Obstacle Course

While I've been doing the Intuitive Eating Thang, there have been some instances where I haven't been eating as intuitively as I would like.

Or, more commonly, other factors influence the not giving what my body wants. This is mainly to do with cost and availability - like desperately wanting raspberries when they are desperately out of season.

However, since I've been doing the Intuitive Eating Thang, there have been some very strange occurrences, where finances and availability seem to be against me, and thus I initially reject my body's cravings, but subsequently it gets laid out on a platter for me.

Confused?

First Example:
I had been wanting an nutty, grainy, fruity cookie for days. Like the oatmeal and raisin ones that you get at Subway. On a Friday, myself and a work colleague went to Subway to get our Friday team lunch, and I told myself I would finally be able to get my oatmeal and raising cookie.

However, when we arrived at the counter where the cookies are displayed, the oatmeal and raisin ones looked hideous. They were small, soggy, and looked like they were still uncooked in the middle. Meanwhile, the white chocolate and macadamia ones next to them looked like absolute perfection.

I was tempted to get the white chocolate and macadamia ones instead, because they looked so gorgeous. But I knew that wasn't what I was craving. I looked sadly at the miserably oatmeal and raisin cookies, and passed.

I told my colleague that I had to buy some bread from a neighbouring bakery. He came along with me, and as we went into the bakery, the girl at the counter straight away said to me, "Would you like a free cookie?" She handed myself and my colleague one. I looked into the paper bag that the cookies were contained within, and my jaw dropped. What sort of cookie had she given me?

A twist on an Anzac cookie - with oats, raisins, and other dried fruits. Exactly the sort of thing I had been craving. I didn't have to pay a cent for it. All I did was walk away from from some white chocolate and macadamia cookies that I didn't even want.

Second Example:
I went to the supermarket in the morning to do my weekly grocery shopping for the office. Yeah that's right, I grocery shop for the office - I eat breakfast and lunch there, which is two of the three main meals. Why shouldn't I have most of my food at the office? I really wanted a Christmas fruit mince pie. I knew that the bakery down the road sold fantastic ones. All it meant was a bit of a wander down the road to get some. Yet when I emerged from the supermarket, I was running a bit later than I would have liked. I looked in the direction of the bakery and thought, "Ah fuck it. I've got some at home. If need be, I can have them after work."

As the day went on, I wanted the Christmas mince pies more and more. I was swearing at myself for not getting one in the morning.

However, not long after, one of my colleagues walked in after having a meeting onsite. He came in and said, "Anyone want any Christmas mince pies? I got given them for free!"

Clearly, if I don't go to the pies, the pies come to me.

What's interesting to note is this seems to happen in a very timely manner when I happen to be craving something. It makes intuitive eating all the more sweeter. Rather than just being handed a couple of freebies, I instead feel like there's some divine intervention, or orchestra of fate that's playing out these events; since they seem too good to be true.

It's like someone, somewhere is trying to reward me for listening to myself, and reminding me not to give up on myself or let obstacles get in my way. And if on the odd occasion life gets the better of me and I do, that someone, somwhere? Removes the obstacles once in a while.

Butter of the Crop

One thing that a lot of people presume is that Indian food is healthy. And on the whole, it is. Indian food tends to contain a lot of veggies, and protein is high due to proliferate use of beans and lentis in a lot of their cooking.

But Indian food, like all styles of cuisines, have quadrants that are Not So Healthy.

With Indian food, this is very much the case with their sweets and desserts. The majority of the sweets are fried, creamy, doughy, sugary concoctions that scream heart failure when you look at them. The closest Western equivalent would be a donut, though a donut would look like a bowl of spinach compared to some of the items that Indians have on their dessert menu. (Mind you, I don't think Indians really have 'dessert'; these sweets come out at special occasions - like Diwali or when someone is getting married or having a baby.)

There are some Indian sweets that I like better than others. Since I live in a Westernised country, when we go out to indian parties, food does still get served in terms of some nibbles to begin with, some mains, then dessert. Only with Indian food instead.

There are a few dishes that I'm not fond of. Mainly because of their texture, in that the taste gets lost in amongst all of the mush - like baby food with a bit of nutmeg. Two dishes that I'm not fond of are close to rice pudding; one of them made with rice, the other one with a thin noodle-like... err... thing (for want of a better word.)

Even though I didn't want them, I would offend many people when I would say, "No, I don't like that dish", and have to take some on my plate and eat it to keep the host happy. I would try getting away with a few mouthfuls and then saying that I was full, though that too was considered offensive. It was a relief when last year I was training for a triathlon and could tell everyone, "I can't eat that, my trainer will murder me, I'm training for a triathlon, you see."

One of the girls at work was away earlier in the week because of a religious ceremony that had to be performed. We're both Indians from Fiji, but we're of different religions, so we don't observe the same ceremonies. Because it was a special occasion for her and her family, all of the sweets came out.

She came into work the next day with plates upon plates of sweet to give to everyone in the office. I took a container and put the ones I wanted to take home to my family in it, and nibbled at a couple.

The thing is, she didn't explain to anyone what the sweets were, and I started to explain to my colleagues that this one was a sweet dough covered in syrup and deep fried, that one was like a coconut fudge but very milky due to the boutiful amounts of cream and milk powder therein, etc.

She had placed a container of one of the dishes that resemble rice pudding - the noodle-type one - on the benchtop in the kitchen. This needs to be served warm, so if anyone wanted to try some, they would have to take it out into a bowl and heat it up in the microwave.

I was in the kitchen making some herbal tea when the owner of the company came in and wanted to see the sweets. He's a food enthusiast himself and for some reason, whenever I'm talking to him, it seems to be about food. Funny that!

I explained to him what the sweets on the plates were, and he picked a few of them, enjoying the ones that he tried, although conceding that they were very, very rich. Then he asked me what was in the ice-cream container. I started to explain, and opened the container to show him, almost reeling back in shock as I looked inside.

Because the pudding inside had cooled down, the clarified butter (ghee) had separated from the rest of the ingredients and risen to the top. I gawped as I saw a big, thick layer of yellow sitting atop the rest of the noodle, cream, nuts and raisins. Not wanting to put the owner off, I explained about how the dish was usually served warm, and that it is normally white in appearance as the butter is melted through the rest of the dish. Fortunately for the girl who brought the food in, he was not so put off by the way the food looked, and he heated up a small portion and ate it, liking what he tasted.

Though I was stunned by what I was looking at. I mean, if I'm going to put THAT crap in my body, at least I should like the way it tastes?!

My other colleagues had a similar reaction to me, only they didn't have prior knowledge of what it was and instead wandered around muttering, "What on EARTH is that container of... STUFF???"

Not many of them tried it, being so put off by how it had separated out. As for me? I'm never going to touch the stuff again.

After all, I never liked it in the first place.

*psst* Is it alive?

Yes, it is alive. Though if you only read this blog out of my collection, I wouldn't blame you for wondering if I'd fallen off the face of the earth. [I'll take this moment to point out that Do you have an Extra Large in this? and Cardio & Earthquakes are the two blogs that are the most active.]

So here's a quick update on the intuitive eating front. I'm enjoying it - I feel fantastic. I feel so free and now that I'm treating all food as morally equal, I don't feel guilty if I eat anything that may be classified as 'junk' food. When I do that, is on rare occasions, since I don't feel like it as often.

I have had to deal with a bit of weirdness - and realise that sometimes, my intuition is very bizarre.

The most bizarre example of late was when I thought I wanted to drink a cup of coffee. I made a cup and sat it in front of me, and enjoyed the lovely aroma. I picked up the mug and drank a sip, but got no enjoyment from it. I inhaled again, smelling the coffee, melting with its fragrance.

I realised then, I didn't want to drink the coffee, I wanted to SMELL it.

Hmmm... sometimes listening to your body makes you realise that some other sense other than taste wants stimulation. Call me weird. I left the mug in front of me, smelling the coffee until it had cooled, and then, chucked the stuff down the sink. You can call it wasteful. I see it differently.

Anyhoo. I'm going to Melbourne very, very soon. I believe that I will have some food writing to do once I'm back; after sampling the delectable creations that Melbourne City has to offer. I'm licking my lips at the thought of Koko Black already.

Making friends with Salad

Worker Emm has started on this diet, based on a site he's joined with all these inspirational stories of how people have shaped and toned their bodies using nutrition and exercise tips.

Its a site in another language, so I wouldn't get any benefit if I joined, though one thing that Worker Emm finds inspiring is there are photo galleries of before-and-after photos of people. He showed me one photo of a girl who was supposedly 'flabby' beforehand, and then her after - which really had me raising an eyebrow. For a start, the woman's body was tanned and ripped, like that of a female bodybuilder, but her face looked exactly the same as in the before photo. I was fairly certain that the woman's face had been photoshopped onto someone else's body.

While what is driving Worker Emm appears to be a bit dodgy, he's been very diligent in going about his exercise. I admit to finding it inspirational, seeing him go off for runs in the middle of the day, and it was with his help that I did my first 5km around the office.

Worker Emm's eating has been incredibly focused - very focused on nutrition for training, despite the fact that he hasn't entered in any sort of competitive event. While I've been eating pretty much low carb for most of the time that I've been practising intuitive eating (quite possibly the proof that a lower carb regime worked for me, the fact that it interweaves so nicely for me with regards to intuitive eating), Worker Emm ate what was right for his training - eating sweet potatoes before going out for a run, and returning and replenishing energy from protein.

Worker Emm and I both have different eating regimes - for a start, I think I eat a whole lot more. The reason being, I exercise a whole lot more. The only form of cardio Worker Emm does is running, whilst mine is mixed up with some circuit training, RPM, and Body Jam. We both do what's right for us, and that's been working pretty well.

Other people in the office have noticed this. Worker Emm and I bounce off each other in terms of achieving a healthy lifestyle. But one thing appears to be very different between the two of us. Worker Emm has said that he'll probably go back to his old ways come October-November, and put on those Christmas Kilos again. He's been wandering around, turning down foods that he would normally eat saying "I'm on a diet."

Me? I show no signs of stopping. Which is why I've still been indulging in cashew nuts, the odd chocolate biscuit, and putting feta cheese and avocado in my salads. I can see myself keeping up both the eating, and exercise regimes indefinitely.

Though at least Worker Emm is giving the healthy lifestyle thing a decent shot. I know the guy loves his food - he enjoys it, and is passionate about it.

One of the girls in the office has no idea how to be healthy. She doesn't eat vegetables, and I'm certain that if you were to cut her open, a whole flock of chickens would burst from within her. Chicken is pretty much all the girl eats.

It was only when a naturopath told her that eating vegetables would help her to have shiny hair and better looking skin, that she decided that she would eat vegetables.

...!?!?!!

And I thought Worker Emm's photoshopped body builders were a dodgy reason to start eating healthy.

She tagged along with me in a during-the-day trip to the supermarket to stock up on some veggies to make a salad with. Just as well I was with her, because she had no idea what she was doing. She selected a bag of salad greens, and then pondered about whether it was a good idea to mix coleslaw through the greens. In the end, I told her that I would show her how to make a salad, and I would pick the ingredients. I don't think I could stand by and let her just add cabbage to cabbage and pass it off as a salad.

I made her a spinach, sundried tomato, feta, corn and olive salad. She had never heard of sundried tomatoes before, and was blown away by the flavour. I swear, I was suddenly her favourite person - she suddenly realised, "holy crap, veggies taste AWESOME!"

When I asked about why she hadn't made 'the switch' to eating vegetables before, her justification was that life is too short to eat those things.

Right.

I say, life is too short to live WITHOUT those things. I'm no vegetarian, but fuck me, I think a life without meat would be much more tolerable than a life without veggies.

I've enjoyed having Worker Emm's company in the healthy living boat. Maybe NoVeggie girl can join us.

Lets hope there's more salads to come.

A bit nutty in the head

I started cleaning up my room a bit yesterday - great way to spend a long weekend, Long live the Queen! - and for some reason, started thinking about this particular chocolate that Worker Jay had given to me back in Easter.

According to Wikipedia:

Toffifee (known in the United States as Toffifay) is a brand of caramel candies, owned by the Berlin-based, German company August Storck KG. Sold in 12, 15, 24 and 48 piece boxes, Toffifee are caramel cups containing nougat and a hazelnut, topped with a chocolate button.

First sold in Germany in 1973, Toffifee were marketed as a product "for the whole family". In 2000, Toffifee were sold in over 60 countries.

I hadn't heard of them nor tried them before Worker Jay gave them to me, and initially, I wasn't interested in them. Simply because I didn't really have any sort of craving for them or desire to eat them.

Then, Worker Jay gave me a second box of them alongside my birthday present. I thought, "Oh heck. You've given me a second box when I haven't started on the first!" I took one of the boxes in to work, and slowly, I began eating them. And they were beautiful! No wonder Worker Jay gave me the second box, if I had known they were that good, they would've been long gone!

Time went past, and as I was cleaning my room, I thought, "Maaaaan, those Toffifee that Worker Jay gave me were absolutely delicious. I wonder where she bought them from, I could really go for one right now."

It's really awful when you're craving something that you can't get your hands on. You end up trying to replicate or substitute the craving with a million other things that Just. Don't. Taste The Same.

Which is why I was stunned when I opened a random box to find, whaddya know, a box of Toffifee in it! I couldn't believe my luck! Clearly, I had taken one of the boxes to work, and left the other one at home in a 'safe place'. I hadn't even thought about Toffifee at all for the last few months, and the one day I think about it, hey presto, it appears.

As you can see from the photo above, the tray contains a whole lot of small caramel cups with nougat and a single hazelnut topped with a chocolate button. One thing that I've had problems with in the past regarding boxed chocolates is that if there wasn't any wrapping on the chocolates, I would be tempted to eat the entire box full of them, popping chocolates into my mouth like it's nobody's business.

Today, is the day after I found the box. It's sitting behind me, on my shelf, in plain view. I ate three chocolates yesterday, and thought, "Mmmm yeah, that's good stuff." And after three, I stopped. They're right behind me, if I look over my shoulder right now, I'd see them.

In fact, I just did. They're still there. I didn't reach for them, since right now, I don't feel like eating any.

What do I feel like eating?

Nut butters.

I've been on a nut butter kick recently - having peanut butter on toast for breakfast, though now this has expanded beyond peanut butter. I bought a small jar each of cashew butter and almond butter and loved both of them. But those things are expensive.

And I could only find cashew butter and almond butter. Nothing in the way of hazelnut or macadamia butter anywhere, never mind things like pecan butter (for some reason, the idea of walnut butter doesn't appeal to me.)

I went off on a nut buying spree. I bought cashews, macadamias, hazelnuts and almonds. And I made butters with each of them, and all of them taste beautiful. Admittedly, I think both the macadamia and hazelnut butters would taste better slightly sweetened.

I'm looking forward to starting the day with these nut butters for weeks to come. And I mean weeks. Or really, months. Because it was much better value for money putting them in the food processor and letting it blitz than buying them little jars. I'm surrounded with the stuff, and damn happy about it.

Stop being so cheesy

I was driving to work after my weekly session with Adam, and all I could think about was cheese. Toasted sandwiches, stuffed with light cheddar cheese. I swear, I could feel the warm meltiness in my mouth, anyone sitting in the lane next to me would've thought I was a tad off my nut since I'm sure I was slobbering something awful.

I started telling myself, "Well, you can have toasted cheese sandwiches for lunch. For now, it's muesli with peaches."

Of course, still, all I could think about was toasted cheese sandwiches. I mean, the hell? Toasted cheese sandwiches at 7:15 in the morning? What the hell? What kind of crazy person am I?

Wait... 7:15 in the morning? Noone else would be in the office... who the hell cares what I'm eating!

As soon as I got into the office, I turned on the sandwich press, emptied the dishwasher, sliced off some of my cheese and got my bread out, put it in and waited for its delicious toastie magic to take place.

When it was done, I sat down with it, looked through my emails, and savoured every delicious, warm, soothing bite.

Muesli and peaches? Last thing on my mind.

Millions of Peaches

Worker Burns has been driving me nuts.

She lives a somewhat unhealthy - not insanely unhealthy, but more or less a typical unhealthy - lifestyle, whereby every weekend she drinks like a fish and eats oodles of takeaway, but is pretty reasonable with what she eats throughout the week. She doesn't exercise, though she has expressed a desire to get back into running (and she has told me that my running shenanigans was part of the reason.)

She recently discovered that she's gained 4 kilos, and wants to get it off promptly.

Okay. It's a fairly common thing when one has gained a bit of weight from eating unhealthily that they want to turn it around. Of course, Worker Burns is tiny, and since I have enough trouble trying to lose 4 kilos, I know how much more of an issue she will have with it.

But of course, the only reason why I struggled, is because I did The Weight Loss Thing PROPERLY. Sure, when I first began with it back when I was 8 (seriously), I dieting and yoyoed like mad. But I've kept off the weight I've lost since being at my highest weight and size (at a size 24, MASSIVE for anyone with Asian heritage) for quite some time, and I'm confident that while there'll be a bit of fluctuating, I won't ever get that big again. I may not get any smaller, but I definitely won't be that big, that unfit, and that unhealthy, ever again.

This is something that the girls at my office know about, since I'm always in the office early and leaving early so that I can be in the gym. I don't think any of them can quite comprehend me being 'that size', since heck, I'm pretty chubby even currently. Imagining me chubbier? Gasp!

Because of this, they sometimes ask me, 'is this good or bad?'. Them hearing me spiel on about no food being 'good or bad' and all foods being morally equal is not the advice they want to hear. They want to hear. "Yes, that's good." "No, that's bad."

Worker Burns, with her OMG 4 KILO GAIN has taken to obsessively reading labels, but she doesn't have a clue as to what she's reading. She'll say something like, "This has 606 kilojoules and 5.1 grams of fat. ... Is that good?", and because apparently I know about The Weight Loss Thing, I'm supposed to spit out an answer just like that. When I tell her, "I don't know", she gets exasperated and is all like, "Well how DO you know? How did you do it?" I tell her, but she doesn't like it, because it's not fast enough.

So she stops asking me for advice and starts looking in other places. Next thing I know, she's bringing in cans of peaches to work. Puzzled, I'm like, "What's with the peaches?" She excitedly tells me that a friend of hers was told by someone at the gym that the best food to eat to lose weight is food that has a ratio of something-to-something in terms of kilojoules and fat. And that the one food that she'd found that satisfied this criteria was... peaches! So what was she eating for breakfast, lunch, and dinner until the 4 kilo was gone? You guesed it... peaches! Oh joyous day!

I thought, 'Fuck me, is she serious?' But she was serious. At lunchtime, there she was, with her bowl of peaches, looking very proud of herself. Others in the office, meanwhile, would walk past her absolutely flummoxed by her lunch choice, to which she would exclaim, "They have no fat!"

After a few days of this, I bumped into her, in the kitchen - she grabbed the can opener before I did. I was waiting with my can of beetroot while she opened her can of peaches. And no, I wasn't just eating beetroot, I was going to make a beetroot, feta, avocado and spinach salad at the time.

I shook my head and said, "You're going to drive yourself mad with all of the sugar in those things." Again she came up with her justification, "But they have no fat!".

Begin miniature rant. Fat doesn't make you fat. Sugar doesn't make you fat. Carbs don't make you fat. Too much of one or more of the above, combined with a deficiency inother nutrients and vitamins, coupled with no heart-rate elevating cardiovascular activity? Perhaps. But aside from being fat or not fat, what about your mental health. I love me some canned peaches. But I could not, will not, eat nothing but them. I would go mad. While eating the sweet mushy peaches, I would be thinking about savoury cheese, crunchy crackers, peanut butter, tomato soup, broccoli, mushrooms - everything savoury, creamy, warm, and crunchy; everything that peaches aren't.

If you try to warn someone about this though, telling them that you'll start wanting other foods and then binge and gain all the weight back, they'll cut you off and say, "No *I* won't! *I* won't gain it back!"

I did give up.

And yesterday? I saw her sneak into the office with a steak and cheese pie.