It's taken me four months to write this blog post. I feel the need to apologise. My absence from the Internet lately can be explained by a few quick words; winter, cough, lack of sleep, 45 hour work weeks, my birthday, a fabulous new internet project (watch this space), the financial year-end (I'm an accountant by day) and a winter holiday. I could tell you more about all of those things, but I figure you probably don't care a long as I stop waffling and get to the point.
Far more interesting is the purpose of this post - to share my discovery this week of how I can drink more water.
It's on everyone's New Years resolution list every year; to drink more water. We all know we are supposed to drink around 10 glasses a day. We all generally fail miserably. 10 cups of coffee and/or tea maybe yes. But that's still a tall order.
Let's face it, water generally doesn't taste that good. Some of us are lucky enough to have water flowing from our taps that can be drunk straight from the tap and is fairly palatable. But many places of work in the UK won't have the same water supply, and many taps specifically have labels above them saying "not drinking water"; though in an emergency you probably would anyway.
Cordials are good at making water taste of something else, but they are full of sugar and E-numbers and don't really appeal to me. I actually like drinking bottled water, but 10 bottles of Evian a day would quickly bankrupt me. I'd be smooth skinned but incredibly poor.
Funny then, that this week I have gone from hardly drinking anything other than coffee, tea and the occasional fruit juice, to drinking 3 or 4 full bottles of water.
The bottles in this case are not bought bottles. I have discovered a refillable water bottle that works for me even though it's only filled with tap water.
This blog post is a summary of my journey over the last 7 weeks during which I have lost 10.5 pounds in weight. It's an ongoing journey. I hope it is at least helpful if you are trying to eat more healthily. So settle in with a glass of water instead of a cup of tea (healthy choices start here), and a biscuit (instead of three). It's a slightly longer post than usual - but I hope it's worth it.
When you consider starting a family it makes sense to ensure you are getting the right vitamins and minerals in your diet for healthy development of the feotus. There is plenty of guidance available on which supplements to take before and during pregnancy, and fairly consistent messages they are too. In the UK, the NHS choices "Vitamins and minerals in pregnancy" website summarises these succinctly.
There is not, however, the same level of consistency in guidance on which supplements to take either outside of pregnancy or for women or men, for young or old.
We have all been told to eat five portions of fruit and vegetables a day and to avoid processed foods. But we don't all know which, if any, supplements would help us at any point in our lives. It depends on our own existing diet.
This probably explains the vast range of different products out there.
On New Year's day I happened to be in Boots, the health and beauty store, and decided to finally buy a small pot of vitamin tablets.
I plucked up the courage to actually ask the store assistant what the difference between the various types was, and which would be the best option for me: courage needed since I assume it's something everyone is knowledgeable about but me.
She was very helpful and asked me what my aims were, why I thought I needed some and whether I ate a balanced diet. I confirmed that my diet was balanced, but probably not in favour of the nutrients it should be. I even told her that I don't eat nearly enought fruit and vegetables and that I never seem to have any energy.
She told me that the vitamins shouldn't be seen as an alternative to a good diet, only a supplement, (a very good point), and recommended the multi vitamins with ginseng.
Ginseng? I didn't have a clue what it was (and after googling it still aren't really sure). "It's good for energy levels" she said. Brilliant. So I bought some.
I've taken them everyday in January and, despite my daughter getting tonsillitus and all sorts of viruses going round, I haven't yet been ill. I have more energy, definitely, and, well, let's just say my trips to the toilet have been more gentle and soft.
So far I am impressed and will continue to take them. I just wonder whether to get some cod liver oil ones too? My joint's are getting a little, em, crunchy.
Do you take vitamins? If so, when and why did you start and which ones do you take? Would you recommend it, or do you feel we should avoid supplements and improve our diets instead?
It's been a week, and a hectic week it's been. What with school, nursery and work starting afresh, my new 6am work-out routine, a new slow cooker to get to grips with and the second in the 50 Shades trilogy to read, I've been busy, busy, busy!
This month I decided to have a pause from the out of the mouths of babesmonthly linkyand have decided to take the opportunity to collect and share the best slow cooker recipes out there instead. Yes, I know I have a vested interest now I have joined the slow cooker club. But it's my website, so I get to pick!
How will it work?
Here's what to do.
If you are here looking for slow cooker recipes, enjoy! The list below should continue to grow so please feel free to pop back another time too to find plenty of recipes for you to try. If you are here shortly after publication on 7th September 2012, there may not be many links listed below yet. DON'T FRET! Folk will add their scrummy offerings – you are just a little early! Please, please, please pop your email address in the box on the right to subscribe to this blog. Future posts will pop into your inbox and not only will you find useful parenting and beauty information, you'll also be reminded to pop back to this post to find a growing list of brilliant recipes! Alternatively you can subscribe to 'comments' over on the right and get an up-date every time a fellow blogger adds their slow cooker recipe here.
If you are a blogger with a slow cooker recipe post you'd like to share click on 'click here to enter' below and add your link.
Please try and give the name of the dish as the title.
If you could also add a comment below this post that would be great as it will automatically let other reader subscribers know that a new recipe has been added.
Finally, you don't have to, but it would really help if you could add the link of this post to your recipe post so that readers can get back to the main list. I've added a button below. Simply copy and paste into your post and check the link remains intact.
If you are here with a link to share and the list has closed, then please comment, or email me, (tweet/facebook, whatever) and let me know. If there are enough people interested in joining in I will make the linky a regular one.
Thank you all lovely readers! I'll look forward to discovering a host of new recipes and will be trying them out and reviewing them in later posts, so make them good! I might even pick my favourite for a special mention next month.
Look out for another out of the mouths of babes linky next month.
Well it's not a whole month, but it is a week's worth and it did inform my shopping list this weekend, which interestingly led to my shopping bill being roughly 30 % cheaper than it has been.
I guess that's one of the advantages of planning.
So here's the plan and the list. I apologise profusely for the writing quality. I was unfortunately taught to write in a school that still felt that calligraphy was vital and the use of an italic pen was a necessity. It means that I naturally want to make my 'o's look like upside down triangles. Over the years it's evolved into, well, a scribble. Sorry.
Essentially I have to plan for feed the two girls (Age 6 and 3 respectively). In the week my hubby and I often don't eat the same meal as we take it in turn to go to the Gym, so if I'm going out, he will sort his own dinner out and vice versa. It's a funny week this week too as we have a nursery trip on Thursday, so they'll be a picnic lunch required and I'll be home alot earlier than usual for a Thursday. If I hadn't completed this plan I'd have forgotten that and arrived at Thursday night with no clue what to eat!
We are doing well so far. The meal's aren't inspiring, but I know what we are having so it's taking the stress out of it all. Baby steps.
And you know what. There may just be something in this "forward-planning" lark!
My attempts at meeting the 'Yummy Mummy' criteria I've set in my head tend to rely on getting the basics right. You know, like getting enough sleep for instance. Like smiling a lot as you are so organised and calm you have nothing to frown about.
Unfortunately I'm not the sort of person who can avoid frowning. In fact my lips, unfortunately, sit at a naturally downturned angle even when I'm doing the screensaver face. You know the one. When you are sat staring at the TV or laptop and your face goes into it's screensaver mode; it's default setting. Just be careful that it's not one with mouth slightly open. I've found myself watching TV with mouth open before. It's not a great look.
So; chocolates, beer & banoffee pie for tea!
My frowning would be dramatically reduced if I didn't create things to get stressed about. Meal times for example. If I planned out my meals for the week, or even month, knowing who would be in for tea and how much preparation and cooking time I'd have each day. If I shopped accordingly and followed the plan, then meal times would be stress free occasions where the entire family received a balanced nutritious and tasty meal without fuss.
What do you think actually happens in our house?
Yep. Unorganised last minute chaos because I don't plan meals.
What does happen is that Hubby goes off at the weekend to do the grocery shopping with the girls leaving me time to get the chores done. If there are offers on, then great, he buys things with the intention of freezing them thinking we're getting a great deal. He buys a few bits and pieces for sandwiches (Bread, cucumber, cooked ham - you know the sort of thing). And we'll probably get a roast, with potatoes and vegetables to go with it.
So that covers maybe three days, realistically. Because for the rest of the week, though we have cupboards full of tins and packets and a freezer full to bursting, we don't have the fresh food we need to cook with. So there's me, not even thinking about tea time until I've picked up the girls from school and nursery on my way home from work, arriving home at 4pm and not having a clue what to make for dinner.
Any meat we have is in the freezer and don't even get me started on using a microwave for that! I don't trust it for defrosting. Never have. So, as a consequence of this, and the fact that I don't think to take any meat out of the freezer to defrost naturally overnight, then food has a tendency to go to our freezer to die.
What do the girls end up with for tea? Beans on Toast, Sandwiches or Fish fingers, steamed (frozen) vegetables and rice. It's not inspiring, but I don't worry much on the days they've been to school and nursery as they have hot dinners there, so it's only really a light tea I need to give them. This is what I tell myself to feel better. Funnily enough it doesn't work.
It's my husband I feel most sorry for. He's not exactly getting a lovingly made pie on his return from work at 8pm. In fact often I've eaten sandwiches with the girls and he is left to fend for himself. I am such a poor wife when it comes to feeding my man! And on the basis that I'm home, with the time to cook it, I feel I should be doing so.
Recipe Junkie shared her monthly meal planner on her blog the other day. I was astounded. I didn't realise people actually planned meals like that. It looks fabulous. There are meals on there I can't even pronounce.
And so she inspired me to have a go. I am going to set a plan for the next month. The only tricky thing is; I don't actually know how to cook much!? Help! If you have any ideas for quick and easy nutritious meals, feel free to share your recipes. Please!
Stay tuned for the meal planner big reveal next time.
Despite the rain and the wind battering the UK this April; I know what you are all doing. All you women that have a holiday booked this summer; are mentally assessing your wardrobe and your weight.
We all do it. It gets to April. There's a hint that summer is fast approaching. The Easter school break comes and goes; and suddenly, the next big school holiday is the summer one. It's time for heading to the beach and baring that skin in a swim suit. Or bather. Or cozzie. Or bikini. Or any number of other terms for the Lycra filled, no holds barred, shows every blemish and roll of flesh - piece of material that we all insist on wearing.
I'm doing it now; the assessing; not the holidaying. I am sitting here with my entire wardrobe flashing through my brain, knowing I've put too much weight on over the last month due to consumption of at least two chocolate bars a day. I know that I can halt the gradual weight increase by cutting back to my usual one bar of chocolate per day. And I also know, that if I want to loose any weight, I'm going to have to cut out the chocolate all together; remember not to replace it with cakes and biscuits thinking they won't count; and I'll actually have to do some exercise.
I've always said I don't do diets. I don't. Not fad diets anyway. All the methods my friends use: Atkins, Dukan, Slimming World, Rosemary Conley, Weight Watchers. I have heard about them all. I've watched people use them, loose weight, stop the diet, and throw the weight all back on again, until they, once again, start the diet, loose it all, and repeat the process in a yo yo fashion.
If you are happy with the yo yo weight management system, then that's fine. Loose the weight for the summer, put it all on again over winter. Ensure to have two separate wardrobes.
Put I'm not happy with that. I don't want to spend half the year craving food and stopping myself have eating what I love. Life's too short. Besides; that doesn't feel like a healthy long lasting approach to looking and feeling good.
So here's my 'diet'. Here's what I do when I feel I have over indulged for a while and I need to get back on track.
There are two stages:
1. Halt the weight increase.
That means I may feel a little hungry to start with. My stomach will have expanded to accommodate my large food intact, so now I need to teach it to shrink a little again. I need to do the following things:
Cut back on the sweet stuff. Recognising that if I've already had a bar of chocolate today I really don't need another. This doesn't mean I can't. It means I take a second to remember that I am trying to adjust my eating habits slightly and make the choice then.
Making a few more sensible choices. Picking lighter or smaller chocolate bars when I do indulge. Or swapping for a biscuit (just one if I can manage it)
Eating a few more omelettes (because they fill you up for longer and reduce snacking).
Drinking more water; particularly before and during meals. Again because the water fills you up (reducing that hungry feeling) and dehydration is a major cause of bloating. Who needs bloating on top of the bulge?
2. Encourage the weight to fall off
Continuing with the list above, I'll also add these things in:
Have soup for lunch at least once a week. This fills you up (liquid does so more than solids) and thus reduces snacking.
Cut back on alcohol. I love wine; but it is full of empty calories; so I try and have only one cherished glass at a time, with a maximum of one bottle per week if I am trying to loose weight.
Increase the exercise. That means anything from walking to school as often as is feasible, to playing chase with the girls in the garden, to getting out to the gym, the local swimming pool, out on a bike or to a dance or Zumba class. For my review of Zumba click here.
Exercise even whilst doing other tasks. There are stretches you can do whilst getting the dinner ready, arm toning you can do for 3 minutes before you settle down to watch the TV (or even during the adverts!) and bottom toning exercises you can do whilst cleaning your teeth (I always do this! Check out how easy it is here)
And always, always have breakfast. There's an old saying which goes something like; "breakfast like a King; lunch like a Lord and dine like a pauper". The idea is that you need the most calories and energy first thing in the morning to get you going, but hardly need any calories to get through the final 2 or 3 hours between your last meal of the day and bedtime. So eat more at the start of the day to enable yourself to have time to use it up and burn it off. I always have cereal for breakfast; but I've noticed that if I add half a banana to it, in slices, I don't get hungry mid morning.
And my biggest tip?
Use smaller plates. It sounds crazy but really does work.
I am
convinced that one of the prime reasons for women putting on weight when
they settle down and get married (or move in with a partner) is that they begin to eat all their meals with a
man. Men need more calories on average. They eat bigger portions as a
result. If you use the same plate size as them; you'll end up eating
just as much. Which is, of course, too much for you.*
Use a smaller plate. You won't even notice the food you've not eaten. If you are anything like me you'll want to clear the plate. My upbringing means my body is comfortable that it's finished it's meal when the plate is empty; regardless of how large, or small, the plate was. I am used to clearing my plate, and we didn't have second helpings of the main course when I was growing up. There just wasn't any need for making more food that was required.
One final word of advice
If you are trying to lose weight, remember this. To lose weight you have to use up more calories than you consume. You know this; don't even pretend you don't! You know also that it will involve feeling hungry to start with, whilst your body adjusts to smaller portions. This is the stage where you have to be mentally strong and remember why you are doing it.
And once you get to your ideal weight the battle isn't over. Now you need to learn what level of food and exercise you need to adjust to, to maintain a static weight.
So don't do 'A' diet. Do 'YOUR' diet. Find your balance. Enjoy your food. Enjoy your exercise. Enjoy your life.
That, ladies, is my secret.
***
I am 5 foot six inches tall and a UK size 12 (US 10 - conversion chart here) usually. This week I am a UK size 14 (US 12). I weigh 11 stone 5 pounds (72.12kg - conversion chart here) at the moment. I am aiming for 11 stone for a comfortable size 12, but really I'll be happier when I can run around the garden for more than 5 minutes without getting tired.
My children will try pretty much any type of food.
I count this as a blessing. Particularly since I didn't even eat Pizza until I was 20 years old.
I was bought up in a typical English environment, where the meals consisted of 'meat, potato and veg' or were children's meals like 'beans on toast', 'dippy egg' or 'tomato soup with soldiers'. To this day my parents don't eat rice, or pasta, or anything that hints at a herb other than mint (only with lamb). Whilst you can quite happily eat traditional English food in a healthy way, I'm pleased that I have a wider variety of foods with which to now tempt my children, which I gained purely as a result of spending 3 years at university and 'experimenting'. With food, obviously. My girls are now; helpfully; big fans of pasta (even cold in salads; which I hate). They love rice (quick and easy, and they'll even help sweep up the mess afterwards). And we've recently introduced them to poppadoms and chicken bhuna, with great success.
It's not been easy though. Our youngest, now 30 months old, continues to go through stages of 'pickiness'. And I refuse to rise to it. I continue to offer a selection of foods, and the availability of pudding is directly related to how much main course she's eaten. A small amount of main course equates to a small amount of pudding. And we have, whilst out at a restaurant, allowed her older sister to eat ice cream for pudding, even though the youngest hadn't eaten mains and was therefore not allowed any. She whined. But we stuck to our guns, and she now always eats at least some of her main course.
And I think that's the trick. When you realise that they will never starve themselves at this age. That they'll eat when they are hungry. And that rising to it only makes it into a game that you really don't want to be playing. And when you realise that children's potion sizes are so much smaller than ours, and that a tiny plate of pasta and meatballs is actually quite filling, and that a single 'dippy egg' with one slice of bread to dip can keep them going for ages.
These days we would probably be considered old fashioned for our approach. Which consists of this: make dinner, place dinner in front of children, allow them appropriate time to eat dinner, call end to dinner and remove remaining food. If they choose not to eat it, well they'll need to wait until the next snack time (for fruit) or for the next meal (where they inevitably eat a whole lot better.)
Sometimes you just need to remember who's in charge!
I was told, ironically whilst taking my daughter to Tiny Tumblers (gymnastics for pre-schoolers), that there has been some research published this week that concludes that children of mums that stay at home are likely to be healthier than those of mums that go to work.
I'm a mum who has made a decision to return to work sooner than I had originally intended. The reasons for this are many and complex, but as you will note from my previous post, I've not managed to avoid a fair degree of guilt in coming to this decision. Ironic, as my girls already go to nursery two days a week; a move that we are very happy with having seen a huge improvement in my eldest daughters vocabulary and social skills in the first few months she went. So the girls won't be spending any less time with me. I then felt guilty that I won't be able to do the cleaning and laundry whilst they are out, but will have to do it in what it now their time with mummy. The guilt was short lived when I cottoned on to the fact that I could actually pay a cleaner to do all the chores (since I'd be earning) and therefore playtime isn't affected at all. Still felt guilty though. I think it's because I'm actually looking forward to working again, and almost feel that if I'm looking forward to doing something that's not with my girls I should feel guilty.
Knowing all this, you can perhaps imagine my response to this research report, published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. It basically concluded that children of working mums were more likely to be fed junk food, and allowed to watch more telly and do less exercise.
As if I wasn't feeling guilty enough already! And then I got quite angry. As is the case with all research of this type, it's isolated. It doesn't measure how happy, contended or fulfilled the children, mums and dads in these families are. It doesn't account for mums that overcompensate and deny their children sweet snacks so vigorously that the children rebel as teens and end up even more likely to eat unhealthily as adults. It doesn't point out the other effect of mums going to work. The message it sends to the children that mum is a strong, independent woman, who works hard to provide for her family. Surely all positive?
As an accountant and statistician I felt compelled to look at this report more carefully. Typically I discovered that results had been 'adjusted' for confounding and mediating factors. In English, the results were originally the exact opposite. The unadjusted results show that children of mums who worked full or part time were more likely to eat fruit and veg between meals, eat three or more portions of fruit a day, participate in organised exercise three or more times a week, and eat fewer sweet snacks between meals.
These results were adjusted to take away the influence of the following factors; ethnicity, mum's job type, mum's marital status, mum's highest qualification, the number of other children and household income. This adjustment isolates the data to conclude that it was only the 'to work or not to work' status that affected health detrimentally.
The report did, to be fair, admit its limitations as all good reports do. (Pity the papers then reporting on them tend to pick out the sensationalistic bits only). It pointed out that results were based on answers to single questions, and that estimates were used where data was missing (for example assuming working hours continued at the same rate week after week).
Maybe the data would feel more helpful if they could somehow account for the mums (and dads!) values, beliefs, commitment and determination in these reports. When they find out who does the chores (maybe it's bought in, like my suggestion!), and measure the sizes of the food portions (one Jaffa cake for pudding is a bit different to large quantities of chocolate and ice cream. Half a packet of crisps after a large healthy meal isn't the same as half a packet of crisps when nothing else has been eaten.) Maybe then I could feel that it was a helpful report. But probably not. Afterall, I won't accept anyone telling me I'm a bad mother. I do the guilt thing quite happily on my own thank you.
I'd like to propose that all us mothers respond to this as follows. We take it with a pinch of salt.
We all have common sense, and we all know what we, and our children, should be eating. And to be fair I believe that there are a huge amount of people out there, parents or not, who already feel pressurised to be stick thin, tanned, gorgeous, successful, sexy... and calm, and despite all this ridiculous pressure, are living life the the best of their ability and doing a darn good job of it. Give us all a break and let us figure it out ourselves. We know we could be healthier. There's unlikely to ever be a point when people tell us we're too healthy. So give it a rest!
Go to the guardian website just for the fun of reading the resulting comments that the press report obtained. Seems to be a general consensus that this scientific report will be, at best, ignored in the same way that the working dads were. http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/sep/29/working-mothers-child-health
