tequila weekend

This weekend I am escaping!  It is my oldest and bestest friend Robyn's 40th birthday and so tomorrow I am driving to Bristol to meet another best friend, Rachel, and staying 2 nights in a hotel with no children!

That's right!
NO CHILDREN!


So how will paleo mum cope on a weekend away with the girls?

I am a little anxious actually.  Meals don't worry me too much as I'm good at making paleo choices and working round a menu but snacking worries me.  I graze a lot.  I kind of eat all day, really.  And this is difficult to do away from my well-stocked fridge and cupboards.

So, I have baked some paleo seed and coconut cookies and a paleo fruit cake, made with almond flour, to take so I can naughty snack without being too naughty.  I am going to take bags of carrots and apples and bananas and a few hard-boiled eggs and I'm also going to pack my TRX bands so I can workout in the hotel room!

Now, whether or not any of this gets used is yet to be seen.  I'll keep a little picture diary of what I eat (and drink) and whether or not I workout and we'll see how well I manage to stay focused.

I'm feeling positive as I feel this is the way I eat now, it doesn't seem difficult or a chore or complicated.  it's just the way I am.

I don't drink alcohol at all normally unless I go out, and often then I won't drink either but if I know anything at all about Robyn and Rachel (and I have known them 40 years and 29 years respectively) I think a few tequilas may be slammed! But if you can't do that when you're with best friends and no kids, when can you do it?

I'll keep you posted...

Have you given up yet?

Did you know, over a third (36%) of women and 28% of men will break their New Year’s resolutions this week?  In 2012 the average New Year’s resolution only lasted 7½ weeks and the average new exercise routine lasted 12 weeks!

The best way to make a new year’s resolution stick is by making whatever it is part of your life - part of your daily routine. 

This year, 41% of women vowed to do more exercise, 35% are attempting to eat more healthily and 13% pledged to learn a new skill! 

Apparently, the top 10 New Year’s resolutions for 2013 for men & women were:

1.            Do more exercise (37%)

2.            Eat more healthily (30%)

3.            Learn a new skill (12%)

4.            Have more sex (11%)

5.            Drink less alcohol (11%)

6.            Find a new job (11%)

7.            Be nicer to people (9%)

8.            Stop smoking (7%)

9.            Find love (6%)

10.          Eat Breakfast (4%)

What was your new year’s resolution?  Have you kept it so far?  Is it part of your routine yet?

‘To do more exercise’ topped the list of new year’s resolutions and yet look at the list of excuses people give for not doing exercise!

 

1.            I don’t have the time (38%)

2.            It was too cold/dark to leave the house (23%)

3.            It was too expensive (21%)

4.            I thought it was boring (18%)

5.            I thought if I rested on a particular day, I would exercise more the next

day (7%)

6.            I didn’t want other gym members to see me red and sweaty (4%)

7.            I had just washed my hair/sports kit (4%)

8.            I didn’t want to carry my sports kit around (2%)

9.            If I went for a run, I may get lost (1%)

10.          I thought too much exercise was bad for me (1%)

I’ve found a series of BRILLIANT videos that might help some of you add a bit of activity to your daily routine that feature fitness LEGEND, Mr. Motivator and Strictly star, Denise Van Outen.  They’ve made a series of Two Minute Mover exercise videos, showing how easy it can be to fit a little HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) into your daily routine – check them out on www.youtube.com/QuakerOatsUK

Each morning, you can come back, click on the video you want to try out, and while the kettle’s boiling, your coffee is brewing, your porridge is bubbling or your lamb chops are grilling and eggs are poaching, you can get moving!  It’s actually a really good way to up your activity levels by making it part of your daily routine.

Perhaps the awesome vision of vigour that is Mr. Motivator will help you stick to your resolutions this year! 

A sneaky peek inside my fridge.

Wanna see inside my fridge now we have gone paleo?

Things we have ditched since last time we sneaked a peek in my fridge:

      Dairy - so no more cottage cheese or Greek yoghurt.
     Tomatoes - hated them anyway.
     Peas and beans - never a fan.
     All grains - so no more oatcakes or porridge or rice.
     Peanuts - so no more peanut butter.

Cartons of fruit juices for packed lunches - orange juice for calcium

Coconut milk

Jerusalem artichokes

A bowl of hard-boiled eggs for snacking

Anchovies

Eggs - we (family of 5) get through about 40-60 a week

Onions, leeks and courgettes

Jarred pickles and mustards (perhaps not genuinely paleo...)

Cucumbers, celery, herbs, mixed peppers 

I chop up around 2 or 3 peppers and a cucumber and 5 sticks of celery a day for snacking

Lettuces

Bacon

Carrots and cabbages - green and purple - Sweet potatoes and butternut squash (not strictly paleo)

Lemon juice, olives, mustards and things  - not all strictly paleo.

White wine for visitors and milk for my husband who is more primal than paleo

Ketchup for the kids when they have sausages or burgers - NOT paleo, I know.

Mayonnaise - can't live without it.  Sorry.

Freezer is filled with frozen berries - strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and cherries, grass fed meat and fish - salmon mainly and fish pie mix that I use to make Thai fish burgers.

There are also some leftover frozen peas and sweetcorn that I don't but are still there form pre-paleo days.

My cupboards are filled with nuts and seeds, tinned tuna, tinned coconut milk, coconut oil, olive oil, vinegars and garlic.  I have a herb drawer which also has Oxo cubes in it (not paleo, I know).  I also keep ground almonds, desiccated coconut and sometimes coconut flour in my cupboards - I use this to make cakes and biscuits for the kids (oh, OK, for me too!)  Occasionally there is some dark chocolate as well.

I also keep coffee beans (I drink too much black coffee) and a variety of tea bags.

This is what my kitchen looked like before we went paleo....still not terrible, really.

The reason my kitchen only has mainly clean food in it is because I have zero willpower.  So if I don't buy it, I can't eat it!






   
   

Who LOST weight over Christmas?

I would like to talk about one of my nutrition clients who lost 5lb over Christmas.  
Yes.
That's 5lb.  
Over Christmas!  


We spent today's session discussing what it was she did that enabled her to be one of the only people on the planet who actually managed to lose weight over Christmas!

Firstly, here's a little background:

My approach to nutrition management aims to enable people to lose weight 
simply, effectively, permanently and independently.  

I don't want people to have to follow such complicated meal plans and sets of rules that they are forever reliant on me or the plan because this means they never learn anything about themselves or about nutrition.

I don't want people to feel like they are on a diet, like they are denying themselves or that they are hungry because that way lies stubbornness and panic and failure.

I do want people to take my 7 K-Loss rules and bend them and twist them and tweak them so that they fit their own individual, unique lives like a glove.  This way they become autonomous;
they take back the control.  

This is very important.  They take back the control.  Without being controlling.

And that is just what one of my amazing clients has done this Christmas.

Of course, on my list of K-Loss rules, there are things to avoid and things to cut out but the rules are FLEXIBLE.  This means once you begin to understand why the rules are there, you are able to decide for yourself how far you can bend them.  Some of the times, trial and success will tell you just how far you can bend them.

This particular amazing client did just that.  For several weeks she had been regularly losing 1, 2, 3, sometimes 4 lb a week.  She did this by avoiding the foods I suggested and trying little tips and tricks to make this easier.  She genuinely found - although she didn't believe at first that she would - that after she limited sugar in her diet, naturally sweet things would taste sweeter - to the point where she even managed porridge without any sweetener at all!  She did this by listening to her body and noticing when she was hungry and when she was full.  She did it by learning what helped and what hindered her through a weekly cuppa and a chat!

But then it was Christmas.

And she did what most of us do at Christmas and decided to treat herself.  She didn't eschew all the foods I said were to be avoided.  Quite the contrary.  She ate mince pies and Christmas cake and pastry and chocolate brownies and all manner of things that made me wince a little and yet she still lost 5lb!

How is this possible?

What she did manage to keep up over Christmas was the massive reduction she had made in portion sizes.  She had Christmas cake but only one slice.  She had mince pies but only a few.  She ate things with pastry but the portion sizes were similar to the amount of food she goes to her 9 and 12 year old boys!

She used to regularly have second helpings and always have a pudding.  But this has changed and it seems to be a permanent change.

She said that it wasn't a conscious effort to limit her portion sizes.  She said it had become second nature.  She can identify easily now when she is full before she is over-full.

This is what I wanted!  Simple changes that are easy to implement and permanent that can be implemented independently! 

She is now so fired up by her effortless Christmas success that she is eager to get back to the rules more strictly.  The reason being that it isn't just about the calories.  Not all calories are created equal.  The cleaner the calories, the better she feels.

Sure, that sausage roll tasted good but the heartburn afterwards just wasn't worth it!

If you are interested in getting similar, genuine, simple, sustainable results for life, contact me to find out more about my unique approach to nutrition management either on-line or in-person.




PS
If what you got from this blog post is that you can eat sausage rolls and lose weight, then I suggest you read it again. = )

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL MY READERS AROUND THE WORLD.

I hope it brings you and your loved ones health and happiness.

2013 x