Gary Taubes: We can win the sugar fight

A little update from my Adventures in New York…

Photo via The Atlantic
Photo via The Atlantic

Today (it’s Thursday evening here) New York Times science writer (the guy who wrote “Is Sugar Toxic”) and author of Why We Get Fat Gary Taubes and I met for a drink. We wanted tequila. The bar only served wine. I had Cote du Rhone.

We met to chat about his Nutrition Science Initiative, a not-for-profit organisation to “fund and facilitate rigorously well controlled experimental trials, carried out by independent, sceptical researchers”. I wanted to share with him about the University of Sydney study I Quit Sugar is doing whereby members taking part in the online course can have their health monitored to see if quitting sugar has changed their status. It’s a big study that can provide you – personally – with a very good picture of what’s going on nutritionally for you. And if you live in Sydney and you’re cool to join The Program, you are encouraged to take part….find out more here.

(Oh, and we also discussed the Australian dieticians from University of Sydney – a different crew to the one teaming up with I Quit Sugar – who continue to claim that Australia is eating less sugar than ever before. But we’ll get to that in two paragraphs.)

Then we powered twenty blocks up Avenue of the Americas together to see if I could be snuck into the Harvard Club (where he was due to dine with a colleague) in shorts and running shoes. Alas, to no avail. But we managed to talk some more and

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Friday giveaway: one place in the I Quit Sugar 8-Week Program!

It’s a month away. To the day. The first I Quit Sugar 8-Week Program starts August 26, and the team are all madly getting ready to host you all. Seeing as it’s Friday, and I like to give things away on this site on Fridays, I’m thrilled to announce that today I Quit Sugar is giving away

one place in the I Quit Sugar 8-Week Program starting Aug 26, valued at $150!

Image via Favim.com
Image via Favim.com

I’ve shared a sneak peek at the meal plans recently, and given you one of the recipes. But today I’m going to share a little more about how the program works, what you’ll be getting each week, and answering a few of the common questions that crop up. And further on, The Giveaway!

If you’ve been deliberating and you’re keen to just jump in, you can click on the button below.

sign-up-ready1

Here’s how it works:

You’re considering quitting sugar, but maybe a little nervous to try on your own? Well, the 8-Week Program will help you through, holding your hand every step of the way. Each step is outlined, every meal is laid out for you, with full shopping lists, and substitution suggestions.

And we’ll be quitting as a community, so you’ll have plenty of insta-friends to help you along the way.

Here’s what you’ll receive every week:

  • A dietician-approved eating plan designed for busy people: clever bulk cooking ideas, fun take-to-work/school lunches, recipes that use economical ingredients and are easy to buy.
  • A shopping list that is geared to minimise waste and save you money.

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new york bound and travel melancholia

There’s an empty, weightless feeling to travelling. It’s a certain kind of melancholia that kicks in when you walk onto a plane. Is it the lack of certainty? The fear of insignificance? (Here you are, about to enter the conceptual vacum that is international time zones where you have no anchor, no grounding.)

Image by Ben Frost
Image by Ben Frost

Why do we do it? Why do I do it? Travel triggers all my Stuff. My anxiety around smells and sounds and the general too-closeness of humanity. It leaves me feeling lonely and anxious that I don’t have close loved ones (husband, kids) who know where I am, who look up at the sky when planes fly over and think about where in the world I might be. Who bear witness to my existence by proxy.

But I travel, I think, precisely to plunge into this particular kind of melancholy. These kind of experiences are rare ones, where we are drawn way, way, way back from our Usual Life and we have to gaze onto it and question it.

I’m in the lounge at LA airport, en route to New York. I’m heading to New York for two reasons:

1. I have an agent convinced she can sell I Quit Sugar to the Americans. I’m meeting with publishers across Manhattan and doing some press interviews.

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how to carry your breakfast and lunch to work

With each passing day, my lunch arrangements get more and more ridiculous. Actually, I don’t think they’re ridiculous. They’re very practical and economical and smart. If you ask me. And, if I can be boastful, they’ve inspired others to get ridiculous too. Check out the I Quit Sugar team’s efforts from the blog the other day.

Here's how I bring in my lunch
Here’s how I bring in my meals. Zip lock bags and containers a’plenty.

My eating technique is this:

I make my own breakfast and lunch each day. I never buy takeaway – ever – and don’t eat out for breakfast very often (only under sufferance; I struggle to pay $17 for eggs).

As I don’t eat breakfast until about 10am most days, breakfast is eaten in the office or on planes. En route, as a rule. Lunch, I’m often in meetings, on shoots or interstate. And so I tote.

I eat dinner out a few times a week or at friend’s houses where I don’t necessarily eat what I’d normally like to eat. So breakfast and lunch is my own. And so I tote.

These are some of the things I do to tote:

1. I make my green smoothie which I carry in jars and drink bottles. I don’t go anywhere without one. It’s the easiest thing to take on a plane, or into a meeting. I use a really good metal Zip water bottle I got given at the Sydney

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here’s how to boost your immunity this winter

It’s been a cold few weeks. Our friends over in Tassie had their coldest day on record at minus 12, and I’ve been shivering in my ugg boots at home. It’s around about now, each year, that that I head overseas. Bound for warmer climes. Stay tuned on this front…

Image via Pinterest
Image via Pinterest

I struggle in the winter. I have to work hard to keep my immunity up because of my autoimmune disease. You can catch up on that here. And I write regularly about how I try to keep things on track. Not by pushing too hard, but by experimenting and working at daily habits to build real wellness. And I’m constantly on the lookout for little things that keep me keeping on…

So here’s one that’s come across my radar a few times now – olive leaf extract, a natural product that can be taken all year round (but particularly in winter) to boost your immunity and manage viral infections, especially when fever is present. In Australia, Olive Leaf Australia is widely available in leading health food stores, or online.

And just so you know, this is a sponsored post, but opinions are all my own and I researched the topic and came to these conclusions myself. You’ll find my position on sponsored posts and advertising here.

I asked Jo to look into this one a little more. This is what she came back with…

1. The Mediterranean diet factor:

If you’re a regular follower of this blog, you’ll know Sarah’s done lots of work looking into this diet, in particular, spending six weeks with National Geographic’s Blue Zone team in Ikaria last year investigating it in detail. You’ll be

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What Steve Jobs’ perfectionism has taught me

It truly is an oddity. It’s become a talking point among friends. A joke at first.  I can’t buy a couch. And it’s come to hold up a mirror to a few fundamental sadnesses about life.

Picture-331
Cold comfort: It took Steve Jobs 10 years to buy a couch.

Indeed, I’ve never owned a couch. I’ve inherited old ones when I’ve moved into the various rentals I’ve traipsed between over the years. I bought my first apartment late last year. I’ve been sitting in it… on the floor. Actually, on my yoga foam roller on a bit of old carpet a friend passed onto me. I work from this set-up. I meditate here. I eat my meals from the one – yes one – chair I have (I sit on the floor, eat from the chair). I’ve lived like this for seven months. And, yes, I know it’s sad.

I struggled to know what it is that stalls me from buying a couch. Or a dining table. Or chairs. I’ve been trying to find a sustainably made one that ticks off all My Simple Home boxes. My criteria is tight; I’m a painful perfectionist who can’t buy a pair of undies until I know the manufacturing history and carbon mileage of them and determined that they’re the best design on the market such that my rare purchase of a new pair of undies (I own eight pairs currently) is not wasted.

But that’s only part of it. It’s this too: to buy something so… committed (THERE, I SAID IT)… is a big deal. Couches are commitments. Right now, I can pack up and take off with a moment’s notice. In fact, I’m about to next week. I don’t own a fridge either (I bought a place with an inbuilt one). With a couch (and a fridge) you can’t fly. At least it feels that way.

So since it’s a Big Deal, and reflects more than just seating apparatus,  the potency of my couch-buying decision is magnified. And, of course, the more potent, the more I freeze. I can’t make a decision because it’s come to matter so much.

We stall on decisions when there’s fear. Indecision flags fear for us.

And so it reared it’s head: commitment niggles me. When things niggle me, I bubble-wrap them in perfectionism. No one can accuse me of being scared of commitment when I can just turn around and and say I’m merely being a perfectionist. And so my fear can continue, unchallenged a little longer. I’m seductive like that.

And then I came across the above picture of Steve Jobs in his lounge room. A concerned friend sent it to me.  It could be me. That’s my lounge below.

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Sneak peek: one-pan salmon ‘n’ super slaw from the I Quit Sugar meal plan

Part of the reason I launched iquitsugar.com is so that this blog can return to being an exploration of broader life-bettering stuff. Not everyone here wants to quit sugar. I get that. More to follow on this soon. In the meantime, I know many of you are asking me about the new site and 8-Week Program… mostly wondering if it’s going to feature meal plans. Before I completely sign off on sugary stuff here, let me answer: Yep!

One pot salmon, recipe below. Photography by Martyna Candrick.
In the Meal Plan: One-pan Salmon ‘n’ Super Slaw, recipe below. Photography by Martyna Candrick.

I have spent several months building the meal plans for the program, and I wanted to highlight a few things for you about how we’ve set them up.

* We provide 8 weeks of complete meal plans: three meals per day, plus snacks.

* The meal plans are dietician approved. I worked with a nutritionist to ensure they are balanced and work within dietary guidelines for vitamin, mineral and calorie intake.

* I’ve built the meal plans based around my own philosophy of food. Real, whole eating. Every meal is designed to be as nutritionally dense as possible. Each day includes 6-7 serves of vegetables. And we feature cooking techniques that preserve nutrients and enzymes.

* The plans are designed to be as economical as possible. We use economical (cheap!) ingredients and the plans are designed to minimise food wastage and features creative ways with leftovers. We use sustainable and economical cuts of meat, and we’ll provide information for you along the way on how to buy your meat and fish this way.

* The plans are for busy people. Most meals are one-pan meals, so you’re not spending all night washing and drying dishes.

* The plans are designed for solos and families or groups of four.

Hope that answers a few questions.  If you’re keen to join up, click below…

sign-up-ready

…also, the first 500 people who sign up, will receive a sachet of  Vital Protein Green CoffeePowder 

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tone your vagus

The thighbone is connected to the hipbone…and our heart is connect to the head, and we are all one and… you get the picture. I read over the weekend about work being conducted by behavioural neuroscientists in the US that shows that our phone addiction is connected to our longevity,  and that

disconnecting from your iphone makes you live longer.

Image via Favim.com
Image via Favim.com

Essentially because our heart and our heads are connected. Biologically and figuratively (if you believe the two are different).

It works like this.

We have a vagus nerve that runs from our heart to our head. I’ve written on this incredible nerve here.

The better your “vagal tone” the better your health. That is, the more agility in the connection between your heart and head the better your cardiovascular, glucose and immune responses.

Vagal tone is improved by building that particular muscle – firing it up, using it as it’s meant to be used. Workin’ it. This translates, say the boffins, to smiling, connecting, engaging in face-to-face intimacy. Touching a real humanoid. Or at

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iquitsugar.com is now live!

Hello there, excuse me. Can I have three minutes of your time? OK. The day has come. Iquitsugar.com is officially Gawn Live. We here at the I Quit Sugar office are bursting with pride, excitement (and bloody relief!).

photo

The I Quit Sugar adventure has taken on a life of its own over the past year or two. When I first launched the I Quit Sugar: an 8-Week Program ebook, I never expected it to take off like it did. Honest. It was all just a personal experiment. But for some reason it became one that a lot of people wanted to join me on. The first ebook came about from repeated requests to have the tips and techniques I was sharing in various blog posts set out in an all-in-one package.

Next came the I Quit Sugar Cookbook with all the recipes I was posting on my blog over time. Again, your requests to have them all in one spot were responsible! Next, the printed edition of I Quit Sugar earlier this year. More than 200,000 have now done the program. Which freaks me out when I think about it for too long.

And now it’s time to grow again…once more, because you’ve asked for it. And I largely have everyone here on this site to thank for giving me the confidence to take it this far. I Quit Sugar now has its own online home… Iquitsugar.com

And the I Quit Sugar Program can now be done as part of an online community.

Click over to Iquitsugar.com and check things out…There are a stack of features to help more people quit sugar and realise real wellness. But perhaps I can just highlight a few bits here:

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