I haven’t blogged in a while. You guys should blame Shaun T. Bros is kicking my ass big time. I haven’t paid that much attention to anything exercise in over 2 years now. I have always taken my weight for granted. Never weighed above 60kg all my life, well except a dark period in my life, yes I said dark period hahahahahahaha, when my weight ballooned to a whopping 67kg. Gosh, those were dark days. I didn’t even realise how big I had become until I started shopping for a bridesmaid dress for my friend’s wedding. I found this gorgeous purple dress, tried it on and thought what the hell. I have never bought spanx in my life, never had the need for it, but to wear that dress I needed industrial strength support. Madam Bride as they are prone to do, changed her mind and said she was no longer going with that colour, she wanted something else instead, and not just that, she didn’t want a fitted dress for her bridemsaids, but flowy, since her dress was mermaid shape. Till today, 3 years after, I have never worn that dress. The things we do for friends. I had to buy another flowly dress (which I have only worn once for the wedding), but still kept my spanx and wore it for the wedding. Horribly uncomfortable that thing is. I even heard B***magic is worse. Cripes, what we women have to suffer to look amazing. Men, just let their pot bellies and chubby selves all hang out.

Anyways, I got to Lagos for the wedding, everyone couldn’t stop talking about how big I was (i hadn’t been home since I left for school), and how much it suited me. Nah, I didn’t agree. It wasn’t until I saw the wedding pictures that I cringed terribly. Especially as the bride and I could wear the same clothes when we were at med school. She was even skinnier than me. The sharp contrast between both of us in the wedding pictures was painful to look at. Sharply, I registered at the gym. People, longest 6 – 8 months of my life, I only lost 3kg or so and I was doing a gruelling 2 hours a day at the gym 5 days a week with yoga twice a week in the evenings, nothing. Then I stopped eating out, totally focused on Nigerian home cooking, zero exercise and the weight slowly and surely came off. I didn’t even notice until one day I hurriedly picked up a size 8 pair of jeans by accident to meet up a GP appointment and it zipped up without struggle. Huh? Then I weighed myself at the GP’s office, and the scale showed 58kg. I remember it clearly. The sharp intake of breath and the jumping on the scale, the nurse said Miss, you may weigh 58kg, but all that jumping is going to literlaly break the scale. Looooooool. That was 2 years ago and I have been yo-yoing between 58 and 60kg. Now I am 61kg, cripes, and once that climb starts, onwards and upwards it goes. I blame it on you guys, yes, you guys. All the cooking for the blog is beginning to show. I need to drop 3kg.

Luckily I joined this healthy focused group on Facebook. As much as I would like to mention their name, I can’t because they are trying to control numbers of members, to make it as close knit as possible, and people that is one of the greatest showing of sisterhood I have ever seen. We women can be bitchy, backstabbers sometimes, but when we come together for a cause that affects all of us, the overwhelming support, encouragement, sharing of real life weight loss stories is simply amazing. If you are on a weight loss journey, I suggest you find groups to join. The journey is easier when you are not doing it alone. From the group I was encouraged to buy the Shaun T Hip Hop Abs DVD. I already tried Insanity and that workout is truly insane. Sorry, life is not that hard. I tried just the Fit test, just the Fit Test and gave up after 20minutes. Now, my workout regimen is this dance-exercise video and it is simply amazing. I am on my 5th day now, I combine it with running in the evenings with Funmi and I can see results already. No joke. The fastest result I have ever seen, faster than months at the gym. Getting my body sexy for summer. After 1 month, if I am not too shy, I will post a picture. I also drink what I call a power smoothie 30 minutes before my workout. It was a recipe given by Temitope of Stunnababez cuisine. I adjusted it to consist of 1 banana, 1 Apple, 6 strawberries, 2 teaspoons of Apple cider vinegar, 2 tablespoons of oatmeal (soaked in cold water, not cooked), a few dollops of greek yoghurt and a handful of spinach. Blitz in a blender and that’s it. I have pictures on Instagram. Follow @dooneyskitchen.

I don’t intend to stop my Nigerian cooking. It worked for me in the past, so I am sticking to what my body knows how to digest and metabolise quickly. I thought to blog about this to help people on the weight loss journey, to introduce tasty dishes to your menu. This is a warm kidney beans and traffic light peppers (red, yellow and green as my lecturer at Plymouth called it) salad. It is common with us Nigerians to see salad as majorly uncooked ingredients, but you can lightly cook ingredients for a salad. This dish is very filing, spicy and smells amazing, plus it is good for you. Just proteins, veggies and olive oil. Very quick and simple to make. A good choice for post work out dinner.

You will need
Kidney beans
Traffic light sweet peppers – red, yellow and green
Chopped red onions
Grated Ginger
Olive Oil
Soy Sauce
Salt
Seasoning cube – optional

How To

1. Soak the kitdney beans in cold water overnight. This is very important. Kidney beans can be toxic if cooked straight. So, soak it in water overnight, throw away the water, give it another rinse before you boil it with salt. Alternatively, you can use canned already cooked kidney beans, but I would not advise it. Cook it yourself and drain out any excess water left after boiling.

2. Cut your peppers longitudinally into strips and season with salt and seasoning cubes. I wouldn’t advisse you to use any dried spices like curry, thyme because you want to give it some freshness. It is a salad after all. If you want to use anything extra, use fresh herbs like rosemary, basil (efinrin, scent leaf), or fresh thyme.

3. In a wok, heat up some olive oil, throw in the chopped red onions, and grated garlic. Let them saute for a few minutes, till the onions soften.

4. Throw in the sliced peppers, and stir. The water content of the peppers will leach out into the pan, give you the much needed liquid that you need. Let it continue cooking, till about half of the water has been absorbed back or evaporated and the peppers have softened a little.

5. Throw in a few dashes of soy sauce, and stir. Lower the heat

6. Add the Kidney beans, give it one final stir and further lower the heat, to allow the kidney beans absorb the flavours in the Wok. Re-season if you need, and take it off the heat. Allow it to cool down a little, till it gets warm, or you can serve hot if you wish.

…………….and that’s your Warm Kidney beans and Sweet pepper salad.

As Chef Fregz will say, this one is for #teamfitfam. Don’t you just love how snazzy that word is. Teamfitfam. The others just sound bleh and unoriginal.

Keep Calm and eat Kidney Beans