I love this coffee + A couple of things I've been cooking

A lot of times I turn to tea and coffee when I feel the need for a distraction or a nice ritual or just something to consume (this would be very familiar to those who have given up something like sugar!) But recently I had been having trouble getting to sleep at night so amongst other things I stopped having caffeine after lunch. I already had some nice herbal teas from Tea Tonic, so I needed a good decaf coffee. I chose this one: Republica 100% Pure Decaffeinated which I found in Coles.

It was well worth the 10 bucks I spent on it because to me it tastes as good as regular coffee and the fact that its fairtrade and certified organic doesn’t hurt either! Now I always bring it to work with me and to my boyfriend’s house and it’s a nice ritual to enjoy after dinner instead of dessert.

Thought I’d share some things I've been making that are paleo/primal. This is a breakfast hash (recipe in the link) made with pumpkin and bacon and other nice things. Damn it was nice and I was able to use leftovers for lunch the next day as well! Excellent. 

The other day I made a simple salad for lunch:

I used baby spinach, tomato, avocado, crispy bacon and pan fried haloumi with a dressing of 1tbs olive oil, 1tbs apple cider vinegar and 1tsp mustard. Delicious and easy, woo hoo!

And now for a bit of a laugh here is a link to "The Many Stages of Eating Paleo." Love it!

For the times when it isn't easy...

Most days I am glad to say that following this lifestyle is easy and I’m so grateful that I have found a way to help myself that doesn't involve drugs or therapy. Most days I appreciate all the amazing food I can cook and eat and how it makes me feel so well and healthy.

BUT…some days, the fact that I can’t just eat a double-coated Tim Tam whenever I want really gets me down. It can be a number of different things that sets it off – seeing an advertisement, smelling the fresh, warm cookies being baked at Mrs Field’s, even just the scent of vanilla can do it. Or the fact that I’m having a shitty, blah day. I remind myself that eating that Tim Tam will not only lead to eating the whole pack and starting a cascading binge, it will also give me heartburn and bloating and who knows what other digestive upsets – not to mention affecting my thyroid. So that’s why I don’t eat the Tim Tam. But SOMEDAYS – you know those days right? Everything just feels pointless and meaningless and too hard and I hate the fact that I can’t just be normal.

Thankfully, those days are usually few and far between and I’m so glad that most of the time anymore I don’t suffer the symptoms of binge eating disorder. But those bad days come along sometimes and the most important thing is that we acknowledge that they are happening, and that it is just a phase and will hopefully only last for a day or so. So if we can get through them, without bingeing, there is even more chance that we will feel better soon. Then again, even if I do end up caving and binge eating, I am a lot more equipped these days to get myself back up on my feet sooner and to deal with what is happening. It’s not the end of the world, anyway. The important thing is that we never give up and we just keep trying. 

Farewell, sugar. It hasn't been nice knowing you...

It has come to my realisation that I will never be able to "moderate" myself when exposed to sugar. I thought that I would be able to have a little bit now and again but for whatever reason, when choice comes into the matter and there is the option of being able to have some, it just screws with my mind and I want to binge on it. I mean, sugar is an addictive substance so it is not surprising that having a "little bit" just makes you want to have more and more.

So I have decided that what I was doing during my 3 weeks of no sugar - i.e. only having sugar in the form of whole fruit - is what I want to continue to do for the rest of my life. The only exception I will make is for parties and special events, because I think it would be nice to be able to bake something for occasions like that and I do love baking, and I have lots of people to share the food with. But in day to day life, living without sugar and starch is now my norm. And I am happy to live without binge eating.

As I promised myself the other day, I have stopped weighing myself and obsessing over what the scales say, and I think it has made a difference. My work pants are looser than they were the other day! So I think that shifting the focus away from "losing weight" and onto just living day to day life as healthily and actively as possible, is the key. Besides, as I know from experience, the scales are not always reliable!

I had to take my car to get serviced yesterday, and pick it up today, and both times it involved a half hour walk. Luckily the weather is a bit cooler and overcast, but I still slip-slop-slapped. Today after I picked my car up I drove it to a local park and did some sprints, inspired by this article from Mark's Daily Apple. Like skipping, sprinting appeals to me because it doesn't take long!

This World (And Sugar) Is Driving Me Crazy!

So I have officially completed 21 days without sugar! And guess what, I lost track of what day it was and thought that day 21 wasn’t until tomorrow, when in fact it was yesterday… I am so glad of that because today I caved and had sugar free pineapple jelly and felt guilty about it, haha! Until I realised I had already completed my challenge (I was also doing no artificial sweeteners). 

Anyway, so where am I at and what have I learnt if anything?

-          Well for starters, I can now eat 85% dark chocolate and it tastes amazing. This coming from a girl who always used to hate dark chocolate and until recently 70% was the highest I could go.

-          Cutting out sugar helped massively with binge eating. There were a few days where I was restless and bored and felt like eating but stuck to fatty/protein snacks and rode it out. Now I realise that my #1 trigger for binge eating is when I am bored/restless. I think the second is when I feel like what I am doing isn’t working and I get frustrated…like today but more on that later. So next time I feel bored/restless I am going to do everything in my power to avoid bingeing because I know that is a vulnerable state for me.

-          I want to continue to eat mostly sugar free but will occasionally have things like super dark chocolate or baked goods using stevia or rice malt syrup because at least they don’t have fructose in them, and only for special occasions where I can share with other people.

-          I actually have pretty good willpower…I have sat through multiple instances of other people eating dessert around me, like last night where everyone got (free!!) frozen yoghurt, and only felt mild jealousy. But I wasn’t going crazy itching to eat it. I think that advertising affects me the most…go away sugar industry!

So today I weighed myself and had gained weight since yesterday (yes I have been weighing myself every day at the moment, I know it is stupid), after a week of a weight plateau, and it really got me down. Because I was so friggin’ healthy yesterday. Only thing I didn’t do was exercise. And I am worried that maybe my thyroid is starting to act up. But WHY?! I don’t eat grains or sugar and I FEEL fine so where am I getting this immune response from?! I suppose it could be because I am still eating dairy but dairy isn’t giving me any symptoms at all…my body seems to cope well with it.

It is so frustrating when I have been working so hard and this morning I ate a cup of (artificially sweetened) pineapple jelly while standing up in the pantry. Like, just wolfing it down. Then for the rest of the day all I could seem to think about was food. I just felt out of control and what was the point. The idea of bingeing on a bunch of cakes seemed soooo good. (But I didn’t, luckily. I did eat another cup of jelly though and a square of sugar free chocolate which was gross.)

When I got home I looked through a paleo cookbook which has so many recipes for baked treats and I felt so anxious! I just wanted to try them all but I didn’t know what to choose and I was worried that it would get me binge eating if I started baking again. I mean, having so many choices overwhelmed me. So weird. And I was in such a bad mood this afternoon, so grumpy and snapping at everyone. I don’t know why – whether it was the pineapple jelly from the morning or just the anxiety…

I decided to make mini baked cheesecakes because I had made these sugar-free chocolate-nut-coconut bars the other day and they were not sweet enough for me. So I figured I could use them as the base for the cheesecake because the sweetness in the cheese part would be enough. I used stevia to sweeten the cream cheese and then I swirled through 2 teaspoons of strawberry jam. So not very fructose-y right? I am excited to try them.

Anyway now my erratic/grumpy/anxious mood is mostly over (writing this has been clarifying) and I realise that having a binge would be a really unhelpful idea and I do not want to be stuck in sugar addiction again. I’d rather live without sugary things than eat them but be unhappy. That’s the key thing, isn’t it? See when I eat sugar, it isn’t in moderation. I just can’t control myself. And that always makes me unhappy and sick.

So this week I have a few goals – to walk for at least 45 minutes every day, to have probiotics and vitamin d supplements every day, and to NOT BLOODY WEIGH MYSELF. 

The Lazy Person's Guide to Keeping Fit

Let's just begin with the fact that I am in inherently lazy person who has always hated playing sport, always came last in P.E. in school, and over the years has planned to do about 100 different exercises "regimens" I found in magazines and online only to never actually do them. I never really enjoyed exercise, and will procrastinate from doing almost anything (even posting a letter, I kid you not.)

Therefore, if you're a person like me, with whom sheer willpower and "just doing it" simply do not work when it comes to going to the gym, then here is what I have learnt along the way:

You have to find something that you enjoy doing and which also happens to be exercise. 
I've always enjoyed dancing. Recently I was at a party where we played "Just Dance" on Wii, and it was so fun! But I was sweating afterwards as well - so buying it for myself to play at home was a no-brainer. I've also bought Zumba DVDs and downloaded dancing workouts online which I do occasionally but not so often it becomes boring.

I've always enjoyed walking to clear my head, revel in nature and see the happiness it brings my dog so that part is easy. If you find walking boring, use an ipod or get a friend to come with you.

If you enjoy swimming a few laps occasionally, playing tennis now and then, or riding a bike on the weekends, then all those things done at leisure really add up as well.

Do housework.
Seriously: vacuuming, scrubbing the shower, doing the laundry and tidying up are all full body exercises. If you did half an hour a day you would not only have a ridiculously clean house but be adding in some extra incidental activity as well - not to mention that it is very therapeutic!

Save the boring resistance exercises for after your enjoyable activities. 
I really do not enjoy doing squats and pushups and weight lifting but I know that it is important for my health and fitness and bone strength. Sigh. I've never been a gym bunny, I can never motivate myself to do a resistance training session in itself but after I've been doing some dancing or walking, and I'm already warmed up and wearing exercise clothes anyway, throwing in a few body weight exercises really isn't that hard for me.

Skipping is the bees knees.
It's appealing because not only is it fun, you will find yourself naturally challenging yourself to do more skips in a row, and it only takes a few minutes. Like, literally 3 minutes is all I have spent doing it each day.

I have been building up slowly, by starting off with 5 sets of 20 skips in a row, then the next day 25, the next day 30 and so on. I am currently up to 45 skips in a row. Since it is such a high intensity exercise that really gets your heart rate up, you don't have to do it for very long, and it releases human growth hormone which burns fat. So if you need to give your weight loss a kick in the butt then I recommend trying skipping. It worked for me.

A word of warning: please please warm up and stretch before you start skipping. I made the mistake of not doing that the first day and sincerely regretted it the next day when my back was really sore. But I powered through and kept going, just made sure I stretched and warmed up, and by day 3 the pain was gone.

Skipping has a whole bunch of benefits and is a total body exercise, and you can pretty much do it anywhere with some floor space and enough height. And I know I said it before but I love the fact that it only takes a few minutes a day. Because if you didn't already know, I am really quite lazy.

Sometimes, a little willpower is required to get me to go out and do the skipping or to go for a walk but those things are a lot more achievable for me than hitting the gym for a spin class or something. So find what works for you!

Day 17 Without Sugar + Food Appreciation Week

Well here I am with only four more days to go on my goal of quitting sugar for 3 weeks. I am super happy that I have gotten this far, especially lately when I have felt the urge to turn to comfort foods and binge a few different times. Mostly when I have been bored and restless and feeling like I can't relax - even on the weekends. I think I have felt like I should be achieving something and doing something productive. Now I realise that weekdays are the time for doing things like that and weekends are for relaxing. 

My skin is flaring up at the moment, with a few painful bumps on my face. I really hope that is just the detox happening and that it will abate in a few days. It’s not fun.

After a couple of days of restlessness and feeling the need to keep eating food compulsively I have decided to declare the rest of this week Food Appreciation Week.

This will be drawing from ideas learned from “If not dieting, then what?” by Dr Rick Kausman, “French Women Don’t Get Fat,” by Mireille Guillano, and a new concept I just read about called Hara Hachi Bu, which roughly translates to “Eat until your belly is 80% full.” Did you know there is a Japanese proverb that says that “Eight parts of a full stomach sustain the man; the other two sustain the doctor"? That is classic, I love that!

So, Food Appreciation Week will involve:

-          Trying to eat slowly and savour food

-          Appreciating the smell, texture, subtle complexities and rich flavours

-          Paying careful attention to fullness signals whilst eating

-          Writing down what I feel from all my senses as I eat different foods

-          Not eating while reading/watching TV/distracted

-          We’ll see what else I come up with as the week goes by

Also, I have decided another goal for this year is to try a new recipe each week, mostly from Danielle Walker's "Against All Grain" - because there are so many in there I want to try it simply overwhelms me!

Answering the Common Arguments Against Paleo

I realise that when faced with the thought of not having grains anymore, people can get really defensive and stubborn. It is a strange, strange thing. I felt the urge to tackle some common arguments against the Paleo/Primal diet, in my own words and opinions.

1. But Aren't You Depriving Yourself of Lots of Things?
- Well, first of all, of course you are going to be depriving yourself of certain foods any time you attempt to eat a healthy balanced diet that our bodies are designed to eat. That's the whole point is it? To reduce the junk food, fast food and sugary beverages that are so cheap and prolific in our society. I'm pretty sure that any sort of "diet" tells you to cut these things out, or at least drastically reduce them only to be had in "moderation". Actually, going grain-free led to me eating a much, much wider range of fresh foods on a regular basis that I wouldn't usually have eaten before.
- The conventional wisdom which sadly still holds strong in many people's minds is to reduce intake of high fat foods, and switch to low fat choices. Well, sorry, aren't YOU depriving yourself of the deliciousness that is crispy bacon and scrambled eggs for breakfast, or a rich triple cream brie, or a fat juicy steak? I feel more sorry for you, because going grain free has opened up a whole new world of flavours and richness to me. When you're stomach isn't (temporarily) filled with bread and rice you have more room to enjoy the flavours of the meat, spices and vegetables which aren't drowned out by starch anymore.
- Eating this way, i.e. cutting out starchy carbohydrates and refined sugars, has been the only way that I have been able to really control my binge eating disorder. It's a small price to pay for being free from the blood sugar crashes and carb cravings that only fuel the disorder.

2. Following a Primal Diet is expensive. Only rich people can afford to eat like that.
- It's really not as expensive as you would think when you take into consideration what you don't have to buy anymore. Changing my lifestyle has allowed me to save money I would have otherwise spent on drugs to alleviate GERD, so that alone is a saving of $30 a month. So that's $30 extra to spend on meat and cheese! :) I'm sure other people out there have a whole range of medications they wouldn't have to take if they went Paleo/Primal so they'd be saving even more than me - on not only the drugs themselves but the doctors visits and the blood tests to monitor side effects caused by taking the drugs!
- You're saving money on all the packaged foods you used to buy from the middle of the supermarket like bread, pasta, biscuits, crackers, chips and bottled sauces.
- If you find a well priced, good quality green grocer or farmer's market you can buy a whole load of vegies  and it costs less than you think. Fruit and vegetables add lots of bulk to meals without costing the earth.
- You can buy meat when it's on sale and stick it in the freezer for later use.
- Buy specialty ingredients like coconut oil and flour in bulk online. Maybe go in on it with a friend.
- Ultimately, if you're savvy enough then this doesn't have to be an expensive way to live. But even if it IS more expensive than say, living on packaged food, well I'm happy to accept that trade off - isn't your health and happiness worth that?

3. But I Can't Live Without Bread or Pasta!
- Boy, do I hear this a lot, mostly from friends. One work colleague even said to me "I'd rather be fat." Well, that's your choice. If you'd rather be sick and plagued with chronic illnesses then that's your bed to lie in.
Now, I was a self professed lover of Italian food, namely pizza and pasta. And I had toast for breakfast, and sometimes lunch, and sometimes afternoon tea, every freaking day. But when I found out there was a way that I could cure my GERD without drugs I simply jumped at the chance, I was so sick of the pain. It took a little while to completely get rid of the grains but guess what, I'm here, I'm living without bread and pasta. 
- I can definitely live without the stodgy feeling you get in your stomach after eating bread and pasta; the lethargy, the bloating, the heartburn, and the food baby! I've said it before, I'll say it again, closing the door on grains opens the door to a whole new world of delicious foods, all of which can be enjoyed without regret  (mental or physical!) later on.

If you want to read some more of these arguments, this is a good article. 

Ultimately, what people choose to eat is up to them, and I am not going to go round saying these things to people unsolicited, but I felt the need to rant a little! This is the way I choose to live and the way that makes me the healthiest and happiest.