Day.. um...

Well, I passed my 126 day 'trial' of the BTD/wholefoods/all-that-and-more diet a number of days ago. Maybe weeks. I lost count due to exams and the general end of year madness. Oops.

I think this little experiment, which became even more experimental (with an emphasis on the 'mental' some might say..) in the last month, was a big success in the two main areas:

- Weightloss

- Arthritis

I started the 18 weeks at 61kg and about 30.3% bodyfat. I pretty much maintained that for the first 12 weeks, wavering between 60.3 and 61.8kg. On November the 30th I started a 6 day elimination diet, after doing some reading and wondering if it might be 'leaky gut syndrome' and lectin sensitivity that was contributing to my 'improving but still there' arthritis. I went through some wild symptoms during the detox but my weight dropped to 59.5kg and the arthritis symptoms further improved.

Since finishing the elimination diet I have maintained a more simple nutrition plan and am generally not eating grains or dairy, you might say it's a paleolithic style of eating which I'm finding surpisingly enjoyable. I'm not lo-carbing though. I'm eating quite a bit of kumara (sweet potato) and fruit along with fish, some meat, olive oil and a few odd foods like wakame (sea vegetables). Oh, and some chocolate. And a little coffee. I'm supplementing with:

N-acetyl D Glucosamine

MSM

Ascorbic Acid

Omega 3 Fish Oil

Glutamine

Pro-D gel (a trial I am on for a friends company - top secret formulation)

All but the last of these are designed to control inflammation and heal any problems in my digestive system - hopefully making me less sensitive to food lectins.

Although I'm not counting calories, my weight has continued to drop and this morning I am at 57.8kg (~127 kg) 28% bf. This is great, but the big, really exciting thing is that my osteo-arthritis has improved out of sight. One thing I missed greatly was the ability to sit cross-legged. Not with crossed legs like a lady, but cross-legged on the floor or the couch like a four year old. It was just too painful, I couldn't even get my right leg anywhere close to rotated. Now I can sit that way again, without any pain. I would say that my arthritis is about 90% healed, which is apparently a medical impossibility (puh). It has not been a quick fix. I've been on a nightshade-free diet for seven months without deviation, but I don't even know if that was the main thing. I've also made a real effort to ditch stress, cut way back on caffeine, reduced and then eliminated grain and legume products (including any grain fed meats and any grain or bean oils), gave up dairy, reduced egg consumption and learned to really adore veges. Since the elimination diet I've also developed what seems to be a really serious reaction to red wine. I've drank it twice and had two migraines, one of which had me wondering if I had a brain tumour! I think I need to either ease back into that one, or just accept that my indulgence is chocolate.

The funny thing is that it sounds like such an extreme regime, but it doesn't feel like it. I felt more restricted when I was counting every calorie and stressing over my aching joints. Also, if I keep myself in line most of the time, meals out don't seem to cause any drama. I'm pretty sure that a healthy body can handle a bit of crap now and then.

Exercise has been and still is, quite random, but I'm doing it. I'm in the habit of doing a few sets of resistance training every half hour or so when I'm working at my PC. Cardio has consisted of speed shopping (woohooo).

Speaking of which:

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I'd like to wish all readers of Life in the Lab a FANTABULOUS xmas, full of great chocolate, awesome gifts and, most importantly, crazy times with family.

It is a little known fact that excellent christmas cake made by your Grandma has ABSOLUTELY NO CALORIES. I know, it's AMAZING, yet TRUE!

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118/119?

I'm not near my journal right now and can't remember what day I'm on, but it's very close to the end of my first 18 weeks.

I've posted a very abbreviated version of my detox diary over at Sanaworld. Check it out. I survived!

Weight this morning was 58.5kg (129 lbs). That's over 5 lbs lost in the lab so far. I've still got a way to go, but at least still heading in the right direction. ;)

109/126

This morning I got on the scales and discovered that my weight has come down a little bit more to 59.7kg (131 lb). Weight is not my main focus, but the fact that I'm getting leaner is an indication that I'm on the right track. As my trainer used to say 'the scale doesn't show everything but it does show something'. In my case it shows that, if I'm not overeating, I will probably naturally weigh less (oh, the pure logic of it..).

I've been focusing quite hard on 'other' aspects of my life. Getting my house in order, quite literally. I've been living here for about 6 years and it still looks like I just moved in! My things are stacked in boxes and I've given less than my share in terms of keeping the place clean and neat, just because it's taken me this long to feel like it's really mine. As part of claiming my life, I'm claiming my house, my fridge, my cupboard, my bathroom and it's all getting a neatness overhall. The other thing I'm working on is owning my time, rather than just reacting to whatever comes along. It feels unfamiliar to set my day and act like my decisions are just as important as whatever else people may need me to do for them, but I'm sure I'll get used to it.

I've been making time for research and while reading some papers on Arthritis, stumbled into a very interesting area. I always thought that the sudden appearance of my symptoms, coinciding so neatly with a severe bout of Mononucleosis (Epstein Barr Virus) was not due to mere bad luck. Now I am convinced of it. I've been reading a lot about what a viral infection can do to a persons ability to absorb nutrients, or more correctly, to avoid absorbing substances that can create havoc when they go where they are not supposed to. I've been reading about certain unhelpful food lectins and have been familiarising myself with which foods contain the most troublesome ones. The idea seems to be to avoid as many of them as possible for a healing period of about a week then test them, in groups, to observe any reaction. The main groups of lectins seem to be - grains/pulses/beans, dairy, nuts/seeds, nightshade veges and eggs. It would be unlikely (and unfortunate) to react to all of them. I'm going to start a seven day elimination tomorrow and I'm prepared for it to be a bit inconvenient. Tonight I went to my sisters for dinner and saw her sprinkling garlic salt on my kumara. On checking the ingredients I saw 'canola oil', which has grain lectins in it. Those little buggers are truly ubiquitous. Between canola oil and soybean oil there is hardly a processed food that is without grain lectins. The other part of healing a virally clobbered system is glyconutrients and I've been deep in research about things like N-Acetyl-D-Glucosamine and D-Mannose, nutrients I have worked with before but had not fully understood them. These nutrients bind to certain lectins, but I'm not sure yet exactly which ones or how I should use the glyconutrients.

Actually, I've become quite obsessed about lectins. I've already bored my friends and family to death about them, so it's probably time to reach out to the world at large. ;)

104/126

This is Friday nights dinner (pic below). Last nights dinner was great too but I didn't have my camera handy and was probably too full of vino to operate it properly anyway. You know.. Saturday night.. For the record, it was eggs benedict for everyone else and smoked salmon salad with poached eggs for me. It's not hard to work it out when you have to.

Friday, I made a pumpkin and blue cheese salad with some organic grilled beef.

Apart from that, my eating has been quite standard and I've not been inspired to whip out the camera/phone.

Today we went to see New Moon at the movies. As I later tweeted.. I'm in team 'get a real boyfriend, Bella!'. Who needs the issues? ;) Obviously the row of tweenagers in front of us disagreed though, judging by the loud sighing, groaning and near-weeping that was going on every time Edward or Jake did something truly interesting, like remove their shirt (an event which seemed to happen quite frequently).

But, this is a health blog. Specifically, what do I eat at the movies?? I packed a snack bag which consisted of cacao beans, half a lara bar, some almonds and 85% chocolate. I packed one for the Programmer too. His had jelly snakes and no cacao beans - I need to work him up to them.

Mid-afternoon I indulged in a nuked banana with melted chocolate, cacao beans, nut butter and cherry jam. I would truthfully rather eat this than anything else in the world. I should do an analysis and see if it could be complete food! I suspect not..

Now I have a plan to make a silverbeet quiche. The Programmer's mum (umm.. inappropriate apostrophe use? I must revise that..) keeps giving me enormous bags of beet leaves from her garden and I'm having trouble getting through them all. Usually I try to avoid any food that requires meticulous washing of leaves because it takes forever, but in this case it's very fresh, organic and came from the Programmer's mum. I'd better use or I might be in trouble.... ;)

102/126

Foodcam over at Sanaworld. Short update, all going well but far too busy to blog every day at the mo. Check out the banana/choc/nut butter thing. I shall call it cacaobanuttychoc. You must all try... ;)

95/126

The thought of what the scales might tell me this morning very nearly caused complete scale-avoidance. However, I know from experience that 'head in the sand' behaviour isn't truly helpful. Ignorance may be bliss, but there comes a day when the jeans don't fit and you have to face the truth. Better to do it earlier. After three days of mild but consistent overeating and more than a little over-tippling of the good red stuff, I'm up 600g (1.3 lb). This is really not so bad, considering that last night after a few vino's it seemed a great idea to start munching my way through a box of muesli bars. Upon reflection, this was not such a brilliant plan..

So, today I was up, on the scales to assess the damage and straight into an upper body+yoga workout. I wasn't hungry for breakfast, and had a smallish lunch consisting of apple, nut butter, cacao beans and my brain-feeding, joint-soothing Omega 3's.

Then I headed off to see '2012' which was predictable, but full of spectacular destruction. At exactly 4pm I pulled out a Lara bar to snack on. I find it's best when getting over a bad few days to stick to the schedule and not overthink it, just do the plan. Early evening I headed over to my Grandmothers to decorate a birthday cake, which I will have a slice of tomorrow at my mums party. While I was there I discovered a glass of wine in front of me (it's a family habit to pour a glass for a visitor) but after imbibing quarter of the glass I could feel the beginnings of an urge to become four years old and lick the icing bowl clean. So I stopped that and got out of the kitchen.

Dinner was fish, veges and a little brown rice. I made a supersalad with some sheepsmilk feta, apple and walnuts.

I figured out why my food pics always look a certain way. It's because I pile stuff on the plate and usually use a bowl because it prevents vege escapees. Apparently I need to get a little bit French and spread my food out, leaving space around it if I want my blog to look like a cuisine magazine. I shall try, dear readers, I shall try...

91/126

Today was one of those days when I just really couldn't seem to get myself into a great mental space. I'm not really sure why. Maybe the wine last night? I just felt like I couldn't handle anything, and even though I got quite a bit done, all I could obsess over was all the things that still needed doing and that I probably wouldn't get around to... I was negativising, which usually leads to overeating, and it did.

But first, the day started well. I got up late, due to a headache so breakfast was a) late and b) smaller than usual. That's cacao beans, activated almonds and a banana.

Mid afternoon I had a Lara bar, pepitas and a linseed cracker with nut butter. Still hanging in there in spite of being, by this stage, in a very moody mood.

I started to cook dinner and decided to pour myself a wine, which was a bad move. All my self control went out the window and I ate three cups of cereal, then I had a wheat bun with my quiche. It was a slip, but I can fit it into my plan because I'm allowed two 500 calorie splurges each month and it all more or less works out, with eating less earlier in the day.\

So, tonight I'm just having a think about it all. I think what I actually should have done is taken a break from trying to push through the mental fuzz and done some exercise. At least I could recognise that something was 'off' in my brain. The mistake was having some alcohol when I was already feeling weak.

Ok, weight. Good news, my weight is slowly coming down. I've got a sort of routine going where I'm doing one diet day every three days and weighing in every three days also. The other days are just normal eating. Tomorrow is a diet day, so we will see how todays splurge affects Friday mornings weight. I may have to kick myself twice, but gently.. ;)

Over the past few weeks it's gone like this:

15 Oct 61.8kg (136 lb)

21 Oct 61.1kg 32.8% (134.5 lb)

1 Nov 61kg 31.9% (134 lb)

4 Nov 61kg (134 lb)

7 Nov 60.3kg 30.7% (132.5 lb)

10 Nov (today) 60.1kg 30.2% (132.2 lb)

Still got a long way to go and it's slow, but at least I'm not going backward like I was, or even backward, forward, backward, forward. It's all backward, or is that forward?

90/126

I'm heading into the last month of my 18 week challenge and finally, finally I feel like I'm getting it together. My clothes are feeling a bit looser too, so maybe tomorrow is the morning for a scale hop. I think the main thing is that I've been strict on myself about one thing.. no more 'day 1'. Therefore, no more 'pre day 1' binges. I'm doing what I'm doing, muddling along, aiming for a really healthy lifestyle and whether I do it well, or just averagely, it's what I'm doing. That's life. No 'off days' and 'on days', it's all just 'me and the way I live'.

Today I was up early and after a few hours of getting orders away, it was time for brekky. I remembered to add my Maca powder.

Lunch was a combination thing made with leftovers from last night with some shrimps and a linseed (flax) cracker with walnut butter. My fridge was looking very depleted indeed (no salad!), so when my business partner was late for our meeting I rushed out to the organic shop.

Surprisingly, I managed to get through the shopping without having to treat myself immediately. Therefore, the 4pm snack was a fruity and nutty concoction with 20g raw chocolate. Then I moistened it with almond milk and it was better than ecstasy, or so I believe.. (ahem).

About 5pm I was feeling self congratulatory and had to sample the organic Malbec. I don't really know what a Malbec is, but it was fine and tasty.

Then, feeling loosened up, I did a workout and some yoga.

* Bodyweight squats

* Bridge with band around knees

* Romanian deadlift - no weight

* Side planks

* Yoga - 'chair'

- Sun Salute (my hamstrings needed THAT after the RDL's)

Dinner!

Lamb salad. Being in NZ, I always get to eat NZ lamb. It was NZ lamb. The BEST. Lots of veges. Er.. another wine. Oops.

Halfway through dinner I had to assist The Programmer to conduct emergency surgery on the neighbours 6 month old kitten that had decided to steal a bone from the bench and got it wedged in her top of her mouth! This particular kitten already has three kittens of her own and is a starvin' marvin' ALL - THE - TIME. She will beg, borrow and steal any food she can find, and it's not as though her owner is underfeeding her. Anyway, 10 minutes after nearly choking to death she was back on the bench stealing my leftover broccoli. I even put out some catfood for her, but she prefers to steal. Thrill issues...

89/126

Yay, exams are over and blogging can resume. This will be a catch up blog with foody pics and minimal waffling.

I'm really pleased with the way my eating is going. I have a long history of letting little deviations throw me off-track, but lately this is not so much of a problem. Sometimes the plan has to bend a little in order to fit my life. Today, for instance, I was in the hardware store (er.. that's another story) at around 2.30pm, 1.5 hours after lunch. I was with The Programmer, my sister, Miss J and mum. Everyone else was dying for a snack and I weighed up my options. Eat (off plan), or not eat - but wish I was (and risk triggering a deprivation splurge later). I was feeling quite peckish because lunch had been small. I could feel a little argument starting in my head and, instead of forcing myself to sit resentfully while everyone else ate, I had a small egg sandwhich and half a banana. Then I just cut back my afternoon snack a bit and only had minimal mental fuss over the whole situation. This is quite good progress, even if the sandwhich was on white bread - believe me, it was the only option that even resembled real food. Cafes are never great. That having been said, let's move right on to the foodcam.

As I forgot how much of a pain it is to re-order photos in blogger, I'll just present my little gallery in 'no particular order'. These are random pics from the last four days.

A stuffed chicken breast. Inside ingredients - a little sheepsmilk feta, onion and mushrooms. Waldorf salad, linseed crackers.

A lamb and feta salad, broccoli.
Foldover omelet. The photo makes it look burned, but it was ok. Salad with pepitas and a little mayo, linseed crackers.

Todays workout. I bought myself a new phone, which should speed up the photo loading process. The nikon requires file conversion and, besides which, sometimes it's just not convenient to heft out a largish camera. First pic from the phone. Not bad. Good enough for blogging.

Cacao smoothie and Omega 3 capsule. My standard morning crank-up.
Grilled fish and scallops with veges and salad.
A fruity, nutty combo with hemp milk.
Todays aforementioned lunch. This is another pic from my phone.

Now it's dinner time and I'll be having a couple of organic chicken drumsticks with heaps of veg. The Programmer will be having pizza, because he went on an 8 hour bike ride yesterday and is craving something carby and calorie dense, although I'm sure he just thinks of it as 'I want PIZZA and BEER'. He takes a remarkably non-analytic approach to eating and has mad enthusiasm for exercise. I shall watch and learn, but without the pizza (nightshades).

82/126 - scale hopping

I scale hopped this morning and was pleased to say that my weight is holding steady at 61kg (last week it was 61.1kg so technically, that's a 100g scale loss). I'm going to start moderating my calorie intake, perhaps on one day out of three, just to get some fatloss happening. As I'm maintaining, I don't think I'll need to cut back a lot to get things going in the right direction.

I started today rather late with a zippy cacao smoothie. It was a bit smaller than usual because I left the egg out. I think that egg must cause a fluffing up effect because, apart from that, it was the same recipe as usual.. and it normally fills the glass!

Lunch was ... er.. I didn't really have lunch. I was rushing around, just had time to make a hemp milk latte. Then, at 4pm I had a fish and vege plate.

I was going out to dinner - belated Halloween party. Miss J insisted on having one, AND insisted that I needed to come dressed as a PUMPKIN (clearly, she watches too much TV). To my amazement, I looked in the cupboard and found a sleeping back liner which was in a bright shade of orange. I stuffed it with pillows and tied it around myself. I am pumpkin.

Before dinner I was feeling super hungry, so had an apple and munched a couple of cacao beans, which apparently have an appetite suppressing effect. It seemed to work. Dinner was roast chicken, salad, kumara and some rice and mince invention with raisins that my grandma made. I had a glass of heavily watered wine and two chocolates from the overstuffed Halloween basket, then stopped eating (what a concept!). A successful evening.

No exercise today but I will try and fit some in tomorrow. I've got two exams this week, neither of which I feel overly prepared for, but I need to get some movement in me or my brain my implode under the impetus of too much mental activity unbalanced by some of that other sort of activity.. the one that involves actually moving ones butt off the chair.

81/126

I went to bed last night thinking that I'd be waking up with Saturday morning regret due to the amount of wine that was consumed last night (I'd say three glasses all up but I tend to have half glasses and may have lost count). I know that early in the evening I sensibly delegated driving duties to The Programmer, which naturally gave me license to have another half glass or three. I have to give myself some gold stars though because, yet again, I was feeling very much in the mood to murder a deep fried mars bar, but didn't.

To my great surprise, this morning my head was fine. Organic wine doesn't seem to kick so hard the next day, but that's no excuse to become (even more of) a lush. I'm intending to have a vino-free week and keep it to two glasses on a Friday from this point on.

I got a load of cacao beans for Sana Direct and of course, had to give them a taste test in my morning smoothie. They are exactly as expected, tasty and full of marvellous theobromine. The smoothie also contained hemp milk, banana, agave syrup and a raw egg. I can't even tell you how delicious it was. It should be a sin, a delicious sin.

Lunch was fish and veges baked in the oven. The veges are fava beans (beneficial for type O's) and mushrooms with some oil. I'm kind of conflicted about fish and shellfish. I want to eat more fish and less red meat, but I'm hyperaware of the risk of contamination. It's not just mercury that concerns me (although it certainly does) but also arsenic, cadmium, other heavy metals and PCB residues - all of the things I get the Omega 3 capsules tested for. I've had reassurances from Sealord that their frozen, bagged fish is low in mercury (less than 2 ppm) but I'm not sure what the regulation is. Do they have to test every batch? I can sense a future mission coming my way.. investigate mercury levels in supermarket fish and shellfish. With lunch I had my Omega 3's and Glucosamine.

My mid afternoon snack was rather hefty, about 400 calories of Lara Bar. That's 200 calories before my bike ride (I rode to my sisters to get my car) and 200 calories when I got back home and was feeling ravenous.

Dinner was a reheated beef braise that I've been hoarding in the freezer for a few weeks. My idea with meat is to just eat less of it, relative to the veges. I think the whole plate comes to about 550 calories, with 50 of those coming from the pepitas in my salad (calorific little pieces of crunchiness). I made some baked kumara slices in oil, there's salad and baked veges. With this in me, I can even resist the lure of the halloween candies.

Tomorrow, the Wednesday weigh in. Yes, it's Sunday. It's been that sort of week.

78/126

I know, it's been days! Not to worry, all is almost well. I've had another techno glitch, where I went to download my carefully arranged eats and the card tells me 'naaaah'. It says 'the card cannot be accessed'. Great.

Now, let's see. The last few days have been kind of crazy because I had an exam and now I'm preparing for the last two. I did get in a yoga/weights fusion workout yesterday and have managed to navigate the stress without any stress eating, although last night was a very close call. I was at my sisters for dinner and had consumed an amount of wine somewhat in excess of my one glass 'keeping it together' limit. Dinner was fine - grilled fish with baked kumara and salad. Perfectly light and delicious, then, for who knows what reason, about half an hour after dinner I found myself looking in the freezer and saying 'does anyone want an ice cream? I'm having an ice cream, anyone else interested?' in a kind of inclusive, if everyones doing it then it's ok, manner.

Luckily the ice creams were single serve, portion controlled parcels, probably less than 250 cals each, but immediately after that little lapse my head started churning over the many possible ways I could get my mouth around something much more damaging. I imagined making some excuse ('you need more milk for coffee.. oh, whoops, I thought you were out!') to go out and fulfill my urge to binge - after all, I'd sat an arduous exam that day, didn't I deserve to party really hard??. But I didn't do it. I shut myself in the bathroom and practiced some self talk. I reminded myself how far I'd come and that bingeing now would just put me back at that perpetual 'day one' - the most frustrating day in existence. I reminded myself of all the reasons why I want to live a healthy life and lose weight - to improve my arthritis, to live longer, to have more fun, to set a good example for Miss J, to free my mind from the mental exhaustion of the lose-gain-lose-gain-gain rollercoaster. It took quite a few minutes - I'm sure my family were thinking I was having a nasty toilet experience (!) - but I managed to put my mind back in the necessary place and get right back on track.

Victory.

75/126

'Scuse the couple of days absence! I have uni exams coming up. One next week and two the week after, also there has been a lot of thinking going on in my little head. I've been feeling a bit 'blah' for a while and over the last few days have really started to nail down what it's all about. I don't want this to be a whiney kind of blog, so I'll just summarise by saying that in the 'last few years' (say four or five!) I've had a series of things (and people) happen that have really clobbered my self-esteem and self-belief. It's time to get on top of things again and, finally, I feel like I can manage it. I've always believed in the fact that you pull toward yourself what you focus on, but somehow I forgot to put it into practice, slipping instead into the coma of thinking that my life was just about struggle and I'd might as well put up with it! So wrong.

Health and fitness-wise, I've had a rocky few days but not awful. Yesterday and today were *five star*. Yesterday I got myself to Zumba class which set me up for a great day. It's amazing what exercise, especially to Latin rhythms, can do for the mental outlook. Then I spent a brain-resting afternoon at a wildlife park, pulling out my lara bar when 4pm snack time came around and later had family around for dinner. I made a seafood/rice thing in the oven.

Todays eating was pretty much the expected routine. Smoothie for breakfast (with some Zilch low-carb ice cream in it - not my usual thing, but I'd forgotten to freeze my bananas and wanted something to frost it up a bit), seafood salad and linseed crackers for lunch, Lara bar and apple for afternoon tea. Dinner was half a glass of wine and the wondiferous creation pictured below:

It's a lamb salad with:

*pumpkin

*fava beans

*mushrooms

*onion

(the above all cooked in the oven with a little olive oil)

*broccoli

*mixed lettuce

*Arame (sea-vegetable)

*about 100g roast lamb

*pepitas (about 10g or half an espresso cup full)

*parmesan and olive oil dressing
It's pretty, and was very tasty, but it's not a lightweight. It's got about the same calories as a Big Mac, (just under 500 cals) but it was very filling and packed with nutrients.

Now I am heading to bed with books in hand. I like to study in bed and it doesn't seem to affect my sleep habits, which could hardly be held up as a model of consistency anyway. Perhaps I'll try the 'sleeping on it' approach and stash the papers under my pillow. Don't know 'till you try.

71/126

Today was fabulous. Under the influence of real caffeine (Espresso Wednesday!) I powered through my last uni assignment and feel moderately pleased with the result. It's a pass.

The weigh in was no surprise (uh-uh). I'm at 61.2kg, which is exactly where I started at day 1. I'm not exactly back at square one though because I'm feeling more settled into the new eating habits and less inclined to have mad breakout choc and wine sessions. Now I'm going to focus on one thing a week as I head toward a lifestyle that will see me in a less fat body. My scales tell me I'm 32.8% bodyfat, but they really can't be trusted. The bodyfat reading swings wildly depending on all sorts of things - time of day, hydration. If I'm wet, they tell me I'm 15% bodyfat...

My 'thing' this week is exercise, because it's been a challenge to fit it in and get it done. My goal is to get in at least four exercise 'sessions' this week and to just get more active. You know, take my niece to the park instead of watching brainwashing DVD's like 'Barbie - The Princess and the Pauper'. Just general, everyday movement. Eating can stay as it is this week.

Breakfast was my usual zippy smoothie with cacao beans, banana, etc.. I'm sure you've got the recipe memorised by now!

Lunch was leftovers from last night, plus an apple and a raw flax cracker. I find it quite easy to eat too many of those delicious, crunchy flax crackers made with love by the sari-wearing Lotus Heart girls. I'm rationing myself to two a day. Flax seeds are super healthy but they are definitely energy-dense little beasties.

Mid afternoon I was in the mood for a 'purple people eater' smoothie. It's packed with cacao beans, berries, frozen hemp milk cubes, frozen banana and a couple of scoops WPC. I found that the straws my niece gets from McDonalds for her orange juice are much wider than the usual breed of straw. This makes the smoothie consumption ritual a lot less frustrating. There are far fewer repetitions of the 'blowing out the chunks' procedure.

Dinner was grilled fish with garlic, salad, a flax cracker, and broccoli with a basil and parmesan dressing that I picked up today at Traiteur. There are pepitas on the salad too. Again, pepitas (pumpkin kernels) add crunch and flavour to a salad but, like all seeds, they are a calorie dense power pack of energy and should carry a *do not eat the whole packet or you will be a fatty popo* warning.

I just finished another cup of broccoli and carrot while blogging. My appetite seems to be back to it's normal, robust self, although today is not the day to judge that seeing as there were numerous espressos going down, down, down. No wine though. I considered it, but really, every day is too much, even if it's only a glass, even if it's organic. The more I read about alcohol the more I think that it's just not that good for us, no matter what attractive story the media spits out based on one sentence of a 15 page study. Still.. I like wine and it IS a living food. I don't think I'll be signing up for complete vino abstinence any time soon. It's that moderation thing, isn't it?

70/126

Today I was in the 'study bubble' pretty much from the moment I woke up, although I did venture out into the wide world to pick up some more dandelion coffee. To my horror there was none of the usual stuff (unbranded) so I spent a small fortune on some of this:

It does not work so well in the coffee machine. I think it's not 'roasted' enough, no crema, probably works better through a filter drip. Seeing as it was a non-espresso day, I reverted to copious amounts of mate tea to get a small buzz once the usual, cacao enhanced, morning smoothie wore off and I started to wilt.

The hungries were slightly less today (thank god!), however my appetite was still more ragin' than usual. For lunch I cooked up a big fish fillet, fava beans and vege thing. It wasn't very photogenic but it was high protein, which as we all know, is THE thing for controlling an 'overenthusiastic' appetite.

About 4pm I made the supersmoothiemonstermix pictured below. It contains: Hemp milk (a new discovery!), frozen spinach, banana, cacao beans, agave, almond butter and two tsps of unflavoured WPC powder. It might have been horribly calorific, but I was feeling hungry and didn't care. That attitude may come to bite me on the arse at tomorrow mornings weigh in, but for now I'm all 'la la la la la' and everything's fine in my happy world of eccentric green drinks.

While prepping a meatloaf for dinner I had some wine and a rawfood bickie thingo that I made. It's got a mixture of sprouted rye, dried fruit, nuts..er... and a few other things in it that aren't coming to mind right now. What makes it good is the big splat of walnut butter on the top.

Then, while dinner was cooking, I did a workout consisting of:

*Tricep dips

*Curl and press with db's (hits biceps and delts)

*Floor bridge with band around knees (hits the glutes good)

*Ball crunch with resistance

It took about 25 minutes.

Then dinner was good to go. It was a meatloaf with added veges - carrot, artichoke and parsnip all grated. Adding veges to a meatloaf makes it more juicy and stops it from being too dry, as can happen with lean meat. I added lots of asparagus (the season is here!!), pumpkin, salad, a raw flax cracker and some pepitas. NB: I kept the meat portion smaller than usual. More veges, more veges!

Then I had an apple and a disappointing dandelion/burdock espresso. I'm overexcited about it being espresso Wednesday tomorrow. I expect a productive day and caffeine perked intensity. Yayyyy!

69/126

Short update today, I just got back from a going away party for my stepfather (he's off to do good in East Timor) and my bedtime is looming. Geeee-awd, another starvin' marvin' day! I didn't take any pics, although the kumara pancake was really quite photo worthy. I was at the time also running around after my four year old niece and it was more important to simultaneously cook and watch her than to whip out the Nikon.

I started the day with my habitual cacao bean smoothie, then nibbled on essene bread with nut butter and some pineapple when the hungries hit about an hour later :( Lunch was some of last nights shank and mashed kumara, then I rushed off to a meeting. By the time I got home, niece in hand I was seriously hungry again and made a kumara pancake, topped with agave syrup and 25g chocolate. By 5pm I was needing a bit more essene bread.

Dinner was a roast at my grandmas place, with a few wines and broccoli. There was a huge selection of things I don't eat and I wasn't tempted. I really hope that tomorrow my hunger levels begin to level off because this is crazy! I've got a few ideas about what's causing it, but the main plan of attack is just keep eating healthy and keep moving! Easy. :)

68/126

In the last 68 days, as you know, I've had my ups and downs with the eating and exercise, and now I'm definitely on the 'up' side of things and planning to keep myself there! One thing I've noted before, and it's worth noting again (so that my stupid brain may eventually 'get it') is how much more alive and awake I feel when I get some exercise and eat good food, particularly living food. I'm making an effort to add more raw stuff into my day, but only to an extent that I'm still having fun with the idea.

Believe me, I'm not about to become a raw-foodist, or a vegan, or especially a vegan raw-foodist (wonderful as they may be). I had a bad trip in my teenage years with believing that veganism, then raw-foodism, then fruitarianism was the best and only path to a long and disease-free life. Unfortunately, the result was that the restriction of it drove me directly into binge eating disorder for many, many years. I no longer believe that idealism is a workable approach to food. A way of eating is not a religion, you don't go to hell if you break the rules.

Today, being Sunday, I slept in then got myself to the gym for a combat-style class. Although I always feel like the most un-co person in the room, it was super fun. Breakfast was my usual cacao beans, banana, almond milk, agave and maca combo, to which I am fiercely devoted, and my Omega 3's. I did not photograph it because.. how many brownish smoothies does the world really need to see? I may change my mind about this tomorrow ;)

Today I had the same extreme hunger problem as yesterday. I'm wondering if it's part of caffeine withdrawal? I seem to remember in the past getting the hungries for about a week when I've gone cold turkey off the espresso. I wouldn't say I'm undereating or overexercising, so it's probably something like that. Early afternoon I had a cup of pineapple, 2 squares of raw chocolate, a tsp of nut butter and a dandelion espresso. That shut my growling stomach up for about half an hour ;-/

Mid afternoon I had half a lara bar and a tsp of nut butter. Then I brewed up a horsetail tea, which is very high in Silica. My naturopath friend David reminded me that silica is the very thing for tissue calcification, which I have in the right rectus femoris tendon. I'm sure that it's related to the arthritis too.

My rye berries had sprouted enthusiastically and I couldn't put off the essene bread making messiness. I also experimented with a few different mixes involving dried fruit, spices and cacao beans. I'll let you know how those work out. There was quite a bit of sampling going on. It's important to sample. At Sana Direct we sample a lot. Of course, that's for the lab tests, not my tastebuds, but QA is QA.Dinner was lots of salad, my favourite mashed kumara and some lamb shank. Of course, that was about an hour ago and, yet again, I'm hungry. This is outrageous! I want to complain to the management. I'd like to exchange my appetite for a less annoying one, thanks, that would be great.

67/126

Today was awesomely busy, but in a good way. Unfortunately, I did sleep in and missed my Zumba class, oops... However, I've had an industrious few days with a bike ride and a yoga class and am feeling great. Actually, I'm feeling quite sore in my lats and obliques from the yoga, which didn't really feel that tough at the time! I had an exercise revelation on Friday. I had scheduled a boxing class, but was dragging my feet getting ready. I was feeling like I'd rather just eat a Kit Kat. I was feeling like boxing class wouldn't really be all that fun, and that's when it hit me. I'm over boxing class. I don't want to do it, I don't like the pairing up thing. It's too much like school, when you are afraid that nobody wants to play with you. So, I rescheduled. I arranged a bike ride with The Programmer, knowing that he'd make me ride up a hill. He did. It was a small hill (he says, not even really a hill, more like a 'rise'). I think I'm improving.

After dragging my lazy butt out of bed this morning I remembered that I had to get an assignment at least half drafted today (now done) and fired up my brain with a super smoothie. It's got cacao beans, small banana, raw agave syrup, maca (a product which I have sourced now for Sana, yay!), an egg and soymilk. I discovered that freezing the soy or almond milk in an ice tray is a great way to add that nice iciness to the smoothie, and it keeps longer than the fresh version.

My photocropping went a bit crazy, but you see the cacao bits? You see the deliciousness?

I also had a fake coffee day. I've allocated myself two espresso's (or one double) on Wednesdays. All other days are fake coffee days. I'll just have to live with it for the sake of my insomnia and my creaky joints.
Today contained a raw chocolate ration. Gogi and camu camu. Too good. You almost can't look at it, it's so beautiful.

I made kale chips.

and had some with my lunch, which was a meaty stirfry, carrot sticks and my last slice of essene bread with a smidge of nut butter on it.
For some reason, I was really hungry all day. An hour after lunch I made a mega green smoothie, then before dinner I had an apple.

Dinner was Chicken with basmati rice, veges and a glass and a half of wine (it was supposed to be an alcohol-free day, but I slipped and splatted myself under the influence of my mum and her bottles of red). I let myself have a bit more rice than usual just to try and stop my stomach pestering me! I feel fine now, I guess it was just a hungry day!

65/126 - Just when you're feeling cocky...

Firstly, a few foodie pics from the last few days:

1. Minty smoothie. This worked quite well. I added a drop of peppermint oil to my spinach smoothie and it fooled my mind that it was mint. I'd definitely recommend it.

2. Yesterdays lunch. Grilled liver (um, I do quite like it and it's full of stuff I need like B12 and iron), salad with activated almonds.
3. A chicken meatball soup. It was made of chicken stock, veges and then I cooked some chicken meatballs (made from lean chicken mince) in there and it met with everyones approval. The Programmers one also had glass noodles in it. Since we went to a Malaysian restaurant, he's been requesting more asian inspired, soupy things.
Banana icecream. AWESOME. Using a handheld whisk, I blended some bananas, agave syrup, an egg and eggwhites until they were fluffy. Par-froze, blended again, repeat until it works. Excellente in smoothies.
So.. that's the good. Now for the bad. I've had a shocking 4 days with food and today I am a puffy, sad mess. It's been a long, long time since I had such a bad run. Today is Thursday. Monday night I overate by quite a lot, including some cereal. Tuesday morning I decided to get on the scales, because, naturally, I'm a sadist. Unimpressed by the 2kg weightgain, I proceeded to eat my way through Tuesday with that dangerous 'I'll make a fresh start tomorrow' mentality. Yesterday I pretty much did ok, I even got to the gym for some cardio, but then I went to a party and was weak in the presence of lots of little deepfried samosa/spring roll/ indian things that (I figured out later) probably had potatoes in them (a nightshade.. v. bad for my arthritis). Today I am struggling. I just had a meat pie for lunch, which is full of stuff I don't want to be eating, I feel really super tired and it's very noticeable after feeling so good on my usual fare and, of course, quite P.O'd at myself and a bit confused. However.. this learning to live healthy was never going to be a linear thing.

The really interesting thing is that I can now see the clear line between eating and disorder. My regular eating has none of the stuff that used to drive me to binge. I'm not feeling deprived, it's interesting, it's yummy, I'm not hungry, it's not too strict. I have a fair idea what is driving this resurgent behaviour but I'm not willing to put it on a public forum (learn from the celebrities, luv). However, if you are dying of curiosity, email me. Basically, my bingeing rears its head when I have been in contact with certain people, or have been talking about certain emotionally charged subjects, or when I'm being forced into the role of 'fixer-upper' of other peoples issues. Although I feel mentally weak right at this moment (and puffy and fat), it's the time to start sorting that stuff out and making a plan of self-empowerment. So, it's 2pm now and I'm intending to put the junkfood aside and get back on my healthy path of empowerment. I'm just over half way in my 18 weeks, still heaps of time to de-bug my system (heh, living with a Programmer just naturally rubs off).

61/126

Today was dedicated to housework, which for sure is far down the list of my favourite activities. Having had a lot of visitors lately, some of them small children, it had become a necessity to restore some order and this took me honestly, nearly all day (*sob*). However, I funked it up with the 2009 clubbers albumn, threw in a few bodyweight squats and called it exercise.

Pre-grubbing, I fortified myself with an fantastismoothie. It contained almond milk, an egg, agave, frozen banana and cacao beans, which are definitely the new espresso.

Lunch was full of visiting children and their mums and I was in barista mode making cafe lattes. I fluffed up a dandelion soy latte for myself and had a Cherry Lara bar while standing at the machine. An exact copy of yesterdays lunch, and just like yesterday, I was quickly hungry again. About 3pm I had a slice of essene bread with walnut butter and sardines, a raw flax cracker and an unpictured 10g square of 90% lindt chocolate - witness the restraint! LOL.

I was still hungry so reheated some leftover minty roasties from last night.

I'd been slow cooking a spring chicken in the crockpot all day and it was perfectly ready for dinner. I denuded it and made a mega warm salad. It contains, pumpkin, chicken, pepitas, steamed mixed veges, arame sea veges and a little sheeps milk feta. Then I had an apple. The programmers version is on the left. To satisfy his high-carb, eats anything, massive activity lifestyle I added fried rice to his and made a minimal quesadilla. It's just two tortillas with cheese in the middle then grilled in the oven.

And, there was a glass of vino... again. Perhaps I should just let it be and stop feeling bad about it. How can something so wonderfully ruby red possibly be anything less than totally good for me?