Week 22 & 23 : Lanzarote Restaurants — Watch Out!

I am sooooooo sorry. My blogging has been massively shite of late, but basically my life was 'illness, holiday, shitloads of work, illness" — and that was it for a month. But I am back on it now so should be able to bring you all the events from the the last four weeks in a funny yet succinct manner. You may just have to settle with succinct. Or maybe not even that.

So, after a week of sickness, it was finally time to get out of the country — THANK FUCK. I was a bit wary of packing on the pounds whilst away, so the plan was to enter everything I ate into MFP. Needless to say, that plan went out the window once I shoved the first mojo-covered Canarian potato into my gaping pie hole (incidentally, I am totally off pie-based products these days).

Steak, Canarian spuds, pork, chicken AND salad.

For me, one of the best things about going on holiday is the opportunity to eat nice food. And Lanzarote had plenty of it. We stayed in a fantastic self-catering apartment in Puerto del Carmen called Montana Club, and on the first night there we had a very delicious BBQ in the pool bar. I did get a slightly odd "Helloooooo!" from the chef who was distributing the food — at first I thought it was because I'm so darn attractive, but I then figured it was probably because he had just realised he’d run out of little Spanish sausages (the last one went to BF — nooooooooooooo!) and he needed to create a distraction (too late mate, I clocked it). However, he did give me a massive pork chop to compensate, which I split with BF for half a sausage. It was pork well spent in my opinion, as that chorizo sausage was delicious.

We opted for self catering because we like to get up late on holiday, and we decided to keep lunches simple. Sandwich and crisps and then back out to lounge by the pool. Why does everything taste so much better on holiday? Everyday, we ate cheap ham and cheese in a baguette with garlic mayo, with crisps and a cake for afters, and it was always really tasty. Yet if we ate that at home, we'd consider it the shittiest lunch ever — weird. Also, I know French bread is a bastard when it comes to calories, so although I was missing breakfast, I was more than making up for it four hours later.

The holiday was filled with excellent food. There was a lot of variety, but one thing we agreed on was that we would not eat at any Italian places — that is just too shit. I mean, we even avoid Italian at home as a rule, so I certainly wasn't going to eat it on holiday. However, we did end up having a Chinese on the second night… shame! It was here I realised I really can't eat satay chicken curry. It's too fucking sweet and makes me feel a bit ill. It was beautifully cooked, but not to my taste. The night before, we had Mexican, where I ate a massive burrito and had some chocolate tequila — LUSH! I also had my only dessert on this holiday here, which was cold hot chocolate poured over a scoop of vanilla ice cream and topped with whipped cream — really very nice.

Slightly embarrassed when this giant plate arrived…

I also had the best tapas of my life on this break. The restaurant we visited had 4.5 stars on Trip Advisor and was the only place on the whole holiday where we had to wait for a table, But boy, was it worth it. We ordered a little too much, despite the owner telling us we needed to cut a few dishes. When the last dish came out, I was just poking it with a fork and looking stressed. The owner came and stood by the side of the table and with a glint in his eye went "Full…?" Cheeky bastard. I wanted to shout, "DUDE! I'M GONNA BARF!", but I just nodded — he could tell I was suffering so he didn't rib me further. Everything we had there was absolutely fantastic. We had delicious bread with spicy garlic butter, a deconstructed tortilla with sausage, garlic prawns with octopus, pork in blue cheese sauce (my favourite meal on the holiday), and mini pork burgers with a frozen shot of their amazing sangria. Taberna de Niño, we salute you. 

Burgers, prawns, pork. All eaten.

On the fourth night, we had a barbecue after we had visited Timanfaya National Park, and after what can only be described as a white-knuckle coach ride. Big coach + small road = me crying. Honestly, I thought we were going to topple into some volcanic crater/ravine. But that was me being a baby — the driver was excellent. Which made it worse when I realised we had no money to leave him for a tip for not letting us perish in the volcanic landscape.

It was on this death trip that we met an 81-year-old man who was on holiday alone. His wife had been placed in a nursing home due to dementia back in England and I am guessing it had been a stressful six months for him, because he told us his son booked this holiday for him as he probably needed a break. He very much enjoyed talking to the young folk, especially as he seemed quite lonely here on his own, and he was actually a pretty interesting guy. However, he kinda made us come to his hotel the next night (not for any shenanigans!) because they put on big shows there and stuff. We were going to try and wriggle out of it, but he REALLY wanted us to come, so we obliged.

So the next day, we trot up to his hotel, but not before I walk into a ruddy great big CONCRETE BENCH. Oh yes. In the busy street. Outside an even busier cocktail bar. It hurt like a motherfucker, but that's what you get when get distracted by some girl's hairdo. I kept turning my head to look at her (whilst walking at speed because we were late) and before I knew it, I was planking in the fucking street like a nob. FUCKING MORTIFIED. FUCKING PAINFUL. 

We got to the hotel, and it turned out our new friend wanted to have dinner with us… I should add that there were two Irish sisters that we had met on the same trip who were also roped into this plan, so we weren't alone in this odd situation at least. Because new buddy wanted to pay, he took us to this road side cafe that he had been into for lunch a few times, as it was cheaper than the hotel buffet. We didn't want to let him to pay anyway, so we should have just gone to somewhere decent, because this place was pretty unglamorous. I ended up having a bolognese pizza (and thus breaking my Italian food rule) but one of the girls had a tropical pizza that had pineapple, banana and apple on it. Eww. Anyway, I was annoyed as wasting a night of good eating in some tiny Spanish version of Little Chef, but my BF said it was the right thing to do, as this guy really wanted the company. Anyway, after a few jugs of sangria, I didn't care so much. BF kept saying to me "Hey, it's a story at least" — and he was right. I've waffled on about it for three paragraphs!

On our last night, I finally squeezed in some paella, which was very important on this trip. I feel really bad saying this, but I still kinda prefer the one I get in Tesco… I know, I know — I have no style whatsoever. Oh well. It was very good, but I couldn't finish it because I had eaten a shed-load of Canarian potatoes as a starter, whoops. They were just so darned tasty and always came with three sauces, so I couldn't resist. Didn't eat a single fucking salad like I said I would, but fuck it. And then I also stuffed in one more tapas meal before we left, during which we caught a Northern woman have a really awkward argument with a Spanish waiter…

I stared into this plate during the aforementioned argument.

I really didn't feel like I had stuffed myself on this holiday and was feeling quite virtuous, but then I remembered one thing I hadn't taken into account : alcohol. And I had drunk copious amounts of it. Beer… cocktails… the free shots they dole out after every meal… sangria… all empty calories. Delicious, empty calories.

So, my weight before I went away? 11st 5.8lbs. And when I came back, I had put on exactly 3lbs. Now, considering I had put on the same amount after 48 hours in Cambridge a few weeks earlier, I was pretty chuffed. 3lbs over a week was tolerable.

But fasting again after my holiday was not, apparently…

Week 20 & 21 : My Giant, Consuming Body

Sorry for the delay — I have been mega ill and kinda still am, so blog activities have been on the back burner. But seeing as I will be on holiday next week and will have lots of food-related stories to tell you when I get back, I figured I should probably sum up the last two weeks.  Let's start with Week 20.

As I was not going to be home on my usual Weigh Day, I had to check in on the scales a day early (Friday). To my surprise (but total delight) I had shed the 0.8lb gain from the week before — woo! BRILLIANT. I was very happy to start my weekend in Cambridge with my uni gals with this very delightful news. So what better way to celebrate than to buy a half dozen box of Krispy Kremes, eh? YUP. If I hadn't had such a heavy and FUCKING EMBARRASSINGLY SQUEAKY suitcase to wheel around Liverpool Street station, I might have even gone for a dozen box. But thankfully, my inner Jiminy Cricket wasn't silenced by me stuffing a doughnut in its mouth — it was able to speak out and make me realise that three girls do not need to eat four friggin' doughnuts EACH over the course of their 48 hours together. And so a six pack it was, which we happily tucked into with a lovely glass of prosecco when we arrived at the hotel.

It was a lovely weekend. We had a disappointing Italian meal the first night (me and my friends agreed that there was nothing worse than wasting precious calories on SHIT FOOD), but we got over it. My mates both looked lovely, by the way. They have both lost weight recently and they looked gorgeous. I have to admit, it made me feel a bit guilty that I hadn't done as well as them, but this was not a weekend to calorie count.

We had a cooked breakfast at about 11am in the hotel, which was delicious, and then we headed out to see the sights. That didn't take long because Cambridge is surprisingly small. We stopped off at a tea shop called Fitzbillies at about 2ish — I'd overheard a girl on the train recommend it and it did not disappoint. So I had a scone with clotted cream and jam, and a pot of tea. By the time we had finished it was about 3.15pm, which would have been fine, if we didn't have dinner booked for 4.45pm. FUCKER. We wanted to get drunk that night so had decided to have an early dinner, but we were all feeling pretty full after our cakes. DOUBLE FUCKER. So we wandered around the shops in the hope of building up an appetite... FUCK.

Turns out, this was not a problem. We went to Cau, an Argentinian steak place that had good reviews on Trip Advisor. We all had a steak each, with triple-cooked chips, garlic mayo, coleslaw and onion rings. OH. MY. GOD. Get yourself down to this restaurant, people! It was absolutely amazing — the best steak I have ever eaten. It was so amazing that I totally forgot to take a picture — sorry! I was worried mine was on the more raw side of medium, but it was actually cooked to perfection. We were stuffed by the end though, so we waddled back to the hotel. I immediately started stuffing myself into control pants AND control tights… We had a fun night out, marred only by the fact the fucking garlic sauce repeated on us BIG TIME. It was so bad that we could actually tell when one of us had burped on the dance floor  — SEXY!

We left the next day, with terrible hangovers, obviously. But it was a fab weekend. I started to feel a bit ropey come Sunday night, but I assumed it was just because I was hungover. But the real nausea was to come on Monday morning when I got on the scales... 11st 8.8lbs.

Five pounds. I put on FIVE FUCKING POUNDS in one weekend.

FUCK CUNT SHIT FUCK CUNT FUCK SHIT FUCK MOTHERFUCKING MOTHERFUCKER.

That is pretty much the last clear memory I have, because since then I have been incredibly ill. And I have been ill for over a week now. Most people would lose weight, but I've still been eating, so my weight has only come down slightly to 11st 5.4lbs for Week 21. But still, that's better than nothing eh?

To make matters even worse, I've had to shop for a swimsuit for the last-minute holiday my boyfriend and I are going on. Cue lots of crying. Never go looking for a swimsuit whilst you are chubby and delirious.

I would really like to not pile on the pounds on the holiday, so we are doing self-catering — we don't get up for breakfast so we'll just have a sandwich at lunch, and then dinner and drinks in the evening. If I only put on a pound or two, that would be great. I normally like to enjoy my holiday to the max, but it wont make me feel better if I go mad and put on loads, so I am going to try and stay a bit focused. This might be a bit easier given that we are going to hot Lanzarote, so the heat might make me want to eat more salads. Here's hoping....

... even though right now I am speed-eating a carbonara and have actually got it in my hair.

I am disgusting.