5:2 My second frugal day

Until I see how I settle down with the fasting days I am going to find it difficult to have set days on which to do it, so as I woke up not feeling particularly hungry and as we often have only a light evening meal on a Saturday anyway, I decided today would be a good day to have my second day.  As I am not in the habit of having breakfast as soon as I get up, I thought I would wait for as long as I could then go out and get shopping once I had eaten, later in the morning.  When I was at work I always skipped breakfast and had something once I was at the office, although it wasn’t usually something very healthy.

Well, it seems that this could be my best strategy because in the end I didn’t eat until 12.45.  I worked out what I was going to have for my evening meal and then I knew how many calories I could have for my other meal.  I had some pastrami left over from yesterday (50 cals) so I made a very frugal sandwich by cutting 2 very thin slices of bread and then taking the crusts off, which brought it down to 60 cals, and a bowl of my soup that I made last time (80 cals).  Total lunch calories 190.  This means I might be able to have a little bit of stewed fruit for afters tonight!  And I took my time over it, about half an hour, while reading The Week.  I know that in the book it suggests that you don’t do anything else when eating but I find it helps to slow me down.  I felt quite satisfied with this meagre repast

When I looked at what was in the house I decided I didn’t need to go shopping so I did housework instead and some crocheting and some card making.  Also, my lovely husband has decided to support me by trying to do it as well.  We have agreed that he will have what I have in the evening and he will experiment with the things that he is able to do for himself for the rest of the day, on the strict understanding that he doesn’t carry on if it makes him feel rough.  The usual plaintive call of “isthereanycake” has been changed into the even more plaintive “nobiscuitsnobiscuits”.

I didn’t sit down for a cup of tea until about 16.45 (lemon and ginger herbal) and I was quite surprised at how easy it was to not have anything to eat with it.  As the book says, a lot of eating (in between meals particularly), is about habit and wanting, not hunger and needing.

We are going to put the evening meal off for as long as we can as we have realised that one of our favourite TV programmes is on, which means not going to bed until nearly 23.00.  We are hoping to wait until at least 19.30.  Funnily enough it is something that we often have anyway, scrambled egg and smoked salmon.  Two eggs and 50g salmon each, (270 calories) no fat or milk added to the pan, and then yes, what joy, 50g of stewed apple for afters.  I stew apple in industrial quantities as hubby likes that best of all, but over the years I have decreased the amount of sugar I put with it and now only use 10% of the weight of the apples which means 50g of it is only 35 cals!  Total for the day 495 calories     RESULT!