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???!!!

8kg lost now & importance of emotional state

"If I had to remove one food from my diet, it would be sugar." Dr Linus Pauling, a Nobel prize winner in chemistry and a researcher and writer in the health field.
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Definitely 'over' sickness here but it's still happening. Have been unwell for weeks, baby had a very high temperature yesterday, older kids are sick and having days off school etc
Feeling very yucky. However, Stew says that since we've been sugar aware, he has so much more energy. He gets up at 5.30 to get to work and he can still do this after being up for the babies overnight, if they are sick and wake up etc, due to the way we're eating.

Were you tired of reading those 140 reasons why sugar is bad for you from that book, 'Suicide by Sugar'? Stew was. Sorry if you didn't 'like' them, either. He read them all, and said that they WERE interesting but there were just sooo many of them. The author compiled them over many years so there WOULD be lots!  (-:

Who knew this stuff could be so harmful!

All the weekdays this week, bar Monday (the day I report my weight), my weight's been in the 74kg range - 74.9, 74.5, 74.9, 74.5. Maybe this illness has helped there as it makes me feel sick a lot??? As I said on Facebook this week, I'd prefer the loss to be quicker but keep telling myself that my doctor said, years ago, that slow weight loss is better for your skin to be able to adjust well, especially if you're older. Considering I'm not 'dieting', an 8kg weight loss over the 3 and a half months since I started is pretty good, huh! Slowly, surely and healthily...

I learnt a lot from that 'Suicide by Sugar' book. As has been said, sugar is not good for the levels of much-needed minerals in our bodies. From page 26:

"Sugar is an acid-forming food. Therefore, our bodies can become acidic when we eat sugar. But, our bodies do not like this acidic state, so they pull minerals (like calcium, magnesium, and phosphorus) from the bloodstream, trying to become alkaline again; trying to regain and maintain homeostasis."

Interestingly though, she also doesn't blame all our problems on sugar, though she certainly maintains that it's the "main culprit". She says this:

"...there are other lifestyle factors that can knock our bodies out of homeostasis. One of these is our emotional state. Therefore, feeling sad, angry or anxious can affect our balanced body chemistry and ultimately have the same effect that consuming sugar would have."

OK, so I must also monitor my emotional state. I don't want to mimic the effect of eating sugar by how I feel. No way, thanks very much!

My youngest son is not doing the Sweet Poison journey, by choice, at this stage. He is currently sick and asked to have some chocolate we'd been given that I was never going to eat. I told him that he is sick and needs his immune system to be well. I read stuff out to him, such as this:

"Sugar suppresses the immune system. It depletes levels of phagocytes (the white blood cells that are needed for strong immune function and that eat up harmful bacteria) and this reduces the body's ability to fight infection and disease."

Yet, he still wanted to eat it! He has yet to read the book. He started it but then got caught up in a good novel and never got back to it. He's finding it much harder to get a sugar hit here, which we warned him. Hopefully, he will get to reading the book and want health for his body.

I told another friend of the book at breastfeeding coffee morning this week, at ABA, and she told me that she is allergic to fructose so would love to read the books, especially the Quit Plan, to learn how to avoid it. She's going to read it from the library first, and then buy it if she likes it, just like I did. Gillespie's message is getting out. Word of mouth is a good thing. As another girl I told about it said the other day, "I like the fact that he doesn't make wild claims or anything. It just all seems so sensible!" Hear hear!

Last 20 reasons why sugar is bad for you

Yesterday's weight was 75.3kg so it's a 500gm loss since last Monday. I feel like it's been around 75 for weeks now. Still, at least it hasn't gone up.

Stew made the Melting Moments last night, that cause my 'moment' of serendipity the other day. They were a bit too soft and are still hardening up. He was told that they're better the next day but they're still a bit too soft. Still, very yummy! It is definitely a Gillespie recipe as that friend joined his website. Only reason I haven't joined it yet is that I want to give it a lot of time and use it properly and don't have time, at present.

Here are the last 20 reasons sugar is bad for you. Remember, it's from "Suicide by Sugar: A Startling Look at our #1 National Addiction" by Nancy Appleton, PhD. She tells you not to eat glucose either and to use Stevia, which contradicts what Gillespie says yet her book is published around the same time. She mainly gets stuck into fructose, like Gillespie, but, where I'm up to so far, also tells you not to eat glucose too. I must ask Gillespie some time about it or try and contact Nancy. Still, I am happy to follow what Gillespie says as he went into it quite thoroughly and it worked for him! She doesn't state why she tells you not to eat it but just lists glucose in the 'do not have' section.

1. Sugar can cause brain decay in pre-diabetic and diabetic women.
2. Sugar can increase the risk of stomach cancer.
3. Sugar can cause metabolic syndrome.
4. Sugar increases neural tube defects in embryos when it is consumed by pregnant women.
5. Sugar can cause asthma.
6. Sugar increases the chances of getting irritable bowel syndrome.
7. Sugar can affect central reward systems.
8. Sugar can cause cancer of the rectum.
9. Sugar can cause endometrial cancer.
10. Sugar can cause renal (kidney) cell cancer.
11. Sugar can cause liver tumors.
12. Sugar can increase inflammatory markers in the bloodstreams of overweight people.
13. Sugar plays a role in the cause and continuation of acne.
14. Sugar can ruin the sex life of both men and women by turning off the gene that controls the sex hormone.
15. Sugar can cause fatigue, moodiness, nervousness, and depression.
16. Sugar can make many essential nutrients less available to cells.
17. Sugar can increase uric acid in blood.
18. Sugar can lead to higher C-peptide concentrations.
19. Sugar causes inflammation.
20. Cugar can cause diverticulitis, a small bulging sac pushing outward from the colon wall that is inflammed.

{She includes each reason's citation in the notes}

I can get asthma so no.5 is interesting. With diabetes running in my family so majorly, I do NOT want this brain decay mentioned in no. 1!!! I am sure I've had this Irritable Bowel Syndrome thing, at times, so no. 6 is telling.

Cold kills hunger

Woke up with a nasty cold yesterday. So, it has made me far less hungry. Totally skipped breakfast today. Just had lunch and dinner, and a little arvo tea. I have to be careful with fasting as I don't want my body to release the toxins, from fasting, into my breastmilk for the babies. From my limited understanding of science, that is what happens in fasting so they don't suggest that breastfeeding mums do it.

Weighed myself this morning and it said 75.9kg. Went back to sleep for a couple of hours, after breastfeeding the girls, as I feel so sick, and then weighed myself again. It said 75.3kg. Are my new scales dodgy or what? Why would there be that difference? Does sleeping make you lose weight that quickly? I'm not sure what to think.

Next 20 reasons why sugar is bad for you, so we're up to 120:

1. Sugar can cut off oxygen to the brain when given to people intravenously.
2. Sugar is a risk factor for lung cancer.
3. Sugar increases the risk of polio.
4. Sugar can cause epileptic seizures.
5. Sugar can increase systolic blood pressure (pressure when heart is contracting)
6. Sugar can induce cell death.
7. Sugar can increase the amount of food that you eat.
8. Sugar can cause antisocial behaviour in juvenile delinquents.
9. Sugar can lead to prostate cancer.
10. Sugar dehydrates newborns.
11. Sugar can cause women to give birth to babies with low birth weight.
12. Sugar is associated with a worse outcome of schizophrenia.
13. Sugar can raise homocysteine levels in the bloodstream.
14. Sugar increases the risk of breast cancer.
15. Sugar is a risk factor in small intestine cancer.
16. Sugar can cause laryngeal cancer.
17. Sugar induces salt and water retention.
18. Sugar can contribute to mild memory loss.
19. Sugar water, when given to children shortly after birth, results in those children preferring sugar water to regular water throughout childhood.
20. Sugar causes constipation.

Number 2 is awful. So, poor smokers (some people were hooked before we knew the health dangers) with a sweet tooth, have less chance! Poor epileptics also. (No. 4) Although all of these are shocking in their own way, I am indignant at numbers 10 and 19, especially. I am a big fan of breastfeeding and think babies should be only breastfed after birth, if at all possible. None of this giving them sugar water. They used to routinely do that after birth, to give the mother a rest and thinking that the baby needed it. Huh! How do they think that babies survived before they thought of that! As for sugar causing constipation (no. 20), I think I would have to agree with that. Rarely touched by that these sugar aware days. Yay! Not that I had a problem with that but I think we've all been touched by it, at times.