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.