a peek inside the fishbowl

I should begin by saying that I haven’t fallen off the wagon or cheated. I’m still here; still going. (!) We’re almost at the halfway mark!

A lot has been written about sugar lately, and how it affects our brains and waistlines. I know for a fact that when I eat sugar I crave more sugar. (I really enjoyed this piece about sugar on the New York Times website. You might like it too.) The addition of sugar, in all of its forms, in All The Things, is stunning. A few of you Fishies may remember our family “Sugar Fast.” We cut out desserts and foods with added sugars in them for a week, and it was very hard to do, especially with kids who like ketchup on their meat and dressings on their salad. The big takeaway: it isn’t until you really read the labels that you realize that some form of sugar is added to almost every processed food. Case in point: I bought frozen shrimp the other day and was looking forward to eating them with seafood sauce… because seafood sauce can’t POSSIBLY have sugar in it, right? WRONG. So wrong. When I got home from the grocery store I checked the label, and sure enough, there is sugar in seafood sauce. I thought seafood sauce was just tomato sauce with herbs, spices, and horseradish?

So for the past little while I’ve been making my own mayo, dressings, dips, and sauces. Most of them have been pretty good too.

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I’m not having too many difficulties keeping this up but as I mentioned in my Whole 30 Day 9 update, it is a lot easier to focus on the foods I’m enjoying rather than the foods I might be craving or missing.

“You know what I’m craving,” announced my dear husband the other night (who is ALSO DOING THIS WITH ME), “a big cheesy pizza.”

Ha. Well. I don’t know about you, but I prefer to banish the thought of cheesy pizza from my mind for the duration. I’m choosing to REALLY enjoy and dwell upon juicy grapefruits, perfectly seasoned salmon, and ripe avocados, and reflect upon how fortunate we are to enjoy these fantastic foods.

Speaking of fantastic, I had ribs for breakfast the other day. Ribs! It is a bit unorthodox but when you need protein on your plate and there are ribs in the fridge, this is what one has to eat. I cut the meat off the bone and threw it all on the frying pan, along with an egg. As I was about to take my first bite I felt like I was really forcing the issue (“food is fuel!”) but then I relaxed and actually found myself enjoying the meal. Who knew?

Isn’t it weird that in North American society, the meal we eat in the morning consists of just a small group of foods that we’ve collectively decided to categorize as breakfast foods? Why bacon and sausage for breakfast, but not ribs? Why ham but not chicken? Why fried potatoes but not cauliflower? It doesn’t really make sense when you think about it, so I’m trying to get over these preconceived ideas of what breakfast is supposed to look like.

I’ve also thought a lot about the structure of our meals and why they look like they do. I suppose most of this falls under the category of cultural food traditions. Why do we feel we need to eat a big baked potato with steak? Why not just steak and vegetables? (Perhaps it’s because once upon a time, potatoes were considered filler, especially since the cuts of meat were probably smaller.) Why serve bread with a pasta dish? Who said there needs to be bread at breakfast, or at almost every meal? Who said there should be dessert every night after dinner?

I can make my own mealtime rules, ones that involve fewer calories and less sugar/flour/etc. and benefit me and my health. I certainly don’t need to follow a script. I can eat ribs for breakfast if I want to!

WATCH: A brand new #HeritageMinute about Canadian literary icon L.M. Montgomery. Follow her journey to become one of Canada’s bestselling authors, as told in her own words #IWD2018 pic.twitter.com/7qyiifssew

— Historica Canada (@HistoricaCanada) March 8, 2018

• The NME Bows Out of Print. We’ll Miss the Inky Fingers, nytimes.com
• When women journalists turn off their microphones, j-source.ca
• Jamie Oliver is right, for poor people putting food on the table trumps diet, theguardian.com
• 25 Canadian Women Changing The Way We Eat Now, chatelaine.com
• For Two Months, I Got My News From Print Newspapers. Here’s What I Learned. nytimes.com
• Why Americans are such easy targets for trolls and bots, salon.com

On the nightstand: The Communist’s Daughter

So that weird woozy/tired feeling I had is gone. I have been feeling pretty good these past couple of days! I found myself running up the stairs and punching the air on my way to the shower this morning a la Rocky. WHO IS THIS PERSON?

I don’t think it’s too early to say that one of the most interesting things that’s happened to me on Whole 30 so far is that I feel full (almost) all of the time. The obvious benefit is that I am not feeling hungry/sad/deprived or craving snacks. My stomach is no longer growling at 11:30 a.m. I’m not eating a mini-meal before dinner or trawling the cupboards in the evenings. I am never hangry either, banging around the kitchen and getting snippy with poor family members who merely want to know what’s for dinner and what time we’re eating.

I’m not lunging into my plate because I’m so hungry, and at every meal I seem to be eating less food because I’m just not that hungry anymore.

I attribute this entirely to two things: Increasing the amount of protein I’m eating overall and eating a larger breakfast that includes protein.

Also worth noting, Whole 30 is a lot more palatable (pun totally intended) if you can focus on your favourite foods. Dinner last night was a delicious salmon dish. This was lunch the other day:

Spicy, juicy, grilled jerk chicken on a bed of mango/avocado/red onion/cilantro/lime juice. It was leftovers from the night before, but it tasted amazing, and when it tastes amazing, there is zero feeling of sadness and deprivation.

I’m having leftovers for lunch again today, but they’re so good that I am looking forward to digging in.

Some observations:

1. – We are eating a lot more produce. I thought we ate a lot before, but we are reaching record amounts here. I know this by how frequently we’re emptying out our kitchen compost unit.
2. – The negative side of cooking more food at home: dishes. I feel like I’m doing loads of dishes and rewashing pans multiple times a day. (Not to mention the garlic press, which I hate cleaning.)
3. – I think my skin looks a bit better, although this might be my imagination.
4. – This might also be a result of increased water intake. My rather unsexy method of drinking more water can be summed up this way: pee out, water in. There’s a glass in every bathroom here, so I am using it.
5. – I MAY have spotted some abs. Maybe. I did 10 push ups today to encourage this trend.
6. – Food is tasting really good lately, like, better than usual. Has something happened to my tastebuds or am I just appreciating it more right now? It reminds me of the time when I was pregnant with our eldest. Orange juice took on a whole new level of flavour while I was pregnant. It was like drinking liquid gold, but in a parallel universe where gold actually tastes 1000x better than orange juice.
7. – I’m drinking more tea during the day, and a wider variety of teas too.  It gives me something hot to hold in my hand while I work and I also just really appreciate a good cup of tea. I don’t feel the need to add milk or sweeteners either. One of my faves is Stash brand peppermint tea. Have you tried it? It has a really nice, sweet, finish and apparently peppermint is good for digestion as well. (Or at least that’s what my grandmother said!) Maybe I’ll drop by David’s Tea and reward myself with something new this weekend.