First of all, here are some ingredients that I always keep in the house, so that they are available in times of need: Plain yoghurt, eggs, chopped tomatoes in carton, bananas, nuts, frozen finely chopped spinach, and frozen clams and scampi (some brands of these can be quite expensive, but they are very reasonable at Rema 1000 supermarkets).
Lunch
For the last 10 years I was used to eating crisp bread for lunch every day. I got this habit during the Grete Roede courses and I kept it, since it is easy, nutritious, filling, low on calories, and fits perfectly with the Norwegian lunch tradition. This has worked perfectly for me for losing and watching weight. However, since I started to train harder in the spring of this year, in terms of both more running and more strength training, my trainer Ketil advised me that I needed more proteins. Since more proteins means more calories, something had to be cut out. So we decided to go down on carbohydrates on one of the meals of the day: the lunch. Hence, for the last 6 months, I have been eating salad with added protein (chicken or tuna or ham) for lunch. It is actually much more filling than crisp bread; the calorie count is the same, but I get more proteins and less carbs. This works perfectly when I am at work and can buy salad in the cafeteria, but when I am at home I am sometimes too lazy to make a salad. Or perhaps I am just back from a run and too hungry to take the time to start cutting salad ingredients. Of course you can keep ready cut salad in your fridge, but if you end up not using it, it will quickly get soggy. That's why I find the frozen alternatives more convenient. Spinach and tomato soup: Pour a carton of chopped tomatoes into a saucer pan and add half a bag of (or as much as you'd like) frozen spinach cubes and bring to boil; turn down the heat and simmer until the spinach is warm (doesn't take long at all). Season with salt and pepper, and add extra heat if you'd like. Your soup is done! It has practically no calories, so you can have as much as you'd like, and it's quite filling. I sometimes make this before going to a dinner party, to avoid being too hungry and not being able to control how much I eat.
Spinach omelet: Spinach soup is fine but it does not have enough proteins to be a proper meal in my opinion. Add less of the chopped tomatoes (or leave them out completely), and add instead two eggs, which you simply scramble in the pan together with the spinach. If you have more time, you can start with frying in just a little bit oil some chopped scallions and bell peppers, before you add the spinach, and then the eggs at the end when the spinach is warm. You can also add some cottage cheese for more texture and even more proteins. Season with salt and pepper, and add cayenne or Tabasco for some heat if you'd like to. This is delicious when served with fresh tomatoes. It is surprisingly filling, and it keeps you full for many hours!
Spinach with sea food: This can actually go for dinner as well, because it is even more filling. To the spinach soup, add frozen clams and scampi, as much as you wish or as much as your calorie count allows. Sea food is very high on protein and low on calories and fat, so you get to eat quite a lot. For seasoning in this, I like to use some Tom Yum paste, Thai fish sauce, and the juice of half a lemon, in addition to pepper and some heat. If you don't have those ingredients, it's fine to use salt and pepper, or whatever other seasoning you'd like. If you use fish sauce, be careful because it is very salty, so don't use additional salt. You can also add some tomato paste, or bell pepper paste to get a thicker consistency, and then add some more water so that you get more on your plate.
Dessert and snack
Sometimes you just want something sweet, and then it's nice to be able to make a quick dessert or snack without sugar and too much calories. The recipes below are very much inspired by Ketil and one of the sweetest Barry's Bootcamp instructors and personal trainers, Petra Malmqvist. Petra is studying to become a nutritional physiologist, and she generously shares amazingly tasty and simple recipes.Ketil's ice cream: The original recipe is with already sweetened yoghurt, for example vanilla yoghurt, and just a little bit normal unsweetened cocoa powder. Here is my variant: Take plain yoghurt into a bowl and simply add either light instant cocoa drink powder (for example Toro rett-i-koppen instant cocoa drink light), or a few spoons of diet protein powder with chocolate taste. Stir well to get the powder nicely integrated into the yoghurt. You can now either eat it just like that, or put it in the freezer for a few hours and then eat it as an ice cream.
Petra's pancakes: Mash a banana and add two eggs and plenty of cinnamon. Stir until it is smooth. Now you can make one big, or two or three small pancakes out of this. Just lightly oil a pan, and fry them just as normal pancakes. Be careful when turning, as the consistency is a bit loose. Surprisingly sweet!
Banana and yoghurt treat: Roast a few chopped nuts (I like to use walnuts and almonds) in a small pan, and then add a sliced banana. Stir until the banana slices are warm and soft, and add cinnamon. Now add this hot mixture to a bowl of plain yoghurt. It is fresh and sweet, warm and cold, at the same time. Surprisingly filling and really tasty.
Whatever-you-have-in-the-fridge smoothie: This is very much inspired by Petra. She put her variant on Instagram one Sunday, and 5 minutes later I had mine ready with the ingredients I found in the fridge and freezer. You can really use almost anything you want, as long as the tastes go together. I used: A little bit mango sorbet that I found in my freezer, half a banana, a few frozen cloud berries (multer), one cup of no-fat no-sugar (Yoplait double 0%) blueberry yoghurt, and a little bit fat free chocolate milk (Tine Styrk). Add all these (or similar) ingredients into your blender and pulse for a few minutes, and its ready!
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