The Weak Greedy Little Piggy Diet

During the time that I have been writing this Daf’s Diary blog page, I have spoken now and again about the way my Hubby/Coach/Best friend and I go about trying to keep ourselves fit and healthy and quite importantly slim enough to carry on enjoying our sport of triathlon and hoping to keep going through the age groups until they have to include more for us to enter in. This last line is obvious nonsense because there are across the globe, plenty of people our age that are triathletes and for one shining example there is Sister Madonna Buder who is still strutting her stuff in an older age group than mine. She is from Spokane, Washington and we have met at countless events in all sorts of places far and wide. The last time we held hands in greeting was in Hawaii several years ago when we had a brief update chat at the pre-race pasta party.

Geoff Gearing above with me in Sweden, is a UK athlete who is in the next age group up from mine, 80-85 years and is also still competing and I hope to see this Facebook friend at one of the races this summer. When we first started it was Steve who raced first and then since I started to do a little training with him I got sucked in too.  The most inspirational older people in the UK at that time were Patrick Barnes who must have been in his seventies then and also Bet Collins who was sixty odd and everybody including me thought she was amazing to be doing triathlon at that age. I was newly in the sport and most of the time when I entered races in the 50-55 age group I would be the only woman competing at that age. Right now I am older that Bet when I last heard of her racing and there is still the same nine years difference between me and Sister Madonna pictured below.

 Weight has been a problem to both Steve and I and we float up and down and will both fall off the wagon when there is any stress in our lives. It seems to have the opposite effect on some people I know that, but our eight goes up under pressure.

We both love our food and Steve is an excellent cook and loves to experiment with new recipes. When he cooks our evening meal he will make an art work of the presentation. And because of that, not wishing to spoil the look as the plates are placed on the table, my plate will have a similar amount to his own. I try to pass some of my food over to his plate once his food has made room for such an addition. Sometimes he will ask me why I have left some, he finds it hurtful. OK lets call him a feeder. Not in the worse sense but he does enjoy seeing me tucking in to a dish that he has taken great pains to create.in the photo below are Mary Ann Wallace and Peggy Mcdowell, Cramer of the USA with me in Sweden.

 That is why we have settled in to our eating plan.

You can see the title: The Weak Greedy Little Piggy Diet

It is a diet that we find that we can stick to most of the time. It will go to pot on holidays and If we go out to dinner on our own or with family there is no sign of it.

By and large though it is the perfect way for Weak Greedy Little Piggies to try and address their weight problems. I have recommended it do a number of people lately.

The trouble with loving food and being interested in food is that it does make you more likely to put on weight than people who are not interested or who have been brought up eating overcooked or totally boring food. There is nothing to look forward to if your parents were trash cooks. There are also those for whom eating dinner is just taking up precious drinking time.

Steve cooks food that you can look forward to. It looks appetizing it is lightly cooked using only the most fresh vegetables, fish of meat.  He food shops daily, not weekly.

The idea is to not eat during the day at all if possible. We still have drinks, tea or coffee when we want one. We have dinner between five and six in the evening and there are no tit-bits and no first courses. Just the main meal which is not enormous just a big healthy salad with a fillet of fish or poultry expertly lightly cooked.

We sometimes have fruit with little sorbet or ice cream for dessert. We drink mineral water or iced tea and I will have a glass of wine but not always.

We do that Monday to Friday.

Saturday and Sunday we eat what we like but not as much as we would like and that includes anything that has been beckoning us during the weekdays.

It seems against all the rules of other diets that we have both tried over the years where you have three carefully thought out meals a day.

For a start, neither of us likes to eat at all before we do our training and that is an almost every day start. Even at the weekend if we are going for a ride or a run we will not eat first. Then on Sunday a trip to the tea shop is a regular thing and cake might well be involved. We have a packet of whatever if we go to the cinema but not when we go to the theatre.

It is a great diet for Weak Greedy Little Piggies because you can get a fit of the munchies at the weekend but get back on the straight and narrow on Monday. It allows for you to be weak now and again and a greedy piggie but slowly it helps you to be little or at least smaller.

Stronger and more disciplined than the Belt family; 100 mile runner Anthony Forsyth above

I do admire those friends of ours who can eat to a healthy regime every day and every week. Anthony Forsyth who is an ultra runner has just concluded a ‘Juice Fest’ where he did not eat any solid food for thirty five days to reach his race weight. He likes to eat raw food. I do not have Anthony’s strength and will, there is not a chance I could do that and the thought of Steve being that focused is laughable. Good for you Anthony you are a wonder.

Here is a recipe that Steve came up with a few weeks ago and it is de- bloomin’- licious. Today is Saturday so anything is allowed, but this is not that harmful anyway.

Wensleydale Rhubarb toast

Ingredients:

Stone baked sourdough loaf

Four oranges

Half a cup of castor sugar

Wensleydale and Cranberry Cheese

Fresh young Rhubarb

Method

Put the sugar as a base in the baking dish

Finely zest the four oranges

Scatter the zested orange over the sugar

Chop the rhubarb into four inch lengths

and lay over the zest and sugar

Cut the oranges in half and squeeze the juice over

The top

Bake in a hot oven and cook for

Twenty minutes at 170°

While that is cooking

Slice the bread

Spray both sides lightly with extra virgin olive oil

Griddle on each side for two or three minutes

Thinly slice the Wensleydale and Cranberry cheese

Cover the top of the griddled bread.

Place under the grill until just soft

Put the griddled bread and cheese on a plate

Pile the rhubarb and orange mix on top

Spoon on any overflow of the juicy mix

This can be equally delicious using other soft cheese

He has previously made this dish with Goat cheese.

Both versions are very tasty.