Healthy eating .... foods to fight breast cancer update

Ok so I don't post for a while and then suddenly like buses the posts all come along at once!!!!!

One of my early posts was about Foods to fight breast cancer and how well I was or wasn't eating!

And yes if I was clever there would be a link to it here but ........... I tried to do it and ........... it didn't work!! Send me a teenager!

How am I doing???? (healthy eating wise not link wise!!)

Well ................ initially I was sticking rigidly to the 9+ fruit and veg portions a day and the oily fish etc malarkey ...................and ............ then...................

.............. I became a lady 'who lunches' meeting friends in local eateries and it then became impossible to eat that much fruit and veg as even choosing the vegetarian option just doesn't come that close..... well even to one portion let alone two!

I got lazy, found it difficult, it didn't fit in with work, markets etc ...................... and anyway was it really making a difference?????

So five a day was the norm.............

Oh and then OH and I did the day date thing eating out once a week during my radio therapy......

Fast forward (or roll back) to the end of August ....

I realised that I'd put on quite a lot of weight and really needed to do something about it tout suite especially as I was well into taking Tamoxifen and one of the side effects is weight gain and all the forums and web pages are full of this fact.

I only need to look at food and will put on half a stone so taking Tamoxifen with this side effect has always been my biggest worry...... plus I really don't want the bastard cancer to come back so I must do my bit to piss it off by eating stuff it doesn't like!

On the 19th August I decided that enough was enough and that I needed to take action immediately......

.............simples .... cut down on what I was eating, up my fruit and veg to 8-9 portions a day and only drink (my beloved wine) at weekends

No problem!!! Maybe?? Dunno??

Actually it was easy ........ that night one of my lovely twitter friends tweeted that she needed to lose 2.5 stone by 3rd Dec for her hols but needed help so I suggested that as I had similar weight to lose we'd do it very publicly, have a weigh in on Wednesdays and tweet the results to the world.

Sooooooooooooooo back up to 8-9 portions of fruit and veg a day, oily fish and loads of brown rice for me! (I just can't get enough brown rice at the moment .... been craving and eating it for the last 6 weeks!)

Then we had other tweeters who joined us and we became an online weight watchers!!

This was the best thing for me and ..................

having to announce my results to everyone made me stick to this regime. Although its be slow (for my liking) I have now lost a stone!

Initially it hasn't been easy to stick to 8 or 9 portions of fruit and veg a day especially with milk recording mornings (if I have fruit on a MR morning then by the time I've got to the end of the lane, I need a pee and or need to go once I get to the farm ..... no loos available just the hedge!!) toast is order of the day then!

OK BUT WHAT ARE YOU EATING??

Here is a rough weekly menu!

During the summer breakfast was all the lovely peaches, nectarines, melons and blueberries and grapes, now its kiwi fruit, grapes, blueberries if they're reduced, and fabulous russet apples.

Lunch for months now has been Greek salad made with home grown cucumbers, tomatoes, dill and our own feta, just adding bought peppers, red onion and olives. Sadly this week we have had to buy everything except for the feta as the polytunnel is bare!
I adore houmous so making it twice a week keeps us in stock!........ mustn't forget the flat bread ... either home made or shop bought wholemeal pitta to mop it all up.

Avocado and couscous with tinned picante sardines avec tomato, cucumber and onions also feature as one of our favourites!

Supper is salmon twice a week in various guises, chicken once a week and then mushroom stroganoff, all with three or four vegetable portions such as green beans, broad beans, sweetcorn, spinach or purple sprouting broccoli. Roasted or stuffed peppers. Vegetable curry with dahl  and vegetable chilli are brilliant for getting in all the portions of veg. Oh and don't forget the brown rice ...... even OH is now eating it willingly!!! Oh yes and the chickpeas ..... I adore chickpeas!!

As you can imagine it gets quite windy chez nous!!

Now don't think he's hard done by ....... he still eats toast or bacon sandwich or eggs for breakfast and although I rarely eat red meat now, ( only because my body doesn't want it) I cook OH meat and his favourite mini roasties when he wants them.

We are also well into prunes and greek yogurt ......................

So all in all I think I'm doing pretty well!!