Dear 16 year old Natalie

As part of day 10 of the Health Activist's Writer's Challenge, I write a letter to my 16 year old self.  I can't believe I was 16 almost 10 years ago.  More than that, I can't believe M & I celebrated our 1 year anniversary when I'd just turned 16 (making it 11 years together this year).  Crazy town, hey? 

______________

Dear 16 year old Natalie,

I'm not really sure what to say to you; being 16 didn't really treat you very well for reasons you'd rather not publish on the internet, but you got through it.  Having said that, you didn't really do yourself any favours with your actions or the way you treated someone super important in your life.  You don't realise how much you're going to have to rely on that person soon.

(Age 18 with M at our year 12 formal)

Please start fighting for what you believe in.  You are far too influenced by the people around you and you need to know that what they think does not matter.  What you think and what you decide to act upon as a result is all that matters, as long as it has the support of your family.

Trust your instinct about M, you are right.

(Age 16 at my debutante ball.  

I hated the make up)

Gossip is for children and so is bitchiness.  Ignore it, it's never worth your time.  Also, please do not feel obligated to be friendly to people you do not consider friends, it will suck all the energy out of you.

(Age 5; First day of Prep!)

Can you feel that wonderful thing happening in your body?  No?  OK, let me spell it out for you; HEALTH.  You can do anything, anything, that you want to.  You are 16 and you have your health and that is EVERYTHING.  Live every single little moment as if it could be the last one you have because one day in the future, you may lose that healthy feeling and that ability to do anything you want to.  Please remember this when you go out over the next couple of years and have way too many bourbon & cokes and get over it with a nice serving of fish & chips chased with some seriously chocolate therapy.  Also, have you ever heard of exercise?  Do some!

 

(M & I at the deb ball)

Please stop doing things you're good at and things that you know you will succeed in.  Fear of failure isn't going to get you anywhere and you need to challenge yourself or you'll never move forward.  Success isn't measured in grades.

 

(Age 18 at work after my last day of year 12)

Take care of your friendships and try to make up your own mind about people; don't let others influence your opinions.

(Age 16, M & I's first photo together at school)

Lastly, be confident, and this doesn't mean showing masses of cleavage every time you go to a party (seriously Natalie, what are you doing?), but it means having confidence in your abilities and your opinions.  Speak up, never be afraid and just get out there and live.  Please!  Do it for your 25 year old self, or more importantly, your 18, 19, 20, 21 and 22 year old self.  

Love always.. your future self, who will never regret anything you do,

Nat x


PS.  When you come to select your subjects for year 12, please do ALL the sciences, trust me you'll need them later, ditch literature; English is fine, and don't go and do a philosophy subject at uni just because you think it'll bump your ENTER up, you will hate it!

xx

Posters & Creme Caramel; Day 9

Seriously, day 9?  I have to say, I have liked this blogging daily thing - maybe I'll keep it up beyond the challenge.

Today, the challenge is to make your own 'Keep Calm' poster.  Let it be publicly known that I absolutely hate these posters with a deep passion, but I am not one to bow to a challenge;

   

Pretty personal poster in that way that it's a motto for me. When I stress, which I often do, I seem to throw my health in the bin and freak out. I should plaster this on every wall of my house to constantly remind me to just stay healthy and not stress, but that won't happen.


I spent some time responding to your comments last night - thank you for bothering to write them, I love them and they make me feel very loved!

Two people requested the recipe for the Creme Caramel posted here. It would be incredibly rude of me not to share the Creme Caramel love in response;

 
Creme Caramel

I;

Caramel

- 250gms of caster sugar

- 100mls of water

Custard

- 500mls of milk 

- 6 whole eggs

- 2tbs of sugar

- 1/4-1/2tsp of vanilla extract (vanilla beans are better if you have them)

M;

Caramel

- In a pot, simmer caster sugar and water together (without stirring) until golden

- Use a wet pastry brush (you will have to continuously dip it in a cup of water) to brush down the sides of the pot and stop the sugar from crystallizing.

Custard

- Whisk eggs, sugar and vanilla together.  Set aside.

- Warm the milk (do not boil), remove from heat.

- Slowly add egg mixture to milk, whisking quickly throughout and for a minute after they've all been added.

- You can strain the custard if you are concerned about lumps

Construction

- Pour caramel even into the base of the mould (we used 4 large ramekins, but you can use one large dish)

- Pour custard over the top

- Place in a deep baking dish and fill with water 1/2 way up the side of the moulds

- Bake in a moderate oven (we used 150 degrees celcius in our fan-forced oven) for about 30 minutes, or until there is only a slight wobble left in the centre of the custard.

- Refrigerate 3-4 hours or over night, and turn out to serve (we did have to loosen the sides with a butter knife, as you can see in the photo!).

Enjoy and come back to let me know how it goes!

Stay well,

Nat x

Happy Eating Day!

Whether you celebrate Easter or not, I wish plenty of amazing food on all of you today.

Image from Flickr

M & I are off to my parents' for lunch today to eat way too much food, then I imagine a quiet night with soup and holding our stomach's complaining a lot.  There's nothing better than too much food with family.


I have made a banana cheesecake which I invented myself! I am only just starting to experiment in the world of desserts without recipes, (I never use recipes for non-dessert meals, and if I do I alter it at least 50%), and I am rather proud of my banana cheesecake effort.  Healthy?  Hell no.  I'm thinking mastering the unhealthy version and then starting to substitute to make it a little more health-friendly is the way to go.  Trial & error - I love the learning process!


I am also a very lucky girl who received a cute little German chocolate bunny from M.  Made my weekend.


So what is the writer's challenge today?

Best conversation I had this week. Try writing script-style (or with dialogue) today to recap an awesome conversation you had this week.

It wasn't really a conversation, but there was a moment when Mum told me she'd made her sultana tea cake, (which she always makes as she likes something a little sweet with her coffee in the afternoon), but she'd replaced the sugar with Natvia and she couldn't tell the difference so she was going to use that from now on.  I think it's the highest compliment when my own mother, who is the whole reason I know how to cook, cooks something or changes something in her cooking on my recommendation.  She went on to say that every time she eats or makes something fatty/high in sugar etc, that she can hear my voice in the back of her head.  She also told me she can't eat milk chocolate anymore because it's too sweet and she needs the dark!  So proud!


Has anything I've written on this blog influenced what you do with your cooking?

Have you ever tried one of my recipes?

Are you someone that has known me in real life and you like reading my blog?

People liking my blog makes me so happy!

Enjoy your food this Sunday & stay well,
Nat x

My Week...

This would be a usual 'Week in Food' post, but I'm seriously lacking in the photo department. Why? My virus has come back & I am still not feeling great. Well that's a lie, I do feel great and I am bursting with energy, but my glands, ears and stomach are telling me a different story. As a result I lived on vegetable broth with soba noodles, rice and toast most of the week. Not the most exciting thing to photograph! But I did get the following in;

 Home made muesli with milk and grated apple

 First morning stomaching something that wasn't toast for breakfast, I was drooling at the site of this spoon of goodness. Yummmm!

Pistachios being chopped for some yummy pistachio & rosewater balls I made
 Recipe to follow next week.





 

 Prawns, home grown beans and roasted cauliflower
This was dinner last night, but my tummy wasn't quite ready and M ate half the prawns.

Ugh, is there anything more frustrating than a stomach that can't enjoy food? I hope your week was better than mine!

The writer's challenge today was to write about whatever you want... so I did that, tick!

Plans for the Easter long weekend are ... rest! Lunch at my parents tomorrow with loads of amazing food, so I hope my stomach is up to the task. I am making dessert - a coffee liqueur cheesecake and some caramel slice. Slowly slowly. I have to do something, I am so bored of the couch & day time television.

Have a beautiful Easter & enjoy your egg and bunny shaped chocolates, and please have a warm hot cross bun! With jam and cream. Best.

Stay well (according to my facebook wall and twitter feed, not many people are managing this. Must be the season!)

See you tomorrow,
Nat x

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