COCO BUTTER: Cook-ups: still finding my balance

Hi hi!

So it's Day 2 of the May round! And I'm going strong! Woo! ;)

Week 1 food prep

I've been spending so much time getting organised, and I feel it's going to pay off. The last few days has been all about my kitchen. As in, cook-ups.

I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but I hate cooking. It's not that I 'hate' it as such; I just find it incredibly boring, and the process gives me no pleasure. The result, however, I do like that!

But the actual 'doing'.... blah. It annoys me.

So this is why I don't understand how someone like me continues to persist to do these huge cook-ups!

Flashback to around a year ago, where I did 2 cookups that were so huge that I actually cooked enough food in one night to feed myself for 3 months, or a whole round. And I have an average sized freezer!

Cupcake quiches: a freezer staple

I decided I can no longer handle that magnitude of cook-up. It's emotionally taxing and I would end up close to tears and so over it, always finishing at 2-3am, hating the world. :) It's taken me a while of trying different things out but I worked out a new way of preparing meals: the New Grand Plan. I would just cook a bit extra when cooking dinner. Like most people do! That way, I'm not cooking 'extra meals' as such, I'm just making a larger batch of what I'm cooking anyway, and after a few dinners, I'd end up with a healthy stock of meals in the freezer!

So with this in mind, I spent some time over the weekend customising my meal plan for Week 1 and ordered my shopping online. I hadn't

ordered online in a long time, so it was a bit exciting!

In my planning, I ordered extra quantities of 4 meals, so that when I cooked them for dinner, I could put the extras away, as per my New Grand Plan. I also ordered the ingredients to make a double batch of 12WBT Cupcake Quiches because they've been a freezer staple of mine since I started 12WBT, and also the ingredients to make a roast vegetable salad that I made up.

However, despite my decision to longer partake in self inflicted stressful kitchen all-nighters, I somehow I still managed to spend the last 2 nights in the kitchen, till very late! I drive myself crazy! The first night I made the cupcake quiches, then 12WBT Spaghetti Bolognese (as my dinner), the vegetables for my salad, and prepped this weeks food.

During the night I realised that I was going to have to make most of my meals in the next day

My protein pancake tower!

or two rather than leisurely through the week, because I'd bought all of the ingredients already and they wouldn't remain fresh all week. Up there for thinking, Kate! Augh!

I also realised I wanted to eat these meals in the very short term, instead of keeping way too many frozen 'back-up' meals than I need, which end up sitting there for so long. I may as well enjoy the fruits of my labour straight up! So I did a stocktake of my freezer so I knew exactly what I had / will have this week, then sat down and meal planned for Week 2 and Week 3. It was fairly easy as I had a list of meals I wanted to use up, I just had to slot them in. It worked out that after cooking the other 3 meals that I had the ingredients for, that I would have enough meals to last me from Week 1 through to Week 3.

So, on the second night, I made 12WBT Beef Pad See Ew (as dinner), then made a huge

12WBT Beef Pad See Ew: INCREDIBLE - you have to try it!

batch of my choc banana protein pancakes, then a batch of corn fritters. It sounds easy, but again, it took me all night and I was so over it! I was delayed slightly when I went to make the Beef Pad See Ew and realised that I had ordered a microwavable chicken pad thai meal with rice noodles, rather than a packet of rice noodles by themselves! Augh! The perils of online shopping. So off to the shops for one item I went. There's always one missing ingredient!

It doesn't sound like much when I write it down, but making 3 meals of 22 serves in one night takes so long - especially when you're over it from a long night in the kitchen the night before making the other dozens of serves! I kept saying to myself, at poignant times, like when I was balancing

Multitasking! Mindset video + meal prep in one!

a huge tower of protein pancakes onto a plate, "why can't I be normal?" Cook-ups are great, I just need to get some moderation and balance into my cooking life.... I thought my New Grand Plan was a nice compromise, but making 3 weeks worth of meals in 2 nights is still a huge thing. I am an all or nothing person, even in the kitchen. I don't do things by halves!

My goal for Week 4 is to be normal!

My freezer is now absolutely packed to the brim, but together with my meal plan, completely streamlined and ready for the next 3 weeks! I have to buy fresh spinach and feta once or twice a week, and any fresh snacks I want, but other than that, I have every meal ready to eat for the next 3 weeks! I kept telling myself last night that I will appreciate my efforts 3 times a day for the next few weeks, so it will be worth it. And I am appreciating it already. I got home tonight and I had an amazing looking meal on my plate within about 5 minutes.

Other than that, I'm looking forward to a bit of time to focus on the rest of my goals, and not

My double decker rewards chart I took so long to do

have to spend much time in the kitchen for a while! I'm on track still and it's the first weigh in Wednesday of the May round tomorrow so it will be cool to see what I am!

I updated Operation Polka Dot Dress and was happy with the changes in 1 week.

I have one more pre-season task to do (my love / hate task, 'Organise and Diarise.'

I still have to do my personal mini milestone goal for the week and the 12WBT weekly challenge.

I made my new rewards chart on the weekend so that's got me pretty inspired, too. I wanted to draw the chart up to Christmas, which I've done, but I miscalculated and made a chart double the size by mistake. (Note to self: don't try and do maths in the Big W aisles when buying cardboard on a very empty stomach.) I was starving the day I went to buy the cardboard and counted wrong so made double the charts I needed.

Anyway so far so good, last week I got 7/7 days of my nutrition goals, 7/7 days of my training goals, 2/7 days of my sleep goals, and 4/7 days of my water goals. I'm proud of the first two! I haven't had a perfect week of eating or training for a while. I had a 6 week

I relished Rest Day today - only some stretching required!

blitz at the start of the year, before falling down through March and April. And the whole of last year was one huge fall down. So I've pulled myself back up again and will try to keep this going! I'm especially happy that I managed to hit my training goals on my non boot camp days, which I always struggle with (as I have to motivate myself). But each day I've just made it a priority and routine to get it done. And it's working!

Anyway, speaking of sleep goals...................I do need to get to sleep, I'm up for boot camp in 4.5 hours. Talk later! xx

More photos below:

Dinner tonight in 5 min!

12WBT Spag Bol: dinner plus extra serves

This was so good too! My lunch yesterday and today: the 12WBT Ham, Avocado, Tomato & Cheese Toastie! Yum! (It's hard to get a good pic of this) :)

12WBT Beef Pad Thai Ew. It tasted like real Thai food and the portions were huge! Just the way I like it!

I used carton egg whites for the first time! I only needed egg whites for my pancakes....I've never used this before as to me they're not fresh...but the ONLY ingredient is the egg whites, and this way worked out more economical with no yolk wastage on my behalf.