The Diet Plate

A week ago,Sue and I were stuck in a restaurant in Alcudia Old Town for a very long afternoon while the rain absolutely bucketed down around us. What could we do, other than get drunk??

And drunk we got. Very.

Part way through this impromptu drinking session, we started discussing my happiness (which is often really quite low) and the fact that my weight has such a bearing on it.

The conversation went like this...

Sue (drunkenly): You eat too much.
FatFran: I know.
S: You do. You eat too much.
FF: Yeah, all right, I know.
S: It's not that what you eat is all bad. Just Too Much. Too much of it. Your portions are too big.
FF: You're being mean to me!!!
S: (mortified) Oh no! Am I?? You do though. You eat too much.
FF: Shut up! Leave me alone!!

...and so on and so on until I requested that we change the subject.

The conversation pissed me off a bit, truth be told. We left the restaurant, picked up pizza on the way home (Sue ate more of it than me - HA! God I felt smug!) and were fast asleep before 10pm.

By morning, when sobriety returned, I was no longer pissed off about what Sue had said, but it really was food for thought, because what she said was absolutely right. I probably eat enough for at least two people, most of the time.

So the task that I really need to tackle right now is portion control.

This morning, I crawled under my bed, rooted around and dug out something that I bought several years ago but have never used.

I present The Diet Plate™:

It sections out the plate into an area for carbs, one for protein, another for sauces and vegetables/salad are unlimited.

Close ups:

This week I will use the plate and will probably find that I cry with hunger. I'm genuinely anxious. I fear going to bed hungry, feeling like I've not eaten "enough".

FatFran is worried and a bit scared.

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Holiday: Part Two

We're heading towards the end of our holiday. Sue and I have discovered that, despite having condemned people in the past for taking this type of holiday, we quite enjoy being lazy and lounging by the pool, people-watching and indulging in the occasional slagging off of the embarrassing chavvy "Brits Abroad".

We are, unfortunately, staying in a truly horrible place. Our apartment is lovely but the area seriously blows. We're in an extension of Port d'Alcudia which is essentially a purpose-built nightmare for the Brits and the Germans. It is completely impossible to stay here and eat without it being a burger or pizza or a full English breakfast. They even do Sunday roasts with Yorkshire pudding which we saw a family tucking into at the weekend, complete with knife licking and a bottle of Heinz tomato ketchup. This place is utterly depressing.

So we've had to venture out a little bit...if only to save our sanities. We have discovered the very pretty Alcudia Old Town where we spent all of Sunday afternoon in a restaurant eating the best meatballs (albondigas!) I've ever had and drinking wine because it was pouring down with rain, and the lovely Peruvian waiter asked us to go to the discotheque with him. (we didn't go)

In proper Port d'Alcudia (ie not the bloody awful extension of it where we are staying) we have had some seriously good tapas, but it's an odd place, mainly filled with amusement arcades and men selling fake watches and comedy sunglasses and things that light up and sparkle when you throw them 20ft into the air. There are also lots of ridey things for children. This is Sue trying to fit into them:









In Port de Pollenca, I had my worst meal so far - a grilled sea bream which was painfully overcooked and chewy. Sue's seabass fillets were amazing so I can only think that whole fish scares the bejesus out of the chef. But there was a bar called the Lemon Lounge where we drank wine and had to force ourselves not to dive into the pool, fully-clothed. This is the bar:







We went back to Port de Pollenca yesterday and I had the BEST sea bream ever, baked in a salt crust and beautifully presented to me with a gorgeous pile of peppers. So delicious.

This is Port de Pollenca:



We've found Pollenca, the lovely old town where there is a beautiful square and a tiny hall that, oddly, sells drinks to tourists while little old local men catch up and gossip over a small beer. We climbed a hundred steps, turned down an offer to buy plastic handbags and gazed at some incredibly beautiful mountains. See:



We've run out of time to explore further afield which is a shame as Deia looks stunning...and we probably should have had a gander at Palma too.

The moral of the story is this: if someone offers you cheap accommodation that seems too good to be true, it probably is. Also, never stay in Port d'Alcudia. It's horrible. Sue and I would never have come here had we realised what it was like, although against all odds, we've had a really good time. We will, however, research our asses off for our next holiday.




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Holiday: Part One

My friend Sue and I have entered our third day of our holiday. I think it's safe to say that Day One was an unmitigated disaster.

We had rented a studio to stay in at mates rates. We pulled up at a, frankly horrible, apartment block and I saw Sue's heart sink through the floor. We searched for 302 and found it behind a door which we had both thought was a cupboard. Apartment verdict: depressing as hell. Balcony overlooking wasteland, next to no furniture, beds pull down from the wall American sitcom stylee...

And it was the beds where it went drastically wrong. Sue pulled one down to check it out and the smell of piss filled the room. We turned the mattress over: disturbed piss smell filling the entire apartment and uber enormous urine stain. QUELLE HORREUR!

We retired to the balcony to look miserable, stress our brains out and work out how we could avoid returning home on the next flight.

I was in possession of a 0% interest credit card and steely determination and non-compromising rage. "This is disgraceful and unacceptable!" said I.

I texted my mother.
Mother: turn the mattress over and put a towel on it.
FatFran: yeah, we tried that a little bit. It hums hard.

Sue's dad rang Sue: "The owner's elderly mother was sraying last week with a broken foot." The culprit had been found.

We ventured out and stumbled upon the first hotel, I handed over my credit card and we were out of there for one night. Up we went to our home-for-one-night-only. LUSHNESS. A whole apartment with totally comfy beds, a sitting room, humongous balcony and gorgeous swimming pool. Sue looked like she could weep. See?






BUZZ went my phone. Text from mother. "Stepfather would like to give you £ towards your holiday, please feel free to use it for accommodation (yep, I'm a very lucky spoiled girl - uber mega youngest child syndrome. God I adore my stepfather.)

And so we have stayed on in amazepartment. Relaxation has set in and Sad Sue has become Slightly Mortified At Having To Accept Funding From FatFran's Folks But Happy Sue. See again?





I'm loving it.

That said, we're stating in somewhere akin to Magaluf. It's pretty horrible. Dinner options are Burger King, KFC, Pizza Hut and a variety if other hellish joints. But last night we ventured to the Old Town which is gorgeous. We had an amazing dinner of fresh fish, beautifully grilled, crisp Mallorcan wine and came home happy and content.

And one of the best bits? There are lots of people here with bodies as ropey as mine! I don't have to feel bad about myself! My arms are exposed for the first time in years. HUZZAH! They are much browner than me though. BOO.


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Mincey mincey!

I MADE MINCE!

Recently, the thoroughly wonderful @MissWhiplash (follow her on twitter now, she's aces) made me dinner.  It was a fabulous affair - lots of booze, more bloody onglet than you can shake your hat at and the most incredible tarte tatin - she only made her own puff pastry!!  Anyway, while I was there, Whippy and I got talking about her Kitchen Aid.  She was telling me all about it and all the wonderful things that you can do with it, including making your own mince.

This excited me.  I'd been thinking for a while that I wanted to make my own mince, largely because I've realised that extra lean beef mince is a bit pants and I could probably make tastier mince from lean cuts of pork or chicken or whatever.  I mentioned this to Whippy who jumped out of her chair, rooted around in a cupboard for a bit and produced a vintage Spong mincer (photo to follow of the glorious item) for me to take home (darling Whippy, you're never getting it back.)

So yesterday, I made mince.  While I was extremely drunk on Saturday evening, I took a pork fillet out of the freezer to mince the following day.  Lookie look!!

How freaking cool is that?  And so quick and easy.  Seriously kidz, BUY ONE NOW.

I then retired to my bed for a nap (so hungover) and when I woke up, groaned at the mince and the effort involved in making anything at all for dinner, but decided to go simple with a version of the also-freaking-awesome @ShedLikesFood's vietnamese pork patties.

These should be made with minced pork, a little bit of sugar, minced up spring onions and a load of fish sauce.  I didn't have any spring onions so I just grated in a regular onion and they were still good.  Last night I had them with a squeeze of lemon juice over the top, some egg noodles and some broccoli.  Clean food after my unclean living over the rest of the weekend.  I made them for another friend recently and we wrapped them in lettuce leaves and had them with a dipping sauce (recipe for the dipping sauce in the comments below) - they were AWESOME.

Today I had the leftovers for lunch.  This is what they look like cold:

Not wildly appealing, so I decided to stuff them in a wrap with some salad, a little bit of low fat mayonnaise and a squeeze of lemon.  And it was yummy.  And I still have the two above left for tomorrow.  WIN.

I think it is safe to say, FatFran loves mincing.

World's Worst Dieter...

...and the award goes to.....

ME.  FatFran = big greedy fatty fatty.

I've put back on the 1.5lbs that I lost last week.  I can put this down to the following:-

Sunday: big fatty fatty dim sum session with my mum, sister and her three children.

Monday: big fatty fatty session with my sister at Da Polpo with lots of delicious booze (god I bloody love Da Polpo - embarrassingly a waiter there totally remembered me from the last time I visited about a month earlier...I do not recall ever laying eyes on him...to be fair, I don't actually remember paying or leaving that night either.  Have I told you how much I love Da Polpo?  A lot.  And they have the hottest waiter that I actually fell in love with last time...apparently called Norbert, which is BRILLIANT.)

Tuesday: big fatty fatty Pizza Express session with the family again.  I think that it's becoming clear that my family have RUINED MY DIET.

Wednesday: big fatty fatty steak and chips eating session with @miss_jordi at Le Relais de Venise.  HOT DAMN those are some fine chips.  And the sauce!!  The stuff of dreams.

So I think we can see where it may have gone wrong this week.

Seriously though, what the hell is wrong with me?  The whole point of this blog was to keep me on track, to sort of shame me into behaving and to stick to eating healthily.  I guess I could lie and pretend that I'm being good, but one of my colleagues is reading and she'd blatantly rat me out.  And it kind of defeats the point anyway.

I just don't really understand it.  I usually overeat and eat unhealthily like this when I'm feeling really unhappy, but I'm not feeling really unhappy at the moment.  I'm going on holiday very soon (although that's a bit stressful in itself - my holiday companion is all petite and gorgeous and the girl that every man falls in love with and rightly so - I'm going to look like a BLIMP) and I've booked tickets to Australia for next year.  Things are fairly good right now.  Yet I am out of control, I just can't be bothered to behave.

I'm feeling a bit stuck and useless and this makes me sad and I start to self-loathe a bit, because I'm so crap.  I know that I can do it - I lost 3 stone in 4 months 3 years ago for the love of god...so why am I not doing it?   It's self-destruction and it's getting a bit tired.