Help! I am a dreadful fatty and I need recipes!

[MrsHappy]

I had a baby 4 months ago but have just realised that what started as a chubby phase a few years ago has led to me becoming a committed size 14 (which is not a good look when you have a TINY head - I am basically Lindsey Lohan in reverse. Some people look great as a size 14, but I am not one of them). I am reaching crisis point as having had DD2 I have completely lost my mojo, which surely is not being helped by the uncooked-dough-like bulge on my tum, and later this summer I am going on holiday with THIN PEOPLE. Even worse, one of them had a baby after me so I don't even have that as an excuse... . I MUST lose 2 stone by August to salvage what is left of my dignity.

Please can you let me have your tastiest healthy recipes? I particularly would like vegetarian recipes (as we eat too much meat IMO) and also would like to cut back on the amount of pasta we eat. Anything involving aubergine particularly welcome, since I would like to learn to cook it nicely, and we all hate butternut squash and sweet potatoes, but like virtually everything else. Well, DH hates lentils, but I tell him they're beans .

Thank you!

to cook aubergine nicely you need about a gallon of olive oil
sad but true

Moussaka is lovely. One of my favourite dishes.

You could make it lower fat by swapping to quorn or very lean steak mince and changing the gruyère to a lower fat cheese.

I love Moussaka, but sadly think it falls outside of the healthy criteria. Is there such a thing as low-fat cheese? Isn't the point of cheese that it is a lump of fat?! Will keep the recipe though, for when I have slimmed down.

Gah! No aubergine for me then.

I do a roasted aubergine curry that is quite healthy and not too fatty.

My recipe is similar to this aubergine curry but instead of roasting them on the gas burner I just prick them and put them in the over for an hour or two till they are cooked through. I don't put the peas in either.

We eat a lot of ratatouille as well, which is good when you are trying to loose weight. To try and keep the fat content down, I roast all the vegetables in the oven, rather than fry them. Something like this.

Are there other things you like? DH has been on Weightwatchers on and off for about a year, so have loads of ideas but depends on what you like to eat really.

I do a sort of roast veg ratatouille which isn't swimming in oil. Just cut up an aubergine, a courgette or two (depending on size), a red or yellow pepper, a red onion, and optionally garlic. Drizzle on some olive oil - I use somewhere between a dessertspoonful and a tablespoonful. roast at about 200 for about half an hour. Ten minutes or so before serving stir in a tin of chopped toms and some herbs. (Most people would put in salt and black pepper but DD hates the latter and DH can't have the former so I leave seasoning to the table)

Nice as a veg, or you could use it in a veg lasagne or bake.

Try Weight Watchers Moussaka.

x-post - my way is easier and less oily than delias . You really don't have to do all that messing around with salting, I think they must have bred bitterness out of aubergines.

We eat almost anything, really. And are blessed with a lovely fishmonger nearby so could eat more fish. Having said that, DD1 is fussy and doesn't like "mixed together food" eg lasagne and hates potatoes. She likes, for example, chicken served with raw veggies. If I ate like her (other than the pasta obsession) I'd be a stick.

That curry looks lovely, I'd leave out the peas too.

I guess this is going to come down to portion control, too. [hungry]

grimma, have to admit, don't actually do the salting bit, does anyone phaff with the salting thing anymore!

POrtion control doesn't work. You just end up hungry and eat more.

Fill up on low carb veggies and salads, i.e. serve pasta with a huge side salad, bulk out curry with loads of veg and go easy on the rice.

Hm, but at the mo am sure I am overeating. Surely I am going to have to be a bit hungry at some point in order to lose weight? I can't imagine that anyone slim eats the volume of food that I can hoover up. I certainly ate much less when I was skinny (in the dark ages) and as was younger no doubt my metablolism was much better.

Not sure about the salads, will do raw or roasted veggies instead as don't much like leaves except for cabbage. That should do the trick, yes?

I was always put off aubergines by the salting - good news that it isn't needed.

I do quite a lot of curries for DH. He is keen on the beans (so chickpeas, kidney beans and black beans are popular) and also different veg (usually green beans, cabbage, sweetcorn, cauliflower). Seems that when he has something spicy and flavourful he needs less of it. Can give you any of those recipes if you like, they are all quite straight forward.

If you are really keen, a book I would recommend is Fresh Indian which has lots of healthy Indian recipes, including lots of veg. I think there's quite a few fish recipes but haven't tried many of them.

If you like fish, then another simple supper is just grilled fish and veg. I either saute the veg in a little olive oil or steam them.

I think the portion size is quite important, but I would cut down gradually rather than a big bang approach. Hopefully you won't notice it too much and it will be easier to stick with.

www.foodfocus.co.uk - I know it's boring but to lose weight you need to eat fewer calories than you burn. This is free and will calculate how many calories you can eat and still lose weight, giving you extra calories for exercise, etc. Logging the food you eat will help you to figure out if there are particular areas in which you are going wrong, and you can decide if you would rather have 500 calories worth of Ben & Jeryys or 500 calories worth of moussaka.

to loose wait is actually very simple...i must know because just befor i fell pregnant i lost 31/2 stone (which i put on through my 1 pregnancy when i indulged in everything i wanted)here's how i did it:

i just had a nice breakfast, eg cereals, a sandwich or whatever i fancied really. just made sure i ate within an hour of getting up.(but stayed away from fry-up!)

for lunch i had a proper meal, selfmade with virtully no added fat or sugar, eg buy sprey oil as u use a lot less than with ordinary oil, use artificial sweetener if u need to sweeten sth.
i mostly had fried or grilled chicken or beef, very nice if marinated in a mix of spices like chili(which is good for burning fat), garlic, pepper, whatever i liked really, just not salt as its not good for u, piled on the veggies on my plate and added just a tiny tiny spoonful of gravy if i couldnae do without it. made sure the portion of veggies was at least twice the size of the meat on the plate. and i stayed away from anything deep fried - except on sundays, that was my eating day, when i did eat what i fancied, in moderation of course. even cake and chocolate or a macdonalds or a nice pub-lunch.

for dinner i had either salad(fruit or ordinary) with selfmade dressing made from fatfree yoghurt and whatever spices i fancied.

and i drank 3 litres of water throughout the day.

and of course exercise. i went jogging for 60 min every other day, but started of very slow!

it really wasnt that difficult, i basically ( could have safed a lot of time here by saying this right away, sorry bout that) just cut out sugar and fat and i found important that i had my yummie-sundays when i was good through the week, so i had sth to look forward to! like the odd piece of choci or cake!!and when out drinking i had vodka&diet irnbru or lemonade, not that many calories...

i know these are not really recipes but this is the way i did it and i actually still stick to it now that im 24weeks gone and i must say that i am glad cause i did not put on more than 12kg so far...so fingers crossed!

delia online has a section with slimmers recipes - they were a life saver when I was dieting after baby no.1

you need to go low carbing. tis the only way i lost 4 stone since last may - shit you not. honestly.