I hate parties!

Yesterday I had some watermelon for breakfast, chicken and salad rice paper rolls for lunch. To the girls afternoon tea party I brought the rice paper rolls and watermelon. I tried to munch mostly on them. Other people had the same idea, so there wasn't as much for me as I thought there would be. Towards the end I had a few crackers with cheese and some of the whole grain chips and some grapes.

Karen stayed for dinner so we did some quick chicken in the oven and a small serve of oven chips.

The scale kicked my ass today with a 104.0 weigh in.

sigh.

It takes forever to get anywhere and so quickly to slip back.

Grannying up the hills!

Got the prize today. Finally into the 102's with 102.7. Yeah haaa! That only took forever.

Battled with myself to get on the bike. Said to myself its just for 30 mins, you will feel great afterwards. Finally got on. I set out to go a different way to avoid Mr Magpie. The other way also had a magpie :( So I decided to go around the river to come back home on the Lawnton side.

I noticed that I was able to "granny gear" up all these hills! What? I never make it up hills. Some of these hills were really big too. I also found myself switching into high gear on the flats. A very nice surprise! I think I was on the money with giving myself a rest yesterday.

I also noticed that I was riding my bike near Natalie's house. A friend I haven't seen for 6 months. So I rode to her place, and swung in for a chat and a nice rest.

I ended up riding for 1 hour and 10 mins (without the rest) which is half an hour more than usual, with steeper gradients. After that training run I feel better about the 5k mountain bike event coming up in 2 weeks time :)

I didn't get sunburned, but came close. I will have to be more careful in the future as the Queensland sun is very hot. Maybe some sort of helmet hat and a long sleeve shirt I can pull out of a saddle bag might work well. Certainly will amuse the magpies anyway.

I didn't end up avoiding magpies. I had another 3 attacks but no pecks so its all good.

I got home and flopped with a cold glass of water. Then I remembered that I had a bowl of spaghetti ready to go in the fridge. Heaven sent. Its amazing how good food tastes after a workout. I spent quite a bit of time on the couch recuperating.

After I felt human again I went and made some zucchini banana brownies. Essentially take a 2 egg and butter brownie recipe and add in zucchini and banana and sultanas and cut down the sugar and butter a bit that is what I made. I also put in a third wholemeal flour, two thirds plain flour. I completely processed the banana and zucchini so the kids wouldn't reject the slice based on finding little green bits in it. I made it up on the fly.

I made the brownies to have something to put in the kids morning tea, and also as an option to have something to take to the parties. I put a dusting of icing on the top. I am really happy with them. Sometimes healthy baking can get a bit rubbery, but these are great!

I made some small squares ones for parties. 

And I gave some to Jules' teacher too.

I ate some, kept some for Jules and Geordies afternoon tea. 

Then popped the rest of them into the freezer where they would be safe lol.

Food glorious food!

I had the intention of going for a swim today, but when I woke up my arms were quite sore. It took me a while to figure out why. It turns out that you get sore arms from pulling up on the handlebars when you go up a hill.

I decided to give my body a rest and hit the shops to sort the food out. I made spaghetti mince. It has more veggies in it than mince and I also added some lentils which were totally invisible in the final product. As well as feeding the family I got three freezer meals out of it.

Its really good because the variety of what I have in my freezer increases as time goes on. I have fallen behind in a lot of things while I was so low on energy. I am glad I have enough energy to start to pick up the pieces and start moving forward.

Its a good thing to join your kids on their extra curricular activities. From riding the bike path I have realised that the magpie that swoops is aggressive enough to recommend Jules take a different route for the next fortnight - by then the babies will have moved on and Daddy magpie can calm down.

I have also started a rule that people need to wear cycling sunglasses to protect the eyes from the bits that can fly up into your face when you ride as well as Mr Cranky Magpie. Magpies have been known to attack eyes.

The path Jules rides is mostly off road or roads are crossed at lights. There is one point though where the cycle path is forced to cross a busy road. I have requested that the council install a pedestrian crossing at that point to make it safer.

I didn't notice all these points when I wasn't riding my bike. Being more active makes you a better parent in more ways than one :)

3 rides in 4 days!

Feeling pretty proud of myself as I have ridden 3 times in 4 days. Thats 24 km of riding, and 2.5 hours of exercise.

My iron and magnesium is picking up and I am able to function again.  Having half a cup of oats in the morning with some fruit does wonders for my cravings and exercise suppresses my hunger.

I am hoping to get into the 102's before Sunday!

Stress, its coming lol

I got up Saturday morning and weighted 103.0. I was disappointed it wasn't 102.9 because I have been stuck in the 103's for two weeks now, and I knew it would go up after my Aunties 60th.

I had a lovely time with my mother when we went to my Aunty's 60th birthday lunch. We ate well, we shared a cold seafood platter between us and had prawns, oysters, crumbed calamari and Moreton bay bug. It was great to catch up with people, particularly my cousin Lyndell who is into nutrition and who it turns out lives in the neighbouring suburb.

My Auntys reaction when she saw the cake her friend had made for her was priceless. -->


She had expected a simple slab cake and when she saw the effort her friend had put in had burst into tears. It was exceptionally sweet.

This cute gorgeous girl had been making sure that the cake was getting set up and cut up properly.

Below is Helen getting comforted by her son. It was lovely.




While I was out, Jason took the kids to the park. They were on their scooters and he was attempting to ride a skate board. I couldn't be happier with him right now.

All this exercise seems to be making him much more patient and calm. Our love just grows every year. I can't believe how much I love him :)

Shortly after this Kai and Asha came over for tea and a long visit. Having guests over means the dinner is a little more fattening than usual. They came over again the next day and we had a swim together and took them for a bike ride. We shared another dinner together. I thought I had been pretty good, but the scale said no and I am up to 103.8 again.

I was pleased that the bike ride seemed easier though. Every gram I get off makes it a little easier to haul my ass around lol.

The next two weekends will have kids over again as there are girl parties to go to and Jason is happy to babysit Kai, Asha and Liam so that the Mums can go. The third weeked out from that I have the biking/camping event (I need to sort the camping stuff for that).

Theres only about 8 weeks of term left and I am realising how much I have to do. Theres the Christmas, shopping, wrapping, delivering, and events. I have to chase up the school to see where they are going to put Geordie to try and get a cruisey teacher otherwise next year will be hell. I can't tell you the difference it makes when you have a good teacher.

I need to start sorting the camping stuff for our bike event in three weeks. I need to sort the photos for the Christmas books that I like to print for grandparent gifts. I also grab other family members photos off facebook so it makes a good year summary for the whole family.

I like to be ready for the school holidays as soon as they start. Its even more important this year as there is only a week of holidays before Christmas week hits, then soon after we go on our holiday early January. The last week of the holidays I am having Evie and Nellie so that the cousins can have time together and I will have no time to do all that back to school stuff.

I also need to do more research into our holiday. We are driving to the Jenolan caves and back and seeing lots of family along the way.

So there is a ridiculous amount to things to do and socialising along the way. This is going to be a hard term, but a great school holidays!

Broccoli Extract Autism Study Low down

I read the autism study that looked into broccoli extract today. Given how many people are affected by autism I thought some people might also be interested in my layman synopsis.

Basically they extracted 50–150 μmol sulforaphane (a phytochemical) and gave it to some autistic men for 18 weeks and then stopped for a month. They found very significant positive behaviour changes. They also found side effects of some weight gain and 12-19% had vomiting, headaches, fever and two had seizures. When they stopped the treatment the gains started to regress.

So I thought I would look into broccoli sprouts and sulforaphane. Sulforaphane is a lovely phytochemical which is made by mixing glucoraphanin and myroxsinase when we chew. These are found in things like broccoli. Broccoli maybe has more nutrition than broccoli sprouts, but three day old sprouts have much more glucoraphanin than the average mature broccoli (73 mg v. 11 mg per serving, respectively).

Prepared extracts tend to lose their myrosinase activity. The glucoraphanin remains, but you need to mix the two to make the bioactive sulforaphane.

I am all for getting the nutrition from the whole food. Broccoli fights cancer. There is definitely a lot of fibre in broccoli that will help feed the happy bacteria in our gut as well as sweep away toxins. Broccoli will never make you fat. Have you seen how low it is in calories?

So I am interested in adding some servings of broccoli sprouts to our weekly meal plan. Keeping it in moderation and hoping for some of those payoffs, without the 12-19% risk of side effects.

Here is a sensible overview on the awesome power of broccoli sprouts!

Recovering

I am getting my energy back and starting to be able to function again. I haven't lost anymore weight since Monday. Mostly its been about getting my head around what's going on and what's the way forward. 

I went and saw a dietician at the medical centre to try and get some help designing meal plans that are more plant strong. I am not talking whole nine yards plant strong, but some ways we can move more in that direction. The fact that he had not even heard of Dean Ornish, Caldwell Esselstyn or Colin T Campbell is shocking to me. That seriously is not good enough.

If you have any health problems I urge you to watch this video put together by Dr Greger, "From Table to Able". This guy spends all his time reading 1000's of nutritional studies and they puts them together in an entertaining, scientifically backed sort of way. He is amazing.

The whole food plant based diet is the only one I know of that can REVERSE HEART DISEASE, given its one of our top killers this is a big thing for me. One amazing study he was talking about was that diabetics which had neuropathy (nerve pain) for 10 years had huge pain relief within DAYS of a plant based diet. Seriously this is amazing stuff it should be making headlines. But instead no one I know has heard of it. It can't stay a secret forever the research is pointing to this diet again and again. 

Three days ago on the abc newsite a study was done that found broccoli extract for being transformational in treating autism. The article concluded that eating a plant based diet was sound advice. Well thats great! I have two children with Autism.

Do you think I can find a dietician to help us along our way towards the more plant based side of the continuum? NOOOOOOOO!

My frustration is high. I am spending my time learning more about this stuff and the more I learn the more insane it is that this stuff isn't known by doctors, dieticians and people generally!!!!

Ground to a halt!

I have been going to a doctor trying to get myself approved to see a dietician because for some reason my iron runs low. I got approved for some sessions which I am really happy about! I got some iron tests done and asked for my magnesium, potassium etc to be checked as well.

On Saturday morning I got a call from the nurse "the doctor has your results and needs you to come in tommorrow". Of course thats all they can legally say. And that's terrifying. Your test results are meant to be a bit of pro activity, not critical!

So I spent all of Saturday freaking out, and consequently ate as well as I could. I had oats and fruit for breakfast, Tuna salad subway for lunch. Vegetable Dahl on a big bed of spinach for dinner and a juice of celery, cucumber and pear for a night cap.

And the scale loved me for it. That day I lost 0.7 grams!

The next day I found out what has been wrong with me. Low iron as suspected, it is 4.3 (should be between 10-30). But the magnesium was what was scaring the doctor. It was 0.41 (and should be between 0.7-1.1). He was worried about me having a seizure at that level.

So I have spent the last two weeks with very little energy and now I know why. The low magnesium has given me some weird sensations in my hand and feet and a tight feeling in my chest.

On top of supplements I spent yesterday eating: spinach leaves, nuts, salmon everything I could to boost my magnesium levels. I had ice cream rather than tea, as I wasn't game to have a diuretic. It was not a dieting day. And I was surprised how much I missed my cups of tea.

Right now I have very low energy and I am just trying to get through the most basic parts of the day. I don't know why my nutrient profile is down. I consider myself to eat quite well.

Life has started speeding up!

What just happened? One moment I was in happy weight loss land and now I have plateaued! I have been eating right, but my body is starting to adjust to less calories.

While I have been trying to figure out how to survive on less food. I noticed that life just sped up! Three friends have set dates for three parties in the next three weeks!

Halloween is just around the corner and to entertain the kids I have started decorating. The kids will probably have a sleep over party with their friends as Halloween is on Friday night this year!

My aunt's 60th is next weekend too! ARRGH 5 Parties in three weeks! THIS ISN"T SLOWING DOWN!

Okay don't panic.I can bring a plate of Thai Chicken Rice paper rolls to two of the parties and safely eat that... I am sooo grateful for my little freezer of take aways!!!

With the plateau, I haven't changed my eating, my body has just stopped losing. I need to drop my calories further to keep it moving. It's a bit of trial and error on how to do that as I really hate being hungry.

The party train is coming and I had better get my head around it or it will be a party train wreck!

I got my kilojoules down to 5456 today and I am hoping for some scale love tomorrow. Up until now 7500 has been good enough for a loss.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...But it's not even Halloween yet!

Seasoned mums know to slowly accumulate for Christmas across the year. Sales, stuff you get given that would be perfect for someone else, where ever the inspiration comes from. Often we pile it in the back of a closet. Then we forget what we have, go to the shops and then buy more than we need and still have Christmas stress.

I do presents a bit differently. I keep a spreadsheet of all my gift giving. Oh. My. Goodness. When you see it all written in one place. The amount of gift giving when you have kids is insane.

I do my spread sheets with Google drive. Then I always have access to the list. When I am at the shops and thinking of getting something for someone I can check my phone and decide whether I already have enough for that person yet. I don't need to rely of memory :)

The spreadsheet allows me to have a different tab for each year. Its fun to look back on what you did in previous years.  A lot of it repeats itself. The one that sneaks up on people is the end of year school and extra curricular teachers gift giving. There is the teachers, maybe the teacher aides, the music teacher etc... I like to give my teacher gifts on the Tuesday of the last week of school. They are extra appreciative as they haven't received many yet and if your child was sick for a the last two days you have gotten it out the way.

Having last years list means that you remember everything and everyone you did last year. It stops you from getting caught out and having to hunt down candy canes for the classmates that have disappeared from three different department stores, even though you saw them everywhere in mid November.

Its about saving time, money and stress.

It means being done before the school holidays hit so you can spend more time holidaying and less time dragging the kids around the shops. It is about minimising the the stress of an unavoidable annual social event.

I aspire to be done with Christmas shopping by the 1st of December, save for those entirely optional last minute bargains that you can only buy from mid December. I am to have everything ready to be posted in that first week so that it has heaps of time to get there, but doesn't get there too freakishly early.

So along with a spreadsheet reminder it is important to see everyone's stuff in one place. To gauge if its enough and to have it ready to go I love these little gift bags for this. In the past I have used click zip bags, they work well too. I have put sticky notes with a little bit of sticky tape to stop them falling off.

They store pretty well in the cupboard and my kids presents go in pillow cases. Hiding presents in pillowcases makes them pretty much invisible to the kids.

There is nothing better than having Christmas out the way with as little effort as possible.

Well not gaining weight from the stress and having a bit of smug satisfaction comes a close second lol.

Bounce, bounce, flip :)

Yesterday Karen J and I took the kids to Velocity Park for a jump. The only time available on short notice was 5-6pm. Rather smack on dinner time.

So what I did was roast some lamb for a late lunch (dinner at lunch time). Then before I left I made some lamb and salad sandwiches for the kids, and some lamb and salad rice paper rolls for us for dinner and left them in the fridge. I can't tell you how glad I am to be organised enough to not have to eat what the kids eat for dinner.

We headed out to velocity Park. I caught up with Karen J and had a good catch up which we watched the kids. Here is Kai --->

Jason is doing his best to blend in. I call him "Halloween Jase" as he is in orange and black throwing a foam block at me.

He has only just been able to fit back in that shirt after not being able to wear it for a couple of years! I am also fitting into shirts I wasn't able to wear for a couple of months :)

Gotta love the pay offs  :)




Jules is doing a back flip. He has desperately wanted to do one for over a year. And now he has found a place where he can.

He is in 7th heaven and we will be going every Monday night. As soon as we get back he gets out the calendar as he wants to know when we are going back. Melts the heart :)

We will find the money from somewhere... probably from not spending it on takeaway lol.





Here us Geordie loving the basket ball hoop.

Isn't my family gorgeous :) I can't tell you how much they are my world. I am so blessed.

The trick with action shots like this is to take a video and then pause it on a clear dramatic moment. Then you take a screen shot and turn it in to a photo.

The hour was over all too fast and Karen J left and said she was getting fish and chips for dinner. This would have been me a month ago.

The kids wanted a treat so we stopped to get the kids a McDonalds soft serve for 30c. I wondered if that counted as takeaway and I thought no. Its more the main meals I was meaning.

The rice paper rolls were delicious and this morning I was grateful for them as I was down 0.4 kilos to 103.5.

Lose twice as much weight with tracking!

It said that people who track lose twice as much weight!

I track everything in my little red notebook, but I don't work out the calories. Unless something goes wrong. Like today. When I got on the scales today I had gained a 100g which put me about a half a kilo higher than I expected to be. So then I went to my notebook and put everything into calorie king to see where it had gone wrong.

I had my normal breakfast, subway, roast chicken dinner and the normal types of snacks. Ahh I see the problem, both lunch and dinner were higher than normal. Subway was my favourite, a Tuna sub with old english cheese and southwest chipolte dressing. This made sense as we needed a quick lunch after the bike ride. And a gals gotta have a few safe takeaways. All together it was about 1980kj

Comparing it with other subs, if I had of gotten a Turkey sub, with Cheddar and honey mustard it would have been 1392kj. This is a great start.

I cooked a roast for dinner and I did feel a little like Suzie Homemaker. However.. Next Day.. Not the result I was looking for. So I had roast pumpkin, peas, corn, roast potato and 3 roast chicken legs with skin on. Ahhh I see where I have gone wrong. 3 chicken legs with skin is 1404kj. For a whole meal of 2267kj.

Having the same meal with 1 chicken leg would be 1331. But whos going to have just one leg? Its a kids favourite meal. See I told you kids are the biggest sabotages!

Go Jase!

Jason had started out at 97 kilos and now he tells the that he is 89.!

I am so proud and happy for him. He thinks his goal weight is 75 kilos. I really hope he gets to goal. How cool would that be?

We had a family bike ride today. Jules and I did about 5k at Boondall Wetlands. But I ended up with an exercise headache which really sucks when that happens. It kills the rest of the day. Down another 0.4 kilos today. I am enjoying scale love!

Jason did a massive mountain bike ride today. He is stuffed but very happy. He is doing so well!

I am determined to retreat socially this term. Its the social eating that does us in. I am best off eating as much safe food as I can. That said a girls afternoon is being planned by Nikki for the 26th of October. I will bring my tea, and fruit platter and maybe even a veggie and dip platter. I am hoping no one notices me eating just my own food. I hate it when its obvious you are dieting.

Subconciously people seem to want you to be the same as them. They either dismiss the diet or give you a lecture on how to diet: ""All you gotta do is...<fill in the blank here...>" I hate being the centre of attention that way. My preferred way to go is to not refuse food, then its not obvious. I can let that serving sit almost untouched on my plate for a long time and then discreetly bin it. People don't pressure you if they don't realise you are dieting.

Of course I would rather just skip all of that completely. Especially this term when I have a lofty goal of 85 kilos by Christmas!

Gorgeous Thai Curry!

Everyone in our household has agreed that they will be no evil takeaway until after Christmas! Its not worth the weight gain. Instead we are creating our own freezer meal take aways.

I have a large scan pan wok and every time I cook, I can fit in about 3 family meals worth. Its a very efficient way to get a large stock up. Here are the spares from tonight's dinner going in the freezer. -->

This thai recipe is based off Michelle Bridges 12WBT recipe "Amanda W’s Red Curry of Pumpkin & Green Beans"

But I evolved it and I absolutely love it:

1) Roast a tray of pumpkin that is very thinly coated in coconut oil.
2) Get 4 kaffir lime leaves, bunch of coriander, and basil, and basil in a mortal and pestle
3) Finely dice onion and fry it in veggie stock.
4) Add some red or green curry paste stir for a minute until aromatic.
5) Add some diced chicken and brown it
6) Add in broccoli, beans, and whatever stir fry veggies you like. More the merrier.
7) Quickly add in half of of the herbs and coconut cream
8) Lower the heat and simmer for 5 minutes until veges are cooked.
9) Add in the rest of the herbs, a tablespoon of brown sugar, splash fish sauce, splash lime juice.

It really is the fresh spices that make this dish sooo good :) Serve over brown rice if you want it to be extra healthy :)

There are about 18 "take away meal"s that are weight loss friendly in my freezer, ready to go!

The problem is that the kids don't like many of them :( So I now I need to make kid friendly freezer meals as well.

I was down another 0.4 kgs on the scale today! So its all very much worth it. Think of all the money and time I will save from being organised!

Beach, Waves, Sand and Sharks!

This morning Jason cuddled my back after his ride. His chest feels much harder these days. I asked him how much he weighs now and he said that he doesn't bother with that. He knows that if he keeps eating small, and exercising that's all he needs to do. He's got his priorities right. Also with all the muscle he would be gaining, the scale would be meaningless.

I on the other hand, have a full on romance with the scale lol. Today I was down another 0.4 kilos. At 104.5 kilos I have lost all the weight gained from the hens weekend, but I am still up a 100g from the Gold Coast Holiday. This goes to show why it is so important to minimise social eating, talk about 1 step forward, 1 step back.

We took Oma (Grandma) to the beach today and a kindly gentleman warned us about sharks. He has seen them in the area. It made me really paranoid, like an attack was imminent. I wouldn't let Jules go more than about knee depth. He dealt with it really well and lay down in it.




When I got home I googled it. There is no way other than not going in the water to be 100% safe.

Its safest when: the water is clear, there a lot of other people around, and the surf life savers are there.

The last unprovoked attack in Queensland was 2011 so I needn't have been so concerned.

Wear dark colours, avoid any bling, and don't go too far out.

But you are more likely to be struck by lightning than attacked by a shark.


Jules loves the water and Geordie loves to bury himself in the sand. We need to get to the beach more often.

We left after lunch and on the way munched on strawberries, after the beach the kids had a box of shapes and I had one of my pumpkin cupcakes.

While I dodged the fish n chips. I didn't dodge the cravings. I had to wrestle with a monster craving to go to the pub and have the family special. We decided not to go as it really isn't worth the kilo I would likely gain from going. I have eaten a few naughty things today, but I am going to forgive myself as it could have been much, much worse!