Sanaworld

Showdown with The Scales

2012-01-29T00:25:00.000-08:00

A funny thing happened on the wayto my Junk Free January recap post.

Feeling slinky, I sprung into themorning and decided on a weight check before heading to the office, where Ianticipated rolling out a triumphant post about the amazing fat-blastingbenefits of nearly a month without gluten, sugar or industrial oils.

But it was not to be. There wasscale action, but, in the genius words of Kek, it was the 'wrong way, Dickhead’. Inexplicably, I gained 1.3kg. Let's be clear. I gained back the1.2kg that had vanished in Junk Free January, plus 100g.

This did not please me.

At all.

What happened next was a littlebit illogical. Even though I'd felt sleek and victorious just ten seconds previously,spying 58.3kg instead of 57.0 caused an emotional landslide toward feelinglike a fat failure. I went into a real mental funk. Immediately, I wanted toeat sugar, oil and gluten. Preferably, all at once. Strange reaction, yes? And yet a commonone. It’s called the ‘Oh Stuff It!’reaction. I didn’t just make that up.

According to The Journal of Health Psychology, thinking ‘Oh Stuff It!’ is a major reason why people fail at getting and stayingslim. There are many things that can trigger this response, for example, havingdeviated from your eating plan, or coming under social pressure, but I want to focus on that potential Stuff It moment when the scales make you cry. Handling this moment elegantly is crucial, both for fatlossand for not spending life as a cranky thug.

The experience of negative scaleaction is not something that happens only to special people. It happens tonearly everyone that is on a fatloss mission, and if you are female, It ispractically guaranteed. Even when youare doing everything right.

Once upon a time, I was perfect.With the help of a now-illegal diet supplement (ephedrine), I managed to eat1000 – 1200 calories and exercise 1.5 hours a day for four months. I still havethe journals.

Excuse me, I had to bleep my own journal. I wasprobably in an ephedrine fueled, low-carb rage. Gaining 400g overnight? HowUNJUST. When you are being perfect, how can this even happen?

There are many reasons why thescales may show you a displeasing number. The first thing to realise is thatscales are not intelligent. They measure ONE THING: weight. Weight is made offat-free mass (muscle, bone, organs, fluids, stored nutrients, undigested food, drugs you hid up your bum in a balloon, all that stuff) and fat mass. Fat mass changesslowly and is not responsible for wild scale action. Usually, wild ups anddowns can be attributed to bodily water fluctuations.

There are many things on which to blame a bad scale day:

Hormones. Some women will see their weight stabilise or increase in the pre-menstrual week (or weeks!) and be at their lightest in the second week of their cycle. This is just normal. Or, blame the moon.

False regain. This usually happens after a pleasing and unexpected weight loss for whatever reason – e.g. you had the flu or were especially active for a day. It seems like a loss followed by regain but actually it was.. just an unstable kind of maintenance.

Alcohol. If you drink regularly then decide to stop or skip a few days it can cause a weight spike, probably due to rehydration.

Carbs. If your diet is generally lower carb and you carb up, the stored glycogen will weigh something. I’m pretty sure that the vice-versa of this is what caused my weight loss when I started Junk Free Jan. In cutting sugars I cut back carbs a lot (cue: pleasing scale action). Then I started eating more carbs like rice and buckwheat (cue: hello, again).

Salt. The body will retain water to dilute excess ingested sodium. Ironically, the worst foods for this can be highly flavoursome soups, even if they are low calorie. You have the salt and you have the water all in one delicious little bowl of scale pain.

Exercise. This one bites the hardest. You kill yourself in the gym and what do you have to show for it? A mouthy scale. The idea is: sore muscles = inflammation = swelling and fluids retained in that area. Usually this effect calms down as your body adapts to regular exercise.

Time of day. Roll out of bed at 10 a.m. on Saturday and you will probably be lighter than at 6.30 a.m. on Monday. This is usually due to… erm….. peeing and stuff, and possibly Friday night wines (see alcohol).

Food eaten the day before. Weight of food in your insides does show on the scales. If you eat a lot of fibre (e.g. lots of healthy veg) in the evening, it may still be around at your morning weigh in.

Having now revised the many causesof scale weight increase, everyone will have a calm and rational reaction next timethis happens, right? Nope. If there is one thing that Psychology has shown consistently,it’s that humans are just not very rational. Emotions and self-delusions rule us.

In their study, ‘Oh Stuff It! TheExperience and Explanation of Diet Failure’ a group from the University of Birmingham examined the reasons that a group of ten recidivist dieters, with no diagnosable eating disorder, decided to ditch healthyeating (‘the diet’). There were interesting observations arounddieting/non-dieting self-identity and the relationship of self to the ‘socialconstruct’ of dieting, but most relevant to this post is the cost/benefitequation.

Briefly, the study documented thatslimmers found dieting to involve considerable effort, for which they expected various benefits. It didn’t take much for them to decide that the benefit wasnot worth the effort. An important, relevant point is that the act of payingattention to eating behaviour (e.g. by keeping a food journal or avoiding food groups) felt effortful,even if the individual was not achieving any caloric deficit. They felt theywere dieting, and reacted to the lack of results/benefits, even when they realistically weren’t dieting.

To bring this back to the issue ofnon-compliant scale numbers, it means this: If the main anticipated benefit ofhealthy eating is scale weight loss, and you encounter evidence that this isn’thappening, it can really mess with your head. There may seem little pointcontinuing. Usually a loud voice pipes up in your brain, reminding you how hardyou’ve been trying and how it’s clearly not working. That’s what happened tome. So unfair! I have given up all formsof sugar for nearly a freaking month. Including Lara Bars and Foodie Fridays for crying out loud! And what for??? I have to admit, my reaction surprised me. Ihad not realised until then how much I'd linked the results of Junk Free January to scale losses. It just happened.

The research article did notactually discuss how to transcend that critical ‘Oh, Stuff It!’ moment, so I’vecome up with a few tips that work for me:

Suggestions for getting through a scale scare:

Prepare yourself. Read the above reasonswhy scale weight can increase, go to the mirror, look yourself in the eye andsay ‘one day this will happen to me and that’s just part of the process’.

When it does happen, relax. Changenothing, distract yourself and re-evaluate in one or two days. One day meansnothing and you can’t conclude anything by it, so try not to mentally tortureyourself with the 'why, why, why’s'.

If you must monitor weight(most people do, so don't feel bad about that), track weight trendsand measurements over a longer period of time. An average over 2-4 weeks is agood start.

If after a week or so, the trendis still upward, have a think about your plan and perhaps get some advice. Itmight be that even though you feel like you are going hard at it, actuallyyou are not creating the calorie deficit needed for fatloss.

Balance up the cost-benefit. Makeit worth the effort. There are two sides to this:

Lower the cost. If it’s too hard,or exhausting, something needs to change. Eating should be enjoyable. Exerciseshould be.. at least something you don’t dread (yeah, I’ve never learned toreally love exercise either, only the post-training endorphin rush).

Examine the benefits that arebeyond weightloss and batter your negative voice into submission with positivessuch as: reduced risk of chronic disease,increased energy and mental clarity, increased self-esteem and personal strength, clothes fitting better, more endurance, learning new recipes and nothaving to confess to the blogosphere that you ditched Junk Free January due to a randomscale moment.

The scale showdown which spurredthis article is now four days in the past and of course, it was just a blip. I’m feeling happy that I didn’t cave to the temptation to ‘stuff it’. In another four days I’ll be done with Junk Free Jan, and fatloss or not, that isstill a personal achievement. Prepare yourselves for a full Daily Bananarundown … and possibly some bragging. :D

Tell me: what do you do when the results of your health and fitness efforts are underwhelming?

Munchies of the Month

2012-01-27T16:36:00.000-08:00

Gluten-free, sugar-free and industrial oil-free meals I have loved in Junk Free January.

Buckwheat Crepes. This gory looking specimen has berries, banana and almond butter hidden inside.

Protein pumped icecreams and smoothies of all colours and flavours

Cherry icecream

Kumara (sweet potato) and spicy beef salad for dinner

Kumara, beef, navy beans, courgette, onion and sheep's milk cheese.
The beef was tossed in cumin, salt, pepper, crushed garlic and fresh thyme then sizzled.

And then for lunch the next day

(with a different white balance.. you'd think I'd know how to fix that up by now...

Eggs in many permutations

Soups

Nuts, especially in the form of AlmondButterStraightFromTheJar

It's actually home made, but at least it has a suitable house in this jar.

And of course, My Daily Banana. Each one was a winner.

I have just one week left to go on Junk Free Jan (I was loitering on my way to the starting blocks). It's gone surprisingly well in terms of compliance. As for 'results', I've only noticed a drop in appetite. Has this translated to a decrease in bodyfat?

A little story about that tomorrow.

A question for you: Have you discovered any new 'go to' meals lately? Buckwheat crepes were new to me, but I think they'll be around for a while.. (..addicted..)

And the Winner is....?

2012-01-25T20:17:00.000-08:00

It's time to announce the winner of the very first Sanaworld giveaway, which was a bottle of the new Sana Direct Multi to whomever could devise a name for it.

We had five genius suggestions:

1. Sana Multea Q10
2. Activita
3. Sana-tea Multi
4. Multifit 10
5. Sana MVM+

Big Thanks to everyone that entered. Believe me, I know how very difficult it is to invent product names. You may notice that the Sana products have exciting names like 'Whey Protein Concentrate - Vanilla' and 'Omega 3 - 500 Capsules'. However, the smaller packs have abbreviations like GLN (Glutamine), Ω3 (Omega 3) and the Ascorbic Acid 150g packet simply says 'C'.

We do this because space is at a premium on those smaller labels, and with that in mind, we made our decision. After all, there can be only one.

***drumroll***

And the winner is.....

Congratulations, Jo!

I will get your MVM Plus to you as soon as the label is printed.

And now back to my immediate problem of fitting all 30 ingredients on the other part of the label. ..

Placeholder - pics from my Tuesday

2012-01-24T01:08:00.000-08:00

**REMINDER**

** It's the last day to enter the Sanaworld Multivitamin Giveaway! Click Here to have your idea immortalised on a funky black label!**

Today's planned Junk Free January post is morphing into an article that requires actual research, rather than consisting of the mind farts that usually populate my blog posts. That will be up in a day or so. In the meantime, it's lucky that Foodcam just never gets old ..

Buckwheat pancakes.. I will never get sick of these.

Chicken noodle soup. The Asian food craze continues in our casa. I was having some fun with GIMP on this one. The photo edit reminds me a bit of those restaurants where you choose your food by pointing at the picture and it's ready in five minutes and tastes amazing.

I stirred in some Miso at the last second. Whereas things never really developed between me and Tempeh (except to the point where I threw away what I had left), I think that Miso may redeem my relationship with fermented soy. It has a certain something that I like.

Some big, orange goober I found sleeping against the garage door. I do not understand how a cat can have missed out so badly on feline grace genes.

**ALERT. ALERT**

**VEGANS AVERT EYES NOW**

Paleo people may prepare to drool (lean away from the keyboard).

Tonight's meaty dinner. Grass-fed rump steak, slow cooked with ginger and herbs. Baked kumara fries.

All sugar-free, gluten-free and industrial oil free.. except the cat. Even the expensive cat food we get has all three of those in it. Maybe I should just start feeding them table scraps? They certainly spend enough time lusting over what goes into the compost bin (or maybe, fantasising about catching the family of mice that live in it).

That was my Tuesday in eats and lazy pets. How was yours?

Fitness Find and Foodcam

2012-01-21T17:42:00.000-08:00

I've been banned from my office! Not quite banned. More like driven out by the ongoing construction work, which is a) noisy b) has required a temporary, random rearrangement of the furniture. It's like any worthwhile thing: there is always that messy and annoying in-between phase.

As my shoulder objects to heavy-duty typing on the notebook, this will be a mainly pics post, starting with a Fitness Find.

Zuzana (ex. Bodyrock) is back! If you are looking for a new direction or haven't quite made it to the 'action' stage of your New Years Resolutions, I'd recommend checking out her ZWOD (Zuzana's Workout of the Day) vids. These are free on Youtube, but have been copied by lots of faker channels already. The correct channel is Zuzkalight.

Her workouts meet my criteria of being fast, effective, equipment-free and fun. She looks like a super-hero action figure, yes?

Foodcam From Week 3 of Junk Free January

Smoothie: coconut milk, avocado, maca, cacao beans, WPC, banana

Post blending

Lamb rack preparation: rosemary, thyme. oregano, garlic and olive oil mashed in the mortar and pestle and then rubbed in to the meat

Salad haul from the garden - still going strong!

Last night's dinner: lamb, kale, salad, sheeps-milk pecorino and roasted kumara (sweet potato)

That's it from me for the day! I'll be back tomorrow with an update on the Junk Free January progress.

I hope you are all having a fun and relaxing weekend. There are still a few days left to enter the Name Our Multivitamin giveaway, so feel free to CLICK HERE and join the fun!

Sugar Free Baking

2012-01-18T17:49:00.000-08:00

Firstly, please click here and make an entry into the very first Sanaworld blog giveaway, which is open until 5pm next Wednesday (NZ time).

Don't be scared. We won't judge you. So far there is only one entry and I have a suspicion that it is The Programmer attempting to stop my pouting. He's a good man.

**********************

Baking with Stevia

Many years in the health industry, particularly the manufacturing side of it, have forged a love-hate relationship between me and Stevia-as-a-sweetener. Mostly it was hate.

Stevia is notoriously difficult to work with. It has a very narrow range of use - too little and you don't taste it, slightly too much and you get a terrible 'licorice like' aftertaste. In addition, there was a lot of sweetness variation between batches. Just when you got it right, the batch would run out and the next shipment would invariably be different.

There were also political issues: bad press, good press, legislative issues, industry in-fighting.

However, customers have consistently asked for Stevia, so about a year ago, we started making enquiries and testing samples for both Stevia and Lo Han Guo, which is a mogroside sweetener extracted from monk fruit. The sweet compounds in Stevia are steviosides of which rebaudiosides are a component.

With a bit of experimentation, I've discovered that both these sweeteners can be made to do my will.

The technology around Stevia extraction seems to have rapidly progressed and there is far more consistency in flavour. There are also methods of 'de-bittering' and increasing the rebaudoside A content. Some say this component has a better flavour than stevioside, although I'm not sure how much of this claim is a marketing ploy to sell the more pricey high-Rebaudioside A Stevia.

Lo Han Guo was great too, and I've put it on the Sana wish list (the price made me cross-myself and pass out).

Now I have to learn to use Stevia. The main issue is that the hyper-concentrated nature of it means that you have to recalculate like a recipe ninja. For example, 1 teaspoon of Stevia extract delivers the sweetness of about 1.5 cups of sugar (and this is where many people go wrong, use too much, create something truly awful and give up). You also have to replace the bulk of the sugar with something else.

My first attempt at a Stevia cake was a rerun of this recipe - Chocolate Zucchini Cake. I made the full sugar version a few weeks ago.

The recipe has two cups of sugar in it. My original plan was to replace those two cups with one cup buckwheat flour and one cup rice flour. Buuut. I ran out of rice flour so it became one cup buckwheat, 1/4 cup rice flour and 3/4 cup erythritol. This is, in addition to the flour already in the recipe.

Before adding the liquid ingredients, I added one flat teaspoon of Stevia (undershooting, rather than overdoing it).

Then I went to add the oil and noticed that there was only a dribble left in the bottom of the bottle :-/. I melted down all the butter in the fridge instead, but the mix was still very dry - I blame the extra flour. As my patience was waning, I just added some water. If I was not on low-fuctose Junkfree Jan, I would have moistened it with apple sauce.

Because of these uncontrolled ingredient variables, and because it's not perfected, I'm not posting a full recipe today. Look out for that next week.

The end result, you ask?

Pretty good!

The cake was not quite as gooey and fudgy as the original, and the zucchini did not entirely 'disappear'. There were a few green bits - a situation which must be remedied if I am to present this to Miss J when she visits. One hint of greenies would signal instant rejection.

The level of sweetness was just about right. I fed it to visitors and nobody grimaced. Of course, I did smother theirs with icecream.

Have you tried Stevia? Any favourite recipes? Any funny disaster stories?

Busy at the Business - Giveaway!

2012-01-17T22:22:00.000-08:00

New Stevia label

Did you know that I used to be a graphic designer?

Yup, my very first job was as an advertising artist, but it wasn't for me. Plus, I was 18 and didn't really understand the concept of working for a living. Who does, really?

In my brief time as a graphic artist I learned a couple of useful things. I discovered that doctors can win some serious prizes for prescribing asthma inhalers (one of my first promotion jobs) and I learned a bit about making labels. When we started Sana on a budget of about NZ$1.50, this dubious skill set made me the default art department.

I've been resisting the idea, but finally looked at the Sana labels and decided it's time to jazz them up. The website banner isn't thrilling me either. I've got a month before the fam arrives and uni starts for the year, so I'm dusting off the rusty skills, familiarising myself with GIMP and .. well, let's see how it goes. But, I need some help (help! help!) with a catchy name for the newbie.

Today I got started on the label for our new product which is a multi-vitamin with a few extras like CoQ10, Alpha-Lipoic Acid and Green Tea. So far... this:

Not quite NZFSA compliant yet... but I did figure out some tricky stuff to make that glowy circle thingo. Impressed? I had to put the graphic at the far right because it has 35 ingredients and it's going to be a real mission to get them all on there along with the other info that must legally be there.

I'm looking for a great name for it. I put 'Multi Plus' on for the moment, because it's a Multi vitamin and mineral plus other stuff.

Giveaway

Note: This competition is now closed.

Can you come up with an awesome name for our new multi vitamin/mineral/CoQ10/Green Tea supplement? It's designed to support an active lifestyle in someone that generally eats well.

If you have a great idea for a name, please leave a comment and I'll choose my favourite one in a week (Wednesday 25th). If there are none that we like better than Multi Plus, then we will choose our most preferred one, even if we don't use it. The winner will receive a free bottle of our new amazing multi.

A little note about customs: Although all readers are welcome to enter, I am not sure if this product can be shipped to America (I am currently checking this with TradeNZ and will update once I know). I can confirm that it will not get into Canada, however NZ, Aussie and most of Europe are fine. If the winner is from a country that won't accept the product then we do have a secret back up prize in mind. :D

This is the first Sanaworld blog giveaway, so please go ahead and have a go.

I'll be back tomorrow with my first attempt at cooking with Stevia, and why I really should have checked the cupboards before committing to the cake...

Buckwheat Pancakes

2012-01-15T21:45:00.000-08:00

Healthy food should not be boring!

Noooo. Humans are designed to eat varied and enjoyable things and you can fight this instinct for only so long. Anyone that has gakked down poached chicken breast and broccoli in pursuit of defined abs will know this. After two weeks of that, even an artificially flavoured, fake chocolate protein bar with scary pink stuff inside begins to look like a serious treat.

Yes, I do speak from experience. :D

Therefore, as part of a kick-ass Junkfree January, I've been experimenting in the kitch. One of my more user-friendly creations is this simple buckwheat pancake or crepe, which can hold its own as a savory or sweet item. First up, the recipe:

Buckwheat Crepes

Ingredients:

Makes one fat or two thin crepes.

1/2 cup buckwheat flour
1 egg
1/2 cup milk (of any sort - almond milk works wonderfully, but I used plain old organic cow's milk)
Pinch of salt
Water (for thinning further if necessary)

Optional additions to the batter depending on its intended fate:

Nutmeg
Cinnamon
Green herbs

Method:

1. Place the egg, salt and flour in a bowl and combine with a whisk

2. Add the milk slowly, whisking frequently, until desired consistency is achieved. It should be runny enough to pour. If it still looks too thick when all the milk is added, you can add more milk (if you don't mind messing with the nutrition data) or some water.

3. Cook it! The nutrition data, which is at the end of this post, allows 5g (1 tsp) of butter or oil. This should work in a non-stick pan. I don't have one of those, and therefore used a technique which may be described as death by butter. Do as I say, not as I do.

Swirl the oil around a moderately hot fry pan until the surface is coated then pour the batter on - either in one batch or two, it's up to you. Wait until the top bubbles and then flip it. This crepe holds together remarkably well for one without gluten.

You might want to lift the edges now and then to make sure it's not overcooking under there before and after the flip. It should be a nice, pale golden colour at completion.

And what to do with your perfect, golden crepe? You put stuff on it, roll it and eat it with a happy face. Here are two that I have swooned over. I also made one with berries, but forgot to whip out the LG.

Egg, avocado and shaved pecorino sheeps cheese

Served with Kale Chips

Banana and almond butter, there is nutmeg in the crepe and cinnamon on the banana

You have seen this before. The rolled up version.

Smothered with yogurt, artfully placed over the bit that cracked up a bit when I rolled it :D

The food-nerdy stats are here. They could be quite calor-horrific by the time you add all the fillings. Remember, you can always exercise your right to make half the recipe or just... I dunno... save some for later?

Let me know how these work out for you and please comment if you have discovered any gluten-free-sugar-free fillings that made your soul hum with delight. I know what I'd be adding to the banana/almond butter crepe if I wasn't sugar-free right now. Any guesses?

A few of my favourite meeeals!

2012-01-13T03:05:00.000-08:00

I've had a few days of frustrating technical issues, which included all my blog comments vanishing and then the inability to log in. Geeerrrawr.. nothing makes me lose my cool like computer misbehaviour. Hence the few days of blog quietitude (is that word?).

I just got in from dinner with the neighbours (which was a little non-JFJ compliant, but worth it) and it's late so this will be a piccy post.

I give you: Sugar-free, gluten-free meals I have eaten in the last 10 days (and remembered to photograph).

There have been omelettes:

<<<<<<

and crepes made with buckwheat:

Curries:

And smoothies:

Some which were chocolate:

Sour cream and mushroom sauce:

Kumara friiiiiiies.

These are a few ..

of my favourite meeeals!

Ok, that was bad.

Seriously I'm not finding this too difficult, in fact I've noticed a dramatic reduction in appetite, which makes things a whole lot easier.

Now my plan is to be a bit more dedicated to the exercise routine - I only managed one interval workout last week - and start the horrendous process of cutting back the caffeine (I know I should say 'again' here...).

How are you doing with eating well in oh-twelve? Any challenges so far?

Day 7.. er... I think

2012-01-10T00:09:00.000-08:00

<<< Yesterday's My Daily Banana.

For those wondering if I'm perhaps a little strange, I'm doing Junkfree January, which involves a month-long avoidance of wheat, industrial oils and sugar (including fructose). In an email, the founder suggested no more than one piece of fruit a day.

As I have a lifelong love of the glorious banana - a stint on Atkins only reinforced my devotion - there was nil mental argument about how I'd roll with that rule.

It's also proving a handy way to tally the days. As I started late, I'm just going for 31 My Daily Banana experiences.

Day One:

Using Razzy as a photo prop. I was warming up to my concept. Blurry, yes. Sorry.

Day Two:

Day Three:

Days 4 & 5

Day 6

Which makes today Day 7

I had another banana smoothie (forgot to take a pic, it looked exactly like this one)

The Day 6 MDB is mashed banana and almond butter in a buckwheat crepe. This was very good, but I neglected to measure anything. Later this week I will make another one and record the means and the method for you.

As well as figuring out what to eat (a friend today officially put me in her 'hard to feed' basket - and this is from a family with celiacs and a diabetic.. and maybe a dairy intolerant?), it's been a busy week, in business and in life.

1. The Room

We are building a fairly large stock room, attached to the back of my office. I tried to take a pic but it's all scary and dark out there right now. It doesn't sound exciting but, it is. Oh yes. This means I will have an NZFSA compliant store-room ten steps from my desk and can leap to my feet and pick orders as they come in. I've wanted this for years. It's even going to have a thermometer gauge in the office wall so that I can monitor stock temperature (be awed..). When it's finished I'll throw a party then sleep there for a night just to bond with it. Wait.. are sleeping humans a biohazard?

2. The Nutritionist

That's me.. in 1.5 years. I've made a decision about Postgrad study. I've been torturing myself day and night over the options: psychologist? social scientist? disaster expert? goddamn creative novelist? It's been hard. The idea of pursuing nutrition has harrassed my mind frequently but several things held me back. Firstly, I sometimes feel that the last thing the world needs is another nutritionist. Secondly, I believe that the mind is the more important aspect when it comes to eating behaviour (the 'how', not the 'what'). Thirdly, I was influenced to believe that a Nutritionist is someone that couldn't quite make it as a Dietician. I can't do Dietetics in Christchurch and am uninclined to move.

I spent time last week calling the universities, determined to Make A Decision. Becoming a Psych. is a very long process (at least another three years full-time), and, say I ended up working with eating behaviour, I'd have to consult with a nutritionist anyway. I discovered that nutrition is a 'separate but related' field from dietetics and probably more in tune with my vibe, in terms of research and experimentation. The field is gaining recognition and the registration process has been refined so that people can separate a university trained Nutritionist from someone that took a four day course online from India.

So, what happens now is: I complete my Graduate Certificate in Nutritional Science next semester (as my major was Psychology, this is a bridging course), then enter the Postgraduate Diploma of Science (Human Nutrition). That takes a year and I'm a bit nervous because the graduate papers have been bloody intense so far - one memorable assignment being 120 pages. On completion I can hang out a 'The Nutritionist is in' sign, and after two years, apply for registration. If my marks are stellar, I can turn the Postgrad. Dip. into a Masters by thesis. Or, get back into Psych. on a part-time basis.

Ideally, I'd like to be qual'd up in both Nutrition and Psychology - I don't think they can be separated. It does annoy me a bit that there is no way to study them in interaction but I'll do my best. Watch this space.. for the next five years or longer... :D

Of course, I'm not actually enrolled yet, so .... (maybe I'll wake in the night with a serious change of heart... please, no..).

My question for you today?

How did you decide on your career? Was it a hard decision or did you 'just know'?

Tomorrow I'll be blogging some Junkfree January compliant meals. Not a banana in sight. I promise.

Cute Overload

2012-01-08T22:06:00.000-08:00

Today got a little crazy, so I've only got time to blog the first, and undoubtedly most important, of the three things I planned for today's post.

My niece Miss J, who is six, has been away skiing, in The Swiss Alps (doesn't everyone just do that at Christmas?), but on her return we Skyped and she wanted to do a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year message for the blog.

It took me hours to figure out how to embed audio files, but I think this should work (thanks Kek for the sending me this link, which finally got me sorted):

Happy New Year Message for the readers of 'Aunty Sara Blog'

And this one is 'We wish you a Merry Christmas', in German.

The artist:

And just to max out the cute factor, here is a link to some pics of Gina's (The Fitnessista) brand new baby. Anyone that can Tweet 'just heading into labour and delivery' deserves a bazillion hits for outstanding blogger dedication.

Tomorrow, I promise you a Daily Banana. It's a good one!

Sugar Free Adventures #2

2012-01-07T21:55:00.000-08:00

By accident I spent most of today immersed in things sans sugar, again.

The Sana customers have been requesting Stevia for a loooong time. We promised to introduce it over a year ago but experienced painful legislative difficulties as it was not an approved sweetener. Now it is, but only in a particular, slightly more pricey form (high Rebaudioside A).

Finally we got organised and launch date was set for 1st December.

Observant readers will note that today is a little beyond that deadline. Mmmmmm (thoughtful, 'I wonder how that happened?' noise). In our defense, being one month and eight days late is not considered seriously tardy in the world of product launches. It's practically ahead of schedule.

I'll be blogging some Stevia baking trials as soon as Junk Free Jan is over. The reason is, I'm not sure if it's allowed. I think part of the mission is to avoid pumped up flavours. So far, so good. I've made it to day 5, judging by the daily banana count..

My Daily Banana's #4 and #5 were both just a stand-alone, un-enhanced banana. Note our completely un-earthquake proofed shelves in the background. We do tend to lose a few in big aftershocks.

I have noticed a few effects of the low-sugar diet. The reason I think these things are due to the sugar-free aspect is that wheat and industrial oils are not prevalent in my diet anyway. BUT sugar is. Fruit, dried fruit, crumbles, cakes, bars that are stuck together with honey...

#1. I'm losing weight. I'm not sure how much yet (my scales are broked, probably a good thing..), but my previously tight jeans are now loose. These are jeans I couldn't wear when flying home from Melbourne two weeks ago, as they were too tight for in-plane comfort. Also, today I ... ok, this is going to sound weird...

I was standing with my feet together, doing a yoga stretch and something felt odd. I realised that my knees and thighs weren't touching. As in, a few days ago, when doing that stretch, the inside of my knees would connect. But today, there is a gap. I've lost weight on the inside of my knees. How about that?

#2 I had a low blood sugar moment. As in dizzy, nauseous, shaky hands, felt an immediate need to sit down. That was two days ago while shopping in a hardware store (more about that exciting project tomorrow). I headed to the cafe and did something I haven't done in years. Had a latte.

It had a very artistic swirly design.

That did the trick, and since then, no strange symptoms. I think my body missed its usual mid-afternoon Lara Bar fix but has now adapted.

I know that milk has lactose in it, but lactose has no fructose - it's a combination of maltose and glucose. So, I think that's ok.

Today is the last day of The Programmer's christmas holidays, and Mamasana has a plan to cook us dinner on the BBQ (outdoors 'grill' for my American readers), so I'd better sign off. I'll be back tomorrow with a mixed bag of special things:

* A special message from The Princess (if I can sort out some audio file issues)

* A special update on some construction work

* A special revelation about my study plans.

Adventures in Sugar Free Valley

2012-01-05T19:01:00.000-08:00

My Daily Banana #2 with yogurt and nut butter

I have discovered something about living gluten-free, processed-food free and low fructose. It is not impossible to do, but it can be inconvenient. It takes organisation. Planning.

Yesterday I blasted out the door to do my groceries, in the usual careless manner, and after a few hours of shoppercise, was famished. No problem, I thought. I'll just eat my Lara ... uh oh. Lara bars are mostly dates, which are a dried fruit, and therefore verboten during Junk Free January.

I poked my nose into the Coffee Culture food cabinet, not really expecting success, and therefore not experiencing disappointment. Most things contained gluten, and those that didn't, contained sugar or nightshades. What to doooo?

Feeling a bit desperate, I grabbed a can of coconut water. For all I know, it's exploding with fructose, but it sufficed until I could get home and attack the almond butter jar.

Obviously, if I'm going to succeed at this, I have to find some portable compliant snacks. Being inconvenienced is a sure way to switch on my 'can't be arsed' gene.

I'm thinking, things like:

Nuts
Cacao beans
Raw Veges
Kitchen inventions involving protein powder and nut butter..

Any other suggestions that don't involve fruit or dried fruit (my usual 'grab and go' snacks) will be enthusiastically tested.

Then there was the issue of last night's dinner. Such a complicated little dish.

Yes. Soup.

The big pot of water was boiling away, and I was just unwrapping a Massell cube, when I thought I'd better check the ingreds. Second on the list? Sugar.

But, how to make a soup without stock cubes? *perplexity*

I studied the list: sea salt, palm shortening, sugar, dehydrated vegetables (onion, cabbage, garlic, spinach), yeast extract, rice flour, corn maltodextrin, natural vegetable flavours, dehydrated parsley.

Then I did my best to replicate it, using the items in bold, which I chopped finely or pummeled in the mortar and pestle. I added a large handful of mashed thyme, oregano, marjoram and tarragon. With heaps of sea salt, grated ginger and a dash of soy sauce, it worked wonderfully. The best soup of my life.

The prep did take half an hour longer than usual though.

The proteins were finely chopped pork and scallops, which cooked in my special brew along with onions, carrots and a little wakame seaweed.We have been on an Asian-inspired food kick since living on the stuff in Melbourne.

Until dancing naively into the land of sugar-free-ness, I was not aware of how often I would grab a handful of dried apricots, or a banana. I'm not saying doing that is unhealthy, but I'm enjoying the exercise in self-awareness. It reminds me of practicing Eat-Stop-Eat, the intermittent fasting protocol. I became quickly aware of how often I nibbled out of boredom or because I was feeling nervy.

As another welcome side-effect, I am truly relishing my daily banana. Here is My Daily Banana #3. A banana smoothie with coconut milk, some almond butter, maca, and unflavoured WPC - the latter two swiped from the stock room (bwahaha). I drunk half before remembering to record the event via photo.

My Daily Banana #3 - smoothie

In the next few days I should find my stride with this Junkfree Jan business and look forward to reporting on exciting improvements in health and sexiness. Well, you just never know..

Junk Free January

2012-01-03T19:06:00.000-08:00

Source

I have to admit, confess, that Junk Free January did not exactly get off to a flying start.

I had two issues:

1. Confusion about the stipulation to avoid fructose. More on that in a minute.

2. I.. erm.. forgot. Last night The Programmer brought home a quality bottle of bubbly. A few hours later I was unwrapping my second or possibly, fifth, nice chocolate when he asked: 'Aren't you doing Fun Free January, or something?'. Oooops.

Moving on! At least, having received an email from Junk Free Jan instigator Matt Lentzner, I have more clues about what to do. I had been bombarding him with annoying questions about fructose avoidance.

Fructose is a simple sugar, a monosaccharide (single ring sugar), which most people know is found in fruit. This is not the only source. For a start, as shown in the enlightening diagram below, it is one half of the disaccharide sucrose ("sugar").

From Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Elliott & Elliott (2009)

Fructose is also found to varying degrees in vegetables and this caused me to fret. If the requirement was complete avoidance of fructose, there is no way I could do it. My life is very vege-fied. It turns out I was overthinking. As clarified on Robb Wolf's site, you just shun concentrated sources: added sugar, fruit juice and dried fruit.

But why the focus on fructose anyway? Isn't it natural and healthy? Well, yes and no. The problem is that modern diets contain far too much of it, primarily from sucrose and the popular industrial sweetener high-fructose corn syrup. There is a growing body of research (for example this study) that implicates overconsumption of fructose in prediabetes, inflammation, metabolic syndrome, impaired fat metabolism, increased glycation (damaging bond between a protein and sugar) and wonky cholesterol.

The human body metabolises fructose differently to other sugars. It is a bit complicated, but basically fructose metabolism is not linked to insulin levels, and the breakdown of it bypasses a control step in the glycolytic pathway leading to an excess of metabolites. The end result mimics that of excess alcohol metabolism on the liver. The most well known effect is increased fatty acid synthesis.

That having been said, I've not seen any studies that have used fruit or even dried fruit to achieve these negative effects. However, I'm ok with limiting these things for a month. Matt suggested keeping fruit consumption to one piece a day, but didn't consider the fructose in veges to be of significance so that's what I'll do.

Perhaps I'll start posting a 'my daily banana' pic?

My Daily Banana is delivered by a well trained, fat ginger cat.

Is anyone else getting into Junk Free January?

A rocking start to the year!

2012-01-02T02:24:00.000-08:00

It is a fair observation that somebody started the year with outstanding enthusiasm. Today, ladies and gents, we had 48 aftershocks. Impressive, yes? Only the 5.45 a.m. effort met the gold standard criteria of 'cat scatterer', but the kitties didn't go far. I think they have learned that the outside world shakes too.

In between and during shakes, I managed to have a productive day. So did the garden. The haul to the left represents the last of the broccoli and the start of the courgettes (zucchini for those of U.S origin).

The courgettes are manic. They grow from tiny to football sized in three days; I'm toying with the idea of doing a time-lapse. We also got our first garlic! At $6 for two heads, self-supplied represents a fiscal victory.

I will need all that my garden can deliver over the next month, because I am embracing Junk Free January. I'm in the Triple Threat Set - no wheat, no sugar and no industrial seed oils for the whole of January. Sugar free Foodie Fridays? I will need some ideas, please....

Apart from giving my nutrition a prod, this years fitness regime will be a continuation of my usual mix - yoga, interval training, weights, zumba and walking. Kek wrote a great article today about excuse busting when it comes to healthy habits. I need a bit of that on quaky days. It's all too easy to think the day has been challenging enough without breaking out the Bodyrock. Sometimes, it's a valid point, but usually a short, hard workout clears the mental fuzz.

Today, however, I did none of the above; I just unpacked the Sana stock that was manufactured when we were in Melbourne. Bags of WPC may only weigh 1kg, but after squat-lifting 600 of them, I'm feeling it everywhere. I also got started on the thrilling fun that is stocktake. *fun-filled expression here*

Then I made nut butter.

Ceres Almond Butter jar filled with Sara's Almond Butter

In the process I busted my second mini-mill.

Clearly the Kenwood Multipro mini-mill can't cope with life at Casa Sara. When its predecessor broke, Kenwood asked a lot of nosy questions about what I'd been trying to mash. 'Nuts, dried fruit, cacao beans and frozen bananas' caused a raised eyebrow, but they replaced it. I don't think I'll try that again. It was only three months ago. They might think I'm a serial mini-mill murderer.

Does anyone else make nut butter? Or do you just buy it? I'm beginning to think that the per jar savings are more than offset by the rate of kitchen appliance attrition!

Christchurch readers, here's hoping for a calm night. It has been 47 minutes since the last aftershock; a very promising development. Everyone else, please spare a thought for us that have been living with earthquakes and 'aftershock swarms' for more than a year. You might also consider that if I can dedicate to Junk Free January** and fun-times a week fitness* in such conditions, then so can you.

Let's do it!

*This means I chose my daily exercise based on what seems like the most fun at the time. I realise there is potential to abuse this system, but so far, I haven't.

**I think you can still sign up for this if keen. Head to the website here.

Goodbye, 2011!

2011-12-30T18:49:00.000-08:00

It's the last day of 2011, and what a rollercoaster year it has been! Ups and downs.

The 'Ups':

This guy:

And these little things:

Razzy - the fat one

Miranda - the ferocious one

Monty - the laid back old boy

Mog - the loony nutter

Whom allow me to live with them and make me laugh. A lot.

The Biz, which has grown by more than 100% in 2011 and keeps me entertained.

The Degree. I finally finished my Health Science degree and, to my great surprise, did well enough to be awarded a postgraduate fees scholarship for 2012. (booyah!)

An explosion of baby boys in the family. :D Almost too much cuteness for one year.

Travel

Europe. Six wonderful weeks with my overseas family, which includes Miss J, a young lady who consistently amazes me. Yes, it's real. She has no fear.

Melbourne.

Friends, Family, Neighbours, Blog readers (too many even to mention, you know who you are).

Food

Many, many memorable meals, snacks and Foodie Fridays.

And coffee..

Fitness

My favourite workouts this year:

Bodyrock
Yoga Downloads
Wii Just Dance
Zumba Fitness

and

Walking in nature

As regards the bod. I've achieved my goal of maintaining 2009's fatloss and incrementally improved my nutrition.

Fave Blogs

Fit Body Fifty
Inside and Out
Love Veggies and Yoga
Dietgirl
The Fitnessista
Whole Health Source
Seth Roberts

********************************

The Dramatic Downs.

Deaths in the family: Aunty Trish from cancer, Brosana's mother-in-law from a rogue flu. Sad.

Apart from those losses there was only one other 'down' - times 20,000 (approximate number of aftershocks). I don't want to beleaguer the one big challenge of 2011, but it's too obvious to ignore.

Christchurch Cathedral - November 2011

Quakes. And more quakes. According to Wikipedia, this year we experienced the second, third and tenth most vicious earthquakes ever measured, as regards peak ground acceleration (also the seventh, but that was last year).

Because of these earthquakes, about 200 families are facing the festive season with someone missing, and many more are suffering wrecked homes, livelihoods and stress. We have virtually no city. A large number of historic buildings in Christchurch are gone forever and, as the quakes continue (a 4.8 just one hour ago), the rebuild is proceeding but slowly. Everyone has adopted a constant state of mental and physical earthquake readiness. It's the new normal.

At this time next year, I plan to report that we have re-adapted to terra more firmer! Surely... Big quakes can stay right here, in 2011.

As for tonight, we are undecided about how to see in 2012. There are two party options, or the equally attractive possibility of just staying home, like old fogies. Tempting.

How was your 2011? Any highlights? Challenges? I'd love to hear about it.

Two things you want but don't know it yet...

2011-12-28T19:20:00.000-08:00

1. Chocolate Zucchini Cake. Our garden is booming waaay past the point of daily consumption. Never mind, there is always baking.

Allrecipes.com describes this cake as 'fudgy', and I'd agree. It is fudgy, gooey soulfood. With undetectable veges.

For once, I followed the recipe exactly.. almost. I subbed half the zucchini for grated beetroot and used choc chunks instead of walnuts. I feel that in cakes, nuts interfere with the smoothness of the cake-scoffing experience. Nut butter, yes, but not actual nuts.

There is a lot of sugar in this cake (two cups). I will make it again using a combination of stevia and erythritol and see if that works. It should. Stevia tends to go well with anything involving fruit or veg.

The recipe is on this link.

An in-process shot. No processor required.

The finished article.

This cake is best chilled. When warm it crumbles.

***********************************

2. These fancy, silver columns: Something new from Santa.

Electric salt and pepper mills!

I giggle with delight every time I season food. These are arguably the most fun kitchen thing I've ever had.

They have a light!

Even when eating by candlelight, or in an earthquake powercut, the seasoning process shall be adequately illuminated.

I don't think we are going anywhere for New Years Eve. We will just stay home, eat cake and play with the salt and pepper in the dark.

And you?

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-25T02:39:00.000-08:00

To all my readers: customers, friends, family, and anyone else that reads this little blog, I would like to wish you a happy and healthy Christmas and fun warm up to 2012. It surprises me that anyone reads what I write and I appreciate you all! ((hugs)).

The lead in to Christmas day was a little challenging. As you know, I had the flu. On the 23rd, I felt well enough to get out, send the outstanding Sana orders for PO Box and rural and do some present shopping. I was about 2 minutes away from the post shop, crossing an overpass, grooving to some loud sounds in The Programmer's red car, when said car gave a violent shudder and lurched to the side. I didn't know what was happening until I saw the concrete barrier (kind of concrete fence along one side of the bridge) split.

Without engaging brain, I put my foot down and got the hell off that bridge. Then I came to a 'stop', if you could call it that, and observed that all cars in the busy intersection in front of me were at a wildly wiggly standstill and gridlocked at some very strange angles.

Unsurprisingly, we had another earthquake. Actually there were two biggish ones. A 5.8 and then a 6.0 later, with a few large aftershocks in between, afterward and, of course, all through the night. Yay.

I continued to the Post Shop with low expectations and indeed they had evacuated. Feeling a little bit shaky, I sat on the lawn with the girls that work there, making jokes about how much disquiet the EQC (Earthquake Commission) must be feeling. Every 'damaging' aftershock is taken as a new insurance event, which I'm sure causes palpitations to the execs. that have to administer the process. The glass wall of the post shop building was bulging alarmingly with each aftershock, so they decided not to reopen.

I finally got The Programmer on the phone and he confirmed that all malls were evacuated and I'd better come home ASAP. Hence cancellation of my shopping plans. Slight panic...

After a very shaky night, like good, hardy Cantabrians, we got ourselves prepped (threw a few emergency supplies in the car) and headed to Westfield. It was remarkably empty for Christmas eve. I had a moment of nerves going into the parking building, but otherwise managed to focus on the task... getting gifty.

On the way there we saw something not-very nice.

The historic Post Office, which was in the process of being restored and rebuilt, is now.. not. They have started demolishing it already.

As you can see it was not only a fabulous piece of Christchurch history, but also practically the only building still standing in this area.

There used to be a historic church beside it. I do get a bit upset about the loss of history in Christchurch, but perked up later when the Christmas socialising started.

First there was drinks and nibbles at the house of Sistaprogrammer.

She has an enormous (several hundred) collection of Barbie dolls, and I snuck in there to say hi to the girls. They are all fabulous, darling:

I was pleased to see a safety rail erected to prevent quake injuries.

Question: do you have a collecting hobby? I don't. I'm interested in things that other people might collect.

Then it was home for present wrapping, and up early today for a Skype with Miss J and then to Casa Familia Programmer for Christmas lunch. They go all out with the Christmas-ifying. The whole house gets a sparkly, happy, magical makeover.

Breaking up the class act was my glass. As I'm still a bit 'snotty', my champers was marked so that nobody else accidentally swigged it and caught the Wombat flu too.

Sistaprogrammer was so offended that she replaced the clothes peg with some gold wrapping ribbon. Much more harmonious to the surroundings.

Familia Programmer always do the traditional communal present unwrapping ritual that I remember from being a kid. It's really fun, even as a grown up (bigger kid).

After lunch we headed over to Mamasana's place for more of the same and to hang with the cousins and their babies. I haven't processed those pics yet.

Well, that's it from me for the night. The Programmer is giving me sad eyes because I'm blogging instead of playing Wii with him. I got him Wii Sports Resort as a present and it looks like it will be double the fun once I head over there to uphand my Wii-mote.

I can take him on the Kendo Swords game, I know it.

Wombat flu and is an inch an inch?

2011-12-21T19:49:00.000-08:00

Inventive girls that we are, Kek and I came up with an ingenious way to prolong the shared travelling experience.

We may now be back in our separate countries, but we are both doing the same thing: Downing copious amounts of the products to the left. Yes, we both have the wombat flu or perhaps the roo flu. Even if it's just a regular old human flu, it's gross. Really....

I knew something was up when I went shopping at the mall and wasn't feeling it. The only thing that seemed good was to head to Theobroma and find myself a chocolate frappe. That's when I realised my throat was feeling hot and scratchy.

Just the thing.

Since then I've quickly traversed the headache, nausea, double blocked nose followed by snot-fest, achy body, night sweats and all the other fun things that come with a viral infection. I admit, I was a bit relieved to find that Kek had it too. Not because my misery needs company, but because the symptoms were so severe I wondered if I was having a re-run of Glandular Fever, especially when my spleen started aching.. (not good).

Just to rub it in, I had to cancel plans to go and cuddle my cousin's new baby. Just . not . fair.

After three days of a concerted attack involving a range of symptom-reducing medicines and virus crushing supplements, I seem to be on the mend. The holy trinity of virus clobbering is lysine, vit C and Zinc. It's also important to keep up nutrient dense nutrition (not chocolate frappes, haha).

As regards other supplements, it is well documented that arginine can activate certain viruses, so it's worth stopping supplementation with that if you get a cold or flu - this is why some people get cold sores when they take an arginine supplement that is not balanced with lysine. I knew all those years in the supplement industry would pay off one day. There you have it.

Nutritious, easy lunch for sickies. Eggs and courgette pan-fried in a little butter and olive oil.

Is an inch an inch?

While at the mall window shopping, I thought about something that was recently a hot topic over on the Whole Health Source blog. Clothes sizing. It's pretty obvious that vanity sizing for women is getting out of control. Depending on where clothes come from, I am anything from a size 2 to a size 12, or an 'extra small' to 'large'. There's no consistency. However, as these sizes are arbitrary, I suppose that manufacturers are free to interpret as they wish.

I didn't realise that this trend is also a problem for men, after all, their pants actually specify a waist size in inches or cms. However, as Esquire magazine found, 'downsizing' occurs in male clothing too. In other words, manufacturers just reinvent the meaning of an inch in order to not call their customer fatter than other manufacturers do. I can see their point: if you are a 32 at one store and a 36 at another, which pair of jeans will you buy? The one that makes you feel good about yourself, or the one that upsets your day?

Waistline vs. Actual Size. Source: Esquire Magazine.

What do you think? Is this a bit crazy?

Have you found that your clothes size has gotten smaller even though you haven't?

The week in carpet and cakes

2011-12-18T01:27:00.000-08:00

Melbourne was AMAZING. We ate and walked and ate and this morning at 1 a.m. our Virgin Blue flight bounced down in Christchurch and we taxi'd home to some very affectionate cats. Of course, being on Victoria time, sleep was elusive. Speaking of the new Christchurch airport, for some reason I'm having thoughts about the carpet (pic to the left) in the international area.

It is supposed to represent the Canterbury plains, as it looks from the air. I agree that it is a fairly realistic depiction of the area per view from an aeroplane window. I'm just not sure that it works as carpet. What do you think?

I was impressed, however, by the new exit ramps from the air-bridge. Deplaning passengers enter New Zealand through a corridor that looks, sounds and smells like a native forest. Above and beyond, I tell ya.

Having got that off my mind, I'll commence with foodie pics from my week in Melbourne; Non-foodie pics will go on the travel blog sometime this week. As for exercise? With Kek as my tour guide it just happened naturally. The woman is a speed-walking machine. On Wednesday I was considering a morning visit to the swanky Novotel gym. Then I remembered Kek's plans to visit every museum and gallery in the city and elected to consider the continental breakfast buffet instead...

The first pic is the back of the yogurt pot from the previous post. Hefty claims for something that I'm sure was packed with sugar and covered with peanut butter cup fragments (well, that's the way I did it).

Tuesday Lunch! There is a time and place for having a lunch that consists of brownie and espresso. Day two of your christmas holiday is the time, and Max Brenner chocolatier is definitely the place.

Later I had a salad and picked up a few snacks. Coconut water and coconut milk are everywhere. Liquid coconut products are the new kombucha.

Glen Waverley, where we were based, is packed with Chinese restaurants, all doing amazing and mostly healthy food that costs nearly nothing. Evening eating involved only strolling down the back streets and trying to choose (..not. easy.). The meal below was in a 'cash only' establishment - small, packed with locals and buzzing.

Mine was the ginger duck on 'dry' noodles (as opposed to the soupy type). The Programmer got some sort of noodle soup.

He made a heroic effort to keep that 'hurry up and take the photo already' look off his face. Partial success.

Green Tea is the standard complimentary beverage.

On Wednesday Kek and I met at Doncaster Shopping Plaza, where I was wowed by the dual novelty of: a) shops that are not falling over and b) Koko Black.

Try not to drool on the keyboard, it's not good for the electronics.

After topping up the caffeine and chocolate levels, Kek kidnapped me and cooked a salmon lunch to die for.

I think she intends to put the recipe on her blog, so I'll link it up once it's there. This dish is food magazine worthy.

Thursday, we walked a thousand miles around Melbourne, which seems to have an endless number of cute, eatery-packed streets and malls like this one.

No words necessary really... shops like this are a visual, as well as actual, feast.

Friday was a test of physical endurance. The afternoon kicked off with gallery visiting and cafe hopping with Kek, who was looking absolutely stunning, mate. This is not just an opinion - it was confirmed loudly by a friendly man we met at Flinders Station. He was a little bit drunk, but this is not important because, by my observation, so was everyone else in Melbourne. It was at least 5 pm, what do you expect on a Friday?

We quickly progressed to some fizzy stuff that cost a lot.

and some fried goodies to hold us over while we waited for the boys. Then we went in search of real food.

It took a while to find a place for dinner, seeing as Melbourne is in full-on end of year party mode. We took our time, stopping for refreshments when necessary.

Finally we got on a tram and found this place. I took a picture of the sign so that I'd remember the name, but can I? No. Terrible photo, sorry. The claypot chicken was fantastic and the service was probably the best I've had anywhere. I tipped that waiter my last Australian $5 note.

After dinner we accidentally came across dessert at The Old Paper Shop and unanimously voted to uphold the fine tradition of Foodie Friday.

<<< flourless chocolate cake

>>>>>>
Caramel date pudding

Lemon meringue pie
(below left)

crazy, huh?

It's beyond what the mind can take in.

Ta daaaah! My week in food! Just what the world needs to see! As for keeping my waist in line, this was not a difficult trip. I just practiced all the tips that I wrote about in the Travelling Light article and ran around after Kek. Active friends are a definite bonus when it comes to having your cake and fitting your jeans for the flight home.

Cuddling Babies!

2011-12-12T15:47:00.000-08:00

Hello! This is just a quick catch up post, made at greatexpense on the hotel network. Currently, I’m in Melbourne,which is one of my favourite cities in the world, and the home of fellowblogger, Kek - that’s her in the first pic.

Yesterday she picked me up and we drove around drinkingcoffee, eating food (too busy gossiping to even take a food pic! The shame…)and meeting some of the locals. The locals are cute.

Everyone knows about Koala bears, right? They are thecutest, and laziest, animal in the world. They also have some mad sleepingskills and can make the most uncomfortable place look like a double king at theHilton.

These guys are at a wildlife park, which I think was calledHealsvale (will amend later if that’s wrong). While we were there, we had a unique experience with babywombats.

This is Florence.She is a 9 month-old orphaned wombat that has been hand raised and is destined for anAmerican zoo (I think San Francisco)when she is grown up. Wombats are prone to traffic accidents because they ambleacross highways in a slow and nonchalant fashion. Often they are mothers with ajoey in the pouch that survives. It wasreally hot and sunny at that point, so excuse the squinty-eyes look I’mpulling. Florence looks goodthough. She is about a quarter of the full-sized version. Adults weigh about 40kg.

I’ll do a longer post on the travel blog about adventures inMelbourne, but obviously there hasbeen food and I’ve been snapping it with the LG. I leave you with…

Chinese Hot Pot

You cook your own food in the hot pot. Everything is provided raw.

Tuna roll with suspiciously orange coloured wrap.

Seafood Soup

One of many espressi. Hey, it was a 3 a.m. start...

Self-serve yogurt in many flavours (choc, lemon, green tea). Mine has crumbled Reeces peanut butter cups on it. What an idea!

Calendar Season is Upon Us!

2011-12-08T01:59:00.001-08:00

Deeeeck the halls with.. calendars? I think we have enough of them to deck our hall and the bathroom!

It's nice to be appreciated by the suppliers, but it really does get a bit out of control, and I just don't know what to do with my stack of small, generic desk calendars, each with a different company logo.

The accountant's, however, is one I look forward to and tend to use because it's genuinely pretty. This year it's Wide Open Spaces.

Included are dreamy pics like the one below of Waiheke Island.

I accidentally flashed. I'm still learning to drive my new LG P970 - I have no self control whatsoever when it comes to gadgets. You could probably see that coming from the case of the 'I wants' that was developing in my last post... It's not as good as a real camera for pics, but at blog quality, it's really not too shabby, and will be a lot less obvious when I'm photographing my lunch in public.

Following are some more pics of the my day. As it's 11 pm and I've been in hard-core whey protein concentrate mixing mode (it's like vanilla-scented boot camp - go, go, go!), it's the best I can do.

This cat (below) is Mog. The Programmer accidentally locked him and Monty in the office last night (he was in there figuring out 'Double Twist', which is like the iTunes for android). They caused havoc, knocking books off the shelf and breaking a framed drawing that Miss J did for me. When they were released, I got the cat hex eye.

He does it well, huh?

Later I tested the phone camera on dinner, which was leftover pizza. That is, a fermented pizza base with all sorts of leftovers, including last night's sweet potato curry, on it and a bit of cheese.

The base in my life. I love these. Really. I'll never cheat on Purebread pizza bases.

His:

Hers:

I used hommus as my 'sauce' (tomatoes are evil nightshades that make my joints hurt).

His and Hers (awww, kissy, kissy..)

Finally! a chance to use these new organic capers. One thing about capers puzzles me though...

Why do they always have to be in this crazy jar that is so hard to get them out of? All capers are in the same style of jar. I think caper growers must amuse themselves by imagining the ways that people try to get their capers from jar to destination. My favourite technique is to use a teapsoon handle, but this is not ideal and I lose a few..

.. there must be a tool for this, something like a .. caper spoon? (Google.. 'caper spoon').

Of course. Where have I been to not know about this? The number of capers that could have been saved from rolling under the oven! Oh, the caper-manity!

Yes, capermanity. Clearly it's time to go to sleep now.... :D

Mess, Marmite and Muesli Bars

2011-12-04T22:13:00.001-08:00

Yesterday I wrote a post and decided to sleep on it before hitting 'publish'. Today I decided to take the classy route and not put it out there in the public arena.

Let's just summarise: I had a negative experience at the organic shop. I elected to walk my credit card right out of there, went home in tears and amused The Programmer and his workmate by Google Talking him the message: I have broken up with the organic shop. They were having a work conference around his monitor at the time.

Henceforth all my organic shopping love shall be bestowed on The Liberty Market and Piko, where people are nice to customers. And that's - all - there - is - to - say about that little drama.

As an equilibrium-restoring exercise, I decided to make some muesli bars.

The Programmer eats a lot of muesli bars; he runs on carbs. Much of the time I'm not thrilled with either the contents of supermarket bars, nor the price of better quality ones. Natures Path are really good, but also $9 a box.

Consulting Chef Google, I found this recipe and then, as usual, proceeded to follow it but loosely. I did not write down what I put in there, but the basics are: four and a half cups of various dried ingredients stuck together with 100g butter, half a cup of honey, a little sugar and, in my version, some nut butter. The recipe on the link explains the technique. It's very easy and there is no cooking at the end, although I did pre-toast the oats, chia seeds and ground almonds.

From memory, my dry ingredients were:

* Dried apricots

* Oats

* Chia seeds

* Ground almonds (roughly mashed in the mini mill)

* Raisins

* Roughly cut dark chocolate

The chocolate completely melted when I poured the butter/honey/sugar/nut butter mixture in there. I think if you want choc chunks the idea would be to press them into the top when the bars have partially cooled.

So far, judging by the rate they are disappearing from the fridge, these are meeting with taste tester approval. I've never had Chia seeds before. To me they taste just like sesame seeds, at least in this recipe.

I think I'll need one of these to continue with the current missions in my life. These include:

- Sorting out postgrad study (yes.. still.. don't even get me started)

- Cranking out a zumba workout

- Deciding whether or not buy this android phone, the LG Optimus P970. Sad story, but my iPod is irrecoverably dead (short version: never try to replace the battery in one, it is life-threatening surgery). iPod deprivation is quite trying as I use it every day for yoga podcasts and german lessons. My phone was an ultra cheap little thing that I regretted buying from the moment I first tried to look at the screen in a sunny place. I want to replace both with one device, but not an iPhone. Does anyone have an Optimus P970? Do you love it, or is it 'meh'? The salesperson was so excited about this phone that I thought he might wet himself. I'll make sure that guy gets my commission if I buy it. He made my day.

- The continuance of Project Big Cleanup.

You know that phase where you have to make room to put things away and this just makes more mess???

- Dispatching a load of kiwi stuff to the ex-pats:

Miss J and I have a couple of silly traditions, one of which is the regular shipment of decorated Marmite. I think purple and sparkly should meet the requirements and get me Aunty points.

- Get the business ready for us to be away for a week in Aussie.

So, that's me sorted for at least until we fly out on Sunday.

If you are in the mood to comment (and I love to hear from you!) here is what I'm keen to know:

Can you advise me on the purchase of an android phone? Is the Optimus P970 a goodie?

Do you have a favourite muesli bar recipe?

Will you come and clean my house for free while I'm on holiday?

Foodie Friday - Choc Caramel Biscuits

2011-12-02T20:21:00.001-08:00

It was a very Foodie Friday yesterday. Check out these droolworthy specimens!
<<<<<<<

These are a variation on last weeks Stuffed Dark Chocolate Cookies, which were based on this recipe from the Love Veggies and Yoga blog.

Just in case you missed it, here are the ones I made last week.

Similar but different, yes?

What I had in the fridge was a can of condensed milk that had been opened and was just calling out to be turned into caramel. Then it wanted so badly to live inside a chewy chocolate biscuit (who wouldn't?).

There is one little thing I should mention. I did crunch the numbers for these, but they are scary in extremis. My biscuits were average to large and about 500 calories each. I never said Foodie Friday was a low-calorie experience... It's sooo much more than that.

The reason mine were such calorie bombs is that I sandwiched the caramel between two biscuits and called it one fat bickie. It's a two for one deal. As with all energy dense foods, you can keep your dignity by just eating half. I'll put a link to the stats at the end of the recipe.

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Once again, the source recipe is here.

Choc Caramel Biscuits (Gluten Free Version).

Makes 6 large biscuits.

Ingredients:

One can of condensed Milk (390g)
110g rice flour
30g corn flour
120g sugar
60g butter
1 large egg
15g cocoa powder

1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt

75g finely chopped chocolate (milk or dark, I used half of each)
5 dried apricots, chopped.

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 320F.

First prepare the caramel. If you are forward thinking enough, the correct technique is to simmer the can of condensed milk in water for about two hours. If you are going to do this, be very careful that the water is never allowed to evaporate to below the level of the top of the can. Exploding condensed milk cans are not something you need in your life.

As my can was already open, I made my caramel the cheats way - by simmering it in a saucepan, stirring constantly until it was thick and caramel-like. You usually get some dark flecks that are caused by the milk scalding on the bottom of the pot. These don't affect the taste of the caramel and can even give it a nice slightly 'toffee' taste.

Once you have your caramel put it in the fridge to cool.

Soften the butter and mix with the sugar.

Put all dry ingredients as well as the egg and vanilla into a bowl or processor and mix. Add the butter and sugar. It will be a thick mix. My food processor whined like an unfit person in minute 19 of a 20 minute HIIT session.

Fold the chopped chocolate and apricots into the biscuit mix and let it chill in the fridge for at least 10 minutes.

Once everything is cool divide the mix into twelve flat, biscuit shaped portions. One of these makes the bottom and one makes the top of the biscuit. Put a tsp of caramel in between the two and seal around the edges. There was some caramel left over in my case (which is accounted for in the nutritional analysis for those that are concerned about such things).

Place the biscuits on a lined baking tray and bake for 15 minutes. They will look underdone, but aren't.

Let them cool in the fridge.

Munch.

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Nutritional stats are here.

Really.. so good.

And finally, a larger version of the first pic, just to ensure you don't miss anything important.

Kale Chips

2011-12-02T00:37:00.001-08:00

I often get asked how to make kale chips, which are basically kale massaged with olive oil and baked until crispy. They are a healthy snack for 'I want something salty and crunchy' moments, but they do have a down side.

Making kale chips is an activity with a low reward to effort ratio. Like any challenging assignment, there is always a moment half way through where you wonder what you got yourself into and whether you can be bothered seeing it through. Then the chips are ready, you eat them in one minute and stare at the empty plate wondering what you just did with the last hour of your life. The things we do for the love of salty snacks. I only make them when I'm in the mood for an activity which requires patience and concentration. Here is how to make kale chips.

Buy seeds and grow your kale (or buy some pre-grown and go directly to the washing stage).

Harvest your kale from the garden or the shop, break it into more or less 'bite sized' pieces and give it the wash/spin dry, just in case there are bugs on there (natural hazard of organic food - there is a sign up in the organic shop which informs 'no charge for slugs').

Massage olive oil into the kale until all the leaves are shiny.

Turn on the oven to about this place - round knob on the left. As you can see, the numbers on my oven disappeared long ago. I really should get a new one, but I'm .. my grandmothers granddaughter (don't throw it out unless it blew up in flames or grew legs and ran away). It's probably about 120.

Lay the kale leaves out on oven trays. I use one open rack near the top of the oven and one sitting on aluminium foil near the bottom of the oven. This prevents oil dripping on the bottom element and causing a kale chip fire.

The ones on the bottom rack have been sprinkled with finely grated sheepsmilk pecorino.

I am devoted to this brand, Blue River.

Check constantly. It works best if you turn the chips or they can curl around the bars. If they are too hot, they will turn brown and you'll have to start again. They should end up dark green, shiny and very crisp. Taste testing is a good idea (but also a way to diminish the final yield).

As the chips are ready transfer the finished ones to a bowl, sprinkle them with salt and put more raw ones on the trays in the oven. Be careful. It's easy to just munch them as they become ready, leading to an anticlimactic net result.

Here are the ones with pecorino on them. These ones are maybe a tad overdone. They still tasted great though.

Eat a bowl (say 70g raw kale) of these and you will get 635% of the RDI for Vitamin K, 75% of the RDI for Vitamin A, 30% of the RDI for magnesium and 23% of the RDI for copper. Kale is also naturally high in vitamin C, but this may be destroyed by the cooking process. It also has small amounts of all B vitamins except B12 which is only found in animal foods.

Of course, if you skip the washing process, you may end up with B12 enhanced kale chips. Now there's a thought....

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Today I spent a gut-wrenching two hours installing Disqus as the new comment module for Sanaworld, so please check it out and let me know if it's an improvement. I say 'gut-wrenching' because I messed it up and deleted all comments on the blog, from the entire blog history. Luckily Disqus have a system which caters for people that skip the recommended step of backing up the blog before making changes, and the comments were not lost forever.

So, please, give it a go! Let me know how YOU like your kale chips. Have you made them? Do you like them, or they just too much pain for not enough gain? Or does the whole idea sound like something only hippies would eat?

In with the New

2011-11-30T18:56:00.001-08:00

It's a whole new month, the month that comes right before a whole new year. doesn't everything just feel so sparkly right now?.

I thought I'd do a fun post about new things happening in my life. As usual, I've got a lot on, starting with the monthly task of new stuff in the survival supplies.

It's hardly a glamorous task but every month I rotate out the oldest stuff in the emergency food supplies and replace it with new.

Then I make sure that all the water bottles are full with new water from the Reverse Osmosis system. We have about 50 stashed in the wine rack and cupboards. These are also rotated as we use them, sterilised and re-filled. We also have couple of 20L bladders, but I only refresh them... never. They are not for drinking.

The bottle at top right is the most essential earthquake survival item in the house: cab sav - I kid you not. If we had an aftershock and I was out of wine, I'd probably progress directly to Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.

New Study

I've made the decision to commence my Masters degree in Psychology next year on a part-time basis. I had a major decision to make regarding staying with my Alma Mater (Massey) or jumping ship to Canterbury uni. I've decided to defect. Of course, this all assumes I gain acceptance to the program, which has not been confirmed yet. (x-ing fingers and toes).

New Job (?)

Yesterday I met with someone about a potential 'research and writing' position, which may be happening early next year in a field of great interest to me. I'm not going to say too much about that just yet, in case it fades into a big nothing, but I'm really hoping it comes off (so that would be some more x-ing of body parts?).

New Food

Tempeh. Here is some I tried today, with kale chips. You know... my reaction right now is that anyone who says they like this stuff is lying. However, I know that trying something once doesn't allow your tastebuds to get over the shock of a novel flavour. I'll finish the packet before heaping judgement on it.

If anyone has a foolproof way of making Tempeh not taste like mouldy soybeans, then please enlighten me.

Coconut Water. The first time I had coconut water I really didn't like it. That was this brand:

I got it off the shelf, so it was not perfectly cold, and it tasted sort of musty. Recently I decided to give it another try, as my nutritional analysis suggested I could do with more potassium in my life and coconut water has lots of it. This time I grabbed a can from the fridge:

Mmm, yummy. Nature Factor Coconut Water is a taste winner. At $4 a can, it won't be an everyday thing, but it will make a regular appearance. I also eyed up a whole coconut in the organic shop, but was daunted by the thought of having to break into it. It looks like this would require power tools.

New Whey Protein

I've just emptied the bank account and ordered up a new batch of WPC for Sana. This means we are about to mix flavourings, which makes the facility and every human that enters it, smell strongly of vanilla for days. Very Christmassy. I always weigh the flavourings myself. It's just such an expensive product to make and if something went wrong, it's best to know who screwed it up, right? It's not like I have control issues or anything..

New Adventures (yayyy!)

The Programmer, being a big-time super-duper programmer extraordinaire, is now and then sent overseas to train software users or supervise some crucial installation process. Last week he informed me that they were sending him to Melbourne. Would I like to tag along? Let me think about that for 0.0000001 seconds.

I'm anticipating a mid-December week of doing nothing and getting to spend some time with my awesome friend Kek from Fitbodyfifty. The only way this trip could be any better is if The Programmer announced they were designing a new system for Koko Black and that we would have to spend all day there, every day.

Maybe next time.. :D

What's new in your life?

Travel quiz. Where's Sara?

2011-11-29T00:22:00.001-08:00

Sugar and serviette from Cafe Florian, Venice

Somehow Blogger managed to completely swallow my weekly catch-up post! I find it a little Stephen King when technology behaves unexpectedly. Have any kindle readers read 'UR'? If so, you'll know why I always hear spooky music in my brain when inanimate entities behave as if they have a will of their own...

Back here in 3D, however, The big clean up continues! I'm pretty much finished with the squeamy stuff and have progressed to the fun boxes - travel memorabilia. Who knew I was such a hoarder?

The Programmer and I have done a fair bit of exploring the globe since we met, and before that we both travelled solo. I tend to keep things like tickets (of all sorts, including entry tickets and plane tickets), concession cards, information brochures, hotel leaflets and, apparently, any other thing that will trigger my memory of where we went and what we did... for example, the sugar sachet from Cafe Florian in Venice (pic above). This was swiped at the most expensive afternoon tea of my life, I might add (I have the receipt to prove it), but where else can you listen to a four-piece orchestra, get treated like royalty by a multi-lingual career waiter and gaze at the basilica in Piazza San Marco? I can't think of anywhere...

All of this digging through metro stubs has been making me travel-nostalgic, so I started looking through our travel pic archives.

I tried to find a photograph of us together somewhere exotic, but there are hardly any! That's simply because.. well, our cameras are not 'point and click' and The Programmer was an early adopter of digital. Therefore it was super hard to find people to take snaps of us that could work our gear, especially back in 2003 and that goes double for countries where we don't speak the language. We have tried a few self-timer shots, but they are.. usually really embarrassing: someone has an 'is that thing on?' look on their face or has blinked or looks fat. So instead we have me at the top of the Eiffel Tower in 2003 (see, that's 'Auckland' I'm standing under):

And, us hanging with Mozart, seven years later in 2010. These days, most people have digital camera skills. The main concern is choosing someone that doesn't look like they could outrun you should they think your equipment is primo.

Me in Prague 2010

I think this one's a truly cool pic. The ghostly people effect is something tricky that allows a realistic feel for the crowd, but without identifying anyone. I had to hold reeeeeally still, and I'm no model that can do this with a relaxed expression (sorry, Programmer).

Lastly, this is me having a proud moment - and pulling a goofy expression, last year. I think I'm chewing a sore-throat lolly and trying unsuccessfully to look like I'm not.

So, here is a question for you today. Where am I in this photograph?

The Mozart picture will give you a clue. It's in the same city.

Edit: Thank you Kek for giving it a go! Here I am standing in the stairwell to the historical offices of Dr Sigmund Freud in Vienna.

Let's work it, work it (and eat it, eat it)

2011-11-24T20:36:00.001-08:00

This week, I admit, has been less than supremely organised in the arena of working out. However, I've not been sitting around watching CSI. There has been a lot of box hefting (see previous post), an interval-type workout and some hill walking.

Wednesday was one of those days when The Programmer got in from work feeling unmotivated to go for his usual run and I hadn't yet achieved anything sweaty, so we elected to wander up the lower part of the Rapaki track. In the pic, I'm probably scoping for sheep poo.

On Tuesday I cranked out an interval workout that is based on the Bodyrock You Da One workout.

Here are the exercises in the Bodyrock vid and what I did instead, and why.

1. Surfer kick out - no modifications

2. Running man press - I did standard mountain climbers instead

3. Kick press left leg

4. Kick press right leg - did not use sandbag but did a one-two punch with 4kg dumbbells instead

5. Press jacks - I did pop squats instead

6. Three-point abs - no modification

Using this online Tabata timer, I worked 30 seconds on, 10 seconds 'off' (well, that's just enough time to get ready for the next exercise) for 12 minutes, which is 18 rounds. By the end I was a sweaty, shaky mess. Actually, by the 6th minute, I would have been cursing Zusana (I think she designed this workout) under my breath, if I'd had spare breath to curse with. Don't be fooled by the brevity of the workout; it's intense.

As regards my limitations, the main one is that lifting anything over my head while I'm either standing on one leg, jumping or otherwise unstable, is a very reliable way to upset my SI joint and achieve weeks of amazing pain. It is better to just not do that very often, and especially when I'm aiming for maximum reps rather than giving my full attention to perfect form. Everything else is tickety-boo, even plyometrics, so I don't exactly feel disadvantaged when it comes to working my bod.

And how to balance up all that activity?

Foodie Friday!

Foodie Friday kicked off later than usual due to a certain mad keen photographer having an inescapable urge to capture the partial solar eclipse.

I know, he's talented, huh?

By the time he got back, Mamasana, her hub and me had pretty much demolished the basil and sourcream pasta:

Sauteed, spiced chicken mixed with rice pasta broccoli, basil pesto and sour cream. Sprinkled with grated pecorino at serving time. Very easy. I don't really 'do' complicated when it comes to food; who has the time for that?

For dessert, I presented the main event, Stuffed Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies from the Love Veggies and Yoga blog.

I'd made them earlier and took a pic. The 'stuffed' part, I didn't actually do. I just mixed in every piece of random confectionery or chocolate that I had in the house. There was a sliced-up raspberry licorice in there that worked very nicely. I also subbed in some almond nut butter for some of the real butter, just because I like it.

When it comes to following recipes, I only ever use them as an inspiration. Most of the time this works out, and rarely it fails into something inedible which just somehow doesn't make it to the blog. ;)

I'd recommend these cookies (what we call 'biscuits' here). They are a wonderful 'chewy on the inside / slightly firm on the outside' texture that appeals to me deeply in a treat food.

As well as the food, it was awesome just to chill with family. We spoke with Miss J on Skype and then had a surprise Skype with Brosana, my brother. Of course, the guys got to chatting about.. car radiators and perished rubber.. as you do. I love how technology brings loved ones closer, even when they are far away.

I'll be back tomorrow with a weekly round up and exciting news about an upcoming adventure. (eeee!)

Past to Future

2011-11-24T00:40:00.001-08:00

Two days ago, Mamsana did the most devious thing a mother can do to their child. She turned up with her car full of boxes. In those boxes was all my "stuff". You know.. that "stuff" that you dump at your mum's house and just believe she will look after forever?

<<< after I slaved for 20 hours to make a Death by Chocolate cake for her birthday and everything....

Therefore, instead of the workout I was intending to post (that will now be tomorrow), I'm going to post about the hopefully therapeutic process of coming face to face with my eating disordered past. Not that this is Mamasana's fault. It's just a side-effect of dealing with a pile of boxes, some of which should have been labelled as belonging to Pandora.

1991 was an exceptionally bad year for me. My Binge Eating Disorder was in full swing and basically dominated every waking moment. During that year, and the ones immediately following, I journalled obsessively. I filled many, many fat diaries with my thoughts and records (anyone with an eating disorder 'records' things - food, exercise, self-imposed rules, attempts at insight) as I sorted through my issues. In 1995 I left Dunedin and those journals were packed away and forgotten about, until yesterday.

To say that they make disturbing reading is a dramatic understatement. It is blatantly obvious in retrospect that I was truly unhinged and didn't understand my behaviour - remember, Binge Eating Disorder was not an official diagnosis back then. Included in my files was a pamphlet from the Otago University Clinic that described eating disorders. My symptoms didn't fit any of them. I knew I wasn't anorexic, I wasn't purging so couldn't be bulimic. I wasn't obese. I was just eating a lot ('binge' was not in my vocab.) and couldn't concentrate on, or care about, anything except food and my weight. I concluded that I was just weak-willed and needed try harder and record more obsessively. Even just seeing these journals again threw me into an agitated state but I was strangely compelled to look inside anyway, I suppose curiosity, self-flagellation, I don't know. I sat there, in my box-filled spare room, surrounded by coloured journals and wondering how the hell I ever got into such a state, and puzzling equally hard about what to do with them now. Throw them away?

As a Psychology student I find this record of disorder somewhat fascinating, but I'm not sure that it's personally helpful to keep the past alive in that way. I would be absolutely mortified if someone else read them. I think I'm going to biff them. I already did a quick pass and copied the poetry that was in there - it's poetry, and I was really into 'stream of random words' at that stage. I can't even understand them when I read them myself; they're hardly revealing or descriptive (some would say, much like every blog post on Sanaworld..).

What do you think? Have any other readers had to deal with this sort of lucid reminder of bad past times? I'm interested. How did you handle it?

Go The Greens!

2011-11-21T21:47:00.001-08:00

No, I'm not (necessarily) outing myself as a supporter of the Green Party on Saturday - election day here in NZ. I'm just observing that my world is progressively turning green as spring finds its stride.

I'm on a mission to get more veges in my life, especially of the leafy green variety. What's in leafy greens? Lots of good stuff. Vitamin A, Vitamin K, Calcium, Vitamin C, folate and magnesium for a start.

If you are not sure what all of those do, and feel the urge for a bit of food-nerdery, a good resource is the Linus Pauling micronutrient information centre.

The Problem

The problem I had with getting greened up was primarily financial. I don't know if this is a global issue, but buying fresh leafy greens is freakin' expensive. Here in NZ, you are looking at about $6 for a bag that lasts one meal and is mostly cos or iceberg lettuce, which aren't nutritional wunderkinder. In addition, it is usual to find the leaves a bit wilted and smelling slightly 'plastic bag'-y. It is also difficult to find anything organic except lettuce and kale. Sad situation.

The Solution

D.I.Y

As you can see, we do not have an enormous yard and it is dominated by three massive vege boxes, two of which are covered. The covers keep the bugs out and give cold-sensitive plants a chance if the weather craps out, but mainly the tents represent cat-proofing. You know what a freshly dug area with a few small seedlings looks like to a lazy feline? The perfect place to go potty. Yes, we are that considerate to our cats; we even provide a nice soft toilet area. .. nicht, nicht, nicht (shoo! get outa there, you dirty little....!).

The first year we had just one box (the one closest in this pic) which spat forth a sparse crop that was full of caterpillars. It was insane. Every time Miss J came to visit, I'd put her on caterpillar control and send her home with 30 or more new 'pets'. Her mum really appreciated that.

I had heard that after a serious bug attack, the next crop will be somewhat immune. I didn't believe it, but whoever spoke it, spoke truthily. The next year we had hardly any caterpillars and this year I actually haven't found one yet. We have also planted the natural insect repelling plant pyrethrum amongst the veges and now and then deal to invaders with a rhubarb/garlic/cayenne spray. It stings the eyes, but seems to deter critters. This year our main problem is eating everything or giving it away before it seeds.

Like a proud parent, I must now show you my garden pics, please feign interest or I'll be hurt:

Behind the boxes there is an area where we have just planted zucchini. We have also discovered that certain root veges (e.g. carrots) don't grow well in boxes. The gardening guri (Papaprogrammer and my grandad) say that carrots need 'cold feet' and harder ground - the boxes may be too warm and too soft.

Alongside the path is where the herbs live. The mint from Sunday's post is right there on the left.

With all of the above I am empowered to continue my sacred quest for green smoothie nirvana. Today's was pretty good.

Fresh mint and baby spinach leaves
Raw cacao beans (I first smashed them to a powder in the mini-mill)
Frozen banana
1/2 Scoop unflavoured WPC
Maca
Sweetened with mogrosides. This is a fruit-extracted intense sweetener that I'm researching as a possible addition to the Sana range. So far I'm impressed. It's quite a lot like stevia but without the 'licorice' aftertaste. It's also crazy expensive and you can't get small quantities. I'll have to think on that one and crunch the numbers.

Disclaimer: whenever I say 'we' in the above post, please mentally substitute 'The Programmer', who has done 99.9% of the garden work. I am more involved in the post-production phase.

Are there any other gardeners out there? Please out yourselves and share your wisdom. I know Shauna is about to undertake the daunting task of turning an overgrown allotment into a vege laden paradise and I'll be watching that process closely, from a distance, you know what I mean. I'm not convinced that I'd want to be sticking a spade into frozen ground in Scotland, but I'm sure that people less lazy than me would rise to the challenge. Or perhaps, try it and decide to retire to the pub and wait for the thaw. It could go either way. :D

Coming up: workouts I have loved to hate lately.

Catch up and Confessions...

2011-11-19T17:24:00.001-08:00

It's a beautiful Sunday here in Christchurch, warm, sunny, pancakes for breakfast.. :D Of course there was that slightly tense, over-the-fence discussion with our new neighbours about how high-decibel death metal does not enhance outdoors pancake eating.. but never mind that.

Let's talk about the week in workouts and green drinks. I must confess, the caffeine reduction is not really going to plan.... (does it ever??).

The Plan

As per last Sunday, my health mission for this week involved:

2 Yoga Sessions (one done, one to go)
2 Bodyrock 'type' (bodyweight interval training) sessions (done and done, with seriously complaining muscles the next day both times - I will post details of these some time next week)
1 Zumba (done)

4 Green Smoothies (done)
No more than 3 espresso a day (ermmm.... *look away, please*)

The one that did it - my fourth espresso on Friday. I cracked.

So far I've achieved all workouts except for one yoga, which shall be mastered straight after this post. I just polished off my last green drink, aaaand my fourth espresso of the day. On Friday I had five. However, this level of intake is still a vast improvement on the extreme-caffeine lifestyle of the last few months. I'm barely keeping ahead of the withdrawal symptoms. Isn't that just pathetic?

The green drinks are growing on me. I have discovered that fresh mint is fabulous in smoothies and baby spinach doesn't taste like grass. My mint plant is obliging me with enough leaves to last all summer.

Since I planted it about four years ago, the spearmint had been a tiny, sparse little plant that wouldn't grow no matter what I threw at it. Then, this year, we had a serious winter. We had two snows, which is unheard of in NZ, and I felt sure that my herbs would be permanently traumatised. Not so. They have nearly all fought back with astounding speed and are the biggest and bushiest that I've ever seen them. The exception is the dill, which seems to have died at the original location but sprung up in other places. Lesson: hard times can make you stronger (Garden Philosophy 101).

This Week

I am going to continue with last week's plan for the rest of November (is this an apostrophe catastrophe? Someone please put me right if it is..).

Two yoga sessions from my fave yoga download place. Did you know that most of the 20 minute classes from Yogadownload.com are free? No excuses whatsoever.

Two Bodyrock sessions, or similar. Even though I have to modify their workouts to cater for my rehabbed injuries (shoulder, back, knee, hip - yes, I'm a mess), and even though I have to shut my eyes when I see the presenter use scary bad form, I love the community atmosphere on the Bodyrock site. It's truly international and there is no bitching, just support, and everything there is gratis. I am cringing for the day that presenter Sean Light puts his back out hoisting a sandbag though...

One Zumba class. It is more like a party than exercise and just like money, you can't really have too much dancing in your life.

How did your week go? Did you kick your exercise goals into touch? (rugby saying, for those that are not familiar).

Also, I'm looking for something fun for December, preferably that can be downloaded. Any ideas?

Piccy Post

2011-11-18T16:01:00.001-08:00

Every week I take far more pics than ever make it on to the blog, so this is one of those 'random pics that wouldn't otherwise see the light of day' posts.

In any case, the main thing on my mind has been the pressing, yet slightly boring and not-very-blogworthy question of what to do about Postgraduate study. I am barely over the shock of finally finishing my degree, only to find that being 'finished' realistically represents being half-way to something useful. And of course, there is also that awesome little business that is growing like a weed and could do with some serious TLC. What to do? what to do? Post a few foods pics?

<< Pic 1: A groovy green smoothie. I'm 3/4 of the way to fulfilling my green drink commitment for the week. Today's one was a mix of coconut water, WPC, mint leaves, banana, spinach leaves, maca, pinch of kelp salt and avocado. Coconut water is high in potassium, which my recent nutrition tracking exercise suggested I don't get enough of.

2, 3. BBQ dinner at Casa Mamasana. She just moved into a new house and the weather is encouraging some outdoorsy eating lately. Yay! here comes summer!

4. Last night's pesto, tuna, asparagus, olive, bacon pizza on a fermented grain base, step one:

5. Step two - smother with sheeps milk pecorino:

6. Step three:

Step four: ((Nom nom...))

7. Sunrise over Sumner

8. Green smoothie in process:

And the last one... kumara (sweet potato) curry with yogurt and all sorts of greens from our currently lush garden.

I'll be back tomorrow with an update on the weekly workout schedule, confess all as regards caffeine intake and post the plan for next week.

I hope you are all having a fantastic weekend. If you are up to something exciting, please comment me. I'd love to be distracted from this daunting pile of postgraduate information that is supposed to help me locate my destiny... :D

Healthy Happenings

2011-11-15T16:49:00.001-08:00

Lately I've been indulging in all sorts of very healthy food. The healthiest food there is, according to science. Do you know what that is?

Happy Food!

Food that is fun, made with love and eaten in a relaxed atmosphere with good company. For example, this sandwhich, eaten on the deck with The Programmer, who made a surprise lunchtime visit. He was probably attempting to bust me lazing around watching Crime TV now that studies are over for the year (I move quick).

I've read a lot of research on health and longevity and noticed that most 'diet and exercise' books miss something molto importante. The longest lived and healthiest people don't just eat an unprocessed diet and keep moving. As The Okinawa guys found, health and longevity tends to occur within a strong social network that doesn't habitually 'do stress'. This is the forgotten factor, and the thing which attracted me to Health Psychology.

I'm not saying that a strong social support system will give you immunity to steady diet of hamburgers, but I do think that there is not much healthy about a supreme diet and strategic exercise plan if it only adds to the stress of daily life or isolates you at meal times. Your health and fitness habits should buffer the stresses of life, not add to them.

In order to really healthy, it may also be necessary to deal to life's stressors directly. In my case, I struggled with implementing my health and fitness plans and battled daily fatigue until I took action as regards a horribly stressful working situation. Closing my laptop and walking out was a radical and terrifying move, but also one of the best things I ever did for myself. Health is a synergy of factors which must be present in the right quantities - just like..... baking a cake.

Which is what I did yesterday. Maybe you can guess which cake it was and why I made it?

Here are some clues:

Result: Happy Food, a happy birthday to Mamasana and an encore blog appearance of Death by Chocolate. For certain, there are worse ways to go than with a face full of chocolate heaven.

I balanced it with a killer Bodyrock session before and an equally killer green smoothie this morning.

A question for you: what part does happiness play in your health and fitness plan?

A Working Out Kind of Week

2011-11-12T18:48:00.001-08:00

<<< This is a picture of Razzy. In his dreams.

Yesterday, so that I could focus on studying for the last exam of my degree, The Programmer headed off to do some photography. Judging by what I found in the pics archive, he must have found Orana Park. OR, he has found a way to capture the soul of your average domestic pussy cat. They are all lions on the inside.

I thought it would be fun to start posting my weekly fitness plan and health goals. I'm not saying that I'm guaranteed to adhere to that plan precisely, but it's a good place to start.

This week I'm aiming for five sessions: two yoga, two full-body workouts and one longer session involving cardio. The plan is:

M: Power Vinyasa Flow #1 in the evening. I have my final exam on Monday and will need to stretch it out.

T: Bodyrock workout of the day (probably modified to work around my 'issues')

W: Rest day - will probably do some walking.

Th: Power Vinyasa Flow #4 - 45 minute class

F: Zumba

S: Bodyrock

S: Relax

In terms of nutrition, I have two completely serious missions:

1. Cut back the caffeine.

It is truly astounding how dependent I can become when exams are taxing my little brain. My goal this week is no more than three a day. I'll reduce again next week.

2. Green it up.

I've been thinking about how good I feel when I actually drink a few green smoothies. The goal is to down at least four next week.

Stock image. It's been so long I couldn't even find a green-drink pic in my files!

If you have some good green smoothie combinations I'd love to hear what they are. Mine all tend to taste like grass no matter what I put in there. ;-/ I need to find a download for delicious green smoothie juju.

That's it! Nothing complicated or too demanding. Feel free to join me. We can all get fab and firm for christmas (and then undo it all in two days). :D

To continue on the green theme, I'll leave you with another pic from the SaraProgrammer photo files. This is a Kakariki, native New Zealand parakeet. Just hanging out in the water, as you do when you are 'New Zealands Next Top Model Bird' working the camera.

Real World Fitness

2011-11-11T19:36:00.001-08:00

This post is about fitness. Specifically, my fitness, and what I'm doing about it. I admit, the last year has not been my best year for fitness consistency. I've had.. challenges. Work, study, family life, travel, gym getting trashed by an earthquake.. just the usual things that life throws your way.

Over the last few months I've retrieved my fitness mojo, eased myself back into something like a routine, and remembered how much better I feel when I make the effort. Exercise is the ultimate stress buster and mood lifter.

The Gear:

Most of what I use is in the pic above. Yoga mat, dumbbells, swiss ball and medicine ball (7kg). The db's are 1kg and 4kg. I have heavier ones but use them rarely. I usually work out in the office because it has a sound system to rival any nightclub. The garage is in the process of being turned into a functional gym, but at the moment it's a bit of a mess.

However, stuffed in the corner is this thingy that I use for dips and pullups:

I also have a cycle in the lounge, which moonlights as a clothes horse.

I've got a few DVD's and Wii games:

Zumba and Wii Just Dance are my faves.

There are also a large number of downloads on my computer and iPod from Yogadownload.com, and I use this online tabata timer several times a week - It adds that little something to a workout to finish with a round of applause and the ROWR of a lions roar.

Now and then I pull workouts from either Bodyrock or Crossfit, but mostly I construct them myself so that I can work hard without aggravating any previous injuries.

The Routine:

My specific criteria for exercise:

It must be fun
It must be time efficient

If it bores me, I just won't do it and hours of training is not compatible with my busy life. Most of my workouts are 20 minutes long, with an occasional 45 minute yoga class or session on the stat. bike.

I exercise 4-7 times a week and mix it up. This generally means 2-3 yoga sessions and 2-4 'other' sessions, at least two of which will be a timed 'circuit' style workout using resistance - bodyweight and actual weights. I choose five exercises - mixing upper and lower body, and work 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off using the tabata timer for 20 minutes. So that would be four circuits.

I devised one of these three days ago that involved a lot of squats and lunges. It was fun at the time, but had me raiding the Sana L-Glutamine stocks the next day to try and tone down the muscle soreness.

Whether L-Glutamine has an effect on DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) is a point of contention in the scientific literature, but it does seem to work for me. That is, I notice more muscle soreness when I'm not taking it. However the critical scientist in me would say that I'm usually not taking it because I'm not training regularly (and therefore more likely to get sore when I do). Gawd, what has university done to me?

Tomorrow I'll be back with my training plan for next week, but now, as promised...

Foodcam

Kumara and kale chips.

A spring salad.

Last nights seafood pizza on a fermented crust.

Riding in The Red Zone

2011-11-10T17:52:00.001-08:00

This is an earthquake related post, probably most of interest to my fellow kiwi readers. I'm trying to work out how to put the Quakytown posts on a different tab, but I'm not sure that blogger allows it; all posts must show on the main page as well. If you are looking for a food or fitness post, check back tomorrow. :D

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Last weekend The Programmer and I took our lives in our hands and, along with the entire Familia Programmer (his ma, pa and sis), took a ride through The Red Zone, which is the badly earthquake-damaged Central Business District of Christchurch.

Since the earthquake of 22nd February, which those in the know will recognise as the second major quake that hit Christchurch - the first was on 4 September, 2010 - the city has been cordoned off and closed to all visitors. Understandably, there has been a constant risk of aftershocks and the distinct likelihood of being squished by falling masonry.

The Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (CERA) has just started regular bus tours of the CBD, which the on-bus representative informed us is now 'the country's biggest construction site'. She went on to warn us very seriously that visiting it was highly dangerous and that we 'might not survive'. Before the bus started its engine, we were given one last chance to save ourselves. Nobody got off. I think we are ready to confront what is there and start healing.

Below are some images taken from the bus. We were not allowed to disembark, but the bus made stops at sites of interest, such as the Cathedral and the empty spaces where the CTV and Pyne Gould buildings used to be. The latter two are where most of the fatalities occurred.

I was seated next to a visiting research student from Boston that did not know Christchurch before the damage and was interested in my running commentary. I'm sure he understood my pain at the state of C1 Espresso.

The building which most caught his interest though was the Grand Chancellor hotel, which you can see to the far left of the above picture (that's his camera in the foreground). This hotel is currently like the leaning tower of Pisa. Boston kept saying 'oh wawwww, I kent believe it, that's craaaaazy' (how to do an American accent?).

Chloe's Bar - this is where my Grandparents took me for dinner when I passed School Certificate (5th form). It used to be called something else, can anyone remember what it was?

One of the more interesting things that has happened is the appearance of pieces of Christchurch past. This old Polson's sign (below) had been hidden from view for many years, but the building constructed next to it has now been deconstructed.

Things are not looking too flash for the 'Two Fat Indians' restaurant (red building with green awnings below), although it's still up, which is a good sign. This is where The Programmer had his leaving dinner when he went to England. The shipping crates are bracing a piece of historic facade which is hopefully going to be saved.

The shipping crates from the other side, and a tree. If only buildings could be made as resilient as trees..

Southern Demolition doing their thing... demolishing stuff. Seems like a job that boys might enjoy.

In terms of emotional response, I have to say that I didn't really have one. I was expecting to feel something, but the closest I got was a sense of, well, annoyance. Like, 'who made this mess???'.

Being stuck on a bus made it a bit like looking at pictures, and we have seen plenty of those! I would have liked it if the windows were able to be opened. Then we could have experienced the atmosphere - the smells and sounds. Also, the fact that the city looks so different made it hard to connect with what we were seeing. Empty spaces where there used to be recognisable buildings and a sheer lack of people made it difficult to fit the 'Christchurch as I remember it' puzzle piece to what we were seeing. The Programmer said that he was most affected by Victoria Square, which had some beautiful gardens in it. These are now completely unkempt and wild.

The overall impression was pretty much what I expected. Work has begun, but it's going to be a long time before we have a functioning city. If you live locally, I'd recommend the bus tour. It only costs $2 and might be good for you. Exposure therapy they call it in my Psychology textbook. Get ye exposed, it helps the mind to adjust.

See you tomorrow with a fitness post and I know you must be getting desperate for some foodcam, so I'll plug in the SD card and see what's on there that's foodie. :D

Foodie Friday.. (belated..)

2011-11-08T17:35:00.000-08:00

It may be Wednesday, but I've been wracked with guilt over not having fulfilled my Foodie Friday obligations. I need to redeem myself.

Last night I extracted my brain from the study bubble long enough to have my mum and her hubby over for dinner. As usual, I was scrambling for a dessert that could be invented from the things I already had at home. Voilà!

<<<<<

They are pretty energy intensive for their size, so it's best to freeze the leftover ones and ration yourself (because that's what happens around here, would I lie to you?).

Fruit and Nut Butter Balls

These little dollops of deliciousness are based on a very simple idea that can be easily customised to include whatever you may deem necessary for the occasion - dried cherries, chocolate chips, rum..

I made these ones from scratch, which included the time consuming pre-process of nut butterising the almonds. The recipe will work just as well with any type of nut butter from a jar. I was just working with what was in the cupboard (gahhh! no nut butter!)

Ingredients

Makes 17 balls

260g almonds or 280-300g nut butter
100g dried apricots, chopped
2 medjool dates, chopped
20g raisins, chopped
2 tsp sugar (or your favourite substitute - honey, maple, agave, any would be fine)

120g dark chocolate

Optional:

Tbsp almond oil or extra lite olive oil (this may be necessary if you are making the nut butter from scratch, depending on how dry your almonds are).
Tbsp of liquer or spirit. This is the *adult version*. We used grappa.
Tbsp fruit juice or other sweet substance for soaking the dried fruit. If you are using liquid sweetener or making the *adult version*, this is not necessary.
Baking paper.

Method

1. Mix your dried fruit with whatever sweetener you are using and leave it to sit for at least 10 minutes. Example options for this step include:

Tbsp liquid or melted honey
Tbsp agave or maple syrup
Tbsp fruit juice
Tbsp fruit juice plus 1-2 tsp sugar
Tbsp alcohol and 2 tsp sugar (the *adult* version for dinner parties)

If you are starting with nut butter, go now to Step 3.

2. If you are starting with almonds, head over to the How to make Nut Butter articleand nut butterise your almonds as per the instructions there. Don't forget the earplugs.

3. Mix the soaked dried fruit with the nut butter, discarding any additional liquid - you don't want the mix to be 'watery'. It should be dense and sticky.

4. Form into balls.

For the Food Nerds: if you want to match the nutritional panel, each ball will be about 25g in weight. Click here for the panel. I know that some of my readers prefer not to think of food in terms of numbers and I want to respect that by not having 'in your face' nutritional info splattered on the blog. For those that do want to be correct to the panel: it is based on the 2 tsp sugar + 1 tbsp grappa variation.

5. Melt the chocolate over a very low heat, stirring to ensure that it doesn't burn. It is best to use a double boiler for this.

6. While the chocolate is melting, grease your baking paper if you are using it and lay it out on a plate or tray that will fit in your fridge (perhaps I should have included a pre-step of 'clean your fridge'?). It's also okto skip the baking paper, but the balls tend to stick to a plate or tray without it. You just need to exercise care and concentration when removing them.

7. Once the chocolate has melted, drop the balls one at a time into the chocolate and swirl them around until every surface is covered. Then scoopthat ball out and arrange it on the tray/plate.

8. Once all balls are covered, put them in the refrigerator until the chocolate has hardened. Try to give it at least an hour. Disclaimer: I assume no responsibility whatsoever if you can't control yourself andget caught out with melted chocolate all over your hands and face.

Just to give you a closer look:

I confess, I had one of these for breakfast today. I was lying in bed contemplating a day that consisted primarily of reading food legislation and festooning it with post-it notes for my open book exam. Motivation was lacking until I remembered what was sitting in the fridge. One track mind, that's me.
Let me know if you make this recipe and how it works out for you. I'm interested in any particularly delicious variations and will link you up on this post and on the Sana site.

Ahhh...

2011-11-07T15:35:00.000-08:00

Yesterday's exam, Therapeutic and Abnormal Psychology, was one of those where I looked at the essay questions, perceived that I'd been completely off-beam with my study efforts, and then sweated through 2 hours of pulling any and all relevant info from the corners of my memory.

Today I'm relaxing before going back to the grind for my last exam, which is next Monday. There is no Sanaworld post today, but I've put Verbania Part #2 on the travel blog.

The pic to the left is both informative and educational, yes? How do you manage to keep a 6 year old amused for an hour on a ferry boat? It's easy! You go all Project Runway with the baby wipes and a few plastic toys. Then you hold a runway show, choose the winner and say 'Auf Wiedersehen' to the loser. Then you do it again.. and again.

Two down, two to go!

2011-11-02T22:32:00.000-07:00

I know, I know, that by posting this piccy, I'm breaking probably 5 out of the 10 commandments of blogging, including:

#2 Thou shalt not post any pic wherein thy ist not made up (eth) properly and..

#4 Thou shalt not be pictured with vino in thy handeth.

It's just been that kind of week and.. mmm.. thou shalt just be understanding. Also, thou shalt marvel at my office sound system. The Programmer does not do things by halves.

Today was my second exam of the semester and the next one is on Monday. My first exam, on Tuesday, was the Principles of Nutrition one, and I studied my butt off for it. It was fine. Today's exam, Forensic Psychology, I did my best with but feel like I could have done better. It was an open book exam consisting of 20 very easy multi-choice questions and two deadly essays. One was on the challenging the legitimacy of the legal system, as per Dennis Fox and the second was on using negotiation to enhance the agenda of Social Justice. Mm hmm.

I'm exhausted.

However, I've been attempting to keep up my regular exercise routine (three yoga session + three 'something else' every week) and put some thought into how to get through without relying too heavily on takeaways. So far, this week has seen:

Chicken soup (for the student soul):

and numerous blender concoctions that provide good nutrition without putting me to sleep. This was today's pre-exam blenderfest:

It's boysenberries and my vanilla WPC. The sauce is just a little chocolate melted with maple syrup and honey. I had to do it on the stove because my microwave broke.

I'm not sure why, but it has just died a death. The light comes on, and the food rotates in good microwavey fashion, but there is no heating. I probably blew it up zapping my wheatbag to volcanic temperatures every night.

Tonight I have a plan for something with pumpkins and a recycled chicken soup - it just gets better and more mineral rich over a few days if you leave the bones in and keep adding veges.

Do you have a busy meal for those crazy days when time is short and life is demanding? I'd love to hear it. Send me a recipe and I'll give it a go. :D

More pics, less words

2011-10-27T23:31:00.000-07:00

Well you know what's been going on around here! Lots of textbook reading, note writing, mnemomic creating and... not much time in the kitchen.

I confess, last night I resorted to Hell Pizza (their site is cool, you can pick up the little demons and throw them around). Also, the person that took my order assured me that it was business as usual to cater for ~~crazy~~ people with strange food preferences. 'No tomato sauce? Sure, no problem, we can do that, ~~weirdo'~~.

It hasn't all been junkfood and butt-sitting though. I actually tried to take some pics of me doing a Wii Just Dance session, but in spite of painful amounts of self-timer camera set up, I ended up with a lot of glorious underarm shots like this:

And then, when I tried a different angle; this:

Le sigh... I will try again after exams and some instruction from The Programmer that knows stuff about cameras.

Food pics!~ (it hasn't all been pizza and kebabs)..

A glorious lamb rack with veges from our garden:

A cherry icecream smoothie (and quite a few cherry smoothies, unpictured. I mean, a smoothie looks like a smoothie, doesn't it?)

Dinner with kale chips from our garden! My kale seems to have gone from tiny to giant in a couple of days. We have four years of compost on our garden and, I swear, the stuff is like vege kryptonite.

Quick lunch. Eggs with herbs and apple. Did the job.

Ingredients for a moroccan dish. Anything with cumin, cinnamon, dried apricots and ginger is a winner.

Another garden salad with a little beef and a lot of sauteed mushrooms and homemade mayo.

And now it is Friday night and I've just sent The Programmer out for organic kebabs.

What are you up to? Please don't tell me I'm the only one that is looking forward to a date with The Science of Nutrition - 11th Edition?

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Foodie Friday will resume next week, once Girlyswot Fridays are done with~!

Antioxidants, Active Rest and the AB's

2011-10-23T23:44:00.000-07:00

I was just lamenting my lack of an appropriate photo to head up this post, when I realised that actually, I do have some recent pics of the All Blacks. My father and aunt ran into them recently at Brisbane Airport and whipped out the Canon D20.. as you do.

In these pics they are not looking so flash, having just suffered a crushing defeat to Aussie, but last night, all was forgiven. The whole country partied as they snatched victory from France and won the Rugby World Cup 2011. Go AB's~!

Over at our place, there was a little dinner party, with The Programmer and I, Mamasana and her hubby, just returned from service in East Timor. I made a roast chicken dinner and macaroons:

It was a super fun night, and I am so glad they won! Not because I am particularly rugby mad, but because it would have been insufferable to have to live through weeks of blow-by-blow game dissections and attempts to assign the blame to some poor soul, event or entity - probably the coach, the rugby union, the plastic waka or even earthquake stress. Also, it is kind of nice to have something for the country to celebrate and feel great about. It's been a hell of a year for NZ.

Today was a public holiday - not because of the cup victory, but because it is 'show day', so The Programmer and I headed into town for a coffee and to see how the rebuilding is coming along. I think we both had earthquakes heavily on our minds after hearing the terrible news about the Turkey Quake yesterday. I also needed to stretch my legs having enthusiastically thrown myself into an hour of Zumba rapido yesterday, which I haven't done for a while (ouchy!).

Apparently there is a container mall going up and I thought we might be able to get a bit closer to town. After all, it is supposed to open next week. I'm .. having my doubts about that. Before heading out, I whipped up a smoothie using frozen blackcurrants, newly discovered at the Liberty Market organic shop.

It turned out too thick to drink, so I spooned it.

Full of age and disease fighting antioxidants.

With that antioxidantising my insides, I was ready to tackle a walk around part of the city cordon. I'm in the process of setting up a separate blog section for Quakytown pics, but for now, here are some of the iconic Arts Centre, which is the historical University of Canterbury.

This first one shows where the turret used to be (the wooden scaffolding), with the actual turret on the ground.

Now, I'd better go check dinner (which includes kale chips from my garden) and then get back to study. The Principles of Nutrition exam looks major and they don't give many clues as to what might be in it. I'll just have to know everything in the textbook. How hard can that be?

Foodie Friday - Apple Crumble

2011-10-21T21:16:00.000-07:00

This week, along with every other student in NZ, I will be in 'head down, bum up' exam-prep mode. It's pretty intense. I'm not allowed to leave my office except to eat, sleep (what's that?) and .. use the facilities. It's full study lockdown over here. How is it at your place, fellow student(s)?

As promised, Foodie Friday went ahead, but I needed an uncomplicated recipe. No time to babysit melting chocolate chips this week!

Apple Crumble

Fruit crumbles are my go-to dessert for any time I'm in a hurry, or invited to a 'bring a plate' event at the very last second (anyone that knows us will confirm that my family has the collective middle name of 'oops, did I forget to tell you??'). Everything in the mix is standard kitchen stuff and the recipe can be made with canned fruit if fresh supplies are depleted.

My recipe is based on the Jamie Oliver one but I've jazzed it up significantly, on account of his tasting too much like healthfood and not enough like dessert. I'm all for healthy desserts, but not to the degree that you'd might as well eat a bowl of oats.

Ingredients:

Makes 12 servings

The fruity bit:

850g chopped apple

tsp cinnamon

1/4 cup raisins

The crumble:

200g rolled oats

100g flour (I used rice, you could use any type)

110g granular sugar (e.g. demerara)

150g butter (cubed)

tsp vanilla essence

1/2 tsp salt

Method:

To peel or not to peel? I never peel my apples because, as mentioned, I'm usually rushing when I make this dish. However, you get a quite nice 'apple saucy' result if you do. Do it your way.

Cut the apples into smallish cubes and boil them in a just a little water. You are aiming to steam them to 'soft but firm'. You don't need a lot of water as the apples will release some as they cook.

While the apples are steaming, prepare the crumble. I used a food processor but you could make it by hand, rubbing the butter in as you would with a scone mix.

Put the rolled oats, flour and sugar into the food processor and mix them.

Add the vanilla and salt, then add cubes of butter while running the processor.

Keep going until all ingredients are thoroughly combined.

Once the apples are ready:

Tip the apples into a large, rectangular baking dish (or whatever you have!). The level of wetness you want is up to you. I tend to tip out most of the excess water, but it's ok to leave it there.

Sprinkle the cinnamon and raisins over the apples.

Spread the crumble topping over the apples/cinnamon/raisins.

Bake for 20 minutes on a moderate heat and serve hot. It's very nice with Greek Yogurt, or with 'other things' you might have lying around... (see what we did after the pic). The recipe keeps quite well in the fridge and can be eaten as a type of soft slice the next day or reheated. I have not tried freezing it. I've also crunched the nutritional stats for it and uploaded them here, for those so interested.

What we did:

Well, firstly, as a matter of postly balance, let's look at something supremely healthy and nutritious for minute (1, 2, 3 ... 60):

My garden is greening up the world at the moment. I'm so impressed, and at $6 a bag for salad greens, we are saving a bucketload by foraging in the back yard boxes.

Nice, green, healthy stuff. Just keep looking at that for a moment before I corrupt you.

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We soaked our crumble in Grappa.

It's really hard to remember who exactly came up with this idea, but it was a genius, inspired plan. I bought this bottle of Grappa for The Programmer when I was in Verbania, from an amazing little shop that was packed to the rafters (literally) with all types of local product.

If you are unfamilar with Grappa, I will tell you that it is the most awful alcoholic substance in existence. However, finding myself unable to resist the urgings of the shopkeeper in Pallanza, I came home with two bottles. This one, with honey in it, worked rather too well when poured all over the crumble. From that point the evening got a bit.. fuzzy around the edges. :D I'm sure you can imagine.

I have amusing memories of buying this potent little bottle of glow because, for probably the only time in my life, I had the linguistic advantage over Miss J, and it drove her crazy. She was listening intently, and realising that the shopkeeper could understand neither English nor German, began butting into the conversation with 'what did he say?', 'what does that mean?' and 'Aunty Sara, what are you talking about???!' It was so cute and funny. Of course, after that she probably took up some online study for 6-year olds and mastered Italian in four lessons..

Friendy Friday

2011-10-20T19:56:00.000-07:00

Hello! What day is it? Friday!

As you know, around here, the last day of the week is a.k.a Foodie Friday. I'm thinking of an apple crumble, and there will be pics tomorrow.

Today is also Friendy Friday and I'd like to give a big shout out to fellow blogger Kek, who over the years, has proven herself to be one of those people that knows how to be a friend. We met years ago, when we were both doing a Body for Life competition and graduated from e-friends to 3d-friends and more. (Per the link - I would 100% recommend slathering someone in brown goo as a means to solidifying a friendship. I just can't think of a better way..)

I mean, how many people do you know that when invited to a party, would reply five minutes later, 'I'm just booking flights now'? We do not live in the same country. You see that 'Professional Blogging for Dummies' in my Kindle? That was a gift from Kek, who noted my publicly pained efforts to update the blogs and decided to buy me a Kindle gift.

Unfortunately, I thought the Amazon email was spam and deleted it, but we got there eventually. I'm under strict instructions not to read it until after exams though. ;) I only had a quick look.. promise. Apparently, this book will impart some kind of blogging superpower. I'm almost scared.

I'd thoroughly recommend dropping by Kek's blog, and be sure to say 'hi', she's friendly, most of the time, but not before two espresso (espressi?) in the morning, so watch out for that. :D

Foodcam

2011-10-18T02:30:00.000-07:00

I just finished what could only be described as 25 minutes of 'trance yoga' ;-/ I've had a cahrayzee kind of a day and sitting on the 'to do list' all day was this, taunting me:

* Yoga

At 9.30pm I decided to, like Nike, just do it. No mat, no change of clothes, no podcast, just 25 minutes of random yoga flow to entranced.fm - one of my favourite sites for streaming background music while I'm working. I liked it and have that nice, floaty feeling that should happen after a yoga sesh. Hear ye, there is never any excuse to miss your planned exercise, even if skinny jeans ≠ yoga pants.

But, today's post is not really about yoga, it's about noshin'. It's miscellaneous foodcam, which is where I offload all the foodie pics on my Compactflash and see what's been happening in the kitch.

The opening pic is pumpkin fritters. This is a very interesting, unifying time of year. Southern and Northern hemispheres are both in the season of pumpkins. You may recall that last year I accidentally grew a beast.

Snitchy pussy-cat in there for scale. As an earthquake orphan, Miranda reserves the right to be always grumpy.

Due to constant earthquakes, I totally forgot about the garden and by the time I remembered, there was a giant pumpkin thing there. This year, I was so quaked out that we didn't even sow any pumpkins, but they are readily available, and cheap. I try to roast up more than I need so that there is always leftovers for fritters and .. pumpkin smoothies (yes, you must try before you judge..).

The fritter ingredients are: 100g (ish) pumpkin, 2 eggs, cinnamon, a little sea-salt, dash of vanilla. These are all pummeled to a thick paste in the mini-mill and cooked in dessert spoon sized blobs. I use a mix of coconut oil and butter for cooking - this seems to give the best texture. I've never had success with this as a pancake - it always burns before the middle cooks. I've sprinkled erythritol on the one in the pic and that's a side of organic yogurt.

What else is on my camera? A protein pudding. With chocolate cooked in to the middle of it. Mmmm. This is not a regular food for me, but study just brings out my lazy, microwave using, chocolate-craving side.

Next up. Oats. As part of trying to increase my Thiamine intake, I've decided to rediscover oats on a more regular basis (if my joints start playing up, I'll reconsider, but so far, so good). These are slow cooked whole rolled oats, with dried apricots. The apricots were cooked in with the oats, which gives a nice chewy sweetness.

Just to wreck the vegan-ness of it, I then stirred in some yogurt. I seem to be going through a yogurty phase. And.. again with the chocolate.. *looks sideways*. Someone must have put that in there. While I was eating carrots somewhere else.

I have a huge selection of snacky bar type things in the fridge, and sometimes I get around to eating one, if I'm too busy to smoothify something. This is a Raw Rev 100 calorie raw food bar. It is tiny. Delicious but very sweet. Generally I'd say that bars with dried fruit, nuts, seeds and agave tend to be quite calor-horrific for their size and as such, not really a great snack for fatloss.

As a nutritious brain-booster when stuck in the study bubble, however? Just the thing.

This last pic can't really be considered foodcam. More like used to be food cam? Or, not really in my case, seeing as potatoes are evil nightshades that make my joints ache.

I had no idea that when she visited, more than 8 months ago, Sistasana had stashed a bag of spuds in a place where I usually only keep cleaning stuff and empty food containers. So it was very freaky when I opened the cupboard and one of those pink tendrils was creeping out at me, feeling its way out from behind a shelf. I think I squealed and had a quick, involuntary plyometric workout by jumping around a bit.

Don't try to tell me you would have stayed calm and zen in the face of that thing. I don't know what my subconscious thought it was, but the reaction was not rational.

Now it's time to try and prize Razzy from his spot on the office couch and head off to bed. I won't be blogging tomorrow, as it's time to organise the summer production run for Sana, but I'll be back on Wednesday with a shout out to a very awesome fellow blogger.

Study.. (?).

2011-10-17T00:27:00.000-07:00

Modern Art (kunst) Museum, Vaduz, Liechtenstein

Hello!.. So, I have listened to your feedback and, today, the first day of exam study (ahem..), I also managed to complete a major blog facelift (on all three blogs, for those of you that are so devoted). Thanks to the readers that let me know the popup windows scrolled like a loitering tortoise. I had not noticed that on Sanaworld, but I have been annoyed by this on other blogs, so they are gone. The sidebar is back.

All of which has left little time for actual blogging. I have, however, put a bunch of pics from Vaduz on the travel blog, and will be back with some overdue foodcam (yay!) tomorrow.

C

2011-10-14T04:00:00.000-07:00

This week has been intense, but I kept on it, and as we all know, if you keep doing, eventually it gets done and you have earned your right to watch Project Runway. I am still a little behind on emails, so if you are waiting, just hang in there and I'll catch up in the next few days.

On Wednesday I actually submitted an assignment at 2 a.m. in the morning and reflected on the days, years ago, when working until the early hours was almost an every day thing. Luckily, this time around it was just an exceptional few days; I have no idea how I used to do it. Wait, I DO remember. I did it by being miserable and having no life. No wonder I gave that up.

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To me, this is cuuuuute.

One of the cooler things that happened this week was the arrival of the new bags for the 300g Ascorbic Acids, a popular Sana product. Finding a bag for this product has caused a few headaches because it needs to be lightsafe. We have been using coffee bags, but they have a serious flaw. If even the tiniest bit of powder floats up and interferes with the seal, the bag leaks. This is unhygienic and really, really annoying. We also wanted something resealable and recyclable, and finally, after months of searching, and then weeks of waiting for delivery, I have the bag of my dreams. I've always enjoyed packaging. Everyone has their little thing.

Apart from figuring out a better house for the powder, I also learned something this week about vitamin C in foods. I have been tracking my diet intake pedantically in the Foodworks software, which has been both tedious and quite revealing. I knew that my espresso consumption has a habit of creeping when I am busy, but it was alarming to find that espresso is my number one source of dietary iron (!). Really, Sara? Yes, I'd better sort that out, for sure, and we shall discuss this further later. For now, I want to remind you all about the star of dietary Vitamin C.

Last week I ate my usual amount of fruit and veges, which is quite a lot - at least eight to ten serves a day. My number one source of dietary vitamin C was kiwifruit and I only ate three of them.Three kiwifruit gave me more vitamin C than any other source, most of which I ate daily: bananas, apples, carrots, parsnips, pumpkins, kumara and salad greens. No wonder it's called a kiwifruit. It's completely amazing, just like every other type of kiwi (fruity, hairy or otherwise). :D

Give me chocolate or give me DEATH (by chocolate)

2011-10-08T02:31:00.000-07:00

I realise I have been AWOL for a few days, and today's post will be short and to the point. It's not that I don't love each and every reader with complete devotion, it's just that I've got a Food Safety Plan, AND a 10-article review due on Monday and well.. due to having a couple of days of flu-like blah-ness (which seems to have succumbed to my onslaught of Vit C and Maca), I'm not exactly on schedule.

However, Foodie Friday is a tradition which must be honored, no matter how crazy the 'to-do' looks.

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This, my friends, is Death by Chocolate. It will kill you, with happiness. It's the perfect thing to top off a day that included hard work, hard yoga, lots of veges and a nice glass of wine.

The recipe comes straight off cacoaweb and you can find it here. The only change I made was using corn flour so that it would be gluten free. I cut my cake in to 24 very small pieces. It is super rich and, what's really great is that this cake lives in the fridge and only gets better. It's got fresh cream in the icing, so I'd say eat it within four days, or freeze it (that's the Food Safety geek coming out).

Do you have any amazing recipes that I could try for upcoming Foodie Friday's? Please link me up.

And one last pic to make sure you really understand how good this was:

Food eating, food recording

2011-10-03T22:08:00.000-07:00

The Mortar and Pestle

Last night I actually used my mortar and pestle. This is a little out-of-the-ordinary, because normally it just sits there, decorating my kitchen and making me feel like I'm the sort of person who might use such an earthy piece of kitchen gear.

This mortar and pestle is a gift from The Programmer, and I've already told you about his 'thing' with kitchen appliances. When I finally got a herb garden going, the logical thing was to get something to crush them with, so I headed off to Farmers with my man tagging along. I grabbed a box with the appropriate picture on it and was headed to the counter when I noticed that someone was missing.

I looked back and saw The Programmer had de-boxed several mortar and pestles and was checking them all for weight, colour, sturdiness and other essential things on his mental checklist. 'You don't want it it to slide around on the counter' he wisely advised. Indeed.

So, I have an amazing stone mortar and pestle that does not move when I'm crushing herbs and that I could also use to hold down the whole house in case of a hurricane. It's seriously heavy. And gorgeous. Last night I made a paste to flavour a lamb rack, but you could use this on any meat, really.

Ingredients:

About 1/3 cup olive oil
Two or three cloves of garlic
Three sprigs of rosemary, stalks removed
Salt and pepper
Method
Bash and grind to a paste in your mortar and pestle
Spread all over your meat and cook for the appropriate amount of time (my lamb rack only took 30 minutes) turning frequently.

I did take a pic of the finished result, but it was not good - out of focus, strange white balance. It should be no hardship to try again later in the week because it was delicious.

Foodworks

Apart from the usual kitchen adventures, I've been playing around with a food tracking program called Foodworks. It's been a while since I did any pedantic food tracking, and I was a bit nervous that it would make me crazy and mental about the minutiae of what I'm eating, but it's going ok. One thing I that helps is I am not familiar with kilojoules, so I see the number and it does not compute. Whereas, if I saw 2400 calories, I might freak a little.

The reason I am embarking of such a mission is that it is a requirement of one of my graduate papers. I've downloaded the 14 day free trial (which you also can get here, if you are interested) and so far inputted three days worth of eats. What I like about Foodworks is that it gives you an average over however many days you choose - and this is far more applicable to what matters in real life than watching everything day by day.

I also like that this is New Zealand and Australia specific; it caters for our specific issues such as low selenium in our veges due to deficient soil. I also like that you can enter food as meals and analyse each meal separately.

Here is a screen shot of what I've done so far:

What I don't like (apart from the sheer tedium of weighing and entering everything) is that the program does not have a lot of what I think are quite normal foods. Sauerkraut was not in there, so I entered it as cabbage rather than pain my brain by making a custom entry (groooan), nor was almond butter or omega 3 fish oil, both of which are in the USDA database used by other software like Nutritiondata. I don't like that it only shows fats as saturated, polyunsaturated and monounsaturated, rather than allowing a more precise breakdown into the different Omega's and so on.

Also, I don't like the price. The full premium version is AU$2200 **wide eyes**. There is a student version for AU$30 (three months access), but so far, I'm not wowed.

Are any of you using tracking software, if so, which ones?

Does it help you to eat well, or does it just make you nuts?

Nuttiness..

2011-10-01T21:27:00.000-07:00

Let's talk about my issues.

You see this Nutino stuff? It is is basically a Nutella clone, and that means it holds the potential to exercise power over me.

Those of you who followed my adventures in England back in 2004 will know this story: I discovered Green and Blacks Chocolate Hazelnut Spread, the 500g jar. I managed to eat one jar a week, and gained 500g a week for three months. You'd think after a month, I would have quit, or at least cut back, but I found it strangely addicting.

Since then I've acknowledged my weakness and exercised extreme restraint with all forms of choco-nuttiness. Respect the lard-packing power, yo.

You may recall that Foodie Friday this week involved Nutella as an ingredient. I knew it was tempting fate to choose that recipe, but there comes a day when everyone must face their fear of being dominated by a jar of delicious brown goo.

After the dessert making adventure, there was quite a bit left. Today it accidentally ended up in my protein icecream:

All in the blender:
1 Frozen banana
3 scoops Sana WPC, Vanilla
Tbsp Nutella (or, in this case, Nutino)
About 2 Tbsp water

That having been confessed, it's not exactly a slippery slope. I haven't been tempted to scarf the jar contents with a spoon, so perhaps the relationship has been redefined to an adequate level. I did have an intense private talk with the jar when Mamasana turned it over to my care. I had to explain that, although it was nice to be reunited, things could never be as they were because, in the past, Nutella had been far too controlling and, well, at this point in my life, I don't do dysfunctional relationships with food items.

I've explained that tonight I have a dinner date with a lamb salad and mashed parsnip and it's not invited.

I think it understood.

Do you have any foods that have presented a particular challenge in keeping your eating on track?

How do you deal with them?

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New Blog Template

Thanks for your feedback both here and on Facebook. I'm going to run with this template for a few weeks and see how it grows on me. Blogger are currently working on the customisability, and I think once I can add a header and a sidebar, it should be great.

If you come across anything that's particularly annoying, please say. I've found that the mobile version requires you to select the option of using a non-dynamic format. After that it works.

Wow..

2011-09-30T21:19:00.000-07:00

Um.. I finally hit my limit with attempting to update my 2006 blog template and rashly upgraded to this new, hot off the press 'dynamic views' template. It's the latest thing. See that little drop down menu to the upper left there?
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You can play with that to make the blog look however YOU want. It's all about you here.
I'm finding it all a bit scary. Where is my sidebar (and hence, where do I stick your links)? Where are the archives? How do I drive this thing?

Anyway, let me know what you think.

Foodie Friday

2011-09-30T20:10:00.000-07:00

Once again Friday rolled around and I found myself staking out the Love Veggies and Yoga blog (which, in spite of its name, seems to focus on desserts) for something decadent and calorie-rich. The nutella and peanut butter bars (recipe on the link) caught my eye and I gave it a go:

The ingredient list was a bit of a challenge, I might say. For a start, I think I am allergic to peanut butter. I have only eaten it once in the last five years and immediately suffered a reaction involving very blocked nose with sneezing and red, itchy, dark-circled eyes. It was very attractive.

Unwilling to test my peanut butter hypothesis, I went hunting and gathering for almond nut butter and 'graham crackers'. The Liberty Market has a lot of American imports and I thought I might find the elusive graham cracker there, but ... nah. I went for the nearest sweet, crunchy biscuit, which was a vanilla flavoured animal-shaped cracker, gluten free. I felt so mean bashing them to bits..

Making the whole recipe resulted in an alarming 48 portions, which is probably the result of mine being thinner than those on the recipe page. They are intense and the sugar kicks hard - all 500g of it. I packed half of what was left and forced it on Mamasana as she left. The rest is languishing in my freezer and will undoubtedly taunt me every waking moment until next Friday.

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Today, Saturday, I have been deeply involved in study. Finally, finally, I seem to be recovering my ability to concentrate. After Quake #2, my mental stickability went all to hell, which I have found is a common trauma reaction. 'Research and write' was all going well, up until a few minutes ago.

Razzy and I were hard at it, with him concentrating on researching relaxed intensity,

when there was a massive *CRASH*TINKLE* from outside and my brain naturally perceived an aftershock and instructed my heart to start racing and pounding. However, the room was not moving, and a few seconds later The Programmer peered in the door looking a bit shocked.

He's been working on the garden today and was carrying a sheet of glass to cover the seedling area when this happened:

Without warning, the glass just shattered, and in most dramatic fashion. There are pieces of it outside the home office door, which is.. say eight metres away. It exploded and he swears it was not bumped on anything. Spooky. Luckily he didn't cut himself. Or at least I don't think so. I probably should do a more thorough inspection later.. ;D

Also fortunate, I have just the comfort food for such a situation.

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Linking up reminder: In the next few days I'm redoing the links in the Sanaworld sidebar. If you would like to be included please leave a comment on this post.

Linking up

2011-09-29T21:07:00.000-07:00

It's time to refresh my links list, starting with other blogs.

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If you are a regular (or even random) Sanaworld reader, and would like your blog to be included in my sidebar then please leave a comment on this post and I'll do that over the weekend.

Sanaworld

Showdown with The Scales

Munchies of the Month

And the Winner is....?

Placeholder - pics from my Tuesday

Fitness Find and Foodcam

Sugar Free Baking

Busy at the Business - Giveaway!

Buckwheat Pancakes

A few of my favourite meeeals!

Day 7.. er... I think

Cute Overload

Sugar Free Adventures #2

Adventures in Sugar Free Valley

Junk Free January

A rocking start to the year!

Goodbye, 2011!

Two things you want but don't know it yet...

Merry Christmas!

Wombat flu and is an inch an inch?

The week in carpet and cakes

Cuddling Babies!

Calendar Season is Upon Us!

Mess, Marmite and Muesli Bars

Foodie Friday - Choc Caramel Biscuits

Kale Chips

In with the New

Travel quiz. Where's Sara?

Let's work it, work it (and eat it, eat it)

Past to Future

Go The Greens!

Catch up and Confessions...

Piccy Post

Healthy Happenings

A Working Out Kind of Week

Real World Fitness

Riding in The Red Zone

**Foodie Friday**.. (belated..)

Ahhh...

Two down, two to go!

More pics, less words

Antioxidants, Active Rest and the AB's

Foodie Friday - Apple Crumble

Friendy Friday

Foodcam

Study.. (?).

C

Give me chocolate or give me DEATH (by chocolate)

Food eating, food recording

Nuttiness..

Wow..

Foodie Friday

Linking up

Foodie Friday.. (belated..)