Just Do What You Want, As Long As It's Real.

Hello everybody!

Today's title is taken from a Lily Allen song 'Take What You Take'. I thought it was appropriate, because this is a post confessing I'm not vegan anymore!

Am I happy about this? Not necessarily.

Have I gone out and stuffed myself full of cheese and milkshakes since? Nope. Although I have had some of both.

I figure, like the oh-so-wise Lily, just do what you want, as long as it's real. As long as it's what I want to do and I'm not eating something just because I feel pressured into it. I can still eat vegan if I want to, but I can eat non-vegan as well. I don't really want to eat meat, so I won't. But if the mood takes me, I might have some free range Tasmanian meats. We'll see where the mood takes me.

What I DO care about is my poor little I-think-I-can, I-think-I-can thyroid, who needs some help. I ate too many foods bad for the thyroid during my veganism (mainly soy and veggies from the brassica family) and it's taken it's toll.

I've been thinking about starting a food diary again. I find it really interesting/inspiring to write down everything I eat, and I like to look over it semi-objectively and see what looks healthy and what doesn't. I haven't done it for a while, in fact the last entry I seem to be able to find is from 29th of May 2011. Wanna see the entry?

Breakfast: Organic weetbix with chia seeds and rapadura sugar and a little bit of fat free organic milk. Milo

Lunch: A small serve of lasagne with a lot of green salad and a bowl of trifle

Dinner: Potato, spinach and pea curry.

Snacks: Some home made 'healthy' chocolate, 2 cups of tea (one black), 2 bird biscuits

Copy and pasted straight up. I'd rate that a B minus. Lasagne AND trifle? What a pig. Bonus points for dinner though. I'll just classify now that 'bird biscuits' are what I call bikkies like Arnotts Milk or Arrowroot, because they get fed to the birds as well!

If you haven't ever kept a food diary before, give it a try for a couple of weeks! You might be surprised what you see when it's all laid bare.

Take care amigos.

Jac.

Sports and Spontaneity

Is it bad I just had to check how to spell spontaneity? I had no idea. Moving on...

At 7.30, I decided to go for an easy walk/jog, around 3-4km. Josh surprised me by wanting to go with me, which was totally unexpected. We got up to the Signal Station, then found a bush track and decided to see where it came out. About 30 minutes of solid jogging later, we came out at the top of Sandy Bay. And unfortunately, what goes down must come up. That's how it goes, right? But we couldn't go back the way we came, because it was already pretty dark, and with no torch it'd be not so wise to go via the bush. So we had to go up THE stairs. The 256 gruelling, horrible stairs, in the pouring, dark rain. It was pretty special. Actually it was really refreshing, and such good exercise. If I do those stairs at least twice a week from now until the wedding I'm gonna end up with a butt like Pippa Middleton.

We got back a while ago and I took some sodium phosphate so I'm not so sore tomorrow, it helps remove the lactic acid. It's fantastic, I'd recommend it to anyone wanting to exercise seriously.

Moral: Go with the flow. It can lead to some pretty special moments.

Peace.

Not a Good Long Weekend

Because we had a public holiday on Thursday, I did what probably 60% of Australians did this week, and took the Friday off (that's a really rough guesstimate, by the way). The weather's been beautiful, I had several things planned, but I didn't plan to be stricken down with gastro on the Friday evening, which has left me incapacitated for the rest of the weekend. To make matters worse, the fiance got it within a few hours of me getting it! So our household hasn't been a fun one.

Not that I wrote this post for sympathy, rather, I thought I'd turn it around and write a bit about how I would treat gastro, because mainly, we all just ride it out, not wanting to risk a car ride to a doctor when we know it won't last too long anyway.

Had I have had these in my cupboard, this is probably what I would have used on myself:

Slippery Elm Bark Powder - I've used this to pretty good effect at settling down a tummy bug, but the disadvantage is it doesn't taste fantastic, so it can be hard to get down.

Saccharomyces Boulardii - Available in capsule form, these contain a strain of yeast which is beneficial to restoring the 'good bacteria' in the gut, and helps effectively in treating stomach upsets.

There's loads of other treatments but those two would probably be what I'd pick.

As it was, I didn't really have anything in my cupboard that I thought I could use, and on the Saturday morning my mother-in-law gave us some Hydralyte, to replenish our fluids, but they tasted too sweet and fake that I couldn't finish mine. So I've just been drinking mass amounts of water and lying on the couch watching movies.

I'll be right as rain just in time to go back to work. Fantastic.

Take care (and don't get this bug that's going around!)

Jac

I'm Alive, Honestly.

Hola!

I'm back. Really I am. I'm sorry for not writing anything for over 4 months now... I don't really have an excuse. Life got in the way? Anyway, forgive me, and I aim to not disappoint any time soon.

So what's news? Here's some ideas I've picked up since we last talked:

1. EVERYONE in southern Tassie reads the Body and Soul section of the Mercury, or at least that's what it seems like when I get people coming in for anything and everything that is written in it (even when it's wrong, like 2 weeks ago they advertised a product that wasn't in production anymore). Although I do agree with most of it.

2. As above, a big fat I told you so re all the things I blogged about last year, like kefir - now everybody wants a piece of the tasty probiotic drink - and quinoa, selling like hot cakes, for real. The next big thing will be kombucha, I'd say.

3. Still loving the smoothies, but I'm making them with water now rather than any type of milk - less calories (and less tasty, but no biggie).

4. Ironically, America seems to be leading the 'health food craze' and Australia is seeming to follow their lead. More people are after hemp seed products which are widely used in America for it's fatty acids and protein, whilst Australian legislation still prohibits it to be sold as anything to be ingested by humans. Aussies are just tending to eat the hemp meal anyway, even if the packaging says 'not intended for human consumption in Australia'. I should point out here that there is no cannabis-related effects from hemp seed products either.

5. Outdoor exercising!! It's summer, it's perfect, it is time to go for a run, join a bootcamp, go on a hike, just get yourself outside instead of cramming into a window-less gym, you can save that for winter!

Just a shout out to get you geared up for the Natural Health and Wellbeing Expo on at the City Hall on February 19th - be there! I will be giving a seminar, it's a work in progress but hopefully I'll be able to entertain people for 30 minutes... I'm slightly scared but looking forward to it!

I'll talk soon, I promise.

Jac