Food Rules (again)

Tags

absorb, food, rules, therapy

Eating glorious twice cooked Belgian chips with loads of mayonnaise out in public (no wonder I like them)

I’ve covered this before but no doubt will have to cover it again until I’m done.

No “childish” foods: mash potato, ice cream, too much gravy, nuggets and the like.

No common / working class foods: the label might be inappropriate but no tinned baked beans, no brown sauce, no salad cream, no fish-fingers.

No pre-prepared foods: I don’t remember ever having any type of ready made food and that includes jars of sauces. My mum lies about using stock cubes to my dad.

No sweets: my mum used to make puddings: stodgy filling crumbles and a superb lemon and meringue pie. Proper puddings for dinners with guests. But that all stopped. My dad likes lemon sorbet (with a shot of vodka), lemon tart and the occasional tarte tatin. But no overdosing on chocolate or sweet stuff or cream. My mum used to make her own yoghurt which again, wasn’t really sweet.

Diet foods: my mum was on endless diets and we definitely had naughty foods. If you’re going to eat empty calories, make them high quality foods. Other than some of the summer fruits my parents always had a fruit bowl with oranges and apples that they forced themselves to eat because it’s good for you.

Eating rules: no eating outside on the street (it’s common); no eating with your hands (it’s just bad manners) and I still horrify my parents by eating chips with my fingers; even picking at bones should be done with a knife and fork; use the correct utensils (fish knives, chopsticks, cob holders, whatever).

I have never known my father to drink more than 2 pints in a pub (other than finishing my mother’s off). He’d exclaim if I wanted to drink beer with a meal out as wine is the proper accompaniment although he did soften to eating beer with Indian food. The last time we went out for a meal my parents had cider and I had a cocktail (two, actually). That got comments. My dad used to prepare a sort of cocktail as an aperitif, but not the sort you’d buy. I stuck to beer when he started including Cinzano.

So these are all my parents rules. I’ve added my own:

• cook from scratch (it’s healthier and tastes better as long as you cook)
• no artificial additives, flavouring, sweeteners
• consider the environment; use up leftovers

I have genuinely lost the ability to enjoy puddings and yoghurts. I love lemon sorbet but I’ve gone off chocolate ice cream. I’ve started forcing myself to have jam or peanut butter on toast in the mornings in the hope that I’ll stop feeling guilty about rule-breaking. I’ve narrowed my food choices down so far that I rotate through a very limited choice which is boring. I have noticed that as I’ve got older I’m loving the vegetables that my mum used to eat for herself and rave about them without trying to force me to eat them: spinach and spring greens. I love courgettes and mushrooms. But these don’t feel like guilty pleasures.

It’s actually quite terrifying how I’ve absorbed some of these rules so much I’m not even aware the rules are there. Which is of course what therapy is there for.

Food Rules

Tags

food, Intuitive Eating, rules

“If you don’t eat yer meat, you can’t have any pudding. How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat yer meat?”

Thou shalt not:

waste food: including eating food that smells weird because it’s almost off, and food you don’t really like despite having cooked a ton of it, let alone food that you just don’t like very much

leave food on the plate: there are people starving who would be grateful for those chips and someone went to the effort of growing it, paying for it and cooking it

buy food that is prepared in any way: it’s cheaper for you and any prepared food no doubt has some crap added to it; also it’s far better to be a martyr and cook everything from scratch, taking the time to do it properly

eat food at an inappropriate time of day: food is right at the right time of the day, not at the wrong time

eat food below your station: baked beans, ketchup, brown sauce, salad cream, chips and gravy, burgers, fast food and no doubt others

eat food intended for children only (mash​ed potatoes, ice cream, fish fingers, crisp sandwiches, chip butties, takeaway pizzas and no doubt more)

eat with your fingers or in the street: civilised people just don’t do it

eat pudding if you haven’t cleared your main course.

eat more meat than you should: meat is mostly for the head of the household as befits his station and two helpings should suffice

​buy out of season: it’s unnatural and not what food was designed for.

Deep breath.

Rules I try to apply:

Evict all the above rules from my brain.
Eat when hungry.
Stop when full.
Don’t eat if not hungry.
Eat it if I like it, and not if I don’t​.
Eat what I want to eat.
Some foods aren’t worth the trouble of making from scratch. Some are. Learn the difference.
Don’t buy foods from companies or countries that I’m boycotting.

Family Gatherings

Tags

1sis, alcohol, cousins, ex1, family, food, relations

There is nothing I dread more than parental visits. That in itself is very sad. They are visits to be got through, to be endured, not to be enjoyed. I have to fight mentally to not revert to being a child, to remember that I can disagree or stay silent. It then takes me a couple of days to recover.

My father visits four times a year and my mother accompanies him on the birthday visit in May for 1sis and myself. Normally my father comes to us and he will spend some time with the children after which he and I will go out for a meal together which increasingly is filled with silence. It used to be my mother coming over regularly and my father who made the annual visit but since my mother and I drifted apart that has reversed.

#19 Nourish Your Body

Tags

balance, beautiful you, food

It’s a nice thought, isn’t it?

If you’ve read more than a few posts you’ll have gathered I have issues with cooking. I’m quite happy to eat well, but it’s the planning that I find really irritating.

I can blame that on the amount of attention my parents spent on food; talking, preparing, planning, reviewing, endless discussions. I can also see my mother, somewhat more prosaically sitting down with the back of an envelope saying “what shall we eat this week?” I can blame it on Ex1 who decided that I couldn’t cook and for the most part (except for when drunk), took over the cooking which I was quite happy to let him do, except for the occasional sneer reminding me that I couldn’t cook. Ex2 was happy to leave it all to me as anything else might mean him doing something. He’d cook a curry once every six months and I’d have to be prepared to not eat until very late.

So that’s the past.

My children are faddy eaters. I’m not sure how they got that way as it certainly wasn’t intentional. They were all breastfed for 12-21 months and then went onto pureed vegetables, with not a bottle of formula or of baby food in sight. I always cooked them the bland version of whatever I was eating. Maybe that’s the problem.

I wouldn’t mind them being faddy if they all had the same fads but no. One will eat salad, one will eat fruit, the other won’t eat either. I’ve tried the no pudding until you’ve had your mouthfuls of veg and 4son would sit there for an hour trying to force down two pieces of carrots while crying. I gave that up as too cruel and pointless. They don’t like spices and that includes a sprinkling of pepper so they will refuse to eat  some sausages for example because they’re too peppery. So it’s complicated.

As for me I think I eat in an unbalanced way. It wasn’t until I was reading the relative chapter in HAES that I really thought about whether I eat enough carbohydrates or whether I still use that diet mentality of a lot of salad and a little bit of protein and that’s a good meal. So I’m trying to add a bit more back into my diet. I eat very little puddings or sweets, mainly because I’m not bothered but again, I’m trying to have a little something sweet when I feel the urge rather than be “good” and resist the temptation.

I have lost the will and interest in planning food and that’s my trouble. I’m quite happy to cook and quite enjoy it, but all those years of my parents talking about food has taken its toll and, like many others who have to cook on a daily basis, I just find it boring.

I mentioned some months back that I’d bought some student cookbooks and have given them to the boys to choose a recipe every week each so that they are contributing to the discussion. That has worked well when I remember to get them to choose but I haven’t done since Christmas and that’s something I need to get back to and that they also have asked for.

So as to today, have I done well food-wise? Let’s see.
2 toast and marmite for breakfast.
2 cheese and onion on toast for lunch. (running out of food…)
home made chicken nuggets, salad and jacket potatoes for dinner, shortly to be followed by a yoghurt.
I’ve had gallons of tea. I drink China tea, made in tea pots with fresh tea leaves. I’ll drink black in the morning and drink green, white or puerh in the afternoon, followed by redberries in the evening. Lots of different varieties and I stay off the black tea after teatime so the caffeine doesn’t affect my sleep. I have about two cups of coffee a month and virtually no fizzy drinks unless I’m mixing them with alcohol.

Alcohol, mmm. I will be having a glass or two of wine later. I either don’t drink at all at home, have a glass or two, or finish the bottle. If I’m out, I tend to drink a fair amount of beer, depending on where I am but I certainly drink more than my weekly allowance. I am drinking less at home now that I’m on anti-depressants as I don’t feel the need quite as much which is good. I am very aware that my intake varies substantially according to my mood at home. Slowing down drinking when out is harder but I’m focusing on cutting down at home first.

So what does the future bring?

More planning in advance. If I do that, I don’t get irritated by trying to do it every meal time and we all eat better.
Carry on trying to balance it a little better, paying attention to what I want to eat rather than what I think I should eat.
Encouraging my children to try, even if they don’t like. But so often the eyes reject what the mouth hasn’t yet tasted.
Try to get a bigger list of meals that they will happily eat.
Get more variety into my meals, as well as more fibre.

Beautiful You by Rosie Molinary

Beautiful You, by Rosie Molinary, with 365 thoughts and challenges, is available at Amazon (click on the picture) and her website is Rosie Molinary

First Week Back

Tags

back to school, food, frustration, grind, now, routine, school, time, tired, wii

As ever, the first week back after the summer break is a bit of a shock to the system. This time it was even more brutal as we are now getting up half an hour earlier than we used to (half six) in order for 3son to go to school.

On Tuesday 2son failed to get up at all to see psych. That was incredibly frustrating and draining as it meant I was running up and down the stairs every half hour or so, giving him a prod to try and get him up, but all to no avail. Having said that he then got up for the rest of the week with little or no reminder to attend CATE so on balance he had a good week. I’d also said to him at the weekend that he had a choice: I could either shave his hair off, or cut half the length off and nit comb the rest, or we could tediously nit-comb the hair that he has. He of course chose the latter. With his hair approaching shoulder length and not having brushed or combed it in the last year it took over half an hour to get a brush through it and then the best part of two hours to get a nit-comb through it. That was Monday’s activity. He has since recognised that brushing it every day only takes a couple of minutes and we’ve agreed on nit-combing twice a week to get rid of the buggers. This should hopefully be the last push with all of them getting older and it would be bloody marvellous to get rid of all of them in all our heads.

3son really enjoyed his first week at school. He’s made friends, thinks the food is awesome (his word, not mine) and that even the strict teachers are funny and exciting. He’s a little excessively pleased with himself and a bit condescending with 4son but I’m just happy that so far all is good. I know full well that the problems occur when the novelty wears off, but 3son is not 2son.

4son is now going to school on his own. He asked me to come and pick him up just so I could bring the football after school so I explained that he was capable of carrying it just as well as I am. It’s the first time he’s been to school without an elder brother and that’s no doubt slightly bizarre for him but he was independent much earlier than 3son and is enjoying going off on his own. He’s also developed a friendship with a boy from a different school and they knock on each other’s doors at the weekend and go off to the park together. So his independence is growing and he feels more able to just pop to the park to see if there’s anyone to play with. As the mornings are half an hour longer that’s given me the time to spend 20 minutes playing Wii with him before he goes to school which is good for both of us as he has no-one to play with in the mornings as 3son has already left when he awakes and 4son is still asleep.

Even 1son has started college and although I don’t have to take care of the day-to-day issues as he’s with his dad during the week,  he’s pleased with the first week and happy that there aren’t any dickheads in his group (his word). I really hope this works for him; seeing if he can just get past this term will be the great thing and we’re still not altogether sure how his benefits play out.

So that leaves me. Last, not first.

The first week back always makes me realise how relaxed the holidays are in comparison, whether we’ve gone away or not. In the holiday I can lie in every day if I so choose; their needs are few and they’d be quite happy staying in and playing computer games non stop if I let them; work diminishes to a trickle that I can cope with; this Summer I didn’t try and do my normal domestic clear out, just the bits I wanted to. I tried to let go and to a certain extent succeeded, spending more time writing and thinking about myself than I had really expected.

This week I’ve struggled with my writing with most of my posts having been written on a train journey last week. I have been reading other blogs but not really spending time thinking and writing about what they bring up. I have been doing this first thing in the morning which is a positive although I still find it difficult to allow myself the permission to do so. During the day when I’ve found my thoughts wandering and not concentrating I have happily gone and played Wii for 2 minutes which is helping and I’m not feeling that guilty about it. I’ve also decided to try and take Wednesday off work and to keep it for housekeeping and other non-work chores that I don’t want to have to do at the weekend as I’m trying to keep that free for relaxing or going out with the boys. All this means of course that I’ve worked less this week and although I find it perverse to say so in the current economic climate, less work is better.

Both this weekend and the last I’ve sat down the boys and told them to pick a recipe out of the student cookbooks. I’ve explained to them that we need to widen our menus, that both they and I have too narrow a selection of meals and that we need to experiment more. Some recipes have been successful  and others less so, but I keep reminding them that just trying new foods is good. I’m also making one pudding at the weekend, this time a rich chocolate cake that was very similar to one I already had and could have cooked any time. I’m using the time I’m not sitting in the park after school to cook so it’s easier to spend time cooking without it cutting into work time before they return home from school starving.

I am however shattered from the early start and gave up a couple of evenings out because I simply hadn’t the energy, even though I didn’t really go to sleep any earlier. Losing out on my social evenings frustrates me but I also recognised that I just couldn’t do it. I did give up one social evening to go to see a new film which I couldn’t manage any other night and was pleased to resist pressure to go out knowing that I was doing what I wanted to do rather than what was expected. It also meant I was in bed at the time a few hours earlier than I would have been if I’d gone out with my friends as planned.

So I have arrived at the eve of a new week feeling tired still (I didn’t sleep Saturday till much later than usual, possibly as I’d had the longest lie-in that I’ve had for years) but also feeling that I’m now on a tread mill until half term and all I can do is to run to keep up. I don’t know where to find extra time for peace in, let alone time to think in. But I have also kept to my resolutions for this term in this first week and acknowledge that sticking to them makes me feel stronger and more positive.

I’m also really wondering at what point will I stop feeling that life is a daily grind with boring routines to get my family through the day, the week, the half term, interspersed with fun. I’d much rather it was the other way round. I feel that life has been a long grind with the pleasure and fun little and rare.

There should be more.

Space For My Thoughts

Tags

decisions, food, holiday, me first, mefirst

I have had a week without 3son and 4son, something I’ve never managed to achieve before. It’s been a busy week.

As I posted earlier I stayed overnight after having dropped them off and really felt uncomfortable being on my own in a strange environment.

However on Monday I went to stay with what can only be described as my BFF. This is my one friend from school, who I met when about 14 although it probably took us a couple of years to become friends. She’s the only person I’m not related to who was there when it all happened. It was shocking to realise that we hadn’t actually seen each other for around 10 years although we had kept in touch by telephone.

She’s still 18, albeit a responsible householder with a collection of grey hairs and we talked for 48 hours straight although trying to catch up on 10 years of face to face conversation is slightly bizarre.

I had a touristy day on my own before returning home which I thoroughly enjoyed and with less of the strain I had felt at the weekend.

Thursday and Friday I had 48 hours left at home, with just 2son for company who had been looked after by 1son in my absence. Other than the pile of washing up, all was well. I indulged myself by watching five films at our local independent cinema and really enjoyed watching grown up films without a horde of children munching, slurping and crinkling away.

I’ve really enjoyed not having to think about 3son and 4son for a few days. It really gives space for my thoughts to expand and to simply relax.

As ever, I made some resolutions for the term ahead.:

I’m going to try and write most days and to do so first thing in the morning before getting on with work, in an attempt to put myself first.

I’m going to try and re-engage with food, to rediscover joy and pleasure in it. This is a monumental task and needs breaking down into small bit-sized pieces. To this end, and since passing a bookshop while alone proved irresistible, I’ve bought a couple of student cookbooks as these aim to provide interesting meals that take a minimum of time to prepare. I shall try to cook a couple of new dishes a week and plan food in advance rather than last thing. I also need to try completing the Hunger chart from HAES.

What else? Me time. I’m going to attempt going to the cinema on my own once a week and go more regularly to the theatre, with or without children.

My only other task is to think about what I would say to my father if I did have that conversation on the assumption that thinking about it might help clarify my feelings.

That’s a lot to be thinking about and quite honestly I also need to be thinking about why I find it so necessary to continually re-assess my progress and make new goals. I know it’s partly to do with feeling that time is passing and I’ve wasted enough of it already.

I meant to post this yesterday but lack of free Wi-Fi stopped me.

We’re Victims of Food Politics

Tags

con, diet, food, food industry, HAES, politics of food

This follows on from a  previous post as I go through HAES.

By creating a system that maintains a cheap and plentiful supply of corn and soybeans, among other products, government policy has inadvertently favoured the production of foods that promote weight gain (and damage health)

This refers to the various subsidies provided by the US government to support growth of products such as corn which in turn help make meat market cheap. Fruit and vegetables don’t have the same subsidies so the price differential is there. We have our equivalent subsidies in the EU.

Companies of course make greater profit out of more processed food rather than out of the original article so it’s in their interest to sell us more crap and to design and market it so it appeals to our taste buds and sense of smell before we think about the content.

Studies have found that if we get large servings, we eat more.

Again, we need to respond to the inner signals of whether we’re full rather than the outer signal of have we cleared our plate or not.

When we eat processed foods, we get the joy without all the associated nutrients intended for us.

Our brains reward us for eating the strong flavours that we like, whether sweet or savoury by giving us positive feedback, thus making us enjoy and desire those tastes even more. So if we get hooked on the added fat, sugar, salt, artificial flavours, then we desire more of the same which is exactly what the processed food manufacturers wish. But in the same way, we can retrain our taste buds to enjoy the taste of real food.

In the US, 70% of food advertising spend is on fast food, snacks and soft drinks etc. Manufacturers support health organisations in the sure hope of having their products marketed to the memberships. Medical advice on nutrition is often set by organisations sponsored in one way or another by food manufacturers. An example given is that there is no scientific reason for promoting milk’s health benefits although there is evidence to the contrary and yet both sides of the pond have strong milk marketing slogans that we’ve grown up with. In other words, a healthily cynical attitude to all food fads and marketing news is required, something I developed a long time ago when I first realised that items like “fat-free biscuits” promoted as a healthy option had twice as much sugar in to make up for the lack of fat. Reading the label and using your brain is paramount to not be deceived by all the food promotion out there, whether it’s on the packet or in the media.

Quotes are taken from “Health at Every Size” by Linda Bacon

Half Way Through

Tags

exercise, food, good habits, HAES, me, pressure, priorities, smoking, thinking, time

We’re half way through the holidays and I’m only just beginning to take the time to think about me.

I’ve made a good effort at writing this blog more regularly; I’ve gone back to thinking about HAES. I touched the Wii yesterday for the first time in months. I’ve started thinking about what I’m cooking in advance and I’ve started trying to add more fibre back into my food and balancing my diet more.

But it all takes time and thought and energy. I’m not going to have time to get set into new good habits before we go back to school and other pressures will take priority. I need to find a way of addressing this or I will never give myself the time.

When I stopped smoking over 5 years ago, I spent a good year thinking about it beforehand. I read Alan Carr’s book which helped a little, and was further helped by someone who said they’d read it 6 times before stopping. This made me realise the amount of thinking I had to do. But I did. I renounced my desire for smoking mentally, before I put that last cigarette out and as a result I quit without patches and without all  that feeling of deprivation that had gone along previous efforts. I wanted to not be a smoker so I was.

I need to perform the same sort of mindswitch here. The biggest and slowest switch is to throw out much of my ingrained habits formed one way or another by my parents and childhood. That’s a work in progress but I’m finally beginning to really understand how pervasive my childhood is and how much it affects everything. There’s a lot to unlearn, but I’m getting better at recognising the thoughts and feelings I need to throw out. I do need to think about what, if anything, I say to my parents about all this but that’s almost a separate issue.

Writing the previous few posts have made me realise other mindswitches I need to make.

In Fat Is My Prison I realise for the very first time how much my parents’ attitude towards sport and exercise has worked against me. They only value walking as exercise, nothing else. I taught myself to swim and did quite a bit of that when young, mainly because we had a marvellous and cheap swimming pool. That fell off when we returned to England and it wasn’t such a pleasure any more. I also learned to ride a bike with the help of 2sis and used that to go off cycling round the streets although I never got into going on big days out on it. Riding a bike is also something that stopped when I returned to London. Having learned on safe streets with good cycle paths I cycled to Weybridge once and was absolutely terrified and never got on a bike again. I do occasionally think about starting again, with all the riverside paths we have but this is something I feel I ought to rather than I want to.

Writing We’re Eternally Hungry has forced me to re-evaluate my diet. I always used to think my diet wasn’t that bad because I didn’t eat a lot of cakes, creams and puddings. Again this goes back to my parents. Nice sponge cakes with a bit of jam or icing in were all right but for the most part puddings were not deemed ‘proper food’ although we did indulge in the occasional patisserie. Just about the last time my mother made me cry was when she ridiculed me for wanting an ice-cream after a meal. The children could have one but it’s a childish thing to eat so why on earth was I bothering. I know that sounds petty and ridiculous but it hurt. Why was I not allowed to enjoy the simple pleasure of having an ice-cream along with my sons and nephews just because she didn’t want one. So I grew up with savoury=good; sweet=bad mentality. Chocolate is an indulgence we permit ourselves. So I need to throw out all that as well as all the diet indoctrination that goes on in my head.

I don’t really know how I’m going to keep up this level of thinking when term starts again. To write this blog, I need a good hour’s peace which I find in the morning if we’re not going to school or elsewhere or in the evening once they’ve settled down. I feel too much pressure on the hours while they’re at school to use that time to write which is something I need to try and address but that goes back to prioritising me over work which I find difficult. So I need to think more about that.

I also need to make the time to play on the Wii, something I don’t need peace and quiet for and don’t have to do in a solid chunk. Again I hear the thoughts that you don’t start burning fat until you’ve done at least half an hour so anything less is wasted. I need to throw out that thought and think that actually 20 minutes can make my muscles ache and that strengthening my muscles and making me stronger and healthier is actually what it’s about rather than as a source of weight loss (which according to research is a fallacy anyway). So if I can break it into 20 minute chunks that makes it a lot easier to squeeze it in during the day in a way that doesn’t make me feel that it’s pushing other higher priorities out of the way.

When I stopped smoking, I wasn’t working. But I didn’t have all my children at school yet either. So pressure was still there, just in a different way. I managed to find the time then to do what I needed to do. I need to find the time again.

I also need to continue to think about the implications of my reluctance to take the time to think about me, to not see this as a luxury but as a necessity. I still need to learn to value myself more, to prioritise looking after myself as essential and to take the time I need to do what I need to do. For me.

Wouldn’t It Be Nice If…

Tags

everything, exercise, food, HAES, if, wishes

Wouldn’t it be nice if:
I could walk without my thighs rubbing together;
I could buy clothes because they fitted rather than covered;
I could buy clothes in the shops rather than online;
I could buy clothes because I want to rather than because I’ve grown out of the last lot;
I could look in the mirror and be pleased with what I see;
I could be active without struggling for breath;
I could enjoy that feeling of being energetic;
I exercised enough that my muscles didn’t hurt when I use them;
I didn’t feel that my body is such a lump;
I had more energy;
I could take pleasure in feeling healthier;
I enjoyed thinking about food;
I enjoyed cooking;
I took greater pleasure in eating;
I stopped hearing my parents’ voices in my head;
I could stop worrying about all this stuff;
I valued myself enough to take the time to do all the above.

We’re Eternally Hungry

Tags

balance, diet, exercise, food, habits, HAES

This follows on from a  previous post as I go through HAES.

What you eat – at least from the perspective of weight loss – probably just doesn’t matter a whole lot. Nobody has yet proven that any particular dietary habit results in sustained weight loss….what you eat does matter for good health.

Studies show that large people eat no more than lean people.

What we eat seems to be more important that how much we eat.

1970s marks a time when more people turned to diets. It also marks a time when processed food becomes more readily available and affordable. These foods bypass our weight control meters, adding calories without telling us we’re full which is why we eat more. This is not to say don’t eat these foods, but be aware that our body doesn’t respond to them as they should.

High-fructose corn syrup seems to have taken over from ‘real’ sugar in the US is one that does this. It’s known as isoglucose or glucose-fructose syrup in the UK, and hasn’t taken over to the same extent. Fructose cheats your body as well, with glucose being “real” sugar.

If there is a sinple guide to eating more healthily than adding fibre to the diet would be it.

You don’t need food rules to guide your choices. You don’t need to fight your desires. All you need is to respect your body, by listening and responding to its signals.

There’s a warning that nutritional research is complicated, that there’s no such thing as ‘bad food’, as all food can be good or bad for depending on which way you look at it and what the latest piece of research says. Much of the research is funded by the bodies who want to prove the health of their products. A valid comparison to this is the wonderful facebook page showing all the ways you can get cancer depending on your lifestyle from the Daily Mail, many of them contradictory. This shows the ridiculous levels to which media’s “good advice” can sink.

Most of the increase in our calorie intake has been from “high-glycemic carbohydrates” which are more quickly digested and absorbed and when eaten in quantities can cause a spike in insulin production, and the insulin allows cells to use glucose for energy. Repeated spikes in insulin make the body less sensitive to insulin. The glucose that we can’t use gets converted into fat and stored, and it tends to get stored in the abdomen.

Insulin spikes can be caused by refined grains just as much as by excessive sugar consumption. Now I don’t eat sweet stuff at all. I eat brown bread with grains in; if I’m not cooking for my children I always eat brown rice or pasta. I don’t eat enough straight carbs, having followed standard dietary advice for too long, and I probably don’t eat enough sweet things for balance either.

Eating fibre slows digestion so reduces spikes as well as making you feel full. I don’t eat enough fibre. I’m happy on whole grains, but don’t eat enough pulses, fruit and veg.

High-fat diets also don’t stimulate leptin (stimulated by insulin to make you feel full). Unsaturated fats (plant foods) are better than saturated fats (animals) better than trans fats (processed). Monounsaturated fats are better than polyunsaturated fats.

The major source of saturated fat in our diet is meat.

By having a little bit of protein with every meal, you ar likely to notice that you will feel full longer.

I have learned to eat breakfast before the school run most of the time, rather than waiting until later. Whether I’m hungry first thing depends on what time I ate the night before and whether I snacked later. I can’t say that it makes me feel better but I am trying to not ignore hunger pangs when I have them.

I do eat lunch and dinner at reasonable times, well mostly.

My portion size is too much. I tend to eat “free food” like salad, with a heavy meat portion so not enough fibre, carbs or balance.

In terms of the glycemic rush, I rarely or never drink soft drinks, eat sweet snacks, use fruits in syrup, add sugar to anything, eat sweets, jam, honey, white rice. The only box I tick is for overeating.

We don’t seem to have the same problem with high-fructose corn syrup in the UK and I rarely drink fizzy drinks. I’d get more Vitamin C if I drank more fruit juice.

For fibre, 25g is the recommended amount for a woman. I reckon I eat under 10g per day. Although I eat quite a lot of unsaturated fats, I also eat large portions of meat, and red by preference. I eat little processed fats, tending to have take away food once a week.

I don’t exercise.

I’m not making a list of rules to follow, but am trying to highlight the areas where I need to try and make changes that I can enjoy.

Increase fibre with whole grains and pulses, fruit and veg.
Glucose not fructose
Unsaturated fats (plant foods) > saturated fats (animals) > trans fats (processed)
Monounsaturated >polyunstaurated
Bit of exercise
Eat regularly

Quotes are taken from “Health at Every Size” by Linda Bacon