Keeping Up To Date

If, perchance, there are any Australian teachers/students reading my blog, they will understand when I say that the year is getting to its very pointy end and it's not surprising that updating the blog is slipping further and further down my priority list. School holidays begin in 68 hours (who's counting?) although I will also be involved in work things during our break, since my seniors will be finishing up their scheduled classes shortly thereafter. Apart from those small obligations, I will be resting free and easy for the break, with a trip to the farm, lots of cultural activities (such as finally going to the Titanic Exhibition at the Melbourne Museum, woohoo!), and hopefully some gorgeous spring weather to lap up. With some more playtime available, I hope to also have some fun in the kitchen, getting some fresh and zingy spring recipes ready for party season!

In the meantime, here's a quick run-down of my latest shenanigans:

I'm currently trying to crack down on my weight issues by sticking to a meat-based diet once more, adding some veggies with dinner if I want them. Today I had beef sausages for breakfast and lunch, some salmon sashimi when I arrived home from work, and then a BAS of silverbeet, onion, garlic and mushrooms, sautéed in butter. Since a more relaxed approach to carb intake and calorie consumption is clearly not working out for me, despite going dairy- and nut-free on top of everything else, I'm getting stricter. No fruit, carbs under 50g (including fibre), and calories under 2000kcal except on more active days. I'm trying to keep my fat intake around 150g per day, which translates to me trying to keep my protein intake at a reasonable level. Time to defrost some lamb chops...

On Mondays, I have my belly dancing class. I'm still really loving it, and am transitioning into learning extended choreography with the girls who have been training for 6+ years! It's a little full-on since they don't teach me the dances step by step; I'm expected to just follow along and do as much as I can. It'll be different when they're not preparing to perform in a festival, and are learning a new dance from scratch. I've bought a few DVDs so that I can learn choreographed sequences from those, for my own enjoyment. IF only I had a more dance-friendly space in my house - the TV is in a room with a low-hanging lampshade - not terribly conducive to arm flourishes!

I'll be skipping meals when I'm not hungry, and I plan to occasionally fat fast through a meal (i.e. take a hit of coconut oil instead of cooking up a full meal). Hopefully these revised efforts, on top of what I hope to be a healed and balanced metabolic/hormonal system, will help kick-start my fat loss once again. I'm sick of being so fat! I want to be able to wear a sexy belly dancing costume, for one thing! A sparkly, embellished bra, with a low-slung hip scarf to match... Yum! At least now I have a bit more of a goal than just to look good naked - if I want to perform on stage, I want to wear the real gear and look hot! I want my shimmies to look controlled and sexy, not like jiggly fat wobbles! I want my 'fish'/'camel' stomach/spine waves to look smooth and gorgeous, not like I'm sticking my gut and my butt out in counterpoint!

I've been running (but not leading) a yoga session each week at my school, and this being the last week of term means this Wednesday is also our last yoga session. I don't think we'll be continuing next term, since attendance has been varied thanks to it being the pointy end of the year, so I'll be going back to my yoga vodcasts and leading myself through sessions at home. If I join the gym where my belly dancing sessions are held (the classes are past of their group fitness offerings despite the teacher being a proper belly dance teacher - I don't feel like I'm paying enough for her expertise! - and cost about the same amount per session as I would pay for a weekly membership there), then I could go to their evening yoga sessions, and maybe even some Pilates, which I used to love. They have a pool, too...

Simon Says...

Stephan Guyenet says... Dogen Zenji says... The world is complex, as our are bodies and our environments, so keep your nutritionism and reductionism in context.

Pål Jåbekk & Matt Stone say... Think positive! It's good for you!

Ned Kock from Health Correlator says... When we consider the China Study data, we see wheat is associated with some pretty evil stuff, and rice isn't great either, but it's hard to define why...

Mark Sisson says... You don't have to live with joint pain!

JP from Primal Journal says... Carbohydrates in large quantities and from bad sources are to be avoided.

& Girl Gone Primal says... Ciao!

One For The Road

In fewer than seven hours, the beau & I will be hopping on board the first of a series of planes that will eventually deposit the two of us in sunny (it better be...) Canada! So I am bidding you adieu for two weeks, but before I rush off to pack my suitcase full of distressingly light-weight garments that haven't yet experienced my current figure, here's a quick breakdown of my situation at present and in future:

* I'm really enjoying yoga. It's really hard work, especially since I'm also using a non-beginner podcast to give me ideas for workouts between sessions at Balwyn Yoga, but I'm really loving it. This week, I went along at the tail end of a punchy series of fasting: 16hrs of nothing but water and tea, and then over 24hrs of fat fast food and portioning, although I hadn't yet had my fourth & fifth meals of the day (and decided to skip them thanks to the immense endorphin high that greeted me mid-way through my yoga class)! I floated home...

* For those of you who haven't heard of the Fat Fast per se - though you probably have heard of something similar - here's a quick summary:

- I am striving to garner 90% of my calories from fat, whilst limiting my caloric intake to create a decent deficit. Atkins recommended 1000kcal, spread out over four or five meals in the day. I'm more flexible - I just listen to what my body wants.

- My meals of choice (since I'm paleo, I don't do the cream cheese and whipped cream + sweetener concoctions Atkins recommended) have been 1) 30g macadamia nuts, 2) 1T nut butter with 1T coconut oil, and 3) a hard-boiled egg with 15g butter. I've been hitting a minimum of 80% calories from fat, and I could go higher if I liked the taste of my current coconut oil...

- The idea is to fast for 3 to 5 days (any longer and you're putting your body at risk of protein deficiency), and if fat loss is happening (which is pretty likely given the cal restrictions - if not, there's a major hormonal issue at play) then you can scale up the calories and add in foods such as fatty ground beef. Then you can return to Atkins Induction etc, to see if your body's newly revved-up metabolism will happily continue to burn stored fat.

For me, I'm playing with more of an Alternate Day Fasting situation. I'm not setting a rigid schedule, since going overseas would make that awfully difficult, but I'm planning to eat 'normally' for one day, and then fast for one or two days, then another normal day, etc. We'll see if this is necessary. I won't necessarily be doing a fat fast as such on my fasting days - just keeping my calories at or below the 1000kcal mark, if my body likes it.

Progress thus far: the morning after my yoga class, I weighed in at 2.6kg less than I had pre-fast! I know that I was holding onto some water thanks to sodium and such, but it was still wonderful to see! My body demanded a refeed after that though, so I used my sore muscles as an excuse to finish off what remained in my jars of almond butter and macadamia spread. The overall calorie count (albeit estimated in terms of servings) was pretty monstrous, and yet the today the scales only showed an increase of 0.5kg, which I would have expected merely considering the weight of normal food amounts. I'll be scale-free in Canada, so I'll be monitoring my gut jiggliness... Traveling is always rough on the cortisol levels though, so I'm not too bothered, so long as I don't GAIN weight!

To the future:

I've bagged up two hard boiled eggs and a pat of butter to take to the airport and eat before we get on the plane at 7am, if I'm hungry. I know eggs don't keep too long out of refrigeration, but I'll try not to eat for the sake of eating... I've also bagged up three servings (200kcal each) of macadamia nuts that should get me through the looooong flight! Dang, I should have bought some bagged white tea - all I have is the loose stuff and that won't work on a flight... Boo.

The beau's mother, with the assistance of the lovely Kat Garson, has found two very exciting farms in/near Ottawa to supply me with my meaty goodness for the trip, as well as hopefully becoming my MIL's continuing provider of good meat - you know, meat that's actually suitable for human consumption. Now, the original plan was to go out to the farms, take a butcher's (haha, a pun AND cutesy rhyming slang!), and do a write-up. However, time constraints mean I will not get to check out the wonderful Dobson's Farm this time, although we have placed an order for a variety of beef, particularly ground beef, that we will be picking up upon my arrival via the central city market in Ottawa. It's not all bad news though - we WILL squeeze in a visit to the terribly exciting Bearbrook Game Meats farm since it's snuggled up close to where I'll be staying! I'll finally be able to try the North American 'delicacies' my Tweeps often tweet about - buffalo, bison, & boar! I'll also be sure to stock up on smoked salmon, my favourite, and maybe I'll even try foods that are available in Australia but not easily, such as emu, duck, kangaroo (if they have unadulterated steaks, etc), and some sausages that are made of a mix of meats, provided they don't include flour.

I might get some cooking in during my trip, if there's demand at all, but otherwise I'll be sitting back and lapping up some much-needed sun!

The suitcases are calling - au revoir!