my daily health routine…since you asked for it

Gosh, we’re really getting down to the rats and mice of my life here…but I’ve been getting too many emails from you asking how I order my wellness habits to ignore the topic much longer. I’m no expert (on anything much), but I have taken consulting of experts on this topic to pedantic levels and have a thing or two I can share with you. As always I share as an invite, not as a didactic instruction!

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Jumping into my day (awkwardly) with 20-40 minutes of exercise (outdoors as often as possible).

I’m a big fan of having very regular morning movements. (Ablution entendres not really intended.) I’ve written about the benefits of having a morning routine before. It’s the one thing about 80 per cent of the health experts I’ve interviewed, from HH The Dalai Lama to Oprah’s life coach, have in common.

1. When I wake up

* I wake at 6.30am or so… naturally. I scrape my tongue (an Ayurvedic practice) and clean my teeth.

* I drink 1 litre hot water with lemon juice while I make my breakfast and lunch.

* I take my thyroxin and then I potter (listening to news radio) while I drink…and, let’s be frank, hang about until nature calls.

* I drink 100ml of kombucha. This gives me a little spark to get through until breakfast.

* I tend to ablutions and head straight out the door to do exercise.

2. Exercise and meditation

Exercise

* Me, I do something every day, even on thyroidy days and days when I’ve had no sleep. I just scale it back if I’m feeling crap. The “doing it every day” bit is what counts. Deciding whether I should exercise or not is not an option; less options in the morning is very key. Studies show we have limited decision-making energy and that it’s best to “auto pilot” our mornings as much as possible so we can eliminate as many angsty choices.

* I don’t do fuss. I carry only a key – down my bra or in a small pocket in my shorts. Equipment just bogs you down and acts as a disincentive (“Where’s my water bottle?! Oh, darn, look, now I don’t have time to go for a jog”).

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Are you future-anxious or a past-fretter?

I have a theory. There are two types of people in this world: those whose anxiety is primarily based around fretting about what has been, and those who worry about what’s yet to come.

Image via Favim.com
Image via Favim.com

The former suffer from regrets, remorse and obsess over what they should have done. They hang on and find it hard to move on.

The latter can let the past go (“what is done is done”), but tie themselves up in knots over all the things they need to do and whether they’re doing enough. They’re forever trying to map out – and preempt – all possible scenarios. They grasp at certainties and obsess about the unknown.

Me, I’m firmly in the latter camp. I think this tendency sets you up to be more anxious, as opposed to depressed. I think future-anxiety creates agitation – there’s nothing to “anchor” your angst to. It’s like bobbing for apples – all grasping forward, fretting, flaying about. The certainties we try to grasp, of course, simply don’t exist, or shape-shift as soon as we grasp at them.

In contrast, I know lots of people who are past-fretters and they tend to get very heavy with their fretting. Looking back slows you down, and depression can easily follow.

Now, in general I tend to veer toward a Kierkegaardian framework for anxiety. I do, in fact, see it as tied up in a broader existential search for meaning. As with all human predicaments, I believe anxiety serves a social or evolutionary purpose. Kierkegaard sees anxiety as the very human condition that moves us forward from being mere animals. Worrying about the future has seen us form contingencies and improve

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How to deal with AutoImmune Disease: Hypothyroid Mum tackles constipation!

You might call me a coward for handing this particularly sticky subject over to someone else to cover. I promise it’s not shame. It’s more that this particular blogger – Dana Trentini at Hypothyroidmom.com – has done such a great job of covering it that it made sense. OK? Dana lost her unborn baby to hypothyroidism and set out on a mission to build awareness on the topic. Her blog tackles all the fun tricky stuff. Like constipation.

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Image via Favim.com

The interesting thing is that, in hindsight, it was her constipation that signalled her thyroid disorder and Dana’s big message today is that if you have chronic constipation you need to get your thyroid tested. And you need to get on top of your constipation. Her suggestion comes with a warning – at 33, following her Dad’s colon cancer diagnosis (routine colonoscopies are not advised until we’re over 50), she went in for a colonoscopy herself. They found a huge polyp, diverticulosis pouches in the wall of her colon and an internal haemorrhoid, all caused by lifelong constipation, all caused by thyroid issues. Although which comes first is hard to say. For me, it doesn’t too much matter as the management plan is the same for both.

While we’re talking about me… I, too, suffer from the same affliction and was lucky enough to undergo a colonoscopy last year that found – and removed – a cancerous polyp. I now know I need to test for (and tackle) this health issue. It’s pretty much the last frontier of my ongoing management of my thyroid issues. I’ll write more on this soon, just as I’ve promised to write more on my menstrual issues. All of which will definitely help my dating prospects!! For now, some wisdoms from the most cerebrally unclogged Dana…

The hypothyroidism and constipation connect

Constipation is one of the classic signs of an under-active thyroid. Without enough thyroid hormones many of the body’s functions slow down. Muscles line the digestive tract, including the small and large intestines. Theses muscles contract to move the stool through the intestine to the rectum. Hypothyroidism can weaken the contraction of these muscles causing the stool to move too slowly.

Looking back I’ve suffered from hypothyroidism symptoms including chronic constipation ever since I can remember. When I landed in the emergency room during a vacation from severe constipation, my thyroid was NOT tested. Even when my colon

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Do you do this too?

I think the reason we’re all plonked on this planet is to connect. At a cellular level, we are but a flurry of connections. Our greatest sense of purpose comes from intimacy and sharing.

Image via Favim
Image via Favim

Hilariously, despite our most arrogant efforts to impress each other with Big Important Things, most of us find that the greatest connection comes via life’s minutiae – sharing mending tips over the back fence, looking at each other’s cat pictures on Instagram, realising other people wake at exactly 3am each night, too.

I think it’s at this manageable, micro level we are best able to get still and grounded enough to be able to truly see each other. And, thus, to recognise ourselves in each other. It’s away from the Big Important Things that we have the space and quietness to see the vulnerability and humanness in others, and ourselves. And the space to appreciate the comforting banality of life.

Speaking of which, today’s post is simply a sharing of some really banal stuff that only plays out in the ridiculous privacy of my own head, for the sole purpose of connecting. I’d love to see if others have had the same experience. I’m after the me too! factor from everyone. I’d also love to hear about some small, vulnerable moments from

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“I had to put on weight. This is how I coped.”

Today I want to share a yarn that holistic nutritionist Kate Callaghan recently shared on her blog. Kate is a loved member of the I Quit Sugar family and worked in the office for some time before moving to New Zealand. She gets it. She lives it.

She also has a few things in common with me. We both eat low carb, we have a history of over-exercising and we both have had hypothalamic amenorrhea. I’m going to get Kate to explain what this is all about and how all the factors interconnect. And also about how her journey to heal herself pivoted around, yes, learning to eat more and coming to terms with putting on weight.

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Kate: For reference purposes, here is my before and after pic to show my progress. Please excuse the hair in both pics – one was scraggly beach hair and the other sweaty post-workout hair. But it’s not about the hair (although it is thicker and more lustrous nowadays).

Kate’s journey started a year ago. I remember sitting at the I Quit Sugar kitchen table and chatting to her about it. Her lunch reflected her mission…but I’ll let her tell you more about this. In an upcoming post I’ll also share where my own (similar) journey has wound up. I’m not ready yet. Soon.

Over to Kate….

“Who knows when my body image issues started?! Until recently, I have never really considered them as “issues”.

I have always had a very athletic physique. I started competitive gymnastics at a very young age. In primary school I had shoulders wider than most boys my age. I could beat my teenage brother in a push up competition. And I had a six-pack.

Throughout high school and until now, I have always been more active than most. At times in my life I have taught up to 16 hours of group fitness each week. This is not normal. I have maintained my flat, six-pack abs throughout my life (aside from a brief 6 month beer-drinking stint in college). To some, I have the nick-name “abs”.

Before you think I’m an absolute wanker, let me get to my point. I have worked hard to get these results….at a significant cost…..

A year ago, aged 29, I was diagnosed with hypothalamic amenorrhea.

Hypothalamic amenorrhea basically means your brain stops communicating to your lady garden. Female hormone production slows and menstruation ceases. My period stopped two years ago. Some of you may be thinking this sounds

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The daggy things my friends and family do to make a difference

Want to know how to get me spurting flames at a dinner party? Tell me that the small things we as everyday people do can’t make a difference to the planet. Oh, where do I start? I know: food wastage. It’s the biggest environmental concern today (and a bigger polluter than cars or industry) and the biggest contributors to food wastage are consumers. Us. Not “the government” or “someone else”. Us. Everyday people.

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My zip fix on my seven-year-old jeans

I could go on. But I won’t get myself started. Instead I’m going to hand over the floor to my friends and family who I’ve co-opted to share their funny little ways of doing stuff that saves resources in one way or another and that add up. I’ve kicked things off with a few of my own…

I fix a broken fly with a key ring. I thread a ring from a keyring through the zip tab and then hook it over the button to keep it from falling down. I then button up as normal.

I use half the amount of laundry liquid manufacturers say you should. CSIRO did a study that found using 50 per cent of a scoop is just as effective as using a full one.

I do the same with dishwashing liquid. I use my blender for this. After making a smoothie I place a tiny drop of dish liquid in the carrier with hot water and blitz for a second or two. It produces a turbo foam that I then use to wash a load of dirty dishes.

I dry my ziplock bags on my kitchen window. I get about a dozen wears out of a ziplock bag by washing them and reusing. They’re a bugger to dry, however. But I have a trick: I smack them onto a window. They stick trans The daggy things my friends and family do to make a differenceand dry, then drop off when ready to reuse.

I have competitions with myself about how far I can stretch a meat dish. You can check out my post yesterday on this.  Sustainable Table‘s co-founder, Cassie Duncan, does the same: “I’ll cook a lamb shoulder, eat it, then make souvlakis with

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How I stretch one organic chook to make 15 meals

Some people watch Game of Thrones. Some play Ultimate Frisbee. Me, I get pleasure from finding novel ways to stretch a chicken further.

Roast Chook, ready to cook
Roast Chook, ready to cook

For a whole bunch of reasons (that I outline in my book I Quit Sugar For Life), one should always try to invest in an organic chicken. You can read more on this here. These things can be expensive…but not if you take full advantage of its goodness. The greatest nutritional and economic bang for your organic buck comes from eating the meat as well as the carcass, boiled up as a stock. The bones, skin and giblets contain the life-giving minerals and electrolytes that make chicken broth so good for the soul.

I cook the whole chook, often slowly, to extract as much nutrition as possible. This works out to be very economical for you, especially if you stretch a $20 organic chook to 15 meals…

Oh, the fun you can have with a Choose-your-own-adventure challenge! To play along, it entails starting with one (bulk-cooking) dish, then dragging out the various leftovers, scraps and by-products from there.

1. Start a roast chook (recipe below). Serves four.

2. Take the leftovers to make a roast dinner gratin for the next day. Serves one.

3. Freeze the remaining portion and use it to make chicken pops at a later date. Makes four snacks.

4. The carcass from the roast is used to make Leftover Chicken Stock. Makes six serves.

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A comforting note to single people. From me.

This is a thing: if you’re single in your 30s or 40s you can feel like you’ve missed a steamin’ big ship. Dominant discourse, sadly, goes like this: The pickings are slim; it’s all second rounds and baggage and receding hairlines. And it can feel helpless. Hopeless. Because you just can’t find people who fit the bill, who inspire something in your loins. Where are all the good men and women? They’ve been taken, you reason. You’ve missed the ship.

Image via Favim
Image via Favim

Whether we honestly feel this way in our more grounded moments or not, this is how our plight is often represented. But, I have another take; it goes like this…

By the time you’re in your 30s or 40s, your life is pretty ace. Most of us aim, at least, to improve our lives year by year (otherwise, what’s the point?!). And by this settled age, life is often in a pretty good spot, or, at least, better and richer than it was in our 20s: great friends, a career with up to 20 years back-end development, enough money to be able to not have to live off lentils and all-you-can-eat-Tuesday buffets, and to head to the pictures once in a while. You’re not frantically proving yourself. Perhaps you no longer work weekends. Maybe you finally feel you’re quite good at what you do. You know what hobbies make you happy. You don’t stay at parties any longer than you want to. You get the picture…

In an ideal world your partner should improve your life, not detract from it. Right? If a partner is making your life more difficult, and not not adding to your experience, then you probably shouldn’t be with them. Yeah?

So, add these together and you get this…

In your 30s and 40s, your standards for finding a partner are super elevated. Your personal bar for allowing anything or anyone into your orbit has lifted with each passing year, just as a course of nature. In my 20s it was pretty easy for someone to add to my life, because it wasn’t fully formed. When I started dating a guy at 21 we were building from a pretty low base, together. But now, my life is rich and varied and independent and fun and full. I don’t mean to sound as arrogant as I do when I say that my life now is too good

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My Paleo guide to Sydney

You ask, I oblige. A lot of you have been wondering where I eat well in Sydney. So, here, a guide to how to eat like a caveman in my hometown. Hand up in the air before I start: I’d just like to say ladies and gents that I don’t classify myself as “Paleo” as such, mostly because I really don’t like to restrict my eating to a label. I eat according to what makes sense, and how my body feels. I ebb and flow. Sometimes I just can’t face dairy. Sometimes I need carbs (although, I’m selective about which ones, always opting for nutritionally rich options). Sometimes nuts hurt my guts.

"And so you want me to drink this liquid kale substance?" Shooting with @jo1foster @marijaivkovic at @porchandparlour for @iquitsugar ... One of my favourite #iqs joints!
“And so you want me to drink this liquid kale substance?” Sitting at Porch and Parlour during a recent IQS photo shoot. (This is one of my favourite IQS joints!)

Yessssss… I quit sugar. But as I outline a lot, quitting sugar is mostly a really snappy way to cut out processed foods. And nooooo…I don’t eat gluten. But that’s due to my autoimmune disease.

But labels aside, I tend to find Paleo eating an easy way to navigate my way to nutritious options. I outline my thoughts on the inherent value of the Paleo diet in I Quit Sugar for Life. The approach is fundamentally low-starch, anti-processed and pro-organic. It turns to meat (pasture-fed; nose-to-tail cuts), saturated fats (no processed or seed oils) and vegetables, with a little fruit. Paleo is also anti-sugar and the philosophy overall (eating whole, living sustainably and dodging toxins and stressors) is on the same page as me and my messaging.

When I travel I find Paleo eating a particularly helpful approach to adhere to because Paleo-orientated outlets will tend to prioritize ethical meats and good quality veggies…both of which I crave when I’m on the road. Which is why I’ve written this Paleo Guide to Londonthis one for Calgary and Lake Louise and this guide on how to eat Paleo (ish) while travelling.

Anyway, shuffling on. Here’s a rundown of great places to eat in a Paleo fashion here in Sydney (grain-free, pasture-fed meat, organic vegetable etc). I got a few of my fellow cavemen and cavewomen to share their thoughts, too. Nom-nom-on!

Porch and Palour, Bondi. I rather love the Porch. They “get it” in a pretty relaxed kinda way. They cook with coconut oil, serve Suveran’s sprouted bread, offer a side of beef with breakfast and so on. I like their breakfast bowl (steamed greens, avocado, herbs and boiled egg …I ask for no quinoa) and the grain-free pea pancake (with a boiled egg

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Last chance to sign up to the 8-Week Program

What will we be eating for eight weeks? Will the meals be low-calorie? Will they have enough calories? Will it be parsimonious mungbean-y rabbit food?

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One of our breakfasts on the 8-Week Program. The meals below are also highlights on this round…

Sign-ups for the next round of the 8-Week Program close close at midnight, Tuesday June 3 and I know some of you on this blog are debating in your heads about whether to join, mostly – it would seem – concerned about the food. To answer in part: NO MUNG BEANS ARE USED IN THE CREATION OF THIS PROGRAM! Actually, that’s a lie. We do, in fact, do a sprouting workshop during the Program and mung beans are an option!

Click the button below to sign up today.

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To answer the other concerns…

According to dietician Marieke Rodenstein, who analyses all our meals to ensure they are as densely nutritious and sound for those quitting sugar, the Program meal plans meet all dietary guidelines and, in fact, exceed them. They are densely nutritious and exceed all macro and micro nutrient recommended daily intakes. You can read what Marieke 

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