50/126

I'm not sure what did it, but I was very insomniac last night. Maybe the cacao beans? I know they are high in Theobromine, so maybe I should treat them with more respect!

However, in spite of the sleep deficit, I got myself out of bed and straight into a short, hard workout, which consisted of bodyweight squats, walking lunges, pressups and reverse crunches on the ball. Nothing fancy shmancy, just the good stuff. Then I got right into a green smoothie. This one contains:
Almond milk, unflavoured WPC, maca, agave syrup and frozen spinach. Not bad at all. I'm not sure which I like the most - the taste or the feeling of virtuousness that comes over me when I drink something green.

Then I put the oven on low and started my 'learning to dehydrate stuff' mission. Apparently it's so very healthy to 'cook' things at a temperature where the enzymes stay alive. I experimented with kale crisps, which took about 4 hours to dry. I'd rubbed a little olive oil and sea salt into them. They were crunchy. The only problem is that two trays of raw kale creates only a small plate of kale chips. I really need to get a dehydrator if I'm going to continue this sort of m'larky.

I ate the kale chips just before lunch, which was an egg salad with essene bread, nut butter and a crunchy apple. BTW.. I ONLY eat crunchy apples. Uncrunchy apples are just ge-ross and I can't handle them at all. I spit them out.. puh, puh, puh.


About 8 hours after they went into the oven, my kumara chips were ready. Nice, but again, massive shrinkage.

Mid afternoon I also munched some cacao beans with figs and had a decaf soy latte when I was out with my mum for a girly catch up.

Dinner was chicken salad....

Chicken salad is a food that I have a psychological problem with. It harks back to the days when I would gak down a chicken salad at least twice and sometimes up to five times a day, even if I was not hungry or in a restaurant. It's time to get over it. I slow cooked a spring chicken and had a crunchy organic lettuce and it just naturally wanted to be a chicken salad.. with kumara wedges. Then I had an apple.

That's today done and dusted. A good day although I'm attempting now to get a grip on managing myself so that, when I get to 9pm at night I don't still have 4 hours of things that I want to get done. This is my next mission, starting tomorrow. Manage my energy, don't let the day run all over me. Do it with at least a littl bit of style. ;)

49/126

I'm going to start with dinner pics. The only reason for this is that moving photos around in the blogger window to get them in the right order is quite frustrating. If anyone knows an easy way to do it, please enlighten me.

Dinner was a sort of burger made with portobello mushrooms as buns. In the middle is a poached egg and some grilled fish. There are also some pumpkin crisps, a mega salad with honey mustard dressing, essene bread and nut butter and broccoli.

After dinner I had a dandelion coffee with almond milk and some erythritol.

The salad. Organic lettuce (watch out for slugs and caterpillars, wash well!), non-organic rocket, carrots and 'sea vegetables'. I could never call it 'seaweed' or The Programmer might start shunning my green creations.

And now, back to the future..er.. past.

This morning I slept in. I woke up at the usual time, then fell back asleep was re-awoken only when my little black and white cat did his usual routine of purring into my ear. I decided to take a day off work, which is a very rare thing. As I'm self-employed and I study, I can get into the bad habit of never taking a day off. As it was, I ended up sitting around yakking about health with someone for hours anyway, cos' that's just the way it is when you've been involved in health nuttiness for 20 years.

Brunch was leftovers:

Then I headed out to do my shopping. While mooching around in the organic shop I found raw, organic cacao beans, which I've been beyond curious about. Having tried one in the car, I was wondering if I'd just made a very expensive mistake. They taste kind of yukky. Once I got home I experimented with running them through the electric mincer with some dried fruit and I think that's going to work. More experimentation needed.

While shopping I had a Tama Toa bar and an apple. It's a 'jazz' apple, very crunchy.

Instead of exercise today I did a motherload of housework, including giving the fridge a once-over. How quickly it gets manky in there! I also started some rye sprouts sprouting for my next go at making essene bread. I swiped my mums kenwood food processor, which she never uses. It's an oldy but it has the aforementioned mincer and I think this will be great for mashing my sprouts.

I'm feeling a bit snackish now and think I'll go discover an organic banana in the kitchen and then hit the sack with Dan Brown ;)

48/126

Today had the potential to go rather seriously off the rails, but, instead of throwing myself in a recklessly crazy manner from the wagon, I decided to just let myself be a little bit bad. It all started when dinner was made and my dinner was looking pretty darn unexciting when compared the The Programmers dinner which was this:

I didn't actually want a white-bunned burger, but I was feeling a bit bummed out that my kumara wedges were far from ready and my meal was looking like a lamb burger and salad. In fact it was a lamb burger and salad, and broccoli (wooohooooo). So I pimped my meal a little bit with things I wouldn't usually eat. I fried an egg and put a slice of cheddar between the egg and the burger, then I spooned some thick mayo onto my broccoli and added some essene bread with nut butter. So it looked a bit better:

Then when my kumara wedges were ready, I had them and followed up with an apple and a really decadent hot chocolate, which is made with organic cocoa, agave syrup, almond milk and a humungous handful of marshmallows. That completely clobbered those pesky 'give me something naughty' cravings.

Earlier in the day I had indulged in some organic, raw chocolate. So.. I guess it was just one of those days. Quite bad, but not really disastrous. It's certainly a far cry from the days when I was incapable of anything that vaguely resembled the middle ground between perfection and the binge.

This morning I hopped on the scale to see what's happening with my weight. I've lost about a kg since I started, which is very slow fatloss. However, I've lost 1% bodyfat, which is good and, what's even better is I'm not counting any calories and hardly ever think about my weight or my size at all. It's very liberating. My intention now is to cut back a little bit on concentrated foods like the nut butter, chocolate and essene bread, get some more exercise into my days (today I did yoga) and just generally edge it all towards more veges, more water and fibre foods and more time doing fun stuff that is not my previous favourite passtime of eating. I've made a 'no eating in the new office' rule, which should stop mindless munching. My mind is always on the long-term. I've done quick weightloss and it's not what I need right now. I need slow and steady.

47/126

This morning I tried my morning dandelion coffee with almond milk. It didn't exactly work. The almond milk frothed rather dramatically, which was fine, but once added to the dandelion coffee it sort of curdled and separated out in some weird food chemistry reaction. With stirring, it would become coffee-like again, but then in about a minute it was back to the weirdness. I did drink it, but I'm not sure if I'll repeat the experiment.

Late lunch was another attempt at an omelette, this time even less successful than the last one! I'm not sure that almond milk works in omelettes either, or it could be that I try and add too many veges. Anyway it tasted fine, I can handle a bit of falling apart-ness.



Mid afternoon we headed out to pick up some wood for the fire and I grabbed half an organic, raw chocolate bar - about 25g worth. It had gogi and camu camu berries in it. Google informs me that camu camu is a rainforest berry with all sorts of super duper beneficial health effects, but I still eat those bars for their chocolate content. Later in the afternoon I had a Ginger Snap Lara bar.

I did not exercise per se today but there was some rushing around and some wood chucking. I dedicated myself to getting some work out of the way that had been left hanging from the week that I went away. This is important for my peace of mind. Now I've got all but one of my assignments for the year done and I'm where I should be with work docs. Therefore, there is no excuse not to get my five training sessions in this week.

Dinner was a delectable lamb chop with fava beans, pumpkin and broccoli. I was still kind of hungry after that so had an apple and a banana with some nut butter and agave syrup. Nut butter is one of those foods that I'm really careful about. It's so easy to eat 300-400 calories of it and not even notice because it's so calorie dense. I treat it with respect in the portion control phase, and then I munch it down with relish.

Tomorrow, the beginnings of the essene bread experiment, round TWO.

46/126

I apologise for missing day 45, what can I say? It was a Friday and my Mum came for dinner. This is a lethal combination and somewhere around 11pm I realised that my glass of wine had somehow become bottomless and that I was completely stonkered.

The good of it is that, even with comparatively less blood in my alcohol stream I was not tempted to stuff my face. I had one freshly baked wheat roll as part of dinner, but that's it. There's still unmolested chocolate in the fridge. What universe is this??

Today I woke up with a head full of gravel and as a result there are few foody pics because my camera is heavy and the 'click' is way too too loud. I started with a liver-cleansing dandelion soy latte, then got stuck into copious amounts of detox tea, which has peppermint, fennel and nettle in it. Lunch was some leftover chicken drumsticks and an apple. Then I took my life in my hands and went for it with a green smoothie.

It had frozen spinach AND frozen broccoli, frozen banana, soy milk, some soy protein isolate, and agave syrup. I was very green and undoubtedly good for me. Also, it did not taste bad. I can't say I'm ever wild about green drinks, maybe it's a psychological blockage.

I then spent the afternoon moving into my new office. This is a serious improvement upon my old office which was just in an alcove off the kitchen. Now there is separation between my food and work environments, which has to be a good thing. Also, it frees up the dining table!

Late afternoon I ate an entire Tama Toa bar, which was a real indulgence, then later, dinner. Tonights feast was grilled fish with lotsa veg. Then a Dandelion coffee with almond milk. Tomorrow I must do some exercise! I've been loaned a mountain bike and may head off in search of adventure. I've been thinking of buying one but want to give it a decent try out first to be sure that my back can handle it. And, with that, it's time for bed. Tomorrow will be brighter!

44/126

Today I was feeling that whatever I am doing, it must be the right thing because I'm feeling really good. My energy is great, I'm waking up early and I'm not thinking about food all the time, in fact, I haven't counted a calorie for more than three weeks. I was having issues with calorie counting. It had been messing with my mojo. For example, if I had 'spare' calories because I hadn't been hungry that day, I felt like I should eat more, just because I could. If I was hungry, but close to my calorie limit, I felt like I was not 'allowed' to eat, which made me feel deprived and usually led to breakout eating. It's better this way. If I'm hungry I eat something delicious and usually healthy, end of it.

Today I made another attempt at replicating the fabulous foldover omelette that I got at Tangente in Dunedin. It was..er.. not quite a fail, but I think I need either a non-stick pan or a whole lot more oil if I want that lovely smooth finish. Taste was fine though. This one had spinach, mushrooms and garlic.

Lunch was my favourite Lara Bar which is ginger spice. So good. It may be the new eggs (for those that are not longtime readers - I went through a mad phase where I was paranoid about running out of eggs. It got the the stage when I always had about 6 dozen eggs in my fridge).

Then I went on a Dandelion coffee mission and on my return, made a dandelion soy latte! Yay, I did it! That's half a raw Tama Toa bar beside it.


Then a banana with almond butter.

Today was the day. My rye sprouts were ready and I made my first attempt at making essene bread. I mashed the sprouted rye berries in the blender, formed them into somewhat sludgy balls, set the oven very low and dehydrated them for about 5 hours. The result was ... pretty good for a first try. They needed more mashing, but I'm keen for another go. I ate two of these with a little nut butter and cherry jam (a test kitchen must have a taste tester).


Dinner was a chicken and vege thing with kumara and pineapple. Nothing too ambitious.

No training today as I was writing all day. That's the large assignment done, and I did rewrite the last paragraph, changing the theme of it completely. Tomorrow I've got a smaller one to finish, then a smaller one again to email on Saturday. After that, I'm all yours, more or less ;)

43/126

Today I have been 100% focused on writing a 2500 word essay about Motivation Theory. It's interesting but my eyes are bugging out from staring at the last paragraph wondering how I can fix it. I think it's time to let go for the night and tomorrow it will all be clear.

Today had a few breakthrough moments. When I'm under pressure and meeting a tight deadline, the urge to snack sometimes gets unbearable. Today I was constantly jumping up and wandering into the kitchen looking for 'that thing' that would relieve the pressure. I decided instead that when that urge hit I'd do a few yoga poses instead. Surprisingly this did work. This is progress.

I started the day with a 20 minute burst on the stat. bike and a soy latte. It did have real coffee in it, but only because I wasted all of my dandelion coffee figuring out how to get it to run in the Saeco. Of course I'd already steamed the milk by the time I rememberd about that. Tomorrow I'll treat myself to another packet of overpriced roasted, ground dandelion root

Late morning I was thinking about making an omelette, but in the spirit of trying 'something else' I created this fruity, nutty concoction instead. It's got apple, half a banana, dried cranberries, figs, walnuts, the tiniest amount of wheat-free cereal (I mean, really tiny, about half a tbsp) and soy milk.
Lunch was a Lara bar, cherry choc.

Then, as I was still feeling hungry, I decided to experiment with joining the whole spinach smoothie craze that is sweeping the blogosphere. I saw it on Skwiggs blog but I've been very nervous about trying it. I used just one cube of frozen spinach, some WPC, agave nectar, maca half a tbsp nut butter and half a frozen banana. It was surprisingly ok. With an exercise of imagination I could detect the spinach-ness, but it wasn't off-putting. I may try it tomorrow with two cubes of frozen green stuff. Wild times.

At this stage it occurred to me that I'd had an almost vegan day (discounting the WPC), which is so unusual as to be a first for me. I wasn't aiming for that, it just happened. Dinner was meaty. I made a beef tangine with mashed kumara and parsnip mash, pumpkin, fava beans.

After dinner I was in danger of raiding the icecream but instead I threw together a healthier treat - banana, dried cranberries, a little almond butter and agave syrup. So yummy, and really too easy.

Tomorrow you should find me in a good mood, as always hits when I finally hand in a killer assignment. My neck/back is feeling much better after a day of typing at an ergonomically set up station and I should be good for some exercise, or perhaps shoppercise, depending on how the day goes.

42/126

I've passed the magical 40 day mark, like Jesus in the desert (or, in my case, dessert?) and it feels like I am making progress. I managed an entire week away from my controlled home environment and did not go into a foodie panic for more than a few moments at a time. I also managed to stay nightshade-free, although I wasn't too strict on myself otherwise. I even achieved a few miraculous things, like just taking a few bites of brioche and avoiding alcohol for five nights out of seven. I wasn't perfect, I had some coffees and one icecream sundae, but maybe this is what normal eating is all about? Being imperfect, but not disastrously so.

I've got a couple of pics from the last couple of days. Firstly, the delicious fruity, ricey, chicken thing that I made last night. I adapted it from this recipe on about.com. I left out the orange juice (not good for my arthritis) and used agave nectar instead. Very yummo. I had the leftovers for lunch today.

This purple drink was yesterdays brekky. It's got soymilk, whey protein, maca, blueberries, almond butter and raw UMF honey in it.

Today I am once again in my head-down-bum-up assignment writing mode, and did allow myself a few of these for the sake of my focus and concentration. After two, I knew I'd had enough and switched back to my trusty herbal teas.

I also had half of one of these locally made Tama Toa bars, which I found at Piko Wholefoods yesterday. It's a raw food chocolate bar with all sorts of fruity, nutty bits. It's about the same calories as a supermarket chocolate bar, but with 1000% more goodness and six times the price. It was worth it. Gimmee, gimmee.

Later I finally figured out how to use Dandelion coffee, which is just roasted, milled dandelion root, in my espresso machine. Lo! A dandelion long black with a touch of soy milk. I have a carton of soy milk to use and then I'm going to have a go at making my own oat and almond milk. I'm sure I'll manage to blow something up. It's sure to be interesting.

Dinner tonight was a fish soup, leftovers from Sunday night. I threw in a bunch of veges and some chicken meatballs to 'beef' it up. The Programmer got sobu noodles in his, but I saw at the last minute that the buckwheat ones have regular wheat as one of the ingredients, and so I refrained. Wheat is OFF the BTD. The soup was just fine without the noodlys.



I did a very short workout today and twinged something in my upper back while doing tricep extensions with the medicine ball. I aggravated the old OOS problem while on holiday by using my laptop in unusual positions and now I'm paying for it! The only treatment is to rest it and usually it only takes a few days to settle. Tomorrow I'll see if my rye sprouts are ready to be made into essene bread. I have to invent some means of partially grinding them first. You'll be the first (and maybe the only) to know how it all turns out!

41/126

Regular programming will resume tomorrow. In the meantime, I've posted a few foodcam pics over on Sanaworld.

Catch up...

Well, my laptop is going, but I have to run it at a ridiculously low res. and it's not so much fun. I've been doing quite well, with no serious food-ups and lots of walking. There have been a few moments where, for example, the best choice was a cheese stuffed kumara, but generally it's been heaps of fun and good choices. I'll do a proper catch up once I get back on Monday. Tonight is Friday night in Dunedin, which shall involve a glass of wine. I have not had a single drink for the entire holiday to this point, which is something of a minor miracle, so it's time to let loose and party. Hopefully, not too hard. ;)

34/126

I’m just racing off for dinner and am not sure what that will be yet, but today has had it’s ups and downs to this point! I didn’t sleep well, which always does crazy things to my appetite, then I was just settling down to some essene bread and a home-made protein bar when the Programmer got back from his (VERY) early morning sunrise photo shoot and announced we were off to get breakfast. I settled on the scrambled eggs, after questioning the serving lady about what they put in them (cream) and requesting a lower fat version (no cream thanks). I’m not sure what they did but the result was very milky tasting and also huge. The chef and waitress probably did a mutual eyebrow raise and doubled the cream just to teach me not to be a picky eater! I ate half the serve.

We then drove the Mt Cook. I got some great photos but, once again, I’m speed typing and don’t have time to upload. Sorry chickies. Lunch was a Lara bar, tea with soymilk and a bite of that divine cream cheese frosting from someone elses carrot cake. Lunch lacked. I’ve got an assignment to complete. It’s quite nice sitting in the cabin, looking at the lake and typing, but after a couple of hours of hard thinking the boredom and ravenous munchies hit and I raided the cooler for essene bread, figs, pumpkin seeds and another Lara bar. It was a bit of a lapse, even if everything eaten was compliant. Oh, and a can of pineapple. I got out my trusty food neurosis analysis journal and figured out that, duh, perhaps it was time for a break and a walk by the lake.

My plan for dinner is to try and get a grilled fish or something else light, with veges. As this IS small town NZ, it might be a stretch, but I’ll give it a go. Fingers xx’d.

33/126

This is going to be a short post because I'm on the clock at the overpriced internet point.  We do have wi-fi in the cabin, BUT my laptop is throwing a fit and The Programmer is trying to fix it (perks of having a Programmer).

The hardest part of travelling for me is being a passenger in the car.  I get bored to death and it's a struggle not to just munch.  Before we left I ate some essene bread with an egg and nut butter, then pretty much got in the car and dreamed of lunchtime. When the moment arrived we found a country pub that did a good roast.. I requested no potatoes and left behind the cheese-drenched leeks.  Then I had a chocolate fish from the most unusually placed chocolate shop.. right there in little 'ol Geraldine.  Mid afternoon I had a Lara bar and a banana and finally we made it to our destination and I could get out of the car and do some walking! I did some yoga on the shores of Lake Tekapo and then some study.  It's wonderful to be out of the city, peace and quiet, beautiful scenery.

Tonight we walked into Tekapo. Hmm, it's pretty dark in the country without street lights, huh?  We found, of all things, a Thai restaurant and I got a starter of grilled chicken and a main of ginger stirfried prawns and veges.  It was SHINY with oil but I was really hungry and ate it all anyway.  Tomorrow I'm going to try and forget about food until I get hungry. Way too much of that 'waiting for the next meal' feeling today. 

Hopefully we can get my lappy fixed and I'll be able to post some pics over on Sanaworld. 

32/126

No piccies today! I did take one of my newly invented smoothie.. but you've probably seen enough smoothie pictures. It's not that one is noticeably different from the previous one.

Breakfast today was a bit of leftover chicken from last night, some essene bread and a mini-apple. Then we went 'out and about' and it was getting close to lunchtime when we went into a swanky looking cafe in Merivale Mall (that's the poshest Mall in Chch - you don't want to actually buy anything there, just look). The selection was particularly dire, so I had a Green Tea and told myself that nobody starved to death between breakfast and lunch, even though the anxiety was setting in (what if we get a flat tyre on the way home??). The strange thing is that by the time we DID get home, I no longer felt all that hungry and had a pineapple/protein/maca smoothie for lunch. It had a whole can of pineapple chunks in it and my blender struggled, but it was delicious. Hard to get up the straw though...

Mid afternoon I had a boiled egg, some essene bread, a raw carrot and only two squares of organic raw chocolate. Oh, the impressive self control! I'm training myself that you do not have to eat 40g to get a chocolate experience. Later, about 5pm I was feeling that 'really want to munch' urge in my brain, but not in my stomach. I decided to go for a walk, which turned into a much longer walk than anticipated because some ninny had tried to go under a low bridge with a digger on his trailer. The digger had ended up on it's (bent up) scoop with it's back wheels stuck in the underside of the bridge. There were a lot of perplexed looking police and interested passersby milling around. I decided to go down the other side of the river instead of the more direct route home and it was significantly longer.. maybe an hours walking all up.

Dinner was a seriously overcooked venison shank. I need to improve my deer cooking skills. It always dries out and tonights was the definition of 'old boot'. I soldiered through most of it, happy for the huge salad on the side. I also had a banana and an apple. Then a little essene bread with almond butter.

Then I had to get some work done, which took me to about 10.30pm and the hungries started again. I grabbed a few walnuts and had another raw carrot. I wonder how many carrots you have to eat to get Beta Carotene overload and turn orange? I'm sure I'm heading that way, maybe it will be mistaken for a ski-tan once I get to Queenstown in a few days.

Ok, ciao belli/e, I'm packed and ready to hit the road early tomorrow. First stop is Tekapo. It's not exactly the back of beyond so it should be easy to find a net-cafe and update the blogs. I'm also taking my laptop. Who knows? Perhaps camping has gone wi-fi? One can hope.

31/126

Fridays are my traditional 'relax a little and have a few wines' day. Usually this evolves into a few too many wines and then an attack of the chocolates. Today, as I'm not drinking, I hardly knew what to do with myself when my Mum popped around for her Friday night wine and whine session. We've had a lot of stress lately and sometimes it's good to have a good bitch and moan in the comfort of your home. I told her 'Mum, I've given up drinking because it gives me anxiety problems' and, of course, she completely missed the point and told me that she had been reading about people that get depressed when they cut down the carbohydrates too much and overexercise. ..

So, we sat down and drank sparkling water with a little bit of ginger mixer in it. Because I wasn't drinking, she didn't either. This is probably good for both of us, healthwise. Oh, except I'd just started my cardio when she turned up, so that was another fail in the exercise dept. Otherwise the day went well. I had an early appointment and noticed that, either because of the non-drinking or because of the healthy diet, my mind felt like it was functioning more smoothly than I'm used to. I was (as usual) addressing my clients ad. lib. but didn't get stuck for words, as often happens. I felt positively brainy. Also, twice today I laughed out loud at things, which felt great - strange, but great. It's been a long time since I had any spontaneous laughter. But, now it's back! Cross-fingers I can stay the course and get my happies back for good!

Eating was fine. I had to break out the near-binge journal before dinner. Just after my mum left, I found myself wanting to eat some essene bread with nut butter and chocolate, and so I did. It wasn't hard to figure out what was going on, it's Friday, I'm nervy about the upcoming trip, let's splurge. Quite a minor result for a Friday though.

Breakfast was the usual egg, essene bread construction. I cut back on the essene bread and had a banana on the side. Omega 3's and Glucosamine.

Lunch was leftover meatloaf and some chicken meatballs with veges. I also had 20g chocolate and a small apple. And, an espresso. The habit is proving harder to re-kick than I'd anticipated. I really want to be caffeine-free. Working on it.

Mid afternoon I grilled a fish fillet with fava beans and veges. Two small apples (they are mini, kid-sized ones). I also went shopping for travel supplies. Tomorrow I will make a batch of protein bars to take also. In my case, it's best to be overprepared.

Dinner was .. um.. a thing. It involved chicken thighs, kumara and parsnip all cooked in a vege broth. I also made a salad and steamed broccoli. After dinner I had another mini apple.Tomorrow I'll be in preparation mode for the trip but I'll try and get a pre-travel blog done. I'll also try and update either here or at Sanaworld while I'm off seeing the sights of the South. Yay for the plug in, backseat cooler. It may whirr like a large refrigerator, and shake, but it symbolises my peace of mind and, for that, I can handle an earthquake in the back for 6 hours.

30/126

Is it really 30 days since I started this craziness? That month went quickly! I'll blink my eyes and it would have been TWO months of healthy habits, just - like - THAT.

Today I kept procrastinating my cardio and then had to sit an online exam, then do some more study and work and suddenly, HELLO, it's 10pm. One day I'll learn. Do exercise early, bubba.

Eating was once again, quite vegelicious and contained nothing resembling wine or chocolate. I've decided to finally give wine the boot for a good long while. I was reading that if you have a slightly anxious mind, like mine tends to be, then alcohol just makes you completely mental, unfocused and sad, as I tend to get. I can do without it. I intend to chase those happy feelings down and put them in my head by whatever means necessary.

Breakfast today was the usual essene bread, egg, walnut butter combo with Omega 3 and glucosamine capsules.

Lunch did not get the photo treatment because I was in the middle of creating some kick-a user instructions for a fictitious software program. This is the joys of the www (which, by the way, in Italian, sounds like vu vu vu). You can take a break and eat lunch while sitting an exam. Lunch was a beef steak and lots of veges. My mother generously gave me a huge pile of fresh highland beef, which is very lean. Also, I know those cows had a great life in the country and didn't experience the horrors of bulk meat processing when it was time to become steaks. Fresh meat like that tends to bleed more than dried out supermarket stuff when you thaw it and I've observed that some people just can't handle it. I guess I'm really not squeamish, I mean, where do people think meat comes from?? Yes, that is blood inside that raw meat. Sorry, I didn't put it there to gross you out. I will make a point not to be playing with steaks when visitors come by.

Mid afternoon was a protein and banana smoothie. This time with Whey Protein Concentrate of my own design. I make a point to properly sample the new batches, even though I'm not supposed to eat dairy on the BTD for Type O's (although the Genotype diet might have allowed it, had I been able to actually figure out which genotype I am). I didn't get any noticeable negative effect from the dairy consumption though, perhaps because it is very low-carb and therefore low-lactose? Anyway it was delishamous.

BTW, the very crucial thing for making a protein drink taste marvellously flavourful is the addition of a coloured straw (as I am kiwi, I shall assert my right to put u's in exotic places).

Dinner was a meatloaf which had sneaky veges that The Programmer didn't even notice were in there. Perhaps he noticed the onion, but he didn't know there was also spinach in there, did he?. BWAHAHHAA.

I had way more veges than meat, due to my new policy of vegeing up myself. Japanese turnips, pumpkin, broccoli, rocket, mushrooms and jerusalem artichokes. A few hours later I had an apple.

Next week, The Programmer and I are making a road trip in the (rudely named) grand NZ tradition of 'going down south' . We will be leaving on Sunday and will be away for a whole week. Naturally this is causing me a high degree of foodie anxiety and, as per usual, I'll probably take several large coolers of food that I only eat a quarter of. It will be very interesting to see how my new nutrition plan holds up in the Big Bad World outside my house. Sink or Swim? Stay tuned.

29/126

Today was vegelicious and an otherwise quite rockin' day. I had a dream last night about winning $10 000 from Lotto, and consequently, woke up feeling happy! My first activity was a brutal lower body workout with 2 minute cardio spikes. That is, between supersets I get on the bike and pedal like hell for 2 minutes. It's the longest two minutes that ever happened, but such a great way to increase fitness. I didn't skimp on the nasty exercises like 90 second planks. I still fail at squats due to my various imbalances, but I think I'm improving. I tried one set unassisted, then went back to ball squats.

Breakfast was a smoothie with rice and soy protein, a banana and a pinch of Stevia powder.


Lunch was a huge pile of veges with an egg and two egg whites. I'm making a super effort to EAT VEGES. That's leftover parsnip mash there, just in case someone was about to dob me in to the BTD police for illegal potato consumption.


Mid afternoon was a salad with some grilled beef, pumpkin, broccoli, lettuce and pumpkin kernels. It had a tsp of olive oil drizzled over.Dinner: More veges and two organic chicken drumsticks. Those organic chickens seem very lean. I've had some disasters cooking them because they can get dry. Today I remembered to cover while cooking and their muscular legs were delish.

After dinner I had a apple, then a couple of hours later another chicken drumstick and a raw carrot. Now I've got sign off. It's time for CSI:Miami. What?? It's practically my only vice! A girls got to have a bad habit, right?

28/126

Today was the opposite of yesterday. It started out badly but ended well! A rare feat, but one that I'd certainly like to be able to repeat. I woke up in a very bad mood, not helped at all by feeling nauseaus and kind of ill and did I mention that I was in a very negative mood? I was not fun to be around. However, as it was a 'no appointments' day, the only person I got to be around was myself, which is definitely a good thing (?)

My head was full of negative thoughts about my ability to actually live the healthy life that I want to live. Mostly, I was dwelling on the fact that I can eat well most of the time, I have no trouble exercising, but then I still have these moments of overeating where I undo all my hard work (not quite true, but we are not talking about a realistic frame of mind here).

The overeating that I've been doing lately, I can't really call 'bingeing'. I've been there and it's really a different thing. If last night had been a binge, I would have been hustling my mother out the door so that I could make a run to the 24 hour service station for icecream and chocolate. Bingeing doesn't end until you can't breathe anymore. This is just overeating. But still, it's destructive because it feels like something that I can't predict or control. It's very frustrating, but I'm beginning to see that it's not a fat issue, or a food issue, it's kind of to the side of that and I need to deal with it in a way that doesn't just involve telling myself 'don't do that'. Today I made a good start at digging up the motivations that drive it.

Before that moment though, there was the morning. Being that I wasn't hungry, I didn't eat until about 1pm and it was just an egg salad with essene bread.

About 3pm I headed to the library. I'd packed an apple and some walnuts and ate them in the car when I got hungry. On the way out of the library, head still full of defeatist thoughts, I auto-piloted across to the dairy and bought, of all things, a steak and cheese pie, which contains nearly everything that's not on my plan. My immediate (illogical) thought had been something like 'well, today marks the end of my first month and next month I'm not going to screw up even once, so this is my last chance to really blow it. I'd might as well really go for it'. I left there with an evil plan to get home and eat .. stuff.

By the time I got home though, I was just feeling angry and, for some reason, this made me ask myself a very intelligent question, which was 'what, exactly, do I get out of it?'. Rather than going at myself with 'I've got to stop this, I've got to stick to the plan, lose weight, this has to be the last time', I wised up. Because, clearly, if it's such a hard habit to kick, I MUST be getting something out of it, right? Otherwise I wouldn't do it. So, I grabbed my journal and just started writing along the lines of what I feel when I overeat. Yeah.. there was a lot, much more than I had first thought, and I would like to keep this post relatively short, so I'll just summarise. Mostly I saw that I use food much like a drug. I use it to alter my mental state, whenever my feelings get uncomfortable, and it does it very effectively. I can't mentally talk myself out of overeating, I'm going to have to deal with it at the icky feelings level. Yay.

After that, the urge to stuff my face was completely gone and I had my mental focus and happies back. Food was just food again and I was able to eat a healthy dinner. It was a grilled steak with a red wine reduction and lots of veges including a parsnip mash (it's hiding under the steak). For dessert I had an apple. There was a glass of wine.

I don't want to needlessly dig into my psyche or pick fights with myself, but intend to just take it gently on a case by case basis and see if I can figure myself out somewhat. I'm sure it will be endlessly fascinating reading for the two people that visit this blog. Actually I have no idea how many readers the Lab has. I'm not going to put a site meter on it because, actually, I don't want to know. It makes it feel more like I'm writing it just for me.

27/126 NCR

Grrr. I seem to be doing 'confessional' posts far more often than the 'I kicked ass today' ones and I'm not liking it, which is part of the point of having a blog, I guess! Get it out there!

Although everything I ate today was technically ON PLAN, I just ate far too much of it. The stress/eating connection I can really see coming through and I have to start developing some strategies. The eating started as I was comtemplating going to a meeting with someone I have a lot of negative history with. I would rather just never see this person, but it was a business necessity. On the way home from that meeting I was so pre-occupied with 'upset thoughts' that I ran a red light and nearly caused a major accident. That's the first time I have EVER even come close to causing an accident and it did absolutely nothing to calm my already fragile state. Nor did the abuse from the driver I nearly slammed into, although I can see that her tirade was completely justified. I'm just so bloody lucky that there was nobody coming from the right or I definitely wouldn't be here to whine about excess consumption of roasted pumpkin kernels. Don't stress and drive.

The good of today was that I once again had a fabulous training session (HIIT cardio) and that I got up early and made something of the day Also, I didn't go for the biscuits and everything so maybe I'm being too hard on myself. My mum came for dinner, so there was wine and dessert (I had a banana with agave syrup) and slack arse watching of CSI Miami + more wine... you get the picture.

What I need is to get some momentum going. Tomorrow marks the end of the first month. I've made small progress and the best I can hope for in month two is to improve on that. ;) Like I said, I'm in no real hurry here. I need to work my way through the practicalities and the forming of habits so that I don't spring back to fatness. I accepted from the start that there would be bad days, but, if I'm on the right track there should be fewer of them as time goes by!

26/126

Today had two foodie irregularities and one technical glitch. Firstly I ate chocolate for lunch, then I had a vegetarian dinner. I wanted to show off my wonderful ginger tofu stirfry but I can't because the card in my camera appears to have become corrupted... and now I've eaten it and the moment has passed. Also, this means that there are no gratuitous food shots today.

Well.. ok, here is a ravaged chocolate wrapper. Is that gratuitous enough? It was definitely good for me.

I got up kind of late today, so breakfast was late (it was the usual essene bread with nut butter and a boiled egg) and then at lunchtime I was rushing around and not particularly hungry. I just grabbed half of the above chocolate bar and an espresso. Hero's lunch. As of now I'm back on no caffeine though because my sleeping habits have once again, gone all to hell. Caffeine is not my friend.

Mid afternoon I ate some leftover curry from yesterday and a fig. Dinner was the aforementioned stirfry (ginger marinated tofu, lots of veges) and an apple. An hour later I was ravenous and had some essene bread with nut butter and cherry jam - it was a really small portion.

Training was an upper body and yoga session. The exercises were:

* Ball pressup (feet on ball) 4 x 10

* Single leg extension (wii-fit) with 5kg bicep curl

*King of the dance (yoga pose) x 3

*Reverse flye using the band 3 x 15

*Triangle (yoga pose) x 3

*Shoulder stand (yoga) x 3

*Hyperextension 3 x 12

I haven't done ball pressups for a really long time because my wrist was complaining. Today it was happy and it felt good to do something quite more difficult. My main challenge at the moment is getting more veges and fewer concentrated foods in the form of essene bread and raw chocolate. Seeing as I've developed an 'organic wine or no wine' policy, the wine consumption should be quite easy to keep under control. The thing which decided me is that I have no ill effects from slurping the organic stuff. Even with moderate consumption of non-organic wines I would have a slightly heavy head the next morning. It may be entirely psychological but I don't care. The way I feel is the way I feel, can't argue with it, especially if it helps me learn how to perform 'extreme moderation'.

25/126

Today was go, go, go from the moment I woke up. It was very much a 'making it work' day.

I was woken up by the Programmer, who was already up and wanted to go shopping (OK!). I quickly boiled an egg so that I could make my usual breakfast of egg, essene bread and walnut butter. We had to take the car for servicing in preparation of the upcoming road trip, so there was quite a bit of walking into town and then around town.

At lunchtime we were near Starbucks so I went for the Perfect Oatmeal again, with a soy cappuccino. Mid afternoon I was back at home and grinding my way through that assignment, which is now sooo very close to being finished (honestly, did anyone ever make such a fuss about getting through an undergraduate degree??). I grabbed some organic raw chocolate and an apple.

Right before dinner I went out for another walk, just to move and clear my head then I made a semi-curry. Instead of curry powder I just used cumin and turmeric. I sauteed a large onion in a saucepan then added some beef, lots of kumara (sweet potato), mushrooms and a can of pineapple. Unfortunately I burned it and had to transfer it from the saucepan to a ceramic dish and stick it in the oven. I served it with lots of broccoli and a few glasses of organic red wine. Mmmm.

24/126

Today was very unusual in that I woke up early and didn't feel like staying in bed. That happens.. never. I've been taking a 5Htp complex for about a week, hoping to give myself a boost in driving away the blahs (it's a natural serotonin booster) and it seems to be working. Either it's the 'very little crap' diet, or the 5Htp, but something in my brain is changing for the better.

Breakfast was the ususal protein + essene bread + Omega 3 combo, this time with a leftover meatball from dinner the night before. And SEE what my violent dishwasher does to my plates? Plates, cups and ceramic cookware.. they all have been bitten by the dishwasher from hell.

Lunch was a lamb chop, fava beans and a delicious fuji apple. Oh, and some organic, raw chocolate. I know I am bucking the ubiquitous vegan trend with my meat consumption. I'm working up a post about it which I will put on Sanaworld. In short, I do eat meat, but I am also against intensive farming procedures. I only eat organic meat and I check the source of it. I've tried vegetarianism and veganism, but even with really careful planning it didn't work for me.

Mid afternoon I ate some carrot sticks with nut butter. As it was a 'sitting on my butt' day, I wasn't all that hungry.

The Programmer suggested that we go out to see the new Harry Potter movie (awesome!) so we stopped for a kebab on the way. Of course I lingered annoyingly around the counter instructing them no tomatoes, no peppers, no chili sauce. They probably thought I was a complete nut. After the movie I had an apple and about 20g chocolate.

Tomorrow I MUST finish that assignment. It's been a really tough one but it's fully drafted. It's functional, now I just need to make it beautiful.