Carb cycling...

Today I woke up after a great week really keeping to the plan, weighed myself just to check my progress, albeit three days early, and saw no movement on the scale. Fortunately I had already learnt about carb cycling and also remembered how the body holds on to fat when it thinks it is being starved. So I gave myself a higher count today. It's worked before.

Breakfast was 3 rashers of lean bacon and 2 fried eggs with one slice of Low GI seeded bread and a scraping of butter. Lunch was lentil and cracked wheat soup and an awesome new quiche recipe from a low GI cookbook. The filling was a huge surprise and completely different to any quiche I have ever made before. The crust comprised high fibre cereal soaked in a little 2% milk, flour, baking powder, salt, a little oil and an egg. It made a great crust, which was the first surprise, especially with the cereal.

The filling was the really big surprise though. The lean bacon, onion and tomato were quite normal as was the egg, milk, and maybe the yogurt...but the big difference was the tin of baked beans in tomato sauce! This was blended with the eggs, milk, yogurt, flavourings and spices and when cooked it was great! My lunch guests loved it and couldn't believe there were baked beans in it. I will definitely be trying out something along the same lines. An invention test?

Tonight my husband is grilling some chicken sosaties on the electric barbecue right here in the TV room while we watch Masterchef Australia. We love it and I get quite emotional, especially at elimination time. Watching the contestants improve and grow is such a treat and of course some of the dishes are so good, and then some of them are just plain weird.

Tomorrow I shall do my own cooking test, learning how to make naan bread from Anjum Anand's TV programme Indian Cooking Made Easy from BBC Lifestyle. I shall also make a curry to go with it. The coriander is growing beautifully in a pot outside my kitchen door and will be used to top the naan bread. The curry leaves from the curry bush will go into the chicken and vegetable dish which will be spiced with coriander, cumin and cardamom. I love my herb garden and more than that I love cooking with them. Simple joy.

Cook on!