You're Not Stuck

What a beautiful day in Melbourne.  Sunny, 30 degrees, still; probably the last glimpse of warmth we'll get until November or so (let's hope not).  It's a shame I am still under the weather as the boyfriend has taken off to the beach!


But not all is lost.  Some early morning yoga (there are some great videos on You Tube, just have a look at the comments and views to ensure a safe practice), a cup of honey & lemon and a stroll in  the back yard (soon to be a beautiful garden when we get working on our make over).  I might go for a gentle stroll in the street after this, we'll see.


Yesterday was spent on the couch with day time television.  Say what you will about The Doctor's and Dr. Oz - I was glued.  My only concern is that they say something is good, and the whole of America suddenly goes out and buys it.  Oh well, better than Oprah (which I never really understood the fascination with, sorry).

 

Something I discovered I want this week is to go and see Heston Blumenthal live.  At $195 a ticket, I'm not sure it's the most affordable idea, especially as The Boyfriend is not especially interested.  Is anyone else interested in going?  I might consider it if someone wanted to come along to the Melbourne show.

Onto the challenge..

  

 Ekphrasis Post. Go to flickr.com/explore and write a post inspired by the image. Can you link it to your health focus? Don’t forget to post the image!

 I don't really understand what this has to do with health writing, but OK... 

Well, that's a lucky dip.

Beautiful photo, obviously everyone would love to be as free as an eagle. I guess I think it's a misconception that we're not. A great friend, (the same one that got me my first nutrition book, C), said to me when I was in a job I hated and living a life without passion to not forget I can always change my life and I am never stuck. I find that incredibly comforting. Lola Berry posted on Facebook the other day as a status, "If you don't like your life, move; you are not a tree", or something to that effect.  So true, so comforting.  The whole exception to this rule, in my opinion, is when you are caring for loved ones - be they ill, or just healthy children.  Ill is difficult, but children are a result of an earlier decision and never mean you are stuck.  Think of Netball (I'm sure if I know this with my limited knowledge, you will too).  When you get the ball in Netball, you freeze.  One foot has to stay in the same spot it was in when you caught the ball, and the other foot and your arms can move freely.  You still have options.  I liken this to having kids or having a particular situation you will not leave due to love; yes, you may have to keep that particular activity going and would never dream of leaving it, but your other 3 limbs, or the rest of your life, can still be changed and if you're not happy, it should be!

There are a lot of unhealthy people in this world who literally do not have any choice in how they are living their life - I was one of them once.  Do not waste your life being unhappy.

Yes, all of that dribble from the picture of an eagle.. or is it a hawk?




Day 6 of the challenge, (today), involves writing a Haiku (poem) about your health focus.  They say you can have two free days off, and I have chosen this as my first.  I do not think my readers are particularly interested in my serious lack of poetic talent.


Enjoy the start of your Easter long weekend & I'll bother you again tomorrow.


Stay well,
Nat x

Day 4 of the Writer's Challenge

Day 4 of the Writer's Challenge;

I write about my health because… 
Reflect on why you write about your health for 15-20 minutes without stopping.

15 to 20 minutes, are you sure?  I type pretty quickly & I'm not entirely sure anybody would want to read 15-20 minutes of my blubber, nor am I sure I have enough content to answer this question to fill 15-20 minutes of typing.  But anyway, here goes..

Image from Flickr

I think anyone who has been reading my blog for more than 4.3-4.8 seconds (4.9 does have a chance), would now know that I spent a hefty chunk of my life, 'under the weather', to say the least.  In case you fall into the under 4.3 seconds of reading Natalie's blog category, you can read a post I wrote as I just started recovering from said period of ill health for Mia Freedman on her web site Mama Mia, here.  Or here.

Needless to say, that was the worst period in my life.  In fact, to be honest, it was such a bad period that my brain seems to have wiped it and genuinely can't remember the majority of it, I only know I experienced it because of the videos and writing I did.  I kind of remember the night I first became paralyzed and definitely became bed bound, (Easter Sunday eve 2006), and then I remember going to the supermarket again for the first time sometime in 2009.  The whole period in between, which I spent in bed, is gone from my mind.  Sometimes, I am glad.

My illness was not avoidable and certainly not preventable in mine and many professionals' opinions, however while I was ill and especially as I was recovering, I started to learn how I could help the management of my symptoms just with what I ate.  It made me sad to learn a lot of people with my illness, well, a milder form, got through their days eating fast food and downing energy drinks or caffeinated drinks as I had started learning what that was doing to their body in the long term.  Then I started to realise some people have illness and feel sick all the time, just like I did, (some just as severe), purely because of the food and nutrition choices they have made in their life/just because of the meals they choose to eat and the way they do their grocery shopping.  This bothered me, and still bothers me so, so much.  How can you have this one single body and treat it like crap every day?  Surely if you knew you'd end up sick, you wouldn't have eaten all that rubbish?  I figured people who did this didn't really know how fabulous they could feel if they just changed their diet and learnt how to cook, and so my passion for teaching people about food as a preventative medicine begun.

You will sometimes see me get fired up about fad diets, which is, in my opinion, anything that takes over the media and is non-stopped talked about, despite how warranted or scientifically proven is - fad to me is any trendy diet.  I think people lose sight of the middle ground and have a kind of all or nothing approach.  I hate that!  I want people to learn an approach to food and healthy living that is just a change in lifestyle and a new mind set.  OK, I get it, sugar is the devil and all that, but if I go to a wedding I am going to eat a piece of wedding cake and this does not make me an idiot or ill-informed, I know exactly what I am eating and how it is interacting with my body, but I choose to do it anyway.  This is what I want for the world, the knowledge; how people use it is completely up to them, as long as they are aware.


I think the sad thing is many people don't know what they're eating, not everyone reads the nutrition panels (or NIPS, as I've recently learnt they're abbreviated to in industry..), and not everyone reads the ingredients list.  Not everyone knows there's sugar and chemicals in foods they'd never expect.

I write about nutrition and health to make people aware and to educate.

If you came to me and had a chronic illness and decided to manage it with energy drinks, caffeine and sugar, and I told you what those items are doing to your body and you acknowledged and understood that and walked away to continue to consume them, I would respect your decision.  It's your body and you can do what you like with it, much the same as smokers and drinkers still smoke and drink; it's not due to lack of awareness.  I just can't stand the idea that people don't know what they're eating.

Also, I just plain bloody love it.  I am so, so lucky to have found such a huge passion in life and truly believe it's my life calling.  I live and breathe it, just asked poor M who's response to, 'Do you like it?' when I offer him something new to try, (like my recent walk over into sugar free brownie land), is, 'It's OK for something healthy / Yeah, you can tell it has no sugar, but it's OK'.

Phew, 13 minutes is enough!  Let me know if you read it all....

Whatever your blog is, why did you create it?

Stay well,
Nat x

Writer's Challenge; Super Power

Superpower Day

If you had a superpower – what would it be? 

How would you use it?

This one is far too easy for me;  After being ill for a very long time and learning the hard way that without health, you have nothing - my superpower would be to cure illness.  Once I had cured all the illness in the world, I would go on to cast a spell over all living things that stopped disease from ever occurring in the first place.  Prevention is better, cheaper and easier than cure!

So my super power would be to heal.

Now here's a real-life food super hero....

See you tomorrow when I share why it is I write about health...

Stay well,

Nat x

Health Writer's Challenge; Day 2

"Quotation Inspiration. Find a quote that inspires you (either positively or negatively) and free write about it for 15 minutes."

This quote was only sent to me this morning by my friend, C, when I was pondering decisions like leaving full time stable work for university, wondering if it was the right decision and all that (I know for sure I want to study nutrition, but sometimes question how I'm going about it or my timing).

It also reminds me of a lovely lady, G, that I used to work with, who once said to me, "If you're scared you know it's the right thing to do because you're challenging yourself".  I hope she reads this so she knows I remember.

I'm not interested in people being scared of me or being particularly feisty or loud, and I'm not really interested in being an extreme person, (in fact, I have spent a lot of time avoiding that exact personality trait), but I do hope to always be as strong as I can be and always tackle everything as head on as I can (comfortably do).  I'm not interested in disappearing and I'm  not interested in going with the flow, I like to make things happen, and super do not believe in 'luck'.  In fact, one of the most annoying things I find that people say to me in relation to my illness is how 'lucky' I was that I got better.  OK, a, super smidge, of luck was involved that the particular treatment I went on did eventually work for me, but I made the decision to tackle the most insane treatment protocol ever, which made me incredibly sick before I got better, and I chose to stick with it for years on end.  That bit was not luck , it was damn hard work.  

So when I wake up in the morning I don't want the devil, or anyone, really, to think 'oh crap' because I am up, I want them to think 'oh crap, what is she going to make happen today'.  I want to continue to be strong and determined in myself and always aim high and chase after what I want, but I also want to be gentle in my approach to myself and others.  I am on a rampage, but I am only rampaging to make my own life exactly how I want it.

I'm not sure if that made sense.

Stay well,

Nat x

Week in Food / Health Activist Writer’s Month Challenge

Happy April!  1/4 of the year down, so far, so good!

As I've previously mentioned, I'll be participating in the Health Activist Writer's Month challenge. Basically, I've accepted the challenge to write a post a day for a month about the topic WEGO Health has set. You can check out the WEGO Health site here, their Facebook page here, or check out hashtag #HAWMC on Twitter.

Today's topic;

"Pretend you’re making a time capsule of you & your health focus that won’t be opened until 2112. What’s in it? What would people think of it when they found it?"

My capsule would have my Janella Purcell books, as her way of cooking and living is what I am striving for constantly and she inspired me to get into nutrition in the first place. It would also contain some Stevia, Agave Nectar, Coconut Sugar, Pure Maple Syrup etc, to reflect my current mission to not feel the need for sugar on a weekly basis.  It would contain the URL for my new web site (hopefully launching beginning of May!), as that is where all my thoughts would be and it would be interesting to see how it'd grown. I'd also stick a McDonald's Big Mac in there to see if it's true that they don't really ever go off... ew. 
I'm not sure what people would think when they found it, probably that I was crazy because by 2112, we will know SO much more about health, nutrition and food etc.  It would be naive to think we won't.  A part of my brain constantly thinks that going back to basics as the trend is now, (tracking back in time to find the way way to eat), will eventually go out of fashion and we will come back to the technology we use for everything else - food engineered to be easily digestible and best for us that mimics nature. Who knows? The future excites me!

Check back in tomorrow when I talk about a quote that inspires me....

Now for my Week in Food....


Where I made my first ever Hot Cross Buns.

They needed more spice and more fruit, but they were good for a first go.  I was sad that my criss-crosses disappeared.

I was sad to hear many kids won't be eating hot cross buns or Easter eggs this coming weekend as they contain sugar.  OK, if not giving any sugar to your kids is that important that's OK and I support that, at least offer an alternative that mimics the bun or egg; don't offer carrots instead (I seriously heard people say this; because 'bunnies eat carrots too'.)

Spicy Lentil Soup

Onion, garlic, ginger, chilli, diced carrot, rind of 1 lemon - fry off.  Add red lentils, canned tomatoes and some reduced salt vegetable stock, cook until lentils are tender.  Add spinach and cook for 2 more minutes.  Finish off with a squeeze of lemon juice.  Super tasty & good for the cold I've had for 4.8 million years (ie. 3 weeks).

The Easiest Curry Ever

Just add onions, garlic, cumin, ginger, sweet potatoes and chick peas to those cans.  That is by far my favourite packaged curry paste but go easy; it is hot.

Stuff that lived on my kitchen bench all week

Yesterday M & I went to the Flower & Garden show.  It was stunning, but I still have this cold (as does half of Melbourne, well, at least around where I live), and wasn't as enjoyable as it could have been as a result.  It still made me desperately want a larger block to have a bigger garden, though.  We are doing our garden in the coming months, so a lot of inspiration was taken (excessive plants randomly planted, please).

Hello, I also cut my hair off.

Love this, want this in our garden.



So I guess I'll see you tomorrow.. anyone else participating in HAWMC?

I have a physiology test tomorrow and I've got a good day of study ahead of me.. then my next few weeks are pretty cruise-y, a lot of catch up study and revision, and hopefully a lot of work on my web site.

Stay well, (& check back tomorrow)

Nat x

How To; Listen to your Body

Mouth ulcers?  More thirsty that usual?  That head cold is lasting longer than everyone else's?  Craving food you never crave?  I think your body is trying to tell you something....

flickr - highersights

Today I want to encourage everyone to really start paying attention to their body and listen to what it's trying to tell them.  It's not normal to be insatiably thirsty, or to have random stabbing pains in your head or cramps you've never felt before.  You shouldn't be constipated or bloated, it's not 'just how' anyone is, it's your body trying to tell you something's up.

Although you should always check with a doctor when your body is behaving unusually, no, it's probably nothing serious - you might be thirsty because you're diet's high in salt or you're coming down with a cold.  Stabbing pains or cramps can be stress and anxiety, and constipation and bloating can be related to diet or again, anxiety.  It's not the point, these things shouldn't be ignored or dismissed as normal 'for you'.  It might not require a doctor's visit, but surely you desire a feeling of good health and energy and a sense that everything is working and working well all the time, who wouldn't?

Look at your diet, pay attention to your fluid intake, exercise regime, the people around you - everything.  I know it's a cliche, but your body really is a temple and we do actually only get one, it's very well worth taking care of it because it's a lot easier to prevent than it is to cure.  If your lifestyle is hurting your body, change it.  Yes, we all need money, but without our health we have nothing.

If you know nothing about nutrition apart from what a few health bloggers write on their pages, buy a basic nutrition book and learn about what your body needs.  I guarantee, flicking through it, you will read about a vitamin or mineral and what foods contain it and go, 'Oh, I don't really eat any of them'.  Don't run out to buy it in tablet form, go out and get the foods that contain it and start using them in your cooking or as a snack.  Food is always better than tablet.

May I recommend for first timers;

Nutrition; The definitive Australia guide to eating for good health
(Buy at Nutrition Australia or any good book shop)

It goes through what a basic healthy diet is, all your vitamins and minerals one by one etc, without the fad diets or what's currently in fashion.  It's a great little book and was my first - a gift from a great friend when I was still very ill.  Despite a million books since then, I still refer back to it.

Anyway, just stopped to say please listen to your body.  If you're not sure how, learn by experimenting and remember what works and what doesn't.

The solution to ongoing sleepiness is not a daily coffee!

I leave you with this;

"The Dalai Lama, when asked what surprised him most about humanity, answered "Man.  Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money.  Then he sacrifices money to recuperate health.  And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived."

Stay well,
Nat x

The Week in Food

Time for another edition.

I'm a bit annoyed at myself actually as I know my posts have lacked substance lately, but I've had a ripper virus/flu thing going on (finally feeling 70% human today, hurrah!) and, well, I was instructed by All Who Matter to rest and do absolutely nothing (including my new boss, who I am coming to really super like).

So, on Tuesday, home I came with a medical certificate that excused me from work and uni for the whole week, and on the couch I lay (bored as all hell). I experienced The Doctors and Dr Oz (OK a little, BS-y, but has good intentions and definitely won't hurt the American public), Ready Steady Cook, (most annoying show ever), and Good Chef Bad Chef (3.30pm, channel 10 - Janella Purcell is the 'Good Chef', so super inspiring, for me). I ate ridiculously, seriously, my body has been craving he strangest things ever; a part of the reason I know I feel human again is that I looked at the white choc and macadamia cookies I baked yesterday and I do not want want. Hallelujah! I am back!

So I might be behind on uni and I might have taken the 5th week of my new job off, but at least I am starting to feel human. Now for my week, in food..









Oh yes, I did.







Banana Cake Aftermath.








Parmigiana in the making.
Don't want meat?  Grill up some eggplant and top it with your sauce & cheese, super yummy.
Otherwise crumb & fry it just like you usually do the chick or veal, it will be 100 times lighter and if you do a good red sauce, you won't even notice.







I eat this a lot for lunch when I am sick.








Munro says, "Mummy, this is how you rest when you're sick".








Penne with mushrooms, spinach, ham and caramelised onions.
The Boyfriend got a lot of 'easy to make' meals this week.









Tuna Pizza.
Make your base from scratch, with wholemeal flour (or something even better, if you've got it), spread it super thin.  Make your own tomato sauce (skip the excessive oil and salt, use herbs to flavour it - I also finely chopped some capers as I love them with tuna & chucked them in), add some mushrooms and spinach near the end.  Spread on your pizza base, top with a large can of tuna and a little light tasty or mozarella cheese.. bake!  Healthy pizza craving killer, and with all that tuna and mushrooms piled on top, you'll be getting heaps of protein & not a whole lot of carb.







Avo and Vegemite on Toast with my first coffee in over a week.Yummmm








Raw Choc-Fudge balls from Lola Berry .Very yummy, I will be making these for Easter.
Only adjustment I made was adding a little agave nectar as they were a bit dry (tbs at most).Lola is great, check out her site if you haven't already.













Weekend Brekky is best!
When your mushrooms and tomatoes start drying out in the pan, don't add more oil - splash a little water in.
You will not notice the difference in flavour and you will save yourself a whole lot of fat & calories.
No, olive oil is not bad, please put some in to start them off - moderation is the key.









If my cat can eat wholegrain, why can't you?









Who here knows of the institution that is Eiffel Tower?
I felt a bit more human yesterday so after I struggled through a huge grocery shop ($220 later..), The Boyfriend took me for a trip to Assembly Drive.  Pasta also made its way home.










Fish & Chips.










The start of Macadamia & White Choc Chip cookies.

How was your week?

What do you eat when you're craving pizza or fish & chips but want to eat healthy?


Pump up that vege intake and keep warm - I'm far from the only one I know to have gotten this virus. It's gone Melbourne-wide.


Is there anything I've made that I've photographed on my blog lately that you'd like an actual recipe for?
Let me know!

I am super excited, I registered a domain name & got hosting for my web site this past week.  Soon, you will be visiting a whole other URL - Lemon Living will appear on a blog tab over there.  Give me time, I'm learning Wordpress...

Stay well!
Nat x

PS.  I hope you've liked Lemon Living on Facebook!