Gwinganna wellness seminar- mark 2

Another draft I found from Nearly two years ago.

You may remember that around a year ago I went to a gwinganna event which focussed on nutrition. I found the event very informative and won a recipe book which I have used extensively. A email popped into my inbox about a follow up event which focussed on sugar, sleep and stress. As you are aware, probably, from reading this blog all of these are areas in which I have been trying to improve myself.

The talk was so informative and really cemented and contextualised a lot of things I had been learning about myself. I won’t go into everything which was said but I will summarise some of my take home points for you and ways in which I plan to implement them.

They say it takes 6 weeks to break a habit and 12 weeks to build new ones. I have 13 weeks until my wedding which is a lovely milestone to use ( as are birthdays and New Years) so I will continue along my path with renewed enthusiasm and some more ideas.

Take home ideas

Coffee….

Delicious, necessary in mornings at work but floods your body with unnatural hormones and stresses. To much of the old joe can really affect your sleep, which is nasty as without sleep you want more of the good stuff. For me one cup, which I really enjoy, in the morning ( but after a hot lemon and eating) is fine. Any more and my sleep suffers.

On the drinks front I am also going to drink more hot lemon, herbal teas and green teas and it is time to say goodbye to my friend diet coke.

In terms of eating the basic rules are if it flew, walked or swam eat on. If it looks as it did in the ground or grew on a plant eat up! Try to eat a mountain of veggies for each protein and ensure that it is as well sourced as possible. Good fats are your friend, but do limit the amount you eat as they are calorific. Each meal should have a balance of carbs ( unrefined), protein and fats. This will keep your body firing on all cylinders.

Sugar, which incidentally includes refined carbs, cause blood sugar crashes and plenty of nasty symptoms. Personally I have noticed post detox a dessert ( double whammy of sugar and refined carb sugar) causes me dizziness on awaking and a racing heart. Yuk.

On the upside your traditional meat and 3 veg is a perfect meal. As is a salad and tuna etc for lunch just add protein ( palm sized) and some fat ( oil and vegetarian dressing). For breakfast eggs on toast ( sprouted spelt) seemed fine as is my new fave greek yogurt, banana and LSA sprinkled on top.

They also discussed stress, chronic stress plus stress which we all have. Due to technology and the huge resources available to us on a day to day basis our brains have to deal with more information than our ancestors would have dealt with in a year. I am guilty of resting with the TV on and ipad ready plus tweeting on my phone. I am going to try to unplug. I will set aside time, in the day during my weeks off, for my blog ( note: life has changed what weeks off??). I will not have my phone or ipad in my bedroom whilst I sleep and I will choose a few program’s I actually want to watch rather than ending up watching them. I am also going to only use 1 piece of technology at once and stop using interactive technology by 7pm.

Another subject touched on was work and life balance and how with technology being available work has encroached into our personal lives. I am lucky that my work really priorities work life balance but I should definitely stick to switching off on break.

I have also realised that too many lovely occasions leads to stress for me as I need time by myself, in which to just do my thing,… Whether this is pottering round the kitchen, folding my clothes, blogging,having a lovely bath or just reading with a scented candle lit. This is now priority. ( again how life has changed!!)

Also a lot of stress is generated by our brains which vary from primal thoughts to higher level thoughts. The brain is luck a muscle and I need to work on exercising my higher thoughts and ensuring they are positive and weakening my primal brain. Eventually the muscles will be balanced so the primal muscle is not the primary.

To detox my body should be a focus as my liver seems to be the cause of my waking at night. I am going to prioritise dry body brushing, eating well and continuing some detox antics moving forward. One of the best ways to detox is to sweat so once again exercise needs to be done daily even if it is just a walk. Our bodies were meant to exercise and not to be still.

I am pretty excited by all of this and really looking forward to the changes. The gwinganna folk offer advice which is very usable and easy to implement in the modern world. I like that as we can’t all dedicate our whole lives to well living.

Other flagged items was the Importance of natural cleaning products and skin and body care. This has given me more wish to continue down this path.

Although this weekend I have been poorly which is not the time to movement all of this I am feel g much better today and ready for action…watch this space

have you been to gwinganna? How do you balance wellness with life?

The Detox Plan

Details of the detox plan I will be using have been requested on twitter. So here goes. What I am doing is loosely based on Dr Sandra Cabot Ultimate Detox . As I work away I cannot really do 2 weeks straight as I have limited control over my food and also its origin, organic is recommended. It is also impractical to make fresh juices up there. I plan to blends scoop of vital greens powder with a coconut water and drink that each day instead.

The plan is a two week plan based on vegan whole food, plenty of fruit, veg, wholegrains, juices and also a soup which you have to eat daily made of a rainbow of foods. Obviously some of the foods are not appropriate for FODMAPS, including juices, so I will make substitutions- such as juices made with limited low fodmap fruit and including lots of veggies. The plan has no dairy, caffeine and sugar also.

I am starting tomorrow, as it is was my birthday last friday so I wanted to celebrate that first . I am planning for that week of work to be an ease in week which will comprise of most of the aspects of detox as best as I can implement them at work. After that on my break I will do the plan to a T for the week. The next week at work I will take up the soup for dinner and follow as best as possible, then do a second full on week on break followed up by an ease off week.

Most of the foods are on the weight watchers filling and healthy plan for which you don’t have to count points so I may well give that a miss whilst I detox.

Each week I will recap how I have felt and what I have eaten and keep you posted.

Have you ever done a detox?

30 things tag

A lot of people have been doing 25 or 50 things tags and so in honour of my 30th birthday I thought I would share 30 things about me. Read on if you are interested.

1. I am an aquarian- there is more than a sniff of the mad professor about me!
2. My favourite colour varies but more often than not is turquoise, however, I don`t really like to wear this colour or any bright colours. I always choose a more muddy or off version of the colour… like Duck egg blue.
3. I have been with my partner for around 5 years.
4. We are getting married on June 21st this year.
5. I have been working ever since I graduated, for 7 years or more now, and I am truly grateful I was encouraged to study what I loved and that it led directly to a career.
6. I spent the first few years of my life living in Indonesia and Bahrain.
7. I probably spoke Indonesian before English.
8. I now do not speak Indonesian.
9. I have lost 22kg in the last year.
10. My goal is another 8kg but I am unsure if this is necessary.
11. I bought size 10 jeans last week. Yay.
12. I LOVE Travel. The only thing I love more than travel is my other half which is why I have been pretty static lately.
13. I am a saver. I hate spending all my money and spending huge amounts makes me uncomfortable.
14. I hate leaving lights on and wasting money.
15. The city can make me crazy… I start getting more vain and bothered about how I look when I work in a city and its not that good for me. The countryside or outback instantly makes me love my body for how strong and functional it is. The seaside just makes my body feel healthy, fresh sea air.
16. I LOVE bodyscrub… with a passion.
17. I hate moisturising my body. Its sticky and hot.
18. I love body oils
19. I don`t really like meals when all the foods don`t look like what they are and are all mixed up so you don`t know what is in the meal.
20. My favourite meal is a grilled seafood platter with white wine or champers # indulgent treats
21. I would love to have children in a couple of years.
22. My body clock started ticking a few years ago and has gradually gotten louder and more frequent.
23. It makes me happy choosing food and activities which are good for me and my body. Junk food just makes me feel crap now.
24. My mama is my role model, she is a legend.
25. Sometimes rennovating becomes a massive chore.
26. For years now we have been saving and saving and paying things off. Yes there have been indulgences but a lot of saving. I think that this may just be the nature of being a grown up.
27. I love my cruzi suzi.. I have a swift which was my first ever new car ( well ex demo model) and I love it. To be honest it has been cheaper than paying for my car which always broke anyway.
28. I miss a few things about England including family, friends, snow, primark, Lorraine Kelly, the shops and malt loaf.
29. It has taken nearly 5 years for me to get settled in Perth and less homesick.
30. As my partner is Aussie and I am pomme we will always be living between the two!

Hope you enjoyed this. Have you done a things about me tag? Link me up below.

H

FODMAPS… an update

Hello, another blog post in this week and it`s another update I am afraid. A girl at work has been diagnosed with a FODMAP`s problem also and she has found very limited and mixed information about it all. This condition is just not well known enough at the moment.

One update is that I have downloaded the Monash University FODMAPS app for my phone. It is quite usefull and a good starting point. The best thing I have learned from it is that Quorn is low fodmap and I love that food. It is also very points friendly.

My stomach has been really good lately and I have been able to eat more and more foods, chobani I am looking at you, and I had been worried that they were effecting me and I wasn`t noticing this. Anyway after a few more major blips and testing the water they definitely were not affecting me like high FODMAP foods and my stomach seems to have just calmed so much more foods are ok.

Knowing the lack of info out there I will definitely be making an effort to post more FODMAP friendly meal ideas and food reviews and recipes. Do remember though what works for one may not work for another.

Do you know anyone with a FODMAPS problem?

It was mah birfday!

This weekend was my thirtieth birthday and I had the most fabulous time. It all started Thursday when I was taken to my favourite shop Mimco and allowed to choose something pretty by my other half. I ended up with a bag and purse #spoiled rotten and then we had sushi for lunch.

This last week has been pretty much flat chat busy with renovating, the other half pulled up all the old laundry floor and re did it, wedding planning which is now well underway and just general organisation of ourselves. Finally the end is in sight with both the house and the jobs!

On Friday, my actual birthday, I was feeling ready for a relax. In the morning I was made an amazing breakfast of ham and eggs on spelt toast… In the shape of flamingos

I also went and got my hair cut so it would look good for the night out. As it is so long now it was feeling pretty heavy and I fancied a fringe to soften my face. The picture below is how I had my hair and face for my night out. Plus, for those of you not yet thirty, a quick snap of what 30 looks like, fingers crossed not too bad.

We had a fabulous night of drinking and dancing at Devilles pad which is a very glittery, cocktail place full of 50’s and rockabilly. It was so much fun, I rolled home at 2am.

Yesterday I headed up north to some of WA’s beautiful beaches and for my birthday dinner of crayfish. Picture heavy below….

A few notes,

1. Crayfish are yum
2. I wear my cankles with pride
3. Watching the sun go down over the water is lovely.

We headed back today and its back to reality with a bump, start the detox, finish up the jobs for this swing, stop spending like a maniac the fun is over, clean the house, do my first POLE DANCING class, and head back to work.

Phew an all round excellent week off.

any of you thirty? Did you find it bad?

My New Approach #Firstworldproblems

Hello folks, its been a long time hasn’t it? To be honest I really haven`t wanted to blog for a while, As I mentioned in a previous post I have been feeling quite flat and so I have been doing some soul searching.

Historically when I felt like this I would have run off at the deep end and tried to change everything and set myself ridiculous goals that I would never be able to keep. This time I have tried to resist. I have been open about how I have felt, honest to myself about it and chatted a lot about it.. Thanks for listening mumma!

Once again the universe has provided and I have a few ideas and answers. I went to weigh in at the nurses office after a few weeks of eating most of my points but exercising lots and I had only maintained. Obviously I wasn`t delighted I have maintained for about 2 months now. I made some kind of grumbly comment and the nurse asked me to sit down, she is a friend also, and have a chat. She asked a few simple questions and essentially realised that whilst I had made some great positive changes to my life all the crazy pressure I put on myself was still there in some ways. Weightloss had become a favourite of mine because it was measurable in numbers. I think often people talk about being hung up on the numbers and whilst I hadn`t really realised it the bigger the amount lost, the bigger my buzz, and my goal weight which was a nominal number from the middle of my healthy range, had become a focal point for me.

She also asked if I ever looked in the mirror and to be honest I barely recognise myself nowadays. I look at my head when I do my makeup and I check my clothes but I don’t really link it to that being me. I had also spent so many years unhappy with the way I look and developing techniques to cope such as being the best at work, more bubbly, better at this and that so that being really unhappy with the way I looked seemed less important each day. In order to loose weight I had to acknowledge that It wasn’t just about how I looked, but that it was also related to my health, and make it a priority, It is pretty hard to change habits learned over about 10 years.

Anyway, after this chat a few things fell out of the conversation. Firstly I may not have much more to loose, I am currently fitting size 10 and I am fairly tall, 5`7 ish. Randomly I have actually got taller as I have lost weight. Secondly it may be a stall and a detox is a fab way to boost that. Over christmas and until this weekend there have been a few extra treats so over the next month I am doing my own version of the the ultimate liver detox by Dr Sandra Cabot. This was recommended to me by both the naturopath and also the nurse. I have done this before it is a very effective detox, for me, and not too hard. I will post some details of this, my version of it, and a review at the end. Thirdly whilst I have maintained I have been working out and may well have lost fat but built muscle so am toning up all the time, and my body has shown changes to this effect.

Finally she suggested some Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) sessions. These are a cross between counciling and massage and it helps you to move forward and forget the past. I am hoping it can help me to get used to not having massive goals, as I am nearly there with them, but to just concentrate on being happy and maintaining. This is in more senses than just weightloss for me. I am also hoping it will help to lay my old learned negative habits to bed.

Have you ever had this kind of problem? Ever heard of EFT? Ever used it? Advice please….