Lemon Pepper Beef

It's been a week since my last post and a busy week at that!

I have been really busy attending courses and seminars at the moment, as well as the rest, and this has meant a lot of meals on the run or provided as part of events.

I'll try and explain something that has changed for me since starting this journey.

The crux is: I am entitled to be slim and healthy and I am responsible for making choices that make me slim and healthy.

This sounds really simple, but I think that for a really long time I have made excuses for why things are the way they are. And at the heart of those excuses was an underlying belief that I did not deserve better.

If I am headed in the right direction, every step will get me closer to my goal.

I have been spending a lot of time lately educating myself around this personal development stuff and some of it is definitely sinking in. In fact, I am attending a ten-week seminar on Living Life More Powerfully: Being at the Cause of Life, not the Effect.

In the olden days, I was literally thinking about lunch as soon as I finished breakfast and continuously during the day I was justifying why I should just eat anything I chose.

Since making a decision to use food to manage my diabetes with a strict food plan, I have experienced the most incredible freedom from that thinking!

Going to get some fruit from a platter at an event on Friday, I discovered that a Creamed Pavlova had been added to the table as well. The first thing I did was turn my back on it. Literally. Then I had a conversation with my inner voice about whether or not I should have some. Once my inner voice was finished justifying why a little bit wouldn't hurt, it really was as simple as I'm not allowed it.

So I turned back to the table, selected a small portion of fruit and went away to enjoy it. AMAZING!

I haven't been as obsessed with following the food plan posted about earlier, but I have been making choices that support my body better. No sugar or flour. No potatoes, pasta or rice. Limited fruits and fat. Limiting the portions.


And it is working. My weight this week is 86.0kg.

Dinner in the picture is beef coated in lemon pepper served with mushrooms, bok choy and tomato pasta sauce. And it was delicious.

Coming full circle with the Carbs

I am choosing to change the day I 'un-officially' weigh myself to a Saturday since I know that weekends are not good for me. I am looking at this as a forever thing and don't need to beat myself up if I had a slice of Divine Dessert Chocolate Mudcake last night after eating really well all week.

I feel like I have come full circle with the whole 'carbs' thing ... I spent a bit of time online this week looking for information about some of the popular low carbs diets out there at the moment - Cohens, Dukkan etc.

Many people on forums has discussed their anecdotal stories of using these popular diets. Everyone agrees that they have (or they know people who) followed these diets to the letter and lost huge amounts of weight - 40kg here, 25kg there.

But, equally, there are stories of people ending the diet with a sluggish metabolism, the same previous habits and putting all of the lost weight - and some - back on.

People talk about this being their own fault for not doing 're-feeding' training - learning how to eat enough to maintain the new weight.

Trying to find a balance where I am eating healthy food that is best for my Diabetes, while trying to make sure my choices don't inadvertently screw with my already-sluggish metabolism ... and somewhere along that line, I am hoping to safely lose weight to help minimise my Diabetes in the long-term.

The speed of that weight loss is becoming unimportant as long as I continue to trend downwards.

I am going to allow a small amount of quality carbs back in ... Divine Dessert Chocolate Mudcake is not quality at all in terms of my health - it did meet an emotional need after a rather stressful week but I had the sugar hangover to prove it.

I have bought a loaf of low GI Cape Seed bread and will allow myself the occasional slice.

See how human and imperfect I am? Emotional eating and indecisiveness, but I just need to keep getting on that horse and making this thinking a habit. By the way, my weigh-in yesterday morning - 87.5kg. Good.

Image: divine.co.nz
Image: diaryofaladybird.blogspot.com

When to throw out fat clothes?

On the phone to Mum the other night, I was saying that I fit back into a pair of pants that were too tight for me before I started this journey.

Her (helpful mum) response was "That's great. You need to throw out the clothes you don't fit anymore. Just throw into a clothing bin on your way past. Start doing it now and it will be one less thing to sort out".

My immediate reaction was "NOOOOOOOO ......."

I'm just not ready to let go of my biggest fat clothes, so what is that about?

Infact, I'd go so far as to say that my fat clothes make me feel better at the moment.

I like that they are too big on me now. I don't want to go down to clothes that might feel fitted <read tight here>.

But what if I need them again?

So part of me is still not convinced this is a forever journey, and ready to slide right back to my old size. I talked to my girlfriend on a similar journey and she feels the same way. No clothes are leaving her wardrobe yet either.

I am learning that my internal voice is anything from an echo of my past to a comment on my fears or even worse: my shame, so I know that the internal voice telling me to keep the clothes is not helpful or wanting the best for me.

"Thanks for sharing inner voice, Now I will take time to decide what I actually want".

I really want to recover from Diabetes. I really want to be a healthy size and live a healthy life.

I have dropped a dress-size already but I still haven't thrown any clothes out, but I am well aware of the conversation going on inside my head. And now that I have awareness around it, I can change it.

I'll let you know when I get my head in the right space around this. Wish me luck.

Image: luigi diamanti / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Compliance through Difficult times

My city has been living in the most extraordinary of times. We have experienced over 8000 aftershocks and several very large and devastating earthquakes over the last year. Of those, I'd estimate that I have stopped and noticed over five hundred.

Image: Quake Drum, McQueens Valley - 4 September 2010

With the first earthquake, we considered ourselves very lucky on the whole. Even badly-affected friends whose houses were severely damaged, were able to carry on with the support of family and friends. We all got on with our lives and became familiar with the aftershocks.

For me, the February quake was worse. No power or toilet at home for weeks, school and daycare closed for weeks. Water supply compromised. And the tragic loss of a dear friend.

I was very fortunate that family took care of my two oldest boys in a town two hours away, where they were able to attend school as well. My youngest boy stayed with me where I was hosted by my business partner and his wife.

Eventually my husband and I were re-united at home as a family and begin living life as 'new normal'.

During the upheaval, one of the first things to go was routine. People still talk about the how they simply forgot to cut hair, cut toe nails or go to the dentist.

For me, any semblance of routine around food and medication was immediately ruined. I think it may have been a month later I was visiting the doctor, tearful that I had forgotten to take my prescribed medication, and the doctor assured me that my circumstances were the same as dozens of other people he'd seen from Christchurch. And he was in Temuka, that little town two hours away!

Two things stand out for me about this:

“It's never too late to be who you might have been.”

George Eliot (English novelist 1819 - 1880)

And if I google long enough, I'll find the perfect quote to justify my insane timing. So I did:

“You win battles by knowing the enemy's timing, and using a timing which the enemy does not expect.”

Miyamoto Musashi
(Japanese Martial Arts master, one of the world's greatest swordsmen, 1584-1645)

At the time of the doctor's appointment, I resumed some medications, but not my injected insulin. More recently I went through the rigmarole of testing and adjusting my insulin, getting back into a routine, but whatever ongoing and other stress has happened, soon knock that out.

So this is all part of my story that has lead me to this place, this plan. What I can't do with medicine, I am doing with food.

My final motivational quote for today:

“Be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind. Talk health, happiness, and prosperity to every person you meet. Make all your friends feel there is something in them. Look at the sunny side of everything. Think only of the best, work only for the best, and expect only the best. Be as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your own. Forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future. Give everyone a smile. Spend so much time improving yourself that you have no time left to criticize others. Be too big for worry and too noble for anger.”

Christian D. Larsen
(American author of Applied Metaphysics for Beginners, 1874 – 1962) 

Image: quake.crowe.co.nz 

Abdominal fat is Bad

It's amazing how excess weight goes on different people. We even have names for the basic shapes: hour glass, apple, pear, straight etc.

No wonder we need such large wardrobes, extensive (and expensive!) shopping expeditions and still can't find anything to wear!

Unfortunately for me, I put most of my weight around my waist as a tyre. This kind of fat is the worst and it's the stuff that shows on the outside the state of my organs on the inside.

Estrogen first affects females during puberty when it is part of the process for developing breasts and a wider pelvis, but it also plays a part in where fat distributes on your body. When estrogen is reduced after menopause, the absence causes fat to shift from buttock, hips and thigh to the abdomen. Excessive amounts of the masculizing hormones has the same effect, hence Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome causes weight to redistribute to the bad areas as well. Bummer.

And as Diabetes is a known co-morbidity for Polycystic Ovaries, I am even more gutted to learn that it's a double whammy.

While researching, I found the following explanation:

Your fat cells take longer to get insulin resistant. That is why we gain weight in the abdominal area when we have partial insulin resistance. Insulin takes sugar and stores it as fat in your cells. So until your fat cells become totally insulin resistant you continue to gain weight. Then your weight will plateau as the fat cells protect themselves. Your linings of your arteries do not become insulin resistant, and as insulin increases, more plague will build-up in the lining. This is why coronary artery disease is much higher in people with insulin resistance.

So basically my fat cells want to hang out on my abdomen and when they get there, they park up like good-for-nothings.

I've been having a bad weekend, food-wise, and picked at party food yesterday as well as Twisties last night, Fruit popcorn and too many grapes today and a couple of chocolate chippie cookies this afternoon.

All those carbs and sugar are poison to me! I even have the headache to prove it.

Fortunately I find the week easier to manage food-wise than the weekend, so I will be glad to get back into it tomorrow, and I know that I can always start again right now. So dinner will be stir fry kale and other veggies and lean steak. And I will make a particular effort to drink plenty of water.

So my weekly weigh in is 88.3kg. I am happy with that, but aware that it's just as easy to put back on and I have a long way to go.

Image: Michelle Meiklejohn / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Quote: naturalchoicesforyou.com

Maybe if they haven't already chewed it!

One of my favourite meals as a kid was called Cod Creole.

This was a mixture of tinned smoked fish, onion and dried tomato soup cooked together with water to make a fishy sauce and served over boiled rice.

I have made it recently and it is as delicious as I remember, though my boys weren't so keen on it ...

As children, my siblings and I were expected to eat everything put in front of us, and every last mouthful served up to us. I think the only things I was ever allowed to say no to was oysters and toheroas.

Toheroas are an endemic Kiwi clam that are said to be delicious - bleurk - and Oreti Beach in Southland is one of only a few places toheras are found in New Zealand and my home turf. Restrictions were put in place in the 1950s and by 1990s any harvesting was banned.

The last season down there was 1993, where with a limit of 5 each of at least 10cm still saw more than 15k harvested over a nine-hour one-day season.

Since this kai moana was already restricted during my childhood, I think there was a special exemption since they would be wasted on me.

These days I think you need a customary permit approved by your iwi, if you are a Maori decendant. Not sure what you can do if you are Pakeha ... I digress.

I remember sitting at the kitchen table in Margaret Street, Invercargill with my plate of Cod Creole and my siblings. For whatever reason, we had decided that we were NOT going to finish that meal. I don't remember how long we were forced to sit there, but I do remember the day going dark. Eventually my sister comes up with a plan and we all empty our plates out of the kitchen window onto the lawn down the back side of the house. Such was the expectation to not waste food and eat everything put in front of you.

So a major internal battle to this day is not wasting food.

Thou shall not waste food on thine own plate, nor the plates of thine offspring.

I was reminded by Tania today that one of the big causes of excess food intake for mothers is finishing the food on their kids plates. So it's true: kids make you fat.

Sitting at Charlotte's house today, we talked about the extent of this problem. Only one mum easily avoids this and told us it was as simple as it grosses her out. She's the slim one.

Really wish it grossed me out! The other mothers all agreed that it's worse than that: we are willing to eat pretty much anything off the plates of our children as long as they haven't already chewed it!

My children are growing up in a world of excess and I really want them to learn to eat what they enjoy and eat it in moderation. Which means that I try not to force them to finish their plates while encouraging them not to be fussy and to make the time for eating. Ughh.

So the point is that I am creating new rules on how food should be approached through parenting.

Thou shall endeavour to create/select only enough food, but never feel guilty for not finishing a dish.

Thou shall never eat off the plate of thine offspring, if the only purpose is to prevent waste.

Done.

Image: Foodstyle.co.nz

What did I eat today?

This isn't necessarily an average day, but is typical of what I am trying to achieve. Plenty of protein and low GI veggies, low fat dairy, limited fruit and gluten and minimal fat. This is deliberately restrictive as my goal is recover from Diabetes, which requires weightloss. And to have a food plan that stabilises my blood sugars at the same time.

Breakfast

Instant Apple Cinnamon porridge sachet made up with 1/2 cup trim milk and then mixed with a couple of spoonfuls of low fat unsweetened yoghurt.

Lunch
Half a serve of chilli beef and veggies, no noddles or rice from the Chinese at the food court.  I paid an extra 20c to have it served on a plate and have a takeaways container as well and I split the meal before I ate it. The remainder is still sitting in the fridge at work for the weekend. Whoops!

Afternoon Tea

A good few Peckish crackers - Salt and Vinegar. I love these ones though probably the Chilli are better and I love that they are gluten free.

Dinner
Veggies (sliced mushrooms, capsicum and onion) laid over the base of a square baking tin and topped with an egg then baked in the oven and served with a little oyster sauce and sprouts.

1/4 tin of drained Fruit Salad in Natural Juice.

Fluids

One glass of diet lift in the morning.

One small bottle of coke zero with lunch.

A couple of glasses of water and a couple of cups of instant coffee with trim milk no sugar - I never had sugar in coffee so this is just a personal choice

Snacks/Other

Two Shrewsbury biscuits before dinner - hey they did have magic in the middle!

A fish oil capsule and a glucose stabilising tablet from the health shop.

As I posted another time, this time is working for me because I am seeing food as helpful or not helpful now. So even though someone else may be eating something "delicious", I don't feel deprived.

This is a new feeling as I have always wanted to eat everything and probably been thinking about lunch the moment I finished breakfast. Now I don't even really think about food until I am ready for it.

Choosing to severely restrict my options is helping I think. It means that when I get home, I am thinking which of 100g steak, 100g chicken or an egg I will have tonight, and not the thousands of other choices I could be having.

I do find evenings difficult still though. I prowl for food while reminding myself why I am doing this. When this works, I go to bed happy.

The Incredible Shrinking Stomach!

OK. I admit I can be as gullible as the next person and I truly believed that if you eat smaller portions over a period of time, your stomach actually shrinks!

This was the theory I was working to when I deliberately reduced my portion sizes recently as part of this new food plan.

Apparently this fabulous myth is bollocks. Your stomach is like a balloon and can inflate or deflate as needed.

That's disappointing.

But there is good news! Reduced portion size may not shrink your stomach but it will shrink your appetite.

So I have found that with only a couple of weeks of controlled portions, I have already reset my 'appetite thermometer'. Which I am very happy about. This means that as long as I continue to saviour the food I am eating and choice smaller portions, I am feeling full and satisfied with less.

I definitely recommend that if you have begun to control your portion size, and you are struggling with hunger pangs: stick at it and you will notice a difference before too long.

Image: Ambro / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Too fat, too thin ...

I know that for all the overweight people in the world, there is another group equally battling to keep weight on.

Since I am such an expert, I thought I'd share my recipe for weight gain.

Step One

Make sure all choices relating to food are based on emotions: the more stress, the greater the quantities.

Step Two

Don't eat breakfast.

Step Three

I know it seems like not having breakfast might not help with weight gain, but trust me, by 10am, that pie or leftover pavlova is going to look really good. So go ahead and eat something that tastes really good and is either high fat, high sugar or both.

Step Four

Because everyone else is heading off for lunch at twelve, feel free to join them. Go to the local food court and pick anything you feel like. Make sure to add a drink to that, but avoid diet or water.

Step Five

Don't bother eating again if you get caught up in work, we can make up for that later. But feel free to drink as much coffee as you choose. At least enough that you have headaches on the weekend when your intake falls.

Step Six

When you get home, snack on anything. After all, it's been hours since lunch. But don't count it as dinner, more of a "late afternoon snack".

Step Seven

When dinner is ready, make sure to serve yourself a big plateful. You want your stomach to stretch and not feel full unless you jam plenty in.

Step Eight

Feel free to have dessert, if you wish. Same rules as dinner apply.

Step Nine

As long as we are still eating, feel free to pull out a packet of dip and chips and chow down.

Step Ten

Repeat daily.

Additionally, enjoy unlimited chocolate, lollies, birthday cakes or other food opportunities that present themselves. Make sure to also eat plenty of healthy fruit and vegetables.

Your body will be so confused, it will simultaneously think it is starving and malnourished. Because your stomach is so stretched, you will still feel hungry all the time.

Just keep feeding the hunger and the weight will pile on.

Image: zirconicusso / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

My Achilles Heel is Kids Party Food

Here in New Zealand, almost every kids party held in someone's home will include some or all of the following:

Cheerios

Fairy Bread

Savouries (or party pies over the ditch)

Kiwi Onion Soup and Reduced Cream Dip

Salsa

Potato Chips

Corn Chips

Lollies

Cupcakes, slices and biscuit

Popcorn

Fizzy

Juice

I love party food!

For all of my currently displayed motivation, I faced my biggest challenge so far today going to a kids party with my bevy of boys.

I start innocuously enough thinking that a couple of corn chips and salsa might be okay.

Really this opened the floodgates for the rest of the afternoon and by the end, I had enjoyed two savories, several cheerios dipped in salsa, a ham sandwich, a small slice of chocolate peppermint slice, a few swigs of grape fizzy and of course, the cornchips and salsa and chips and dip. Oh and chocolate Birthday Cake ...

Soooooo good at the time, but more sugar than I have had for weeks and so now I am suffering a combination of headache and thick throat. I can't tell if my throat is trying to swallow down the food or my disappointment at myself.

I am choosing to pick myself up and keep going. Tonight I will have an egg and some salad for tea.

Image: Master isolated images / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

What's good for the soul ...

Very soon I'll tell you about what I am actually doing on a day-to-day basis.

The food will be so fantastic, you too will be inspired to join me on this journey!

I promise to provide photos and recipes and quantities!

I promise to share the highs and lows and whatever I can that might help.

I promise to record as much information as I can.

But there is a little more to cover off first.

Like the fact that I never recovered from the gestational diabetes. So this is about long-term quality of life, not losing a few kilos or fitting back into a pair of jeans.

And the fact that I was never going to do this until I got my head in the right place. This has to be for me. I have to choose to do it. I have to understand where the responsibilities lay.

I really needed to begin to see food as good or bad/helpful or unhelpful, not yummy or boring.

And with that nagging voice in my head constantly growling at me, it had to happen eventually.

I work with some really lovely lasses, and two have recently started a healthy-eating campaign at work. I am jumping on that bandwagon!

Image: Ambro / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

What motivates you?

So I have learned that what motivates makes an enormous difference.

When I was pregnant with my first son, I became obsessed with managing my condition like a medical emergency. In fact, I lost 7kg with that pregnancy before I began gaining weight as my belly swelled.

I think one of the reasons I loved pregnancy is that it seemed that 'having a ruined figure' was kinda an accepted part of pregnancy. The fact my overeating had ruined it in the first place would become irrelevant in the histories.

Apart from my pregnancies, I can't really recall any other effective motivation. And by the third pregnancy, I admit that I was less motivated than my first (hey! I already had my heir and spare ...) to manage my complication.

As a result my last wee monkey has a birth defect, probably caused during some of the first cell splits. He has one fully-functioning healthy kidney, but not the second for redundancy.

I've come to terms with this: missing kidneys may occur in up to 1:7 people and most older-types have only found out when going for unrelated tests later in life and I expect my monkey to live a long life too.

Had I really understood the risks though, like really understood, surely my motivation would have been greater.

So what will motivate me on this journey?

Dumb and Dumber

You may wonder how much I know about the practical stuff. Like what happens when you eat what.

I actually know far too much. Maybe even an overdose of knowledge. This journey has never been about ignorance. It's been something quite different.

In my life, everything fascinates me. I have YouTube'd videos of key-cutting machines and how to prepare a fresh squid. I get excited by seeing behind the scenes of anything ... a supermarket, a McDonalds, an Emergency Service Communications centre ...

Anything involving my health is the same. I can tell you all about Myopia and Astigmatism.

I can tell you all about eating as well.

But there has been a disconnect between my knowledge and my actions. I eat too much and I eat the wrong stuff.

I have never questioned whether you can have your cake and eat it too ...

I have been doing this for a really long time too. Twice I have undertaken 'dieting', once with Jenny Craig - great food but really expensive, and once with Weight Watchers. Both times I lost maybe 10kg and eventually put even more back on.

And three times I have undertaken healthy eating for the sake of another to varying degrees of success.

Unless I can get to the point where I am choosing to eat for health and choosing to do it forever (not just losing the same 10kg over and over ...) - I will be destined to the same fate.

Image: Dino De Luca / FreeDigitalPhotos.net