Ode to sugar addiction

Sugar, sugar in my head
You fill me with both joy and dread
I crave you, need you, hate you, eat you
'Til the guilt monster is fully fed

I know the truth but still I eat
Lollies, chocolate, anything sweet
You give me headaches, weight gain and pain
And I then I fall down in defeat

On my tongue I feel you melt
Sweet and luscious oh you smelt
My heart, my health, my love will go
What a hand of cards you have dealt

Addiction is so hard to fight
I need some help with my plight
Your taste, colour and smell entices
And you're always everywhere in sight

Despite the evidence around
The government says you're still sound
How are us addicts really to know
That the health cost is so profound

When you're not in my life
I feel so awesome, out of strife
I need to say goodbye again
Cut you off with a jolly big knife

Bitter/sweet and love/hate too
Parting is sweet sorrow for you
No longer filling the sugar industry's coffers
Mars, Nestle, Cadbury I will now eschew

I hope you've enjoyed my sugary rhyme
I've come to the end, I'm out of time
Bring on a happy, healthy, delicious life
I quit sugar, to not would be a crime


V.

Kiss smart: The BB goals for 2013 - health

We are well and truly half way through the first month of the year and I'm yet to post my resolutions for 2013. Only I'm going to call them goals and aspirations because, apparently if I call them New Year's resolutions I'm less likely to succeed. If a little word change or two is going to help the cause, I'm all for it.

While I am aiming high this year, I also intend to stick to the KISS philosophy with some SMART thrown in.

Both KISS and SMART are mnemonic devices, if you didn't already know, which basically means they have been created to help us remember shit. Being ADHD, I need all the help I can get with my short term memory!

So while Keeping It Simple Stupid, my goals will be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound. And because I have a few, I'm going to break them up into seven key areas. Each area will have its own post, otherwise this one post would be so babblingly long no one would ever bother to read it all.

The areas I want to work on this year are:

1. Health
2. For the soul
3. Finances
4. Career
5. Relationships
6. Family
7. Community

So basically I'm breaking down my whole life and setting goals and aspirations for each part.

Without further ado, here is goal area number one:

1. Health

I discovered last year that I heart my body. Yes, that's right, I love this 175cm 82kg body of mine that carries me around all day and all night. I haven't always loved it, in fact I've pretty much hated my body through a lifetime of brainwashing that my body isn't worth loving if it is fat.

Hating my body never helped me lose weight and keep it off so what is the point of that? Feeling shame about my body only served to make me feel shit about myself all the time and because it made me feel like shit I punished it. But I guess that is what we do to people/things we hate - we aren't very nice to them.

While I am now almost 20kg lighter than I was the day I got my lap-band, I am still around 5kg over my healthy weight range and 12kgs from my ultimate goal weight. My lap-band has been instrumental in helping me get to this point and now the rest of the work is up to me.

So hating my body has never worked and my lap-band has pretty much taken me as far as I can go, so the only approach left to take is to flip this hate caper on it's head and try love instead.

Following on from last year, I'm going to continue to love this body in 2013.

How do you treat people/things you love? You treat them with respect and dignity. You nurture them and say kind things to them. You do what you can to make them feel good.

So my health goal is to help my body feel good. Ok, let's aim higher. I'm going to make my body feel great and this is how I intend to do it:

a. Quit sugar... again

I'm currently back on the IQS (I Quit Sugar) bandwagon with one foot dangling off in the sea of temptation. I'm fighting my addiction to sugar with as much strength as I can muster, but I haven't been as strict as I was for those seven glorious weeks last year when Will Power was my best mate. Hell, she was my lover! This year we're getting back into bed together again. Whether she likes it or not!

I've paid up $9.99 for *The Happiness Institute's Boost Your Willpower - 30 Tips in 30 Days email course. I'm up to tip number six and so far, so good. Willpower is relevant for a lot of what I want to achieve so I think it has been a worthwhile investment.

b. Give oxygen to the flames of my cooking mojo

Like the glowing embers of an old fire, my creative desire to prepare food ebbs and wanes in the breeze. I absolutely adore cooking and when I am eating well I tend to cook more and the fire burns brightly. When my diet is shit I get lazy and disinterested in food and the flames are extinguished.

This year my fire will burn brightly with fresh whole foods being at the centre of the flames. Fruit, veggies, quality meat, whole grains and dairy. The only ingredients not allowed are sugar and processed junk.

Too easy. Well, you'd think so but the saying is always easier than the doing.

c. Move

Always the hardest part of a healthy lifestyle for me is to incorporate exercise into my everyday life. It is not because I don't like to exercise, I actually do like it but for me to get right into it, the exercise has to be easy. Not just easy to do, easy to get to, to do. If you know what I mean.

I know this is just an excuse but I very rarely have time on my own where I'm not with either Noo or my niece Mala. But if I was to really look at where I have moments on my own I guess I could find a gap or two to go down to our gym and get the heart rate going for a bit.

There are maybe two mornings a week when my parents are here. I should be at the gym at 6am on those days if I really wanted to work out. 6am. That is bloody early but the gym is in our building. That's right. Two floors down from me is a full gym and pool.

My lame arsed excuses for not going there include:

1. No one to look after kid(s)
2. The times that I could go are the busiest (ie 6am)
3. The times that I could go are too early (ie 6am)
4. I love spin classes but obviously we don't have group exercise classes in this residential building and none of the gyms around here have a creche
5. I cannot afford a gym membership and why should I join a gym if I have one here I can use for free?
6. My knee hurts
7. My foot hurts
8. I need to wait until I have an x-ray and CT scan on my lower back because of my foot (doctor thinks sciatica, I just think my foot is fucked)

What I can probably do is walk more. At least after my foot gets sorted out. Noo and I walked for miles yesterday around the Harbour and Opera House and today my foot is killing me. Stupid foot.

d. Keep this table stable

By table, I mean me, my mind. It rhymes with stable... anyway, I'm feeling pretty good this year as far as my mental health goes. I haven't had any serious mood swings for a while actually. If my mind feels stable my body reaps the benefits.

I think I finally have the right combination of medication and I really like my psychiatrist. Now the challenge is to find a way to hold on to this good feeling and maintain that stable table. Too often have I got here only to plunge again. Never as deep as rock bottom. I've only been there once. But I've dropped down low enough to start doubting myself again which in turn makes me feel too scared to keep pushing boundaries.

To keep things running smoothly I will continue my therapy but move it back from weekly to fortnightly. I'll keep reminding myself everything is ok. I have achieved so much and continuing to challenge the status quo only helps me achieve even more.


So, let's check back in with KISS SMART:

Did I keep it simple? 

I think so...

Goal: Help my body feel great

How: Quit sugar, eat whole foods, move my body, monitor my mind
and continue to challenge the boundaries of my comfort zones

Are my goals smart? 

They look pretty smart to me...

Specific: See above

Measurable: By 30 June I aim to be 75kg and happy

Achievable: With 7kg to lose in just over five months to do it in, I think so

Relevant: Absolutely

Time-bound: Yes, to be measured on 30 June 2013

So that is it for the babblingbandit.me KISS SMART goal area number 1 for 2013. I will check in periodically as to where I am tracking over the next six months.


V.


*Not sponsored! Just wanted to mention it because I like The Happiness Institute.

Linking up with Jess at Essentially Jess for #iBOT.

Sugar free banana bread

I have posted several times about what a fussy eater Noo is. You can read here and here how much his eating habits drive me crazy. I'm always swinging between the emotions of fear for his health and exasperation at the stubbornness of that little kid who is so energetic, healthy and happy, yet so under fed. If Noo sat down and ate an entire Happy Meal I think I'd probably cry with joy. You don't hear that from many parents, do you?

Noo decided last week he liked banana bread again so I was more than happy to oblige by making him some. I would make him anything as long as he ate it and it had no sugar - so I can have some too. Yes, I'm back on that bandwagon.

Last Monday I was up late trawling through Pinterest (go on, follow me!) going through the multitude of 'healthy' banana bread recipes. Egg free, gluten free, sugar free, nut free, with nuts, no oil, with oil, vegan... It was all getting overwhelming but I clicked like on a recipe I thought looked pretty good and repinned it.

The pin then showed itself on my Facebook feed and a mum I know through my online study ventures commented on the picture, chucking in her favourite banana bread recipe. It was so simple! But it included the banned substance. A further comment from me asking if I could swap out the sugar with rice malt syrup prompted a comment from my sister's mother in law who said if I was to do that I'd have to up the flour or the batter would be too runny.

And, voila! I had a recipe to try and I had to try it immediately.

At midnight I found myself throwing the ingredients together and by the time the loaf had been baked it was heading towards 1am but the recipe was a success.

Sugar free banana break mark I and Noo with a mouth full of it

Every last mouthful was eaten and the friends and family that had a taste enjoyed this delicious sugar free treat.

After a few requests on Facebook for the recipe I decided to make this delicious sugar free banana bread again, taking photos as I went to publish here on the blog. What better way to get clicks? Surely that title alone has a whole lotta SEO magic happening. Only time can tell.

Without further babbling, here is the recipe:

Sugar free banana bread

Ingredients

125 grams butter
1 cup rice malt syrup
1 egg beaten lightly
3 small-medium ripe bananas
A sprinkle or two of mixed spice or cinnamon (depending how spicy you like it)
1.5 cups of wholemeal self raising flour


Method

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius and grease and line a loaf tin.

2. Melt butter and rice malt syrup in a small saucepan. Remove from heat and allow to cool.

3. Mash bananas in a large bowl. Add flour and spice.

3. Combine cooled butter and rice malt syrup with egg then add to banana, flour and spice. Stir until combined.

4. Pour batter into lined loaf tin and bake for 50 minutes or until cooked.

Mix it, bake it, rise it, cool it, eat it - super easy sugar free banana bread

That's it!

Let me know if you make it and how it goes.

Yum, yum pig's bum.

V.

Disclaimer: Just because this recipe is sugar (fructose) free does not mean it is low in calories but it is super easy to make and super delicious to eat. It is a treat and should be treated as such. I take no responsibility for anyone who wants to gobble up the whole loaf in one go and then steps on the scales only to find they've stacked on a keg or two!

babblingbandit.me does Droptober: It was all about the food

One of the best things about registering for Droptober - Just lose 2kg has been the return of my cooking mojo (for pictures see here). When I came home from London five years ago I lost it. I wrote about it back in 2010 so this has clearly been a long term issue. My cooking mojo has come and gone since 2007 but mostly I have been a lazy eater. Especially this year.

Back when I was working the usual Monday to Friday I always spent half my afternoon (if not more) thinking about what I would cook in the evening for dinner. I looked for recipes online or in my many cookbooks and then I picked up anything I needed from the supermarket on the way home. Preparing and cooking food was a way to wind down after a big day at the office. I loved it.

Post my break down in 2007, as my interest in food waned my waistline expanded - weird, right? You'd think I should have lost weight if I didn't care about food any more. But I replaced my drug and alcohol addictions with chocolate, lollies and cake. I ate whatever was easiest: cheese and crackers for dinner, or pizza delivery or greesy Chinese takeaway or coffee and biscuits. Lots of high fat and sugar loaded, low nutrition food.

I tried Lite n Easy, Jenny Craig and Weight Watchers. None of them inspired me to feel any love for fresh fruit and veggies. I even discussed it with my old psychiatrist: Why don't I care about cooking and eating well when it used to be such a part of my daily routine? She thought I might have an association with the whole preparing/cooking/eating ritual with having a glass of wine or four. But I didn't think that was it. Before I lived in London, I never drank during the week and I was cooking most nights then. There had to be more to it.

Now most of my family are watching their weight in the lead up to summer. Even my parents have a plan to get back on the weight loss bandwagon starting from 1 November. Yolanda was trying to give our mum a pep talk the other day to get her psyched. Yo told mum all she had to do was the following, for just one month to see what happens:

1. Quit all sugar
2. Stop eating butter and cheese
3. Eat red meat only once a week
4. Walk every day

That shouldn't be too hard. Yo didn't say she had to count calories or write down what she ate and calculate points or go to the gym. But our mum, the retired chef, exclaimed: "I'll just have to lose interest in food!". Now that is a weird theory, for sure. It makes the assumption that if you want to lose weight you can only eat boring food not worth having an interest in. I know, and I bet you know, that is so not the truth!

Personally, I believe the opposite and participating in Droptober has helped me realise:

When I feel good and care about myself, when I 'heart my body' and want to treat it right, my love affair with cooking and eating good food is reignited. 

The colour and vibrancy, the smells, textures and tastes of fresh fruit and vegetables, meat and nuts, seeds and legumes and grains... become alive again!

How good does this look? YUM!

So here I am, on the evening of the last day of Droptober. As of this morning I am DOWN 3.5kg since the beginning of the month, far exceeding the Droptober goal of losing just 2kg but 2.5kg short of personal goal of 6kg.

But I have achieved a HUGE amount:

I have gone 40 DAYS without a single bit of chocolate

I have been (almost) sugar free for 40 days

My mood has been stable for the whole month (minus 48 hours last weekend)

My energy levels have been high

The headaches I've been suffering from for YEARS have completely disappeared

And, last but by no means least, I have raised $330 (as of this evening)
for the Droptober charities Variety - The Children's Charity and Kid's for Life.

How good is all that!

Rather than singing yeehah and gorging on the nearest bit of chocolate I'm on to the next challenge: Sarah Wilson's "I quit sugar pre-Christmas program" and the BB sugar experiment continues. Plenty more on that to come.


V.