Balance

I have, my entire adult life, struggled to find balance.  No matter how many times I try to tell myself to take it easy, see how you get on, don’t overcommit, I always start something full pelt, fail to stick with it and then feel dreadful about yet another failure.

I make to do lists and then feel upset and anxious about my failure to tick everything (or anything!) off it.  In reality I shouldn’t be surprised by this, I talked at great length in my last post about the paralysis caused by my anxiety and depression.  But that doesn’t stop me beating myself up over it all, causing even greater levels of anxiety…. and on it goes.

I’m all or nothing.

I’m either Whole30 or I’m eating my own body weight in crisps, cake, scones, bread, washing it down with a small lake of Pepsi Max.  I’ll try to be sensible with my food, but then I’ll eat something unhealthy and I’ll think FUCK IT, I might as well just eat ALL OF THINGS now and for the rest of the week because I have already RUINED IT.

I’ll exercise every day for a week and then I’ll miss a day and then a second day and then a third and then I’ll think FUCK IT, I can’t stick to ANYTHING, what is WRONG with me, it is all so POINTLESS, I don’t know why I BOTHER WITH ANYTHING.

It has to stop.  There must be a balance to be found.  And I’ve made a start.  You remember those monthly goals that I’ve been working on?  I’ve decided that having a pass / fail attitude towards them is only exacerbating my all or nothing outlook.  After all, if your goal is to walk 7k steps every day for a month, what’s the point of carrying on if you fail to hit that count on day two, right?  Because you have failed already. Why bother? Not a very helpful thought process at all.  

So instead, I’m giving myself a grading system, with grades A+ → F based on how much progress I made towards completing each monthly goal (in percentage terms).  For March, I found this worked really well.  It’s helped me to see that even though I might not do all of the things, all of the time, the effect is cumulative.  For example, I didn’t complete my channel swim distance goal, but I completed 17% of the remaining distance.  I may not have completed the 7k steps every day, but I did do it on 27 out of 31 days.  I did at least two NTC workouts on three weeks out of the five.  

Because I’m such a nerd, I have a little spreadsheet to log all of this and I found it helpful to update my progress on the goals throughout the month.  I used this information to persuade myself to go for a walk around the block to get my step count up, because at the moment, you’ve only got a C. No one wants March to go out with a C, kid.  Get out there and do some walking.  I could also see which activity would help me to increase my overall monthly percentage the most, helping me to prioritise that activity, when I knew that I didn’t have capacity to do everything.  Wow.  That’s a little bit of balance, right there.

March went out with a B grade.  I’m happy with that.  And I’ve set my new goals for April too: 

Goal 1: Finish channel swim goal
Goal 2: Don't buy food or drink in London
Goal 3: No sleeping during the day

I'm rolling over that channel swim goal, I'm determined to try to get that finished this month. I've got 894 lengths to go!

The second goal is to try and focus on more healthy choices, forcing me to plan and make choices ahead of time, rather than just throwing stuff in a basket and eating enough food for three people (which happens a LOT).

The third goal may seem a little........odd.  But I sleep a lot.  I mean really A LOT.  Sleep is my escape from the world.  It passes the time without my brain having to do much of anything.  Often I spend an entire weekend sleeping.  Sometimes, on my work from home days, I'll have a nap at lunchtime and then another when I finish work, before I make dinner.  I love sleep.  But I recognise that what started as another symptom of the depression has become a habit that is stealing my life away and I'm going to try and break it this month.

Stay tuned to see how I get on!

PS, in other news........

Can we please all take a moment to enjoy how empty and clean my kitchen sink is?

A photo posted by @readyamefire on Mar 30, 2016 at 6:52am PDT

Whole30: Reintroduction

In my last post, I mentioned that my first goal for February 2016 is to complete the Whole30 reintroduction properly, something that I've never done before.  So how does that work?  And why is it important?

Well, for the duration of the Whole30, you're essentially clearing down your digestive system, eliminating all food groups that are widely acknowledged to cause issues for a number of people.  These are sugar, dairy, grains (gluten and non-gluten) and legumes.  So when the 30 days are up, your system is well clear of these foods and their effects, and you're essentially a real, live, walking, talking test environment.  You are your own control group.  Pretty cool, huh?

So on day 31, you reintroduce one food group in isolation. Just one.  And you need to go to town on it a bit, really dose yourself so you can make sure that you've eaten enough of it to measure any effects. Then you go back to eating Whole30 for the next two days, so that you can be reasonably sure that any effects you experience are as a result of eating that food group. And those effects could be on your body, your digestive system, your energy levels, your mood, anything at all.  You then repeat this for each of the food groups, with the exception of sugar, because really, it's probably best not to reintroduce that at all if you can bear not to, except things like a little added sugar in shop bought ketchup, bacon or smoked salmon that has sugar used in the curing process, that sort of thing.

Now the Whole30 website recommends that you introduce the food groups in order from the least likely to affect you (legumes) to the most likely to affect you (gluten grains).  I decided that I would use one of my Whole30 staples, a beef mince chilli, as the carrier for my reintroduction, so on Sunday I ate some with a metric fucktonne of peas and beans. Oh and some peanuts, but not with the chilli, just by themselves as a snack.

It's legume reintroduction day! The food on the left is a @whole30 staple for me and I'm going to use it as the basis for reintroduction. It's beef mince with onion, peppers, chilli, grated carrot and tomatoes. Today I'm having it with edamame, runner beans and peas. On Wednesday, I'll have it with rice, on Saturday with grated cheese and on Tuesday with pasta #healthhabitsrelationshipwithfood #januarywhole30 #whole30 #whole30uk

A photo posted by @readyamefire on Jan 31, 2016 at 11:33am PST

Doesn't that look delicious?  Peas and runner beans and edamame. Nom.  Given that legumes are listed as the food group that affects the smallest number of people, I was not prepared for what happened the next day.

Which was when my digestive system emphatically and indeed explosively demonstrated that it does not like being filled up by that amount of legumes. BAD TIMES. Aside from the suddenness with which I went from feeling slightly queasy (not that unusual for me first thing in morning) to legging it to the loo, I was really surprised by this, as I don't recall ever having had this issue before.  But I did eat more beans than any normal human being would eat in one sitting, so I think that once I'm done with the rest of the reintroduction, I'll do a bit more experimentation with (less) beans to see if it was just the quantity that I ate.  Please note that this experiment will be done on a day when I know I'll be spending all of the following day within ten metres of my toilet.

The good news was that in one giant incident all of those legumes were *ahem* out of my system, so I soon felt normal and ready to proceed to the next reintroduction on day 34, which was non-gluten grains.  I was very excited by this as I really missed rice during my Whole30.

@whole30 reintroduction day four: non-gluten grains. Really hoping my digestive system is ok with this, I really missed rice! #whole30 #januarywhole30 #iamwhole30 #whole30uk

A photo posted by @readyamefire on Feb 3, 2016 at 5:03am PST

Oh look at that lovely fluffy rice. Delicious fluffy white rice.  Lovely lovely rice that my stomach had no issue with at all.  I also ate some lovely sweetcorn and my stomach doesn't mind a bit.  Hooray!

So I'm halfway through the reintroduction process and at the moment the score is non-gluten grains 1 - 0 legumes.  Dairy will be reintroduced on Saturday (OMG CHEESE) and then gluten grains on Tuesday (OMG gluten grain reintroduction day is on Shrove Tuesday PANCAKES PANCAKES PANCAKES!!!!).

Fridge Soup

Sometimes life doesn't entirely go to plan. Take this weekend, for instance. I should've been in Nice running a marathon. I'm currently at home in a onesie making soup. So you see my point?  I'd like to get upset about this and throw some outrage at the situation. But I'm a firm believer in owning up when you've managed a situation poorly.  

I currently have an injured leg.  My knee is painful, which has been caused by my IT band tightening, which was caused by physio intended to fix my overloaded hamstrings.  My hamstrings are overloaded because my glutes are horrendously lazy and do not fire at all.  They just don't activate.  So here's my confession.  I found out about the issues with my glutes over a year ago when I had a biomechanical assessment as part of my membership induction at Charlotte Ord Academy. And I have done nothing about it.  So I can't get angry about not being able to run this marathon.  I'd love to be able to pass the blame for my poor performance onto someone, something else. But I can't.  It's all my own doing.  I have got better at doing my rehab exercises over these past few weeks, but it was far too late to be any help.

I had secretly held out some hope that I'd get to Nice and feel just fine on the day and glide along 42km of the Riviera coastline like some kind of bad ass, but walking around a golf course for nearly six hours in the pissing rain on Friday put paid to any of those notions.  My legs were fine at the start of the day, but as time went on and I creaked around 18 holes as an auctioned caddy for my friend's memorial golf day, it became clear that my legs would not be up to the task of a marathon.  I headed home afterwards to pack my bags and get an early night before my 06:25 flight to Nice.  

It was as I dithered around the flat in a desultory fashion that I realised that I didn't want to go.  I had been determined to go to Nice anyway, as my flights and hotel were non refundable.  And it's a nice place, Nice. But I didn't want to go there. On my own. In November. To not run a marathon.  So I decided to stay home for the weekend. And immediately felt less anxious.  I felt even more cheerful as I headed to Guildford to collect Murdoch from the Dog House and started to look forward to a weekend spent snuggling with the mutt. Perfection.

Which brings me to this week's exciting batch cook up

Fridge Soup

This is a simple recipe, with no need for a sous chef, which is handy, as mine is nowhere to be seen.

Where's Murdoch?

This soup is basically another really simple way of using up whatever veg you might have lurking in the fridge.  I had plenty, as I have started getting veg boxes from Abel & Cole again.  I am a big fan of the veg box, especially as Abel & Cole have changed things up to give you more control over what you get in each box.  However, with that said, there are times when the amount of veg in the fridge reaches panic levels.  Especially when you've spent all week shoving the veg aside to get to the pizza and eat that instead.  Come on, we've all been there.  

Firstly, I chopped up a couple of leeks, a couple of onions and some garlic.

Vampires can't get within 200 yards of me right now.

Then I warmed up some butter in my most enormous saucepan and chucked them in on a low heat to gently soften.

I've sprung a leek!

While that was going on, I chopped up some more veg: parnsips, carrots (including some lovely purple carrots, so nice to get the different kinds to mix it up a bit) and threw that in the saucepan.

A lovely, colourful mixture of root veg

 I chopped up some cabbage and threw that in too.

Cabbage

Then I threw some potatoes in, what's the point of soup without potatoes? Hell, what's the point if life without potatoes?

If I could only eat one food for the rest of my life, it would probably be the humble potato.

I grabbed a couple of handfuls of lentils to add some bulk, rinsed them thoroughly and put them in the saucepan too.  

Adding a bit of bulk

I seasoned with plenty of sea salt and black pepper, chucked in a couple of vegetable stock cubes and lots of boiling water and left it all to bubble away on a low - medium heat for an hour or so.

Bubbling soup

Because I hate having chunks in my food, I got my hand blender out and blended the soup until smooth.

Smooooooooooooth soup

As I was feeling decadent, I served with a swirl of single cream and a buttered slice of granary bread. 

Hearty

As I write this, the soup is still hotter than the surface of the sun. So I haven't put it into portion containers yet. But I think it'll be around 6 - 8 portions, which will see me through most of the week.

Hearty Mince

I'm not a chef. I'm not even much of a foodie. I could quite happily eat the same five meals between now and when I die and not really feel too worried about the situation. Which means that cooking gigantic vats of food to eat across the week really suits my temperament, as well as my schedule.

And there's something about this time of year, just after the clocks go back, that makes me feel all autumnal and jolly and quite in the mood to batch cook the crap out of something. So tonight I cooked..... well I'm never entirely sure what to call it. Is it a bolognese if you're not serving it on pasta? Is it a chilli if it has no kidney beans? I have no idea. So instead, I'm going to call it 

Hearty Mince

The first thing to note about making hearty mince is the invaluable nature of the sous chef. Mine is quite keen on veg preparation, but soon loses interest thereafter.

Murdoch loves raw carrot

There is no set recipe for this meal, not really. I look at what veg I've got in the fridge, pop to the supermarket to add what else I fancy and chop it up quite finely, as I don't like having big chunks of stuff in my food. This time round I had onion, garlic, leeks, chillis (with seeds left in for a bit of ooomph), carrot, courgette (not chopped in this picture as I ran out of room on the chopping board), fresh peas and edamame.

Chop veg finely. Or don't. It's your dinner, have it how you like.

Once you've got your veg ready to go, heat up a bit of butter (or olive oil) and chuck the veg in a big pan to soften on a low heat. I left the peas and edamame out at this stage, to be added later.

Probably at least fifteen of your "five a day"

Next, turn up the heat a bit and add some mince. I bought two large (750g) packets of extra low fat beef mince from Tesco and forgot to take a picture of it cooking, mostly because my pan isn't really big enough to accommodate that much meat, so there was quite a bit of unseemly swearing at this stage. Please imagine a picture of a metric fucktonne of beef mince browning off with the veg. Thanks. After it was all browned off, I drained it a bit, as there was quite a bit of liquid at this stage.

Starting to look quite tasty

Add some herbs, stock cube, salt and pepper (and if you fancy it, a spoonful of Marmite. But not coffee, as Sainsbury's seem to be suggesting. WTF Sainsbury's?! Give it a rest), some tomato purée and a couple of cartons of chopped tomatoes. Lower the heat again and let it bubble away for a bit.

Add the peas and edamame

Near the end of the cooking, I added the peas and the edamame. They only need a light steam, so best add them towards the end, otherwise you risk ending up with green mush.  I popped the lid on so that all of the steam stayed in and left it alone for about 10 minutes.

Everything tastes better with cheese on it. FACT.

This made eight nice sized dinners, which you could serve with pasta, rice, quinoa, couscous, veg or even eat just by itself. As you can see, I've popped some grated cheese on top to serve.

My final top tip is to decant into individual dinner sized containers, especially if you're a greedy bugger like me.  Then you have ready to go portions, rather than spooning gigantic helpings out of one big tub and wondering why it only lasted a day (come on, we've all been there).

It's not about weight loss

Today is day 31 and I have successfully completed my Whole30. Hoorah!

I shan't go into detail about the programme, if you don't know what it is, please refer to my halfway point blog here.

The main thing that I've noticed is that no matter how many times you try to explain why you're doing it - it's about resetting your metabolism, cleaning down your system so that when you reintroduce food groups afterwards, you have a clear idea of their effect. It's about examining your relationship with food to better understand why you eat the things you do (addiction, habit) - most people just want to know.....

How much weight have you lost? 

So you try to explain that it's not about weight loss.  It's about resetting your metabolism, cleaning down your system so that when you reintroduce food groups afterwards, you have a clear idea of their effect. It's about examining your relationship with food to better understand why you eat the things you do. Blah blah blah. And they smile and nod and then tell you that you look great, like you've lost a lot of weight. Which is great, it really is. But it is not the point.

So this morning, when I had this conversation with my colleague:

Colleague: "So are you going to go wild in the aisles for dinner tomorrow night?"

Me: "Errrm no. That would have made the last 30 days a bit pointles, wouldn't it."

C: "Would it? Why's that?"

M: "Because the whole idea is to clean your system and then slowly reintroduce foods one by one to see the effect they have on you"

C: "Oh. I thought it was going to be a 'school's out' kind of situation"

M: "No"

C: "Oh."

Me: *quietly goes to ladies loo to BANG MY HEAD AGAINST THE WALL*

I wanted to scream.

As a society, we're so obsessed with that number on the scale. On how we look. On what dress size we can squeeze ourselves into.  And really none of that matters a crap.

Which is why I love the friends who have asked me "How do you feel?". Because that's the point.  

And how do I feel?  I feel great.  I didn't really notice that I didn't feel great before, because when you feel that low-level-just-meh all the time, you get used to it.  It's being in the monkey house and not realising that it smells like poo. But you learn it on days 2-4, when you have a killer headache as you experience the caffeine and sugar come down. You realise how powerful those substances are when they leave your body and they are not going to go quietly. They are going to rage, rage against the dying of the light.

You notice it when you have a moment of panic on day 28 about what you might find yourself eating on days 31+ when you "can eat whatever you want" and then have a moment of epiphany when you realise that you could have eaten anything you wanted for the entirety of the Whole30, you've not been locked in a prison cell.  You have simply chosen not to. Doesn't that feel great? To take back control and realise that you can have a packet of crisps, if you want. It doesn't mean you have to feel bad about it, or subsequently eat an entire multipack. You can have a bit of chocolate, if you want to. I bought a slab of this to celebrate the end of my Whole30, chopped it into small sections, had one piece and shared the rest with my colleagues. One piece was enough. What a revelation.

Would I recommend doing Whole30? Well generally I hate to evangelise about things.  I get so annoyed when people who say things like "Have you seen Blah blah film? No?! You have to!". Actually, no I don't have to and I probably won't, so please shut up. So I won't tell you to do it.  I'll just tell you that in doing this, I have taken the first steps to changing my life for the better. The past 30 days have taught me a huge amount, about the food that I eat, about the person that I am.

And if you're the one sat there thinking "It just sounds so hard!", I'll leave you with this from the Whole30 website:

It is not hard. Don’t you dare tell us this is hard. Beating cancer is hard. Birthing a baby is hard. Losing a parent is hard. Drinking your coffee black. Is. Not. Hard. You’ve done harder things than this, and you have no excuse not to complete the program as written. It’s only thirty days, and it’s for the most important health cause on earth – the only physical body you will ever have in this lifetime.

Whole30 - the first half

Those of you who know me in real life may find this post unutterably boring, as I've spoken of almost nothing else for the past fifteen days.  So please do feel free to stop reading now. No really, please do. Are they gone?  Good.  Poor devils have already had to put up with me going on and on about this.

Now, for everyone else - SURPRISE! I'm doing Whole30. In case you don't currently have time to click on that link, here is an overview giving you the general idea (if you're really busy, skip through all of the blue text and carry on reading, but if you do have time, do read the information, it explains a lot!).

Think of it as a short-term nutritional reset, designed to help you put an end to unhealthy cravings and habits, restore a healthy metabolism, heal your digestive tract, and balance your immune system.

Certain food groups (like sugar, grains, dairy and legumes) could be having a negative impact on your health and fitness without you even realizing it. Are your energy levels inconsistent or non-existent? Do you have aches and pains that can’t be explained by over-use or injury? Are you having a hard time losing weight no matter how hard you try? Do you have some sort of condition (like skin issues, digestive ailments, seasonal allergies or fertility issues) that medication hasn’t helped? These symptoms may be directly related to the foods you eat—even the “healthy” stuff.

So how do you know if (and how) these foods are affecting you? Strip them from your diet completely. Cut out all the psychologically unhealthy, hormone-unbalancing, gut-disrupting, inflammatory food groups for a full 30 days. Let your body heal and recover from whatever effects those foods may be causing. Push the “reset” button with your metabolism, systemic inflammation, and the downstream effects of the food choices you’ve been making. Learn once and for all how the foods you’ve been eating are actually affecting your day to day life, and your long term health.

The programme also claims that

This will change your life.

We cannot possibly put enough emphasis on this simple fact—the next 30 days will change your life. It will change the way you think about food, it will change your tastes, it will change your habits and your cravings. It could, quite possibly, change the emotional relationship you have with food, and with your body. It has the potential to change the way you eat for the rest of your life. We know this because we did it, and tens of thousands of people have done it since, and it changed our lives (and their lives) in a very permanent fashion.

The physical benefits of the Whole30 are profound. More than 95% of participants lose weight and improve their body composition, without counting or restricting calories. Also commonly reported: consistently high energy levels, improved athletic performance, better sleep, improved focus and mental clarity, and a sunnier disposition. (Yes, more than a few Whole30 graduates said they felt “strangely happy” during and after their program.)

The psychological benefits of the Whole30 may be even more dramatic. Through the program, participants report effectively changing long-standing, unhealthy habits related to food, developing a healthier body image, and a dramatic reduction or elimination of cravings, particularly for sugar and carbohydrates. The words so many Whole30 participants use to describe this place? “Food freedom.”

Finally, testimonials from thousands of Whole30 participants document the improvement or “cure” of any number of lifestyle-related diseases and conditions.

high blood pressure • high cholesterol • type 1 diabetes • type 2 diabetes • asthma • allergies • sinus infections • hives • skin conditions • endometriosis • PCOS • infertility • migraines • depression • bipolar disorder • heartburn • GERD • arthritis • joint pain • ADD • thyroid dysfunction • Lyme disease • fibromyalgia • chronic fatigue • lupus • leaky gut syndrome • Crohn’s • IBS • Celiac disease • diverticulitis • ulcerative colitis

So we've got some pretty bold claims going on right there.  Are they true? Well I can't answer for the programme as a whole, all I can do is share my own personal experience of doing it over the past fifteen days, as recommended by my trainer at the gym.

1.  This takes a crapload of organisation. I mean really. Until you commit to not eating anything with any added sugar of any kind, you truly have no idea how much of the food that is sold in supermarkets contains sugar. Such as bacon. Are you freaking kidding me?! Bacon?! If it doesn't contain sugar, sometimes it contains milk (this is also a no dairy kind of deal). Chorizo?! Whaaaaaaat?! Why the hell is there milk in chorizo? Aaaaanyway, the point is that you have to carefully read absolutely everything that you put in your shopping basket (except loose broccoli, mainly on account of the fact that there are no words on loose broccoli).

2. This takes a crapload of organisation. Seriously. Given that the programme clearly states that if you ingest (even accidentally) any of the forbidden foods, you go hurtling back to day one (can you imagine that happening on day 29? Gah! I'd probably just round it up to 30 at that point), you're pretty much committing to cooking all of your own food for the next 30 days. Because you can't just pop out in your lunchbreak and grab a quick sandwich (no bread allowed and it's probably got freaking sugar in it anyway) and it's tough to eat in a restaurant (you'd sit there asking "Is it cooked in butter? What kind of oil did you use? Is there sugar in the sauce?" until the waiter clubs you to death with the menu).  

To recap, it takes a lot of organisation to do this.  I recommend doing a bulk cook of compliant food that you like and having it ready in the fridge so that you can just grab it and pop it in the microwave.

3. It's possible to get bored of food that you really really like. For example, I really like scrambled egg, with bacon (you can buy it without added sugar, thankfully!) and chopped onions. It's the sort of breakfast that I really look forward to at the weekend. But having eaten it pretty much most mornings for the past fifteen days, it's losing its appeal. So get online and research - there are loads of great resources out there with Whole30 compliant recipes. Check out my Pinterest board as a starting point and Naturally Leah has got this down nicely with some great recipes (I'm trying out the green chicken curry tonight - looks really quick and simple, ideal for a busy work night).

4. Although this isn't really easy, it's not been as hard as I thought it might be. I've had a few moments where I've really missed cheese (mmmmm cheese) but mostly I've been ok and haven't had any major food cravings yet.  That's not to say that it's been a sweet ride.  In fact for days 2-4 I had a really horrible headache.  Three days of full on, pounding headache.  I think that was caffeine and sugar leaving my system and let me tell you, they did not go quietly. 

5. It is worth it.  It's all worth it.  I'm on day fifteen right now and I'm feeling amazing.  I have more energy, I feel sharper, more mentally alert.  I'm getting so much more done, it's incredible.  And (although you're not supposed to weigh yourself) I've lost 12lbs. In fifteen days.  So the first week when I was out networking at work events for two nights, nursing a glass of water when everyone else was enjoying wine and pizza? Worth it.  The constant and excessive pile of washing up that needs doing? Totally worth it.

I'll do another update at the end of the 30 days - watch this space!

PS - in Murdoch news, Murdoch is awesome.

Oh heeeeeeeeeyy!