June 2021 - Body Image

I’m having a real body image crisis at the moment and I can’t see a way out of it.

November 2019, I was the healthiest I’ve been in my adult life, I’d dropped 8 or 9 stone in weight, was exercising most days and was fitting into a 34 inch waist jean and large t-shirt. By mid February 2020 I’d slipped back up to a 36 waist, extra large.

I’d been quite proud of my success, I didn’t want to slip further and really had to do something about it. I dropped my maximum caloric intake down from 2000 a day to 1800 and increased my workout schedule from 3 to 5 times a week, I figured I’d be back on track in 3 or 4 months.

It’s now June 2021 and I’m still in the same place I was in February 2020. 18 months of 1800 calories a day and exercising 5 days a week and I’ve lost no weight, if anything I’m looking slightly more portly than before.

I’ve tried increasing my protein by swapping out a meal for a shake, I’ve tried upping my vitamin intake with supplements, I’ve tried cutting out carbs and reducing fat, I’ve increased the amount of water I drink. I can’t decrease my caloric intake further because I lose all energy and get a pretty hefty brain fog on much lower than my current level.

I’m completely stuck, I don’t know what to do and it’s really eating away at my already virtually nonexistent self esteem. I look at myself in the mirror and see a fat tub of lard. I look worse to myself now than I did before my original weight loss. My self loathing is a constant companion.

Chicken Kebab And Chips

It looks like I'm going to have to be particularly strict with my diet over the next few days, after a somewhat food heavy weekend.

I got in Friday night feeling tired, emotionally drained, a little depressed and absolutely ravenous. As payday was, and at the time of writing this still is, several days away, ordering a takeaway simply wasn't an option and that meant getting my head together, raiding the fridge, freezer and larder for whatever odds and ends I could find. Fortunately I always tend to have things like onions, garlic and pasta in stock as they're cheap, keep really well and are easy to cook, making them an absolute store cupboard essential. I coupled this with a good sized chunk of leftover chorizo, some mushrooms and a large chicken breast, I found in the back of my freezer drawer, to make a quick, easy and actually really tasty chicken and chorizo pasta. I added some additional flavour with a glug of dark soy sauce and a couple of teaspoons or dried oregano from the larder.

I did my weekly food shop, after my driving lesson, on Saturday morning and decided, with having not being able to afford a takeaway the night before, to treat myself to a dinner of homemade chicken kebab and chips. I bought a couple of packs of chicken thighs, I skinned and boned them out myself as they're considerably cheaper to buy with skins and bones still intact, a pot of yoghurt, a bag of 'wonky' potatoes, a bag of 'wonky' onions ('wonky' veg is just as nice and a fair amount cheaper than standard, uniform, veg), a cabbage, a couple of corn on the cobs and a pack of wraps. The whole lot came in at less than £10, about what it would have cost to order in a take away for myself, and I ended up making easily enough food for 2 people, with plenty of leftovers besides.

I started my prep as soon, as I got in from my shopping trip, by seasoning the yoghurt with paprika, cayenne pepper, cumin, onion powder and garlic powder before adding in the chicken thighs, coating them thoroughly and putting the whole mixture in the fridge to marinade for most of the day. In the evening I impaled the chicken on skewers, set them on a high sided tray and placed them in an oven set to 150°C. While the chicken was in the oven I cut up some potatoes, added them to a pan of water and bought it to the boil. Once boiling I removed the pan from the heat, poured the potatoes into a colander to drain and spread them out on a lined tray to steam dry. once the potatoes stopped giving off steam, I lightly sprayed them with oil and seasoned with smoked salt and dried rosemary. Before adding the potatoes to the oven I removed the chicken and turned it over to ensure it was evenly cooked throughout. While the potatoes and the chicken finished off, I chopped some onions and cabbage leaves to make a salad for the wraps, made a mint yoghurt sauce with the leftovers from the marinade and some mint picked from the garden, boiled the corn on the cob and lightly charred some peppers I'd found in the fridge. Once the chicken and chips were cooked I removed them from the oven and carved the meat directly from the skewer. I filling the wrap with salad, sauce and meat then served alongside the chips, corn and charred peppers. All in all it made for a very large, very tasty and extremely satisfying plate of food, with the added benefit of leaving me lots of leftover food and ingredients for other meals during the week. food, food blog, food porn, foodie, cook, cooking, cooked, home cook, home cooking, home cooked, home made, homemade, fat boy, fatty, meat, fat boi,