First things first.

This post is the first of a few after the huge reaction I received to this Facebook post –

“If you are feeling tired, achy, demotivated, tense, cranky, ‘your age!!!’ Sleeping badly, looking and feeling bloated, sad, down, fat, floppy, grumpy, mentally fudgy, slow etc etc and would like to change that, pm me. Robin and I are doing a recharge, defrag, reboot and I’ll share what we are doing if you want to join in.
Lets peel back those layers, feel energized and find our shine!

What I am aiming for is to reduce inflammation ( a few flare-ups lately) calm my head, (can’t sleep properly as brain is whirling with ideas), calm stress (walls in wrong place, cracks appearing in ceiling of main house etc /:), reduce migraines ( Robin has been having lots of dream state and opthalmic ones lately) and in the process I’ll probably lose a few pounds.”

As this goes on I will get to the point of just journaling what I eat, drink, do plus share a recipe and maybe a bit of info. This post is word heavy just to get you going, sorry!

BE PREPARED
It is really easy to grab a piece of toast, a mug of coffee, a sandwich, a piece of cake from home, supermarket or motorway service station.
It is hard to travel or work healthily unless you are prepared either to just drink water and munch on fruit (which is a really good option if it is just for a day or so) or are prepared to be prepared.

Being prepared simply means having things with you that will taste good and do good.

FEELING STODGY                                                                                                                                                                       Have you noticed that when you eat stodge you feel stodgy?
If I eat bread for example I feel heavy and bloated. If I weigh myself up to 24 hours after eating bread, and I am talking about a bread roll rather than a loaf, I will weigh 1 – 1 1/2 kilos more than if I hadn’t. We have been away this week and I have eaten bread each day. Almost all the food has been cooked which probably means a heavyish hand with the salt (and not the Himalayan good kind), and from the second day I have been around 59.5kg. I normally average 57-58kg. All the time we were away, between 9.30am and 7.30pm, I have only drunk water and eaten a couple of pieces of fruit. I have not eaten excessively in the evening. I’ve had a few glasses of wine, a piece of bread with a reasonably healthy meal by most people standards.
I not only feel heavy I am heavier. That is because my body is holding onto water; It actually is bloated. The bloat is all over, inside and on the outside so if you think my tummy cells are a bit bloated, so will be my brain cells and so on. Not a good thing I am sure you will agree.
Today I am 59kg. Tomorrow I expect to be about 58.5kg. All that is simply not eating processed food or bread.

So when I feel stodgy I AM stodgy. I feel bloated because I AM bloated.

That is just my reaction. If people are doing this every day it is building and growing, water retention leading to high blood pressure, fat cells filling up leading to extra padding, less movement, strain on joints and organs….

OBSESSING                                                                                                                                                                                    So, secondly, food can be obsessive.
You can eat obsessively and you can ‘not eat’ obsessively.
You can find yourself not eating because there isn’t anything healthy (so drink lots of water and have some fruit until your find something good or do your prep!) and so not eating too often or eating whatever there is and then feeling bad about it OR even saying “I’ve blown it I might as well continue eating badly, gimme another pie!”.

None of those things are healthy in any way.

SO:
1, Be prepared.
2, Eat before you are desperate and monster mind takes over rational mind.
3, If monster mind takes over and you have eaten the pie (whatever your pie might be – ice cream, chocolate, cornish pasty, stodwich …) spin round three times and put it in the past! Continue in your new, healthy way.
4, DO NOT BEAT YOURSELF UP!
5, Every mouthful of food or drink you take can heal or hurt. Make each one count.

HAND TEST
Hold both hands up. Left hand good, right hand bad.
Raise a finger on each hand for relevant food –

I.E. I had two dates, 6 almonds, two crackers with butter and jam and a little coffee for breakfast.
Dates, almonds, crackers on left hand, topping and coffee on right hand. As long as the  left hand is ahead we are doing OK. As we move ahead you will need to borrow your right hand for the good side 🙂

THINK
If you are dealing with an Auto immune disease, are simply out of energy, over weight, stressed, struggling to be enthusiastic, depressed, anxious, find you haven’t laughed or even smiled in a while, wake up all night long, feel bloated, get constipated, wind, acid reflux, have cellulite, beer belly, menstrual problems, hormone problems, spots, dull hair, brittle nails… then what you eat will effect all this!
Think of each morsel you eat as something that is going to cause change for the better. Flood yourself with nutrients! We are made up of nutrients, every process in our bodies is aided and abetted by how we nourish ourselves.

You know that if you eat a quiche made from pastry, bacon, eggs, cream and cheese served with chips it will not have the same effect as a quiche made with a crust of blended nuts and seeds, filled with organic eggs, spinach, sweet corn, peas and capers  and served with a crispy, juicy salad (or to take it to another level a creamy filling of cashew nut cheese with tomatoes, wilted spinach, softened red onions and red peppers and sprinkled with capers) BUT I can assure you it will taste delicious.

The first will make you feel full, heavy and tired, the second will leave you feeling satisfied and the left hand will have all fingers up, the right will be close 🙂

SHOP
I suggest that today you shop for fruit and vegetables with a few extras;
This is my shopping list, some will not be available or not good quality so I will use it as a guide (I get as much as I can organic, the benefits are multiple) as well as stuff I have in my cupboards that you would do well to stock. Buy enough but not too much that it goes off before you eat it or the quality is compromised. If you can shop every few days its better.

Apples, bananas, lemons, oranges, courgettes, aubergines, parsnip, garlic, sweet potatoes, cucumbers, carrots, celery, red onions, avocados, tomatoes while they are still good, butternut squash (or any squash of pumpkin), mushrooms, capers (packs that salty punch!), any good salad leaves, actually I will be getting mine from the garden including dandelion leaves (and using self seeded herbs and roquette I discovered joyfully!), curly kale and/or spinach, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, almonds/cashews/walnuts (not salted – raw) Quinoa, tin chick peas, tin red kidney beans, tahini, dried seaweeds, tamari and/or Braggs liquid amos and/or nam shoyu for flavouring, really good olive oil, maybe add in some avocado oil, sesame oil, Himalayan salt, apple cider vinegar with the mother – the cloudy bit in the bottom which means it is alive! Any herbs and spices you like – I use a lot of cumin, coriander, smoked paprika, cayenne pepper, cinnamon. Maybe some organic eggs, goats or sheeps cheese (feta is a good one), kefir or live sheeps of goats yogurt, raw honey and agave or coconut syrup.

The main thing here is fresh, non-processed, clean, easy to digest. Any fruits or veggies you like with enough variety to cover lots of colours (eat a rainbow). Be guided by what you like, can afford, is fresh.

MAKE
Following on from this will be some recipes but for tonight use some of the your veg – carrots, parsnip, courgette an onion, a clove or two of garlic an apple or some blackberries (if you have access to figs I would use those, I freeze ours as well as blackberries to use all winter) – chop them up (wash and/or peel if not organic), toss in some olive oil, a sprinkle of salt and some spices, I would use cumin, smoked paprika, cayenne and maybe a bit of cinnamon and pop them in the oven for half an hour. Add some shopped mushrooms and crumble some feta over the top. Leave another ten minutes in the oven until all is cooked through.  You could plop an egg in for the last ten mins if you fancied and sprinkle some rinsed capers over the top for that extra bite!

Make extra to have for lunch tomorrow either just as it is or wrapped up in some kale or lettuce leaves with a dollop of yogurt on top and a sprinkle of cayenne for a bit of a kick.

NB Please have your doctor check out anything that is ongoing, seems strange, causes pain, where blood is evident – use common sense, I am not a doctor, I do not diagnose, I am a clinical nutritionist with 16 years of experience on myself and others who want to help themselves naturally and significantly. Also if you have had chemotherapy please take your doctors advice – if you go into a detox of any kind (this is clean eating and taken to an extreme could put you into detox) any chemo chemicals stored in your cells could flush out and your organs have to deal with that which could have a negative effect.