It's a pain you forget...

When I was pregnant, people used to always assure me that women have some magical hormone that helps them forget about the pain of pregnancy and childbirth (otherwise the human race would have died out years ago!).  Well, if anyone knows me well they know I still deal with the birth trauma every day of my life, so forgetting it isn't going to happen anytime soon, but the concept of "It's the kind of pain you forget" does weirdly apply to my food choices.

I know that if I eat cheap crappy pizza, I will be sick for the rest of the night.
I know that if I drink sweety drinks with fake sugar, I will be sick as well.
I know that if I even taste test Burger King, I am good and well screwed gastro-wise.

And yet, I forget EVERY SINGLE TIME as I reach for my credit card when ordering pizza after a late night of baby wrangling.  Every.  Single.  Time!  Is there some fat based hormone that makes my body forget that 2 hours after eating a box of Cornettos, I'm going to be doing awful things to my own bathroom?   Even now, writing about the Cornettos, I want them.  They are going to make me sick as a dog, but I am salivating thinking about them!  One would have thought that evolution would have shoved this concept out of my head - even rats learn which food can hold poison and stay away.  I am officially dumber than a rat.

For the Mumsnetters - a recipe book recommendation

Some lovely folks on Mumsnet (*waves*!) have been asking about Paleo and recipe books.  Now, to Joe (my personal trainer buddy and Paleo smartypants), this is all going to be way oversimplified, but the premise is this: You eat what the Paleolithic man ate.

Veggies
Fruit
Meat
Fish
Eggs
Nuts
Berries
Water

Paleo man hadn't yet learned to farm, so the following stuff is a no-no

Anything with grain (bread, pasta, etc)
Rice
Potatoes (every once in awhile, you can have sweet potatoes, but no white/jacket potatoes!)
Sugar
Dairy (sorry, no milk in your tea)
Beans
Caffeine
Anything in a box (cereal, oatmeal, macaroni and cheese, etc)

Essentially you are getting all your good complex carbs from the fruit and veg, and cutting out most of the simple carbs that usually go straight to your body as fat.  I know it sounds really restrictive, but it's not.  For example, I just had a huge rocket salad with 2 hard boiled eggs and diced onions/cucumber, topped with a quick dressing I made from the bacon fat and a little coconut milk, rendered down.  Name another diet that uses BACON FAT DRESSING as a good food?  ;) Also, your shopping is really easy, as you only go to the produce and meat section, which are usually right in the front of the store.  Aaaaaaand, you can do it on the cheap!  I got a bag of rocket for £1 at the Co-op, 2 eggs are about 50p (I like free range), about 50 worth of bacon, and maybe 50p worth of chopped veggies.  I bet whatever crap you may be eating from the vending machine cost you that much!

Now, I am doing a modified Paleo, as you can have my coffee when you pry it from my cold dead hands, but other than the first few days of sugar/simple carb withdrawal, it's actually pretty nice.  AAAAAAAAAAAND, you get bacon.  And as mentioned above, bacon is just awesome.

As for a recipe book, the one he recommended to me that I really dig is Everyday Paleo. The lady who wrote it is a mum who needed to make food her kids would like, as well as being quick/pre-planned (so you don't have to spend hours over a stove just to make a sad little piece of boiled salmon).  The instructions are super simple, and she has a great index of what foods are in and out.  Easy peasy.



I hope this gave you a great into to the Paleo diet.  As for exercise, I am doing lots of walking with baby (already did my mile today!), and will be starting back up on the Wii this weekend.

I did not cheat yesterday!

...Well,  I did.  Let me explain.

I did great all day, had lovely salads with the BEST dressing (Editor's note:  YOU HAVE TO TRY THIS DRESSING - remove bacon from pan, saute finely chopped onions in bacon fat, add a glug of orange juice (or just juice the orange into the pan) and a teaspoon of English mustard, stir till reduced, pour over salad hot, OM NOM till you are full).  I walked about 2 miles with the kid.  I was at the huge mall, but didn't get anything to eat.  But I knew that the evening was going to be tough, as I had writer's group, which is at a theatre pub, and the ladies always split a bottle of wine.  So, I went.  And I had a glass of wine.  I didn't freak out, I didn't beat myself up over it, I had a glass (and no nibbles!!!), and came home, where hubs had ordered omelette, curry, and rice.  Well, the omelette is perfectly fine, and the curry looked safe enough, so I had that over approximately 1 tablespoon of rice (just enough to give the sauce something to stick to), and that was it.

Technically?  I cheated.  It's supposed to be no alcohol, no rice.  So why don't I call it that?  Because that Puritanical food mindset is one of those things I am trying to break in my head.  Food *doesn't* have to be good or bad, it can just be a carrier of calories, and when I stop vilianizing (and lionizing) certain foods, THAT's when I can begin to feel more in control over my body.

There's a naughty e-card/meme going around that says "Instead of meat, maybe you should give up your contradictory, homophobic religion for Lent.  Just sayin'."  I like that.  Instead of giving something up, I am giving up the mindset that got me into trouble in the first place.

Sugar withdrawal

I'm just going to leave this right here while I go gnaw on the curtains...

Starving

"I'm starving", I cried.

"No, you're not", says my husband.

"No, no I'm not", I admit.  "I ate 3 hours ago."

He paused.

"You're psychologically starving."

...

I was, of course.  I wasn't starving in any metaphorical sense.  I certainly wasn't starving in a literal sense.  I was starving in a psychological sense.  My brain, upon only 12 hours lack of processed sugar, was convinced that I was starving, and no amount of real food was going to tell it otherwise.  I had already eaten

a 3 egg omlette with oodles of veggies
a 1/2 cup of coffee
a peach
a large salad with bacon dressing
a bowl of fruit salad
a couple of deviled eggs
another large salad with ground beef and bacon
iced tea
water

I wasn't even close to being hungry.  Yet, my brain was starving - starving for sugar.


I'd like to finish this, but I literally cannot form a cohesive thought right now.