I recently had a spell in hospital, hence the absence of posts last month. The good news is that I'm recovering...and there's good news from hospital on the food front too.
Many of you will have been caught out on a ward after meal time and had to have whichever sandwich was available. There's still no syn free solution on that front...as my consultant always says, it is better to eat than not to eat when faced with little choice. This was the case for me on arrival at A&E, however the steak pie and mash on the first lunchtime (the only option given I'd missed the menu) was more than welcome after a long night of tests and observations.
Once I was given a menu for the next meal I was relieved to discover that staying on plan would not be a problem from this point onwards. In amongst the pie/curry/roast type options, it was possible to choose a jacket potato at lunchtime or dinnertime. One of the meal options was beans on toast. You could choose brown or white bread. You could choose to have fruit instead of the custard drenched pudding option. In the morning, porridge toast or cereals were the options. My partner brought me in some Marmite so I could have that on my toast in the morning. I did have the porridge each day too as I found I actually really enjoyed it...having not had it for years. The people doing the tea rounds had sweeteners available.
The impact on my eating habits has been significant. I obviously rediscovered my love of pies. This was pretty dangerous for my waistline. I tackled this by working out what it was about the pies I liked (the filling). I now buy the syn free tins of stewed steak in gravy from Tesco in a tin and serve that with veg when I fancy a pie. It does the trick! After getting a taste for porridge, I now have Oats So Simple as my healthy B in the morning, along with a wholegrain Ryvita cracker bread covered in Marmite. I liked the variety of meals available at the hospital so now buy a range of low-syn ready meals to have with veg at work rather than constantly having jacket potatoes. My water consumption is up as I was constantly supplied with water on the ward and it created a healthy habit. I did have to wean myself off the endless cups of tea which I was provided with on the ward.
It will take my body a while to adjust from the stressful experience of being so ill and receiving treatment which is still continuing outside hospital. It is hard to have put on some of my weight but the new food choices I am making have helped to add a fresh feel to my approach to the Extra Easy plan. It's good to have your routine thrown in the air from time to time. You can learn a lot and shake of the dust off repetitive approaches to your daily meals.
Note: I follow Extra Easy and for simplicity don't reference Green and Red days a great deal here!
