Days 4 & 5

It's been a very busy weekend for Mr E and I, but I have managed to eat really well in spite of that.

Saturday night I made a very simple dessert!

Combine 1 tablespoon raw cacao powder, 1 tablespoon agave nectar, 1 tablespoon tahini, and 1 tablespoon of water...

Chop up fresh strawberries and put into tiny cups (I used expresso cups and you know how small they are!)...

 ...and pour over the 'chocolate' sauce.

This was delicious, and only that small amount was enough to make me feel immensely satisfied. 

Sunday I started the day with my Sprouted Buckwheat Granola again, then we rode to Townsville to test ride some BMW motorbikes. The only food on offer was a sausage sizzle, so I had a small one with onions and no butter. I didn't mind because I knew I was still being conscious of everything I ate and times like these will occur occasionally.

Last night for dinner we dined at the home of some good friends - scrumtpious fresh baked lamb and an assortment of fresh salads. They are healthy eaters so the meal was perfect, and I only ate small portions and had no seconds. Yay to me. ;-)

Today I once again had the Buckwheat Granola with fresh yoghurt and fruit for breakfast, and since then (it is now almost 3pm) I have had 3 small smoothies.

The first two I made (morning tea and lunch) with 1 cup of almond milk, 1/2 small banana, and some blueberries. The third one for afternoon tea was 1 cup soy milk, 1/2 small banana, blueberries, 1 teaspoon agave nectar and a spoonful of tahini for energy. 

I recently bought one of those Rocket Blenders. They are small and you drink straight from the cup it's made in - so easy for my single portion serving.

 

Love those creamy blue bubbles!

Tonight Mr E is having leftover rissoles, and I am having some Japanese tofu with a couple of fresh salads and perhaps I'll make a berry and apple crumble for dessert. 

My sour dough mother will be ready to mix into bread dough tonight, so after I let it rise all night I can bake it in the morning. Also need to make more yoghurt! 

What are you eating?

Hugs

Jenny

Day 3 - are you still with me?

Today was definitely easier than yesterday. The sugar (lollies, biscuits cake etc) cravings last night were not pleasant, but I didn't succumb to them so I am pleased - if I'd given in it would be back to square one on that count today.

Dinner was a success! Jody Vassallo's "Lime & Lemongrass Chicken and Rice" was delicious! It is made similar to a risotto but without all the stirring.

 

I'd never cooked with lemongrass, fish sauce or kaffir lime leaves before, but I will again. :-)

17yo daughter wasn't keen to try this dish so I made her a big pot of beef and potato curry. 

Indian cooking is natural for me as I cooked it every day for 10 years in my 20's. Downside is that my husband hates curries, so I tend to cook Indian only occasionally for the daughter and I.

Breakfast today was the same as yesterday - buckwheat granola, yoghurt and fruit. 

Lunch was soy/linseed bread toasted and smothered with avocado, soy cheese, and salad vegetables. Yum!!

I am not using butter during this 30 day detox because I eat butter sliced like cheese. Honest. I never use margarine, always butter, and I still believe it is the healthiest for our bodies because it is natural but I know I go overboard with my personal portions. 

My sweet treat today is freshly cut pineapple.

A new batch of rye sour dough starter is brewing on my kitchen bench...

...and these beautiful soaked almonds have been turned into 1.25 litres of fresh almond milk for some smoothies.

 

You'll find my Almond Milk tutorial HERE.

Tonight I'll be finishing up the Lime & Lemongrass Chicken from last night, probably with a big green salad. Mr E is happy because I am making him rissoles - he goes weak at the knees for my rissoles. ;-)

The vegetable crisper is full once more after a morning stroll through Woollies. I love their new bags...

Great sentiment, but sad they rip off hard working farmers by paying so little.

Anyhow, enough said. If only we lived nearer to a big city and a farmer's market, eh?

I may not post tomorrow. Hubby and I will be test riding three different BMW's in Townsville. Be still my beating heart.... :-)

Hugs

Jenny

Day 1 & 2 of my 30 day accountability...

It's hard to do this. Well, of course it is or I wouldn't have to keep starting over, would I? 

So I am sticking to this truth - every day is new, yesterday is gone forever. 

Today I have been able to stay on track. Yay!! \o/\o/ Day 1 (yesterday) and Day 2 have been good ones.

Last night I made us a simple Beef stir fry with Udon noodles, because my husband LOVES Udon noodles...

...and for dessert we had freshly made Bliss Balls.

These are so easy, lovely and sweet, but most importantly they are healthy and a good alternative to baked desserts.  To make them just add equal amounts of dried apricots and dried figs to your food processor and whizz them until they become a paste. Roll them in balls and toss through coconut lightly.

The recipe I used is from the Detox DVD (you can see the pic in my left hand sidebar), and it actually shows to roll the balls in a mix of sesame and sunflower seeds. I would have done that but my family would have shied away immediately. However, rolling them in coconut was wise as they all ate them! 

Personally I love sesame and sunflower seeds, but I do have them most days in my homemade Sprouted Buckwheat Granola, so omitting them from the Bliss Balls wasn't a tragedy. 

This morning I added home-made yoghurt, fresh passionfruit and strawberries, and white chia seeds to my Granola. 

 

The recipe for Sprouted Buckwheat Granola is on the right hand sidebar. 

I was out and about most of the morning (walking is good, yeh?), and could feel the effects of no caffeine. - low energy, and yawning a lot. I think it's also my body in a right mess at the moment, and working at ridding itself of the build up of sugar and toxins.

I am back to herbal teas...

My favourites are Licorice, Chamomile & Spearmint, and Cinnamon & Apple. In future though, I'll save the Chamomile & Spearmint till bedtime. LOL! I have Red Clover as well because it's good for menopause, but the taste isn't something I yearn for. 

I have decided I will have a de-caff soy coffee each day as soy is a miracle for easing off my hot flushes. The soy milk I use is Vitasoy, and it's so nice that I have had no problem omitting milk from my diet altogether.

I'll experiment with soy yoghurt making in a few weeks. The ones you buy at the supermarket are ghastly!

Lunch was a fresh salad...

 

Lots of different greens and 1/2 an avocado, snow peas, shallots, cherry tomatoes, and a dry bakes Kiffler potato. I made a simple soy dressing and it was lovely. 

Another Bliss Ball for dessert, and I am about to brew the kettle for another herbal tea. I am drinking more water than usual, but still not enough. 

A book I ordered last week arrived and it has some fabulous recipes!

 

The book arrives in a recyclable drawstring pouch and is printed on recycled paper with low ink. The authors are two Aussies and the recipes look normal, and quite do-able.

Do-able recipes are important, aren't they? I have some books that I thought would be great to make meals from but the recipes have way too many ingredients and too many steps - not to mention ingredients I cannot find and some I have never heard of. 

You can read more about this book at their website. 

Martha Goes Green

It was the name that got me looking. ;-)

I should clarify that I am not vegetarian. I used to be a few years back, but I do eat meat these days. My reason for owning and purchasing more good vegetarian cookbooks is to widen my ideas on what to serve with meat. My man loves meat. My son loves meat. I can't forget that. 

Tonight I am going to make one of Jody's recipes from the Detox dvd, Lime & Lemongrass Chicken. I was salivating watching her make it!

Dessert will probably be a fresh fruit salad as I bought a freshly picked pineapple today and I have strawberries, passionfruits, and blueberries on hand as well.

I hope you are encouraged by my daily posts during this Accountability - your comments certainly help me. :-) 

Hugs

Jenny

It's time to get real...

Dissappointed. That's what I feel.

Dissappointed in myself for straying too often, and too far, from the healthy side of the tracks.

Can you hear me groan? 

That groan is not the dissappointment. That groan is my tiny 5'1" body struggling to carry the extra 20 kilograms I have piled on to it! 

And let's not even start on the heartburn that makes a regular nightly visit or the puffing and panting as I climb the twenty stairs to get into the house. It's a sad and sorry sight indeed, but worse - my body is unwell and I chose by my own behaviour to bring that about. 

I am a person who needs accountability. In order for me to get the job done I like a deadline; I work wonderfully with deadines and rarely fail to achieve them.

However, choosing to eat healthy-on-purpose doesn't give me any accountability to anyone but myself. This is where you come in. I am going to ask you to be my accountability partner for the next month. Why a month? Baby steps. A manageable chunk of time. Enough days to form new habits.

The reason it's so important NOW?

The grandsons are moving to town next week and if they arrive and I have platters of choc-chip biscuits and strawberry cream sponge cakes then that will set the precedent of those little bodies always expecting sweet and unhealthy treats from their nana.

If a precedent is to be set, it will be that nana has different foods, but they sure taste good! 

These are strewn across my dining table for ideas and teaching...

 

 

The Detox dvd has 9 wonderful recipes that I will make for myself and (hopefully) Mr E over the next few weeks. I loved it so much I have ordered the book because it has many more recipes. The author is Jody Vassallo and 'wow' does she make me comfortable! She is relaxed, explains everything, and isn't hung up on being ultra strict but guides you along a detox path that will work because it's so close to normal. 

I realised after I watched the dvd that I own one of her books - "Wheat & Gluten Free". I used it a lot when my 18yo son was off wheat and dairy for a year in 2006. The recipes were simple, tasty, and the book was just like any glossy recipe book with amazing meals to prepare! She is a fabulous cook and I'm excited about trying them all again...

 

 

I am not coeliac, and neither are any of the family members, however we all feel better in our digestive system when we avoid wheat and dairy - in particular, dairy with all 4 of us still living at home, and wheat with my 18yo and myself.

Today I made Sticky Black Rice for breakfast, a recipe from Jody Vassallo's book. Have you used Black Rice? It's lovely and makes a good dessert rice...

I had to soak it in water overnight, but I also added some lemon juice to break down the enzyme inhibitors and aid digestion.

This morning I rinsed the rice, then cooked it in fresh water for around 20 minutes. After draining the cooked rice, in another saucepan I simmered some coconut milk and palm sugar for a few minutes. This was poured over the rice before adding some fresh passionfruit. It was YUM!

This would be a lovely dessert with more fruits.

Last week I made more buckwheat granola and that is my usual breakfast...

...and some snacks made with Sunflower kernels, lemon juice, garlic and Shoyu. These were left in the dehydrator overnight, and taste very much like cheese! I got the recipe from Matt Amsden's "RawVolution" book.

Being limited in what I can buy locally I found a great online health food supplier and my first delivery arrived with a couple of days...

The last step to make this transition permanent was to have all my ingredients where I could see them. I am visual, and my ideas are triggered by what I see. 

We have only one small pantry cupboard where most things are crammed behind each other, so I moved a large bookcase from my sewing room into the kitchen and now I can see everything I want to use!

 

 

So beginning today I am sharing a day by day diary for the next month. I ask you to keep me accountable. Leave comments, share ideas with me, ask questions. 

Every day I'll tell you what I am making, what I'm eating, what I am giving the family, what I am learning.

I'll even share my weight. 

Today I weigh 77.5 kgs - the most I have ever weighed in my life. 

Every Thursday I'll do a weigh in, so let's see if I can reduce that number by making myself accountable to you. But mostly, I pray I can make a difference to my grandsons view of what good food is.

See you tomorrow,

Jenny

xx

Planning ahead for busy times...

I just ordered this...

The author/cook is Heidi Swanson, and this book is a compilation of all the meals she made in a year - the meals she cooked for her family. Heidi is vegetarian, and as I have shared before, there was a two year session of being vegetarian myself during 2006-7, so I am excited about becoming more veggie-meal-minded once more. I'm hoping for simple but tasty everyday fare, and from the reviews this book offers that.

This last month saw me once again drop off in my healthy eating pursuits. I get discouraged when I am time poor and that happened a lot during late February and all through March. 

Today was the 1st day of school holidays and with a two and half week break ahead of me the plan is to clean out the pantry tonight, then draw up a menu list, shop, and spend a couple of days cooking in bulk for freezing ahead to cover the busy weeks I know I'll have in 2nd term.

For now I am going to revisit this book, Nourishing Traditions, for ideas until Heidi's book arrives...

...and go over all the lessons I learnt from the Nourished Kitchen online course last year. 

With the tropical weather finally cooling, and the nights becoming crisp with a slight chill in the air, it is perfect timing for risottos and stews, baked fruit crumbles, and home made soups. I will even pull out the dehydrator to stock up on some treats for the winter using the last of the plums and other stone fruits. 

Zumba is on my 'want to' list of exercise, but as I have two left feet and no co-ordination whatsoever, this may be a challenge I should lay down before I begin. Maybe stick to those ancient Rosemary Conley videos that may have 80's music, but actually do work on my body shape? I'll let you know. 

I hope I can be diligent to update here more often - that would certainly be a personal encouragement and give me some accountability. How have you been going with living a healthy lifestyle? Have you made permanent changes over the last year that you can share with me?

I'd love to hear from you. :-)

Healthy Hugs

Jenny

Seeing results...

I am really proud of how well I have been able to stick to this low-carb/sugar-free diet. I have had a couple of days where the sweet tooth has cried out for a sugar hit, but I fed it with grapes or an orange and it soon settled. 

To date I have lost 2.6kgs (almost 6 pounds), and I am rarely hungry. 

I am careful to add proteins to my daily salads; things like Tofu, chicken breast and nuts...

...as well as lentils, beans or chick peas.

On my doctor's advice I am careful not to eat fruits like melons as they are high GI and give your body a sugar rush. I eat lots of berries, especially in smoothies or with yoghurt, and I like to spoil myself with a passionfruit at breakfast.

The good carbs I eat are things like roasted sweet potato, which I toss through my salad.

Filtered water is a high priority, and apart from one soycinno per day it is all I drink.

Of course, I know that I can't stay this strict for the rest of my life, but after the doctor checked my blood pressure again this week and discovered it was already back to normal (yay!!!!), I am certainly convinced that at least 80% of my diet will need to stay this way.

That's ok. Life is about balance, so if I want to have a slice of sourdough bread once or twice a week, I will. I'll enjoy every crumb, and then settle back to what I know works best for my body. Once I have lost another 13kgs I can live on a maintenance plan, but for now I have that goal in sight - and the most important part of my goal is that a healthier me will result.

Healthy hugs,

Jenny

Changes afoot....

I shocked myself to see that it has been 4 months since I last posted here. Oops. If the truth be told, I fell off the wagon!

Yep, fessin' up.

I got so busy with life that I lost time to prepare good food every day for my family and myself. 

Some pretty scary health issues over the last couple of weeks (and a decision to drop much of my online activity) left me with no excuses for getting back to the kitchen and preparing foods that nourish, heal, and refresh.

I have adrenal fatigue, high cholesterol, borderline high blood pressure, and suspected Meniere's Disease - add to that chronic migraines since I was 12, and the fact that I am hypothyroid, and you can see why I can't play around with my health (and did I mention menopause and the fun it has with my internal temperature gauge??). My husband has the autoimmune disease Hashimoto's Thyroiditis, so getting his health to an optimum level is also my priority.

Firstly I studied adrenal fatigue because it has really been rocking my boat and the symptoms are all stress and diet related. This leads up to the cholesterol and blood pressure, so it had to be my starting point. 

I decided to drop all sugar and most carbohydrates for the time being. Today is day 7 and I am 1.6 kgs lighter, and after barely being able to lift my body off the bed a week ago, today I have felt no fatigue at all, and my main suspected Meniere's symptom (the extreme dizzy spells) have been barely noticeable.

As I have shared before, I love to go raw as much as possible, so that has once again been a big part of each day's diet. Adding in as many different fruits and vegetables as I can gives me an increased 'basket' of vitamins and minerals each day.

Juicing is back on the menu, especially with beetroot, celery and carrot as the base vegetables...

Here is a wonderful way to serve raw broccoli that is gentle on your stomach and digestive tract.

Chop the broccoli florets into small pieces...

Choose a healthy organic salad dressing (or use coconut oil and curry powder for an eastern tang), and add a couple of tablespoons to the broccoli....

Shake up and leave in the fridge for the day (if you make this in the morning) or overnight...

The broccoli will be soft by the time you eat it and so tasty that you'll not want to share any! :-)

Roasting trays of diced pumpkin and sweet potato, then storing in the fridge, allows me to add these wonderful vegetables to my salads each day. 

I have had 1/2 potato twice this week and plan to not stray far from that in the future - pasta, breads and rice are also off my list for the time being. Fruit, vegetables, salmon, legumes, occasional red meat, nuts and seeds, yoghurt, eggs - these make up most of my diet. I drink water all day long, but still allow myself one light soy-decaff-cappuccino per day, with a tiny sprinkle of stevia for sweetness instead of sugar.

Making my own fruit yoghurts helped with the hunger pains for the first few days...

...and for snacks mid-afternoon I had a small handful of these with a piece of fruit. 

My coffee grinder is back in action grinding flaxseeds, almonds and sunflower kernals to sprinkle over my salads and to add to yoghurts. I make enough to last a few days and store it in the fridge. 

~~~~~

7 days with no sugar started off very difficult. I was craving, no, screaming out, for something sweet in the first 3 days, but on day 4 it didn't matter at all. Bread was also difficult to avoid for the first few days, but I did, and now it's not an issue.

Today I feel better, have more energy, and am able to think with greater clarity, than I did 7 days ago. 

How will I feel after 14 days?

I'll tell you next Thursday.

Healthy hugs

Jenny

xx