Where are your kitchen treats hidden?

Is your kitchen full of ways to ruin your diet?

Do you have a cookie stash, bag of crisps/chips, packets of sucky sweets, sachets of butter popcorn or hidden bars of chocolate?

Well it’s time to get rid of these kitchen treats, if you only have healthy things in the house then that’s all you can eat!

We’re all guilty of snacking when we’re bored, peckish or upset, when these naughty foods come out you’ve suddenly found yourself finishing off a whole bag of Doritos or a massive chunk of chocolate.

Just removing these treats won’t be enough for most people, they must be replaced with something to stop the temptation to visit the local store.  Try “grazing” on raw carrots, nibbling dried fruit or avoid those kitchen cupboards altogether when you feel like a snack!

It’s time to smash up that cookie jar for good…

Last week it hit the news that the Italian chefs were reclaiming spaghetti bolognaise because the rest of us across the world have royally buggered up the real recipe and eat a tomato-y mush masquerading as spaghetti bolognaise.

Apparently, the real recipe not only includes beef mince, it includes bacon, cream and white wine.. and the pasta you are meant to use is tagliatelle.

If you’re on a diet, you will see what the problem is with the original recipe – it is a calorific nightmare! That is why I want to share my healthier version of the original. So what it isn’t ‘authentic’? If you want it just how Nonna made it, go to Italy and experience it first hand, don’t preach to me in my kitchen and tell me the original is better by virtue of being original. I just want to eat healthily thanks!

Here is my fool-proof ‘spag bol’ recipe, let me know what you think of it. Just make sure you choose a healthier brown pasta, I don’t care what shape it is!

This will comfortably make enough for 2-4 people, depending on how hungry they are! If you need to stretch it further, add more tins of tomatoes, any suitable veggies lying around (courgettes/peas/sweetcorn/mange tout!) or a tin of kidney beans and you’ll get it to be enough for 6 adults. Sometimes I add fresh basil but don’t worry if you haven’t got any as I have a potted basil plant on my kitchen window sill.

Ingredients:

• 200g lean beef mince
• 1 onion
• tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1 OXO cube
• Peppers x2 (red/yellow/green dependent on preference)
• 1 large carrot
• Basil
• Oregano
• 2-3 cloves of garlic (I’ve been known to put 5 cloves in as I LOVE garlic!)
• 2-3 tins of tomatoes
• 1 lime

Method:

1. Chop all of your veggies
2. Fry the onion and garlic in the olive oil until the onions are soft and clear
3. Add the mice to the onions and break the mince apart with a wooden spoon to brown
4. Crumble OXO cube over mince
5. On a high heat, (if you like softer vegetables) add peppers and carrots and keep it all moving until veggies are less crispy. If you like crunchy veggies like I do, add the tinned tomato first, stir it all up then add the veggies.
6. Add your herbs. Stir and simmer for 15-20 mins stirring occasionally.
7. Squeeze the juice of one lime in the bolognaise and stir.
8. Serve on top of brown pasta with four cherry tomatos cut in half for decoration with chopped fresh basil if you’ve got it lying around

Like my recipe or hate it? LET ME KNOW!!!

Google can find some great healthy recipes for you

Making your own food is always the healthier option as you know exactly what’s being put into it.  Packaged food can contain a surprising amount of sugar, salt, fat and chemicals, always check the label before you buy!

But what if you have no idea what to cook with your ingredients?

Cooking healthily can lead to some very boring meals, I mean who wants to eat plain salad for lunch and rivita biscuits for a snack everyday?

You can use Google to find interesting recipes for whatever you have lying around the kitchen!

Let’s have an example:

After routing through the fridge and cupboards I’ve spotted these healthy ingredients that will go well together:

• Chicken Breast (with no skin)
• Pasta
• Fresh Tomatoes
• Garlic

Type all the ingredients into a Google search and add in speech marks ‘healthy recipe’ at the end:

Google all your main ingredients and add "healthy recipe" on the end

The top result in Google produced a wonderful meal, thanks to foodnetwork.com this time round.

I guarantee you’ll find a suitable recipe in the top 5 search results; most of the sites will have user comments on the food’s taste and perhaps a star rating.  You may need herbs or other seasoning to enhance the flavour so it’s always handy to stock up on these at home.

Good luck on your cooking and remember cooking your own food is not only healthier, it’s another little exercise you can do (along with the washing up afterwards, hehe!)

Twitter Can Be Used To Track Your Weight Loss

Yes you read it right, you can use Twitter to help with your weight loss plan!

If you’re not familiar with Twitter then you can write short messages called “tweets” and these are left on your profile for all to see.

So why not tweet about your current weight?

If you tweeted everyday just saying how much you weighed then you’ll have a fantastic record of how you’re doing when reaching your goal size. You can get your friends and family to “follow” your twitter profile giving you a bigger incentive to work harder at losing pounds.

Don’t become too obsessed with your everyday weight, it can fluctuate around plus or minus 2 pounds per day. If you aim to lose 2 pounds a week (a good target) then compare your current weight to the tweet you made the week before.

So here’s the tips for losing weight with twitter:

1. Tweet your weight everyday
2. Get all your friends/family to follow your tweets
3. Compare your weight WEEKLY not daily
4. Keep tweeting until you reach your goal weight!

You can follow Louisa on Twitter here.
We’d love to see your “daily weight tweets” so make sure to follow TotalChunk on Twitter!

Everything has an opposite, so the seven deadly dieting sins must do too, which is why I have had a go at writing about the seven heavenly dieting virtues.

This one has been a bit harder as it’s less applicable to dieting than the deadly sins (why are sins more interesting? Who knows!?) but work with me and I’ll try and make this post interesting and informative.

Thing is, the heavenly contrary virtues are a bit boring as they overlap a bit – so I’ve used artistic licence to combine the four cardinal virtues with three theological virtues.

Many people want to lose weight with the help of Jesus – type ‘lose weight with Jesus’ into Google and it returns over a million results which is rather incredible.

I’m not a religious woman but this post is definitely applicable to all dieters, whether they are determined Atheists or can’t get out of bed without saying a prayer.

Happy reading!

HOPE: As long as you have hope that you will achieve your weight loss goals then you are still capable of reaching them. If you are into motivational stuff, you’ll know that the people who write down their goals, maybe in a diary or an online blog, are more likely to achieve them as they are constantly aware of the bigger picture.

We all get despondent at times, it’s human nature to feel as though we are getting nowhere when we have worked so hard but are not yet seeing amazing results. Sometimes seeing the bigger picture seems almost impossible! For example, women find it harder to build muscle than men – so if a woman hits the gym with her man, they could do the same amount of exercise but he will appear to gain muscle quicker. This can be hugely demoralising but as long as you understand all the factors in your diet e.g. your food intake and your biology then you aren’t daring to hope, you have a darn good reason to hope to be successful at losing weight.

FAITH: Faith is the confidence you have in others. Obviously people have faith in God, but God is not going to get you slim no matter how much you pray if you’re eating 4000 calories a day and only stand up to get more food! Nope, in this case you need to have faith in YOURSELF.

Losing weight requires a huge amount of emotional and mental strength as you will find yourself facing temptation to eat the ‘naughty’ foods and tempted to spend Saturday morning in bed instead of burning calories down the gym. You need to have faith in your own abilities otherwise you will be wracked with self-doubt:

Self-doubt = failure

See it like this, hope and faith are entwined as hope provides the vision to work towards, faith is the belief that you can achieve this vision.

Fortitude: Fortitude is pretty much a synonym for ‘strength’. This is a NECESSITY for losing weight.

There will be times that you will have to say “no” to well meaning friends and family who would like to offer you a chocolate/biscuit/glass of wine.

Find healthy diet-friendly alternatives that help you stay strong so that you are making conscious choices to stick to your weight loss plan that don’t make you feel resentful about missing out on the treats you like.

You also need to find the emotional strength to do more exercise. Join a club where people rely on you being there to function so that you don’t find yourself making excuses not to go.

CHARITY: Charity is the act of giving and doing it gladly. Tell friends how good they look or how much you appreciate their support. Kind words like this are truly a gift.

There is a huge weight loss community on the internet so get involved! Search for weight loss blogs and diaries and get commenting on other people’s weight loss stories and help encourage bloggers to continue with their journey because sometimes, as I am sure you well know – losing weight is a fierce battle from one day to the next. Be prepared to set up your own weight loss blog and tell your own dieting story and share your own tips. Be generous with your kind comments, I can assure you, the internet community appreciates it!

Alternatively, you could try losing weight for charity. Ask people to sponsor you £1 for each 1lb you lose over 6 months or do a 10k run for charity like I did in October 2008! I can’t think of many better reasons to motivate myself to lose those nasty Christmas lbs!

PRUDENCE: Prudence is wisdom and knowing when to be discrete.

Dieters need to make prudent decisions on sometimes an hourly basis. In my office I get hungry because I’m sat in front of a computer all day. My body wants to do something and my natural instinct is to eat.

In cases like this where dieters eat when placed in certain situations that cause them to over-eat, maybe when they are stressed, bored or unhappy, the dieter needs to be cautious.How can you make prudent decisions?

• Make a deal with yourself – you can eat a low fat yogurt in 30 mins when you have completed a certain task if you eat due to boredom
• Tempted? Choose the naughty chocolate cake but have a smaller slice and be prepared not to have another treat like this for another 48 hours at least
• If you eat the crisps, you must do an extra 10 minutes of cardio at the gym tonight
• Do you eat when stressed? Research methods that you can use to help regulate your stress levels such as the Alexander Technique.

TEMPERANCE: Temperance is the act of moderation. This means knowing when to stop with not just eating, but exercise and the extent of your limitations.

It seems pretty obvious that you need to moderate your food intake, so I’m going to take another route to temperance…

Obesity is soaring but so are eating disorders. Too often people go from obese to anorexic. It seems as though the two have some kind of link – an obsession with food.

When you start losing weight it is so satisfying and when you hit your target it’s incredible and you feel on top of the world – and some people become hooked on the euphoria of losing another pound. If your friends and family begin to comment that you are getting too thin, reassess your weight loss plan to a maintenance plan.

JUSTICE: Only you will know if you deserve your weight loss. If you’ve worked up a sweat every 48 hours and tried really hard to make nutritious meals that fill you up and give you good energy yet you’ve not over-indulged, then you have truly deserved your weight loss.

However, many people have been scammed into believing that weight loss can and should be easy. It is not! I could slap anyone who tries to tell you that losing weight is simple as breathing! Complex minds and complex problems require innovative ideas and sometimes, the closer you get to your goal, the more creative you need to be with your tricks to lose weight. Check back to Total Chunk for dieting hints and tips that you won’t see anywhere else.

With hard work and dedication you will see results. You will experience sacrifice and possibly hardship as your body begins to get used to eat real food instead of synthetic rubbish that is clearly addictive. But after all the effort you put in, when you look in the mirror in 6-12 months and you admire your slim, healthy figure, you can say to yourself:

“I did this for me, and I deserved it.”

The 7 deadly weight loss sins

Today I am going talk about the Seven Deadly Sins of Dieting. Deeply rooted in Catholic literature, the original seven deadly sins were gluttony, fornication, avarice, sorrow, wrath, acedia (restlessness), vanity and pride.

Dante’s ‘Divine Comedy’ remains on my must-read list but I have a few more books to read but I think it’s a group task, I feel as though I won’t appreciate it alone or without guidance!!

Anyway, Dante’s epic poem (written between 1308 and 1321) updated the original sins to what we are more familiar with today: gluttony, avarice, luxuria, acedia, wrath, envy and pride. However the Catholic church did away with luxuria (extravagance) and we now know (officially) the sins are: pride, avarice, envy, wrath, lust, gluttony, and sloth/acedia.

As dieters, we all are guilty of these sins but let’s remember that these ‘sins’ do not mark the end of our quest for a slim and healthy figure. You don’t need to do a penance or repent and feel guilty. All we need to do is recognise that we have made a mistake and try and not do the same thing again. I’m also going to write about the 7 Heavenly virtues so look out for that.

Happy reading!

Lust

LUST: You spot it from all the way across the room. Your eyes savour the incredible sight before you, lingering over the subtle curves of the frosting. Yes, you have seen a piece of chocolate cake in the coffee shop and it is calling to you. Well, less calling and more bellowing and stamping it’s feet, clamouring for your attention!

It is fair to say you are experiencing lust, food lust!

How do you get past it? Well, as I’ve said previously, taking a deep beath and asking if you want it is dumb. Of course you want it! You just don’t need it, there is a difference and recognising that is half the battle. What you need to do is take control of the situation and either make a healthier choice or give in with conditions i.e. you have no more treats for a week! By making a conscious decision where you understand the future sacrifices you may have to make and feel in control of your decision, these dilemmas will gently ease and better food choices will come naturally.

My dad was very proud when I graduated with my BA (Hons) Unfortunately the gowns are not flattering!

PRIDE: We all know the saying “pride comes before a fall”! When you acheive a significant, or even a minor weight loss you should be proud, it would be very mean and uncharitable for anyone to rain on your parade and mutter that you “still have a long way to go”. No, pride is good but in small doses.

The trouble with pride is that we tend to reward ourselves for our good behaviour which brings good results and this is right – but we may not have broken our old habits yet and reward ourselves with edible treats that unwittingly result in a gain the following week, undoing all your hard work.

Please do be proud with achievements, shout them from the rooftops! Just don’t see weight loss results as a licence to be a little piggie and stray from the diet ‘because you deserve it’. Treat yourself to a magazine, make up or a bit of organic skincare.

Greedy people have been likened to pigs!

GLUTTONY: Bit of an obvious one here old greed is! Any diet that says you can eat as much of you want of any food is probably one to approach with caution. There is also no such thing as negative calories! Eating tonnes of any vegetable e.g. celery is ill-advised but in moderation, it can be a nice filler snack to keep you going until your next meal.

The trick here is recognising when you are full and feeling happy to finish eating.

How many of us have kept eating even though we’re full just because we are enjoying what we’re eating. Have you ever seen a skinny person continue eating for the sake of it?

So how do you learn to recognise when you’re full and stop eating when you are?

• Eat with other people and find out how much other people eat – it’s interesting to see and if they eat less, you’ll probably eat less.
• Eat slowly, be sociable and chat to your companions. It takes 20 minutes for your stomach to tell your brain “stop feeding me, I’m full!”
• I don’t want to sound like your mum but chew your food properly! I am guilty of not chewing properly too so I consciously try and chew each mouthful 10 times before swallowing.
• When you chew, savour it. Surely it’s better to really enjoy a little bit rather than shovel a lot down without really noticing the taste.
• Put your knife and fork down between bites.
• Drink water as you eat. Not to fill your stomach with fluid but to ‘cleanse the palette’ so that you are able to distinguish the taste of different foods on your plate.
• Don’t be afraid to pop your dinner in the fridge and come back to it later in case you’re peckish again in an hour. The phrase ‘little and often’ comes to mind here.

AVARICE: Avarice is a funny word as it is similar to gluttony but it also encompasses other greedy behaviours such as betrayal or desire for material wealth. This could technically involve engaging in actions that hamper others’ attempts to lose weight so others will praise your efforts more.

ENVY can cause some pretty nasty actions and I cover it in a minute – but this should be pretty obviously unnacceptable greedy behaviour: telling a friend the chocolate eclairs they are eating are low fat and low calorie when they’re not.

This is a serious betrayal and counts as greedy behaviour if you are looking to get more praise for losing more weight than your friend this week for your weight loss efforts.

In a less serious example, avarice could just involve stockpiling food at home under the ‘in case of emergency’ proviso but when you keep so much food at home when there is no pressing need to, you are only opening yourself up to temptation in weaker moments.

ENVY:There comes a time during your weight loss journey that you seem to hit a plateau and everyone around you seems to be shedding pounds at a terrifying rate. It’s natural to be jealous when someone appears to be losing lots of weight when you just want to be a size 6 and wear skinny jeans.

Remember that bigger people lose weight at a quicker rate so if you go to Slimming World with a friend who is 3 stone heavier than you, she probably will lose more than 2lbs a week!

If someone does seem to be doing better than you, don’t harbour resentment because we’re all in this together! Certainly don’t act on such negative feelings. Ask your friend for any dieting tips and enjoy their successes because they’ll be equally as thrilled for you when you hit your target.

This owner was too lazy to walk to dog! You'll never lose weight doing that!

SLOTH: Of course there are days that it’s hard too even haul yourself out of bed in the winter! In the last few weeks when it has still been pitch black outside I’ve hit the snooze button in the hope that there might be some sunlight in five minutes. Unfortunately, it’s still dark when I leave for work!

There is momentary laziness when we ask the universe for five minutes more in bed on a cold morning and then there is pure sloth.

Avoid taking the stairs? Hate walking five minutes to the shop to pick up a loaf of bread? That’s laziness.

All the little things add up. If you started taking a 15 minute walk in your lunch hour, an hour’s walk after a sunday roast will feel like less of a mission. You have to work at wanting to exercise at the start of your weight loss journey but after a while, you’ll get used to it and feel terrible if you miss an exercise session.

Exercise is a vital part of losing weight so if you’re not prepared to walk up one flight of stairs, you really ought to ask yourself if you have the determination to lose the weight you need to at this stage in your life.

WRATH: Anger is a very negative feeling. Anybody who denies that they ever get angry is either in denial or so laid back that they make others around them angry!

Many dieters experience problems with their moods when they start their weight loss plans. After all, junk food is known to contain addictive chemicals and so when you’re trying to eat healthily and get these additives and chemicals out of your body, the ‘come down’ can be just as bad for a dieter as it is for those giving up smoking.

If you believe that you may become moody and angry in the first week of your diet, warn friends, colleagues and loved ones that you may be short tempered as you are starting a diet. Get them on side to begin with so they will be more unsterstanding (and forgiving!) Be conscious that you could be in a bad mood. Distance yourself from stressful situations or difficult people and remember to apologise if you do snap at someone.

Merry Christmas! I hope Santa Claus brought everyone the gifts they asked for. I got lots of lovely bath stuff, money to go towards my holiday and some rather fancy headphones from the lovely Jonny.

I did get lots of chocolates and a naughty hamper with mince pies, toffee and panatone which looks lovely!

When people don’t know what to get you, they often pick up little luxuries like nice chocolates and biscuits. It’s a terrible time if you’re trying very hard to lose weight – or even just maintain your current weight over the festive period.

So I’ve devised a little list of tips to help you enjoy your food at christmas that should help you prevent an unfortunate weight gain:

1. If someone gives you chocolates, thank them and share them among your relatives. You look generous and are less tempted to polish off the box!
2. At lunch time, fill up on green veggies and carrots. Turkey is a good, lean meat so don’t feel you can’t eat it. Do try and go easy on the roast potatoes, parsnips, chipolatas and other trimmings.
3. Take your time – too many people eat what is on their plate because it looks lovely. Learn to recognise when you are full and stop eating at this point.
4. Avoid attacking the chocolate tin when watching The Queen’s Speech or the Great Escape.
5. Christmas puddings are full of sugar and calories so eat a smaller portion and choose single cream or evaporated milk to go with it. You will be surprised how little can satisfy a sweet tooth.
6. Don’t drink alcohol to excess, make smarter choices when drinking alcohol and try and avoid creamy liqueurs after dinner.
7. Go for a walk or a short bike ride on Christmas day. You will probably want to sleep after dinner – that’s fine, just make sure you do something otherwise you will feel even more sluggish on Boxing Day.
8. Hit the sales. You don’t necessarily have to buy much but bag carrying is good exercise and we all know how exciting it is to find a bargain.

New research by Birmingham University suggests that exercise does not help to alleviate period pain. 650 students aged between 18 and 25 were surveyed with 28% confessing to regularly experiencing moderate to severe period pain.

Researchers took into account weight, general health, mood, ethnicity and whether or not participants were smokers when assessing the results of the study.

Astonishingly, researchers could only conclude that exercise only helps on a case by case basis, i.e. some women may find it helps. Royal College of GPs chairman Professor Steve Field said women with period pain should do what works for them and exercise might make them feel better in general but this is little comfort to the thousands of women like myself who suffer debiliating pain every month.

I have vomited due to the pain experienced, my stomach can bloat to twice its size and I need to visit the bathroom far more often. I’ve missed work as I’ve been physically unable to get out of bed and I regularly experience migraines too. I’ve had a laparoscopy to find out what might be the precise cause of my monthly problems. I’ve been prescribed an awful amount of pain killers and hormones. Some pain killers have made me like a zombie they’re so strong…

Personally, this new study has not surprised me as I have found exercise to be unhelpful to me. Thanks to 11 years of experience dealing with period pains, I have some advice to offer women who are trying to lose weight:

• Keep a diary of symptoms and come to know WHEN they will occur. I get a migraine when I ovulate so I know very soon when one is on its way and if I am not at home, I have time to get there before my vision is obscured and I’m vomiting.
• See your doctor, the contraceptive pill can often help women but I have found this not to be the case. I am clearly a freak of nature – I should be put in a test tube and studied.
• Periods are not an excuse to overindulge in chocolate – see my blog post on chocolate cravings and why women crave chocolate
• Try herbal remedies and aromatherapy before you drug yourself up to the eyeballs with pain killers
• Try gentle exercise like yoga but if you don’t feel up to high intensity stuff, don’t do it! Walking is preferable to sitting on the sofa for a week
• Warm baths are lovely and make you feel nice and clean. If you’ve had a hard day at work, treat yourself with a bath rather than a whole pizza!

AMELIA

I promised I would come and tell you some of my recipes for cheap and healthy food. Now, as much as I love cooking, I do also get incredibly lazy at times and have been in several states of… economic booms and busts. Even when I’ve had more money to blow on food, somehow I always come back to this recipe because I just love it so much.

Amelia Does Lazy Chilli

4 x tins of tinned tomatoes

1x can of tinned pulses

Chilli paste (bought in a tube because I am THAT lazy)

Quorn mince (optional, you can either remove it all together or add beef mince)

Other ingredients that I add if I have them are: Oxo cubes, whole cloves of garlic, passata, vegetables

Amelia has a recipe that is just as easy as this packet mix!

So, this is the best bit… you just chuck it all in the saucepan together (unless you’re adding meat) and stir and simmer until the rest of the food is ready.

Now, I either use this to put on a jacket potato or with rice as a veggie chilli option. This is quite simple food, I know, but it is so natural and pure and low in calories and high in nutrition and so blimmin’ tasty! Considering if I make it just for me, I can make 2/3 portions for £1 it’s the new superfood!

AMELIA

When I first went to uni, I stocked up on microwave meals on a 4 for £5 deal because I convinced myself that it would be the cheapest way to eat. As I adjusted to feeding myself and realising how much food really costs, I began to realise how I could eat the best I can with value for money for just myself or a group of people.

It’s all very well saying that paying out for takeaway food is cheaper than paying for ingredients for a lot of people, but perhaps unless you’re buying sturgeon caviar and fillet steak for a thirty person dinner party. I always find it hard to believe someone who has been out of their parents home for longer than six months who say that eating healthily is expensive.

Our main source of carbohydrates: rice, pasta, potatoes can all be purchased for more than four portions for under a pound. One of my favourite lunch time meals is jacket potato with fillings like cheese/beans/coleslaw/tuna, these are again cheap and simple nutrition as long as you go easy on the size of your portions as it’s still calories and cheese isn’t fantastic for you in large portions.

Pasta and sauce, pasta and pesto, spaghetti bolognaise, add in with tomato sauces and vegetables and a little bit of meat and you’re away.

You'll see the savings you make very quickly

Rice will cover chilli con carne, home made curries made with tomatoes, not cream and there is no end to the amount of healthy meals that you can make.

Then you’ve got the foods that are so simple, you wonder how you didn’t think of it sooner… omelettes, meat and veg, sausage and mash and stews.

There is also soup! I hate ready made soups, but I love my own. Alright, there is the initial expense of the food processor, but you’ll earn that back quick enough. My favourite and cheapest is tinned tomatoes whizzed in with some chilli, maybe you’d like to add some pulses, a little spaghetti… other ones I really like is beetroot and potato, bacon and lentil on a tomato base, winter vegetable. Summer soups would also include gazpacho or a really tasty cucumber. Not only does it fill you up, but it all goes a long way, freezes easily and is so cheap to make on a budget.

Meat is expensive, but there are still ways around it. Still choose lean cuts and don’t cook with the skin. Cheaper cuts of meat such as neck of lamb, beef shin or pork hock. My mum made a curry with neck of lamb and the meat didn’t even cost £3. I can vouch it was still just as tasty. Mince is also cheap, but buy the lean stuff and you’re laughing.

It’s not just what you buy, but when you buy food as well. Food that’s in season is always going to be cheaper because they don’t have to import it from other countries and we have it in abundance. Root vegetables are winter vegetables, so your parsnips, pumpkins, squash, etc will generally be cheaper at your local supermarket or farm shop.

Also if you go at the end of the day, supermarkets reduce their food to sometimes pennies. If you eat this food immediately or freeze it, you’re not going to worry about it going off. I would also recommend portioning your food before freezing it, wrapping chicken breasts individually, slicing bread, this saves stabbing at your food to defrost it.

All of these things are so simple to cook, they don’t take long when you consider how long you wait for a pizza delivery on a Saturday and you can control exactly what goes into your food and not feel obliged to eat huge portions, no point in making all this cheap food to then go and eat more than you need!