Month: January 2011

Tuesday eats: what I’m eating for breakfast right now

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Someone asked me the other day to do a post on what I eat. In general. So I’ll start with breakfast.

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I get up. I drink about 1-2 litres of hot water with either a squeeze of lemon or a dash of apple cider vinegar. Then I exercise etc. Then I eat. I’m simply not hungry for about 1-2 hours after I rise. Then it’s ON!

I mix it up a bit (porridge with sheep’s milk yoghurt and activated nuts; poached eggs and spinach, a few slices of millet bread with turmeric and cashew butter-$2- from Suveran as I ride to my office) But I’ve been filming a lot lately and it’s summer and my stomach as been a bit crook… and the below kind of caters to all of it. It’s portable, cooling, and allows me to whack in a few gut supplements.

Every morning I make sure I get a good dose of protein and FAT! If I don’t, I go searching for sugary carbs by about 10am.

my good-for-your guts breakfast smoothie

You’ll need:

* A stab mixer (don’t bother with blenders – too much equipment that you have to wash)

* handful of frozen berries or 1/2 a frozen banana (I buy when on special, peel and store in a zip-lock bag, then break into chunks to blend).

* 1/2 cup-ish yoghurt or kefir (I make my own or buy Meredith sheep’s milk yoghurt…less lactose and a great consistency; but I ALWAYS use full-fat. Why? Read here).

* 1/2 cup-ish  coconut water (fresh from the nut is best with the flesh tossed in, too,  or I like the Beyond one or the one that comes in a 500ml Tetrapak. Coconut water and flesh is extremely nutritious and an amazing electrolyte).

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office space for rent

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I don’t normally use my site to advertise things… so apologies in advance if you find this annoying. I’ll be quick… Perhaps you know a creative type who might like to share a great office/studio space in Darlinghurst (in Sydney). I work from here. Along with a well-known blogger, and five other web/writing creatives. And … Read more

why you should quit alcohol with me in february

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Note: this page has been updated to include the password…“Wellness” I’m giving up booze during February. 28 Days. Bang. Done. I’m the patron for FebFast, a charity that raises money for drug and alcohol resource centres around Australia. Important! My job is to get people to abstain from drinking for the shortest month of the … Read more

sunday life: in which i learn how to fix a relationship breakdown

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This week I play relationship games

I’ve just found a word to describe one of the most spleen-tearing, devastatingly destructive relationship scenarios a soul can ever face.  If you’re old enough to read this, you’ve no doubt been there. You’ve stood opposite someone you love, mired in a fight (about wet towels on the floor?) that’s lasted all night.

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It’s Sunday afternoon and you haven’t slept or left the house and you’ve forgotten what you’re fighting about. Both of you so desperately want the other to give in, but neither can move, paralysed by a need to see a sign of love from the other. If you compromise first you feel you lose. If you don’t, you sink deeper into the stalemate.

You’re in anguish, screaming through tears. You’re due at the neighbours for dinner. But there you are, staring at each other across the boggy, battle-scared Flanders Fields of your disconnect. And you couldn’t be further from peace.

Oh, I’ve been there. And I hope I’m never drafted to another war like it again.

Anyway, the word, from the Yaghan language is mamihlapinatapai, which translates as, “looking at each other hoping the other will offer to do something that both parties desire to have done but are unwilling to do themselves”. Ha! Perfect! The Guinness Book of Records lists it as the most succinct word in any language, and it’s regarded as one of the hardest to translate. Go figure.

I learned this week that this particular relationship scenario is of some interest to game theorists, mathematicians dedicated to solving sticky human quandaries with tactics used in everyday games like cards and chess. Game theory seems to have had a spike in popularity lately, possibly due to it being 60 years since John Nash, as immortalized in the film A Beautiful Mind, devised his Noble Prize-winning theory the Nash Equilibrium (a point in a relationship from which neither party can escape independently without landing in a worse situation). And so it was that I shared a peppermint tea with Australian-born game theory writer Len Fisher, author of Rock, Paper, Scissors, who explained to me strategies for negotiating through the grimmest of relationship stalemates. So I’m never drafted again.

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find your spot

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I see Ben around a bit. He lives down the road. He’s  a great-grandfather and he’s lived in Bondi most of his life. Ben makes me smile because he has a thing he does. Mid-mornings. after he’s taken his great-granddaughter to school, he comes out to the road and sits in his little car and … Read more

More 7PM Project…fun!

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And here, the links to the hosting segments I did just before Christmas… That dress is by Mimosa…Aussie label! Love Myf!!! We both got teary in the 2010 wrap-up in the second link below. It really was a big year…closing with the floods. Funnily Tom and I were on the same plane to Canberra in … Read more

shootings and floods: a very good Arianna Huffington reflection

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A few hours ago Arianna Huffington wrote a deep, rich reflection on the craziness of the Arizona shootings, suggesting that it’s a reflection of a collective toxic immune system. Here the floods are a far more distressing issue. We’re all feeling powerless and at a loss as to how to fathom what’s happening. Arianna’s thoughts … Read more

the best ever iphone apps: a listicle (part 2)

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A week or so ago I shared the apps I’m rapt about. Now a list of radical ones you use (albeit, not all of them are productive…in fact some are counterproductive…but I guess it’s that time of year), plus a few from people whose productivity levels we’re in awe of.

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My assistant Jo loves these (she should probably be on commission for selling in Echofon…she wouldn’t rest until she was allowed to put it on my phone):

Echofon for Twitter (free)

This is the best app around for twitter-on-the-go, especially for those like me who tend to tweet a lot! It’s easy to navigate, with some handy ‘echofon specific’ features that make it super quick to update your status, ‘reply all’ or ‘retweet with comment’. It also does all the standard twitter things, including pics and videos. Love it.

Talking Carl (free)

This is just for sillies, and fun. I do some work with foster kids, so it’s handy to have some quirky kid-friendly, distractable apps on my phone for those tantrum-type moments. Talking Carl is a crazy red guy, and if you touch him, he laughs, and talks. If you talk, he copies you, and it’s HILARIOUS. Kids(and adults) love him. Check it out. This is he:

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Kerri Sackville, blogger extraordinaire, soon-to-be-published author, and manic mum of three, raves about these:

Touchwriter ($1.99)

Okay, I’m loving Touchwriter. I’m forever writing myself notes, but a) always forget to carry a pen and paper, and b) lose the notes anyway. Touchwriter allows me to ‘handwrite’ notes with my finger, and then – unlike other ‘finger-writing’ apps – immediately shrinks the words as I write so that each notes can fit a lot of text. There is a space bar, paragraph break and different colours, and the notes can be saved or emailed. I prefer Touchwriter to the ‘finger-to-text’ apps, as I find they make a lot of errors when converting, and are hard to use.

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Sunday Life: how to stop being distracted and live in the now!

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This week I reign in the mind wandering

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Back when I edited a women’s magazine I learned very quickly that a lot of women worry that when they’re having sex they’re thinking about the washing in the tub that needs to be hung out, or the pork in the freezer that needs to be defrosted, or whether they have time to get their legs waxed on the way to their 11am meeting on Friday. As if mouldy washing isn’t enough to worry about, they worry that they’re worrying instead of being carried away in full orgasmic flight.

But hark! happiness expert and Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert this month released a much-hyped study on distractedness and found that we’re less distracted while having sex than while doing any other activity. The study used iPhone app trackyourhappiness to interrupt 2200 participants in the middle of everyday activities to track their emotions and focus. It found our minds wander 47 per cent of our waking lives, but only 10 per cent of the time when we’re getting jiggy with it (which begs, who answers their buzzing iphone app while having sex?!).

The study also found we’re happiest while having sex. And concludes happiness is inversely proportional to how much our mind wanders. So much so, that it doesn’t really matter what we do, so long as we don’t daydream while doing it.

To bundle it up into a catchphrase: you stray, you pay. Or to use the quasi-spiritual (slightly passive-aggressive?) parlance of our day: Babe, you really need to learn to live in the moment, like, now.

But how!? Psychologists, scientists, doctors and spiritualists agree living in the now works; it’s the method that eludes.

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