running from the quietness

I think many of modern life’s ills stem from running away from quietness and lurching for something more. Constantly lurching, reaching out, not settling inwards. I think about this today as I bounce and lurch from task to phone call to the fridge and back again.

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by Lizzy Stewart via “advice to sink in slowly”

We are so afraid of stopping and being quiet. I practice being in a quiet space each day by meditating. To sit and do nothing is noble. It takes smarts. Reflection. I don’t kid myself it’s easy. It is my life’s toughest journey: down and in.

As Oscar Wilde once wrote:

“To do nothing at all is the most difficult thing in the world, the most difficult and the most intellectual.”

To sit with the silence, the nothingness, it’s a tug of brutal war. Every part of me wants to run from the quietness that my meditation mantra attempts to take me to. So much so, my right hip actually aches as I meditate. It’s my right leg that lurches out towards life. In many traditions, the right side of the body is seen as the “masculine” side. As in, the side that tends to be about lurching out, conquering, forcing, making things happen, doing. And so my right hip aches to move away, to do.

As an aside, it’s my right leg that attracts all my injuries – I’ve broken my right ankle twice, split open my right knee twice, broken my toe and torn a tendon… all on my right leg. And always when I’ve been forcing life too hard. When I’ve been doing and not sitting in enough quietness.

You might want to read about one of my favourite techniques for sitting quietly with myself here.

Why do we run from the quietness? Pscyhiatrist Neel Burton writes about the manic defence in The Art of Failure, The Anti Self-Help Guide:

The manic defence is the tendency, when presented with uncomfortable thoughts or feelings, to distract

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my simple home: my next project

A few things are about to change around here. In a few weeks this site will be all fresh and different, and my new I Quit Sugar site will be starting to take shape. 

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image via energy efficient homes

In the meantime, much of my passion is going to funnel into my next campaign, which is all about setting up your home to be as sustainable, ethical, minimal, efficient, toxin-free and economical as possible. I’m going to share the best tips and advice via my own bumpy journey to transform (or steer) my own home.

Just before Christmas I bought my first apartment. It’s not big – 1.5 bedrooms, no balcony or yard, no parking. It’s old. It doesn’t have much storage nor many flourishes. It’s a bit of a shell. On top of this, I own no furniture. Actually, that’s a lie. I have a mattress, an old Formica table that I inherited from a friend and two IKEA chairs, an old crate I found at the dump when I was 18 and have lugged about with me for two decades, two cushions, a coffee table and bookshelf I found on the street about 10 years ago and two boxes of sentimental nick-knacks and crockery. Oh, and two surfboards. I’ve simply never bought stuff. I’ve inherited and given away my white goods and couches (actually I’ve NEVER bought whitegoods or couches, not even a kettle) and I’ve never been one to go for vases or candles or whatever else people buy at homewares shops on weekends. Which means I’m in an amazing position to start from

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sugar-free berry and buckwheat galette

I love Aran from Cannelle e Vanille. We all love Aran. And we love that she’s offered to share another recipe with us all today. I recently shared three summer quinoa recipes from Aran’s beautiful book Small Plates and Sweet Treats (now available, details here). This one is a sweet one…but I’ve adjusted it to be sugar-free.

Summer Berry Galette

Summer berry and buckwheat galette

Serves 6 to 8

Buckwheat crust

  • 3/4 cup superfine brown rice flour, plus more for dusting
  • 1⁄4 cup potato starch
  • 1⁄4 cup buckwheat flour
  • 3 teaspoons stevia granules
  • 1/8 teaspoon salt
  • 1 stick (8 tablespoons) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1⁄2-inch cubes
  • 1 egg yolk
  • 3 to 5 tablespoons ice water

Summer berry filling

  • 31/2 cups assorted berries
  • 2 tablespoons stevia granules

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how to earn $1000 a month selling my books on your blog (plus a sugar-free almond butter fudge recipe)

You might not be aware of this, but each month more than 300 people out there on the interweb are earning extra cash – up to $1000 a month – by sharing the I Quit Sugar message among their readers. Some of you have been asking how this affiliates set-up works. And how you can do the same. So I’ll share. I’m also taking a little moment to thank the affiliates out there who’ve supported me over the past year or so.

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This is a sugar-free creamy almond butter freezer fudge from Megan at Detoxista’s site. Her efforts have made her the top affiliate last month.

From time to time I like to give gifts to the most enthusiastic affiliates – last month the sleek Maria at Scandi Foodie was that enthused person (thank you thank you!) and I am sending over $500 worth of vouchers and prizes to say…thank you thank you! Check out how she does it so well here. And also scroll down below to see how a couple of other affiliates are doing it…in a way that’s helpful and effective and not…sell-in-ish. If you know what I mean.

Firstly, what IS an affiliate program?

A clever way for you to take part in spreading the sugar-free message with me. If you liked the ebook/s,  share your thoughts on it/them with your readers, and I’ll help you make some money for your efforts.

Can anyone be an affiliate?

Yep! You can. You can run your affiliates through your website, as well as a newsletter, magazine, put it in your email auto-signature, or share on your social media sites.

What do you get?

For my affiliate program, 30% commission on every sale that goes through your site. This means you make $8.70 on the bundle deal

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It’s better to feel normal about being abnormal

I like Henry Miller’s mind. I’ve written about it before. He expresses without apology. His writing just…goes there; it cuts through and doesn’t pause to deliberate fruitlessly. It feels like freedom to just read his work.

Image by Jody Rogac
Image by Jody Rogac

I came across these Henry Miller quotes just now. It’s from an essay he wrote on the musings of psychoanalyst E. Graham Howe. Miller dissects some of Rowe’s thoughts on normality, and surrender, that I rather like:

“‘Normality,’ says Howe, ‘is the paradise of escapologists, for it is a fixation concept, pure and simple.’ ‘It is better, if we can,’ he asserts, ‘to stand alone and to feel quite normal about our abnormality, doing nothing whatever about it, except what needs to be done in order to be oneself.’

Yes, we must stand alone in order to be ourselves. And, yes, it’s the most challenging thing in the world to do. It’s my greatest ambition… to be truly, bravely myself.

As Miller goes on, a little aloofly:

It is just this ability to stand alone, and not feel guilty or harassed about it, of which the average person is incapable.

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cooking sugar-free with xylitol

As many of you who follow the I Quit Sugar journey know, my preferred sweetener is rice malt syrup and stevia for a number of reasons, which you can catch up on here. But I’ve also mentioned before that xylitol is one of the very few safe sugar alcohols and works a treat for baking.

Our I Quit Sugar friend Nat Kringoudis is a xylitol fan, and I’ve asked her to share why this is the case, plus a few very pretty sugar-free recipes from her new book Eat Fat Be Thin. Go Nat!

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Nut and yoghurt tart, recipe below

Nat is an acupuncturist, herbalist, natural fertility educator, writer, blogger and natural health expert…and mum!… and has often helped us with our I Quit Sugar programs, most recently helping to answer questions on our I Quit Sugar Facebook page program. Nat has been following I Quit Sugar from the start, and also lives sugar free. In her new book, Nat has joined forces with Andi Lew to inspire women of all ages to be healthy by eating plenty of healthy fat.

Nat says: Xylitol is another alternative to sugar and artificial sweeteners, and may be used safely in small amounts. Derived from the birch tree:

  • it is widely used in chewing gums as it inhibits bacterial growth and reduces the incidence of cavities.
  • it tastes exactly like sugar, and is especially good for diabetics and those who are hypoglycaemic.
  • it’s safe: a 1986 study verified Xylitol’s safety and it received the highest and safest ADI (acceptable daily intake) rating.
  • it can be purchased from health food stores and you can use it as a sweetener in drinks and baked goods.
  • it has 40% less calories than sugar.
  • it’s also plant-derived, which means it’s natural, unlike aspartame, which has been known to be carcinogenic and affect the digestive system.

Xylitol like anything is really safe in small doses and like with all our recipes, these were created as ‘treats.’  Xylitol in larger doses (more than 50gm per serve) may have a laxative effect, just like many fruits would – so be aware that overdoing may see you visiting the loo more than usual! There are no other reported problems associated with xylitol in healthy doses – and like all foods we encourage our readers to eat a variety of fresh whole foods.

Nat has also shared two xylitol recipes from her Eat Fat Be Thin book.

Nut and Yoghurt Tart

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45 tips for saving $1036

Last week I chaired a food wastage forum – Whatever Happened to Waste Not Want Not – as part of the Sydney Festival. It was a joint initiative of Target100, a beef and lamb industry sustainability program, and EPA’s Love Food Hate Waste program (I’m the ambassador to both). The forum raised so many points, the aim of which was to encourage everyone in the audience to reduce their waste by 50 per cent.

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A few factoids for you:

* By 2075, there will be 3 billion more mouths on the planet to feed, requiring 70 per cent more food than is available now. We can’t feed the planet now…what the hell are we going to do?

* The BIGGEST environmental issue facing the planet right now? According to many experts it’s food wastage.

* More than 50 per cent of all food produced doesn’t make it to our gobs. It’s wasted at the farm, in storage, transport, at the supermarket and then in our homes.

* The BIGGEST wasters in that cycle? Consumers. Yep. We toss out 20-50 per cent of our food each week. The average Australian household wastes $1036 worth of food a year.

* And the WORST offenders? 18-24 year-olds and those earning more than $100K a year. The young and the rich!

* Australian farmers, in particular meat farmers, have some of the most sustainable practices in the world. A meat-inclusive diet (as opposed to a vegetarian one) is the most sustainable here in Australia. I’ve touched on why here, but will be posting more on this soon.

At the forum, we asked everyone to try cutting their food wastage by 50 per cent. Totally reasonable. The European Parliament has resolved to reduce food waste by 50 percent by 2020. About 60 per cent of all food waste is entirely avoidable.

And we asked people in the audience to share the tips (from us on stage and their own) on Twitter on the hashtag #wastenot. The hashtag #wastenot went viral, and trended in Australia, and there are some fantastic tips on the tag. I’ve shared some here, but for more, simply do a little read through on the hashtag.

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For more tips, here’s how to eat your scraps.

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yes, I eat fruit. and, no, I’m not misleading Australia.

You might have caught last night’s A Current Affair segment on the telly about sugar? I popped up as a sugar-quitting expert, along with my mate David Gillespie. However, I was used mostly as a voice of extremeness via some quotes I’ve made to ACA journalists previously, repackaged in rather extracted form. In particular, I was presented as being anti-fruit. You can catch the clip here.

Image by stephaniegonot
Image by stephaniegonot

A few people today have got outraged on my behalf (fired up that my quotes seemed to be placed out of context), or just outraged that I would diss fruit. I don’t tend to get upset by these kind of things. ACA presented an interesting take on the subject. And besides, how splendid! I now have a great opportunity to clear things up nice and crystal-like.

1. I eat fruit. One of the ACA grabs sees me listing the high-fructose fruits, as requested by the journalist at the time (during an interview a while back). I recommend eating the low-fructose fruits where possible: kiwi, berries, grapefruit and so on. If you’re doing my 8-week program, I advise cutting out fruit for 6 weeks. This is to break the sugar addiction and to recalibrate our bodies, just for that short period. I then, at the week-7 mark, invite everyone to reintroduce fruit and read how their bodies take to it.

2. I make the point over and over, based on the only comprehensive research I’ve found (by the American Heart Foundation):

we are only able to handle 6-9 teaspoons of sugar a day. Which is about the amount contained in 2-3 pieces of low-fructose fruit.

Many experts in this area – cardiologists, endocrinologists and nutritionists without vested interests in the sugar industry – confirm this amount as being appropriate. I personally find it’s the amount my body can handle before I start to feel the effects.

3. If fruit is your only source of fructose in a day, then 2-3 pieces of fruit is fantastic. If fruit is treated as a treat…which is how I was raised to eat it, and our parents and grandparents were raised to eat it…then bloody fantastic. But do you eat fruit as your treat? Do you eat fruit instead of chocolate or ice cream? Or as well as?

4. Know this: fruit today is MUCH sweeter than it was only two generations ago. They’re being bred this way because

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Hello! A Sydney I Quit Sugar book signing!

Just a quick note for a Friday. I’m chatting all things IQS and signing copies of my I Quit Sugar book at aboutlife Monday February 4, as part of their biggest ever community detox week…which you might just like to sign up to.

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I visited aboutlife Bondi Junction at the weekend, only to find that I was already there. Everywhere!

Let’s cut to the proverbial chase:

Where: aboutlife, 605 Darling St, Rozelle

Date: Monday February 4

Time: 6:30pm

Cost: $40*

* Forty bucks includes a copy of my brand new I Quit Sugar print edition book (valued at $34.99), and samples of some my I Quit Sugar recipes, prepared by the aboutlife kitchen for the night. I’ll also be sharing some of my top sugar-quitting tips and tricks. And just milling about having a nice time.

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my simple things

Simplicity is going to be a big theme in many people’s lives in 2013. Just you watch. UK magazine The Simple Things recently interviewed me on how I make my life simple and it appears in this month’s issue.

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If you don’t get around to grabbing it, how about I help you out. These are a few of the ways I keep my life simple, as I shared with The Simple Things:

1. I stick to my morning routine. It’s probably the best thing I do for myself all day – it sets me up and sets me off with a “feel” that I want from the whole of my day. I wake naturally and drink about a litre of warm water while I get dressed. Then it’s straight out the door to  do exercise. I exercise every day, but it’s not a militant thing and I don’t push myself. It might just be a 20 minute walk and stretch. I do yoga, swim, walk or run once or twice a week. I mix it up according to the weather and my mood. The “doing it every day” bit is what counts. That way I don’t deliberate with myself whether “today is an exercise day” or not. Less options in the morning is very key. Studies show we have limited decision making energy – also that decision making depresses us – and that it’s best to “auto pilot” our mornings as much as possible so we can eliminate as many angsty choices. I then meditate for 20 minutes. Then shower and eat…usually eggs or a smoothie made of whatever greenery is in the fridge with some lemon and ginger. Then I sit down to work.

2. I meditate.  Meditation “forces” me to connect with the simplicity of “what is”. I’m a very cerebral person and the simple act of sitting and getting really – let’s face it – bored, brings me back to what it’s all about.

3. I don’t go to the shops. I grew up on a farm, which was more a “subsistence living experiment”. Everything was minimised and recycled. It very much instilled a visceral abhorrence of waste and consumerist culture. We simply didn’t go to the shops and as an adult I’ve come to realise that this very simply idea – just don’t go to the shops – is perhaps the most effective approach to having a simple life.

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