The Annual Post

Hello lovely primal/paleo/clean/mindful eaters!

Since Google killed Google Reader I haven't been getting my notifications of comments awaiting moderation, so my apologies if you've been trying to get in touch. I've posted them all now - thank you so much for the kind words and I love knowing that new people are finding my blog and exploring the recipes along their own journey. It's an absolute joy.

So:

- No, we still haven't renovated the kitchen, so I'm mostly grilling meat and boiling veggies. I'm addicted to sweet potato fries, roast meat and veg from Rhumba's or The Roast Kitchen in Kew, green grapes (out of season now, boo!) and imperial mandarins (in season, hooray!), chai spice tea with a splash of milk, and brie cheese. The year of minimal stove-top cooking has forced me to change my old eating habits, though I still make cauliflower pizza for parties, as well as chicken Caesar salad and maybe some nachos to at least keep my guests from wheat and sugar.

- Yes, I'm still losing weight! My weight hovered around the point I noted last year, and now over the past couple of months I've managed to shave off another 5kg through deliberately limiting any wheat and essentially getting rid of sugar again. I've also been getting more active thanks to my Xbox Kinect and a bevy of games. Tonight I kicked my butt with UFC Personal Trainer - I will be sore tomorrow...

I hope everyone is feeling happier and healthier every day, and that you are following your passions! Blogging is not a passion of mine anymore, though I do miss this community - I'm on Fitocracy as GirlGonePrimal- (had to add the hyphen since someone else is sitting on GirlGonePrimal even though they essentially never use the site, boo!) if you want to get in touch. I'm also on Xbox Live as Jezwyn if you want to try a multiplayer game (I haven't explored playing anything online yet, but I'm game if you are...)

Love your body, love your food, and look after yourself :)

GGP

Touching Base

First up, I want to say thank you to everyone who has left comments and emails over the past - what, year? I have checked in intermittently, usually when I've come back here to check one of my recipes, and it has been nice to see that my efforts to document my Primal journey are still finding an appreciative audience.

Second, I really want to get back into regular cooking, but we bought a house six months ago and the kitchen is HORRIBLE. The oven is even worse than at the old (rental) house and the stove often loses its flame (but not its gas flow, yikes...) so I have really been avoiding my usual fry/saute cooking methods. BBQ is fun in the warmer weather, but it's icy in Melbourne now. I've been living on frozen food a bit that only needs boiling or baking, and there has been quite a bit of ready-to-eat food too.

So, I'm a long way from the Paleo WOE, but you know what's funny?

I've been losing weight.

I've held on to the massive regain-and-then-some that came from the DepTran horribleness for two solid years, seeing little improvement in my raging appetite and emotional dependency on food. Mostly, I never felt full - my connection to satiety was still broken. I would try fasting and eating to hunger, but nothing was working.

Then, about three weeks ago, I closed my latest play. During this stressful week, I noticed that suddenly I wasn't as hungry; I would eat a little of something - anything, even chocolate - and I would 'know' when I'd had enough! This basic, biological connection had been absent for over three years. And, for reasons I won't elaborate on here, I have a strong feeling that this change is due to emotional reasons, not immediately physiological ones.

So, three weeks of eating 'normally' and I have dropped five kilograms. I'm half-way back to my old 'set point' weight before I originally went low-carb. I would rather eat nothing but primal foods, since I enjoy the other nutrition benefits, but hey! I probably won't keep losing weight once I'm back to the weight I maintained on my pre-2009 junk food diet, but it will be great to get rid of this 'excessive' excess.

Who knows how long this 'normal' appetite control will last, but I will certainly be pleased if its reign is long and joyful! I eat when I'm hungry, and now I can stop easily. Hurrah!

And, when we have enough cash to renovate our kitchen, I'll be able to share my latest yummy recipes with you all - without fear of my oven exploding mid-meal!

Life

Motivation is a funny thing.

I do think about popping on here to update you all with the minutiae of what I'm up to, but the primal-related bits aren't anything I haven't already covered in posts gone by. I refuse to be boring, hence the silence.

Here's the plan: if and when I come up with cool, new recipes for the clean-eating lifestyle, I'll be jumping on here straight away and sharing them with you.

Dinner photos, complaints about cravings, stubborn fat, blah blah - I'll keep that to myself.

Who has the time? Not me.

So, here's what I would have said in the past few months, and you can assume it will stay true of my life for the next while at least:

I'm over-allotted at work, teaching more lessons per week than I should, as well as running the school magazine and Theatresports Club.

I spent the past six months composing, directing and designing the school production, which went up three weeks ago to great applause.

I have formed an a cappella singing group and am writing/arranging new pieces for us at a prodigious rate.

I've joined a band and have a couple of gigs next month for which I have to prepare.

I'm making jewellery as my 'down-time' activity, and am going to get back into selling at markets as well as updating my Zibbet store.

I'm not worrying about food, trying not to really think about it whenever possible, beyond noticing the fact that I feel full earlier than I was last year, and find little urge to over-indulge on nuts, etc. This has given me a chance to see how the same can NOT be said for industrial foods. I finally feel like my hormones are back in order in that respect.

I know that I don't feel as well all the time as I used to; now I swing between being really keen to be active, and needing to sit down. Two years ago, I was happy to walk around the classroom all lesson, last year I'd do anything to stay seated, and now it's more back and forth. When I'm ready, I will be tweaking aspects of diet and lifestyle to see how this effects the subtle shifts in my energy levels. In the meantime, I'm getting a recumbent bike slash rowing machine combo for the living room, to help improve my fitness and reduce the cardio variable in the energy equation.

And then there are my social engagements, quality time with my family, friends and pets (I'm currently caring for a sick guinea pig), time set aside for relaxation (not enough of that), time taken up by marking many, many essays (too much of that)...

My life is too full to justify taking up any more of my time blogging about diet. My journey is boring now. I know lots of things, and I keep reading to learn more. Half the time, when I find something I want to blog about, someone else covers it that very day.

So, this blog will sit here as an archive of recipes, and a health journey which was unfortunately derailed. I'll add to it when I have something of value to say, or hopefully an awesome recipe to share. I'm not going to waste your time with 'filler' material like how to steam a fish. Seriously. When I see that stuff popping up in my feed, it's unsubscribe time. If you haven't got anything interesting to say, don't tell us about your vacation rental.

Bon voyage!

Recipe: Easter's Fruit Buns Gone Primal!

(Before I begin, please let me apologise for the SUCKY quality of the following pics - the food was delicious, but the time of night was far from ideal for phone-cam photography :(

For the last two years, there have been many a delicious aroma flooding the air of the staff corridor at school: buttery popcorn, pizza, crepes... Yet, no delicious scent tugged at my nose hairs (...ew) so much as that of freshly toasted Hot Cross Buns! Both years, I have planned to try my hand at a grain-free, sugar-free version, and somehow missed the boat.

Not this year!

Despite my punishing holiday schedule of play rehearsals, holding choir auditions, hosting visitors, supporting friends' Melbourne International Comedy Festival shows, and recovering from a post-term stress flu, I put today aside as a cooking day, making a huge batch of Nola for the beau, and a pile of cauliflower pizzas for tonight's dinner and tomorrow's lunch.

Then - bun time! With bonus biscuits!

Daylight was done by the time these beauties come out of the oven - a sun-struck snap will get pride of place once dawn breaks tomorrow!

Ingredients:

2 cups almond flour
1 cups coconut flour (or just another cup of almond if you don't like coconut)
250g butter, finely diced
2 T cinnamon (or more, if you love it like I do!)
1T nutmeg
Pinch of salt 
6 eggs, separated
1/2 cup maple syrup (optional, but encouraged if you're not using fruit)
3 large apples, peeled and finely diced

Optional - substitute one apple with a cup of juicy fruit of your choice (I would have liked to add sultanas/raisins but the beau's gut doesn't like them)

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 175 deg Celsius. Line muffin pans or grease/paper a slide.

2. In a large bowl, combine almond flour, coconut flour, spices, and butter. Using your hands - yes, do it! - rub the butter into the flour mix until the whole lot resembles fine crumbs. Then, add the maple syrup and egg yolks, and still well. Feel free continue the manual manipulation, but be prepared for stickiness.

3. Add the chopped apple (and other fruit, if using), and stir. Be sure to dice your apple more finely than I did - I had to use my stick blender to make the apple-y dough more consistent, and lost some of that delicious baked-apple crunch.

4. In a separate bowl, whip the egg whites until fluffy. Add gently to the large bowl, and fold until both mixtures are combined.

 5. Softly roll balls of the mixture and place onto greased slide or into muffin pans. For a glossy finish, top with some egg white and/or milk (I didn't bother this time).

BONUS: I decided to save some mixture to see how it would go as biscuits, so I lined another slide , rolled some smaller balls of apple-y dough, and topped a few with 100% cacao buds.

6. After 45 - 60 minutes in the oven (or about 30 - 40 minutes for the biscuits), the buns should be golden brown on the outside and should withstand a prod without feeling at all squidgy. The photo below is a decent indicator of the final product as produced by my temperamental oven, despite the lack of natural light.

Although I'm not at all religious, why pass up the chance to top my baked goodies with chocolate?? For these criss-crosses, I melted some 100% cacao with some butter, then lead the mix across the cooled buns with a knife. Of course, at any other time of year, you can use the excuse of aesthetic merit and drizzle the chocolate stylishly over the fruity goodness.

 

Thus far, they've received the nod of approval from the beau's sister, who is visiting for a few days, and I've enjoyed a couple of the biscuits. The beau will be trying one when he gets home, and I have high hopes...

Serving suggestion - slice the buns in half, then toast in the oven. Top with a generous amount of butter, and some sliced banana or strawberry compote. Of course, some whipped cream never goes amiss! These could easily pass as scones, given the lack of yeast, so they're perfect for High Tea.

Keep your extras in an air-tight container to maximise their lifespan. Don't forget that coconut flour tends to be quite drying, and this effect increases as the buns age.

The Pursuit of Health - No more PCO (for now?)!

Apart from a bout of pneumonia when I was very young, and picking up the annual cold or spatter of gastro, I have always had a rock-solid constitution and have never suffered chronic or acute health woes.

It''s a shame that I've almost always been a bit chunky - having a bit of a gut when you're young promotes rude or judgemental comments from adults (who usually think they're being funny and that the jokes will go over your head), and over-reactions from parents. Having a muffin-top in your teenage years soon develops into self-consciousness and ridicule. Kids can be very cruel.

Society, and the medical industry, say it loud and proud - being overweight is unhealthy.

Really?

I was a champion in the 'throwing' events at school, and was a competitive swimmer - until one of my teachers made a comment about the fact that I wore a towel around my waist to 'cover up' (I just thought my towel was pretty and wanted to show it off). I walked up to 3km from the bus stop to my farm almost every day, with a couple of musical instruments and a heavy bag of books in tow.

(Men who don't like to read about women's issues might want to skip this next bit)

The first real health battle of my adult life is/was my PCO - a reproductive situation which appeared as incomplete ovulation and resulting lack of menstruation.

Given recent events, it would seem that this issue may have stemmed from my pursuit of weight loss.

Just over two months ago, I finished my Yasmin-driven menstrual cycle. I stopped taking my pill, and waited to see if nature would take its course. I have been trialling this method of 'testing' every three months or so for the past year.

What made this trial different? I was back to my original weight (more fat than before, though), and I was enjoying sweet potatoes and fruit regularly. Stress was diminishing as the teaching year tapered away to nothing, and the weather was showing signs of pending loveliness.

Three weeks after I stopped taking Yasmin, my period arrived. With the severity of the cramps and the brevity of menstruation, this clearly was not the doing of the pill. This was back to my high school suffering. Four weeks after that, I had another one. Crampy death pain hell.

Hurrah!

So kids, what to make of this?

Was it the sudden drop of 5kg of body fat in January '09 that threw my body for a loop, and stopped it recovering until that fat has been restored? I have read many times that a girl's weight during puberty sets the normality level for her reproductive system, and swings this way or that in weight or body composition can confuse said system...

Was it the fact that I cut carbs to 20g per day, except for Christmas '09 and much of '10? Was running on ketones insufficient to adequately feed all systems in my body?

Was I failing to meet my caloric needs? We can scrub this one since during my carnivore experiments I ate far beyond my caloric needs, although the ketone question may come back into play here.

Was it the combination of drugs - BCP and another nerve-repairer like DepTran? This is possible if the problem started pre-2009 but was masked by the pill - but then why weren't other 'tests' successful?

The only way to know is to try self-experimentation and to gather the experiences of others with PCO, but this would not be enough to establish a cause. The medical profession still has no idea what causes PCO. I would have been quick to blame environmental factors in the past, but the return of ovulation defies this hypothesis.

Nevertheless, I wanted to put this bit of intimate detail into the blogosphere since the PCO post is the most visited of my posts, and since my situation is reversed, I want to let fellow sufferers know that there is hope!

Additionally, although PCOS is related in some way to insulin resistance, and shows some improvement when treated with a low-carb diet, there's a chance that non-PCOS PCO could actually be caused or impacted upon by a low-carb diet. I would be interested to hear from others who try or have tried tweaking their diets and what results they've seen.

But first, I will be trying the harder of the possible 'causes' of PCO to see whether my periods cease - lose fat. Since I'm eating paleo foods at least 90% of the time (including sweet potato, but not normal potato, rice, or dark chocolate), it's easy for me to stick to my new 'normal' eating plan. I don't think about it much, but I fast all day on work days since I'm not usually hungry and don't have time to futz in the kitchen or sit in the staffroom and watch colleagues eat garbage whilst they talk about Weight Watchers..! I eat something (often mashed sweet potato and butter) when I get home, and then have dinner with the beau. Ultimately, I'm trying to ignore food until hunger kicks in, and this will be made easier when fruit season finishes! I haven't been eating enough meat either, with this hot weather keeping me away from my usual home in the kitchen. I'm sure you will have heard about the manic weather in Australia of late - massive flooding, cyclones, heat waves... Good times! The hot weather is also partly to blame for the lack of posts - the computer room is usually the hottest place in this house, and the laptop is too hot to have on one's lap too long. The other reason for the quiet period was because I was waiting for my, er, period so that I could write this post!

With this year's school play about to begin rehearsals, I need time flexibility. Fasting works elegantly for me, and now that the house is no longer a giant sauna I will be capitalising on the fast by working out before dinner. Rather than paying for my belly dancing and circuit classes, I'll be looking for shorter, harder workouts like the Tabata training I played with last year, though my fatty misery meant I didn't enjoy the experiences, thus becoming unsustainable. I'm in a better state of mind now, though you couldn't pay me to get on the scales! I received a big discount on some Zumba classes across town, so that will become my 'play' time. I know that exercise is not enough to cause fat loss, but I'm hoping that physical stimulation will signal to my brain that it should crave healthy food and discourage over-eating since excess with be-labour my digestive process and slow me down!

Mission: Retain reproductive health. Encourage my body to physically reflect the healthy state it is in. Continue to relax my attitude toward my excess chub. Eat really well. Continue to use this blog as a feeder into the primal community, since clearly my experiences are not unique.

Finally, I recently began to doubt whether I really wanted to be a teacher, given the prospect of teaching a subject I'm not that interested in, and not getting much support for the programs I have started and continue to run alone for very little monetary and time compensation.

Today was day four with students back at school.

I knew by the middle of day one that I was where I was meant to be.

I was born to be a teacher, I love students, I love my subjects, I love my relatively short but intense work day, and I love the fact that I can give extra experiences to my students by means of running plays and so on even if I don't get that much in return! Let's face it, I'm a giver.

For myself, I have my dancing, cooking, jewellery-making, reading, and entertainment pursuits. This blog helps me to get my ideas in order and keep my recipes at hand, but it's really here for the rest of you, whether you have fellow health-seekers in your social circle or only online. I am pleasantly surprised by positive comments, and shake off the negative ones, but could quite happily run this blog without a comment section since I write it like a book, not as a beacon of attention. I consider comments as the commenter's book, sharing ideas as much with fellow readers as with me. Read and write on, lovely visitors - your experiences and perspectives have just as much a chance of inspiring someone to health success as my posts. :)

FOOD PORN TIME!

Oh hey, ten litres of awesome coconut oil, sup? (Let's just ignore for the moment that I actually ordered ten 1L containers, and that nui have ignored all my emails requesting empty containers to 'decant' the oil into, since it was bought to give to friends & family... Nui = crapness. Their oil's okay, but they won't be getting any more of my money.)

Bacon & veggie frittata!!

The leftovers

Homemade beef burgers cooked on the BBQ, and summery salad.

I made sushi! Rice is for lame-o's.

Typical dinner - hunk of meat (chicken), mashed sweet potato, assorted green veg. Yum!

See above, though with tomato instead of sweet potato. Obviously was too hot to be boiling things that night!

Happy February!

My Previous Post in One Photo:

Resistance is not only futile - it'll screw up your mind grapes.

Like An Animal

 A couple of comments on the last post inspired me to further my explanation of the fundamental mind-shift I am pursuing personally. I responded in the comments, and want to add to those points here:

I always had a good attitude toward food. I always enjoyed fresh fruit & veg, loved meat, and treated junk food as occasional indulgences, but never really thought about it. Going low-carb, then primal, then carnivore, and eventually paleo - that's what screwed up my attitude towards food and, most of all, my body. Exercising 'mindful eating' immediately makes you over-think eating. Just eat real food, and your body will stop you when you've had enough. Counting anything will mess you up. I sure learned that the hard way.

So much of the primal/paleo movement revolves around humanity's return to earlier states of civilisation - even pre-civilisation - when it comes to how we eat and live. We're not eschewing the creature comforts of housing, electricity, transport, etc - the only area we really concentrate on is food. Yet, we seem to pursue this return to an animal, natural state in such an unnatural way.

Every pet I've ever had, growing up, was given big bowls of food, which were topped up as needed. There were usually a few animals living with us at any one time, yet there was always left-over food in the bowl. There was more than enough for everyone. The pets ate when they were hungry. They knew food was always there. They didn't overeat. They didn't eat as much as possible in case food was not going to be available later - they knew it would be.

We live in the exact same situation, and yet we spend so much energy over-thinking food. We use food as a crutch for when we are stressed, bored, stuck for something to say, etc. Whilst many health ills do come from eating the wrong kind of food - no one debates that living on refined carbs is unhealthy - most of us have enough money to ensure we can access and store a wider range of foods. We're not forced to subsist on the refined carbs that result in insulin resistance and physiological hunger. If you are eating meat, eggs, fruit & vegetables, but find yourself craving doughnuts, then the issue is more likely to be psychological. Even if you have a physiological disorder such as hyperthyroidism, diabetes, etc, and you need to take care with what you eat, you should not find your life revolving around food. I know people with severe food allergies who are more relaxed around food than I have been!

The attitude of being "strict" is a signal of neuroticism. A success/fail attitude is unnatural. Dieting does not make sense if it involves actively monitoring your food intake, actively denying yourself foods that your mind obsesses over. There's nothing natural about pushing yourself to do something your body doesn't want you to do. There may need to be a mind-shift to find yourself actually craving healthy foods, but if you're forcing yourself to be strict and dieting, you usually find yourself craving junk. There's a hint that something's wrong.

I'm not really saying that the individual is in the wrong; we're just products of this weight-focused culture. So few of us eat naturally - the media and societal-pressures consistently reinforce the idea that we're WRONG - the wrong size, eating the wrong food, thinking the wrong thoughts. Existing like animals is derided.

The primal/paleo movement is all about getting back to our natural lifestyles as evolution dictated, and yet we end up going further away from nature and into dark places of restriction and self-disgust when we make "mistakes", or covering our psychological issues with food in the guise that it's fine because it's paleo! Sites like PaleoHacks have certainly enhanced that perfectionist/neurotic attitude. Gosh, even Richard Nikoley of "Free The Animal" seems to be rapidly reversing the mind-set proclaimed by his blog's title, although he is still much more relaxed (I hope) than many other paleo endorsers out there. Hopefully as the hype passes, that attitude will recede and those of us who believe in evolutionary nutrition and medicine will find the groove of natural eating behaviours along with a relaxed lifestyle.

I'm not putting food up on a pedestal, like the vegetarian who dreams about bacon just because they won't let themselves eat it. Animals don't do that. Damaged, neurotic humans do. I can eat whatever I want. I desire healthy, nourishing foods because they give me energy and make my systems run smoothly. Sometimes I crave junkier food, and I'm permitting myself to satisfy that craving. Sometimes I feel fine after it, sometimes I feel a bit sick, but I never feel guilty. I am aiming to eat like an animal - food is there, and I eat it if I need it.

I aim to live like an animal as well - Mark Sisson advises us to play, to avoid poisonous things, to get enough sun, to avoid stress... My pets do all of this. I can too. I had been trying to off-set work stresses with relaxation activities like massages and sunbathing. I'm starting to think that this is the wrong mind-set as well - but there will be more about that as time goes on. In the meantime, I am spending time making and selling jewellery, and am also starting a new vocal group. These activities are my pleasures, and - if I wanted to - they could also be my primary sources of income. I do not find them stressful, or the minor stresses are far outweighed by the pleasure and relaxation associated with the activities. With two weeks left before teaching resumes, I will be living like an animal as much as possible. After teaching resumes, I will see whether the stressors outweigh the pleasures. If so, I might have some decisions to make...

I am still the Girl Gone Primal, and going primal now means a lot more to me than just following a diet. Maybe I should add a "now with more primality" sticker across my banner :)

Smile!

I nearly titled this post as 'Diary of An Orthorexic', but that would be starting off on a negative footing, when the most important point I want to make is the importance of positivity!

As I pointed out in my How To Get Started post, I have spent a lot of time investigating psychology and the mind-body connection as it pertains to body composition and fat storage. The work of Jon Gabriel started me along this path; I read his book in late 2009 and cynically disregarded it as a flowery tome that boils down to encouraging fat people to eat less and move more. I was wrong. At the time of reading the book I was in a very happy place - I was at my lowest weight, I was feeling very confident in my body, and essentially felt that I was already at the end-point of the journey, which I achieved without having to 'teach my body that it was safe to be thin'. The rebound of 2010 obviously caused me a lot of psychological pain, and I remain unsure of whether it was purely the fault of chemical interference (DepTran) or whether I was bound to suffer fat regain, like 95% of dieters. What I am sure of is that every time I would work hard on cutting back carbs, calories, and sometimes all food (since it's very in vogue to fast in the paleosphere, this looked like health-wise activity), sooner or later I would find myself regaining the little weight I'd managed to lose, and then some.

I tried all the old tricks, and some new tricks as espoused by Stone & Jaminet - eating 'safe starches', cycling high & low carb days, fasting before exercise, fasting dinner to dinner most days, etc. Nothing made me feel bad, I felt pretty healthy (although I think my gut doesn't like sweet potatoes, since the oh-so delicious sweet potato mash would always give me mild stomach ache), but the fat wouldn't shift. I'm not about to get on a scale, but I'm pretty sure I now weigh at least as much as I did at the end of my pre-diet chocolate binge at the end of 2008! It didn't matter how much I knew about physiology - my results defied the science. I flip-flopped from desperate to disdainful, caring too much to not caring at all, all washed down with buckets of guilt and shame. Good times. However, I consider my 2010: Bests & Worsts post to be the finish line of that particular chapter of my life.

I returned to Jon's book a couple of weeks ago, now ready to consider the possibility that there were psychological reasons preventing me from losing the regained weight. From all the information my body was giving me, my metabolism was in great shape, my digestion was great, and my moods were pretty good (although I wasn't feeling very positive - nothing new there).  I even had a very positive reproductive message (look away now, boys with issues reading about girl business); I took my usual break from the Pill (Yasmin) after being on it for 3 months, to check how my PCO issues were going, and - for the first time in years - I had a period that was not due to a pill cycle! I'm not ready to claim my PCO is over until I have another non-pill period, so I'll let you know in three or so weeks....

I've always been interested in the power of a positive outlook, although I tended to look at the outcomes of cynicism and negativity rather than the 'healing power' of positive thinking. My reading over the past two years has exposed me again and again to the importance of minimising cortisol, and the way blood sugar fluctuations can impact moods. I understood that what was going on in my body could powerfully impact my mind, but somehow I missed the possibility that the reverse could also be true - that the way I thought (given that thought triggers chemical reactions in body, something science knows to be true) could have game-changing influence over what went on in my body.

Jon focuses upon the ways our bodies and minds cope with modern stressors. He argues that we evolve with three main stressors - predators, famine, and temperature extremes. To be safe from predators, we needed to be fit and lean in order to get away or fight them off. From famine and temperature extremes, we needed to store a layer of fat that could be consumed when food became scarce. Our bodies took cues from those stressors to signal the need to gain and maintain fatness, or to achieve leanness. Life in the modern first world is all but immune to those three stressors, but is chock-full of other stressors such as money troubles, social pressure, etc. These modern stressors are not understood completely by what Jon calls the 'animal brain' - it only understands the three main stressors of earlier eras. Thus, the mind tries to interpret modern stressors in the way it did earlier stressors - as signals to gain fat, or lose fat.

Since I'm not one to believe what I read straight off the bat (else reading the new book by Gary Taubes would leave me carbophobic and blaming my freckles on the sandwiches Mum made me as a child... of so this review would have me believe), I went and did my research, enjoying the work of the lovely Emily Deans, MD (I'm committed to reading her entire backlog of blogposts, so it's slow-going!), among many others. I encourage you all to do the same - living in this cynical and negative world, it has been very helpful to be reminded of the importance of reflecting on the successes as well as the failures, the crucial need to let go and forgive past mistakes and crimes, and to appreciate what we have rather than focus on what we want (I would add 'and need' except I doubt many of us are truly lacking in that department). It seems really basic and obvious, but I know that I don't praise myself enough - it's culturally frowned-upon to really succeed, since Australian media sources and other influential people are quick to point out flaws or mock the slightest sign of pride or pleasure in one's success. I know the power of praise, and I always apply the ' at least 5 yays to 1 nay' formula in the classroom - but not to myself!

Whilst positive thinking is the main umbrella covering everything I'm working on and researching at the moment, I will list my particular 'therapy' approach here, in case anyone is feeling like they might be circling the orthorexia/negativity bowl:

The first move I made was probably the biggest - I decided that I would eat junk food if I felt like it. I first wanted to find out whether it would have any immediate physiological effects, but no - a dose of vegetable oil from KFC chicken and potato chips left me a little queasy, but I noticed nothing after a hit of gluten and sugar in cookie form. I had a couple of bad days of cravings and feeling crap about myself, but this coincided with my first 'natural' period in two years, so I hesitate to claim that the food was the culprit. The main psychological point behind this move is to avoid my 'animal brain' feeling as though it is being deprived of anything, in case that triggers a 'famine' response of fat accumulation. I'm not finding myself truly craving junk, and enjoy the things I eat without considering it 'cheating' or worrying about weight gain. I enjoyed the novelty value of fried fish & chips from the amazing place down the road, I reminded myself what milk chocolate and white chocolate taste like, etc. The message for my brain to hold on to is that this food is available if I want it, but it only tastes good for a few seconds, and it doesn't really nourish me so it's not worth pursuing. Being able to reach this place of acceptance after building such a focus on how unhealthy those foods are is quite an achievement, since not so long ago I burst into tears in a restaurant after being told my lamb dish involved breadcrumbs, and I'd already eaten some!


Beyond the junk food hurdle, I am not worrying about carbs or calories. I regret ever counting calories, since I know so thoroughly now that caloric restriction will not give me long-term health. If that's a new concept for you, Matt Stone's guest post at Belly Fat Loser is one of his less-bastardy pieces, and nails many of the flaws in the diet industry's arguments. However, rather than dwelling on the past, I am eating what I want, when I'm hungry, and stopping when I have had enough. I haven't perfected this yet since my satiety is all over the place and I never seem to feel full when I'm eating fruit. The key here is probably that I'm actually rarely hungry, but I feel like eating, so I eat. I'm on holidays and the weather is terrible - tropical humidity and rain, in Victoria! I'm also taking care of the kitten, so I'm inside most of the time, with nothing to do except sit and watch movies and read and become bored ;) But I'm not worrying about it, because it's worse to worry (stress) about things than just live.

Beyond not counting carbs or calories, I have the aim of not really worrying about food at all. As Jon says in his meditation CD, "it's just there.. and it's just not that exciting anymore". I'm not sure how successful I'll be in this area, given that I'm a foodie and like being creative in the kitchen, but we'll see how I go! I try not to think about what my next meal will be, I'm not intending to actively fast, and so on.

Not all of my 'therapy' revolves around food though - I am also taking advantage of my down-time at home by stopping to think about everything I have, and appreciating things rather than being critical. Sometimes this is laughable - my kitten broke my skin by accident whilst we were playing, so I had to stop myself from feeling hurt and instead think about all the fun we were having despite the incident! Cynical me pipes up occasionally to point out the hippy-dippy-ness of this, but then I laugh at that little voice, and it all ends up positive. I hope I can keep it up!

Every night I listen to Jon's meditation/visualisation recording as I go to sleep, and I'm interested in trying to incorporate more visualisation into my day. His ideas have been reinforced from many other sources, but for ease of reference I'll stick with his work since it's readily available online, his book is quite affordable, and he lives in Australia! ;)

The one area I'm not currently succeeding in is the physical activity component, but I'm not going to force myself to get active if I don't feel like it. I've done bits of belly dancing and some push-ups & sit-ups when I've felt fidgety - and feeling fidgety itself is a wonderful sign of health! I was always someone who could melt into the sofa and watch TV for hours, but now I need something to keep my hands busy (my jewellery-making has continued to thrive!) and I change position quite often. I'm keen to get back to my belly dancing classes, but the teacher tends to be quite negative and we often have one or more students feeling down at some point in the class. The last class before Christmas break, this was me, since I felt unfairly picked on, so there's a bit of a dark cloud there to break through before I will actively want to return. Hopefully I will feel better about it all by next Monday! In the meantime I have DVDs I can play if I feel the urge - but with this hot weather, jumping around in the stuffy TV room is the last thing I want to do!

So that's where I'm at. I'm feeling quite happy, light and playful, I'm letting go of things that have bothered me in the past, I'm developing a healthier attitude to food and my body, and am hoping that his will have positive returns in not only restoring my state of mind but also getting my body's fat stores burning. I will still design healthy meals and share them here, and continue sharing my journey with you. I am experiencing many internal rewards already, which fuels my efforts as intrinsic motivation.

And my extrinsic motivation? I have a colleague who is incredibly fat and incredibly negative. No matter the topic, she'll find fault and voice her criticisms loudly and proudly. She lives on doughnuts and other carby nasties. Just recently, she was diagnosed with and treated for breast cancer. She hasn't changed much, is still very negative, but sometimes she looks on the lighter side of things. I don't want to be seen as negative, especially if those vibes result in obesity and cancer formation! On the other hand, the colleague who is lovely and loved by everyone, who is pretty care-free and laid-back, is also very thin. She also lives on doughnuts and other carby nasties, but doesn't sweat it. I know that she might suffer from her food choices down the track, but what is more damaging - conventional 'nutrition', or attitude? I can't be sure, so I'll be covering both bases as much as I can - but I won't be letting the former control the latter.

Recipe: Mediterranean Chicken Balls!

The free-range chicken mince that my supplier sells is, without exception, too low in fat to really produce my chunky chicken burgers with an adequate moisture level.  I have been toying with ways around this - adding fat simply renders out during cooking, extra egg tends to escape as well, and adding coconut or almond flour changes the taste too much. The solution? More (finely processed) veggies!

Ingredients (four servings):

500g ground chicken
3 or 4 eggs
5 spring onions
1/2 red capsicum (bell pepper)
1 tomato
10 asparagus spears
1 cup shredded cabbage
Optional: fennel (out of season here), bacon, a handful of basil, thyme, or lemon sage, a splash of lime juice, paprika, salt & pepper as desired.

Method:

1.  Preheat oven (or grill) to 150 deg C. If using an oven, line a baking tray or two with baking paper.

2. Prepare your veggies by washing and then processing with a food processor. You could also chop them extremely finely, if you have the will and elbow grease!

3. Combine veggies with eggs and meat in a large bowl, and stir until thoroughly combined.

4.  Grabbing small handful of mixture, roll into balls (or grab larger handfuls if you want to make patties/burgers, especially if grilling).

5. Place in oven/grill and cook until the centre of the ball/patty is thoroughly cooked. This took about 5 minutes on my grill, and 20 minutes in the oven.

Serve as is, or in a lettuce leaf, topped with cheese or tomato chutney, etc. Sorry for the lack of finished-product photo - we were too hungry to wait!

Fall-back Favourites: Fried Cauliflower Rice

When I'm pressed for time, I have a range of meals that I make without having to think about the details. Chop chop and in the pot - curries, stir-fries, etc. So in my new series of Fall-back Favourites, I will note the details of some of these recipes where measurements are open to interpretation, and effort is minimised. Check out the first two recipes in this series - Roast Leg of Lamb  & Stuffed Capsicum (Peppers)

I was grilling some salmon a few nights ago, and was out of cabbage, so could not make my usually fatty side dish of sautéed veggies. I improvised with the foods I had in the fridge, and  came up with a really tasty way of making fried cauliflower rice, the perfect accompaniment to seafood dishes or spiced meat mains that could do well paired with absorbent sides.

Ingredients:

Cauliflower, riced in a food processor (one head feeds at least four people)
Other vegetables - I used spring onion, capsicum, carrot, and broccolini
Fats for frying - I used bacon grease and coconut oil
Eggs - one or two per person
Optional - during step 2, add herbs such as coriander, and/or add a splash or two of sesame oil or soy sauce.

Method:

1. Heat fat in a large frying pan.

2. Add veggies, and sauté gently.

3. When veggies are done, remove from pan, and set aside. Keep warm.

4. Add eggs to the pan and scramble until cooked well.

Serve fried cauliflower rice topped with egg.

If you want the rice to be the main meal, rather than a side, try adding crispy bacon or diced chicken.

Here's the beau's meal, with the rice and eggs serving as a base for a delicious salmon fillet.

Fall-back Favourites: Stuffed Capsicum (Peppers)

When I'm pressed for time, I have a range of meals that I make without having to think about the details. Chop chop and in the pot - curries, stir-fries, etc. So in my new series of Fall-back Favourites, I will note the details of some of these recipes where measurements are open to interpretation, and effort is minimised. Check out the first recipe in this series - Roast Leg of Lamb

This is a fantastic way to glam up some leftovers in a tasty capsicum (or what Americans call bell peppers). Whatever meat and veg you have in the fridge will work - chicken and chives, beef and broccoli, lamb and leeks... You name it! Here's a breakdown of the last batch I made:

Ingredients: 

Bacon grease or coconut oil, for frying
Diced vegetables - I used spring onions, red onion, and tomato.
Meat - I used sliced ham
Eggs - one per capsicum
Capsicum/peppers - one per person

Method:

1. Preheat oven to moderate (150 deg C).

2. Slice tops off capsicum, and remove all seeds. Put the tops aside, and sit the capsicum on a tray.

3. In a frying pan over moderate heat, melt oils and add onions. Sauté until cooked through.

4. Add tomatoes and meat. Once they are slightly cooked, add eggs and scramble until all ingredients are cooked.

5. Scoop frying pan mixture into the capsicum, sharing the mixture evenly between the peppers. Replace capsicum tops.

6. Place pan in oven and bake until capsicum is starting to brown. Top with cheese if you like.

Serve carefully, as most capsicum don't like to stand upright and will spill their guts if toppled. If your capsicum is particularly uneven, wrap the base in aluminium foil and create a steady base.

This meal is an absolute favourite of ours - I love the adaptability, and the beau is obsessed with the flavours. In terms of vegetable-based foods, this is second only to cauliflower pizza in my book!

Fall-back Favourites: Roast Leg of Lamb

When I'm pressed for time, I have a range of meals that I make without having to think about the details. Chop chop and in the pot - curries, stir-fries, etc. So in my new series of Fall-back Favourites, I will note the details of some of these recipes where measurements are open to interpretation, and effort is minimised.

First up, a classic leg of lamb. As an Australian, I take pride in my preparation of lamb, and now that my kitchen is equipped with excellent crock pots, fats and spices, my roasts are unbelievably tasty, even without using sauces or elaborate dressing techniques.

Secret ingredient: organic, grass-fed lamb! I imagine that grain-fed/finished lamb needs quite a lot of dressing up to mask the flavour of rank chemicals and tasteless meat, but pure lamb, fresh from Farmer Dan's farm is the pivotal ingredient. The preparation and cooking technique is to enhance the flavour, not change or mask it.

You will also need: coconut oil, bacon grease or other animal fat, dried or fresh rosemary, dried basil, fresh or dried garlic, salt.


Method:

1. Pre-heat your oven to moderate (150 deg C).

2. Place leg of lamb in a pot with a lid - it needs to be big enough to house the lamb comfortably, with space all around the leg.

3. Melt your fats, and combine with the herbs and spices.

4. Rub your seasoning all over the lamb, including the underside and under any flaps of loose fat. If you want to cut strips across the fat so that the seasoning reaches the meat, you may. I don't bother when preparing grass-fed meat.

5. Cover pot and place in oven for a couple of hours. You can leave it for longer if you need to - just lower the temperature to 100 deg C.

6. For the last ten minutes, remove the lid and raise heat to 200 deg C so that the fat on the roast sizzles and crisps.

7. Remove from oven and allow the roast to rest for 10 minutes in the pot, before removing roast and placing on a wooden board. Be ready for the juices - catch them if you can.

8. Carve and serve the meat, drizzling with fats and seasoning left in the pot. You could add some cauliflower rice to the pot to soak up the juice, but this is too fiddly for my fall-back plans.

Et voila!

Unwound

The holidays are here! After many long weeks of hard work, with the last few weeks spent furiously marking exams, writing reports, and making sure everything was all set for next year, my colleagues added a new layer to that stress by inventing an 'office/row of desks decoration competition'! It proved to be a wonderful bonding exercise, since for most of the year the people in my row are too busy to socialise, and reminded me that very little of our lives and choices are in a vaccuum - there is almost always a support system there, waiting for your call of help. It was all hands on deck for the last week of term, following my theme of 'recyclable & hand made White Christmas', building a tree out of paper, wreaths out of old plastic bags, putting cellophane on the windows, making snowmen out of wire and cotton wool, and grabbing shredded paper to scatter on the ground to look like snow. Other rows/offices let one or two people do all the work, spending lots of money at fabric and decoration stores, and some didn't bother to do much at all.

My row won! We celebrated as a team, and now have the newly-generated inaugural banner hanging at the end of our row, to remind us throughout 2011 how we worked together to create something beautiful and very personal.

Now that the working year has finished for me, and doesn't start up again until February, I can return my attention to participating in my other tribe - the paleo/primal community. I have been reading all of my blog and news feeds throughout the busy year, but have given very little back of late. I intend to make the most of my Summer outside and getting lots of sun, air, and activity, but at the moment it is SNOWING in parts of Victoria, suggesting we will have the cool festive season of 2006. Boo! I'm already betting that we won't get the scorching hot weather until school resumes in Feb and we're stuck in classrooms with piddly little fans or broken air conditioning. Bleeeeurgh... Just give me a few weeks of perfect weather in January, please?

So, how's the primal living going, Jezwyn? Well, I'm glad you asked. I was continuing my experiment of having a few carby days a week, enjoying mashed sweet potato and lots of berries. However, as of today I'm cutting those foods out again for a while, as I was starting to crave sweet foods almost constantly. Now that I'll be home most days (going out at night, usually, since the beau only gets one week off work), the pull to grab tomatoes and carrots out of the fridge for constant snacking is dangerous, so I'm going to start monitoring carbs again to see if that kills the cravings. I suspect higher carb days (especially starchy carbs) are quite good for me physiologically, but perhaps they do mess with my blood glucose/insulin too much and affect me psychologically. With Christmas lunches and dinners coming up, I don't want to be falling face-first into the Fruit & Nut balls I've been asked to make! I also wanted to try making a lower-GL dessert in the realm of fruit puddings to share at Christmas, but I would have to be tasting the recipes as I played, so that one will have to wait until next year too.

So, although it'll be hard to fast since I'll have few distractions, I will be eating more meat (yay for Christmas!), eggs, and fats, plus leafy greens which I will track to be sure I'm not going to be breaking out of ketosis too much. I've found myself turned off from meat a bit lately, but hopefully the variety of roasts and seafood that are synonymous with this time of year will help shake that feeling. I'm usually fine once the food is ready to eat, but getting uncooked beef and lamb out of the freezer doesn't inspire me at all. Weird...

My belly dancing class is on a break as well, with no classes for two weeks, so I'm looking at the other group fitness classes to go and play in. They have circuit training, so I think that's probably a good choice since I could use some strength work and a bit of cardio given I'm not walking/riding to school every day nor lugging around great tubs of books.

Blatant plug: As a stress-release activity in the past few weeks, and now as a creative outlet to keep me inspired during the holidays, I have been making jewellery again. I love getting feedback on my designs, so if you like jewellery you can look at my Facebook Page where about 150 of my pieces are currently visible in albums, or you can look at my Zibbet store, although I can only list 50 items at a time. I feel a bit dirty mentioning it here, but jewellery making has been a big part of my life of late, and is the main reason I haven't been updating this blog as much as I'd like. It's also a great way to stay busy whilst trying to ignore carb cravings! ;)

I have a couple of recipes that I've been waiting to share with you, so I'll end this post with a little comic strip that summarises so neatly the problems the world is faced with in terms of food:

Time To Begin - How To Get Started

A friend of mine is currently keen to follow in my healthy footsteps, but finds the extremes of the "Paleo" lifestyle a little hard to tackle. She asked me to create an ease-of-entry plan for her, and I figured it would make sense to share it here for anyone who needed to get back on the wagon, or wanted a list to send to loved ones to help them with their transition.

My own path: I started my weight-loss plans after readings a low-carbing article in a magazine, and lost a fair whack of fat whilst still consuming artificial sweeteners, thinking organic foods were for rich suckers, and only watching my carbs (no matter what the source). After finding Son of Grok and MDA, I started cutting out chemicals and streamlining my eating to meat, veg, eggs, some fruit, some nuts, and lots of oils. I've tried different ways of eating along the way, and battled interference from drug therapy for an ongoing nerve damage issue, but ultimately I'm happy and pretty healthy. I still have some weight to lose (again), but I'm not in a rush now that I know so much about metabolism and cellular health. I am also deeply engaged with examining psychological factors behind fat accumulation and maintenance, since I recognise that my mindset towards the end of 2009 and into 2010 would definitely be labeled orthorexia. Crying in a restaurant after finding out there were breadcrumbs in the food, anyone?


To create my 'How To' plan for others, I considered the ideas of Dr Kurt G Harris's Get Started guide on PaNu, Mark Sisson's PB Basics and book, as well as other less-authoritative write-ups from various sources. I am also learning from Matt Stone (there's a wealth of information there once you become immune to his thick facade of bastard) and Jon Gabriel, who are experts in physiology and psychology, respectively. My ideas don't exactly match any other guides that I've found, though I understand the ideas supporting the priorities and progression of the aforementioned lists.

The Beginning: The first thing you need to do is work out your goals - do you need to lose weight? add muscle? improve your health? Your goals will change your focus and process slightly, although overall your choices will fit under the following headlines:

1. Eat real, whole, nourishing food. Eating live foods (meat, eggs, fruit, veg) will supply your body with necessary nutrition, whereas 'dead carbs/calories' like flour, refined sugar, and most white potatoes will leave your body starving for nourishment.

2. Eat enough food. Not too little, not too much. Eat until you are satisfied, and then stop. If you concentrate on eating nourishing food, and really savour it by eating it slowly, you will recognise satiety and won't be left with cravings or feeling over-stuffed.

3. Use your body, and enjoy doing so. Being physically active is key to health. However, if you force yourself to exercise against your body's will, you will build mental barriers against the activity, and disrupt your health efforts. If you fulfill #1 and #2, you may find yourself wanting to move more. Find something you love doing, something that involves your whole body, and have fun!

Don't worry - this will be easier than it looks, and maybe even fun!

Time To Begin The Transformation:

1a. Start your day with a grain-free, sugar-free, protein & fat breakfast.

Fuelling yourself with fat and protein helps your body run smoothly for a multitude of reasons, including blood glucose stability, hunger management, fat-burning maximisation, and neural benefits.

Try: eggs and bacon, grain-free sausages or burger patties, chicken and egg salad, frittata (can be made ahead of time for an on-the-go brekkie), grain-free granola (Nola), or maybe even coconut or almond pancakes! Dinner leftovers like roast meat are also perfect protein-rich breakfasts, though you may want to add some animal fat (butter! Yum!).

1b. Add more healthy fat to the rest of your day. Saturated and monounsaturated fats are your friends. Animal fat (lard!) is wonderful, coconut oil has many exciting health properties, pastured/fermented butter is nutritious and tasty, and olive oil is great to drizzle on salads (but avoid cooking with it). Snack on high-fat foods like boiled eggs, avocados and macadamia nuts to keep hunger at bay. You'll soon find you don't need to snack - you may even stay satiated from breakfast until dinnertime! Eat when you're hungry, and when you eat, eat fat.

Did you notice I said 'healthy fat' and then didn't talk about margarine?! Margarine, and other bogus vegetable oils (and most nut oils) and BAD. Refined, adulterated, abused, rancid, and heavy on omega-6 polyunsaturated fats. We need omega-6s, but we need to keep our intake of them balanced with our intake of omega-3s. Right now, many people in the developed world consume omega-6:omega-3 at a ratio of 20:1! The recommended level is closer to 3:1, if not 1:1. When your omega fatty acids are out of balance, inflammation is caused. Inflammation is bad news for your body, causing internal upsets that lead to heart problems, digestive issues, autoimmune problems, obesity... Avoid inflammation as much as possible. Here are two more foods which, when industrially processed, cause major inflammatory responses in the body:

2a. Completely eliminate wheat, and minimise other grains & legumes. Aim for a maximum of one grain-based meal per day, and then try for grain-free days. Rice and corn (including popcorn) are grains. You can read about the dangers of grains on my Science page.

2b. Completely eliminate all processed sugar. This one can be hard work since some of us are addicted to sweet tastes. For now, try to substitute natural sugars like maple syrup and honey for table sugar, and then start replacing your natural sugars with chopped up fresh or frozen (unsweetened) fruit. If you find yourself craving sweetness, you might want to go completely cold turkey, cutting out all fruit. This can be particularly helpful if you are looking to lose weight. You can read about the dangers of refined sugars on my Science page.

3. For fat-loss: you will probably see some weight loss once you have eliminated grains and sugars. Some of this is 'water weight', but some may also be fat. To keep this fat-burning process going, restrict starches such as potatoes and root vegetables, limit sweet fruit, be careful not to over-consume nuts, and prioritise fatty cuts of meat as they are very nutritious and satiating.

If you are not needing to lose fat, you may wish to continue consuming fruit and nuts, but prioritise sweet potatoes and yams over white potatoes as many varieties of potato have minimal nutrition.

4. Once your hunger is under control and you've cut out the foods that interfere most with hormones and bodily functions, you should look to adjusting other lifestyle factors that may impact inflammation:

Chronic stress is inflammatory due to increased cortisol circulation. Find time to play and rest. I play by belly dancing, and riding my bike. I love to hang out in my hammock, soaking up some sunshine. I also find time to get pampered with a massage, and hope to work more yoga and meditation into my life next year.

Having fun can also have bonus benefits - dancers' legs are hot!

Sleep! Treat sleep like it's your job - make sure you're in bed snoozing for a set number of hours. Keep your bedroom very dark, and make your bed a sanctuary away from TV, computers, and other distractions.

Get some sun. 'Vitamin' D is crucial for reducing inflammation. Depending on your skin colour and geography, get your blood serum D tested and see how long you need to spend in the sun to get your levels into the preferred range. If your lifestyle limits your outdoor hours, consider supplementation of D3. A bonus of getting outdoors and lapping up some sunlight is that you'll probably end up sleeping better due to chemical reaction and hormone circulation.

Exercise - excessive, long cardio sessions is a form of chronic stress, especially if you don't enjoy yourself. Try interval exercises like Tabata protocols, sprints (running, swimming, cycling, etc), and other activities that involve short bursts of intensity. Short and sharp - our bodies love acute stressors since they make us stronger, but chronic stressors wear us down.

You too can be beautiful!

And, if you can, be sure to get lots of sex.

5. Continue perfecting your food choices. If you're having digestive issues, try cutting out dairy products. Source farm-fresh foods - avoid conventional, grain-fed meat, and limit your exposure to pesticides by going organic. Be sure you are getting enough protein (1g per kg of body weight - use a food tracker like FitDay to check your intake).

Eat until you are satisfied, then stop.

The Goal Food List for Health & Well-Being
Each category is followed by a list of the top choices in priority order.

Meat: 1) beef, lamb, bison etc, 2) free-range pork, 3) wild-caught fish, 4) free-range chicken, 5) other seafood...

Fats: 1) animal fat, 2) coconut oil, 3) butter/ghee, 4) olive oil...

Nutritious veggies: 1) leafy green veggies, 2) low-starch veggies, 3)sweet potatoes...

Fruit: 1) berries, 2) other low-sugar fruits, 3) higher-sugar fruits as post-workout refuelling...

Nuts: 1) macadamia nuts, 2) everything else except peanuts & cashews (which are legumes).

Drink water whenever you are thirsty, and you might like to experiment with tea, coconut water, etc. Do not drink soft drinks or fruit juice - it's just sugar/sweeteners. Coffee is okay in moderation, as is straight alcohol (wine, some spirits). Beer has gluten in it, though you can find some gluten-free craft beers.

Cook your food gently and properly - avoid burning at all costs. You can also learn how to properly prepare nuts and dairy products through the Weston A. Price Foundation's website.

Eat real food, avoid the nasty stuff, live like a human animal (not a robot!), and prioritise your health since your life really does depend on it.

Get Real!

The most artificial things I have done in the past year (other than flying halfway around the world) have been to dye my hair (as a post-show mood booster), and get a spray tan for Halloween. Naturally, now that the red I put through my hair has all but faded, leaving me with a warmer brown tipped with lighter streaks from sun bathing, and that my fake tan has faded but my real summer tan has started to show, I am constantly being asked whether I've had my hair done (often 'have you had a haircut?' which intrigues me...) and being told I look really nice and healthy! Message received world - stick to what evolution gave me.

It makes sense for my real food diet and grounded approach to living be reflected in how I look; however, hippy fashions really don't suit my curves. so I guess I'll have to stick to fuelling my addiction to curvy-friendly and feminine couture. Ah well... Alannah Hill herself looks about as far from realistic as you can find wandering the streets these days, but this cavegirl needs her frills!

As for the no-frills aspects of my life, I have been asked via comments and emails to share the details of my way of eating, especially since I'm finding my health improve in leaps and bounds now that the DepTran repercussions seem to finally have been eradicated from my system. I can't quantify how amazing it is to be rid of the psychological drive to eat, to feel satisfied by food again, and to see other improvements such as skin clarity, better sleep, tolerance of heat and cold, and insusceptibility to the colds and other bugs going around. I attribute this restoration of health to the long process of ridding the body of detrimental substances, since I've seen gradual improvements every week since the low points mid-year. However, that in itself isn't enough to start driving fat loss once more, so that achievement I can attribute to my current lifestyle.

Let me break it down:

I don't have 'rules' anymore, but instead make decisions based on a consolidated understanding of my body and evolutionary science and medicine.

Obviously, processed foods including grains, sugars, and vegetable oils are permanently off the menu.

However, now that the weather is getting better and I'm getting out more and being more active in general, I am finding that I can tolerate real carbs more and more with repeated exposure. At the moment, I can eat up to 150g carbs (including fibre) without significant weight gain afterward. I may hold a little extra water if many of those grams came from fructose, but it leaves my body again after a couple of days.

My exposure method had mostly been to eat sweet potato (mashed with butter and nutmeg - yum!!) with dinner on the weekend (Saturday, usually), and eat some berries one or two times a week or so. I eat copious amounts of vegetables - I've overdone it a couple of times, eating a kilogram of veggies over the course of a couple of hours! Not advised... - usually sautéed in butter. Cabbage and zucchini are still my favourites, adding in asparagus, spring onions, and leafy greens like spinach and bok choi when the mood strikes me. I count these carbs (usually around the 30 - 60g per day mark, though I log at the end of the day) even though other experts suggest that veggie carbs don't really count.

Breakfast of primal royalty!

Essentially, this is my 'Keep It Real' Diet - I eat what I feel like eating, when I feel like eating it, and apply logic to my impulses to explain why I might be drawn toward one meal and not another. Sometimes my choices are made for me - today is 'fresh wild-caught salmon day' at my butcher's, so sashimi was a done deal for dinner:

...with a big bowl of sautéed veggies and bacon, of course.

Sometimes I have to force myself to eat whatever's in the fridge - I'm still disinclined to eat beef, even though I love rare steak once it's in my mouth, but whilst I stand in front of the fridge it's the last thing I want. And if I find myself getting to excited by the prospect of sweet potato mash (and why wouldn't I be?) I stop and check whether the excitement is coming from my taste bus or from the dark place in my brain that wants to ride a sugar rush. The temptation of berries often fails this little test, but sweet potato hasn't messed with my blood sugar very much at all. My post-carb test is to have a shower early the next morning - I tend to feel nauseated and light-headed if I've eaten too many carbs the night before, suggesting blood glucose imbalance. It's worrying in the pre-diabetes sense, but it's also a reminder why I keep my carbs low - no, it's not because I'm following the advice of the latest fad diet guru, but because my body has been damaged from years of carb abuse. I now look younger and healthier than I have since my childhood, even though I'm almost as curvy as I ever was. It's not a coincidence, and I listen attentively whenever my body has something to say.

Lately, it's mostly been saying "Seriously, isn't 500g of sautéed cabbage enough?? You're a bloody slave-driver! You'll be sorry..."

Even minced beef works in the pan with my veggies - so much broccolini!

So here's a run-down of my usual intake rhythm (not an eating plan but a reflection on what I've been naturally doing):

Monday - Friday (working days): Fast til I get home (somewhere between 4pm and 6pm usually), unless calories have been a little low, in which case eat bacon for breakfast and hoard the drippings for veggies later! Dinner: usually meat with a hefty side of sautéed veggies. Calories and carbs are variable - I eat to appetite.

Sautéed bacon and veggies, topped with runny fried eggs

Veggies, mushrooms, and rare porterhouse steak

Weekend: breakfast/lunch and dinner, sometimes separated into three distinct meals. One lunch or dinner will include sweet potato mash or similar starch, and fruit and nuts are free game.

Sweet potato mash must always be eaten by using crispy bacon as the spoon. Always.

I tend to hit a bit of ketosis during my fasted days, of course, yet I'm keeping my metabolic bases covered by cycling carbs all over the town, and not letting my calories find a routine. Sometimes I feel like I've eaten too much, but I never leave myself hungry. This, in turn, is keeping my cortisol in check, as reflected by my sleep habits, skin, and overall mood.

The only victim of this process has been my digestion - hitting it with larger, veggie-heavy meals has been tricky at times, but it is adjusting very well. Now that the weather is heating up, I've found it hard to keep my liquids up given I already inhale water all day, but now have to additionally compensate for water lost through sweat and digestion 'hurdles'. My water bottle is a permanent fixture in my hand or bag, and now that I teach only two classes (pared down from my usual six thanks to the seniors finishing up this week), I'm never far from the filtered water in the staffroom. You know you're keeping it real when your 'naughty treat' is chilled filtered water! With a violent Aussie summer approaching, it doesn't stay chilly in my Sigg bottle for long...

So, on the carbs front, it has been great to build up my tolerance again, which I suspect couldn't have been done without a long healing period between early 2009 and now. I am in touch with primal peeps on Twitter who are still in my old boat - they touch one gram of carbohydrate over their 20g threshold, and their weight jumps up. Even when I was lapping desperately at the Gary Taubes pool of information, I thought it couldn't be healthy to be that impacted by such a subtle sway in diet - yet I proved it to myself again and again. As I have now shown, a healthy(-er) body should be able to deal with all sorts of diet and lifestyle changes without immediate, negative consequences. I still feel best on a meat-only diet, and I'll happily throw in a meat-only day into the mix whenever it's convenient, but it's good to know that I can be more flexible.

On a psychological note, I know that I enjoy the flavour of food more when I've put effort into its production. This is a known psychological behaviour - we prefer anything we had to work for. Rodent studies have shown mice who have to work harder and harder to get sweet water (hello carbs) end up preferring that flavour to other sugared waters once all are freely available. People who learn how to do origami end up rating their own works as highly as they do origami made by experts. t makes sense from the evolutionary perspective - we form attachment to the fruits of our labour, we enjoy the food we have laboriously hunted or foraged for, we care for our children and will protect them before looking after our own well-being, etc. So, with this in mind, my enjoyment of the vegetables I prepare potentially exceeds that of the meat I slap onto the grill or toss into the oven because my brain doesn't register the meat as 'something I had to work for'. The combination of real food and real effort results in real enjoyment - I savour both aspects of my typical meat & veg meals because, overall, it took me time and effort to prepare and cook. The physiology and the psychology are both piqued and I am left deeply satisfied.

It seems like I've put a heap of time and effort into organising what I should eat, when and why to maximise my fat loss, but really everything has fallen together with a bit of sensibility, hormonal balance, and a willingness to fast frequently. Reading the work of blogger like Chris Masterjohn, Martin Berkhan, Matt Stone, and others who don't follow the typical paleo WOE has been interesting, and has given me new ideas to play with. Many of their ideas won't work for my body and lifestyle, but their articles have resulted in a follow-the-yellow-brick-road perusal of all sorts of other information online, tweaking my understanding here, and pushing my self-reflection there. Stephan Guyenet's message hits home more and more for me: neither carbs, fat, nor saturated fat make you fat, but rather modern, refined, industrial foods bring in the diseases of modern civilization.

One caveat - despite my increasing tolerance of carbs and understanding of the incredibly wide range of evolutionary diet components humans have evolved upon, I still can't handle it when the middle-aged ladies in the aisle of desks next to mine cluck at lunchtime about their Weight Watchers canned tuna and yoghurt. Vom. Get real, ladies. I've yet to snap and rant at them about the idiocy of their processed & calorically-restricted diet, and experiences like that of Primal Muse sure help me bite my tongue for just one more day...

One final note of what's real in my like - realty. Ooh, see what I did there? Yes, I'm house hunting, hoping to buy my first home, so the beau and I have been trekking around our neighbourhood, falling in love with some gorgeous modern townhouses and snarling in disgust at the state of older, uglier homes carrying the same price tag! We're lucky in that we have quite a bit of dosh with which to service a loan, so we're not having too much trouble finding aesthetically pleasing places that are still in walking/cycling distance from my work, have a yard for the animals we'll get, are near parks so the dog(s) can go for a run, don't need renovating (neither of us are patient enough for such things), and can fit all of our amassed frippery (piano, huge couch, big dining table... Yikes!) I'm in charge of vetting online properties, organising our inspection schedule, whilst the beau has been lining up meetings with financial planners and agents. The bureaucracy is horrible and so unreal. So much fuss over which bit of money goes where and why and crunching figures and planning loans and sorting out insurance and BLAH! The beau is in London right now to collect some massive geek prize for being the best geek or whatever, so that leaves little non-driver me to bus/ride/walk around the nearby suburbs all day on Saturday, trying to get to properties whilst they're open for inspection. It should be interesting... Just give me a sunny day, okay?

Forecast for Saturday

Partly cloudy. Winds northwest to southwesterly averaging up to 20 km/h tending southeast to southwesterly up to 25 km/h during the afternoon.

City Centre   Partly cloudy.   Min  9   Max   23

Hrmph.

(Aren't you glad I didn't say 'For real?!')