Hi everyone

I need urgent help! I’ve woken up in a complete funk. I’m sick to death of working from home (have been since March 2020 due to covid, I am DONE with it). I’m a university lecturer and my students are giving me a tough time at the moment, bored of being in lockdown now and worst of all we’ve just found out that our wedding in April, which we’ve already scaled down and postponed twice due to covid is unlikely to go ahead in April so we’re looking at postponing AGAIN. I am trying so hard to stay on plan but everything in me is screaming at me to dive into vats of comfort food – so I need some ideas for things that would be comforting but on plan! Please don’t anyone suggest soup, all it does is remind me of being very sick as a little girl!
Thanks!
Lauren

Hello Lauren,
Keep going. Its so tough isn’t it! I’m not a university lecturer but working from home is awful for me too and so many of us are struggling.
I don’t know what sort of things you find comforting but I really enjoy crispbreads (quite low carb and countable) with pate on them, or sometimes I go for salami and soft cheese, or a handful of nuts, or cucumber with homemade dip (usually use sour cream and soft cheese with a seasoning), or I melt a babybel for a few seconds in the microwave.
Last night I nearly caved and dived into the family’s pasta, but managed to pull myself together and I had a fried egg with melted cheese on it which was really tasty.

I know its still soup but the best you will ever have. Recipe in the BSD book for Spanish chorizo and chickpea soup. Chunky, warming, tasty and goes well with a Rye bread cracker. Breakfast today for me was a big bowl of berries – mixed winter and raspberries, frozen, defrosted in the microwave topped with flaked almonds with a greek yoghurt stirred in. Hot and cold at the same time and reminds me of summer with all the berries.

I fully understand, and would recommend if you are going to detour off plan, do it with calories rather than carbs – my 2 penneth worth, but that’s what has worked for me so far, and you can always cut back on the cals tomorrow.
So yes to cheese, salami, pate, eggs, olives, full-fat Greek yoghurt – the kind of foods that every other diet you have ever been on tells you not to eat.
I avoid nuts as I can’t be trusted to not eat a whole packet and that’s just not worth the calories. 1 tablespoon of Marmite peanut butter gives a hit of both salt and fat, and unlike ordinary peanut butter it is difficult to eat more than a tablespoon. I appreciate this may not be to everyone’s taste!
Other distraction techniques may help until the craving to comfort eat passes – set to sorting and tidying a cupboard or drawer or some other inane thing you haven’t yet exhausted in lockdown 🙂
Exercise may also help, depending on what works for you.
Try on clothes you want to fit back into (not your wedding dress obviously) and remind yourself why you’re doing this.
Step away from the pasta…………..

Great advice RubyG. It is the carbs that do the damage.

I have found in the past that when I am really stressed to the point of spitting tacks going down the gym and working out with weights lifts my spirit with just a half an hour session. Obviously if you are in the UK gyms are closed at present, but exercise in that involves the same busts of energy as weight training will have the same effect.

So sorry about the stress you’re under and disappointment over your wedding. I can totally understand you wanting something nice and comforting to eat.

I agree with Ruby – if you’re going to break the diet do it by eating a few more calories, not scoffing carbs.

A really indulgent treat is to get a wedge of brie (one sold as an individual piece, not a slice off a bigger one). Cut in half and put cut side up in heatproof dishes. Pile in pecans or other nuts and seasoning and bake for 15 minutes. Either eat with a spoon, or dip in slices of celery, apple or carrot.

Or how about smoked salmon and scrambled egg as a bit of luxury?

Cup of coffee with lots of cream?

Thanks all, I should have mentioned I’m a bit weird with eggs (have to be rubber bullet hard and I can’t eat them with anything other than mushrooms or ham – I just can’t bring myself to add veg or peppers or cheese to an egg, particularly anything Asian flavoured 🤢) and I don’t like fish – I’m a fussy one! But thank you for your kind suggestions, I tried to combat it with a portion of cowboy beans (from the fast 800 book – I half the portion size so mine only works out 93cal per portion and reasonably low carb) on a slice of “breakfast bread” from the clever guts book with some feta on top (trying to replicate beans on toast!) but I can conclude:
Breakfast bread is foul – will be throwing the rest of that out!
I thought I’d bought “salad cheese” not feta, not keen on feta cos it tastes like a sheep, but alas I’d bought feta.
Beans were nice though, didn’t really hit the comfort spot though! Try again with cauldron sausage and cauli mash with sprouts tonight. Other than that I’ve just shut myself away in my spare room with litres of water and tried to just plough through the mountains of work! Would normally go for a walk to chill out, hardcore exercise is not for me, I hate everything about it and I do not get a buzz from it, but it’s mega windy here and I sprained my neck at the weekend so can barely move!
Anyway sorry for the whinge and thank you all for the suggestions!

It’s as if you read my mind with this post. It’s exactly how I’ve been feeling today (also working from home on my own since March and feeling fed up). I ended up going over my 800 calories, but kept the carbs low and ended up snacking on cheese and some walnuts.
As the others have said, it’s better to avoid blowing out on the carbs if you can.

I’m hoping that these feelings are just temporary and it will get easier.

Florob85 – just in case you have made a very common error… The cowboy beans recipe is for 2 people so half of that is for one and comes in at 309 calories and 41g carbs, so very high in cals and carbs. Even if you ate half of the single portion you would have had 160 cals and 20g carbs plus the bread, plus the feta. Around 250 cals and 50g carbs. Sorry….

No problems sunshine girl, I don’t pay any mind to the calories in the book as they are all wrong, I just look for inspiration for recipes and then calculate myself. those calories in the book include the whole meal bread which I didn’t have, and I only had a quarter of the recipe which i made with less oil and less passata – everything weighed out and put into MFP! The breakfast bread recipe was about 120 a slice I think, beans 91, feta about 50 and I do TRE so don’t eat breakfast so eating 300-400 for lunch is fine for me.

PS Sorry sunshine girl I know you were trying to help, I didn’t mean to come across as snippy

Just to clarify – MY recipe for cowboy beans which I divide into four portions is:

236g tinned haricot beans (236 cal)
1.5 teaspoons olive oil (58 cal)
1 onion (40 cal)
250g passata (69 cal)
Garlic x 2 cloves (4 cal)
1 tbspn Worcestershire sauce (5 cal)
1 tspn paprika (1 cal)

Total – 415 cal for four portions
Just over 100 for one portion
11.1g total carbs for one portion, 6.2 fibre and 5.6 carbs

No worries florob85, you would be amazed at how many people make the mistake of thinking the recipe is for one person. Even had someone who made a 4 person meal and ate the lot and thought the diet was great until they realised 🙂 I know you were doing the right thing but we can all make mistakes and I still do stupid things, in my case because I am so used to it I think I have got it sussed and then something catches me out. Keep on keeping on…

Hope you’re feeling a bit better florob85.
Regarding your post the other day about what you don’t like to eat – try to focus on what you do like and which fits into the plan. It is a mindset thing, focus on what you can eat, not on what you’re missing.
So for instance on a Saturday night we have started to have a steak – good quality steak, cooked well, and instead of chips we have a simple side salad. The main point of that meal is enjoying the steak, which we do, very much. Also, because our appetites have adjusted to 800cals per day, we physically can’t eat the same quantity anymore, so sometimes it’s leftover steak and salad for lunch the following day.

You said you will eat eggs with ham? Try this – line a muffin pan with 2 slices of square ham overlapped, drop in a whole egg, sprinkle on some paprika and/or oregano and black pepper and bake in the oven until cooked enough for you. Delicious and carb-free. I often make these if we are doing a road trip or going on a picnic etc.

Good luck!