one I used)

 

 

Mix the peanut butter & icing sugar



This mixture is fabulous even just like this!

Melt chocolate and pour into mini paper cups. 

I'd suggest you get use a mini muffin tin to hold these in shape - I did not as you can see.

Blop some of the peanut butter mix onto the chocolate

 

 

Pour chocolate on top of peanut butter mix.



A little bit mis-shapen...but veerrrrryyy tasty!

 

 

Follow up post to yesterday's counter demonstration post

I posted yesterday about the Pro-Life vigil in Dublin and our demonstration that we counter-staged.

See my post here.

 

Katie was reading all the online reports of the demos and she found an article which included a photograph of the two of us.

 

The article is from the Breaking News Ireland website - see the article here. 

 

The first photograph is of the Pro-Life group.

A crowd of 25,000 was reported - and I'd well believe it. 

 

And the second photograph is of Katie & myself!

Edit. 21/01/13 - Katie located another online article which has used the same photograph of us.
See Irish Central.com here

 

 

 

 



Pro-life vigil in Dublin - Pro-choice counter demonstration

Wow what a day.

 

The Irish Pro-Life movement were having a gathering in Dublin today. 

To counter this the Pro-Choice movement planned a small silent demonstration. 

I received an invite to it on facebook from Katie.

 

Today really opened my eyes to the size and strength of the pro-life faction. 

Coaches upon coaches were parked along Merrion Square.

 

 

 

The people piled off the buses - ranging in age from children, to teenagers, to young adults, to middle age, to elderly people.  A lot of (old) nuns and (old) priests...

 

I had made up some signs.  

 

Katie & I met up with Mary & Kasey (aunt & cousin)

 



 

The turnout of our people just could not be compared to the pro-lifers:

But even in our small numbers I was glad I attended. 

This has shown me that it is more important than ever that we need to keep doing more and more.


Edit.  See here for online coverage and photograph of Katie & I.

Day 18...not a great day...but nothing to panic about!

Ate more than I intended today....

 

BREAKFAST:

LUNCH:

 

DINNER:

And then had some chips from the chipper, drowned in vinegar....ooops!  A small amount though.

 

Then 4 square of bournville.

 

 

 

 

Day 17...I think my stomach is shrinking...

BREAKFAST:

 

LUNCH:

I couldn't eat all the chicken..



DINNER:

Completely stuffed after soup & sausage - nice combo!

 



SNACK:

 

2 squares of Bournville.

Sooooo much nicer than the icky 85% cocoa chocolate.

Newborn Screening Programme in Ireland

I saw an ad in the Metro this morning which I thought was interesting.

 

When babies are born in Ireland a test known as the Heel Prick Test is carried out soon after their birth.  This enables doctors to diagnose or rule out 6 conditions - and enables doctors to give treatment early if required.

 

In order to comply with European regulation the Irish health board is going to dispose of the cards of these tests taken from 1984-2002. If you are a person born during that period, or a parent of a child during that period you can request the test to be sent to you rather be destroyed.

 

I really like that idea!  Imagine having a part of you from when you were literally a day or two old. 

 

My younger sisters were born in 1989 so this refers to them. 

I immediately texted Katie to tell her about it. 

I wonder will she be claim her test.  I will let you know - maybe I can even post a picture of it if she does claim it back.

 

Here is the ad that was in the Metro this morning.

And for more info see the website set up here.

New! Shiny!

 

I have inherited an exciting object!

 

 

 

I have always, always wanted one of these but the price has just been too much for me to spend.  So now that my sister Lydee has moved away and is not doing her cupcakes anymore I have been passed her Kenwood Chef and I am delighted!

 

 I scrubbed it clean tonight.

 

I am super excited to start using it!  Watch this space to see what I get up to with it!

Day 16

BREAKFAST:

 

LUNCH:

I couldn't eat all the chicken...

 

EXERCISE:

30 minutes walk at lunch

DINNER:

SNACK:

Square of dark chocolate

Diet Day 15

BREAKFAST:

Porridge

 

LUNCH:

EXERCISE:

30 mins walk at lunch

 

DINNER:

Tomato soup

 

SNACK:



Cycled over to the towncentre to meet Enid for a wander around the shops. 

Starving when I came home!

So I nibbled on the above little snack

Day 14

WEIGH-IN THIS MORNING:

Woo hoo I lost another 2lbs.  I've lost 8lbs in total so far.

 

BREAKFAST:

 

LUNCH:

Turkey, sundried tomatoes, tomato soup.

EXERCISE:

30 minutes walk at lunch

DINNER:
Bowl of homemade tomato soup.


SNACK:







This one square of chocolate looks very big pictured on it's own.

 



Here it is pictured beside an ipod nano, it's exactly half the size of it.

Katie singing the Cup Trick song

I have mentioned before that my twin  (Enid) blogs and I have posted links to her blog.

Another of my sisters (Katie) also blogs. 

She is a funny little creature - check out her latest post/blog here - as you can see/hear she is a talented little singer but ssshhh I don't think she knows she has a teddy bear on her head :-)

Diet Day 13

BREAKFAST:

Yummy fabulous porridge!

How have I only ever found porridget in my 35th year???

 

LUNCH:

I forgot to bring some of my home-made soup into work today.  So I bought some avonmore low fat tomato soup...it is not as nice as my soup I tells ya! 

With it, I had two slices of turkey, coin size piece of chicken & sun dried tomatoes. 

Sorry I forgot to take a photograph of it.

 

EXERCISE:

Myself and a work colleage (one of the Personnel ladies!) went out for a lovely 30 minute walk.

DINNER:

Pulled pork left over from mam's dinner yesterday. 

I put the pork into a bowl of my soup and it was incredible.  I love the soup and I LOVE pork. 

 

EXERCISE:

I cleaned my bathroom after dinner. It was long overdue.

 

SNACK:

One square of 85% cocoa chocolate.  This photo really shows how dark it is.

I cannot describe how disgusting this "chocolate" tastes to me.

Day 12

BREAKFAST:

DINNER:

I was really hungry... But I know I ate an awful lot.

 



I just cannot resist my mam's Sunday dinner.

 

But I didn't have any dessert.

 

 

SNACK:

 

One square of dark chocolate - eeugh - it is not neccessarily too bitter, it is more just very dry and no sweetness whatsoever.  No taste really... even a bit of bitterness would be nice!