A Month of Food

On my original blog at Livejournal I would occasionally do a Month of Food, where I would aim to make a cuisine's dishes at least three times a week for four weeks in a row. Of course, this came with pictures! It's the most requested feature on blog, and I've had a very busy few years now and haven't had the time and energy to do another one.

Until now.

So, I'll be doing a Month of Food. This one is going to be a reflection of my current diet, which is the Harcombe Diet. It's primarily whole foods based, with little to no processed food. I'll only be photographing dinners as breakfasts are pretty boring (bacon and eggs in some form for most of it) and lunches are also boring (salad and tuna, salad and steak, salad and chicken legs, salad and cheese).

The basic guidelines of this diet are outlined below. I followed this diet for four months and lost about ten kilos. After the car accident and my trip to America, I didn't bother to return to the diet until after Christmas, and yet I am back at my previous car crash weight within two weeks. I was pretty excited about that! I've lost about 8 - 9 kilos. I fluctuate a lot with my weight, often staying the same weight or gaining three weeks in a row, and then lose between 1.5 - 3 kilos in the week I get my period. It turns out a lot of women lose weight that way! So for those of you who give up within a couple of weeks, you need to try for longer!
:)

The Harcombe Diet is developed by Zoe Harcombe. Her into video is here:
http://youtu.be/QMCU_tjeg2k
Webpage:
http://www.theharcombediet.com/
Book:
http://www.bookdepository.com/Harcom.../9781906125080

Basics:
1) The reasons why we over eat are usually one of three reasons: food intolerances, candida, or hypoglycemia. To deal with those, stage 1 is five days long, and focuses on no sugar, no wheat, no dairy-free except for Natural Yoghurt, no caffeine. During phase one, mixing fats and carbs is fine as the focus is on the issues, not on weight loss. I lost 3.7 kilos in the first 5 days, and John lost 1.5 kilos (he is much smaller than me and he kept his caffeine and milk) when we did this in May.

2) Stage 2 is the weight loss section in which the basic theory is moderate/low carbs and high fat. Meals are primarily fat meals, though if you want, you can have a carb meal but it should be low in fat if you do. There are three rules:

a) Don't eat processed foods
b) Don't eat fats and carbohydrates at the same meal
c) Don't eat foods that cause YOUR cravings.

Stage three means you get to cheat

Rules for Phase 3 are:

a) Don't 'cheat' too much;
b) Don't 'cheat' too often;
c) Be alert and stay in control

Most of the recipes in the future month are from her cookbooks, which I am working my way through. The cookbooks don't actually have much beef in them. There's a wide variety of meat and fish in the recipes, which I rather like.

My menu plan for the month includes Prawn and Cucumber Soup, Roast Pork, Spicy Moroccan Chicken Legs and osso bucco. Hope you enjoy the month!

Sarah P