Diary of the Ration Challenge: Day 2
I woke up at 5am today with hunger pangs. I hope my body adjusts soon. I managed to power on through without breakfast, because it meant a bigger lunch. I’m not great at small portions. I did however start the day with a precious cup of tea and even a splash of milk, so that made me very happy. By having none yesterday, I can have one cup of tea a day for the duration of the challenge now.
After a morning of meetings, I was so ready for lunch! I made flatbreads with a few kidney beans. It was so good to have a non-rice meal and it was pretty flavoursome. The only trouble was that as soon as I’d filled my stomach, I automatically wanted more and I was hungry for much of the afternoon.
There is quite a lot of prep/cooking to do, so I made sure to cook my dinner while I was full from lunch. I used my whole weeks’ ration of chickpeas to make 10 small falafel, which I will stretch to two meals with rice. I also grated in some carrot for some extra goodness.
After much deliberation, I chose carrot as my one vegetable for the week, but 170g doesn’t amount to much. Rather than cook with it, I knew that I would relish the raw crunch in a diet of otherwise soft food. So the carrot you see in the photo was my afternoon snack. I’m making sure to enjoy every mouthful and not take anything for granted.
My energy levels started to nosedive mid-afternoon, and I’m finding everything a bit of a struggle now. Mind you, that could be the heat rather than my diet. I feel simultaneously hungry yet bloated, which isn’t very pleasant!
For tea I had plain rice with falafel, and the weeniest spoonful of my hard-won tinned tomato. I have big plans for that tin of tomatoes this week!
If I get hungry before bed, I made some rice crackers (cooked rice, pulverised into a thick paste with a drop of oil, rolled into balls, flattened and baked until golden).
Difficult moments:
having to toast crumpets for the boys and not be jealous
resisting the urge to lick my toddler’s face, which was smeared with butter and Marmite
catching a whiff of frying onions on the air as I was desperately trying not to think about food
