Day 720

Day 720...

Today was a stay at home kind of day as today we had the flooring laid in our upstairs bedroom...the room formerly known as 'Molly's bedroom' and soon to be our study/craft room.

This gave me the opportunity to catch up with a few online based jobs; not very exciting but unfortunately needed. 

With the impending changes to energy prices I had received emails from our energy companies of choice advising of the extortionate increases that will be coming our way from April. These are horrendous jumps in prices. I think we all expect to pay a few more pounds each year but when they are quoting increases of 54% it is horrific to think about. The impact for all of us is going to be so significant and there is nothing we can do about it. So I had a look to see whether there were any better tariffs around to get ahead of the upcoming changes but unfortunately it doesn't seem that there are!

I then ventured into the world of mobile phone upgrades...ugh! It fills me with dread every time this rolls around although I hadn't realised just how long I'd been putting this off. Our contracts expired eighteen months ago and so we have been eligible for an upgrade for a bit of a while. But as our phones are working perfectly fine and enable us to do whatever we need we hadn't been in a rush to upgrade and now I remember why. Too many choices and not enough information made easily available to make decisions. The information to compare models of phones seems to be hidden with just the colour and the camera mega pixel details displayed prominently. Then we seem to have a mixture of 'plan' options from the 'ok I can live with that' to the outright ridiculous! And when prices seem to be going up left, right and centre I really don't want to be increasing any more costs. Having become bored very quickly with searching I decided that the best thing I could do was the ironing! At least with that I could actually achieve something!

Next it was another easy job to buy online a couple of tickets for the next Dr Sketchy's event in Nottingham. This is a few weeks away, taking place on Easter Sunday, but I wanted to get the tickets bought while it was in my mind.

It was then time for more research! We are wanting to attend a food festival in June called Real Food Rocks and as the tickets have just gone on sale I needed to look into hotels. Whilst the event is only about an hour and a half away we have decided to make a weekend of it and book a couple of nights away so that we are not having to contend with early morning and late night driving. But as we now have the electric car I am not only trying to find a hotel close to where we want to be but one that also has EV charging points. As this has proved to be a little difficult I also looked for charging points close to the area that we will be in.

Well after much research I have found one hotel with it's own chargers and another hotel with a retail park opposite that has a number of chargers. I have also discovered a small service station not far from the location of the festival that also has a couple of rapid charging stations. So it's now just a case of deciding which hotel we would prefer (as there is no difference in price), booking it and sorting tickets for the festival itself.

By mid-afternoon the flooring had been laid and the room looks great. We will leave it for a couple of days before we start to move things back into the room. I think our first purchase is going to be a filing cabinet so that we can start to clear our existing Welsh dresser of paperwork as ultimately we will be getting rid of the dresser. The paperwork will then be stored in the new 'study' and once the dresser is no longer needed we will be replacing it with some new cabinets to display all our Disney and Star Wars memorabilia! It's like we are playing one giant game of Tetris!

We then played host to one of our neighbours who needed somewhere to escape to while an estate agent was showing some prospective buyers around their house! And later with a little daylight left I made sure to take some time to move some more jigsaw pieces around. I'm making pretty good progress but as there is so much colour I'm finding it's just as easy to place recognisable pieces into place rather than try and out sort a particular section of the puzzle.

Throughout the day Simon has been working on a commissioned piece of video game art for a contact who produces retro games and needed some cover art producing at short notice.

And then because we had some chicken to use up (thanks to Asda providing products with a pathetic use by date!) I decided to make Keto Chicken Curry Pie - yum!

See you all tomorrow.
xx

Day 82

Day 82...

I am very fortunate that Simon and I only work a four day week and although I do have work I could very easily let take over I try to make sure that Monday's are not a work day.

So this morning saw a bit of a tidy around while Simon messed about with technology as we had a couple of 'apps' on the TV that weren't working; all sorted now though. I managed to get another grocery collect shop booked in for a couple of weeks time; during this lockdown one thing I've had to do is get ahead of myself and book shopping way further in advance than I would usually have done. Although I have noticed that a few weeks ago slots would get booked up as soon as they became available but now it has calmed down and is much easier to get a slot pretty much whenever I want.

We took a bit of a longer walk out today managing 3.3 miles in one hour and 14 minutes and despite the grey clouds it stayed dry. This time last week it was shorts and t-shirt weather, sitting on the patio with sweat dripping off me and now it's back to jeans and a hoodie - typical British weather!

I indulged this afternoon with some jigsaw time; rather a lot of jigsaw time! I always find that the time just seems to disappear when I get engrossed doing a jigsaw; it becomes a very therapeutic activity.

In a few weeks time we were due to have a weekend away to attend a food festival called Real Food Rocks. We had attended the event last year in the lake district and had a great time learning more about low carb/keto diets and eating whole foods so we had decided to attend again this year but in Oxford. Before the tickets could be put online for sale the event had been postponed but we had already booked our hotel for a couple of nights. When this virus thing all kicked off we just presumed that the hotel booking was lost; we hadn't taken out any cancellation insurance so had resigned ourselves to not getting any money back. Then today we received a phone call from the hotel who explained that as they were unable to honor the booking we could re-book for another date. We were very pleasantly surprised and having checked online to see that Real Food Rocks has been rescheduled for the same weekend next year we have decided to move the booking till then.

One of the side effects of being in lockdown for almost 12 weeks is that the thought of being able to do things again feels really strange. We have had 12 weeks of stay home, stay alert and only do whatever is 'essential' so the thought that we are starting to ease our way out of lockdown which in turn may mean that we can start to do things again feels really bizarre.

Our own personal circumstances have meant that the last 7 or so years have been tight financially so anything that we decided to do was always done with plenty of forethought and planning. This year we were just getting to the point where we could start doing some of those things that we had been putting off and then this all happens! So can we start doing stuff? Can we start planning? Ordinarily this would mean trips out to weigh up all the options, visiting different shops, searching out the best value for money and enjoying that process of planning something. But now the question is can we do that? Are we okay to just go into a store and 'browse' or is the expectation that we are visiting for the express purpose of buying a specific thing.

Will we ever be in a position when we can just 'shop' because it's something to do and a way to pass time rather than a military operation to visit a particular store to get that one item; where the queuing to get in may take longer than making the purchase!

I am sure that once we get used to how things are going to have to be we will be fine but for the time being thinking about a life that might not be like it used to be is quite unnerving. Getting out into the world again is going to take some getting used to and it may be a while before we feel comfortable doing it. My fear is that the lockdown is easing too soon and too quickly and that we could find ourselves in another strict 'stay at home' order which would then put into question the past 12 weeks. All we can do is hope that the powers that be have some idea about what they are doing...although I am yet to be convinced.

Stay safe, take care

xx

But I couldn't give up...

Oh, but I couldn't give up....

This is one of those phrases that creeps into the conversation whenever I tell people that I follow a low carb/keto way of eating.

OK, so let me make a confession - ‘My name is Jayne and I follow a low carb/keto way of life and I apologise’.

But why do I feel the need to apologise? Why is it that I’m made to feel like some sort of weirdo or freak because I don’t eat carbs?

I have friends who are vegetarians but to the world at large that’s perfectly fine.

I have friends who are vegans and again to the world at large that’s perfectly fine.

But when I say ‘sorry no potatoes for me’ I’m made to feel like there’s something wrong with me!

I can go out and about for coffee or for meals whether that be in a small local cafe, a city centre restaurant or even when visiting friends or family and there are numerous concessions made for diets. Plastered on menu boards everywhere is ‘vegetarian friendly’, ‘vegan this or that’, ‘gluten free’ or ‘lighter options’ but never anything to say ‘low carb’ or ‘keto’.

Now OK I am a big girl and actually following a low carb/keto way of life is pretty straightforward; I have no problem asking a restaurant to substitute in some extra veggies or salad instead of the potatoes or asking for cream when ordering coffee. And to be fair there is now more and more places that will have on their menus (although often hidden at the bottom somewhere) that burgers can be ‘bunless’ or that rice can be swapped for salad.

But I do still feel that what I’m asking for is considered to be a bit weird, often met with a questioning ‘so you don’t want the potatoes?’ Well that’s what I’ve just said!!

I’m really not looking for any special treatment or a special menu just an acceptance that it’s perfectly normal to not want the beige and boring carbs!

Now don’t get me wrong I am aware that we are beginning to see some companies and small businesses that are catering specifically towards the low carb market; often providing a low carb alternative to those ‘western diet’ favourites of bread and sweet things. These items are not necessarily the cheapest but at least it’s good to know that this ‘low carb thing’ is beginning to get recognised. For me personally I am a bit wary of these low carb alternatives as I’m not a lover of the artificial sweeteners that can be used but I think it’s great that options for those that want them are appearing.

At ‘Real Food Rocks’ back in July I was able to try some low carb pitta bread (Low Carb Food Company) and some low carb dark chocolate and raspberry brownies (Deliciously Guilt Free) which were both delicious. And for both of these I would personally consider them an exception to my usual way of eating. In fact if I fancy ‘a treat', something that I would not ordinarily consume, like a cookie or a piece of cake then I will allow myself to indulge. But this is only a rare occurrence and often I will find that sharing a piece of cake or just having a couple of bites is enough to satisfy any ‘craving’ I may have. A phrase we like to use in my home is ‘rare and appropriate’ (a term coined by Penn Jillette during his weight-loss); so for example when I reached the end of my radiotherapy treatment I figured it was appropriate to mark the occasion with a coffee and a nice piece of ‘full on’ cheesecake! So I had a piece of ‘proper’ cake and enjoyed it and that was that!

So let’s get back to what I started with at the top of this post...but I couldn’t give up…

I think this happens to everyone who follows a low carb/keto way of eating as soon as we begin to explain what it means we have the standard response ‘but I couldn’t give up...’ followed by one (or all!) mention of potatoes, bread, rice, pasta. Interestingly the ‘naughty’ foods of cakes or cookies are never mentioned because everyone knows that these are not good for us but the complete indignation that can be met should I dare suggest that perhaps pasta is not all that great is really rather surprising.

For those of us that have found low carb/keto and have experienced the benefits, whether that be weight loss, general health improvements, skin improvements, better mood or reversal of type 2 diabetes and more, we find ourselves wanting to spread the news. I know that I have done a lot of reading and continue to do so. Names like Gary Taubes, Gary Fettke, Tim Noakes, Dr David Unwin, Ivor Cummins, Nina Teicholz to name but a few are commonly spoken about in our house. We actively seek out new information, podcasts and websites. I absolutely love dietdoctor.com for the vast amount of information delivered in an easy to understand way along with a collection of recipes to suit everyone’s budget, tastes and cooking ability.

I find myself feeling quite passionate about this way of eating, especially knowing that the traditional diet of low fat, eat less and move more simply doesn’t work and is actually completely wrong. We have been ‘fed’ information over the past 30 years, and more, that was wrong, that was never tested as it should have been and has never been corrected despite evidence to the contrary.

So when people do ask me about losing weight, or keeping the weight off or simply ‘what is is that you eat?’ I want to tell them as much as I possibly can. But I am constantly surprised that most people seem to stumble as soon as they hear ‘no bread, no rice, no pasta, no potatoes’.

Perhaps I need to change my approach and tell them about all the lovely things they can be eating; all the cheese, meat, bacon, eggs, full fat yogurt, cream in their coffee, green veggies, some berries and my favourite extra dark chocolate!

Everyone knows that cakes, cookies and anything sugary is bad for them but what they don’t understand is that some of our food ‘staples’, and foods that we have been led to believe are ‘good for us’ are actually also full of sugar. I can’t recommend Dr. David Unwin’s infographics highly enough where he equates those staples of our diet to the amount of sugar in them, such an easy and surprising way to get the message across.

Infographic courtesy of  phc.org

I also tell people to try eating the rice, the pasta, the potatoes or the bread just on its own with no sauce or seasoning to see how bland they actually are. These are after all bland and beige and I’ve never known anything that is bland and beige be ‘good for you’!

So ditch the beige and embrace tasty, satisfying and filling foods.

Eat the right foods and your body will do the rest. There is then no need to worry about ‘how much’ or ‘how many calories’ or feeling hungry. Listen to your body, eat when you are genuinely hungry and eat foods that will leave you feeling satiated and full of energy. You will turn your body into a fat burning machine and you will never look back.

Five and a half years ago I took on a challenge to lose a bit of weight, little did I realise back then that I would be able to keep that weight off, drop 2 dress sizes and feel great. I have learnt so much since then and I just want to be able to give those who want to listen and are prepared to give something a chance all the help, advice and encouragement I can.

Taken Summer 2013 - Standard Low Fat Diet
150lbs

Taken Summer 2019 - 5 years low carb
131lbs

 Please go back and read my other blog pieces about how I discovered this way of eating and how I've managed to stick at it for five and a half years.

Eating Well, Staying Healthy
What's Wrong with Real Food?
Four Years On
Eating Healthy and Proud of it
One Year On
90 Day Challenge

Four Years On

And if any of this gives you cause to think then I urge you to just give it a try and you never know what might happen!

Real Food Rocks

If you've read any of my blog before you will know that along with my passion for Disney and tattoos I am also passionate about the way we eat.

My own personal story can be found in these previous posts and pages;

Eating Well, Staying Healthy
90 Day Challenge
Four Years On

But suffice to say I am now a strong advocate of the Low Carb High Fat approach to eating. As a family we eliminated carbs and sugars from our diet just over 5 years ago. We no longer have bread, pasta, potatoes, rice, flours, processed foods, grains or sugars in anything that we eat. Our cupboards and fridge are stocked with yummy cheese, butter, cream, meats, fish, green veggies, berries, greek yogurt and some very high cocoa dark chocolate.

I have lost weight and dropped dress sizes and have been able to maintain it. My skin is better and hopefully I am doing everything in my power to avoid the modern day diseases of diabetes and heart disease; both of which have affected my family directly in the past.

Whilst we do have the odd occasional treat; these are what we describe as 'rare and appropriate', I do find that the longer that we follow this approach the less I look for those treats...which as someone with a self confessed sweet tooth I never thought I would say!

I think the 'kids' find this way of eating the most tricky out of all of us; not because they are fussy eaters but I think simply because they are faced with a society that seems to revolve around social eating and drinking and one that means making good choices are tricky to find.

This past weekend Simon and I had the pleasure of spending a day at Brathay Hall, near Ambleside in the Lake District with about 800 like-minded people at a festival called Real Food Rocks.  This was a festival organised through an organisation called the Public Health Collaboration whose mission is to improve the nations health by changing the way we eat through adopting a low carb approach.

The event was organised by Dr Jen Unwin and was supported by a number of doctors, health care and fitness professionals. There were also plenty of stalls showcasing businesses who promote the use of real food, with real ingredients while also supporting a low carb approach.

Throughout the day there was the opportunity to listen to a number of experts talk about all aspects of a healthy lifestyle. We started the day listening to Dr Michael Mosley and his wife Dr Clare Bailey who strongly advocate the use of fasting, and a Mediterranean style diet incorporating fermented foods. Next we listened to Ivor Cummins the biochemical engineer and author of the book 'Eat Rich Live Long' who spoke about the modern diseases of obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease and the positive effects that diet can have on all of these conditions.

Dr Michael Mosley

Ivor Cummins

We than had a short break where we tasted some delicious low carb beef curry served with low carb naan bread from The Low Carb Food Co, followed by a coffee from The Little Blue Pig and a gorgeous chocolate and raspberry brownie from Deliciously Guilt Free.

Beef Curry & Naan bread by the Low Carb Food Co.

Dark Chocolate & Raspberry Brownie by Deliciously Guilt Free

Then it was back to listen to some more speakers. We heard Dr Peter Voshol from the Netherlands speak about his success with treating patients with Type 2 Diabetes through diet. We then heard from nutritionist Jenny Phillips as she spoke about the types of food we should be eating which resulted in me buying her latest cook book! After that we came upon Bridgette Hamilton who unknown to us is based not far from where we live; she specialises in helping people kick their sugar addiction and lose weight through her Breakthrough Weightloss program. We ended the day with Dr David Unwin who is a GP passionate about low carb and using lifestyle interventions to help patients fight obesity and diabetes and is one of the leading voices on this here in the UK.

It was so great to spend a day with people that all think the same way as we do. Time and time again it can feel almost alienating to follow this lifestyle. People who choose other lifestyles like being vegetarian or vegan can walk into shops, supermarkets and restaurants and are able to find all sorts of products on offer for them (although these are often highly processed and very far removed from being 'healthy' alternatives).Their friends accept their choice, they will make allowances for them when socialising and may even defend their choice...but choosing low carb does not always cause the same reactions.

Whilst shopping is straightforward as you simply only buy those products that you know are right i.e. real food! But dining out can sometimes be problematic and usually involves having to ask for 'insert name of bland beige carb' to be removed and replaced with veggies or salad but only to be met with a funny look and a question 'so...you don't want...?' Friends struggle to understand what being low carb means and the standard response is 'but I couldn't give up potatoes...bread...pasta...' Then throw into the conversation the 'wish I could lose weight like you', followed by me offering to explain but yet again to be faced with the 'but I couldn't' statement.

I know this way of eating is healthy, enjoyable, satisfying, yummy and easy to do and I just want to be able to help people to follow along and see the same weight and health gains that I have. But when everything that we have been brought up to understand about what is and is not healthy to eat is the complete opposite of eating low carb it is all too easy to understand why people have a problem grasping how this could be healthy.

I am angry that I spent the majority of my life following the 'official guidelines', doing what people in white coats told me or what was published through various media to then find I, along with everyone else, had been misled. It is so frustrating that the 'powers that be' are unwilling to change the dietary advise, that influence from the sugar, cereal and processed food industry is too entrenched with our governing bodies. That pharmaceutical companies need us all to be reliant on medications to keep their profits expanding and they have no interest in getting us healthy 'naturally'!

So I am determined to keep on doing what I am doing; sharing my knowledge, offering help where I can, continuously reading and researching more, learning more and then hopefully lead by example. I will continue to write blog posts about all that I am passionate about and hope that somewhere along the way I can inform and potentially change things for the better.