Wanna be in my new cookbook?

Alright, put your requests in now! Last week I invited you to suggest your favourite IQS recipes that you wanted to see pimped.

Your wish is my command
Your wish is my command

Oh, how I love a e-brainstorm! I’m working through all of your suggestions now…

Now to Part Two of bringing you along for the ride that is my next cookbook. I’m taking requests for IQS versions of your

Read more

My latest gut health obsession: gelatin

You know how a growing number of modern ills particularly autoimmune diseases are now deemed to stem from the gut? And how more of us are suffering with crook guts that are leaky, nervous and cranky? Yeah?

The simplest gut-healing breakfast a girl can eat: coffee almond milk #gelatin chews (two ingredients: grass-fed beef gelatin with coffee almond milk).
The simplest gut-healing breakfast a girl can eat: coffee almond milk gelatin chews (two ingredients: grass-fed beef gelatin with coffee almond milk), recipe to come soon.

Well, you’d really have to agree that that would make fixing your gut our number one health priority. No?

The boon is this: It’s also something we can do now to fix our various compromised situations. I write about this often and about how food really is the best medicine (not just a jaded slogan). Truly, it is. We can take charge now.

And, so I introduce gelatin. Gelatin is basically cooked collagen and comes form the bones, hides and connective tissues of

Read more

Wondering. Could you please help me with my next cookbook?

Right now – as in RIGHT NOW – I’m madly recipe developing for my next cookbook. Oh, the adventures and obsessions and kitchen disasters I’m having! Some of you have caught wind and have put in requests for me to jazz up a few of my classic recipes. So I thought, gosh…OKAY…

Help me choose!
Hey, I’ll do whatever you ask.

…and got the go-ahead from my lovely publisher Ingrid to ask you guys what you’d prefer me to pimp (that is, give a seductive, sexy

Read more

Spend five more minutes, go a layer deeper

At the I Quit Sugar office at the moment I’ve become a tedious boss. I’ve gotten an idea in my head and I’m banging on about it. Worse, I justify it by thinking to myself, “But I’m right!”.

Image via Favim
Photo of Sarah from Wellness with Willow. Photography by Elena Kalis.

I’ve been picking up on some frantic busy-ness. Too many things. Too many decisions made too quickly unsupported by enough mindful reflection. And so I’m walking around like a cockie repeating this mantra: “Spend five more minutes, go another layer deeper.”

Which is to say, pause, reflect, sit on a task or a decision or a blog post or a brainstorm for a bit longer.

And go in deeper. Discuss it a touch more. Throw it around, chew on it. And allow The Right Thing to percolate to the

Read more

Why folk with autoimmune disease do the 8-Week Program

This much I know: I quit sugar because I had a raging autoimmune disease.

This much I’ve just learned: Tens of thousands of others with autoimmune disease are now doing the same thing. And getting results. In fact, according to our latest survey of I Quit Sugar 8-Week Program participants…

Steak and five veg
Steak and Five Veg: The 8WP meal plans feature 7-9 serves of anti-inflammatory veggies a day.

For folk with autoimmune disease, half experience “significant” changes to their condition from quitting sugar.

Some feel that they have reversed their PCOS (in fact, I get dozens of emails from sufferers who’ve been able to fall pregnant after doing the Program). Many say they have come off their AI medication. Others have simply – but soooo importantly – improved

Read more

I decided not to coexist anymore with pretense

The below quote did the rounds of the interwebs recently, accelerated somewhat by its erroneous attribution to Meryl Streep. Meryl didn’t come up with the rant (although perhaps she recited it once with an accent); author José Micard Teixeira did. No matter. It was brought to my attention and it fitted.

Image via Mochacafe.tumblr
Image via Mochacafe.tumblr

“I no longer have patience for certain things, not because I’ve become arrogant, but simply because I reached a point in my life where I do not want to waste more time with what displeases me or hurts me. I have no patience for cynicism, excessive criticism and demands of any nature. I lost the will to please those who do not like me, to love those who do not

Read more

My favourite trick for having a Small Moment of One’s Own

If, like me, you’re over 30 you’d remember the 1986 movie Stand By Me, starring brat-packers River Phoenix and Corey Feldman. If you’re under 30, I advise you get it out on DVD (oops, download it). A coming-of-age film, it captures the Gen Xers and Boomers’ search for A Big Defining Moment, a search that’s seen us seek sea changes and stage Band Aid mega-concerts. Honestly, it’ll help you understand us better.

Image via favim.com
Image via favim.com

In the movie, Gordie, the story’s 12-year-old protagonist, awakes in a forest to a deer staring at him just inches from his face in the dawn light. The magic of the moment is palpable. As Gordie narrates (as an adult looking back), all he wanted to do was wake his mates and tell them about it, to stamp the incident and own it loudly. But he doesn’t; he keeps the quietness

Read more

Instead of obtaining a mirror, obtain a person

In 1964, Yoko Ono published a collation of art “pieces’ in a book called Grapefruit.  One such moment in artistic whimsy was the Mirror Piece.

Screen Shot 2014-09-07 at 6.14.48 PM copy

I took from it this: It’s good to go inwards and to truly look in the mirror and pull yourself apart. To Do The Work.

But it’s better if you do this by fronting up to someone in relationship and Do The Work via what they feed back to you. It probably won’t be as sugar-coated and the feedback probably won’t come when it’s convenient for you. It will be old, fat,

Read more

Honestly, who wouldn’t want to be a “spinster”?

Reading writer Sara Maitland’s How to Be Alone I learned the origins of the word spinster. Get this…

Image via
Image via catchannel.com

“In the Middle Ages the word “spinster” was a compliment. A spinster was someone, usually a woman, who could spin well: a woman who could spin well was financially self-sufficient – it was one of the very few ways that mediaeval women could achieve economic independence. The word was generously applied to all women at the point of marriage as

Read more

How to look even hotter on a bike

Spring has sprung Down Under. Time to really think about taking up bike riding, yeah? Each year I like to agitate you all to get on your wheels. I try all kind of tacks. This time, I’m posting this fetching image (below) and sharing some inspiring cycling Spring outfits. I’m appealing to our collective sense of vanity here. Be under no illusions!

Image via Tumblr
Image via Tumblr

(Other motivational tacks have included: Why you look hotter on a bike, why I Ride to smell the roses, this controversial post on Why I don’t wear a helmet and perhaps confusingly, A guide to hot helmets!)

Read more