For those of you who have asked about what I eat, here’s a great dinner for weight loss. It’s all about making small changes to your lifestyle and all these small changes add up to a big change. I often have this dinner as it’s easy to do with everyone else and supportive husband likes this as it doesn’t have wheat flour in it. He has a very bad reaction to wheat flour if he exercises after eating it, known as a wheat induced exercise allergy caused by gliadin, one of the proteins in wheat.
Spaghetti bolognese, use turkey or Quorn mince instead of beef mince. Turkey or Quorn mince is much lower in fat and high in protein, and in place of the spaghetti use green runner beans shredded. To get your green beans like this I use one of these handy little tools, green bean slicer.
Here’s the recipe, which is easy to make:
600 grams of turkey mince, 1 onion, I tin of chopped tomatoes, a chicken oxo, I teaspoon of oregano, 1 tablespoon of olive oil, 300 grams of green runner beans. Chop the onion and fry with the turkey mince in the olive oil until the mince is no longer pink (usually around 10 minutes), add the chopped tomatoes, crumble in the oxo cube, add the oregano boil for 10 minutes then leave on a low heat to simmer for another 30 minutes. Shred the beans and cook in boiling salt water for 10 minutes. Put the beans on the bottom in place of spaghetti and add the mince on top.
Why is this a good dinner? Here’s the science: Turkey mince contains plenty of protein (ghrelin the hunger hormone is suppressed by protein) keeps you feeling full for longer. Olive oil is also better for you than margarine for cooking as it contains pretty stable monounsaturated fatty acids and has a high level of protective antioxidants, most margarine contains trans fats which your body doesn’t recognise as food so finds it hard to digest and ends up floating around clogging up your arteries. Tinned tomatoes are high in lycopene, shown to help lower the risk of heart disease, prostate and breast cancer. Green beans are high in fibre (keeps you full for longer) rich in antioxidants and flavonoids. This really is so much better for you than a traditional spaghetti bolognese as you don’t have the flour from the pasta in there to give you those unwanted insulin spikes you get slow release glucose from the beans instead. I promise after this you will feel nice and full but you won’t feel bloated.
Fitness has been not so good this week and I have only swum 1 mile, this makes me 20 miles in on the Aspire Channel Swim Challenge (just 2 miles to go and I will have swum the distance of the channel. ) People have asked how I keep count of the lengths, I use a FitBit Flex 2, it’s a bit odd as it tells me I have been doing the elliptical but when I tell it on my ‘phone that I have been swimming it gives me the lengths I have swum so it all works out in the end! Last week, I was in Edinburgh at a conference and also out at the weekend so only did one swim and one Zumba session (pretty poor on the exercise). I went out to the Zumba Christmas social at the Cultivo Lounge which is really nice and then went out celebrating a friend’s 50th birthday on Saturday night at The Old George. Both of these are superb places to eat and drink but I was just too tired to swim on Sunday, as well as Saturday after having three nights out and a long day out with floghts in the week.
This week I aim to finish the challenge by going on Wednesday night swim at ladies only night and the weekend at Hitchin Pool. There is still time if you want to donate, please go to my just giving page Fundraising Page for Aspire Charity and donate whatever you can.
Dr Sue Pearson 