I had a huge challenge at the end of this week, as we went on a three-night holiday to Northumberland, and I really wanted to stick to this low-calorie plan.
We were in a static caravan with a kitchen, so I thought that it would be do-able if I planned in advance. We ended up eating all of our meals in the caravan, which meant taking a huge amount of food with us but also saved us a fortune on eating out. I also planned to enjoy one or two glasses of wine a night – it was our main summer holiday for 2020, after all!
Breakfasts:
- Pear and cottage cheese with walnuts (210 calories)
- Apricot halves with yogurt and flaked almonds (140 calories)
- Mango and hazelnut purée, yogurt and apple (180 calories) – I made the purée in advance and took it with us
Lunches:
- Feta cheese, pistachio nut and pomegranate salad (227 calories)
- Spicy chick pea hummus and crudités (239 calories)
- M&S Mexican rice, quinoa and avocado salad (140 calories) – great find at the service station when the rest of the family grabbed something from Burger King or Greggs
Evening Meals:
- Skinny chilli, cauliflower rice and tender stem broccoli (460 calories) – the recipe stated to put 35g of plain chocolate in for 4 portions, but it was ridiculously chocolatey and I’ll maybe only use one square next time. I’ve never had cauliflower rice before and really liked this ‘carb cheat’. Everyone else had their ‘chocolate meat’ with rice.
- Portobello mushroom pizzas – everyone else had homemade pizzas with proper dough, but mine tasted amazing and I didn’t miss the carbs
- Pork chipolata sausages, cauliflower mash and tender stem broccoli with onion gravy (499 calories) – Cauliflower mash was also good, and Daughter enjoyed it too, which is great as she’s never eaten potatoes anyway. Everyone else had mashed potato but we all enjoyed the onion gravy.
The best bits:
- I’d planned to the extent that I didn’t have to ‘do without’, and I could have more-or-less the same food as everyone else
- My sister really supported me by joining in with many of my meals and saying how good they tasted – it really made me feel like I wasn’t doing without at all, even if she supplemented hers with bread and other carbs
- I wasn’t hungry at all
- I didn’t miss the snacking
- It made me realise just how much sugar I would have consumed that weekend
- Loads of walking meant that I didn’t feel too guilty about having a glass of wine at night… and I enjoyed that one glass soooo much!
- My low-cal plan didn’t seem to bother the rest of the family
- No hangovers
- We saved rather a lot of money on eating out
- Days out meant that I kept busy and wasn’t thinking about food
- A very smug picnic on Holy Island, involving hot peppermint tea drunk from a tea cup!
The most difficult bits:
- No ice-creams when everyone else was eating them
- No half-price Burger King at the service station, although I did find a yummy M&S low-cal salad
- No car sweets with Husband and the kids
- Not over-indulging on alcohol at night
Wordy Witterings 