Family Duty

I visited my grandparents earlier today, and now I'm feeling a bit down. Not about the fact that my visit took away the fun of the annual "Grandparent Birthday Card Sweepstake" (in which you guess how late my card will arrive), but about the whole family thing.

My family isn't big. My mum's an only child, and my dad has two childless brothers. I don't have a single cousin. And both my sister and I have reached our mid-late 20s without any sign of children. Not too unusual compared to our peers, but compared to the ages when my parents and grandparents had children, getting on a bit. (Not to mention the fact that I'm not sure I'll ever want children, but probably best not to shatter their dreams just yet).

One of my uncle's old school friends was round there for the weekend, with his wife and two small children, and it really struck me how much my grandparents liked having the kids around, to play with and pamper. They may not have been family, but they were treated like the most important people in that house.

I don't know, it just made me feel bad that I can't give them something they obviously want. Not that I'm suggesting I'd go out and breed just to make my grandparents happy, but I just feel a bit down.

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I also started to wonder today whether I'm getting just a bit too obsessive about my food. I popped round there at about 11, and they wanted me to stay for lunch. But I knew that I have a fridge full of fresh healthy food at home that I need to eat up before it goes off, and that I'd rather eat that. This coming an hour or so after I tried to gently dissuade my other grandparents from taking me to a hotel they like to eat at for Sunday lunch when I go to visit them next Sunday. I keep trying to get through to them that I really don't see an overcooked traditional Sunday lunch as a treat, particularly when there are no veggie options that I can think of.

I want to relax more about the quality of what I eat, but I just look at some of the food other people eat and wonder where the taste is. I'm not saying that their tinned tomato soup would have been a particularly bad option, just that it wasn't as nice as my freshly made lentil dahl soup.

I wonder whether I'm obsessive about my cooking and eating, and whether I need to put quite so much effort into it. But then I look at what I eat, and wonder how on earth I manage to eat stuff that's so tasty without being absolutely huge. I talk a lot in general terms about how much I love my food, but rarely talk about it in detail so I thought that over the bank holiday weekend I'd make a note of what I eat and share it with you all.

So here goes. First the health warning is that (despite my recommitting post) I'm more on a maintenance phase than a weight loss phase, so I'm more relaxed than I could be about things like cheese and good fats. And secondly I exercise a lot to burn at least some of this off, on Saturday I ran 5 miles and Sunday and today were nearer 7 miles.

Saturday

Breakfast - Fruit porridge with yoghurt (basically I make my porridge with water in the microwave with a serving (80g) of frozen fruit stirred in. I then stir in a pot of low fat fruity probiotic yoghurt)

Lunch - home made broad bean and mint soup with a couple of slices of wholegrain bread

Evening meal (at the rugby) - lentil, broad bean, feta and cherry tomato salad on a bed of watercress, rocket and spinach (homemade of course!), followed by apricot and apple compote with fat free plain yoghurt, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds and linseeds.

Snacks - a little 70% chocolate, an apple and a pomegranate, a slice of wholegrain bread with houmous.

Drinks - water, 1 espresso, a couple of glasses of red wine

Sunday

Breakfast - fruity porridge

Lunch - tofu and veg stirfry - the veg in this were asparagus, red pepper, spring onions and spinach, together with noodles and spinach.

Evening meal - aubergine, leek and tomato lasagne with onions a la grecque and a portion of steamed veg (carrots, sugar snap peas and baby sweetcorn)

Snacks - a little 70% chocolate, 2 slices of wholegrain bread topped with ricotta and raspberries.

Drinks - water, 2 espressos, 1 hot chocolate and more red wine than yesterday.

Monday

Breakfast - fruity porridge

Lunch - homemade lentil dahl soup with wholemeal bread

Evening meal - chickpea and vegetable casserole with onions a la grecque and asparagus

Snacks (so far) - 70% chocolate (see a theme developing?), wholegrain bread with ricotta and raspberries, one of my grandmother's freshly baked cookies

Drinks - water and (probably) wine

The end result of all this yummy food (other than me feeling absolutely stuffed full!) is that the freezer is now FULL. I broke my own rule by buying new pots to freeze things in rather than eating some of the existing stuff first, and I've run out of room to put those pots. It's time to start eating some of the stuff I've already cooked. The only problem is that these new recipe books are just too tempting!