Diet Challenge - Day One

A mixed day to say the least and a few things learnt.

I had a piece of the baguette for breakfast, warmed in the oven so that it smelt and tasted as if it was freshly baked, no butter of course, but it was lovely and went down well with my cup of tea. Much better for me than my normal two slices of buttered toast.

Lunchtime saw the 40 pence can of soup opened, it was not great, but it was edible and with a chunk of baguette was filling too. At that price I wasn't expecting Heinz standards, so it was acceptable.

Dinner had me opening the tin of store brand meat balls, also 40 pence. The contents looked and smelled like dog food, a dip in of the pinky finger confirmed that the contents were awful! I have never tasted canned dog food, but reckon this must be close to it. In fact it is worse as I put the contents of the can down for my dog, and he refused to eat it!

The Fusilli of course was fine, not much to go wrong with pasta, so I mixed the sachet of sweet chilli and garlic sauce in with it for what was actually a very tasty and filling meal. Had I put the meatballs in too, it would have been inedible, for me at least. I still have a piece of the bread left and will save that for breakfast tomorrow.

I didn't buy anything today, as of course, I already had my supplies in. I shall shop again tomorrow. I have now re-discovered what I already knew, you get what you pay for. This dieting is going to be hard enough without trying to survive on the cheapest end of the food market. So the budget idea is out of the window, I at least want to be able to enjoy whatever food I get.

Thanks to everyone for posting on this blog, I am going to follow some of the suggestions and please feel free to suggest other ideas too. They will be gratefully received.

I weighed myself this morning and I am fifteen and a half stone, (210 pounds for US readers, 98.4 kg in metric for Europe). As I am only 5 feet 9 inches tall, I guess that makes me fat in all countries! I would like to lose two and a half stone (35 pounds, 16 kg.)

I shall report back on tomorrow's adventure.

Diet Challenge ??? Intro and Day One menu.

Something totally different for my blog which may or may not interest anyone else. But as it is my blog then I shall record it all here. Please feel free to skip these entries if you wish.

Readers of my blog will know I have an ongoing heart condition. I need a bypass operation to replace two veins that are completely blocked, meaning the two that are still working normally are having to do twice the work. Not good, and if not corrected means a fatal heart attack within five years.

A lot, if not all of the fault lies with my lifestyle choices during my 62 years on this planet, so the first change I made was to stop smoking in June last year. It has been a success and I can now move on to another challenge, losing weight. I am overweight, another factor that is not helping my overworked heart, so as from tomorrow, Monday 15th February 2016, I shall be starting a diet, the first time I have ever attempted to lose weight. However, dieting is pretty boring and no doubt means spending a lot of time being hungry. I can't do much about the latter, but can certainly make the former a little more interesting.

I have set myself a challenge of only spending £3 a day on groceries to live on. It would be easy to splash out on weight watchers type prepared meals but I don't want to go down that route, too easy and boring. I want to gather ingredients of my own choice and prepare my own meals within a tight budget. To me that is far more satisfying and will motivate me to keep going.

So today, I wandered to the supermarket with three pound coins in my pocket to see what I could pick up for day one tomorrow. It was a shock too. I pretty well know the price of foodstuffs and knew my budget wasn't great. I wanted to be able to purchase enough for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I had intended to buy a box of Quaker Oats to sort my breakfasts out for a good few days, but the price of £2 scuttled that idea. I had no idea porridge was so expensive! Add to that a small bag of sugar at 45p and my budget would have almost been blown!

Yes I could go down the route of spending my budget of £21 a week, meaning I could get in lots of stuff in one go, but sticking to the £3 a day means I have to think about each day carefully, more interesting for me.

I will share with you my supplies for day one.

 I bought five items and have some change to add to the next days budget.

The five items.

Breakfast: A piece of baguette.

Lunch: Scotch Broth Soup with another piece of the baguette.

Dinner: 100g Fusilli mixed with meatballs and the sauce, also any remaining baguette.

I had wanted to buy a net of Tangerines but they were 80p, so just outside my budget. I hope to get them tomorrow as I want at least one piece of fresh fruit everyday. The Fusilli will also last a few days too, giving me a base to work with.

My only luxury will be cups of tea, I cannot function without that! However I don't take sugar and can happily drink it without milk, so I will just be taking a hand full of tea bags out of the household supply until such times as I can actually purchase some within budget.

I will weigh myself tomorrow morning and then every Monday morning afterwards, to see if I am indeed losing weight. I will also keep this thread of my blog going, more for my own record but if you find it interesting then I am more than happy for you watch my progress.