Coffee Shops

Almost everyone likes a coffee at some point in the day and as with most things that are enjoyable if you're not careful you'll end up ingesting quite a few calories along the way. I've made one or two discoveries in my quest for low calorie products that still feel like a treat and some of them are hidden away on the menus as the companies like to push specific menu items that make them the most profit.

I use mainly Starbucks and Costa so I'll list my discoveries from them below, it's well worth doing some digging if you have your own favourite brand of takeaway coffee as the results can be pleasantly surprising; feel free to share you finds with me via the comments.

 Starbucks have a very useful datasheet of their products on their website, the following are my most used:

Hot Drinks:

• Short Skinny Latte: 67 calories.
• Tall Skinny Latte: 102 calories.
• Short Filter (no milk): 11 calories.
• Tall filter (no milk): 16 calories.
• Single Espresso: 6 calories.
• Double Espresso: 11 calories.
• Single Skinny Espresso Macchiato: 7 calories.
• Double Skinny Espresso Macchiato: 13 calories.
• Short Americano (no milk): 6 calories.
• Tall Americano (no milk): 11 calorie.
• Short Skinny Cappuccino: 55 calories.
• Tall Skinny Cappuccino: 70 calories.
• Skinny Flat White (short as standard): 67 calories.
• Short Skinny Caramel Macchiato: 97 calories.
• Short Chai Tea Latte: 103 calories.

Cold drinks:

• Tall Skinny Iced Latte: 63 calories.
• Tall Skinny Iced Cappuccino: 68 calories.
• Tall Iced Coffee (no milk): 3 calories.
• Tall Iced Americano (no milk): 11 calories.
• Tall Iced Caramel Macchiato: 124 calories.

Costa have pretty much the same data on their website which can be exported as a PDF, here are some of my top picks:

Hot Drinks:

• Primo Skinny Cappuccino: takeaway - 73 calories / have in - 63 calories.
• Medio Skinny Cappuccino: 94 calories.
• Primo Americano (no milk): 6 calories.
• Medio Americano (no milk): 8 calories.
• Primo Skinny Latte: takeaway - 79 calories / have in - 70 calories.
• Medio Skinny Latte: 109 calories.
• Skinny Flat White (Primo only): takeaway - 94 calories / have in - 80 calories.
• Primo Skinny Caffe Caramella: takeaway - 134 calories / have in - 112 calories.
• Single Espresso: 3 calories.
• Double Espresso: 6 calories.
• Skinny Primo Caramel latte: takeaway - 108 calories / have in - 98 calories.
• Cinnamon latte Primo Cinnamon latte: takeaway - 110 calories / have in -100 calories.

Cold drinks:

• Primo Skinny Iced Cappuccino: 65 calories.
• Primo Skinny Iced Latte: 98 calories.
• Primo Skinny Iced Caramel Latte: 95 calories.
• Primo Skinny Iced Cinnamon Latte: 97 calories.

So as you can see there are a number of interesting options open to you with these two brands, but I wouldn't suggest you have more than one a day as otherwise you'll be ramping up your calories via drinks!!

Sainsbury's Basics

Following on from yesterday's post, as promised, tonight is Sainsbury's Basics turn. The range is basically the same idea as Tesco and all the other main supermarkets' low cost own brand products and again there are some interesting options available here at a very reasonable price, once again I'll list the fat content as well as the calories if I think that it's a bit high.

•  Bolognese Pasta Bake 300g - 304 calories per pack.

• Cheese & Tomato 7'' Pizza - 374 calories per pack (12g).

• Chicken & Vegetable Pies x4 - 255 calories per pie (10g of fat).

•  Cottage Pie 300g - 227 calories per pack.

• Lasagne 300g - 279 calories per pack (9.7g of fat).

• Liver & Mash 300g - 249 calories per pack.

• Spaghetti Bolognese 300g - 266 calories per pack.

• Shepherds Pie 300g - 218 calories per pack.

• Sausages & Mash 300g - 290 calories (12g of fat).

• Chicken Steaks -  219 calories per steak (13g of fat).

• Cooked & Peeled Prawns 300g - 198 calories per pack.

• Green Pitted Olives 90g - 108 calories per pot (note the high salt content of 3.1g a pot).

• Black Pitted Olives 90g - 90 calories per pot (again this has a high level of salt at 2.14g a pot).

Special mention goes to the the lasagne and the olives which taste really good for their low calorie content, but beware that the portion sizes are quite small, although once you're up and running with your diet you'll not need such big portions any way.

Tesco Everyday Value Meals

One thing I've discovered on my supermarket travels is that the Sainsbury's Basics and Tesco Everyday Value ranges offer some interesting options for low calorie ready meals and small pizzas. On the whole these products aren't too bad, I can honestly say that I don't have them on a regular basis but they're good if you fancy something a bit different...oh and they're really cheap which is also good if you're on a budget.

I'll start with Tesco because the Sainsbury's website seems to be playing up at the time of writing; so I'll make them my next post if it's fixed in time.

As usual for ready meals I only use them if they're 500 calories or less per pack, also I'll list the fat content in brackets if it's quite high.

• Spaghetti Bolognese 400g - 428 calories per pack (14g of fat).

• Sausage & Mash 400g - 400 calories per pack (16.4g of fat).

• Fishermans Pie 400g - 325 calories per pack (10.9g of fat).

• Creamy Mushroom Chicken & Rice 400g - 472 calories per pack (13.2g of fat).

• Cottage Pie 400g - 314 calories per pack.

• Cheese & Tomato Pizza 150g - 423 calories per pizza.

• 4 Cheese & Tomato Pizza (frozen) - 409 calories per pizza

• 4 Chicken & Vegetable Pies (frozen) - 295 calories per pie (14.5g of fat).

• Chicken Curry (frozen) - 465 calories per pack (11.3g of fat).

• Toad In The Hole 250g (frozen) - 469 calories per pack (15.7g of fat).

• Macaroni Cheese 400g (frozen) - 440 calories (10.3g of fat).

• Chicken Hotpot 400g (frozen) - 318 calories per pack (10.4g of fat).

• Beef Lasagne 400g (frozen) - 460 calories per pack (15.8g of fat).

• Corned Beef Hash 400g (frozen) - 345 calories per pack.

So as you can see there are plenty of options in this range but two that I'll highlight are the frozen Corned Beef Hash which is really quite nice and very low in calories and also the frozen Beef Lasagne which doesn't taste too bad at all but has a really good calorie count for a lasagne, so it's great with a salad if you fancy something that feels a bit naughty! 

Margarine & Butter

I've spent quite a bit of time searching for the best replacement for margarine and butter (yes the excitement is never ending) and it's been a fairly interesting exercise. Due to my drastic cutting out of bread I have only been having two slices of a 400g loaf of bread for toast a day for breakfast, but the obsession with finding the best solution to non-dry toast became quite a pass time for me during my label reading in the supermarkets.

For reference 10g of butter or margarine is enough to lightly cover a single slice of bread. I will run through some of the products I've discovered over the past six months:

• Flora Buttery Light per 10g - 40 calories, 4.5g of fat.

• Flora Light per 10g - 28 calories, 3g of fat.

• Flora Lighter Than Light per 10g - 19 calories (on the tub it's listed as 20 calories), 4.5g of fat.

• Bertolli Light per 10g - 35 calories, 4g of fat.

• Clover Light per 10g - 45.4 calories, 4.9g of fat.

• Clover Lighter than Light per 10g - 35.5 calories, 3.8g of fat.

• I Can't Believe It's Not Butter Light per 10g - 35 calories, 3.8g of fat.

• Lurpak Lightest Spreadable per 10g - 38 calories, 4g of fat.

So as you can see there are plenty of options open to you that are lower in calories than your average margarine or butter spread:

• Flora per 10g - 41 calories / 4.5g of fat.

• Clover per 10g - 64 calories / 7g of fat.

However after a recent discovery I've now stopped having margarine altogether and now use one 35g tub of Philadelphia Lightest** per two small slices toast as this works out at 34 calories per mini tub with 1g of fat which is less than two 10g servings of Flora Lighter Than Light and it doesn't contain any "bad" fats as the Flora product does.

Another top tip is to not have any butter or margarine spreads on your toast if you are having baked beans with it, once the beans are all over the toast you won't notice the missing spread, the same can be said of eggs as well. The same goes for sandwiches and rolls: if you're having a condiment in it, like for example light mayonnaise, will you actually notice there's not any butter or margarine spread in it? Not really.

**For some reason the Philadelphia official website nutritional information for Lightest Minitubs is blatantly wrong: if you change the drop down from "per 100g" to "per 35g" the site says it contains 38 calories per mini tub when you can clearly see in the photographic illustration that it's 34 calories per mini tub, so I've used a Tesco link for the product instead.

Mindset

I've delayed posting about food this evening as I had a number of people talk with me today about my mindset for my weight loss and I thought that this maybe useful information to share.

I feel that setting yourself up mentally before you embark on a diet is very important and the most important thing is that you actually want to make the change to your lifestyle as if you go into this journey half heartedly you will be setting yourself up for failure. I would advise thinking about the following well before you start your weight loss journey:

• What do you want to achieve?

• Why do you want to lose weight? 

• Identify to yourself what has been the cause of your weight problems in the past. 

• Think about how you will manage the way you think about food. 

• Prepare yourself for the pitfalls, for example if chips are your weakness then plan how you will deal the hurdles this will give you. 

• Identify to yourself what you can use to replace your favourite junk food and totally cut out that junk food. 

• What will your reward be when you reach your target weight? For example I'm going to treat myself to the first good leather jacket I will have had in years. 

• Try not to think of what you're doing as a diet as this implies that there will be an end to what you are doing. Try to think of it as a change of lifestyle and to this end make healthy changes that are sustainable. 

There have been occasions, especially when I first started out, where I've literally had to grit my teeth to get past the temptation to cave in and have sweets and chocolate, but once you've broken the habit it becomes much easier and now I don't even miss junk food and have no plans to start eating chocolate, sweets, cakes etc. again. 

Once you've been losing weight for a while you will also see other benefits such as your stomach capacity shrinking so that you don't feel hungry after smaller meals and also there are the medical benefits: my doctor's jaw hit the floor the last time I saw him as he couldn't believe what I'd achieved (which was a good feeling) and after some tests it looks like my type 2 diabetes will be in remission, I'll know for sure by the middle of next month, there is nothing more motivating than realising you're getting better. 

Another good motivation is when you suddenly start needing new clothes regularly and when you can start buying the clothes you want whenever you want; I can still remember how happy it made me feel when I could buy a pair of jeans from Marks and Spencer.  

Diet Coke Update:

I'm very happy to report that as of today (day 06) my cravings for Diet Coke have ceased and I've had my first day of enjoying a mug of black coffee in the morning and one in the afternoon, getting the caffeine boost is a joy to behold! 

No Diet Coke Day 05

Today hasn't been too bad, the Diet Coke cravings are still there but I feel like I've reached a turning point, although my fizzy water intake is on the increase but I think this is just my body's reaction to the removal of Diet Coke.

It's been an interesting journey so far and quite different to the last time I gave up Diet Coke with the cravings and withdrawal symptoms being significantly higher. I do wonder though if it's because I am focusing on it more due to recording the process on this blog!

The stomach cramps have gone (thankfully) and I've just been getting a mild headache the comes and goes momentarily, so the physical side is much better today. 

Once I've cracked the Diet Coke habit I'm going to allow myself one mug of tea or coffee in the morning and one in the afternoon and if past experience is anything to go by I should get a caffeine hit off of those drinks, which was fantastic the last time I gave up the Diet Coke as my body was so full of caffeine I didn't really get any benefit from it as I was nearly ammune to the effects of caffeine. 

I don't really have any regrets about getting into this level of Diet Coke addiction as it was a conscious choice to use it for my own means, as the replacement for the junk food and also as my drink of choice as I know exactly how many calories are in it. 

As of tomorrow I'm going to revert back to posts on food with a brief Diet Coke update as a postscript as I think I'm pretty much there now...pending some caffeine based fake sugar brown water disaster!

No Diet Coke Day 04

So today was much better in terms of withdrawal symptoms (thankfully), I've still had twinges in my stomach and the urge for Diet Coke was still there so I've not quite broken the habit just yet, I still have a slightly fuzzy head and every now and then my mind wanders to thinking about fizzy drinks but I have managed to keep to the fizzy mineral water only regime.

I think that there must be something else in Diet Coke other than caffeine that is addictive as it has such a pull on me psychologically and there is definitely some sort of physical addiction going on.

In more positive news as of this morning I have lost exactly 8 stone, which is a milestone for me as I am getting close to where I want to be. I've lost the 8 stone (112 pounds) in 164 days and I can really say in all honesty that the biggest tool for me has been the MyFitnessPal app, if it wasn't for the easy logging of calories I don't think I'd be where I am today, also it's seemingly never ending supply of statistics is a real help as that sort of thing appeals to me.

As well as the app I think that my mind set has been a help as in late December 2013 when I decided to sort myself out and get into shape I took some time to prepare mentally and I also made the concious decision to just cut things out rather than adjust how much I had, being able to stick to this was a challenge but once I got going and started to see results fairly rapidly this helped tenfold.

I still haven't quite got my head around the fact that I'm going to be able to adjust up my food intake soon to maintain my weight, but I'm slowly working on it as I don't want to continue to lose weight. I've also been preparing myself in my mind to keep the weight off by convincing myself that this isn't a diet that I just turn off and go back to normal after I get to my target weight, that this is sustainable and this is why I've been very careful when it's suggested that I should have some form of celebratory meal when I'm done as I don't want to get a taste for old habits again.

No Diet Coke Day 03

Well today has been a real struggle as I've been really craving Diet Coke today and it's been very hard not to just cave in and have some, at one Point I nearly got myself a Diet Root Beer from one of those specialist sweet shops and just managed to realise what I was up to in time.

It's a strange feeling that's sort of enveloped my head with a kind of tingling sensation that's accompanied by the near constant thought of drinking Diet Coke, to the point that I've actually been drinking more of the fizzy water than usual. When I was in M&S earlier today picking up some multi packs of fizzy water and a couple of their 345 calorie individual pizzas the desire for Diet Coke was almost unbearable, I managed not to touch it in the display but I did have a browse of the non Diet Coke M&S low calories drinks which were all considerably higher in calories than Diet Coke so that put me off.

This is really quite a battle but I'm determined to win over and I'm very glad that I'm doing it now rather than when I get to my target weight as I think I'm in the right frame of mind to deal with this now and if past experience is anything to go by I should have three days of this left maximum and at least I've not had any of the super mood swings like I had last time I gave it up, it's just the withdrawal symptoms are much much more extreme this time for some reason.

So that's about all the news for today:

• Three days without Diet Coke.
• Head feels odd.
• Feeling then need to drink Diet Coke very badly.
• Stomach cramps and muscle twitches seemed to have passed.

Well I'll sign off for now, but hopefully this will be the worst day of it, I'll let you know tomorrow!

No Diet Coke Day 02

So far so good, I've resisted the charm of Diet Coke for another day, although I did have a small cup of black coffee at about 2pm so I can't claim to have been totally caffeine free today.

The withdrawal symptoms are kicking in now though, at present I have a slight headache, I've been having mild cramp like feelings in my stomach and a weird twitch in my right arm and my stomach has been making some very odd noises too.

The 500ml bottles of sparkling mineral water seem to be having the desired effect as they have the same amount of fluid and the fizzy sensation of the Diet Coke. The biggest struggle has really been at home as during the day I'm suitably distracted by work so I don't really have the time to think about Diet Coke, but at home it's like the old issue with junk food, it's there in the background calling out to me, but it is useful to know fro experience that this is just the dying screams of my addiction and it should only last a couple more days.

Far more useful have been the benefits so far like not feeling hyperactive all the time and wanting to sleep at a normal time instead of midnight, I've also managed to have a nap during the day yesterday which I haven't done for sometime.

In general I feel that breaking the Diet Coke habit is an import step to take before I reach my target weight as I want to be ready to go when I'm there, I want to live day to day as healthily as possible and stay in as good shape as possible.

The next step after breaking the Diet Coke habit will be the reintroduction of running into my life as this was something that I used to really enjoy in my teens and twenties but went by the wayside in my late twenties and all of my thirties due to shift working, but that has now changed as I'm back to working Monday to Friday nine to five, so there is no reason not to start again, I will of course keep you posted on this!

No Diet Coke Day 01

So my day started with the usual two small slices of toast and lightest Philadelphia 35g pot but (and this is a fairly big but) no Diet Coke and also no tea or coffee, in fact I had a 500ml bottle of sparkling mineral water and, well this was OK actually, there were no signs of distress or trepidation, so it was a good start.

I had to go to buy some clothes so off I went to Woolwich at 11:00am to pick something up at M&S and on the way I had another 500ml bottle of sparkling mineral water. Now to put this into context on a usual care free Diet Coke glugging day I would have had: one 330ml can for breakfast, one 330ml can between the tube station and work and I'd have picked up a six pack of 330ml cans at the same time for work. Then on the way home I'd have had (can you guess?) a 330ml can of diet coke on the way to the station; so that's nine 330ml cans of Diet Coke so far, but I would of been far from finished as once home it would have been a can of Diet Coke from the fridge as soon as I got in, a can of Diet Coke while cooking and a can of Diet Coke with my dinner, so that just left the other four cans of Diet Coke before bed time.

Now lets do the frighting thing and add all those up: 16 cans of Diet Coke a bloody day or 5.28 litres a day or 11.16 pints a day, what ever way you look at it that is a hell of a lot of Diet Coke. I imagine after a week of me not drinking it shares in Coca Cola will have plummeted!

One of the side effects of this intoxicating level of fake sweetened brown drink was unsurprisingly needing to use the toilet rather a lot! Now today I've had three 500ml of sparkling mineral water, quite a difference I'm sure you'll agree, but also it counts towards my eight glasses of water a day, also of note is that I saved 16 calories from the Diet Coke! Just for the purposes of interest: if this had been normal Coke the calorie count would have been a mind bending 2,224 calories i.e. 704 calories more than I currently eat and drink a day.

I appear to have got away lightly so far, just a few twinges in the stomach but not the full blown withdrawal cramps just yet. I'll keep you posted on my progress.

Diet Coke Be Gone

As I type this post I have just finished drinking the last Diet Coke I have in the house and I've decided that this will be the end of my Diet Coke drinking from now on.

Diet Coke has it's uses when dieting as it tastes like junk food but it's so low in calories (1 calorie a can) that officially it's calorie free and I like that you know exactly how many calories are in each drink, however it contains higher levels of caffeine than regular sugar filled coke unless you have the Coke Zero which has almost the same caffeine levels as regular coke, but for me Coke Zero doesn't have the same taste and appeal of plain old Diet Coke.

I can safely say that I'm addicted to diet coke as I've been having about ten cans a day and have it with every daily meal (yes that includes breakfast!) and drink it when I don't even feel thirsty! Now while I was dieting this was a happy state of affairs for me but as I draw near to my ideal weight I've decided to break the habit well in advance of the weight goal.

Luckily I have broken an addiction to Diet Coke before so I know what to expect: being a bit tetchy and mild stomach pains from the withdrawal symptoms, but once I've broken it I also know that if I restrict my caffeine intake post Diet Coke to one cup of tea or coffee in the morning and one cup of tea or coffee in the afternoon I really get to feel the boost from the caffeine, I presume that I don't get this when I'm drinking lots of Diet Coke because my body builds up a tolerance to it.

My replacement for Diet Coke will be sparkling mineral water as it gives the same sensation as fizzy soda but with an honest zero calories. Now I know that there is Caffeine Free Diet Coke but when I've had it in the past I have found it to be just as addictive as just plain old diet coke, also there are other low calories sodas available but I really just want to break the dependency on them.

So from now on I will keep you posted on my cold turkey from Diet Coke as well as my weight loss progress.

Sainsbury's My Goodness Range

Sainsbury's have a range of microwavable healthier food called My Goodness and it's a very good selection of varied and healthy food that I've been enjoying for both lunch and dinner since the start of my health drive. One of the most important things for any health drive, in my opinion, is a varied supply of tasty food as the last thing you need is to get bored eating the same thing day in day out.

Some of my favourite choices from this range are:

• Chilli Prawn Linguine Pasta: 391 calories. This has a nice level of spice and is really my favourite in this range, I can't recommend it highly enough and it has a fair amount spice for a ready meal.

• BBQ Chicken & Sweetcorn Rice: 401 calories. 

•  Spicy Pulled Pork & Sweet Potato Mash: 299 calories. This tastes absolutely lovely but it's not very filling and is more of  lunch item than a main meal.

• Chinese Chicken Chow Mein: 328 calories. This is another lunch item, it's very nice but just not filling enough.

• Thai Green Chicken Curry & Rice: 362 calories.

• Chicken & Prawn Singapore: 392 calories.

• Morrocan Spiced Pork: 322 calories.

• Ras El Hanout Chicken: 362 calories.

So as you can see there are some interesting options available here that are tailored towards a different taste than regular microwave meals and there are some salad style ones too!

Progress Update

Today is my 159th day of using MyFitnessPal and so far my progress had been:

Starting weight: 23 stone 4 pounds. 

Current weight: 15 stone 6 pounds. 

Difference: Minus 110 pounds. 

Starting Waist Measurement: 52 inches. 

Current Waist Measurement: 36 inches. 

Difference: Minus 16 inches. 

Starting Neck Measurement: 19.5 inches. 

Current Neck Measurement: 16.5 inches. 

Difference: Minus 3 inches. 

Also as of today I have eight cans of Diet Coke left in the fridge at home, once they're gone I'm giving it up which I have done before...but I know it's hard!

Clothing

One of the side effects of my health drive has been the regular need for new clothing but this is a double edged sword as on the one hand you really begin to see the fruits of your efforts, while on the other you end up spending a fair amount of cash on clothing that doesn't look far too baggy and also you will need to replace them quite quickly.

At the moment I'm just about to embark on purchasing my fifth generation of new clothes in 158 days but since the amazing discovery of Jeans for a fiver in Primark this has become less painful and at the end of the day my local Scope charity shop also benefits from my off casts so that's also good in my books.

Initially I tried to leave it as long as humanly possible before upgrading to new better fitting clothing but my advice is: do not do this, not only is it uncomfortable but you also end up spending fifty percent of your day hiking up your trousers as they feel like they are about to be around your ankles at any moment! But more importantly you are denying yourself the motivational realisation that your efforts are worthwhile and also with better fitting clothes comes another motivational incentive....people will tell you how well you look or ask if you're on a diet and this gives you the chance to talk about what you've been doing and from my experience people are genuinely interested in what you have to say.

Granted there are times when people worry that you are suffering form a medical condition, especially if you loose weight fairly rapidly, but as soon a they get talking to you and realise that you are well the conversation is usually positive.

As with most things in life talking is the best option as almost everyone has something in their life that they'd like to change and having the chance to discuss this and exchange ideas is a good motivation for both of you and you may also get tips on how to cope with something or one of you will introduce a fabulous new low calorie product to the other.

So if your friend is looking thinner don't worry about it, ask them about it, you'll be doing them a great favour in giving a self confidence boost and you'll be helping them on their journey to better health, they'll walk away afterwards with a spring in their step and you never know but you may have just saved them from giving up and going on a cupcake binge.

End Draws Near....?

As of writing this post I'm down to 15 stone 9 pounds and it has recently dawned on me that I'm drawing close to the point where I will need to increase my calorie intake and this has got me thinking about the future...post being morbidity obese.

The thing that worries me most is the increase of calories and the types of food that I will be eating, I've made a concious decision that I will not eat sweets, chocolate, biscuits, cakes etc. anymore as I seem to have self control issues around these food items and I am genuinely scared of what the repercussions may be if I start to eat them again, well at least in the short term. I plan to carry on with the tactic of eating sweet desserts after a meal out and sharing it with my partner.

So the tactics I've come up with are to eat pretty much what I'm having now but just replace the low calorie options with the "normal ones" so salad will become pasta salads with mayonnaise, healthy option microwave meals will become whatever type takes my fancy, low calories crisps will become regular crisps, but I'm going to keep to the no more than one bag of crisps a day rule. Another option is increasing portion sizes and reintroducing noodles or rice to stir fries!

If this all goes to plan I should be eating much in the same way as in the diet phase of my lifestyle change but having the right amount of calories so that I can maintain my weight rather than continue to loose it or the worst case scenario - putting it back on again.

Fortunately MyFitnessPal comes to the rescue here with it's maintain current weight option, I've checked what I'll need to be eating and it's over the average male calorie intake of 2500 a day and this is giving me some food for thought as it is now becoming apparent that my relationship with food has changed.

When I started my change of lifestyle I mentally reprogrammed myself in regard to how I look at food, I used to see food as a pleasure, something I enjoyed and it was there to be enjoyed with no questions asked but now I've come to view my everyday meals as fuel, it's what I need to function  much like a car needs petrol, the food that is for enjoying are the meals that either my partner or I cook for each other or when we go out for a meal and this attitude has paid dividends as I no longer just eat for the sake of it like I used to, I eat because I'm hungry and I've found that I am "listening" to what my body is telling me rather than just automatically eating "because it's there". Before this change I could have food in the cupboard or fridge and it would be almost literally calling my name, in the back of my mind I knew that the food was there, I knew it was nice and my mind wouldn't settle until I'd eaten it but now I can happily have things stored for days on end with no problems at all.

This is where the fear starts to creep in, I worry about the future, about whether I will be able to keep the weight off and if my relationship with food will just lapse back into the old ways; granted having these worries is a sign that I have an awareness of the situation and I'll most likely analyse what I'm eating more than I did before but the big question is....will I ever be able to break free from using the MyFitnessPal app? Only time will tell and I will continue to tell you what happens via this blog.

Chilled Ready Meals

On my travels I have read many things but my list of reading material now includes endless food packets for in my quest for low calorie meals I have spent many hours reading the boxes of many different products. There is nothing more exciting than finding a "normal" microwave meal that, in my books, is low in calories; just to be clear my definition of "low calories" is a microwave meal that is under 500 calories.

Finding these meals took me some time as to start with I was just buying ready meals from healthy ranges, it wasn't until I started to get bored of these meals that I spread my wings and discovered that in fact quite a few other options are open to you if you take the time to read the labels of products in the supermarkets, fortunately supermarket own brands tend to have nutritional information printed prominently on the front of their packaging with a traffic light system of Green = Low, Amber = Medium and Red = High.

I though it may be of interest to readers if I shared some of the meals I've found and it may save you a bit of in shop investigation time as well!

So lets get started with Tesco:

• Braised Beef & Mash: 438 calories
• Chicken & Mushroom with Rice: 475 calories
• Chicken & Redwine With Potatoes: 396 calories
• Tesco Chicken Gratin & Stuffing: 387 calories.
• Tesco Chicken Roast Dinner: 373 calories.
• Liver Bacon & Mash: 491 calories.
• Meatballs & Mash: 491 calories.
• Minced Beef & Mash: 392 calories.

These ready meals are usually in a multi buy offer which is very handy and a special mention goes out to the meatballs and mash as well as the Chicken Gratin & Stuffing which are two of my favourite ready meals as they taste fantastic and are filling.

Next up is Sainsbury's:

• Cauliflower Cheese: 332 calories.
• Classic Liver & Bacon With Mash: 497 calories.
• Sausage Pasta Bake: 497 calories.
• British Classic Minced Beef Hotpot: 471 calories.
• British Classic Lancashire Hotpot: 482 calories.
• Tomato & Mozzarella Pasta Bake: 495 calories.
• Spaghetti Meatballs: 458 calories.
• Chicken In White Wine With Mash: 493 calories.

Finally it's Morrisons turn:

• Italian Chicken Margherita Melt: 489 calories.
• Italian King Prawn Linguine: 440 calories.
• Liver & Bacon with Mash: 463 calories.
• Minced Lamb Hotpot: 367 calories.
• Braised Beef & Mash: 440 calories.
• Vegetable Moussaka: 401 calories.
• Vegetarian Sausages & Cheddar Mash: 488 calories
• Steak & Ale with Cheesy Mash: 406 calories.

The chilled ready meals that I've listed from Tesco, Sainsbury's and Morrisons really are a god send as they make counting the calories much easier, add to this using the MyFitnessPal app and it truly does become a supermarket diet as you will always be drawn to items and products that have barcodes.

McDonald's

I thought that it would only be fair of me to do a post about McDonald's tonight after somewhat bad mouthing them in last night's post.

Much like Ed's Easy Diner McDonald's have some good information about nutrition in general and nutritional information of their food on the Understanding Nutrition section of their website which is in depth with sections on calories, protein, carbohydrates, fat, fibre, salt sugar, water and fruit & veg. There is also a meal builder on the website that calculates the nutritional information of menu items you add to it which is very useful for deciding what to have before you go to the restaurant

This is all very good, but it's unfortunate for the company that their image is that their food is unhealthy and most people think of it in this way. If I'm being honest since I started my new healthier lifestyle in January of 2014 I've not touched any of their food and this is because in my mind it's unhealthy and fattening but here are some of the options open to you if you're on a calorie controlled diet and you find yourself in McDonald's:

Main Menu:

• Hamburger: 250 calories.
• Cheese Burger: 295 calorie
• Classic Chicken Snack Wrap: 285 calories
• Peri Peri Snack Wrap: 285 calories
• Mayo Chicken: 315 calories
• Sweet Chilli Mayo Chicken: 340 calories 
• 6 Chicken Nuggets: 250 calories
• Grilled Chicken Salad Wrap: 330 calories
• Crispy Chicken Salad: 325 calories
• Grilled Chicken & Bacon Salad: 190 calories
• Grilled Chicken Salad: 140 calories
• Fillet O Fish: 335 calories
• Garden Side Salad: 20 calories
• Carrot Sticks: 34 calories
• Fruit Bag: 46 calories
• Small Fries: 230 calories

Breakfast Menu:

• Bacon & Egg Snack Wrap with Tomato Ketchup: 270 calories.
• Sausage & Egg Snack Wrap with Tomato Ketchup: 305 calories.
• Hash Brown (1): 145 calories.

So as you can see it's not all as bad as you think but it is certainly worth also bearing in mind that due to the way some of theses products are prepared they will be high in fat although I generally don't worry too much about how much fat, protein and carbohydrates I eat in a day as long as I'm under my calorie goal, so long as you're not eating high fat food on a regular basis you should be OK.

A good tip is to get yourself a Happy Meal, as you get one of the small burgers and chips with the added bonus of a toy!

As an example a meal of a cheese burger, small fries and carrot sticks would be 559 calories, which isn't as bad as you might think, the only issue is going to be that it's not really going to satisfy your hunger for very long and the fat content is high at 34% of a woman's daily recommended intake, but as I say this kind of meal shouldn't be a regular occurrence.

Ed's Easy Diner

If you have a craving for a burger then forget McDonald's and go for the more authentic Ed's Easy Diner which has some pleasantly surprising options if you're counting your calories and they are from the main menu not a special healthy options section.

You just have to do some preparation work beforehand using the oh so useful full nutritional information fact sheets available on their website HERE

I feel that I must mention how good Ed's nutritional information page is as it has a a explanation of how they layout the nutritional information, guidelines on the average recommended calorie intake for men, women and children as well as a link to more detailed information on the guidelines. They also have the following information which is taken directly form their page:

• No products used by Ed’s contain polyunsaturated fats (trans-fats) more than a naturally occurring trace amount

• Ed's chefs add no salt to any item during preparation or cooking, and we have reduced the salt levels in all items specifically made for Ed’s to the extent that we have signed the Department of Health’s Responsibility Deal for Salt

All in all I think that this company goes above and beyond the call of duty in this department and I hope that more companies will follow their lead.

So without further a do lets get started with the main menu some highlights are:

• The Classic: 404 calories. 

• Classic Hot Dog: 385 calories.

• Chilli Dog: 440 calories.

• Classic Chicken: 485 calories.

• Original Fried Chicken: 406 calories

• Cajun Vegetable Burger: 463 calories.

• Sweet Potato & Bean Burger: 498 calories.

• Ed's Chilli Bowl: 426 calories

• Sweet Potato Fries: 287 calories.

• Chicken Caesar Salad: 467 calories.

• Side Salad: 130 calories.

Unfortunately the desserts are off limits as they all have high calorie content, but after you've had some of the above treats this shouldn't be too much of an issue. While this may seem like a limited choice it's diverse and the food is really good, which is the main reason for having this type of food.

So an example meal of The Classic Hot Dog, Sweet Potato Fries and a Side Salad works out at 802 calories, although I must admit that I usually have the burger and the side salad only so that saves on a few calories and takes it down to 672 calories.

Nando's

Yes it's the turn of everyone's favourite chicken emporium tonight and as their main selling point is chicken and it's grilled then the good news is that if you choose the right items you can have an enjoyable meal with low calories and they don't need a specific healthy options range.

For reference the menu pdf is HERE and for nutritional information you just have to click on the little heart with a + in it next to the item HERE and the information appears in the column to the left.

So lets get started.

Starters:

• Spicy Mixed Olives with garlic, pepper, mushroom and chilli - one portion has 133 calories.
• 3 Chicken Wings - one portion has 190 calories.

Mains:

• Chicken Butterfly, chicken breasts in crispy skin - 310 calories per portion
• 1/4  Chicken (Breast) - 309 calories per portion.
• 1/4 Chicken (leg) - 314 calories per portion
• 5 Chicken Wings - 315 calories per portion
• Chicken Breast Fillet Burger - 368 calories per portion
• Chicken Brest Fillet Pita - 364 calories per portion
• Veggie Burger - 443 calories per portion
• Veggie Pita - 439 calories per portion
• Chicken Livers and Portuguese Roll - 469 calories per portion

Mains Salads:

• Avocado and Green Bean Salad: With sweet, roasted red onions and crunchy leaves, tangy dressing, sesame and toasted seeds - 346 calories per portion.
• Mediterranean Salad: Piccolo tomatoes, cucumbers, celery, sweet zingy peppers and mixed leaves in paprika dressing, with olives and feta cheese - 266 calories per portion
• Caesar Salad: Cos lettuce, grated cheese, Caesar dressing and croutons - 287 calories per portion.

Sides:

• Mixed Leaf Salad - 10 calories per portion
• Spicy Rice (Regular) - 273 calories per portion
• Coleslaw (Regular) - 264 calories per portion
• Macho Peas (Regular) - 168 calories per portion
• Corn On The Cob (Regular) - 101 calories per portion
• Corn On The Cob (Large) - 138 calories per portion
• Creamy Mash (Regular) - 270 calories per portion
• Luso Beans - 242 calories per potion
• Ratatouille -108 calories per portion
• Sweet Potato Mash - 248 calories per portion

Dessert:

• Frozen Yoghurt - Black Forest Gateau - 78 calories per portion
• Frozen Yoghurt - Very Berry - 72 calories per portion
• Frozen Yoghurt - Vanilla - 70 calories per portion
• Frozen Yoghurt - Strawberry - 71 calories per portion
• Frozen Yoghurt - Chocolate - 78 calories per portion
• Frozen Yoghurt - Mango - 71 calories per portion
• Nata (Custard Tart) - 168 calories per portion

So as you can see there is plenty to choose from when at Nando's while still keeping your calorie intake down, but as a warning here are some examples of the very high calories foods available here!

• Houmous with Peri-Peri Drizzle with strips of warm pitta - a starter with 825 calories per portion.
• Peri-Peri Nuts - a starter with 628 calories per portion.
• Large Chips - 1241 calories per portion (!).
• Large Garlic Bread - 642 calories per portion.
• Portobello Mushroom and Grilled Halloumi Cheese Burger - 703 calories per portion.
• Carrot Cake - 839 calories per portion.
• Choc-a-Lot Cake - 650 calories per portion.

Also beware of the MyFitnessPal app entries for Nando's (UK) as at some point in the last three months something changed with their chicken portions as originally these were 387 per half a chicken but now it's 623 calories. I'm presuming that they are using bigger chickens or that their nutritional information was massively miscalculated; if anyone knows why this happened please let me know as the half chicken used to be my main source of Nando's products!

Pizza Express

During my time loosing weight the obvious worry has always been eating out with friends and family as this is where you are most likely to have food that is much higher in calories than usual. Well imagine my joy at discovering that a number of leading eateries actually have low calorie menu options and to help even further nearly all have some form of nutritional values list available.

Over the next few evenings I'll be posting about my experiences of eat out but eating healthily. First up is Pizza Express and the good news is that they have nutritional values for their food available online HERE

The next piece of good news is they also have a healthy and low calorie range called Leggera which all have less than 500 calories a portion and to top it offr is the Dolcetti range of mini desserts that you can order with coffee that have less than 100 calories aportion or you can have them as full size desserts and they then have under 200 calories a serving! 

In the Intros it's all pretty good news:

• Olives Marinate: 136 calories per portion
• Olives Nocellara de Belice: 138 calories per portion
• Roasted Tomatoes: 97 calories per portion

For starters there is: the Leggera Panzanella which has 217 calories a serving, this is basically a salad but as always with Pizza Express a very nice one and at least it gives you something to have if the people you are with decide to have a starter.

In the mains there is:

• The Leggera Superfood Salad which you can have with or without chicken. It's 294 calories without chicken or 338 calories with chicken. A word of warning it's a huge portion size, but for so little calories that's a bonus I suppose!

• The Leggera Salmon Salad: this one is 444 calories and is, like the chicken version, big.

A top tip with these mains salads is if you're with one other person you can have half of a salad and half of a normal classic pizza each, so for example if you had a Classic American at 402 per half a pizza you'd be having a total of 571 calories with half of the Superfood Salad with chicken.

Leggera Pizza is one of my favourite things to eat out, it's nice, not a huge portion and most importantly well made. There is a hole cut out of the centre of the very thin pizza base that is then filled with lightly dressed salad. The options are:

• Polo ad Astra: 418 calories per pizza - Chicken, light mozzarella, sweet peppadew peppers, cajun spices, garlic oil, red onions

• Sloppy Giuseppe: 450 calories per pizza - Hot spiced beef, green pepper, red onion, light mozzarella and tomato

• Padana: 415 calories per pizza - Goats cheese, spinach, red & caramelised onions, garlic oil.

• Pomodoro Pesto: 401 calories per pizza - Light mozzarella, marinated santos tomatoes, fresh basil, pesto, garlic oil

• American Hot: 396 calories per pizza - Pepperoni, light mozzarella, tomato with your choice of hot green, roquito or jalapeño peppers

Desserts are also catered for:

• Gluten Free Brownie: 215 calories a portion. Classic brownie recipe using gluten-free flour, topped with fresh strawberry and icing sugar

• Raspberry Sorbet Dolcetti: 86 calories a portion. This is one scoop of sorbet with a chocolate straw and fresh mint.

• Caffe Reale: 191 calories a portion. Figs, cinnamon and white wine spiced syrup, mascarpone

• Lemon Meringue Torta: 185 calories a portion. A mini lemon pastry tart. Lemon curd topped with meringue.

• Lemon Curd Sorbet Dolcetti: 84 calories a portion. This is one scoop of sorbet with a chocolate straw and fresh mint.

• Semi Freddo Reale: 134 calories portion. Gelato dessert with nougat, praline, marsala wine  

• Mini Chocolate Fudge Cake: 251 calories a portion. Topped with fresh strawberry and icing sugar

If you're having the mini desserts don't forget that the calorie counts do not include the coffee!!

So as a complete meal you could have:

• Olives Marinate: 136 calories.
• Glass bottle of Diet Coke: 1 calorie
• Leggera Panzanella: 217 calories.
• Leggera American Hot: 396 calories.
• Americano (no milk): 8 calories
• Raspberry Sorbet Dolcetti: 86 calories.

Giving you a total calorie count of: 844 calories, this may sound a lot until you consider that this is less calories than one Classic Sloppy Giuseppe pizza that weighs in at 952 calories. Also you don't have to have every course!!

Sainsbury's Be Good To Yourself

Sainsbury's have their own healthier range of products called Be Good To Yourself just like Tesco's version the products are across the whole range of groceries and they give you some nice choices. I'm going to list a few of the ones I've used:

• Braised Beef & Mash each pack contains 311 calories and it's a decent tasting meal which is also quite filling.

• Beef Lasagne each pack contains 307 calories, this product just doesn't quite manage to deceive you into thinking that it's a normal version of the meal, it has it's own distinct taste but this is most likely because of the low fat content.

• Chicken Chow Mein at 358 calories a pack this is a good solid meal with a very good taste, this is one of my favourite ready meals in this range.

• Ham & Mushroom Tagliatelle 339 calories a pack. This is my least favourite ready meal, its bland and has a slightly odd taste and texture, the addition of peeper or spice does help but I'm not a fan.

• Prawn Biryani 294 calories a pack. This one is fantastic, it has a good taste is well spiced and is filling, I always get at least one of these if I'm in Sainsbury's.

• Potato Salad 78 calories per quarter of a pot. Like the Ham & Mushroom Tagliatelle something just doesn't taste right about this, again i think it's due to the low fat content.

• Deli Style Coleslaw  78 calories per two heaped tablespoons. This is better than the potato salad, but I must admit that I hardly ever use it as I prefer to get preprepared salads that have the sides or dressing included in their total calorie count.

• Smoked Bacon Medallions at 33 calories these are the stuff of dreams, yes you can have bacon on a weekend morning again!

• British Roast Chicken & Stuffing 31 calories per slice. They have a slightly rubbery texture but actually taste very nice. A good addition to a salad.

• Thick Cut Ham 25 calories per slice. These have a far better texture than the chicken and stuffing and are very lean indeed, but the chicken and stuffing wins out for me; just.

• Cumberland Sausage 156 calories per two sausages. Yes it's another ingredient for your weekend cooked breakfast that offers considerably less calories and fat than the "normal" versions!

• Sweet Chilli Chicken Noodles 331 calories per pack. Tastes very nice and is perfect for a change from salad for lunch at work.

• Sweet Thai Chilli Soy Snack 93 calories per 25g pack. These are very nice but it's quite hard to find a shop that stocks them and there are other alternatives that offer lower calories.

So as you can see there are plenty of choices from Sainsbury's, I've not listed everything so follow the initial link if you want to browse. There are also dessert options and hot cross buns, but I really try to steer clear of those myself as it would be easy too fool yourself into thinking you're being healthy when you are not!

Mind Games

Half of the battle in my weight loss story has revolved around what goes on in my head so I thought I'd focus on this for tonight's post and then resume the food entries tomorrow because quite frankly the human mind is a funny thing (well at least mine is).

Getting myself in the state of mind to sort out my health, my diet and even starting to think about exercise was a matter of getting my mind in the right place initially, this was helped in a big way by my boss making a bet with me that I couldn't loose weight and be in a healthy condition by July this year (I might also note at this juncture that he now claims not to remember what the reward for winning the bet was).

We are programmed by nature to enjoy fat and sweet food, to stock up in times of plenty so that when food is scarce we have some reserves in place, but the only problem is that in modern first world countries it's always a time of plenty so if you loose sight of what you are doing to yourself it is very easy to get into the habit of over eating or filling yourself up with junk food and the trouble with habits is they are very hard to break especially if you like them; as I mentioned in a earlier post you won't be able to give up smoking unless you actually want to and this is also true of eating unhealthy food.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't have chocolate or ice cream or chips but if you are in the situation of wanting or needing to loose weight then you will have to be prepared to give it up for a period of time and then when you reintroduce it to eat it in a different way than you did before and the more disciplined you are with yourself the easier this will be.

If you are having treat days every other day then you are not going to achieve very much other than frustrate yourself or lose heart and give up altogether as in my experience you need to almost perform a factory reset on your brain and then relearn to eat different foods in moderation. If you truly want to loose weight for the long term then you should be making sustainable changes to your lifestyle that you can cope with for the foreseeable future otherwise you'll be forever swinging between being on a diet and not being on one.

I used the cut it out completely method for junk food and this was successful for me, I've lost the craving for sweet junk food to the point where I don't miss it, if I'd said this last year I would have thought myself crazy due to the amount that I was getting through each day! My sweet food is now fruit and low fat yoghurt and I find that I enjoy it and look forward to it just as much as I did a bar of chocolate.

I won't try to pretend that it was easy as it wasn't and I found that at times I had to quite literally grit my teeth to get through the day, prepare myself for the potential temptation that would be around me to the point where I wouldn't touch healthy option desserts or individual biscuits with relatively low calorie counts just in case they triggered me off into my old ways.

The funny thing is that my mind is playing other games with me now that I've got myself into the situation where I've modified my life style to a manageable level. For example tonight I had to finish off some prawns that were going out of date, but I managed to convince myself that I was going to have reheated cooked chicken in my stir fry and this lead to me realising half way through the meal preparation that I would need to use both and this realisation caused me near panic as this was now in my mind twice the amount I should be eating (never mind that by then end of the day I'd still have 454 calories of my 1810 calorie allowance left), in my head this was massively over eating and it caused me quite some distress, but it's not like I'm going to be putting a stone on because of 136 extra calories of prawns is it?!

So it's worth bearing in mind before you commence your health drive that you are going to be your own worst enemy and it's going to be potentially at both ends of the spectrum: "oh I'll just have some sausages tonight, one night won't matter" then the sausagess will become biscuits the following night and so on, or you will crack it and then become paranoid about every little self perceived over eating incident like my prawn issue; another example of this is setting you mind on a specific food from a supermarket and then having a panic attack when they're out of stock as happened to me last week where I'd set my mind on an M&S ham and egg salad and when I got to the shop they only had the version with potato and I didn't buy it because it had an extra 20 calories in comparison when the one I was going to get only had 145 calories in total anyway so 20 extra calories would have made no difference whatsoever!

Now that I'm nearly at my goal weight I've realised that I need to start thinking about eating enough calories to sustain my weight without putting any back on or continuing to loose weight and this is also causing me some worry as I'll be going from eating less than 1810 calories to around 2500 calories a day and I have a genuine fear that I will just resume where I left off and put all the weight back on. Also from my experience of taking the weight off I know that I'm going to have worries about eating too much. Fortunately MyFitnessPal has a maintain weight option so I will still be able to log what I eat until I feel that I can safely trust myself not slip back into my old ways.

So as I said at the beginning of this post half the battle is in your mind and I suppose I could also say that winning this half of the battle is down to knowing that this will happen, being prepared for it and identifying when you are being to lenient or too harsh with yourself.

Progress Report

Today is my 150th day of using MyFitnessPal and so far I've seen the following results:

Starting weight: 23 stone 4 pounds. 

Current weight: 15 stone 12 pounds. 

Total weight loss: 7 stone 6 pounds. 

Starting waist measurement: 52 inches. 

Current waist measurement: 38 inches. 

Change: -14 inches. 

Starting neck measurement: 19.5 inches.

Current neck measurement: 17 inches. 

Change: -2.5 inches. 

Salad

Salad is the stuff of nightmares for anyone who is thinking of going on a diet, the dreaded rabbit food. But I have grown to love salad and sometimes I will have it for lunch and with dinner and this is because the key to enjoying salad is what you have with it.

The first salad choice you have is: preprepared or make your own? The first consideration is price as a preprepared salad is going to cost you about the same as a whole weeks worth of DIY salad if you're really unlucky! Also if you make your own it can become quite time consuming as you need to calculate the calorie values of each individual ingredient by weight, granted you could use the "Recipes" function on MyFitnessPal but that still seems like too much hard work to me when I can just scan the barcode of a ready made salad.

I personally prefer the preprepared option as they are always clearly marked with nutritional information which will include the little sachet of salad dressing, olives, feta cheese or sun dried tomatoes that comes with it. Any of the kind that come with pasta that is drenched in sauce needs particular caution as they are going to have considerably more calories than a more traditional side salad or leaf salad.

Some of my suggestions for preprepared salads are:

• Sainsbury's Sweet & Crispy Salad Bowl 274 calories per pack. This one is quite high in calories as it comes with a sachet of mayonnaise.

• Sainsbury's Greek Salad Bowl 174 calories a pack. This is one of my favourite salads as it comes with a little pot of feta cheese and olives.

• Sainsbury's Tomato & Mozzarella Salad Bowl 164 calories a pack. Again this is a solid favourite of mine and it comes with a little pot of sun dried tomatoes and mozzarella balls.

• Tesco Simple Side Salad 32 calories a pack. This is one of my choices for lunch time salad at work.

• Tesco Crunchy Salad Bowl 62 calories a pack. Again this is a mainstay of my office based lunches,

I also use Marks and Spencer for salads, they have a very good product line where you can buy three little packs of salad ingredients so that you can build your own salad, they also have some very nice and low calorie preprepared salad in their "Count On Us" low calorie range.Unfortunately the Marks and Spencer website is poor when it comes to food as it's not geared towards online sales and because of this it's set out more like a hard copy magazine so I'm sorry to say that I'm going to have to list products with calories counts but with no hyperlink to the product:

• Layered Prawn Salad, small tub: 185 calories.

• Ham and Egg Salad with Salad Cream Dressing: 145 calories per pack 

• Beetroot and Red Onion Salad: 49 calories per 125g pack, this is a fantastic addition to any salad if you like beetroot and red onion.

• Count On Us British Chicken and Basil Pasta Salad: 360 calories for a 325g container, but this is a rare beast in that it's low in calories for a "pasta and awash with sauce" salad.

Next up is the Co-Op, which like the Marks and Spencer's website is not geared towards online sales so it's another boring list I'm sorry to say. What I like about the Co-Op is that they do individual servings of salad, I only get a couple of items from them and in all honesty not very often:

• Greek Salad: one pack 185 calories.

• Sweet and Crunchy Salad: 40 calories per 120g.

I think that it's quite important to identify low calories additions for salad especially to bulk up the very low calorie salads as otherwise they amount to little more than a snack, the following are my most used options:

• John West Weight Watchers Tuna Mayonnaise & Sweetcorn 77 calories per 80g tin

• John West Weight Watchers Tuna in Herb & Tomato Dressing 80 calories per 80g tin

• Sainsbury's Taste The Difference Jumbo King Prawns 118 calories per 175g pack 

• Tesco Chunky Flame Grilled Chicken Snack Pack 107 calories per 100g pack

• Tesco Healthy Living Salad Cream 20 calories per 15ml (tablespoon)

• Tesco Low Fat French Salad Dressing 20 calories per 15ml (tablespoon)

• Tesco Healthy Living Mayonnaise 14 calories per 15ml (tablespoon)

• Tesco Healthy Living Coleslaw 64 calories per 50g (heaped table spoon) 

• Tesco Healthy Living Potato Salad 55 calories per 50g (heaped table spoon)

• Tesco Healthy Living Hummus Three Pot Stacker 165 calories per 70g pot

• Hellmann's Fat Free Vinaigrette 7 calories per 15ml (tablespoon)

• Sainsbury's Be Good To Yourself Salad Cream 24 calories per 15ml (tablespoon)

• Sainsbury's Be Good To Yourself Mayonnaise  13 calories per 15ml (tablespoon)

• Sainsbury's Be Good To Yourself Thousand Island Dressing  13 calories per 15ml (tablespoon)

• Sainsbury's Be Good To Yourself Sweet Balsamic Dressing  9 calories per 15ml (tablespoon)

So as you can see there are many options open to you when having salad and it needn't be a boring meal, in fact a salad can be surprisingly enjoyable if you put your mind to it!

My Fitness Pal: An Over View

The main tool I've been using to help me with my weight loss is MyFitnessPal and I've mostly used the iPhone app. The key thing with MyFitnessPal is that it simplifies the whole calorie counting process because there is a huge searchable database of products that you can add to your diary and with the app there's the added bonus of having a barcode scanner so as long as you double check the entry is correct it's very simple.

The kind people at MyFitnessPal have given me permission to use screenshots of the iPhone app in the blog so the explanation will be a lot easier!

You can set up your preferred launch screen on the app and I prefer to have the daily summery that shows your calories remaining in big green numbers with more detailed nutritional information below it. As you can see I choose not to record exercise but if you do the the app calculates how many calories you burn off when excising and then adds this to you daily calorie intake allowance (so if you go for a brisk walk you can earn yourself a packet of KP Skips) and this is why I don't use it, I aim to stay under daily calorie goal and then I'm safe in the knowledge that I've also burnt off some calories doing my exercises! This plan works well if you're male but is more difficult if you're female as women have a much lower daily calorie intake than men.  

Tapping on the three white lines in the top left of the screen above brings up the menu and at the top is your profile picture, your progress and how many days in a row you've been logging. Tapping on "Diary" brings up the next screen (you can also do this by tapping on the blue "Add to Diary" button on the previous screenshot).

The diary screen gives you a breakdown of all of your meals so far, tapping on the arrow to the left of "Today" will take you to the previous day's entry and tapping on the + symbol to the top right will bring up the searchable database.

 As an example I've added a screenshot of a breakfast entry, as you can see it has food that you've most recently added available so if you're having the same thing you can add it with the same portion size as last time, the "frequent" tab will display your most entered foods. "My Foods" lets you create your own database of nutritional information for food that may not be in the MyFitnessPal database, "My Meals" lets you put products together and save them to add all at the same time (for example toast, margarine, cheese spread and coffee for breakfast) and "Recipes" lets you add in nutritional information for all the ingredients of something you make yourself, like bread or muffins. So as you can see pretty much all of the bases are covered to make your life as easy as possible. But it gets better, you see that little barcode icon at the bottom right of the screen? Tap on that and it launches the barcode reader.

Once you've tapped on the barcode icon your phone's camera launches and all you have to do is line up the barcode in the sights, in low light the phones LED flash will come on in order to illuminate the barcode for you. When the app reads the barcode the image will freeze and the "Searching" animated icon will appear

Once your product has been found the item will appear in the "Add Food" menu, where you can select the serving size and number of servings the the product's nutritional facts for the amount you have selected are listed below this. Once you tap the tick in the to right hand corner the product is added to your diary and you go back to the diary screen.

Next up in the side menu is "Nutrition" this pie chart shows your daily carbohydrates, fat and protein breakdown. These goals are set automatically or you can edit them for your needs, for example if you're a body builder. Tapping on "Weekly" at the bottom centre brings up the next screen.

This shows you how well you've been meeting your calorie target over a seven day period, you can set it to be a rolling seven days or to start on a specific day of the week. If you tap on the icon between the pie chart and the bar chart you get....

A total of all your nutritional information for the past seven days (this is only part of the list as the screen is scrollable).

Tapping on "Progress" in the side menu brings up, how well you are progressing, the screen shot shows my weight loss progress but there are masses of other options that you can get to by tapping on the blue "Weight", also tapping on the blue "All" lets you decide if you want to see your total progress or progress for shorter periods of time. The full progress list is:

• Steps: if you have an iPhone 5s the app can count your steps for you and calculate how many calories you've burned off.

• Weight measurement.

• Neck measurement.

• Waist measurement.

• Hips measurement. 

There are also numerous setting to play with and there is a social aspect as well as you can search for friends and family who are using MyFitnessPal and follow them, once you've tied up with them you can "like" their activity on the app and send messages of encouragement to each other, don't worry you can decide how much of your information you share or don't share!

I can't stress enough how important MyFitnessPal has been in my weight loss journey, it has pretty much been that backbone of the changes I've made in my life and has also become somewhat of an obsession; I can now quote the calorie content of food I eat regularly from memory, although I'm not sure how much my work mates appreciate this.