Like water into wine

I've hit a new low. Or possibly hit on an ingenious new diet tip. TKF and I have taken to drinking water from wine glasses with our dinner. Much like those people who use the plastic replacement cigarettes from Nicroette, we are treating our penchant for wine at night as a psychological issue – that it's habitual rather than a real desire. And yes, just like those people sucking back on plastic toy cigarettes, we look completely ridiculous.

I'm blaming TKF. Her sister-in-law back home in the Kiwi motherland lost 12kg in some miracle amount of time this way. She cut out the booze, tricked herself into thinking she was relaxing with a glass of vino, continued to eat pineapple lumps and other NZ delicacies and the weight just melted off.

Neither TFK or I want to lose weight, we're just in the grip of ' two alcohol-free days a week guilt'. That is, we tend not to have them. (The other reason we've stopped drinking is neither of us is prepared to take off our chic home ensemble of house cardie, house trousers and le Ugh boots to go out and buy a damn bottle). There's no shame in the fact that I like to enjoy a glass of wine with my dinner, it's the best way to enjoy wine. The issue for me has been not being able to enjoy dinner without the wine. Le sigh.

So we sit up at the table of an evening, the finest in home cuisine prepared by moi served with a perfectly chilled glass of tap water from the Warrangamba Dam region. We make lame teatotal jokes that we could 'be wild and have the whole bottle!', and when we feel like a 'red', we pour it straight from the tap rather than have it chilled from the fridge. As I said, we've hit a new low.

But I've had three alcohol-free days in a row this week (possibly a personal record) but I can't say I feel any better or worse for it. However, this could be because I have a vested interest in this experiment failing miserably given aforementioned interest in wine (yes, I may once have escaped from the Golden Door Health Retreat in a covert operation to go buy wine and cheese). But I have saved myself from un-tolled empty calories and that, my friends, is the point (kind of).

Why a hot body is an environmental crusade

The environment has been front of mind the last few days. It's mostly because the June editions of the major women's monthlies are starting to appear. And as is usual, one or two roll out token 'Green' issues (probably printed on an endangered forest, coated with extra toxic chemicals so the pages are glossy enough to make the slave labour clothing look pretty on its pages) to time with World Environment Day on June 5. 

One editor is honest enough to admit the inherent contradictions of a fashion magazine doing a green issue... before presenting us with two generic-looking fashion shoots in America. Clearly the snow and sky in this part of the world weren't generic looking enough, so it was deemed good for the green issue to burn shitloads of carbon by flying a fashion team to the other side of the world to shoot 12 pages. I'll hop off my soapbox now because hypocrisy runs far and wide, but just saying that is all.  

Oh yeah, back to diets. It's not often pointed out that a healthy diet is also one that is environmentally friendly. Here's why:

Over-reliance on any one type of crop/fish/meat isn't the key to sustainability - so eating a range of fresh foods (ie a balanced diet) is good for the planet, as well as your bikini plans. 

Processed foods require, well, processing. Adding salt, trans fats, sugar, colourings, flavourings and artificial sweeteners takes lots of fuel to run factories. Putting newly flavoured food in pretty packaging uses more carbon and natural resources. Taking processed food from packages and putting it in your mouth puts dimples on your thighs and jelly on your belly. 

As the anti-Atkins brigade and the Queen of Carbs I'm happy to announce that a high protein diet is an environmental no-no. According to The Vegetarians*, nasty cows and sheep produce nasty methane which is creating a nasty big whole in the ozone layer and killing us all. On top of that it seems those who grow cows are 'Wallys with Water' - taking the prize for the biggest water users in the country. 

(*The Vegetarians - a bit like Scientologists, just not as well funded and in the case of Andrew G with worse hair. And before you think I'm one of their kind let me share my favourite vegetarian anecdote: a vegetarian friend trying to tell me the reason I was well-endowed and she wasn't was because I ate lots of hormone-filled chicken during puberty and she didn't. Of course I promptly told her (and her leather shoes) that all Australian chicken is hormone-free, and has been since the 1960s, before explaining how it is chicken fillets can really turn Flattie Fran into Hootie McBoob.  

Once again, I digress. So how to be a Goddess in a bikini AND an environmental crusader:

• Eat widely, choosing a range of foods, including meats, fish, chicken, legumes, fruit, vegtables and grains. 
• Eat as close to nature as possible – if the nutrition label reads like a pharmacy then it's not natural. In fact, having a label in the first place is a good indication of human interference level. 
• Walk everywhere you need to go. Cars = carbon emissions. Foot power = buns of steel and killer calves. 
• And lastly, you could try eating lots of chicken. I hear it can give you massive cans.

Posted by Busty St Clair

Words can only hurt you if you try to read them

I caught Miranda Kerr on TV more times than I would care to in the last week. And in between reminding us how much we need David Jones in our life, Miss Kerr explained that she was going to write a book on nutrition. Because she, like, studied nutrition. Um when? Reading the fat and calorie panel on everything you eat does not a nutritionist maketh. Why do models like Miranda think they need to do more than look purty. It's bad enough too many of them turn to acting - now we have to deal with a new slashy, the model/nutrition expert. 

The Miranda Kerr Centre For Modules Who Want To Eat Good and Do Other Stuff Good Too

Lesson One

"She wants to give weight to the theory of food combining'

Like, not eating carbs and protein together because our bodies can't process this stuff all at once. Never mind that many healthy foods (which Ms Miranda would probably advocate in her nutrition tome) like chickpeas, nuts and wholegrain bread contain both protein and carbs. This crackpot theory is as old as the hills (some say it has its origins with religious zealots in the 1850s) but it's crazier than even fundamentalist religion. Kookier that, dare I say it, Scientology. Meanwhile thanks to Miranda, the concept secured umpteenth column inches and air time on all networks. Way to go all you investigatory journalists.  

Lesson 2 

'You can change even the structure of your cells with your mind,'' she attests. ``It is such a powerful tool.'

Well I'm no scientist (in fact at school I chose the science unit called 'Machines' which involved making Lego that moved with battery power) but I'm pretty sure that listed among the things the mind is capable of, altering cells is not high up there. The food combining palava is quaint, to talk of shit like this is just embarrassing. 

Lesson 3

'The book should be beautiful and be something that every girl wants to keep, like a beautifully embossed diary'

Like, yeah, I mean, how are the kids supposed to learn if they can't carry a book that matches their outfit? The book has to be at least three times prettier than this! Actually, probably the one good idea she has - will help distract from the made up dribble contained inside its cover. 

Miranda dear - stop wondering if there is more to life other than being really, really, ridiculously good looking? It's enough for you. No truly, it is. As for the rest of us, when you're looking for information on nutrition, turn to people who have been to university, rather than appeared in an ad at a bus stop outside of one. 

Diets and the time savant

I'm rubbish at many things, like I vacuum around furniture rather than lifting it and I've been known to be tardy at returning borrowed items. However, I have an excellent chronological ability – a superb memory for dates and times and recalling what happened when. For example as a gift to a friend, TKF and I once put together a photo album spanning events over a 5-year period. With perfect clarity I was able to put in chronological order 600 photos - even down to the order in which the photos were taken at each event.

The relevance of this skill to this blog is because of the 'Energy Equation'. It's the e=mc2 of the diet world – kilojoules in versus kilojoules out. (Obviously in order for corporations to make money from magazines… diet books, pills, shakes, thigh masters and hypnosis CDs, thyroid conditions, hormones, metabolisms and big bones get rolled out as reasons women can't lose weight. The 'Energy Equation' doesn't make anyone money you see). Experts including, ahem me, recommend keeping a food diary as a way of making us mini-Einstein's and masters of the Energy Equation.

However, I don't keep a food diary as I'm a time savant. Rainman may have been able to count cards, but I can tell you just about everything I ate and drank and every minute of exercise I've done (or made excuses not to do) in the last week. This skill came into its own last week as I sat on the bus home. I'd been interstate for a week and had worked late which meant there was limited food in the house and I was too tired to cook. The resulting internal dialogue as I tried to calculate my Energy Equation went something like this:

I could get off the bus early and get takeaway chicken and chips - tis OK cos they use free range chicken and chips are 'fat' and absorb less oil.

Should probably try and rustle up something at home as had two big weeks of eating out

Nothing at home, not even for toasted sandwich. Chicken is healthy and need protein, could get chicken without chips.

Don't be stupid, only reason you really want chicken is so you can get chips.

Should ask for smaller serve of chips - know that once they are in my keep I'll eat them all, even if full.

Could douse half of the chips in washing up liquid so inedible?

Waste of chips and chip addiction is such it's possible will try and wipe off.

Must stop being so obsessive about food. If want chips, have chips.

What I have eaten the last week? Probably have room in kilojoule bank for chicken AND chips. [Mental time savant calculations]

Yes! Didn't eat lunch on Tuesday as busy on road. Can have extra chips if want!

So I had my chicken and chips. Of course I ordered the wing piece and didn't eat the skin because both of these things reduce the fat content. I also ate every last chip in the box because I like them... and because I didn't have lunch the previous Tuesday.

Photo Finish: the driver's license diet

My driver's license renewal arrived in the post yesterday and it forced me to confront a life-changing realisation.... I will never look better than I do now. In the past I've opted for the 3-year license on the basis that there is a period in your life where you get better with age. A woman uses her formative adult years to figure out how best to part her hair, which eyebrow shape suits her best, what make-up and hair colours work for her etc. It's the period where you look back at photos and say 'what was I thinking?', the period in your life when your looks are grateful for the passing of time.

Until now. I've now reached the age where it's time to go for the 5-year license. I want to preserve this look and pretend in the years to come that I still look like that. If only NSW offered a 10-year option like Victoria. From this license photo onwards my hair will start to lose its lustre, my collagen will begin to deplete and the the effects of work-related stress will start to show on my face.

I'm therefore on Operation RTA - I've got 2 weeks before my license expires and I refuse to smile awkwardly for that picture until I'm at my best possible. If you've noted the name of this blog you'll know I'm not one for a diet, but this is an emergency. I'm banning skin-sucking sugar (see previous post), cutting back on booze and trying to lose that current extra kilo which I feel is making my face look fat. I did not even go to this much trouble for my sister's recent wedding – but this photo will stare at me every time I got to pay for something in the next five years...it's gotta be good.

If I sound vain, it's nothing compared to my friends who Photoshopped their headshots for their Glastonbury Festival registrations (you know who you are). But photogenicness doesn't have to come from a computer program. Here is the nutrition advice I provided Bride-to-Be sister in the lead up to her big day (and yes, she walked down the aisle spot free)

• As much as possible cut out sugar - that includes fruit, alcohol and refined carbohydrates like white bread. These all have a high glycemic index, which two Aussie studies have found can cause acne. High-GI foods stimulate androgen production (male hormones) and combined with other external factors can cause mini cities to erupt on your face
• Boost your intake of essential fatty acids, found in nuts, fish and avocados. Omega-3s are anti-inflammatory and are great for general skin health, among many other things.
• Eat zinc-rich foods. This mineral is to skin what butterscotch sauce is to sticky date pudding - exactly what it needs. Modern diets are often deficient but you can find zinc in red meat, oysters, nuts and seeds.
  
• And if a pimple does decide to invite itself to your special day? Find a GP who'll give you a cortisone injection - it'll be sayonara spot.
  

Your blogger on the box

Not sure how long these links stay live for but yours truly never stops spreading the word!

http://au.todaytonight.yahoo.com/article/2656948/diet/products-voted-best-dieting
(Click ‘Consumers’ verdict on healthy food’ on the video screen on the right)

In food we trust

Indulge me for a minute while I tell you about my email inbox. Understanding its contents will help you to see how the weight-loss magazine I edit each month is almost a miracle of nature, a beautiful phoenix rising from the ashes of crap I get sent every day.

A snap shot of today:
A VIP invite to the album launch of a washed up ex-soap star
A press release on how a cabbage-rich diet help prevents bladder cancer
Info about 'fabulous' new creams that will rid me of stretch marks and cellulite
Three readers complaining their free pedometer doesn't work
And, er, multiple group emails with my friends regarding important topics such as Macs v PCs, movie castles in England and fake boobs.

Not once have I ever received a press release declaring 'Balanced healthy eating and exercise regime helps people lose weight' or 'The more you exercise the more kilojoules you burn'. Nor do I get free healthy meals prepared for me daily (my rationale being that beauty editors get sent all their products and have endless treatments). And if I get one more email from the Lemon Detox people telling me how nutritionally sound it is (even after I phoned to tell them my views, it's rubbish people!) I may be charged with crimes against Idiot PRs.

Let's not even start on my phone (33 voicemails last week from PRs haranguing me about their product - c'mmon folks, how many products do you see featured in there? We are not of the Magalogue genre). I have a point here other than to vent - it is that you should take everything you read regarding weight-loss, health and fitness with a healthy dose of cynicism. We do. And that's why you won't ever see cabbage diet recipes here or in the pages of my magazine.