Courgette cannelloni with beetroot salad & orange dressing

Recipe to serve one

For the canneloni
One courgette, thinly slice
Mix of low fat cottage cheese, mixed with 1/2 ricotta cheese
Salt and pepper

Dressing
juice of 1/2 orange
tsp of dijon mustard
Balsamic to taste
Combine all of the above.

Salad
Green leaves
Tomatoes
sprouted pulses
raw beetroot

This is a delicious, very quick simple lunch or dinner dish with lots of protein. Steam or blanch the courgette in salted boiling water for a few mins. Drain and rinse under cold water. If you don't do this, the cheese filling warms up and runs out.
Fill with the cheese mixture that has been seasoned. Roll and place on a layer of beetroot (for extra flavour you can chop herbs like dill, basil or mint and place in the cheese). Serve with a salad and dress with a tangy orange dressing.
Proof that delicious, tasty dinners take less than five minutes to make.

Guest Post: Tips to Dress Dropping Success

Welcome to one of the first in a series of guest posts. This post, from Belinda Muir, 50, a FitBitch graduate on tips that helped her to lose over three stone with the FitBitch healthy eating plan.

Eat more, not less
I used to skip meals or not eat anything but milky coffee all day in a bid to lose wieght. It just meant that I was so starving by dinner I'd eat enough pasta for two grown men with rich creamy sauces and a glass of wine. No wonder I couldn’t sleep or run for a bus! Instead, I learned to snack regularly throughout the day. I felt better, had more energy and it helped me lose weight.

'Prime' your kitchen cupboards
Always have FitBitch basics in the kitchen like eggs, leafy greens/salad, tuna, olives, tomatoes, cucumber, chopped tomatoes, frozen green beans, quinoa, ryvita, cottage cheese etc, along with lots of herbs and spices. It means that there is always something quick and handy that you can make, which tastes good and won't sabotage your diet.

'Spring clean your diet habits'
One of the first things I did when I received my Fitbitch Food Plan was to clean out my kitchen of anything that wasn’t on the list. It was a massive pasta funeral!
It’s tempting to hang on to certain things in a 'just in case' way, but what you don't have, you won't be temmpted to eat. And it's amazing the lengths you'll go to even to get to the top shelf when the craving takes hold. Remove the temptation.
surprising what junk you have lurking on that top shelf that you can just about reach.

Cut the evening carbs
Having to rethink how I'd been eating for years was the hardest aspect of the eating plan, in particular cutting out bread, potatoes, pasta, and rice in the evening.
At first, not feeling bloated when I went to bed felt strange. Perhaps I hadn't eaten enough? I thought. But I soon realised how much better I felt for it, and it helped me sleep well too.

Handbag Snack
I always take snacks to help me avoid temptation, if not an entire packed lunch then an apple of a couple of Ryvita with ham. You're much less likely to succumb to temptation if you don't even need to set foot in a coffee shop.

Tartare of Mackerel with Mint & Cucumber Soup

'Tis almost mackerel season and if you're not the type to go fishing (honestly, those little boat trips from Brighton Marina are SUCH fun) head to Fish in Shoreham harbour for spanking fresh mackerel.
I'm a squeamish pescatarian and I can still handle this dish so don't get all funny about the raw nature because this is delcious and the perfect FitBitch meal. I haven't put 'exact' measurements down as so many people fear cooking and think they've got to follow a recipe to the letter for it to turn out 'right'.What is right is how it tastes to you. Your taste is all that matters!

Ingredients
Fillet of mackerel
quarter of a shallot, finely chopped
3 gherkins, finely chopped
flat leaf parsley finely chopped
spoonful of Fat Free Total Greek Yoghurt
dash of Worcestershire sauce
dash of Tabasca
few capers

For the soup
inch of cucumber, peeled
half a garlic clove
bunch of fresh mint
dash of white wine vinegar
spoon of Fat free Greek yoghurt
salt and pepper to taste

Remove any pin bones form the fish, remove the skin and dice the flesh. Add all the ingredients together and combine in a bowl. Adjust the seasoning. Leave to one side.
To make the soup, combine everything in a blender and blitz until smooth.
Serve.Ta Dah!

Sea Bream with Spicy Cucumber Salad

Most people associate cucumber with summer, but add some spicy Asian taste and it can warm up any winter evening. This recipe is delicious and a perfect low GI, low fat protein dinner. (If you've done one camp or are running lots, add quinoa for a few more carbs).

Ingredients
Sea bream fillet - or the whole fish!
half a cucumber, thinly sliced using a cheese slice
2 tomatoes, quartered
1/2 a birds eye chilli,finely chopped (remove seeds if you don't like things too hot)
1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
slug each of fish sauce, rice wine vinegar and soy sauce
juice of one lime
freshly chopped coriander and mint

Squeeze the fish liberally with lemon, wrap in foil and roast in oven at 180-200 for around ten minutes. Meanwhile make the dressing for the cucumber, combining all the ingredients. Adjust for individual taste, pour over cucumber and serve with the fish.

Prawn, chickpea and curried mustard leaves

Ingredients (serves one)

1/2 can of curried mustard leaves (you can get this from the 'world' section of Tesco's Hove)
handful of cherry tomatoes, halved
handful of chick peas
handful of king prawns
extra garlic and chopped chilli to taste

Chop garlic and chilli if adding and saute in a little stock or water with the tomatoes on medium heat. After a few minutes add the curried mustard leaves, and chickpeas and warm. then add the prawns and cook for a further five minutes or until the prawns turn pink.Serve with quinoa.
This is a fantastic 'cheats' recipe which tastes delicious and takes no more than ten minutes to cook.



This is a great, quick dinner that takes minutes to cook and is d

Why you could be sabotaging your diet

If you are always on a diet but never seem to lose any weight, perhaps you are falling into one of these well known traps.....

'I exercise, so surely I must be burning off calories?'
Yes, exercise burns calories but not as many as you think and not to the point that you can eat what you like. How much you burn during any type of exercise varies according to your weight,length of time you work out, plus how hard you work out.
Yet most people unconsciously think exercise allows them to eat whatever they like, thus filling up the deficit they have just created, plus some!
Solution: Don't even think about exercise as a way of helping you lose weight. Think instead of changing your diet and you WILL succeed. Less calories in means less weight. And if you're thinking why bother exercising, don't forget that exercise boosts your metabolism and builds muscle to ensure your body looks good. There's no point looking slim if you can't get into a bikini because your body doesn't look good. Plus never underestimate the feel good factor that exists with exercise which is better than any other high, legal or not!


Drinks don't count, right?
And no, we're not even talking alcohol here. It's those drinks you take on board without even thinking about. The type where you get to the end of the day and if someone asked you to write down what you'd had, you wouldn't even mention because you've forget ten them or think that liquid can't possibly cause weight gain - or prevent weight loss. Think again.
A glass of orange juice, 200cals, a small semi skimmed latte, 100calories, a yoghurt fruit smoothie, 300 calories.
'So what?', you might think but if your aim is to cut 500 calories a day, one of these could contribute to half of that. Besides it's not just the calorie effect of that one drink that can have an affect.
If you keep not just that. drinking things that are sweet, you will always crave sweet. Fruit juices send your blood sugars soaring, then will leave you feeling tired so you reach for yet more sugary fixes.
Solution: Drink water and get used to it. Lots of people say they don't like water but it is because your taste buds are hardwired for the 'sweet tastes' of lactose in milk, sugars in fruit juices. When you get used to water everything else takes mega sweet.

Every magazine feature I read says olive oil is good for me
This is true as it is a fantastic source of essential fatty acids. But what's good for one person is not good for another if your aim is weightloss. Just one teeny, tiny teaspoon of olive oil is 42calories. Next time you cook with it,or use it in a dressing measure out how much you use. Oil has the amazing capacity to look like hardly anything when you put it in a pan but it's usually about a tablespoon or more. That's around 130calories right there.
Solution: Try different dressings that don't use oil such as yoghurt and mustard with lemon juice. Use different cooking methods, such as poaching or steaming. Even assuming you only cook with olive oil once a day that still saves you 910 calories a week. Do that for 6 months and that could equate to half a stone weight loss.

I'm doing exactly what the diet says
So, you're following the diet to the letter. Exactly. Not one foot wrong. And still you're not losing weight. Why? More often than not it's down to portion size. Just because something is healthy, too much of anything whether it's fruit, rice cakes or WeightWatcher's bars can scupper a diet.
Solution: Weighing things out is a pain in the butt but it is the only way to 'get your eye in' as it were. Weigh out the things you have most often, whether it's quinoa, oats, whatever and that will probably be the only time you need to do it. Or, if you know that hunger in the morning tends to make you pour out a big portion of muesli, weigh out seven portions and bag them ready for the week ahead.

here a nibble, there a nibble everywhere a nibble, nibble
You can do brilliantly eating the right portions and exactly the right meals. Then you fall down by over snacking.
Eating a few mini snack meals through the day is good but only if they are the right type of snacks. Two oat cakes with cottage cheese, apple with yoghurt. These are all great slow release GI foods mixed with protein that are high in satiety. When you go wrong is suddenly having a few too many nibbles of nuts, or those two oat cakes or rice cakes turn into five or more. The average oat cake has 50 calories, so that's a 250 calorie snack but the likelihood is you've discounted it in your mind and not even considered it food. Think about only taking out snacks pre-packaged in the exact amounts. If you're at home, then pre-package your snacks for the day and then get put the rest on a top shelf which requires you to stand on a ladder to get to them. AT least then if you eat them you are conscious of your snacking not just doing it habitually.

Steamed fish with Spicy Noodle Vegetable Salad

It's that picnic time of year when the sun shines and the temptation to just grab the old standards, hummous, French bread, a slab of brie, crisps and a cold glass of Rose kicks in. But therein lies disaster if you're following the Fitbitch way.
Obviously once in a while is fine but think laterally of all the other delicious things you can eat on the beach or the parks if you just put a little bit more thought into it. Like this delicious salad dish which you can make for dinner and then keep some spare for lunch the next day. It's packed full of protein, healthy Omega 3s plus low GI carbohydrate in the form of buckwheat noodles much better than rice noodles or pasta.
If you don't fancy fish, serve it with thin slices of beef or chicken.
Calories: 232, Protein: 26g Fat: 19 Fat: 6

Ingredients
Serves one
White fish fillet, (I used haddock but sea bream or sea bass works much better)
5p piece amount of buckwheat noodles
Herb salad (Infinity foods one is delicious!)
1 carrot cut into batons
2inch piece of cucumber, cut into batons
1dsp of mixed seeds

For the dressing
Fish sauce
Rice wine vinegar
Lime juice, squeezed
Orange juice, squeezed
Birds Eye chilli, chopped finely
1inch piece of ginger, sliced finely

Roast the fish in a piece of foil paper with a squeeze of fresh juice. Meanwhile make the buckwheat noodles and the dressing. All you need to do for the dressing is mix according to taste. Keeping tasting regularly until you get the right mix of sweet and sour. I like lots of chilli so use a whole one, too much for some!
Once the fish is done combine all the salad ingredients, dress and place the fish on top. (Note - add the salad leaves for lunch on the day all they will end up soggy).