The vegan 7 day plan fat club review - Days 4,5 & 6

 Well, here we are again, probably need some disclaimers so hold fire while I make some up...

1) I am a vegan and there is a strict vegan code that says I have to tell you about it every 5 minutes in case you have forgotten - yes I know it's annoying and repetitive but being a vegan (for the first 18 months possibly more) is like the first time you find a new food thing that you are obsessed with - Like the first time I found bacon bits was a thing at the Harvester (other food outlets are available) I had to have bacon bits on everything and tell everyone else about them at every opportunity - my friends, random strangers in the street, in the middle of professional meetings, whenever anyone was eating anything without bacon bits... well you get the picture.  It's no different to when Madam C found out she could click her fingers (something else she doesn't get from me) and she must show us 7 bazillion times a day even though we just bloody saw it and made appropriate proud parent noises. 

2) In the same vein I don't care what you eat so long as it makes you happy and it's not Yorkshire puddings because you know how I feel about those.

3) I am not affiliated with any brand, company, plan, diet, that I may discuss here, and this is purely my honest experiences. *I only added this bit in case I ever become like super famous, and people try to sue me, and it seems to be the done thing. 

4) My mother lives with us, we do not live with my mother - it's a subtle difference but I want it known no matter what she says otherwise. 

5) Yes, we do have to have endless photos as evidence of my suffering - I mean experiences. 

 

After 5 long days of suffering "if it’s not on the plan it's not going in" and refusing to stand on the scales before the official date for fear of total defeat I asked the husbeast last night if he thought I had lost weight. He refused to answer, which of course in my brain meant he didn't think I had. I am nothing if not persistent, so I badgered the poor sod who was just trying to have a shower in peace. Eventually he said, "no comment" and I told him that was just as bad as calling me fat and that he had to at least give an explanation with supporting evidence (It's the teacher in me) as to why he wouldn't answer my question. The following explanation (with evidence) was provided:

"When I came home last week and you were in a foul mood I couldn't decide if I had cheated on you and accidentally sent you a video of it, or I had killed your mother" - Now admittedly not the response I was expecting, and we'll gloss over the whole foul mood point but what I will focus on is his genuine confusion about whether he had cheated on me and sent me a video. Firstly, I'd like to think if he had cheated on me, he would remember and the fact that he might have taken a video and then sent it to me is frankly mind boggling and that’s his answer to whether I lost weight or not. Secondly how could he have killed my mother when he wasn't even here? I had questions... many which is proof that I am as easily as distracted as my mother. When I finally stopped for breath with my barrage of questions he continued "Well it took me 2 days to realise you weren't mad at me for any of those things but that it was because you were still fat" - It wasn't quite as bad as it sounds written down and after being together for 20+ years I'm able to interpret the intention behind the words - didn't stop me going into a rant about the fact I'm still fat to which he deflected nicely with a comment (that made me blush)  I couldn't possibly put on here about how he knows I'm not fat and to shut up.

 I digress - let’s get to what everyone is really here for - the misery, my terrible cooking and a stupid Vegan plan that may or may not work this week.

Day 4

Breakfast

The plan's advice - have a hearty breakfast fry up - without actually frying anything. Well first it's not a fry up if we didn't fry anything so lets not make it more jolly than it really is which is either: Lets knacker some more pans with some crappy no calorie oil or boil the snot out of everything instead. Despite my feelings about describing things inaccurately (none of this was fried) I will at least concede that the end result was indeed hearty. 

Mum came bounding into the kitchen waffling about just having toast thank you very much before I pointed at the meal planning board (oh you best believe I have a board for this crap) and informed her of the impending fry up. She was mollified, she has views on fry ups, so I didn't inform her of the actual lack of fry or up - she found out the hard way. 

As you can see from my photo, I used a certain brand of sausage which while probably the best nonmeat sausage option in its original creation is just a sad sad sausage that it is against the trades description act to describe it as such. What I did learn from the previous days was that applying very liberal amounts of marmite to my allowed bread did improve things marginally? It was hearty it was filling, and mum actually ate some – admittedly she did spend a long time in the bathroom afterwards but what she does in there is her business. 

Lunch: Kebabs

Are you fucking kidding me, prior to this day you’ve had me eating like a bloody rabbit and now after your hearty fill her up shenanigans you want me to have kebabs? For lunch? On a Sunday??? Mum and I agreed we were too full of the “fry up” that we mutually agreed we could skip lunch. I won’t pretend I didn’t see the relief in her eyes like some kind of hostage negotiation. 

In between this I forgot about my food service delivery that in my head would help with this whole slimming journey of adventure being plant based and good for me, which I ordered prior to my I’m gonna fucking follow this plan to the letter and prove a point (again still not sure who I’m mad at or what I’m proving to anything). Well mum was like a kid in a candy store “can we go back to eating real food now?” NO MUM we bloody can’t we are eating this pre-planned shit for the rest of the week and I’m getting a sticker, or we are all going to suffer. Pretty sure what she mumbled under her breath was along the lines of “we are all suffering already”

Of course, now I have a box of food that is going to go to waste (note it’s been at least five minutes until I used the V word) which goes against this weird image I have in my head of being not only “one of those people” but also eco friendly and frugal. I can’t waste food I can’t un-stubborn my commitment to the pain and suffering – I mean the plan and if I take pity on my mother and cook it then I’m going to have to eat it and it’s all going to have been for nothing… The plan has nothing to say about forgotten boxes of potential yumminess because you know that kind of forward thinking would actually be more useful than their “grab and go” suggestions or how to stay on plan in the office guide. I mean come on I can’t bloody stay on plan in my house what chance do I have in office??

Dinner – Lentilnaise

Oh yeah its as yummy as it sounds and nothing like the spaghetti bolognaise they claim its going to be. Putting naise on anything does not make it the same. Lentils are lentils no matter what you do to those buggars. FYI I cook lentils like I cook rice – basically claggy mushy not naisy crud. To add to injury and to give mum something to complain about I served it with wholewheat spaghetti – so mush on not very pleasant might actually be shreddies pasta.

Which appropriately brings me to my OXO rant – other stocks again are apparently available and have better branding. I love that they do a range of meat free options and I love the fact that clearly normal families all eat the same thing and leave their cubes in the boxes that they come in. BUT no not in this house, in this house all the stock cubes go in the communal stock cube pot identifiable in type by their branding, colour etc which is a problem when OXO do this:

I MEAN COME ON – I’m bloody miserable, none of this food tastes like real food, my mother has taken to having supermarket deliveries of chocolate and things that taste good because they have an actual fat content and you pull this fuckwittery? So now I have to play some weird stock cube Russian roulette every time I pull out a stock cube and add it to my dinner? Not dissimilar to my previous blog I sent a very strongly worded email to OXO giving my opinions on the whole matter, once again I am not expecting a response more a lifetime ban on their email account poossibly with a picture of an angry fat vegan pinned on the office walls of OXO and no actual surprise shipments of stock cubes for life.

By this time it’s Sunday night – the food box problem still needs to be resolved, I have to go work the next day and this arrives:

The pandemic has a lot to answer for. So of course, now I have to open the first box and there is real actual bread in there and peanut butter and ALLLLLLL the calories, well there is only two options – cook it and eat it and sulk about my weight on Wednesday or cook it and freeze it. 

I cooked 4 dishes of 8 meals that evening, and I hope to hell that inhaling the smell of calories while drooling like Pavlov’s dog does not in fact equal weight gain. I did search the website of “the plan” for guidance on this but as yet there is none. I may send them another email to suggest this is made available. As a woman at the start of one of the many “blessed” events that occurs in her life time – cooking all of these meals at once in a hot kitchen was not my wisest move. There was sweat coming from places I’ve forgotten I have, I’m pretty sure at least one of the dishes has added salt as a result and I cussed a lot while opening all the windows and doors and allowing every insect of the night to chew on my fleshy sweaty body. Stay classy!

Now as part of the plan there is a suggestion that you could add in some fitness into your diet and not fit ness in my mouth which is an entirely different concept. I have a lot of views on exercise and mostly they are to avoid it like the plague. If I actually did any exercise, I wouldn’t be slimming in the first place. The last time I did any kind of exercise was when the girls in my class at school nominated me for the 1500 metres at sports day with the end result being that I didn’t get a medal (participation awards were not a thing in those days) and the caretaker had to come and tell me to stop “running” as he needed to shut the grounds as it was well past home time. With this in mind making multiple trips to the freezer was not an option and against my mothers protests I opted for the put everything in the washing basket and take it all at once. Considering this is the woman that says we can’t have anything in the house that doesn’t have a dual purpose I found her protestations to be null and void.

Now any normal sane already sweaty and now bitten to shit fat vegan would call time on a Sunday evening, but I have a  fridge full of vegetables and another box waiting to be opened. Therefore having never ever fermented anything I decided that this night was the night for fermentation, I mean it’s kind of the same as pickling how hard can it be? I don’t have an outcome yet but I did put together some representation of Kimichi (which is apparently the most amazing thing I’m ever going to put in my mouth and after this week is probably true), The key thing I have to remember is to attend to it and let the gas out every few days otherwise in my mothers wise words “there will bloody shitty stinky fermented kale whatever else you put in there and glass all over the pantry and it’ll be this sucker that has to clean it up” – always good to have my mother’s support when I have clearly reached the peak of madness from this week of slimming.

Day 5 –

Woke up to discover that I have pushed my mother too far, at least at the beginning of the week she was trying to hide the additional eating she was doing to make up for my offerings – clearly in the night she thought fuck that and decided to no longer be discreet about it – instead choosing to half stuff the evidence in the sofa. (Yes thats a bar of caramilk not to be confused with caramac)

Breakfast – Tofu Toast

Finally something I can make, know what it is and doesn’t taste that bad – as breakfasts go I’ll give 4.5 on the basis I over did the sulphur salt. We won’t discuss the teeny tiny toast – it’s still miserable. 

Lunch: Grilled Veg and Cous Cous.

This was a relief because there are vegetables all over the house, plus low effort, chop up any old vegetable lob it in the pan, don’t add oil because oil = fat = flavour = enjoyment and lob in the oven. Pro Tip – don’t forget about it and after 4 hours wonder what that strange charred might have been a fire smell is – you’ll have to face my mum’s rage about burnt pans and how much you can realistically expect a dishwasher to actually achieve and start again. Note she was stuffing a prawn sandwich in her face at the time proving that she’s gone back to her I’m 60+ I can do what I like approach. Cous cous isn’t offensive, unless you don’t put butter in it (see previous comment about fat and flavour) or any other kind of flavouring. I ended up drowning it in lime juice – it was edible, meaning either I burned off my tastebuds with the limes acidity or I have succumbed to the plan and become someone who thinks putting chocolate powder in quark is just like a chocolate mousse (it isn’t and thank the heavens that no one has been stupid enough to try and replicate a vegan version of quark yet because that would probably finish me off.)

Tea – Gardeners Pie

Boost your weight loss with this amazing pie made from natures bounty – or some such crap. Reality – chop up a lot of veg based on what you have, have a game of stock cube roulette and add a stock sauce – or as I like to refer to it a lot of water with a smidgeon of who knows which stock we got and lob on some mash potato – made with just potato. You already know how this is going to go – cook for 25 minutes and enjoy. Now I don’t know many professional gardeners but based on this I can only draw my own conclusions which are that either they work so hard they’ll eat anything no matter how tasteless and raw, or they are so proud of their natures bounty they’ll eat it out of stubbornness or that they are in fact exempt from eating a pie named after them. I cooked that bastard for an hour – it was still raw. I called mum down for dinner by announcing sadness pie was ready to prepare her in advance.  

Day 6

Breakfast – I don’t even know what was on the plan I don’t care. I refused to look and ate half a melon and some yoghurt because to be honest it’s one of the reusable breakfast ideas for vegans on this plan anyway.

Lunch

I’ve abandoned the plan, I have leftover “food” everywhere, nothing is enjoyable and I’m busy and can’t be arsed. I ate left over cous cous and vegetables because it was a least in the plan somewhere. Mum had already snaffled I have no clue what but she hid the evidence so clearly it was enjoyable. 

In between

Not technically in this weeks plan so day 6 I broke the if it’s not in the plan it’s not going in but I did write it into the plan after if it counts? But my genius might have sent me weird videos husbeast got pitta pockets – glorious pitta pockets of joy – I made a sandwich, it was amazing – sandwiches rule. 

Tea -Speedy Sausage Pasta

Mum and I had a serious conversation about the likelihood of this being speedy or pleasant, we broke the rules, and we changed the sausage brand significantly altering the calorie count – we didn’t care it was an act of rebellion – mum and the husbeast announced they would make me a sticker if I don’t get one tomorrow. I felt guilty so I shoved some green shit on it so I can at least yell at group tomorrow I ATE GREEN SHIT TOO! You know because the scales will take that in to consideration when I stand on them. It wasn’t glorious and it wasn’t speedy but it was edible and mum actually cleared the plate and didn’t go raid the pantry which is apparently now her bedroom.

 Weigh in tomorrow – apparently mum and husbeast have an urgent joint appointment scheduled for when I get back.