Chai tea not Sweet Poison friendly???

Back from Sydney, definitely, and our computer hassles, I hope. Gee, could have easily thrown my laptop out the window!!!

In Sydney, my lovely sister Michelle shouted me lunch. Then, she told me I was welcome to have a tea/coffee/hot chocolate etc It's been months since I had a Chai Latte so I asked to have that please. It was sooo nice that I had another one, that weekend, back here in Melbourne after church. Again, just lovely. If I have a choice, I get the lovely spicy one, not the Vanilla one. Stew thought it tasted too nice so asked to see the tins they use for the Chai powder. One said about 50% sugar (Vanilla) per 100gms and the other said 60% (Spicy). Wow! No wonder it tasted nice. I was crushed that there truly is nothing I can order when out. No wonder I haven't had a Chai Latte since before I began this. Maybe I looked into it but forgot.

Anyway, the next week at playgroup, someone offered me a Chai Latte sachet (think it was Lipton's) in a different brand. I asked to examine the box's details and it said 'only' 6.6 per 100gms. This seemed OK - as I assumed some of the sugar would be for the lactose in the milk as you didn't need to add milk -  so I had it. After I'd drunk it, I examined the box and it said that per serving sugar is 16.6. I'm a bit confused and so is Stewart. Is it OK or not? Probaby not, as sugar was the second ingredient, from memory.

Weight is still around 74kg. Went down to 73.6 for a while but then went back and is hovering around that. It's not that good but not bad either, considering we went away and ate a lot of stuff (NOT sweet) on the long car drives to Sydney and back. Often we ate, not out of hunger, but just to keep the baby girls entertained so we could arrive sooner.

I realise that I eat too much bread. Very easy to do when your daughter works at Baker's Delight and brings home the most delicious stuff. Have always loved bread. Boo hoo!

1st ever recipe for you

I was looking for recipes on the below website to help me use my slow cooker more, instead of  just the packets you can get. I found this recipe and used it, with a few changes. I will type it up for you so it says dextrose instead of sugar.

I used to love my mums Baked Rice Custard. I know, this doesn't have the custard bit but was still nice!

I adapted this from http://www.bestrecipes.com.au/
Here is the exact link, which gives you the original recipe and not how I changed it: http://www.bestrecipes.com.au/recipe/Old-Fashioned-Slow-Cooker-Rice-Pudding-L3180.html
Of course, it had sugar in it so I just used dextrose instead. I doubled it.

Old Fashioned Slow Cooker Rice Pudding

3/4 cup long-grain white rice
3 cups milk
1/2 cup dextrose
1/4 teasppoon ground cinnamon
1 pinch salt
2 tablespoons butter, diced

1. In a colander, rinse rice thoroughly under cold water.
2. Put in lightly greased slow cooker
3. Add remaining ingredients, except for butter, and stir to combine.
4. Sprinkle butter over rice mixture
5. Cover and cook on high for 2 1/2 to 3 hours, until rice has absorbed the liquid.
6. Serve warm.

Notes: I doubled it and added an extra cup of milk after reading the comments of others, on the website, which meant 7 cups of milk! I put in 1/2 teaspoon of Vanilla Essence. My friend said she adds a grating of lemon rind and a sprinkle of nutmeg. Apparently, it can work with Soy Milk. You can swap a cup of milk for cream etc It's worth reading the comments that others put. I wrote a comment on there, under 'Ferndene'.

Cold weather = Hunger

When it's cold, like now, I just get sooo hungry that it's hard not to eat extra food. Food that I don't really need or can burn off easily. However, it's so very hard when you are feeling hungry. Am pretty sure that my 'appetite control switch' does work so it must just be the cold. Also, the rainy weather makes it hard to go for walks to naturally use up some calories, enjoy the outside and get feel-good Vitamin D. The cold does too as I have to drag the baby girls out in the twin pram so don't want them to freeze to death!

Today, for instance, is an example of how the cold affects me. Being a Saturday, to break things up a bit, I had different meals for each meal time. For breakfast, I had 'lunch' type things: 2 pieces of buttered toast with Peanut Butter (no added salt or sugar) and a cheese croissant. For lunch, I had dinner type things: Slow Cooker Lamb & Veg casserole with pasta. For dinner, I had breakfast type things: Porridge with diced pear, milk, cinnamon, Wheat Germ, LSA & Linseeds. However, after dinner I still felt hungry so I had 2 pieces of toast with Peanut Butter again. Could've eaten more but didn't. At lunch, Stew and the boys had buttered bread with their casserole but I didn't. However, I felt hungry before we went off to the 4pm church service so I had 3 sesame Vita Wheats with cheese on them. Before lunch, I had some purple grapes as my second piece of fruit for the day, knowing I'd have pear with my porridge later.

Bowl of Porridge

Had an interesting conversation with my son the other day. This is with my youngest who is not doing this sugar-aware journey. I told him that I feel like I've found the secret to losing weight that suits me. Yay! I said that I wasn't suffering or going without but am losing weight. He reminded me that I AM going without as I'm not having sugary foods. You see, to him, I am being deprived. I explained that I don't see it like that anymore and explained that part of the Quit Plan book tells you how to change the way you view the situation so you can cope with the 'deprivation'. I also said that now I'm not addicted, it's really not that bad at all. Only very rarely, do I get a brief yearning for chocolate or something, like when an advertisement comes on TV for something I previously loved. Reality steps in and reminds me that it's poison, and I'm fine again!

My new scales are digital but maybe are dodgy?

My weight today is 74.1kg. Have decided to report my weight only every 2 weeks as I'm tired of the fluctuation. Can be a big difference. Either my new scales are dodgy or this is ridiculous. We're going away for some of next week so probably won't get to weigh myself from Monday 13th (Queen's B'day public holiday) until next Saturday so may change the reporting day to Saturday.

Chocolate, IVs and soft drinks

I used to love soft drink. Only for visitors or for odd occasions (like a school holiday treat - started that when I became a teacher and needed a treat after a hard term!) but still. It's really just sugar and chemicals, alas. It's essentially water, sweetener and chemicals. Nothing good there! You're better off with just the water on its own.

You may say, "Ah, but chocolate is good for you!". I quote from 'Suicide by Sugar' about chocolate:

"Chocolate has antioxidants in it, and therefore, it is a healthy food in its raw, unprocessed form. Unfortunately, when the chocolate has been processed it loses some of its nutrients. Then, when sugar is added, the body cannot use the healthy antioxidants present in raw chocolate."

That was interesting to me as I would keep seeing, in magazines etc, how good chocolate was for you. I think they know we are all addicted to it so they try and cheer us up about it. However, the truth is different! We've been lied to...

Even without the sugar, chocolate has its drawbacks. Caffeine is a substance that causes the pancreas to release insulin. So too much will cause our insulin to come out of homeostasis and we can develop insulin problems by releasing too much of it etc We don't want to overwork our poor old pancreas, do we?! Caffeine is a diuretic (meaning we wee a lot), which can lead to dehydration. Other effects of caffeine are:

• sleep loss
• miscarriages
• headaches
• jittery nerves
• fatigue

We really should have only minimal levels of it. Each square of chocolate may not have too much caffeine but we all eat more of it than we should so it adds up and different amounts of caffeine affect certain people differently.

Chocolate has significant levels of anandamide, which mimics marijuana. An effect of this can be the munchies, where you just have to eat sugary, greasy and salty foods. This is linked to bulimia. Chocolate also contains phenylethylamine, a chemical our bodies release when we're in love. Now we see why it's addictive and associated with love, being a good mood elevator. It can cause pulse rate increases and migraines when you try to quit chocolate!

Chocolate is highly allergenic. We eat so much of it, with so much sugar in it, that we've made ourselves allergic to it. 'Suicide by Sugar' has this to say:
"...Sugar upsets the body's chemistry and any food that is in the digestive tract at the time of sugar consumption will not digest well, resulting in partially digested foods. The partially digested foods then slip in to the bloodstream and can cause an allergic reaction." p. 69

Not sure whether it's the chocolate or just the caffeine in it, or both, but babies have been found to cry excessively and become irritable, jittery and loud if the mum eats a lot of it during pregnancy and while nursing. (I am breastfeeding my two youngest!) Also, the more chocolate or cocoa a woman consumes, the lower her bone densities, even though some have tried to claim that the flavanols in chocolate help improve calcium absorption into bones. Flavanols are also in onions, red wine, tea, apples and raspberries so we don't just have to look to the sugary chocolate for it.

I've been doing this Sweet Poison journey since Feb 14th and don't crave chocolate all the time or anything. However, I do occasionally feel a pang of longing for it when I remember my favorite types of chocolate. So, it's good for me to read this about chocolate as my b'day is coming close - August 9th - and I'm allowed a fructose-y treat then so I need to try and make it not be chocolate!!!

When we have an IV in hospital, this is what happens:

"When a person's digestive system is not ready to resume its work after an operation or illness, he or she is put on an IV - usually for a day or two, but sometimes for a week or more. This meal substitute is a mixture of sugar water, amino acids, vitamins other supplements and sometimes fatty acids and pharmaceutical drugs. It is the only means of nourishment until thhe patient's digestive system is ready to work again.
The reason sugar is added to the IVs is for calories, but most people can go a few days without calories. A diabetic gets an IV without the sugar, so why can't everybody else?
When we are sick, we have upset body chemistry. Our body needs all the help it can get to heal from an operation or sickness. It does not need sugar suppressing the immune system. The immune system needs to work for us - not against us."
p. 50, 'Suicide by Sugar'

How awful is that! What nuff nuff in the medical system decided to do that to us???!!!