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?

60/126

Woohoo! Saturdays are generally a day with little to complain about ;) I hope yours was fabbo too. I welcomed the day with a morning smoothie that was far too delicious and therefore in my tummy before I remembered to photograph it. It contained: soymilk, cacao beans, banana, raw agave syrup (which is very molasses-like) and a raw egg.

I've never tried the raw-egg-for-protein thing before but The Programmer swears that it's the secret to a great smoothie and it turns out he might be onto something. The whole combo was great, salmonella risk notwithstanding. I also had my Omega 3's . I'm making a point to be more dedicated about taking my fish oil. I just got a batch back from the lab and they are contaminant free and worthy of consumption. Pretty too.

After smoothie-time we headed out to buy some RAM for my PC (I need it to be more speedy, dammit) and discovered a French Farmers Market in the city which was quite underpopulated on account of the freezing weather. Feeling like a complete wuss, I ducked into a cafe called Soul Food and had a hot green tea. Bliss. Then, when I got home I had a dandelion soy latte and a Lara bar. Mmmm mmm.

The afternoon was taken up with work and study and the sugar cravings were troubling me, as sometimes happens when I have to apply myself even though I'd rather be surfing Facebook. I sucked a People Pop which got me through to my mid-afternoon snack - an apple, some sardines on essene bread, a few activated almonds and 10g dark (90%) chocolate.

About 6pm I was thinking about making dinner and already feeling hungry. I made a huge pile of carrot sticks to keep me from hitting the chocolate and had two dandelion espresso's. I'm beginning to like them and think they may just keep my coffee habit under control. They are very bitter, but the taste is growing on me and, of course, dandelion is great for your liver.

Dinner was a lamb tangine, which I neglected to photograph.. oops. At the farmers market I had been given a sprig of fresh mint by a near-hypothermic french farmer and I went googling for mint-inspired culinary ideas.

Notes on the background content of this photo: The dodgy looking brown sludge in the glass is prunes soaking for the tangine. You can also see my raybans.

After completing my research, I decided on roasties with mint. I par-boiled some kumara, parsnip and pumpkin and tossed it with a little olive oil, sea salt and chopped up mint leaves. It was very mildly minty, just what I'd been hoping for.

Just as I was about to serve dinner I got a phone call that my mum and her hubby were going to drop around the two couches that we are babysitting while he is in East Timor (whole other story there..). It is very much their style to do things without notice. So, on the spur of the moment I boiled up a pile of rice and made dinner for two into dinner for four. I also had a glass of red wine.. ok, it was two. Two glasses of red wine *sigh*. But.. no coffee! *shines slightly tilted halo*.

59/126

Another Friday! I started the day with a short upper body workout with weights then grabbed a Lara Bar to eat on the way to see a client. I was feeling a bit flat, probably on account of once again kicking the caffeine. Luckily the cacao beans do give a bit of a kick and I munched a few to wake myself up, it worked. I'm so impressed with raw cacao beans and raw chocolate that I've been making enquiries about selling them through Sana. They are kind of pricey, but I think my customers could enjoy the infusion of happiness compounds.

Lunch was a pumpkin and kidney hotpot with.. lettuce, raw carrot, a flax cracker, activated almonds and pumpkin seeds. That's quite heavy on the nuts and seeds, but I tried to exercise restraint. I know they are good for me, but I'm still slightly nervy of those pesky calories.

Mid afternoon was a fruity and nutty thingo. Banana, apple, figs, almond butter and I sprinkled some WPC on the whole thing to add some protein and mixed it all together. Good stuff. I used to be terrified of eating bananas, but I appear to be over it... ;) Bananas are an essential ingredients of a great day.

Dinner was at my sisters house. I made the mistake of turning up hungry. Luckily I was sent to the supermarket for vino and bought myself a dried fruit bar while I was there. I also had a v.v.small chocolate bar - 15g. Dinner was fabulous. Fish done a'la my sister. I don't want to think about how much olive oil it was cooked in, but it was garlicky and spicy and delicious. I had baked kumara with it, salad and two small glasses of red wine. Of course.

58/126

This is just a short update to say 1) There will be no update today because I have been too busy and sleep deprived and need to eat dinner then go sleepy and 2) today I found raw flax crackers and activated raw almonds in the wholefood store. Naturally my first thought was .. how can I make these?? If anyone knows, please comment me. xx

57/126

What a day! I started on a highpoint, having mentally argued with myself for about 2 minutes before getting up and being in my office by 8am, go me! I did a few yoga stretches to loosen up, and that was the extent of structured exercise for the day, although I did a hell of a lot of house cleaning and furniture re-arranging.

The day started with an incredismoothie. It was the usual combination of frozen banana, cacao beans, maca, soymilk, tbsp WPC and pinch of stevia. It's like rocket fuel, seriously.

I started some kale chips early and these came out really well, crunchy and delicious. I'm sure they are super healthy, but the thing is, they get tastier the more oil and salt you use. So, maybe the actual kale has minimal calories and maximum nutrients, but I'm not sure about the other things. I estimate this bowl has about a tbsp of olive oil, about 120 calories. Still, that's a LOT less than potato chips and I enjoy them just as much.

Lunch was an omelette mess and a huge salad. I'm vege-ing up myself at the moment. It really helps with energy levels and to maintain that lovely clear mind that comes with great nutrition.

Mid afternoon I made some kumara 'flats'. It's just mashed kumara (cooked) spread out onto a baking tray and cooked at low heat for a few hours. They come out chewy. Then there was essene bread and nut butter, a raw carrot and 10g chocolate to fuel all that furniture moving.

Dinner was a family affair, and heaps of fun, but a real challenge. Miss J had requested spaghetti and meatballs so we made that, except I just had the meatballs with salad and some essene bread - which my mother referred to as 'dog biscuits'... Tomatoes are a definite no-no for the arthritis so I wasn't really tempted. I did have a glass of wine, but JUST ONE and a tsp of mayo on my salad so as not to feel deprived. Later,when everyone else had chocolate cake with fudge sauce, I had about 25g chocolate and then sucked a couple of 'people pops' which are additive-free lollypops. I was having some difficulty staying out of the fridge (where the chocolate lives) so I'd have to call tonight a success, even though I once again over-chocked.

And now it's.. bed time! I'm like a baby that needs to stick to my schedule at the moment. Waaah.

56/126

Today I am definitely feeling the difference between eating well and eating without much forethought. Same with life in general. It doesn't take much effort to get up early, focus on my tasks and whip up a super smoothie. Not compared with how terrible I feel when I don't bother. It's been a rough five days or so, but things are back on track and I'm just waiting for the jeans to loosen up a bit!

The day started with a SUPERBUZZY SMOOTHIE full of amazing things. It's got soymilk, a tbsp of WPC, maca, raw honey and cocao beans. This got me very excited about all those usual morning things..
At lunchtime I had my sister and niece visiting. They had pies and chocolate milk. I boiled an egg and had that between two slices of essene bread with nut butter, oh.. and 10g of 90% chocolate. Then I threw yesterdays essene bread back in the dryer to see if I could turn some into crackers.

Mid afternoon I re-heated some leftovers from yesterday, which was kumara mash, broccoli and some leftover shank. It wasn't photogenic.

About 5pm, all stressed out from the key saga, I decided that I needed a chocolate top up, with figs (ooo, yeah). At least I had the presence of mind to weigh it! That brings my chocolate consumption to nearly 50g for the day. That's still less calories than a small chocolate, but more than I need to be incidentally consuming! Therefore, once the keys had been located, I got on the bike and went the long way to the supermarket for salad.
I decided that seeing as I'd had quite a few carbs at 5pm, I'd keep dinner lower carb. I made a fabulous salad. It's got.. mesclun, watercress, lettuce, grated carrot, blanched asparagus, pumpkin seeds and arame sea veges.
I had this with a grilled lamb steak, pumpkin and mushrooms. Then I had a glass of wine. Chianti. Because it was there and it wanted me.
My goal at the moment it to take my melatonin at 10.30pm, then be in my office by 8am. At the moment I'm still finding it a struggle to fall asleep, but the melatonin is helping, as is the exercise. Tomorrow I feel the need for some weights in the upper body and some yoga. Also, I'm committing to 28 days no alcohol or caffeine starting tomorrow. That takes me to day 84 which is easy to remember as it's 12 weeks. I've tried to do this before and usually failed on the first day. I want to know how it feels to really get these things out of my system. Perhaps it will just lead to a nervous breakdown? Let's see.

55/126

Today was better. I put myself back on the four meals a day routine, just to get some basic structure back into my eating and that helped. Exercise was a no-show. I had planned a bike ride but it rained and then I got busy packing up some Guar Gum - a job which offers peak excitement, oh yes.

Breakfast was a Lara bar, ginger. My favourite. Lunch was a fish and vege thingy just thrown in the oven with abandon. A few hours later I found myself in Coffee Culture with Miss J (my niece) and managed to steer myself away from the cakes and toward a nice, hot green tea.Likewise it took mental effort to avoid the Cupcake Parlour and head for the meat shop to get some free-range lamb shanks. The butcher always gives Miss J a free baby sausage, which made up for the lack of cupcakes in her day. When I got home I put the shanks in the slow cooker with some red wine, olive oil, rosemary and sea salt.

Late afternoon, worn out from my second essene bread making session, I was having a serious chocolate craving. I melted some 90% Lindt and some almond butter in the mikkywave and mixed it up with a chopped up banana. That was 'meal' 3, if you could justify it's existence as a meal... Dinner was the shank, mashed kumara and veges. I put a very small knob of organic butter on the broccoli but it melted away by the time I'd removed the lens cap.

Now my plan is to down 3mg melatonin and make a start at re-setting my sleep-wake cycles. Getting up early really helps me to feel accomplished and balanced, but I can only do that if I manage to sleep. I'm always amazed by, and envious of, people that can fall asleep in two minutes. It usually takes me at least an hour, but I'm determined to learn how to do that falling asleep thing, starting with a little hormonal assistance.

54/126 - NCR

Well, it's been a while since I had to report a non-conformance but ..

Since Friday I've been feeling really kind of complacent about eating in the way that makes me feel best. I've been cranking up on coffee, having wine every night, and eating a LOT of chocolate. Having eight blocks of chocolate in my fridge should be fine, but last night and tonight I've made a complete pig of myself. Tonight included some really nice fruit cake that The Programmers mum made. So.. let's deconstruct it...

1. It was beginning to feel easy. I began to think that deviating wouldn't be a problem. Also I'm clearly losing weight and so I feel like I can afford to relax my attitude toward food. I should know by now, from past experience, that what happens with this sort of lax thinking is that I wake up in two weeks heavier than ever and depressed as all hell. That's the reality.

2. My sister got back from overseas and I began to feel some of the stress that was troubling me when we were last together. The yukky business stress. I was feeling a potential time pressure because I love spending time with my niece, but it cuts into my already over-full schedule. The reality there is that this is all under my control. I can set my limits. Take her biking on Wednesday, have her stay the night Friday, library Saturday, I don't have to be available 24/7. I just think I do.

3. I already know that alcohol, caffeine and sugar consumption fry my mind and make me feel anxious. Now I'm feeling anxious. This is not neuroscience.. or maybe it is?

4. I've got large amounts of food in my house that I normally wouldn't. Maybe eight blocks of gorgeous lindt chocolate in flavours that are not available in NZ is more than I can handle right now. I may have to find some way to ration myself. Ideas?

I knew when I started that there would be some setbacks and now I just have to set myself back on track and learn from it. I can't afford to just slump back into overeating. The last three days are a reminder that if I stop paying attention and get lazy, I will not live the life that I want to live. On the positive, I have not been bingeing relentlessly. I've managed a dinner out with decorum and tonight threw out half a glass of wine when I realised that I didn't actually want to wake up feeling sad tomorrow.

Ok, time to go have a bath and get an early night. Tomorrow is a busy day but I should have a positive 'back on track' post tomorrow night. Stay tuned.

53/126... update

Uh oh...

Well, fair to say there was a rather over the top amount of chocolate consumption. Had to be done!

53/126

Good evening! Yes, I went AWOL yesterday, but it was all with good reason. The Programmer went on a mad spending spree and got me a new computer. Then, being a Programmer, he had to spend a veeeery long time making sure it was all speedy and up to his high Programmer standards... all done while I was fretting and poking my head in the office door every few minutes, as you do when you are an office control freak.

You may have noticed that last night was Friday night, my traditional night of shame. This week, I did not shame myself. Here are a few random pics to prove it.

My breakfast smoothie was a fabulous beast, full of berries, WPC, maca, almond milk and a little stevia powder.
I did not actually record what I ate during the day, but I know it involved a whole Tama Toa bar and more than one espresso ;-/

I noted a few times, especially when I became a bit stressed out, that my mind was giving me the 'it's Friday, you deserve to REALLY splurge' line. I politely told my thoughts to eff-off. That sort of mindset really leads to nowhere good. Instead, while shopping I picked up a bottle of organic wine to share with my mum and some of this fantastic par-baked bread. For some reason, the expensive organic shop sells this at HALF the price of the supermarket. Probably an oversight... probably shouldn't say it out loud.
This bread goes into the oven for 15 mins and comes out perfecto. To go with it, I made a beef braise with something like a kg of beef in it. It was defrosted and needed to be used.
Funnily enough, when serving-up time came, I was craving a salad. This is MY plate, white bread and all.
And.. nothing else to report. That was IT. No carnage at all. Nothing to see here.. for once.

Today I had to get my butt out of bed and pick my sister and niece up at the airport. I grabbed a Lara Bar to take with me, but instead only had an espresso. Then, while looking through holiday snaps, I ate the bar and the icing off a cupcake. Not sure what happened there. Lapse of reason.

Later in the afternoon I had the below plate of yummies:
..and, a plate of leftovers from last night. Meat and veg. I really don't know what happened to the photo...
Todays exercise was just a housework frenzy while waiting for The Programmer to release my computers into my loving arms. I even vacuumed, which hardly ever happens. In fact, it's kind of a joke that about seven years into our relationship I had to ask my man if we had a vacuum cleaner and where it might live.

Tonight I have a dinner out for my sisters birthday.. which means I must now race off to rustle up a present and get pretty. It should be a fun night! ..but not overly so..