Trim Healthy Mama Fuel Cycle Update - Days 6 & 7

I'm feeling both excited and nervous about completing my Trim Healthy Mama Fuel Cycle. Excited to be able to eat a little more freely from the Trim Healthy Mama menu, and nervous that I will slip back into bad habits and put on weight again.

Doing the Fuel Cycle has given me a deeper understanding of the different food modes. It has also helped me appreciate how freeing the normal Trim Healthy Mama way of eating is.

This week I have felt like I was on a "diet", one which I hope will have revved up my metabolism instead of slowing it down, but still, I have felt restricted. I'm looking forward (with nervous anticipation) to the food freedom that tomorrow brings.

Shall I have S for breakfast? Or E? Or FP? We shall see!

Thank you for joining me in my journey this week. I hope it's been of some help and encouragement to you.

As usual, I'm sharing my planned menu below, along with the notes of what I actually ate and how I found it.

Day 6 (Refuel with E)
Breakfast: Trim Healthy Pancakes p. 223 with light Greek yoghurt and Slim Belly Jelly (p. 411)

Trim Healthy Pancakes

Notes: I whizzed up my Trim Healthy Pancake mixture the night before so the rolled oats would have a chance to soak and become more digestible. I cooked up half the batter today and saved the other half of the mixture for Day 7. Quite a bit of the mixture exploded out the side of my pancake maker, which I accidentally locked so there was no way for the pancakes to rise. Whoops. It probably saved me from eating too many pancakes, as I think a third of the recipe counts as one serve.

(The photo above is actually an older photo, but I wanted to show you how I cook my pancakes in a pancake maker, which means I don't have to flip them. Other THMers I know use their waffle irons or their sandwich presses to cook theirs.)

Instead of making Slim Belly Jelly, I whizzed up some light greek yoghurt with frozen raspberries, a pinch of green stevia, a pinch of salt and some vanilla essence.

Drink:  Earth Milk p. 425 (E version)
Notes: I've been nervous about making Earth Milk without all the lovely coconut oil in it, so keep making Chocolate Fat Stripping Frappes instead. I'm really look forward to eating S again, when I'll get back into my Earth Milk.

Snack: Apple slices with 1t almond butter
Notes: I had a small sip of my daughters' banana feijoa smoothie, ate a few cherry tomatoes and one dried apple slice instead. (Typical snatch and run snacking for me.)

Lunch: Sprouted wheat bun with salsa, tuna, light cottage cheese and salad vegetables (including tomato)
Notes: I pulled two previously-made sprouted wheat buns out of my freezer and heated them up in my pancake maker. Then I sliced them in half and spread them with a wedge of Lite Laughing Cow Cheese, salsa tuna, cucumber, tomatoes and baby spinach. It was really good, even if the sprouted wheat buns were a bit weird. I don't think my food processor did a good enough job of whizzing up the wheat sprouts, so there were lots of stringy and crunchy bits.

Dinner: Chargrilled Capsicum and Chickpea patties in lettuce hamburger

Chicken, pumpkin and quinoa risotto

Notes: When I opened the freezer, I discovered we only had one cup of chickpeas in there, not enough for this recipe, so I made Day 7's dinner recipe instead - Chicken breast and quinoa risotto. The recipe I've linked was more of a guide. I also looked up a couple of Annabel Langbein risotto recipes and then developed my own fusion based on the ingredients we had.

To make the risotto I poached a chicken breast in chicken stock. I already had 2 cups of cooked quinoa that I had pulled out of the freezer, so I softened this in a saucepan with more chicken stock, then added a cup of pumpkin puree, a few cloves of minced garlic, a large pinch of saffron and poured in the rest of the chicken stock from the poached chicken, along with the chicken breast which I first shredded. Lots of salt and pepper, and then I split the dinner into some for the family and some for me. I seasoned mine with Braggs Nutritional Yeast and then stirred through a couple of big handfuls of baby spinach. Into theirs I stirred a little grated cheddar cheese.

Now, I thought this dinner was really good. Maybe I was just hungry, but I enjoyed it a lot. Paul and L both suffered through theirs, and S fell asleep before dinner so didn't even have to try it. (Paul and L were wishing they had done the same.) 

Dessert: Tummy Tucking Icecream p. 368 (FP version)
Notes: Who has time to make dessert? Not me. I drank a delicious Chocolate Peppermint Fat Stripping Frappe instead. 

Day 7 (Refuel with E)
Breakfast: Trim Healthy Pancakes p. 223 with Cottage Berry Whip p. 379
Notes: For actual breakfast I ate a small apple sliced up and served with a teaspoon of peanut butter. That's because J had kept me up most of the night with teething, so I tried to have a lie-in in the morning. But that meant I was running horribly late for getting S to her gymnastics class. No time to cook up my pancakes, so an apple with peanut butter sufficed. I really enjoyed it. Just a smear of peanut butter is all it takes to make it delicious.

I came back and ate my pancakes after gymnastics, served with light greek yoghurt whizzed with raspberries and blueberries.

Drink: Chocolate Fat Stripping Frappe p. 240
Notes: Since I was already whizzing up berries to serve with my pancakes, I decided to make a berry smoothie today. I whizzed up almond milk, light greek yoghurt, blueberries, raspberries, the ONE strawberry growing in my garden, a couple of handfuls of baby spinach, vitamin C, a pinch of green stevia powder, salt and vanilla extract. 

Snack: Apple slices with 1 teaspoon almond butter (total)
Notes: Yes, except it was peanut butter and I ate it for breakfast (see above).

Lunch: Sprouted wheat bun with salsa, tuna, light cottage cheese and salad vegetables (including tomato)
Notes: We had a little leftover Quinoa risotto from last night so I ate this cold out of the fridge with some of my berry smoothie. It still tasted good to me today, even cold.

Dinner: Chicken breast and Quinoa risotto

Chickpea salad

Notes: I wasn't sure what I was going to cook for dinner tonight, since I made the risotto last night and didn't have enough chickpeas to make the patties I was planning. I also realised the patties would have used too much oil to cook, so that wouldn't work anyway with an E dinner.  

In the end, I was inspired by my sister-in-law who often eats chickpea salads for lunch. I decided to use the one cup of chickpeas I did have to make a chickpea salad. 

I simply sauteed diced onion and diced red capsicum together in a little bit of olive oil with a teaspoon each of ground cumin, ground coriander and curry powder. Then I added the chickpeas and warmed them through with the rest of the mixture. 

In a big bowl I placed baby spinach, chopped fresh coriander/cilantro, cherry tomatoes, cucumber slices and carrot slices. I served it all together in smaller bowls for the family. Everyone ate it. L was the least keen tonight, but S didn't put up much fuss at all. I'll call that a success!

Dessert: Piece of fruit
Notes: I'm coming down with a cold so Paul made me a hot lemon and Manuka honey drink. I also finished off this morning's smoothie, and drank a tablespoon of Olive Leave Complex.

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That's me and my first ever Trim Healthy Mama Fuel Cycle done. I would like to repeat it at some point, but it's not going to work with what we've got planned over the next week so I'm just going to enjoy regular old Trim Healthy Mama meals instead. 

I've been mulling it over and I think tomorrow's breakfast is going to be a Chocolate Muffin in a Mug. I've missed those this week. 

What are you having for breakfast tomorrow?

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Find my whole Fuel Cycle menu plan here.
Read my Day 1 Deep S update here.
Read my Day 2 Deep S update here.
Read my Days 3 & 4 Deep S and Fuel Pull updates here.
Read my Day 5 Fuel Pull update here.