What ARE you eating?

This post is really just me putting here what I tell my kids all the time about the foods we eat. As some of you may know, I’ve dabbled in Nutrition (would love to become a Nutritionist, if I could find the time) and so want to state all of what I say here is based on my minor learning. If I’ve gotten things wrong, meh, I have warned you not to follow this all as law. Got it? ;-)

Now, as much as I want to be a Nutritionist who works with children to teach them healthy eating, I’m not one of those ‘Though must eat only organic, pure and wholesome foods’ sort of person. I really feel this is the wrong approach. Our life is flooded with different food options from the super good to the super bad. I want my children (and other children) to realise that yes, it’s out there, try some… but everything in moderation.

In simplistic terms we sort of use the ‘traffic light’ form of eating. Green category is food you can eat every day, Orange/Amber category are the occasional foods and Red are the sometimes, but not too often. But everything in moderation. Just because it’s in the green category, don’t go eating your body weight in it daily! Just eat what you need.

Why do I do this? Because I feel if you restrict and refuse your children some of the naughty foods in life, they’re more likely to go crazy and binge on them when they are old enough to go buy it themselves. They'll just see all the junk as a tasty, easy thing to get and get fat, get unhealthy and... well, end up like I did when I went off the rails at that age. 

 

'Naughty food' - Treat it like a, well a treat and they will hopefully do the same too in years to come. Teach them will power along with freedom of choice. If I go around restricting everything they can and can’t have now, how is that raising them to be free thinking independent young adults in just a few years’ time? By letting them help me choose what foods they can have now, I’m helping them with their future decisions. Well, that’s my hope anyhow.

So, why are there so many fat to obese people in the world? Bad parenting? No will power? Lazy eating habits? Or are they just unaware of exactly what it is they’re eating? Really, I don't know and doing my best not to judge.

Sadly modern culture, foods and diet has a leaning towards horribly high saturated fats, salt, sugar, heart attack waiting to happen ingredients. There is also a greater variety of highly processed pre-made foods that are cheaply and easily made, can be shipped great distances without spoiling and have shelf lives that will outlive us all. Why? Because it’s cheap to make, cheap to sell and oh so convenient to just buy, open and eat.

‘Oh, but it’s not all bad, as some are all natural ingredients!’

Erm, yeah… by natural they’re meaning not chemically, synthetically or artificially created. But you have to remember things like lead, arsenic and mercury are all 100% totally natural items. Add them to food, they’re an ingredient!

Don’t panic, they’re not used, as far as I’m aware. But ‘natural ingredients’ I am aware of in these foods are: sand, beetles, apple cores, chicken bones and carcasses, all sorts of bits of animals you don’t see hanging in the butchers shop, bark, nutshells. That’s just naming a few. Think about it… if it’s all natural and good for you, it should be a whole food you yourself add as an ingredient, along with other whole foods.

Oh, and whole foods – these are foods in as close to their natural state as possible. Like raw fruit and vegetables, grains, meat, etc.

‘This one says preservative free, it must be good!’

Actually, when something is preservative free, that generally means there is nothing nutritious left in it to actually spoil for the several years it can sit on the shelves waiting to be bought and eaten.

That, or it’s been pumped so full of sugar and or salt it won’t spoil. Though that sort of thing usually comes under ‘natural preservative’ more than preservative free.

It’s diet, low to no fat, all good here!’

Now, don’t get me wrong, low fat can have its merits. Though that is usually when it’s found in whole dairy products such as milk or cream where they’ve physically removed a lot of the saturated fats, AKA cream, from the top. However, when it comes to diet products and ‘fat free’ gimmicks, yes they are indeed missing the fat, but it’s been replaced with humongous amounts of sugar and or salt to make it taste palatable to the uneducated.

What is worse is when they are sweet while still being ‘sugar free’ as this means they contain artificial sweeteners. Now, there are indeed natural sweeteners that are sugar free, but they are generally mixed in with artificial sweeteners to extend them. And the thing people need to realise with artificial sweeteners is this: They’re artificial! A chemically created synthetic substance that imitates sweetness while having no nutritional value at all. So no fat, no calories, nothing.

However, being an artificially created substance, the body doesn’t recognise it and doesn’t know what to do with it once digested.  The majority of the time, this does mean the body just flushes it out with the rest of the waste products. However, some bodies don’t. Instead they put these chemicals to one side to think of what it can do with it later. Where these chemicals are stored can cause mutations in the cells. As cells mutate and no longer perform as they should they, in basic terms, can become cancer cells. Yes, synthetic food really can cause cancer.

It is rarer these day for such things to happen, but it is still a possibility. The best way to prevent it is to avoid such foods. You can lose weight just as well on a balanced diet of whole foods and light exercise than you can using these horrid diet things. Heck, in my diet change I still get to eat chocolate and ice cream. Everything in moderation. The only thing low fat is the milk and meat (when I trim the fat off those chiken breasts).

'Healthy food is just so expensive. I can’t afford to buy it all the time.’

I admit, fresh fruit and vegetables are very expensive. Our green grocers bills, per week for a family of 5, is around $100! We try and cut down the costs by buying locally and only what is in season. It can get a bit boring in winter, but it does save.

And, can I just say, you should be thinking of this expense as an investment in your future. Spending it now on healthy food will hopefully save you on costly Doctor’s bills, procedures and medicines later in life. Yes, you could still get hit by a bus tomorrow, but hey! I think it’s worth the risk, and the investment.

‘Preparing whole foods and raw ingredients is so time consuming.’

Oh, do have a whinge. I know it can be! But, you know what? It’s so worth it. The food tastes better, you’ve actually received some exercise by preparing it and you’re setting a good example to your kids as to how simple and easy it is to do. So it can take a while sometimes. Make double, so you can have left overs at other times. Suck it up, do you want to eat healthy or not?

I don’t expect the world to become nutritionists just to be aware of what they can eat. Though it would be nice if we all just thought about what it was we were putting in our bodies, and into our children’s bodies. The simplest way to do this would be to stick to whole foods, don’t forget to treat yourselves and always eat in moderation.

Heck, and every few months, let the kids have those damned Fruit loops. Mine get one box to share every school holidays. One bowl each a day and when it's gone, that's it! When they have them, I then send them out into the backyard to burn it all off running arounf and playing. When they come in half an hour later complaining they're hungry. I remind them it's because fruit loops have no nutritional value, and then give them a fruit platter and plain popcorn to fill them up on something decent!

 

Eating is not a sin, or a crime. It is essential and should be enjoyed. Just think wisely on what you are eating.

My first check in with the Doctor.

Now, technically I started my ‘Fit by forty’ regime two weeks ago when I started walking daily and modified my diet to ensure I was eating the correct portions and mixture of foods. As I’m going to do my best to avoid recommending or advertising any specific product here, I’m not going to say its name but will admit I am following a diet plan idea from one of the many worldwide weight loss companies. It’s a few years old now, this plan, but it worked for me when it was ‘new’ and has been approved by my Doctor.

It’s not a diet either. It’s modifying my diet to one better suited to living a longer and healthier life. There’s none of that crap meal replacement rubbish, no pills, no potions and no tricks. I have modified their plan a little by refusing to use ‘diet’ products or pre-made items at much as possible. Low fat good - synthetic diet things bad. It means, if I want to eat it, I make it from scratch. From salads and stir-fries to cakes and biscuits. I will go on more about this meal/diet plan in a later blog post. This one is really just me checking in to show what I’m starting at and where I hope to be - come forty!

So, I’m just over 36 and a half years old, vaguely fit – I’m a housewife so do have some level of fitness and activity level. When I started this, I was 120kilos in weight and my waist measurement was 123cm.

That was 2 weeks ago. Since then I don’t feel my fitness level has risen much, but I am now 118kilos and my waist measurement is 112cm. Yay me! And all done from modified diet and gentle exercise.

Why start my blog on the new regime today and not two weeks ago? Because today was the day I visited my Doctor to discuss the best approach to it all. Because, besides my weight, there are a few other issues that need fixing. Most stem from an ankle injury I received 20 years ago that was never treated properly. So, over the following years, the injury has caused issues in my body all the way up into my next and shoulders. So, if you hurt yourself, get proper treatment! Don’t let them just slap a plaster on for 8 weeks and be done with it. If I’d had the required physio at the time none of the ankle, hip, pelvis, back, shoulder or neck issues I now have shouldn't have happened. All it did was add to my unwillingness to be active as it hurt.

And so we focus on my Doctor’s visit. She is a lovely lady, fantastic Doctor and dedicated to better health and living as the best preventative to illness and injury later in life. She has always encouraged my interest in nutrition and always willing to listen to my ideas and minor diagnosis and not treat me like an idiot. Dr Cara is a saint!

She listened, understood and jumped in boots and all to help. Firstly, as the BMI way of looking at your weight doesn’t fit all body types (yep, mine is abnormal - go figure), I wanted to find what ideal weight my Doctor felt I should be.  The way the lovely Dr Cara put it is: If you were fit, healthy and NOT pregnant when you were 21, that that's your goal weight. And, I was all of those at 21. In fact, that was the last time I was truly happy with my weight and fitness level. I was 94kilos back then and not into waist measurements so plan on going with the healthy: Under 80cm idea.

So! I have to lose 24kilos and 32cm off my waist, and then keep it off before I'm 40.

Other plans of attack are to go to a physio for a complete overhaul to fix the ankle and, once the weight is under control, get a breast reduction. I’ve always been big boobed and being overweight and having three kiddies who had a good run on the breastfeeding means they are adding to some of the back issues and I am sick and tired of the ‘chest pains’ they cause.

I will also be undergoing blood tests to ensure my cholesterol is good, my thyroid is behaving and have requested undergoing the diabetes and insulin test to see how likely it is I will get type two diabetes. It’s not a given I will get it. But my current weight and health levels and family history indicate it’s a good possibility. And, quite frankly, I don’t want diabetes! It’s not just some annoying thing that means you have to cut down sugar. It is a nasty disease, causes blindness, poor circulation that can lead to amputation and lots of other nasty things. If I can cut the risk, or remove it completely – I WILL! And let it be an example to my children too. Just because it could happen, look at how we can prevent it.

 The good thing to know is my heart and lungs sound good and my blood pressure is just fab. Yay me!

What to do now? Well, it’s only day two of week three so it’s early days. I have another nine weeks to reach my first weight goal of 110 kilos. Go me! I need to arrange physio appointments (it’s going to be costly but it’s an investment in my better health). There’s the meal planning to continue with, the exercise timetable to make and the fun to be had. As this isn’t a hard and terrible chore in front of me, it’s a fun new adventure that will prove it can be done.

Stick with me and we’ll see if I can make it through Christmas unscathed!

Introduction to why this blog exists.

And so I start yet another blog. But this is the first one I’ve ever created on weight loss. *snore* What a dull blog, I know. Everyone is into weight loss, fitness, trim bodies, blah blah blah these days.

 

The reason I am starting this blog is because I am overweight, borderline obese, not as fit or flexible as I used to be and have a very good chance of getting type two diabetes if I don’t watch out. This isn’t good for me now, definitely not good for my future health and completely the wrong example to be setting my children.

Don’t get me wrong, we don’t live off processed food, take away and junk. Far from it! These days our meals are full of fresh, whole ingredients like vegetables, lean meat, etc. Loads of fresh fruit and our snacks may include cakes and biscuits, but they’re home made from scratch so we know what’s in them.

So why am I so fat? Well, because I was raised in this healthy eating utopia, became a teenager with my own choices and money to spend and went a little nuts and ate all sorts of crap. I then met a man who basically encouraged me to do what I like and, having lived where fast food was limited and moving to where it was in plenty, ate that instead of making my own. I was young, I was working full time, it was convenient and I was…. Well, stupid and lazy!

I piled on the kilos quickly and my health took a nose dive. And so began the struggle with my weight and wanting to go back to healthy. I eventually studied up on the rights and wrongs, by that time I was now a mum and looking out for more than just me, and started to do the right thing and eat the right foods again. Sadly, quantity of foods I was eating then became the issue. Yes I was eating fresh salads and fruits and stir-fries and such daily. But I was also scoffing cakes and biscuits and chocolates and sitting on my bum with barely any exercise. So the weight stayed. And, sadly, what weight I would lose when an active stay at home mum on maternity leave, would pile right back on when stuck once more in a desk job.

But enough is enough! Thanks to redundancy and a lack of work contracts right now, I find myself home all the time and sick of my weight. I’m 36 and have 3 kids to set the example for. And so beings my journey.

My posts will be a mixture of updates to how I'm going, articles I've written on food, exercise and nutrition and the usual rambling blah blah I do in all my blogs. Just know that I am not an expert on any of it, it is all aimed at my own benefit and not saying it's the best way to do it, it's just the way I am doing it.

This blog has been created to help keep me motivated, help keep me on track by knowing it’s out there on the web for anyone to see and criticise. I want to be my correct weight, I want to be fit, flexible and healthy and I plan on doing it before I’m 40. So, can I do it? Watch me try!