A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down…..

Actually it was a spoonful of honey followed by a jelly-bean which equals about the same as Julie Andrew’s ideas!  Yes, we have been back on the antibiotics here for a wee girl who just keeps getting nasties that need the big guns.

Our bribery to get the stuff down the hatch!

When antibiotics taste that yuck (so yuck that even I couldn’t stand the taste while trying to hide it in yoghurt and fruit) and herself can’t swallow pills (thankfully himself can) we have had to resort to all sorts of things to get the stuff into her.  So our honey and jelly-bean mix seemed to work until I suddenly thought “WTF!!,  I’m trying to improve her health and then I’m dosing her with stuff that is going to lower her immune system??!!”

Our yummy sugar-free, dairy-free bliss balls.

Back to the drawing board.  That is when himself had a good idea of making something ourselves and we came up with some home-made Bliss balls to come to the rescue.  Between the kids and I we decided what would be delicious to add and then went about experimenting till we got the mix just right…. well I was experimenting while they were tasting 🙂 So I thought I’d share our recipe here so that if you have your own little medical resistance  you have more than a sugary treat to tempt them.

Hope this finds you all well and enjoying life.

Arohanui

Y

Some interesting sugary viewing

After a cat fight last week (yes an actual fight with a cat or should I say I was beaten up by a cat!), the thumb that isn’t quite letting me type and visits to the vet for mice (no they weren’t part of the cat fight) I thought I would just share some interesting viewing.

I watched the documentary ‘The Truth about Sugar’ the other night and found it interesting as well as a good reminder that eating well is important. It isn’t the full picture but it is a good general look at what the main issues are around sugar and also the food we eat. So here it is for you to enjoy too – just click on the picture or the link above.

BBC documentary about sugar

Hope this finds you all without any medical mishaps for mice or men 🙂

Arohanui

Y

Eliminating emotional eating

Just back from an amazing weekend away in the beautiful Golden Bay region.  It was the first time I have been away overnight without themselves for a few years so it really was great, add to that 6 other fantastic women and learning a craft and I was on cloud nine. 

Before heading away for the long weekend I had decided not to be too strict with myself over sugar, mainly because much of the food was catered and because I really didn’t know how I would be with treats around and others eating them.  I had planned ahead a little though and made sure that I purchased sugar free snacks to share – corn chips, nuts and houmous – along with having breakfast goodies and also a few staples.  I needn’t of worried though as even when the delicious chocolate dessert came out on the first night I was happy to say ‘no thanks’ and leave it at that!  Morning teas, with baked and multi-sugared offerings, desserts and even chocolate snacks didn’t even draw me closer.  I KNOW!!  I’m as shocked as you!  I remember reading in ‘Sweet Poison’ that when the addiction lifted goodies wouldn’t be an issue however I half laughed when I read it thinking ‘yeah right mate!’  The thing is he was right.  There was no craving there at all, it was just another food on the plate rather than then great temptress it had been some 2 months earlier.

Baskets I made over the weekend.

Now here is the interesting part for me….. while I was away I wasn’t really craving anything – sugary or otherwise.  I ate my 3 meals each day,  only had a snack late afternoon as I was genuinely hungry and tea wasn’t till much later, and had no thoughts of eating more than that.  I guess I was busy weaving and learning new skills in the day and then talking in the evening so maybe that was the reason.  The thing is that as soon as I got home the ‘search for food’ was on.  I wasn’t even hungry yet by walking through the home threshold I had reverted to old patterns of eating between meals and wanting second helpings. The difference, from the 4 days prior, shocked me and reminded me yet again of the power of emotions and emotional eating! In coming home I had come back to the little triggers in life that seeing me reaching for food rather than expressing my emotions in positive ways.

I have known for a while that my overeating is linked to my emotions however after reading David Gillespie’s book I had secretly hoped that maybe, just maybe, eliminating the sugar would eliminate that emotional eating I had hooked myself into.  This weekend, and coming home, as shown me that while changing foods and eating habits are very helpful in getting you on the path of becoming healthy it won’t change much if you are still holding onto those emotional triggers that caused you to grab for the wrong foods in the first place. Sure the food I grab for is much, much healthier now that I’m not addicted to sugar just that in my quest for health and good habits around food it isn’t quite enough.  Clearing the emotional baggage is the only way, yes the only way to eliminate that emotional eating.

Bach Flower Remedies are great for clearing emotional triggers to eating.

Throughout this journey, and before, I have been using Bach Flower Remedies (BFR) and Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) to help me when I have wanted to eat rather than expressing or releasing emotions.  I have even created EFT you-tube videos for it and documents about which BFR are good!  So it was a good wake up call to take my own advice and use the tools I know work so well to help me clear all those emotional triggers I locked in so long ago.  It is hard I’ll say that, harder than giving up sugar, as it is a life time of using food as a support system.  My aim is to eating healthfully though and in a way that nourishes my body rather than punishing it so it is important to deal with more than just the food going in.  I need to deal with the why.  Maybe you do to so, I thought I would pop in a few remedies that I have found useful.  Of course everyone is different so if you want to find the remedies which best suit you then check out my quiz to get the right one for you. 

Agrimony – if you find yourself comfort eating to stay happy and to stop thinking about your problems or uncomfortable feelings. It will get rid of your inner restlessness and express emotions easier.

Centaury – to help you say ‘no’ to food you can’t resist or to ‘kind’ friends who offer a piece of cake to go with your coffee! If you don’t like hurting people’s feelings and eat to please others then Centaury will really help you.

Chestnut Bud – if you are a yo-yo dieter. When you don’t learn from the past and keep repeating the same mistakes (like reaching for that chocolate bar!) then this is a remedy for you.

Crab Apple – if you have poor body image and become obsessed with the details of diets.

Gentian – if you are easily set back and become despondent if something goes wrong. Maybe you doubt your ability to eat healthy food or lose weight or you give up if you don’t have a good weight loss straight away.

Holly – if you eat because you are angry, jealous or have deep hurts from the past.

Star of Bethlehem – if your eating is for comfort after a trauma, shock, grief or fright.  This can be something that happened recently or in the past. 

Well there are a few to start you off and if you want to read more then check out my document ‘Creating a Vivacious you’ or complete the quiz. 

Hope this finds you all happy, healthy and full of energy for the week ahead.

Arohanui

Y

www.becominghealthy.co.nz

 

 

Untying the bonds

I always thought we were pretty good with sugar.  I read labels and where-ever possible buy products without sugar on the labelling, I make our bread, we don’t do juices for the kids or fizzy drinks (only fairly recent for me I have to say and of course himself has his homebrew) and I make most stuff at home either omitting sugar, like my pikelets, or reducing the sugar by 1/3 to 1/2 the recipe amounts.    Sure the kids had the odd treat but not everyday or every week so all and all I was feeling not too shabby about the whole sugar thing.

Well I was until I came a across an interview with Sarah Wilson of ‘I quit sugar’ fame in which she was describing how she thought she was good too.   She ate fruit, don’t we all?  She used honey for sweeter, just as we do, and she dried fruit as snacks.  Then the big shocker came as she talked about how this was still sugar and the amounts of sugar they each contained and that she was actually addicted to sugar.  It really must of  hit something somewhere as I kept thinking about it, over and over.  Could I really give up sugar?  Honey maybe but fruit?  Surely I wasn’t addicted! We need fruit and dried fruit is just all that goodness condensed isn’t it?  Somewhere inside I was panicking a little in the knowledge that actually maybe, just maybe, I was a little hooked on sugar too.  Not the white stuff but sugar never the less.

I had read many other times about the addictive nature of sugar and not really thought that much about it due to the fact that I didn’t really use sugar anymore, aside from a wee bit in baking. I had even heard about addiction and how the addicts brain was actually wired to work normally with the toxin and abnormally without it, once again I didn’t make any links.  I had even thought that I needed to reduce my honey intake in a bid to improve health but that is about as far as I got and that maybe that wee bit of baking was actually growing since we begun home-educating. Truth was that I was enjoying my sweet treats too much to want to take the information and action it.  Sarah’s interview stuck with me though and I decided to get her book from the library, still doubting that I would need to give up honey and fruit.  As the library didn’t have in stock I reserved it and began to browse.  Low and behold what should I come across but ‘The sweet poison quit plan’ by David Gillespie.  Hmmmm…. I thought maybe the universe is trying to tell me something?

One of our Monday baking sessions.

I got it out and soon realised that this was the guy that started it all.  Sarah had used his research and advice to quit her sugar habit and it seemed that he was now going to be guiding our family of four through the same process.  The evidence in the book, along with information I already knew about food and me was enough for me to see that I was indeed hooked on the stuff – honey and fruit being my big staples and chocolate or bread being my cravings.  In brief David Gillespie explains how it is the fructose portion of sugar which is the big problem.  Not only is it making us fat, it is also making us addicted and causing major health issues to boot.  Yes we need sugar and yes we actually convert much of our food into sugar however this is glucose.  We need glucose not fructose.  In fact our body doesn’t even know what to do with a whole heap of fructose apart from store it directly as fat and as a lovely aside make us addicted to the ‘high’ it gives us each time we indulge.  The scariest thing is that is it is so so much that is everyday food.

So with that very brief and incomplete background I have decided to quit sugar as I’m not that into being addicted to anything let alone being poisoned by it! If you want the facts then check out David’s book ‘The Sweet Poison Quit plan’ or others of his books.  Needless to say that I will keep you updated how everything goes for me and the family.  So far the kids have only had fruit with fructose in it over the last two days and already I am noticing a difference in their appetite, as in they are eating more real food that I present, and that all that honey I have been feeding them certainly has had them hankering for sweet stuff too much.  Herself jnr and myself have both had a bit of a clearing as far as sinus go yesterday and today – not sure if it is related or a big old coincidence – and she also went on the search for sweet things in the cupboard this afternoon, just as I too was feeling the sugar crave hit.  We managed with some nuts and popcorn instead thankfully. 

It is actually nice knowing that I’m not feeding them up with sugar, or myself for that matter, and I’m really looking forward to seeing how this whole thing pans out. 

Arohanui

Y

www.becominghealthy.co.nz