Dancing At Lunacy

I only had one fast day this week: a work conference on Thursday and Friday ruled those days out, and while I COULD have gone for Monday and Wednesday that would have meant sharing no meals with my husband all week. So I did just Tuesday. And thought, I’d better make it a good one!

Up till now, I’ve eased myself in gradually by eating in a very similar way to my normal days.  So that was breakfast, a mid morning snack of cheese on rice cakes, soup and a salad for lunch, something like fruit mid afternoon, and then dinner at 6, with possibly an evening snack.  This week I cut out all the snacks, I’ve dropped the salad from the lunch so it’s now down to an under-50 calorie soup.  I might try to get to the stage where I can do just breakfast and dinner, with a longer fasting period in between.  But making the change gradually has certainly helped.

For dinner I brought together some of my low-cal heroes: portabello mushrooms, a tin of shrimp, spinach, and a tub of salsa.

The mushrooms are about 25 cals each, half a tin of shrimp is 50 cals, the spinach is negligible, and the salsa – well, I discovered that shop bought salsa varies quite a bit from brand to brand, so the lesson learned is to read the nutrition labels carefully.  This Sainsburys one worked out at about 60 cals for half the tub, but was quite high in sugar.  I cut out the stalks of the mushrooms  and chopped them with the shrimp, spinach and salsa.  I then stuffed the mushrooms with this mixture.

I baked them in the oven for about 20 minutes.  They were really good, and it’s a versatile dish that would lend itself to different stuffings.  I used the rest of the salsa and shrimp next day in a salad, with the addition of a chopped avocado.

Other progress – down to 139 pounds, and able to fit into my skinny dark green trousers.

Filed under: Food, recipes | Tagged: 5:2, shrimp |