DAY 21

The 7:54 Moment: Big Yum to fruit!
It was our turn to host dinner for friends tonight so we cooked up a serve of our wrap bread pizzas. Well they were delicious and we gobbled them all up. It was topped off by my beautiful friends fruit platter with the most amazing coconut macaroon dip. It was sensational (Thank you my gorgeous friend). Fruit does not have to be boring or plain it can be spectacular. The combination is fresh seasonal fruit with a dip of choice and you to savor.
I will try sneak the recipe of my friend to post. 


Breakfast: Cubbed apple and pineapple and fresh juice.


Lunch: Wrap with salad.


Afternoon Tea: Warm water.


Dinner: Wrap bread pizzas followed by my friends fruit platter and coconut macaroon dip.


See you tmrw. xx 

Day 20

The 7:54 Moment: I am very happy!

There is a warmth in the air and Spring is on it's way. This makes it easier to really get into fruit and salads, because let's face it, in winter it is really hard to feel overjoyed about biting into a cold apple verses a big, thick, rich casserole!!!!


I think my family is really happy about what we are eating now and have settled into our new 'norm'. Cheers to time and persistence, it works!!!

Breakfast: Cubed Apple and Fresh Juice. The girls had Baked Beans too.
Lunch: Kid fun lunch: Corn fritters heads with tomato sauce face.
Afternoon Tea: Coffee on soy milk.
Dinner: Minestrone Soup with wrap bread triangle dippers.


See you tmrw. xx

Day 19

The 7:54 Moment: Yesterday hubby got in trouble for not sticking to the rules!!!!

It can be really hard to make everyone in the family see the same point of view when it comes to health.


Here are some ideas on what to say to the family as you change up the food:
1) It is very important to look after our bodies, how we eat is going to affect how we perform.
2) We are a responsible family, we have fun, we laugh, and we take responsibility for our health.
3) As the parent, it is my job to make sure you all grow up strong and healthy. I'm not perfect but I will do my best.
4) We will be trying new foods and some of them might taste different but we will get use to them and work out together what does work for us.
5) We are saving all out yummy treat food for special occasions and will really enjoy them on those days: birthdays, occasions out for dinner, family events, etc...
6) Eating healthy is about making a healthy choice when it's hard, we feel tired, or feel emotional down/drained. We need to help each other. 
7) Food is not comfort, it's fuel. Comfort is: a hug, encouraging words, time out enjoying a hobby, spending time with a friend, etc...
8) You are an amazing family full stop.


Hope these help and encourage.

Breakfast: Fresh juice and cubed apple and pineapple.


Lunch: Left over soup.


Afternoon Tea: Warm water and a coffee with a drop of soy milk.


Dinner: Rice and vegetables.


See you tmrw. xx

Day 18

The 7:54 Moment: Domestic Bliss, Dietary Dilemmas and Brain Spasms.

Today Matthew, my husband writes on the challenge from his perspective.


As the male compatriot on this dietary expedition I’ve generally been an enthusiastic co-adventurer with Elizabeth. However, in a tragic display of poor timing, I’ve recently discovered after a spate of cooking with very mixed results, that in true bloke fashion the epicentre of my culinary abilities lays with the frying pan. If I can fry it, I can cook it. This ability includes all your basic proteins from beef to lamb, chicken, sausages, bacon and eggs.
On the food challenge I’ve also broadened it to include fried, er, I mean ‘sautéed’ tomatoes, onions, capsicum, zucchini and leeks. Add to this the occasional veggie stir fry or fried rice and I think I cover most of the basics a man would want or need to eat. However, I did find myself in a spot of bother Sunday morning when it can to making a ‘nice’ breakfast.


Setting the scene, our eldest was sleeping over with friends, our youngest was happily occupied with her bottle, and we were planning a relaxed Sunday morning breakfast before heading to the local beachside park for a pre-school picnic. Into this scene I waded, frying pan in hand, to make a ‘nice’ breakfast while Elizabeth got ready.


Knowing full well the boundaries set by the 30-day challenge I began:


Me (to self):     Fresh pear and pineapple juice – check! Coffee – check! Now for the food. 
                       
                        (Long pause)


Me (to self):     Umm

(Another long pause)

Me (to self):     Ok so I can do eggs, scrambled or poached and I’ll have them with…. Um….nothing! What do you have your eggs with if you can’t have bacon, or sausages, or even toast!

This outcome was clearly unacceptable to me so I proceeded to pull several packs of bacon from the

freezer in clear contravention of the 30 day challenger’s cooking code. Call it a brain spasm, but I had

no idea how to proceed. Undetered by this  unforgivable breach of the code and re-assured by the

comforting sizzle of my frying pan I finished the bacon and eggs and called the family to the table.

That’s where it went strangely pear shaped.

She:                 Why did you make me this!?!?

Me:                  I was making a nice Sunday breakfast. That’s what we said didn’t we?

She:                 What about the challenge? You know we aren’t eating this?

Me:                  Well I couldn’t very well give you fruit again now could I? That’s so ‘everyday’.

She:                 I like fruit. If you want it to be nice, put it in a nice bowl, light a candle, do something like that!

Me (with a look of utter incomprehension):

                       

                        Nice bowl?!?

For the sake of brevity we’ll now skip the rest of the scene to get to the key points:

1. If you are changing up your menu, you need to do some homework on how to cover both everyday meals and also special occasions. Otherwise you’ll fall back into old habits.
2. Agree with the other people going on the journey of diet change with you what their expectations and ideals are. It may be that a nice bowl is all that is required to mix it up, rather than cooking a three course off menu meal of wonder that is just going to miss the mark and leave everyone with physical and relational indigestion.
3. If you have a dietary or relational blowout on the journey, talk it out, plan for the future and get back in the saddle.

Til next time, (raising my carrot stick skyward)

Cheers! Matthew

Breakfast: Weird poached egg sitting all alone on the plate, coffee and fresh juice.

Lunch: Wraps.

Afternoon Tea: Coffee.

Dinner: Pumpkin soup with left over homemade 'wrap' chips.

Day 17

The 7:54 Moment: Don't you think that it is funny that some weeks you seem to have nothing on and then other weeks you have dinner after dinner party? 
Tonight we went out for dinner, again!!!
This can make you sweat a bit over the food plan and all those extra calories in the very indulgent food riding your fork all the way to your mouth. When you do have a lot of dinners out, for what ever reasons and you can't control the menu, all you can do is ride it out. Try to eat mostly the healthy options and totally indulge in small tastes of the really fatty, sugary, yumolicious foods.


Ideas:

1) Always order a salad and eat the main meal with it or if at a banquet/buffet  just have a taste i.e.'a fork full'.
2) Share a meal with a friend or hubby
3) Share dessert with a friend or two.
4) Drink water.
5) Order entrée size meals
6) Order salad dressings, gravy, sauces on the side.
7) Eat fresh fruit and simple salads the next day. - Eat from beautiful plates and you will feel like you have had a beautiful/elegant/special feast.


Breakfast: Coffee, fruit, and our fresh juice.


Lunch: Cornflour cruskits spread with avocado, then a sprinkle of cheese, grilled capsicum and red onion. - easy.


Afternoon Tea: Passed due to having a big tea for a friends birthday tonight.

Dinner: Asian food banquet. - Yep a dinner out and more indulgence. This week I must get my exercise sorted out and have a very healthy food week, but that is not a drag because it still taste yum and exercise is about building and having a healthy body not a penalty for eating out.


See you tmrw, xx

Day 16

The 7:54 Moment: Freeedooooom!

You have to do this challenge to get the reward of the 'freedom' that you feel when suddenly your eating is working. - Does that sound weird? - I can't quite explain it, but it's in the do.
Lets face it 'feelings' are a part of our life and what we do in our life, so we need to enjoy those positive feelings verses not being controlled by the negative feelings. - how deep am I today :)
Eating brings feeling and when you do the right thing by your health you get the reward of feeling peace, happiness and freeeedooooom!


On another note, had dinner with friends again and as it was their house they provided takeaway: noodle box. I ate and enjoyed it! 


Now you may say to me "hang on a minute, your 30 day 'health' challenge is turning into a bit of a joke with all the takeaway creeping in." - I'm so glad you brought that up! 
You see, we modern people of the world like you, hang out with friends! Doing life with others is part of life (a big part) and you really don't want it any other way, (ok some of you do), but for the majority, people need people). 

So don't choose staying at home because you have to eat your 'rabbit food', choose friendship and if it comes with takeaway, dig in, jump in, and enjoy - guilt free, indulge, savor, eat till you are too full and then have some more. 
Why?
Because tomorrow you will eat your healthy menu and the next day and the next until your next dinner party or hang out, remember it is about eating healthy 90% of the time and then totally enjoying the 'takeaway' or 'indulgent' times when they happen. 




( No I did not eat that cake in the pic, it's just an example of indulgence, but I wouldn't mind helping that piece of cake out or 'in' as the case may be - in my tummy! arrrh but see the next line ;) )
You know that if you start to eat takeaway heaps and healthy goes out the window it is not going to do you any favors. 
What is sustainable, part of my challenge, is enjoying eating healthy most of the time and enjoying eating that 10% of food blow out.


Breakfast: Our fresh juice, and fruit. I choose to eat lighter meals on the days I know dinner or lunch might be a 'indulgent' affair. - love a good food affair.

Lunch: Salad: Lettuce, roast golden syrup potatoes, beetroot strips, sprinkle of grated cheese and some seeded mustard.


Afternoon Tea: Warm water.


Dinner: Noodle box affair ;) with fun friends.


Recipe:
Potato, Beetroot Salad


2 large roasting potatoes chop into chunks
1 beetroot or can of beetroot
Lettuce leaves
Small amount of olive oil
1 tsp golden syrup
1 tsp dried rosemary
1 Small diced onion
2 tsp seeded mustard.
1/4 cup grated cheese
Salt


In a large bowl coat potato in a touch of olive oil, salt, rosemary and 1 tsp of golden syrup. Spread on a baking tray and roast in oven for 20min or until golden, on high heat.
Meanwhile cook onion in a pan for 1min in a drizzle of olive oil.
Place lettuce leaves in a beautiful bowl and add as much or little beetroot chopped up in strips. Place onion, cooked potatoes, and cheese on top. Gently toss ingredients in bowl and top with the seeded mustard. Enjoy.


See you tmrw. xx

Day 15

The 7:54 Moment:  Half way baby!!!!

Wow - 15 days seems such a long time, yet we are only half way!!!! But I have a plan now, thanks to yesterdays effort of 'planning', and it's working. You simply can not get healthier in the dark, without a plan.

Now, when it comes to bread, which is such a large part of our western life, what are you meant to do? - Particularly with kids! 
Here is what I have learned so far from doing this challenge:


1) It's all in the mind. You really can survive without it and so will your family. You have to choose to do life without it and not give in when it gets too hard because it is an easy option. 
If you can't go off it completely, save it as a treat food for the weekend or once a month etc... (I mean really, is there anything better then fresh bread spread with creamy cold butter!!!!)

2) Substitutes: You need a replacement for bread so try: gluten free, rye or cornflour wraps, rye or cornflour crackers, wheat reduced breads which leading supermarkets are selling now, and also gluten free varieties too. Steamed rice is also a good tummy filler and children tend to love the stuff. The important thing here is to eventually slowly cut down on these flour types too, even if they are wheat/gluten free. It's all about increasing the veggies and fruit.


3) Time.Give yourself enough time to 'get over' bread. Sounds silly but it's true. Soon it will get easier and everyone will adjust and wonder why they ever ate so much of it. - Don't underestimate patience and the power of giving time.


4) Encourage your family to try and keep trying new tastes. It's also important to explain that bread is a 'treat' food as this will establish a great approach in their minds to health, particularly for your children as they tend to grow up doing what we have established (mostly ;))


5) Do not deny yourself  - not eating bread is not about going hungry.


Here is my day:


Breakfast: Fruit and fresh juice, rice thins. (Yes we were going a bit hard on the pikelets so we've backed off.)


Lunch: Salad with a poached egg. It was lettuce, onion and capsicum with a lemon mustard dressing.

Afternoon Tea: Cup of tea.


Dinner: Salad Wraps: Lettuce, carrot, a sprinkle of cheese and capsicum with a touch of bbq, chilli sauce.


See you tmrw. xx