LCHF Take 2

Boxing Day is the new New Year for me.  I've fallen off the LCHF wagon in quite a spectacular way over the last couple of months, to the extent that my weight is back up to my starting level.  Interestingly my waist measurement is not quite back to where it was, so I'm hopeful that at least some of the excess weight is water.

There are several reasons why I started eating too many carbohydrates again, but it has taught me four very important things:

1) I am clearly very insulin resistant.  My body's response to eating carbohydrates again was almost frightening in the way I craved bread, pasta and potatoes almost instantly after eating that first bowl of pasta.

2) I am addicted to sugar, and in particular poor quality chocolate.  Once I start eating milk chocolate I find it genuinely difficult to stop.  Back when I was firmly following a LCHF diet earlier in the year, the occasional bit of 85% chocolate was fine, but it turns out that with milk chocolate I really can't stop at just one piece.

3) I am probably not someone who can have a 'cheat day'.  I comprehensively fell off the wagon after I allowed myself to eat some sweets at Halloween - not even 2 months later and I have regained all the weight I had lost.

4) While I don't have coeliac disease, my gut's reaction to going back to gluten and sugar was 'interesting'.  I'm really looking forward to not feeling bloated anymore in a few day's time...

So, back to LCHF it is.  Starting today, rather than 1st January, so that it is very firmly not a New Year's Resolution.  In addition to looking at all the websites I used before (such as Diet Doctor) I have also signed up to the Banting online course.  I already have the Real Meal Revolution cook book, but I feel that the course will give me the kick start I need.

As the website does everything in kilos, my new starting weight is 89.2kg.  This is a lot more than I should weigh, given that I am only 160cm tall.  I do feel more confident than I ever did when re-starting WeightWatchers though, as I know already that I won't become irrationally hungry, and that I will enjoy all the food I eat.  It does mean I have to be very organised with pack lunches for work, but I'm up for the challenge.

Starting on Boxing Day is a surprisingly good idea as it turns out - the fridge is full of leftover turkey, bacon, sausages and cheese, so the first few days should be easy.

Halloween Cookies

I've had a break from this blog for nearly a year - as I had to concentrate on revising.  I've finally passed the exam and now never have to sit one again.  I can't tell you what a relief that is.  I also can't really believe that I was still taking exams well into my 30s - definitely one of the downsides of choosing medicine as a career.

Now that have more time on my hands I'm getting right back into my baking, and have been particularly motivated by watching the latest series of Great British Bakeoff.

I've always enjoyed making cookies and biscuits using a wide variety of cookie-cutters, so when the kids were invited to a Halloween party it was the perfect excuse for me to get out my tried-and-tested pumpkin cutter and new-and-exciting ghost cutter.  Taking food with us to a party serves two purposes - it's always lovely for the host to receive home-baked goods and it means that the 3-year-old is definitely allowed to eat something sweet.

I've tried these out with a few flavour combination, but find that orange and cinnamon works best for autumn.  The kids like them in all their incarnations (so far), which is pretty unusual, and explains why I've so much practice making them.

Recipe

Ingredients - Biscuits

90g sunflower spread
100g caster sugar
1 egg
230g plain flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
zest of 1 orange
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

Ingredients - Icing

100g icing sugar, sieved
1 egg white (I use powdered, as then it is kid-safe)
Juice of 1 orange

Method

Cream sunflower spread and caster sugar.  Beat in the egg, orange zest and cinnamon.  Mix in the flour and baking powder to make a dough.
Cover in clingfilm and put in the fridge for about an hour

Roll out thinly and cut into your desired shapes

Bake for 8-10 minutes at 180 C

Meanwhile, make the icing sugar by combining the icing sugar and egg white with enough orange to make a spreading consistency and colour as required.

When the biscuits are cool enough, ice them.  The icing will set within about 30 minutes, so you have to work relatively quickly at this stage

Recipe evolution

This is based on Nigella's 'cut-out cookies' from her Feast book, but dairy-free and flavoured for autumn

Variations

Nigella's original recipe calls only for vanilla (1/2 tsp), with plain icing.  Lemon also works well (zest of 1 lemon in the dough and some lemon juice in the icing)

WeightWatchers

Using the recipe builder this works out as 2 propoints per biscuit (if 40 biscuits made - adjust points accordingly if making more or fewer biscuits)

Pumpkins from our vegetable patch last year