Is anyone out there living in Holland
 

Hi everyone :wave:

Is there anyone out there (British or Dutch) doing the Atkins who lives in Holland? It would be nice to correspond with anyone living in this small but lovely part of the world.

Here's hoping to hear from someone :)

Dutchgirl2

Hey, DutchGirl!

I'm a Dutch-born girl, raised and living in Canada (yes, I know that doesn't help you much), but I WAS raised on good Dutch food and maybe we can chat and I can help you sometime. My Nedelandse is almost non-existant, though :D it's too long gone and was beaten out of me in kindergarten! :lol:

Hello there Island Girl :wave:

Nice of you to reply. I'm actually British, I have a wonderful Dutch Hubby and we moved here from the UK almost 3 years ago. Having said that, your Dutch is probably better than mine, it's one heck of a language to learn and the older you are the harder it is to learn (or so I've been told). I've put on around 56lbs since I came here, due to my greed and your wonderful Dutch food like boerenkool met worst and hutspot etc, oh and not forgetting the syrup waffles and cakes and pastries :D As I was saying to Fiona on the UK site I seriously lack ideas, so for any help or advice you can give, I will be truly grateful.

Bye for now
Dutchgirl2

Oh I hear you about that....

Once I passed puberty, the stroopwaffels and the stamppot met endijve (?), my favourite with hot bacon and dripping :devil: just conspired and landed all over me. Sigh.

Believe it or not, I've found a "sugarfree" stroopwaffel" here, but it's only fooling oneself, it's made with maltitol and and sets off the Sweet Thing in a very big way... too bad.

I have been able to enjoy a similar dish to the various stamppots, after all it's only the dam ardappel (potatoe to you regular folks) that's the problem. I make it with a pureed turnip, the white one with the purple shoulders, using the nutmeg and butter and boerenkool (kale) and yes, even the rookworst (double smoked country sausage). Makes a great special occasion dinner and very comforting to me!

I DO find, however, that too many processed meats (bacon, ham, lyoner sausage) come with too many carbs, as well as too much cheese which I absolutely adore (Gouda, mild and buttery, is STILL my absolute favourite).

Most nights we have roasted, grilled or sauted meats (beef, pork, chicken, fish) and a salad with leafy greens, cucumber, a nice zesty italian-style vinaigrette, with a little shredded parmesan or other strong cheese. I'll have a slice of tomato, my husband will have about a whole tomato and often a carrot with his. I find that between roasting, grilling or saute-ing, and varying that with the beef, pork, chicken and fish, and of course playing with herb and spice seasonings and simple sauces, the variety is actually a lot!

Sugarless gelatin is the regular dessert, with some slagroom (whipped cream) treat reserved for the weekends. I like to make a classic "fool" (how British is THAT?! :lol: ) and stir in fresh or frozen unsweetened berries.

Lunches are REALLY easy. I always cook about a third more in the meats department for dinners than we eat. I have leftovers all week, and those are usually my lunch. That cuts down on the cheese and deli meats. I eat those cooked meats cold and "straight", with fresh ground pepper and salt (I keep both at the office) or a good mustard and/or mayo (also at the office). Can also cut them up and make a fine "salad", which is great just eaten with a spoon or rolled up in a crisp lettuce leaf or two, or use a celery stalk as an edible scoop. I also keep a quality vegetable and/or chicken broth (the instant kind) in the drawer at work. Makes a nice change.

Hope this all helps! :daze:

PS: I LIKE messing in the kitchen when there's time (hardly ever, sadly) and will cook up a storm and experiment like mad for special occasions. Remind me to tell you about the TOMPOES (?) or Vanilla Slice recipe, and the Croquetjes recipes I worked up over New Years Eve in sheer self-defence against my relatives :D I think they're almost ready to be published :devil:

Sugarless Stop waffles?, tompoes? WOW!, thats my kind of cookin. I never had a sweet tooth till I moved here.

I know what you mean about lack of time though. I have to travel 2 hours by train and bus to get to work in Utrecht and it means I have to be up at 4.45am, I make sure I leave early enough to get home by 6.30pm but I often can't be bothered to cook something by then. I hear you ask " is she serious" (if my Dutch was better I might be able to get a job locally, but as it is I work for an international company so Dutch is not compulsory :D)

Hubby generally cooks T for the kids so I'm lucky there, but like you I do take some of those knorr boullion cup a soup things to work and they fill a hole (rather large one :o ). What I've been taking to work a lot lately is egg mayo with bacon which I seem to be hooked on. On my first Atkins 'attempt' I ate chicken, cheese, cucumber, 1/2 tomato and egg all mixed in mayo every day for lunch - for a whole month! Now I can't face it, how clever is that? :rolleyes: I definitely want to try the stamppot with turnip or swede, it sounds delish, not forgetting the rookworst.
Unfortunately we can only get turnip, swede and kale here in the winter so I try to freeze what I can.

It's times like this I sometimes wish we lived in America or Canada where things seem so much more available/accesible. talking of which, there is a company here which makes a spice/seasoning mix for boerenkool stamppot, andijve stamppot and also hutspot. If you should ever have the yearning it wouldn't be any trouble to pop a couple in the post.

Don't forget me when you publish your recipes :)

Dutchgirl2

Well doesn't THAT blow me away... I didn't know there was a seasoning for the various stamppots (other than nutmeg for the potatoes, salt and pepper, and the smokiness of the sausage of course). I'd LOVE to hear the ingredients list on one of the seasoning packets!

Meanwhile, TA DA! I've just gotten brave and posted my Tompoes (did I spell that correctly?? my Dutch is very phonetic :D ...) recipe over in the LowCarb Kitchen\Sweet Treats section ... LINKED HERE. Naturally, being a Vanilla Slice, which is technically a Napoleon style pastry, there's a bunch of steps and then assembly... but it was well worth it for a family special occasion such as New Years' and was all eaten up by a bunch of ravening Dutch people (not even low carbers most of 'em!) and a couple of Hungarians :devil:

Enjoy!

DutchGirl2 - I'm here too !!
 

Hi

Your last posting was quite some time ago so I wonder
if you are still around.....

I'm British (ex South Africa), and living in Friesland, been
doing Atkins since Dec 02. Not having very speedy losses
but since I'm not hungry I'm continuing.

Would love to hear from you
Val

Hi Val :wave:

Nice to hear from you. I'm afraid I don't do the Atkins anymore, although I still log on to the site around once a week and I also receive bulletins. I think it's brilliant that so many people have lost so much weight doing Atkins, (congratulations on your weight loss by the way). Any way here's my story. I couldn't seem to get it right, for various reasons, mainly I think because low carb foods are hard to find where I live. It might be different in your area but there doesn't appear to be any where in Holland that specialises in low carb items, though I did consider sending to the UK, (or the US where it seems there is no problem buying anything low carb) for some things but that was too expensive. To be honest, when I first started doing Atkins I was very enthusiastic and followed phase 1 religiously for 5 weeks, not one more carb than was allowed passed my lips and I lost about 17 lbs and was absolutely thrilled, at last something was working. Unfortunately after that period, every time I saw cheese, chicken, egg, cucumber and mayo (that was my packed lunch almost every day) I wanted to throw up. I couldn't find any sort of cooked meats that didn't have ingredients ending in ose, sucrose, dextrose etc, practically everything you pick up here contains zetmeel, and even labels on items giving a 1 or 2 carb reading contained sugar, also there are so many foods not labelled at all. I must admit, I enjoyed my bacon and eggs for breakfast though.
I did come on to the forum for advice and lots of people were kind enough to try to help. I started making crustless quiches but went overboard with the cheese and cream, and of course the weight went up a little. The downfall was my own doing, (stopping smoking also didn't help) I had a few days break and all the weight went back on so I started over again, that happened twice. It does say in the Atkins books if you yo yo with it 'so to speak' the diet becomes less effective and of course that happened.
Maybe if I'd persevered with it the last time it might have worked. I even sent 2 emails to the Atkins Centre, I called them twice and requested a mail order catalogue but I never even got a reply nor a catalogue.
Anyway, to date I haven't lost the weight, my BMI of fat is twice what it should be. so I've recently started following the Rosemary Conley diet which is based on normal every day food and seems to be working. I've also just started going to the gym 3 times a week, and after each visit I feel like I've climbed Everest in 20 minutes but they tell me it'll get better.
Well, that's my story, but what about you? Have you been in Holland long and how're you liking it? How're you doing with Atkins etc. It would be nice to hear from you again and you're welcome to email me if you wish on adriaaf~apci.com.

Take Care and good luck with your weight loss
Frances