Book Review: I Quit Sugar

I've been interested in the concept of giving up sugar for years... ten years, to be precise. I know that I have a real issue with the amount of sugar in my diet; I know I need to do something about that, sooner rather than later.

I follow Sarah Wilson on Instagram and through her found the I Quit Sugar account. After a while of seeing these tasty, sugar-free meals on my timeline I decided to buy the book.

Sarah Wilson is Australian; she used to have some medical issues, a thyroid problem and what have you. She gave up eating sugar as a New-Year experiment four years ago, and has gone from strength to strength. In fact, you might have seen her recently in the UK press; she's done a lot of interviews in food magazines about this crazy idea of giving up sugar. She eats around 6-8 teaspoons of sugar per day now - the equivalent of a couple of pieces of fruit or a can of fizzy drink.

This book is an 8-week plan for quitting sugar, as well as a recipe book. What I like about it is that it's something Wilson figured out for herself, through trial and error and through actually giving up sugar herself. The eight week plan doesn't just expect that you should give up all sugar on day one - a surefire way to guarantee failure. Instead, it starts off with paring back on sugar gradually: herbal tea or soda water instead of juice and soft drinks; halving the sugar in hot drinks and increasing the milk instead; swapping to diet soft drinks as a short-term measure.

Each week the book suggests some recipes for you to try and gives you useful information about your diet: where sugar hides; why you should eat "good" fats and where you can find them; swaps you can make in your diet; how to figure out how much sugar is actually in the foods you buy.

The recipes in this book are not rigid, strict lists of exact measurements; they're hard to get wrong in that respect. Although they do call for ingredients you might not have bought before, and there are likely to be a few trips to the health food shop where you're scratching your head and asking for help - but it's not one of those ridiculous things where you're spending a fortune on a bag of weird beans for one recipe that only calls for ten of them. Although some of the ingredients are a bit odd, they're limited to a few staples that are called for time and again in the book.

My favourite recipe in the book so far is the Coco-Nutty Granola. I saw this in a magazine article, and it was making this simple recipe that convinced me to buy the book. It's really tasty, but also simple to make and used mostly ingredients I already had in the house. You can make up a big batch and store it in a pot, and then just throw some over a yogurt and maybe some avocado in the morning. I'm all for simple breakfasts!

I've not had the nerve to actually start the eight week plan yet; I've gone through the book and made a few of the recipes from it though. The last few days though, I've been suffering with really bad headaches that are no doubt linked to my diet (it has been truly awful where I've been so stressed and ill for the last month). I feel like I really want to try it though; this book is really inspiring!

Time to Sort The Diet...

Do you ever think perhaps the universe is trying to tell you something?

First my friend Simon Anderson invited me to join in a free week of his fitness bootcamp. I'd heard great things, and seen amazing photos, so I jumped at the chance... and then realised there was a diet element to it too, and I had to give up all sorts of dietary crutches like Coke and sugar and bread. I did it for a week, and felt very... clean. When the week was up I thought, "well, one little can of Coke wouldn't hurt..." and fell off the wagon, just like that.

Then I noticed Amy at Curls & Coffee was doing a sugar detox. She was Instagramming her meals and I asked a million questions: "what's that?" "how'd you make that?" She also seemed to be really loving it, feeling happy and healthy.

Then I went back to work. Each day I go in and sit at a desk, and I eat my way through whatever I can get my hands on - my nice, healthy home-made salad, but also Coke, crisps, chocolate, cake, biscuits. I've put on weight in the last couple of weeks, and I know full well I'm eating out of boredom (or something else) rather than hunger. I know this needs to stop. I'm exhausted, and the amount of crap I'm eating is making that a lot worse, as well as contributing to my mood being the lowest it's been in a year. This needs to stop.

My body doesn't look *too* bad... but it feels awful!

This week a PR company contacted me, asking if I'd like to try the Patrick Holford Low GL diet. We had a brief chat, and they're sending me some books about it, a cookery book etc, and I'm to report back to them periodically about how I'm getting on. I'm fairly sure Patrick Holford does not suggest eating 3 bars of chocolate per day, even if they are on 3 for £1.20 in Tesco. May need to knock that on the head!

And finally, last night a lady I met at the bootcamp came round. She is training in systematic kinesiology, and I offered myself up as a case study - having no clue what that entailed. It's one of those things where the person tells you what they're going to do, and you go "oh right, yeah" and in your head you're thinking "hmmm yeah right" But blow me if it didn't seem to actually work. She was able to tell that I drink a lot of caffeine, that I don't get enough water, that I don't eat fried foods... and she made my hip stop hurting for the first time in months. Not to mention my complete lack of back pain when I got up this morning! It was embarrassing to have her figure out just how much crap I must be eating, that every part of my body was quietly suffering for it.

So it seems that perhaps it is time I sorted my shit out, diet-wise... Watch this space... 

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Shock Confession of a Stay At Home Mum

Readers, I have a terrible, shocking confession to make.

I have all but given up on making meals for S, and a lot of her meals come from packets.

There, I've said it. I can hear the gasping from here.

Every time I go to the till in Boots with my basket full of Plum Baby (other brands are available, but S seems to prefer Plum meals mostly) I feel like the World's Worst Mum, like everyone is looking in my basket and going, "huh, lazy cow can't even be bothered to make her child some dinner!" I tend to only buy a few at a time so that I don't look like S has them for every meal, and will always opt for the self-service checkouts at Tesco so that nobody sees what I'm buying. For me, it feels more shameful than buying a copy of the Daily Mail.

Here are my reasons for going down the packet food option:

• Before S even started solids, I was chatting to a friend who said she'd been reading an Annabel Karmel book about weaning, and looking at all these recipes - but she was going back to work, and would quite like the time she spent at home to be spent with her son, not in the kitchen boiling carrots. I'm not back at work... but I am a single mother with a distinct shortage of people volunteering to clean my house for me. And I'm trying to study two OU modules concurrently. So my time is either spent playing with S, cleaning up after S, or doing OU work (or doing this, which almost counts as OU work, since it's clear avoidance of said work)
• I am picky about which packets I buy. I don't touch Cow & Gate, and very rarely have Hipp. I tend to stick to Plum, Ella's Kitchen and Boots Organic - because the list of ingredients is very short, and I can pronounce everything on it. I guarantee you the ingredients in those pouches are of a higher quality than anything I make myself. Can you even buy organic kidney beans in Tesco? I doubt it.
• S is a fan of a particular "4 bean stew" pouch. Seeing that the list of ingredients on the back was fairly straightforward, I purchased said ingredients and made some myself. Genius. Or so I thought. S took one look at the bowl of steaming mush and turned her nose up: "you can't seriously think I'm going to eat that can you?!" The girl does not like my cooking. And I, for one, cannot blame her. She does, on the other hand, love a particular stage 2 pouch of minted peas and lamb, and is guaranteed to eat the whole pouch every time it's served up. I know there will be no waste, unlike with the ill-advised 4-bean stew experiment.
• When she can't tolerate any lumps - a state she reverts back to whenever she is poorly - it's just easier (and there's less risk of undetected-lump-induced-gagging) than farting about with a hand blender. As she becomes more able to chew what I feed her, I'm giving her more varied bits - steamed carrot sticks, biscuits, bread sticks, bits of cheese etc - to play with and munch on between spoonfulls of the packet food.

Eventually I'm sure S will have proper food and put it in her mouth herself and chew it and everything. In the meantime, I'm choosing the easy option. So shoot me.

Now, if you'll excuse me I'm off to make a guilty trip to Tesco to buy some pouches of minted peas & lamb for tomorrow's dinner.

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Wordless Wednesday: Fun with Food!

What We Did This Week

Monday 12 Nov

Up early and off to the hospital for a physio appointment. Then back into town and out the other side for a GP appointment for S. Then a walk home in the rain, and an afternoon of CBeebies. Evening spent doing OU work. I am living the dream.

Tuesday 13 Nov

Off to town to buy mincemeat supplies and pick up jars from my cousin, then home to mix all the ingredients in a massive bowl. World’s messiest lunch with S, then a visit from the nursery nurse, who ended up staying close to 2 hours while I talked about things completely unrelated to what she was visiting for.

Wednesday 14 Nov

A long walk over a very steep hill to deliver a book to a friend, then a mad rush around town to buy random things. Home to cook the mincemeat, and super messy lunch for S. Seriously, at the moment she’s going through 3 outfits a day.

Thursday 15 Nov

Quick trip to town in the morning to buy… I can’t remember what we bought. Main purpose for the trip was to get S to have a nap. Came home and made a vague attempt at tidying up the house in preparation from visitors. Lovely visit from a friend whose daughter is 3 months older than S; it’s like a taster session for what I have coming soon. Must baby-proof the flat ASAP.

Friday 16 Nov

Morning spent doing such fun stuff as washing and tidying. Little sis came over and painted my Christmas decorations, which was a bit awesome. Then went to cash & carry with a friend to get supplies. More fun than it sounds!

Saturday 17 Nov

Out for a walk with my sis A in the morning, then home. Had big plans to do all sorts, which I scrapped when I realised we were both knackered. Shared a long nap, then made a big old mess with some jelly. Bath and then bed for S, baking for me.

Two Visitors!

We had two visitors today; a lady from Home Start came to review our situation with D, and a nursery nurse came to chat about S’s sleeping and eating.

B is the Home Start co-ordinator for the area, and the person who “matched” D to us a couple of months ago. She came back to do a review, which they do periodically to check everything is ok, the volunteer is being useful/helpful and still needed, and that everything is ok. They do a lot of paperwork. S was busy playing with her toys when B got here, but soon decided she’d rather be part of the conversation so came and sat on my lap playing with a book while we chatted. B wanted to know how things were going with D, so I told her the truth: I look forward to her visits but worry that she must feel she’s wasting her morning, since all she does is drink coffee and play with S while I make a couple of phone calls and maybe do the washing up. B said no, that’s what a lot of her volunteers do and they come round to be company and reliable as much as to help with practical things. She had a good old chat with S, and held her while I filled out a questionnaire. It was one of those ones where there’s a statement and you ring a number from 1 to 5 for how positive you feel about it. I did one before D started coming, and despite the fact S has given up sleeping, the house is a mess and my bad hair day has lasted 2 months, my scores have improved. It reminded me of the depression questionnaire my GP makes me do every now and then: they ask you a bunch of questions, tot up your score and tell you how you’re doing at life. I suppose they have to do something to justify their work though, and show they’re being effective. She marked down on her paperwork that the “goals” we set when she first came (I don’t remember them, but hey ho) are “partially achieved” so that there is a reason for D to keep coming, which was nice because I enjoy her visits and think it’s good for S to have someone constant and reliable in her life. D turns up every Wednesday at 10:30, she’s always in the same chipper mood, she always smiles and plays with S, and gives me good advice for my myriad problems. Of course, we have other visitors and S sees other people, but I think D is the only one who has a set day and time that we stick to every week.

B saw my nice pile of fluffy clean nappies (I’d just done a load of washing and stacked them neatly in the corner) and commented that I’m her ideal mother. Then she asked if I was breastfeeding still, and we had a conversation about how more people should do it because it’s best for baby (in most cases) and easiest. She told me she complained to the Advertising Standards Agency about a Cow & Gate advert because she felt it was promoting the use of formula over breast milk. The ad is amazing, but she has a good point. It was refreshing to meet someone who seems to have the same views as me. B is a single mother herself, so she understands why it’s so important for us to have D visit once a week, even if she’s only there as someone to chat to. She doesn’t need to be told about how difficult it is to keep up with housework and everything else when you’re the only person there to look after a baby, and you’re hell bent on doing not just a good job but the best job possible. She got on really well with S and told me she thinks I’m a great mother – which is always good to hear! My feedback will be passed on to D as well, which is nice because when asked how things were going I looked at her and said “the woman is a legend, I really look forward to Wednesday mornings!”

Once B had gone, I just had time to put together a lamb casserole and stick it in the oven (from scratch, with no packet mix, get me!) when C, the nursery nurse, came to visit. She was sent to see us after I called the health visitor begging for some help with the sleep situation, and came last week to discuss weaning and sleep plans. This week she came back to see how we were getting on. The truth is that S is still not sleeping fantastically, but her naps have been improving, and it’s just the hours between 6 and 10pm that are a problem now. Also I think my attitude to the situation has improved as well, in that I’m less bothered by it and more inclined to just take the time to get her settled to sleep even if it takes two hours. Hopefully the fact she’s eating lots more will help her to sleep more too. S sat in her bouncy chair and had a nonsense conversation with C, which they both enjoyed. She also showed off her mad skillz at bouncing the chair with one leg whilst casually slouching in it like a teenager. I have absolutely no clue what I will do with her when she finally gets too big for that chair! We discussed the local children’s centre, and she left a leaflet with me, suggesting I go to their baby group and also that I could go to the breastfeeding group to be support for new mums. At first I laughed at the idea I could offer advice to anyone, since I still spend a lot of my time feeling completely out of my depth. But even I can see that I’ve come a really long way and since I feel so strongly about breastfeeding I’d like to be able to share that. I might even take S to the baby group to make some friends!

I chatted to C about being a single mother, and how in the evenings once S is asleep I will creep downstairs for my tea. I often sit on the sofa, shovelling food into my mouth as quickly as I can because if S wakes while I’m eating I can’t afford to just throw food away, but I also can’t leave her to cry, and it’s times like that I really don’t enjoy the fact I’m doing this on my own. She seemed to understand what I was talking about, but also pointed out that as it’s just the two of us, we can do as we please, go where we want, eat when we want, and don’t have to follow anyone else’s schedule.

So there we are: one day, two visitors, one inflated ego. Having had two professional people who know what they’re doing tell me they think I’m doing a good job, and that S is doing really well, has made me feel a lot better. On the nights where S is not at all interested in sleeping, and I’m knackered and desperate for the loo but she cries every time I leave the room, I tend to have an attack of “omg, I’m rubbish at this, he was right, I can’t do it on my own, S is going to grow up damaged because of meeeeeeee…” it’s nice to have someone who knows what they’re talking about, and sees this sort of situation all the time, tell me I’m doing ok.

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Health & Fitness

A few weeks ago I posted on Facebook that I was having trouble deciding on subjects for blog posts. Someone suggested I write about health and fitness, and this is a post I’ve been working on, off and on, since that point…

A couple of years ago, I was a real gym bunny. I would regularly get up before 6 each morning and spend an hour in the gym before work. I would often go back for a class at lunch time, and on a weekend I would often spend three or four hours there. I saw a personal trainer regularly, who would inspire me to exercise and eat healthily, and really pushed me with my fitness. I would often be found in the weights bay at the gym, doing squats with a ridiculously heavy bar, or doing some weird exercise involving balancing on one leg whilst holding heavy dumbbells.

Then I had a nervous breakdown, and I never quite got back to the gym before I found myself pregnant and skint. I tried to stay active throughout my pregnancy, and would walk (or waddle) the two miles to and from work each day.

When S was born, and then her father left, I was very aware that I was at a high risk for postnatal depression – so was the health visitor, and she kept mentioning it. I was adamant I didn’t want the health visitor, doctors or anyone else to be at all concerned about me or my ability to look after my daughter. And I didn’t want to end up slipping into another pit I couldn’t drag myself out of. I knew from past experience that the best way of avoiding that was to ensure I exercised, and got out of the house every day – even on the days when I really didn’t feel like it. Especially on those days.

And so I went on Ebay and bought a cheaper, lighter pushchair so that I could lift it up and down the stairs on my own. And every morning, when S got me up at shit-o-clock, I would bundle her into the pushchair and go for a walk. We started off by going for a short walk, a couple of miles or so, and built up. On days we didn’t go for a walk, I would put S in the sling and walk around town while she napped.

Me walking with the pushchair

These days, I weight about a stone less than I did before I got pregnant. I started off going out for walks just for something to kill time, and to get us out of the house – but then I found I enjoyed feeling like I’d done some proper exercise, and would push myself to go further, faster than the previous day, incorporating hills, running between street lamps and taking the longer route wherever possible. There are several different routes I walk locally, and have even attempted to go “off road” and follow non-paths around a nature reserve a couple of times. There’s a notoriously punishing steep path called Stinky quite near to one of my usual routes, which I used to walk up every day last summer. I’m tempted to see if I can get the pushchair up there but I’ve not plucked up the courage yet.  Now I try to go for a long walk at least twice a week. Sometimes I will meet up with a friend, and on Saturday mornings my sister A will come along with us and we’ll do some extra cardio and conditioning work in the park too.

When I’d been doing my longer walks for a couple of weeks, I saw my old personal trainer in a park on the other side of town, busy putting someone through their paces. She stopped long enough to coo over S, and to tell me she ran a Buggy Fun class in the park on a Thursday morning. We went along that week, and had a great time. A, the trainer, now runs a local fitness company called Girls Love Fit with a friend, and is as crazy and motivating as ever. It was great to meet other mums and do something more energetic than the usual baby group stuff. We walked or ran up and down a hill in the park, did pilates-style conditioning moves, used park equipment to do push or pull-ups, talked about our weeks and felt good for working out while our babies played peekaboo with A or her 2-year-old daughter, who sometimes came along and made an excellent stand-in to play with the babies while we were laying on the floor doing crunches or leg lifts. Unfortunately the class I was going to merged recently with another one, and it is now run from somewhere different that I can’t go to, for reasons I won’t go into on here. It’s a crying shame, as I really enjoyed Buggy Fun and it gave me the confidence to push myself a lot more in my exercise. I would walk the long way out to the park for the class, and often on the way home I would push myself to run or to take a longer route. I’m hoping I can eventually go back to the class if my situation changes, and would definitely recommend it to anyone

I still have an umbilical hernia caused by my abs separating during pregnancy, which means I try to do a fair bit in the way of core work each week. If I fall behind on that, I really do notice it in a fairly painful way. That’s probably a good thing though, as it means I use my core muscles when I’m bumping the pushchair up and down the stairs, and am always pullign my belly in!

My diet is still less than fantastic, which is something I work on daily; especially since S started on solids. Most mornings I will have a fruit smoothie comprising of several of the following: raspberries and blueberries (frozen if fresh are not available); any other fruit I have hanging about the kitchen; fresh ginger; protein powder; spirulina powder; spinach (you can’t taste it); left over apple puree from S’s breakfast; yogurt; fruit juice. The drink tends to be purpley in colour, fills a pint glass, and usually keeps me happy until around lunch time. Lunch is usually a salad, either tuna, salmon or cottage cheese unless I’ve splashed out and bought something different or cooked some chicken. Evening meals are hit and miss: some days I’ll cook something “proper,” and other days I’ll have fish fingers and grill a red pepper at the same time to make it look a little healthier.

This all makes it sound like I have a super healthy diet and should be stick thin so let me just add that between meals, especially in the afternoons and evenings, I probably consume as many calories as contained in my regular meals in the form of cakes, biscuits, crisps and chocolate. This is the part I need to work on, along with all the Coke I drink. I did go through a (very yawny) couple of months where I went completely cold turkey on the Coke, what with the breastfeeding and all. Then Costa lured me back in again, and once I’d started on the caffeine it was easy to slip back into the Coke habit. I don’t drink anywhere near as much as I used to, but there are still a lot of empty calories (and chemicals, and caffeine) in there. I have switched to decaf Costa visits though, something that makes me cringe with each visit, as my order is now about 8 words long.

Today I am wearing jeans I stopped wearing months before I got pregnant, because they were a little too tight. These days they are too big, and I have to wear a belt. I have to admit I think I owe a lot of my post-pregnancy weight/inch loss to the fact I did a set of power plate sessions within a month of coming home from the hospital. I would go for a walk to ensure S was asleep in the pushchair, and then go and spend anything from 10 to 40 minutes doing various exercises on a power plate in the back of a local sunbed place. The advertisement posters they had up on the walls said that it helped to get rid of cellulite and “reset” your body, which I thought was a load of rubbish but to be honest, with very little effort I lost a fair bit of weight, and managed to tone up some quite saggy bits as well. Now I just have to make sure I don’t undo that with too many biscuits!

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Am I Setting a Good Example?

After yesterday’s post on bodyimage, I’ve been thinking about what I can do to ensure S grows up with a healthy attitude towards her body, food and exercise.

On the one hand, it’s tough because there is only me to guide her on this – and I know I have my own issues that I would do anything to avoid passing onto her. As her only (main) role model, I need to make sure that I’m always a good role model, and that I lead by example. There’s no point in my encouraging her to eat vegetables and balanced meals, if I’m sitting there munching on a packet of crisps and my fourth chocolate bar of the day.

On the other hand (there’s a glove), if it’s only me then I have 100% control over the parental influence on S’s life. This is good not only because I don’t want her father’s suspect ideas on nutrition to be passed down to her (his 11 year old son is encouraged to drink protein shakes, and fresh vegetables are a once-a-week affair), but also because I’m not necessarily sure there are many other adults out there whose ideas I would like passed onto my daughter. At least with only one adult to look up to, S only stands to inherit one dodgy set of ideals.

I’ve got the exercise covered; I go for a walk at every available opportunity, and can’t wait until S is interested in the ducks and horses we see while we’re out. We rarely catch the bus or go in a car. I would rather she see this than have a mum who does exercise dvds at home intermittently (who really keeps those things up on a long term basis?) or goes to a gym, leaving her elsewhere. Eventually, I will pluck up the courage to take us both swimming as well.

Since S started on solids, I’ve been more mindful of what I’m eating. People say, Oh you can just give them what you’re having. For breakfast I had a fruit smoothie, which would be fine except for the added protein powder which I’m sure is not meant for infants. For lunch I had chicken salad; fine in principal, not so much in practise for a 6 month old with no teeth. Have you ever tried to liquidise iceberg lettuce? Dinner hasn’t happened yet, but it’s likely to be yet more salad because that’s all there is in the fridge at the moment. My eating habits are probably quite strange to the outsider. I know from experience that I function better (and maintain a steady weight) if I eat more protein, and don’t eat much in the way of carbs. I don’t have potatoes in the house at all, and I rarely cook rice or pasta to go with my meal. I do eat sweet potatoes on occasion, but quite often I just plain can’t be bothered to cook them as an accompaniment so I go without. I stopped eating bread a long time ago, after finally accepting that it makes me bloated and gassy and uncomfortable and unhappy. If I do go through a stage of eating lots of rice or pasta, I feel tired and sluggish because of it.

So where does this leave S’s diet? Do I start buying bread again, just so that she can have beans on toast and boiled egg with soldiers? Do I make her have mashed potato with every meal when I don’t? I’d rather we didn’t have separate meals or separate foods; in fact I’m actively trying to avoid that, because I believe that way lies ruin: “my mummy eats special food” is not something I ever want to hear S say. It’s a bad idea to cut any food group out of a diet, especially for a child who is just learning about food. I want her to learn that all food is good in moderation; for all I know bread, pasta and rice will have no ill effects on her, so why should I keep them from her?

And then there’s the old issue of body image. I try to avoid scrutinising my body in the mirror these days (as if I even have time for such things!) but I still have fairly bad acne scarring on my face which does bother me. S watches me get up every morning, get in and out of the bath, and get dressed. When I remember, I still rub cream into my belly in a vague attempt to get rid of the stretch marks – but since I also moisturise the rest of my body, that’s not a standalone issue. I do still have a tendency to examine my appearance once dressed to check that my belly doesn’t look too huge; that’s a habit I’ve had for years so it’s a hard one to break. I’m working on it though.