Update me, won’t ya?!?

Hello hello,

Yes, it has been way, oh way too long, but I’m back.

Let’s go straight to the point: I have lost 31kg and I am loving it! It feels so good! And the best part is that my clothes actually fit me or they are too big. But I made a promise that I wont get much new stuff until I am where I want to be.

I am still going strong without sugar, and in addition, I gave up wheat as well. I still make and eat bread, but without wheat. I dont get that blown up feeling after i eat, and oat flour works wonders in bakes. I have created a really good recipe for a raspberry-pie (sugar and wheat free) and it last me for 2-3 days and then Ill bake another one. Want to learn how to make it? Well here you go….

Sugar and wheat free coconut-nuts-raspberry pie:

100g butter

2 egg

• Melt the butter and add the eggs individually.

4tbls honey

2 “caps” vanilla extract

• Add the honey and vanilla into butter-egg mixture

3dl oat flour (or combine rice flour or what ever you want to use)

1dl chopped nuts (which ever you prefer)

1dl coconut

3tsp baking powder

• Combine all flours together and then add to the butter-eggs mixture

250-500g raspberries

some honey

• Add some honey with the raspberries (can be frozen or fresh). I either add one bag (250g) or two (=500g) and they both work just fine. Depends how much of the raspberry taste you want to have.
• Combine the berries with the rest.
• Bake in 200 degrees for about 35mins.
• READY!

I’ll add pics the next time I shall make it. That will prob be on Monday 🙂

Then to training. I go to the gym 3-5 times a week and I have two programs, which i use in turns.

Training:

• Warm up: running 3-7K (8,6K/h)
• Legs: I either use leg press or deadlift. With leg press I squat down with other leg in front of me (I go straight down). I do that 15 times with both legs. Then back to leg press and this again. Both 3 times. With dead lift I do 12 times  squats with weights. Both 12 times, one after the otehr for 3 tiems each.
• Arms: I either do bench with military press or incline bench press with triceos by using this “string” that you pull down on either side of your body. Each combo 3+3 for 10-15 times.
• Back and abs: pull-ups with the machine combined with back trainer or I lie on the bench and bring my legs up and down one by one combined with curl bar. Onece again, 3+3 10-15 times each.
• In addition: “front swings” with kettlebell + some version of plank or breast rowing in the machine (only using my arms) + “front swings” with kettlebel. Same old, each for 10-15 times and 3+3 all together.
• Stretching.

It takes me around 1,5-2 hours to do the whole set depending on the run. obviously 3K run takes less time than 7 K run 🙂

And what do I eat these days? Well, I often start my day with porridge/toast (wheat free)/piece of the pie and then I have lunch which can be a salad/ salty pie/ omelette/anything really. Later on Ill have a snack or dinner, which is what ever has been cooked but its always sugar and wheat free. I hardly eat potatoes/rice/noodles anymore. I love salmon, quark with berries, salads, pies, self-made pizza (well,everything I eat is self-made and I mean made from the scratch). It is really easy to get comfortable with a new diet, as I did it step-by-step and I am now at the point when I don’t go crazy about sweets or anything really. Food is what keeps my body running, and I want to eat healthy. It is really simple ones you get to the correct mode.

I will post a set of pictures later on, to show how I have changed. But that will take some time, as in the end of the set i want to be at my goal. But it is coming… one day! Hmm, I could post some duo pic of me last Jan and now.. shall look into it.

OK, it wont take nearly as long ’til im back as it did this time around! Hope you found tips from this post!

Ciao,

Finch

Sugar free & heathly apple pie (super easy to make)

This journey would be undoable without some pleasures. Well, this is mine! It is super easy to do, it is heathly and has no sugar is it – fab!

When I started this little project, the hardest part for me wastogiveup sweet andbakedgoods.I mean Ben&Jerrys + sweet pies-how could I do it. I will get back to the B&J part in the future but this is all about pies! I went online, searched for multiple differend pie receipes and put together one, that A. tasted good and B. was heathly.

I should also reveal my secret – two of them. Firstly, I love to bake, so I kept on doing it but gave all the finished products to friends and family and on the side came up with healthy thing for myself. Baking the normal stuff kept the feeling of drowning myself in sugar away. Secondly, I found Pinterest, and I created a board called “Things I miss on a diet” and I pinned every delicious food item I ever came across on Pinterest. Funilly, the craving I had for those foods grew smaller as I kept pinning them. and yes, my board has million of receipes of things, I will eat one day (but in small portions!).

Crust:

100g butter

2 tbs flakes

2 1/4 dl flour

1 ts baking powder

1 egg

pint of salt

Melt the butter until soft, and mix it together with the egg.

Add all the remaining incredients:

Then crease a 26cm baking tin, or use a baking sheet for the bottom, as I have done:

Then simply put the crust into the baking tin and spead across:

Then you need to make the mixture to pour into your crust.

Apple part:

5 apples

honey

cinnamon

Mixture:

2dl cream

250g curd/quark/maitorahka (what ever its called in your coutry)

1 egg

vanilla extract, honey (how much is up to you)

Start by using the same bowl you used for the crust. No need to wash it in between. Cut the apples into small pieces.

Then add some cinnamon and honey to the mix (how much is up to you).

The next part is up to you. You can either pour the apple mixture in the the crust and then later add the other mixture on top. Or you can make the other mixture, mix it together with the apples and then place it in the crust. Both taste the same and its simply about, which you prefer 🙂

Mix the remaining incredients.

Then bake it in 200 celcius for about an hour. I sometimes leave it for 200 celcius until the pie gets some colour (half an hour or so) and then drop the temperature to +100 celcius and let it bake for another hour, as the tastes seem to get better then. But an hour in 200 celcius is the “norm”, if one can say so. Feel free to play around with it a bit – isn’t that what baking is all about?

This is what you get in the end (well, mine got a bit too much colour.. or did it? But it tasted damn good! Might be good to let it cool before eating (I put mine to the fridge for a little bit once its cooled enough for it, and then eat it when its properly cool). But try it out – you might prefer it warmish.

If you first make the crust, then the apple section and then the mixture to pur on top, you can use one bown fot the overall process and therefore the cleaning after is quite easy to master!

I love it, hope you will too! Ill get back to the posts with some other healthy options and I shall keep you updated how the journey of mine is moving along. Ill also share my gym programme incase someone out there might find it valuable.

The beginning

Changing a life style is not an easy step. It need courage, desire and determination to survive. But most of all, it needs you to believe in it and stand proudly behind it. Excuses can be forgotten before you even come up with one. Only you know, if you are truly in it. And if you are not, then why even try out?

I started mine with a “simple” rule. No sugar. None. Except of course the fructose in fruits, but no added sugar or sugar lsited as an ingrediant. This was 30th of January 2012. The next two weeks i suffered from the most horrible headache. A true killer. But that was simply my own body screaming for some sugar. Yelling! That is how addicted i was to it. It was mind blowing to see how strong of a hold sugar had on me, and how strong I was to cut it lose.

You don’t even realize how much sugar is in EVERYTHING we eat. Try going to the grocery store and not purchasing evything, if it has sugar in it. Frustration might be the feeling you have while doing it. It is not made too easy, not at all. But believe me, there are plenty of things without it – you just have to find them.

I continued with my no sugar style and after 4 weeks I was in control. And it felt good! Being without sugar had made me stop eating anything greasy as well – it was sort of an side affect – so my plates of food were damn heathly. And once you get use to it, its a smooth ride.

I cut of:

• sugar
• butter (except on bread)
• oil
• syryp (not that used it more than once a year)
• mayonnaise (even tho i never really used it to begin with)
• white bread

I also stop using anything that was not natural. By this I mean that I did not touch margarine, as the bits of butter i ate were then to be the real thing. I didn’t buy anything 8even if it had no sugar in it), if it included Exx or other weird “made” substances. I went back to basics.And I started to cook my food. I made my own lunch and stopped eating at the cafeteria.I made my own juice (as the one in a shop has lods of sugar in it).

Juice:

• Squeeze some apples
• Add fizzy water

I also started to make my own cereals. Which is easy and SO much helthier than the ones in a shop.

• Mix together some flakes (which ever you fancy)
• Throw in some honey and mix well
• “Pour” the mixture on an owen tray (covered with baking paper)
• Let it sit in the owen (high temperature) until golben brown
• Let it cool

I did not spent that much efford thinking what was left for me to eat, as I ate everything, which did not inlude the before mentioned things. I tried to eat more salmon, avocados and nuts, as all these have good fats in them. As i love chicken and minced meat I cooked them often. I also create my own sugar-free banana bread and apple pie, which i will share later on (once i get pictures to include to the posts).

Just the change in food changed my weight. It came down 4kg in 4 weeks. This was my February. Beginning of March brought in sports, but that will be covered in the next post. The reason for this was that I wanted to change my life in parts, not in one go, as I needed time to get use to the new things taking place in my life. Therefore the first part of my journey was to change the inside of my fridge.