Walk this way

Yes I'm still alive and blogging and I hereby promise / threaten to post more regularly. I've also hopped on this wild horse that is the web and will shortly have a pretty website all of my own so am currently embracing all things web. Stay tuned. (Also inspired to post again by my hilarious friends at The Unibrain... you really should follow them.)

I have a somewhat embarrassing confession to make. It seems I took my own advice a little too seriously (the diet another day bit) and managed to stack on a few kgs over the last few months. Blame Europe. Blame Winter. Blame the festive season. Blame the boyfriend. But really it's all my fault for eating and drinking more than my little body needed to actually live. Now I suffer the consequences of a wardrobe that only half fits. Pop... that's the top button of my jeans committing suicide.

But this is a good news story. Still carrying the weight from my last overseas trip in July last year, I recently took off for another sojourn to Mexico and London. Egads! I hear you say...Mexico? London? These are the anti-health food capitals of the world! Not to mention I'd been commissioned to write a story about food in Mexico - so I was legally obligated by the tax office to do as much eating as possible. (For details of my eating you can check out the Sept issue of Women's Health for some of that food porn).

I remind you this is a good news story and the happy development is, that after 3 weeks of eating my way through Mexico, London and LA I came home lighter and more toned than when I left. Not 'oh my god, is that Posh Spice?' thin but reduced enough that I could squeeze myself into a pair of jeans that would not do up before I left.

The reason is very clear. I walked. A lot. I trekked from the ranch to the beach in LA, I walked up pyramids and mountains in Mexico, I traipsed up and down stairs at Tube stations, strolled the length of airport terminals and powered through shopping malls is all places. And I have the blisters to prove it.

I have been reading and writing about the power of walking a lot. Bob Greene, Oprah's trainer and weight-loss guru (er, maybe not the best professional recommendation) says walking is his favourite exercise. The National Weight Control Registry in the US (a massive longitudal study) reports walking is the best way to lose weight and keep it off. And studies of populations who live the longest and healthiest show they are walkers, and not gym junkies.

Now that I'm home and reacquainted with my laptop and the Foxtel remote the temptation is to spend more time on the couch than pounding the pavement. I've been trying my best to go for daily walks and even posted this is the hope for further motivation. When all else fails I typically remind myself that the more I walk, the more I can eat.

Three stirkes and you're out?

I've eaten THREE 3-course meals over the last THREE days. It's the dieters' triple threat, not to mention the worst nightmare for someone who has a problem saying words beginning in 'th' (which technically would also be correct as the meals were all 'free', too).

Why? I spent two days at Shellharbour on the NSW South Coast on a press trip. Supposedly was about testing out a bush walk to review for my readers, to inspire them to be fit and healthy, but mostly all I did was eat.

After a rough audit of my food choices during this trip (and the third meal at a launch in Sydney. Yet another 3-course meal with matching wines. Yawn – it's a tough life), I'd say I had a 51/49 strike rate – I manage to the right things most of the time... but only just.

I forgo afternoon snacks (tick)
But tend to get carried away with the bread (strike)
The bread at restuarants is so yummy, often some sort of sourdough, triple ground with ancient stones by blonde virgins, (or something similar but which fits on the menu better). It's also served with real butter softened with time and care, rather than a cocktail of chemicals. Having not eaten since lunch in preparation, I'm so low on blood sugar I fail to make the rational assesment of the further three mini-meals I'm about to eat and add a fourth course of bread. The lesson: One piece of bread is enough. You won't go hungry – trust me.

I skip the side sauce (tick)
But inhale every last chip in sight of my plate (strike)
I've posted previously about the devil in the sauce. Or the gravy. Or whatever-the-fancy-French name they've given to their leftover pan juices. I deemed the grain-fed porterhouse was tasty enough without the piped rosette of herbed butter (diet hero) but just can't seem to say no to potato side (loser). I sit in quiet awe of the sentence 'Can I have it with salad instead of the fries' but to date have never been able to utter it. The (not very helpful to your diet) lesson: Chips taste good and are hard to resist.

I drink lots of water (tick)
But it's mostly to rehydrate from the wine (strike)
Food and wine belong together like, er, Madge and Guy don't. There's nothing to really add here except to say that I'm going to try really hard to have two alcohol days in the near furture to make up for it. Hopefully within the next week. The lesson: Wine will not be your best friend in the morning.

I order tea not coffee or hot chocolate (tick)
But don't bother asking for skim milk (strike)
It might seem extreme to be obsessing over a quick flick of the wrist with the milk jug, but as I'd probably consumed 12,000 calories in the previous 3 courses, I need to save calories when I can. The lesson: Add one word – skim – to your order.

To summarise, even at the risk of sounding like I'm jumping on someone else's snappy diet dictum, the French eat 3-course meals pretty much every day and they don't get fat. It involves a complex set of lifestyle choices and I reckon switching to skim milk with my tea and eating fries (duh, they're French) might be a couple of them.

Round the world in 80 meals

Hi there. Remember me? I'm your fearless anti-diet campaigner. Sorry if you've been in a diet twilight zone, either hungry, or eating yourself to death while you wait for my next thrilling installment. I've been on a bit of a world tour and have these blog-worthy observations to make:

I've done a lot of eating since my last post. Pizza mostly. I've eaten Croatian pizza, ready-made Waitrose pizza from the UK and $10 pub pizza at my local.
Conclusion: Pizza is possibly the best food ever invented. There's really nothing you can't put on it and it can be healthy if you make it yourself. Seriously.

I also spent 4 days at a famous Thai health resort where I was offered more food than I'm likely to see in a month back here. Oh the perils of a buffet, even a healthy one. I surprised even myself with my discipline. (Confession: I also enthusiastically ordered the one allowable glass of wine with dinner each night and ate Burger King at the airport before flying home). Despite these small speed humps and the fact I eschewed the menu of physical activities in lieu of lying by the pool and watching Gilmore Girls DVDs in my suite, I left 2kg lighter and felt amazing, glowing and all that.
Conclusion: Eating chef-prepared health food and doing not much is a fabulous way to feel fabulous.

Five days in Dubai left me with a lot to say about incidental exercise. In the time I was there my physical activity consisted of walking from my mate's apartment, to the car, to a seat in a restaurant. Only a jaunt around a shopping mall did anything to raise my heart rate. I doubt I clocked 10,000 steps in total, let alone the recommended one day. Compared to Paris where I walked everywhere, charging up Metro steps and chased pigeons through the park while chanting ooh la la (OK, not really. Just trying to get you in le mood).
Conclusion: Parisian women don't get fat and people in Dubai seem to. Walk when you can.

I did much drinking to complement the eating I was doing. Especially in bonnie Glasgow where the summer light lingers until 11pm in July. I drank what seemed like litres and litres of booze – beer, cider, wine – everything in a glass bigger than my wee head, trying hard to keep up with the locals. I was also informed by my Scotland-dwelling friends that in some parts of Glasgow the male life expectancy is 55.
Conclusion: Drinking to excess will make you feel pretty shabby and is bad for your health.

There is also much to be said about airline food, and none of it relates to health properties. But my final observation is reserved for white bread. When travelling, you'll eat a lot of it.

I've gotta get a message to you

I used to make jokes at a former boyfriend's expense about his culinary skillz (before he was 'former. It's possible these two points are linked). You see he claimed he could cook. And he had five dishes in his repertoire to prove it. The joke? They were all essentially the same thing – mince with onions – but variously labeled as meatballs, tacos, kebabs, bolognese or rissoles. Yes, there were slight variations to each recipe but you can give a dwarf an identifying personality trait and a different-coloured outfit… and he's still just Snow White's man slave. Likewise, meatballs, tacos and rissoles are all mince beef with onions regardless of what you dress them in.

But now I've become a living, breathing Bee Gees song (and no, it's not Tragedy). Rather, I started a joke and now the joke is on me. It occurred to me that just like Mince Meat Man, my so called genius in the kitchen is really just the same dish wearing different outfits. But unlike his pan-fried cow with saturated fat on the side, my 'dish' is rooted in sound nutritional principles and has the potential to free us all from 'what to have for dinner' anxiety.

OK, so here it is – every dish I cook involves as many vegies as possible, together with a lean protein. Oh, and cheese. The variable? My choice of carb.

Take a skinless chicken breast, a selection of your favourite vegies and the all important cheese and you can…

• Top a bit of dough and you've got yourself a pizza
• Mix them with sauce and pasta – buon appettito!
• Slap 'em on a bun and call it a burger
• Stir fry with noodles and break out the chop sticks*
  
• Toss with couscous and pretend it's a salad
• Or roast together in the oven with potatoes and feel like it's 1954*

*Cheese optional

What's funner than pizza? What says 'I eat for pleasure' more than a burger does? Provided the bowl of pasta is not bigger than your head and the cheese doesn't form the bulk of the meal (again, not unheard of for me), all of these dishes are nothin' but healthy. They won't make you fat but they'll keep you stayin' alive. Message received?

(Consider too these other pre-approved options in the protein category: lamb fillet, rump steak, chickpeas, beans, tofu, vegie patties, turkey breast, fish, tuna, salmon.)

BONUS SECTION: Cheese porn
Goat's cheese, blue cheese, parmesan cheese, cheddar cheese, washed rind cheese, aged cheese, brie cheese, grated cheese, sheep's cheese, melted cheese… (sorry it was just emotion, taking me over.)

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.