Healthy Eating in the Southland - The GoSmart Food Company

It's been a while. I have totally broken my 2015 resolution to have at least one blog entry a week with my absence but real life calls. Today was no exception and with a full day, which meant I was up at the crack of dawn (okay, not quite but 6.30am on my day off is pretty early) and out of the house with just a slice of toast in my stomach. Thinking ahead though, I ordered a meal from The GoSmart Food Company - a door-to-door delivery service providing healthy gourmet meals. Their website describes the approach best

We exist to provide healthy gourmet food to our clients in a way that is convenient, utilising smarter choices and clean eating concepts. We believe that if you live smarter, you will indeed live a better life.
Our philosophy is that when you decide to GoSmart you are making a lifestyle choice as eating healthily should be a way of life and not a fast-track approach to weight loss.

But the BEST part of it all - they are based in SOUTH TRINIDAD!!! I always love when I can get great food options on my side of the island, and so hell yeah, I was going to support.Because I work in Port of Spain, the window of opportunity for trying this out would be small to nil, but I knew I would be in San Fernando all day and eventually would feel the hunger worms biting, so I placed an order yesterday for delivery today.

The service delivers to clients in San Fernando and surrounding areas, and because I also do not live in San Fernando (the universe is really against me here), but would be doing business in the area, my delivery was planned accordingly.

So how was it? The meal was excellent. It was fresh, wholesome, very filling, well packaged. On the menu today - Rainbow prawn with stir fried kale and bok choy, with ginger-garlic rice noodles, and a light mango and coconut mousse.

This is such a great service for Southerners who may not, like me, cook all their lunch-time meals during the week but still want to eat clean and be healthy. It is convenient as all you have to do is use the order form, drop them a message via their Facebook page, or give them a ring and the food is brought to you. No traffic, no fuss. It's great. I wish them all the best as they continue to make great meals for the great people of San Fernando.

You can check out The GoSmart Food Company -
Website - www.gosmartfood.co
Facebook - The GoSmart Food Company
Email: orders@gosmartfood.co
Tel: 397-6278

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Fat Girl Problems

After the gym, sometimes breakfast has to be quick
aka smoothie alert. Blueberry and almond protein smoothie

Trying to lose weight is a real nightmare. Putting it on is fun and easy. Date nights with girlfriends, with those yummy cocktails and cute fried appetisers; along with rich entrees and decadent desserts. Weekend stay-ins with Netflix and shrimp fries with Thai sweet chili sauce. The real killer - work events - schmooze and lose...lose your willpower to resist glasses of great wine and bite sized goodies that demand you pop another and another and another. Family get-togethers, where there is always food, always a lot of alcohol and aunties watching you cross-eyed if you try to politely refuse.

But when you are trying to get all this excess baggage off your body, not that easy. The early morning wake up calls to unwillingly subject oneself to cardio and other torture devices, or to try to get a workout outdoors before the morning heat and glare get the better of you.

Last night the family got together for a good ole family time. I drank nothing and when offered a plate heaping with roti and curry - my kryptonite - I politely (yeah, that is my excuse) ate the vegetables, a bit of the chicken and gave my mother 95% of the rest. Nightmare.

It has been tough going but the competition element of it has been keeping me really honest. The first couple of weeks, I admit, I had chips once in a while. But I have been super good this past week and for good reason. The people at work are hard core in trying to win this thing and I see my chances of winning slipping away. But I am still doing it because it needs to be done and I need to do it for myself. Still...winning would be nice.

The numbers thing is always complicated. I hate scales and on my second weigh in, the weight numbers were up ever so slightly but the fat percentage was down. This is apparently a good thing, but when you have been programmed to count just the pounds/kg, it can be a bit of a buzzkill. But rallying.

Eating lots of salads and veggies, soups (I love soups so this is easy) and cut out the sugar and the snacks. The snacks have always been my problem so this is a small miracle. No cake. No cookies. No chips. No Haagie. Lots of water, tea and my post-workout smoothies. Getting more sleep, though still not enough. The hardest part has probably been trying to keep my meals fun and creative. I am not one for those crazy diets - onion soup diets or liquid diets. I eat like a real person, just without an excess of the "fun" stuff. Food should never be boring, even if one is trying to be healthy.

Part of my weekly supermarket stash last weekend. Fruits and stuff for teas, fruit juices and smoothies.
Greens for salads.

Chicken quesadillas and greens for dinner. Salad by itself - not food. That's torture...

...unless the salad is epic like this one - mixed greens, grated carrots, roasted onions,
chopped black grapes, pommerac, homemade garlic croutons, and some baked chicken.

So wish me luck. The battle wages on. Another weigh in this week so game on!

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When being the biggest loser is a good thing!

Our homemade ice cream, topped with cookie bits

Last night, part of my aunty duties involved spending time in the kitchen, forging relationships over a pail of homemade ice cream. The excitement on the face of a 4yr old over an electric ice cream mixer and seeing a milky concoction morph into smooth textured goodness was priceless. What is not so priceless is that I have been dipping into the tub of ice cream all day!

I mentioned that one of my goals for 2015 was around health and fitness, and that I would be participating in a health and fitness challenge at work. Kind of like The Biggest Loser, but without Jillian Michaels, excessive exercising and the cameras, 

So I registered officially this week, so yes, this is really happening!!!

But it was a very traumatic experience to say the least. While I knew I had put on (more) weight, seeing the numbers really affected me deeply. And not just the gross number of pounds flash before your eyes, but on the nifty self-esteem killing device known as the Body Composition Monitor and Scale, you get your body fat percentage, body mass index (BMI) and skeletal muscle among other mind numbing stats. It was a wake up call for sure. Sharing this information with a third party did not help minimise my discomfort. I will admit I was ready to jump in front of a truck after that. lol.

The only churning will be me churning away in the gym

So over the next 8 weeks, we will be working within teams, with the dietitian, and with the fitness schedule to bring these numbers down in a healthy way. There is no expectation that anyone will look like Beyonce after 8 weeks, but the hope is that we will adopt healthier habits and make use of the resources available to us. I am very competitive and so the competition element will go a long way in keeping me honest and motivated. I will admit, a bit of depression has set in over the past few weeks, and this has been my main enabler as I am a comfort eater. I know it has to be more about my health and wellness, etc, but kicking ass is a great motivator as well. I have a target I am working with and so there will be no more aunty/kiddies ice cream sessions. 

This weekend is a tough one - a 5-day weekend with hot cross buns, and get togethers, and already, 2 days of feeling ill and tired. But I gave myself today to rest, regain my strength and not care. That is the lie I told myself every time I opened the freezer today. But it's game on now. Wish me luck!

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