J'ai mange le pain.

This happened last week.................

I was in the South of France having a weekend off from feeling like the fattest flyer in circus, sometimes you've just got to give yourself a break. My Saturday and Sunday was a guilt free wheat/gluten/sugar binge. My poor body. The week leading up to the weekend was a testing time of having little control over my diet and being surrounded by carbs and sugar.

I never miss carb heavy foods, I don't crave for bread, pasta or pizza, biscuits are a thing of the past, and potatoes are actually pretty tasteless to me now, but, when I was suddenly surrounded by wheat and gluten based EVERYTHING, with the one supermarket in town closed and a whole day of training done, I gave in and ate the bread like everyone else, I'd only been in France 6 hours.

Four things happened - 

1.My mouth had a party, French bread is amazing and the salted butter I piled on it even more so. 

2. My stomach cramped up pretty instantly, like somehow I'd forgotten to chew and the crispy bits were crisping and stabbing all up in my insdies.

3. All I wanted to do from the first bite was eat bread and butter continuously for the rest of my life! 

4. Ten minutes after the bread binge was over my head was heavy and spinny and I just wanted to curl up and sleep. 

it was the start of a downward spiral into a week of carbs, sugar, headaches and being starving the minute my eyes opened every morning.
  
During the week I resisted eating bread as much as I could, I stuck to veg, tuna, eggs and meat, but somehow my brain was fixated on the baguettes that sat in the centre of the table being torn up by everyone around me. Giving up and having 'one piece' was a nightly school girl error on my part, one piece ended up being the size of half a baguette and a large helping of guilt laden stomach ache, usually followed by a half hour sofa snooze.

By the weekend, when training had finished and I was visiting a friend in Montpellier, I'd given up the fight (which clearly I'd already lost) and decided for one weekend only I could eat whatever I wanted, which was pretty much every bad thing in sight, guilt free.

I saw these things on the market, but somehow, didn't get the same urge to try them..........



this guy, or a cake?? let me think..............

French cakes, pastries, baguettes, biscuits, hot chocolate, oh yeah, I even capped the whole deal with smoking marijuana at a dinner party, actually that came before the biscuits. Quelle surprise. You can rid yourself of guilt, but the head spinning insomnia was unstoppable, oh merde, never again!


Food wise I'm so glad to be home, back in a world where bread doesn't exist to me and I can cook my own delicious veg with coconut oil, avocado and good meat, coupled with a steady energy level and a willingness to partake in life after a meal!

I'm actually pretty worried about what will happen to my health if I move to France next year. I'll possibly have to throw in the towel and train to be a catcher!



 

The Faileo Diet.

Trying to get back on the wagon is not easy when the wagon has rolled over so many hills without you, you can't even hear the horses anymore. 

Starting with something healthy that tastes amazing is a good plan. Easy choice.

I wish these raw chocolate butter bars hadn't been invented, there's a risk they will become my staple food source. They're all raw cocoa nibs and coconut butter, I think you're supposed to take a bite then stick it back in the fridge. I ate two in one go then felt sick. If someone had passed me a third, it would have gone down the hatch in a second.

When I stopped feeling sick I realised I needed something slightly more meal like.

Chicken, red onion, avocado, cashew, broccoli, tomato. 

from Faileo back to Paleo, one meal at a time.

20 gulps of grey............

How does a smoothie turn out this colour??

I drank it anyway, and felt a bit like I was in a science fiction movie. 

Banana, papaya, lychee, blackberry, mango, acai powder, spirulina, and goji's on top.

I also tried to be vegan again for a few days to see what would happen. This happened. 
 

Turns out that adding a side of bacon makes being a vegan much easier! nom nom.

Eat, fast, go to taco bell, live longer?

I have some sad and worrying news, a documentary came out on the bbc and according to this Italian scientist guy who hangs out with mice, I'm going to get cancer because I eat too much protein, and too much food in general. Basically, I have sky high levels of IGF1 because I eat like a starved bear at a free picnic.

This kinda sucks, because although I can be quite attractive when I've cleaned up a bit, I'm no where near hot enough to pull off being pale and bald with a fashionably tied headscarf. I have to change my ways, quick.

If I was going to follow the advise of this documentary I would half, or less than half my protein intake, I would have child size meal portions, and eat more plants, and take up alternate fasting every other day, and on the days I wasn't fasting I could eat as much junk food, bread and sugar as I want and it's fine because the day before I only ate a grape and half a taco. Riiiiiight.

BBC - Eat, fast, and live longer.

and here's a link to the 4 parts on youtube, because I don't think the beeb works outside the uk.

Part1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

If you can't, or can't be arsed to watch this I'll explain a little about the important parts of the theory.

Insulin like growth factor one - If you have low levels of this you won't get cancer or heart disease, because instead of your cells making new cells, your old cells start repairing. Awesome, sounds like Claire from heroes. To have this low level naturally though, you have to be a dwarf from a remote village in Ecuador, or, actually be Claire from heroes. Oh. must be nice. 

Generally not eating a lot of food every day means your cells will be more inclined to repair than divide and reproduce, this means low risk of disease because you will have low IGF1. They met up with a skinny guy who calorie restricts on fruit and veg and he was in tip top shape and had super fast reactions, compared to the guy who was normal looking and had shit reactions, fatty insides and high IGF1, so, there must be something in this, I sat up and paid attention to the science.

Starving yourself on 50 calories per day for 86 hours makes these levels go down by half, you will also enjoy tripping balls on hunger and having vivid dreams about sandwiches. The Lower IGF1 only lasts a few weeks so you have to do a four day fast once per month. Four consecutive days per month without food? Fuck. that.

Option 2 - the fast, feed, fast approach. Fast day is 400/500 calories around lunch time. That's it. Sounds miserable.

Feed day. Eat whatever the fuck you like. Order supersize at burger king if you fancy, you'll be fine, because you won't be eating tomorrow either, remember, it's portion sizes and alternate starvation that counts kids, not nutrients, it's a way to extend your life by 20 years or something. 20 more years of being hungry every other day. Joy.

Go Go Mode - If you eat lots of protein your cells are dividing too fast to repair any damage to old cells, and of course, they didn't say how much was too much, they said follow recommended guidelines, and possibly eat less than that. - No mention of who was doing the recommending, no mention of what exactly 'normal' protein intake was. sigh. Anyway, high protein levels mean your cells are always on go go mode, which means they are always dividing and making new, never repairing old. This is how cancer happens. Well, it sounds plausible. I do eat a shed load of protein.

I have to make a choice - No more steak breakfasts, or dust off the trucker cap from 2009 and prepare myself for chemo.

Maybe I was a little too hard on this docco, because it's asking me to eat less food, and that totally touches my nerves. I mean, they did look at science, and play with a fat mouse and a small mouse, and talk to skinny people and little people who never got sick, and a 101 year old marathon runner who eats like a sparrow, and I think they did raise some valid points.  It kind of gives me one more incentive to just try and eat a little less than I do.

I'm now sulking because I've just eaten my second breakfast of the day, because my calorie restricted half size omelet one hour ago just did not cut it.

Paleo Banana Pancakes!!

totally worth dying young for.  

Cavedence. The before and After

My Paleo friend from NYC kindly sent me some pictures from our second epic meat eating meal out.


Here I am, pretty excited to commence eating 2 lb of BBQ beef and pork.

Here I am after eating 1 lb 15 ounces of BBQ beef and pork, trying to swallow the last bit and refusing to admit defeat.

I can't handle seeing good meat go to waste.

P.S, who wants to even bother eating a giant pickle when you've got a whole cows worth of beef brisket on your tray. Yeah, tray, not plate, that's how we roll, or rolled, out of the door, when we eventually could stand.

I <3 Fete Sau.

Avocado chips and the Matcha Olympic cookies.

Today is recovery day from the misery of constant cross fit, so I have a bit of time to hang out in the kitchen while absolutely not throwing a heavy ball up a wall ninety times in a specified number of minutes.

I've been getting way too experimental with meals these days, I'm like Heston Blumenthals rawleo equivalent. Been avoiding the temptation to start dipping sweet potato in liquid nitrogen for now, but 18 months ago I could hardly prepare myself beans on toast without setting off the smoke alarm, then ordering take out while feeling like a total cookery pleb. 

I think it's safe to say I've come on a couple of clicks and a shuffle since the great diet shake up of 2011. I really get psyched about cooking now, nearly as much as I do about eating!

Breakfast - Avocado chips and tomato beetroot dip, with the rest of the egg I used to coat the avocado before rolling it in coconut flour and frying it in coconut oil. Good fatty veggie start to the day. B T dubs, I was doing my research on alternatives to flour, a lot of Paleo people use ground almonds, which is better than normal flour for shiz, but still not great because of the omega 6. So, if you're going to use anything, coconut flour top trumps ground almond for nutrition. 

Lunch.....

Organic rib eye, beetroot/carrot/orange salad with broccoli. This steak was amazing, just threw mixed herbs on, and somehow got the timing spot on. When it comes to timing and steak frying, I've figured you just make the pan super hot before you put it in, then when the kitchen looks about 5 minutes away from a 999 call, it's done.


Then came the ginger cookies. healthy for sure, necessary? absolutely not. oink oink. Whoops.

I made these with another, more expensive alternative to flour. Matcha mix! It's basically ground goji, ground chai seeds, flax seeds, and ground Matcha tea! I stuck my hand in the bag and it felt like flour, so, of course I made cookies, worst of all ingredients being a bit of honey.

a link that tells you about Matcha tea.....

Why Matcha is awesome.......

I scoffed the lot while watching Olympic gymnastics and dreaming of the glory days, when my ass could easily fit in a sparkly tin foil leotard, and my world revolved around tight pony tails, glitter hair spray and trying not to break my vag on the beam. Good times.

Crossfit club and Spirulina power.

I have been crossfitting like a motherfucker every day for a week, I'm officially back in the realm of being fit enough to see my own toes on a glance down, but I still have around 9lb to lose before all the America fat is shifted and I'm back to my perfect flying weight of 47 kilo.

I've been eating really well, cycling 12 miles a day, and drinking shit like this.

coconut milk, strawberry, raspberry, spirulina

Why do I always feel so super healthy when I drink green stuff that tastes slightly weird?? I guess if it looks like harry potter might drink it, it's got to be good for you. shazam.


A word about Spirulina.......

Why you should ignore the weird taste and just drink it