Escape From The Diet

Posted on 16 October 2019 by Master of Something Yet

I’ve never been a fan of diets. Breathless discussion of the latest fad by shiny-eyed converts over dinner makes me want to stab my ear drums.

Admittedly, I’ve never really needed to purposely diet, having been born with suitable genes to keep me reasonably thin. Not that I can eat what I want and never put on weight but a moderate approach to food and exercise seems to work.

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I work on the dieting theory that if my clothes start to feel a bit tight, I cut back on the naughty foods and exercise more until my clothes fit properly again. Then I go back to what I was doing.

I do occasionally undergo what I call the Stress Diet. Whenever life gets really challenging I tend to stop eating. The worse things are, the more weight I lose. After the deaths of my sister and niece my weight dropped to 52kg (115lb). I’m 173cm (5’8″) tall. Not healthy.

I think my main objection to diets, particularly those that target a particular food type such as carbs or sugar, is that they tend to demonise food. If you eat the ‘wrong’ food, it’s supposed to make you feel bad. Food is there for nutrition, yes, but it’s also there for enjoyment. And oddly enough, diets that are highly restrictive are shown to be ineffective in the long term. Hardly surprising. I mean, who wants to live without beautiful bread or delicious chocolate for the rest of their lives?

So then, how was it that I found myself recently counting and recording calories and obsessing about whether I could afford to eat that slice of freshly baked sourdough bread? Why was there an app on my phone adding up every little thing I ate and sending me messages if I forgot to input what I ate for lunch?

I told myself it was a motivation tool for exercise. After all, if I exercise, I burn calories and thus I earn extra ‘credit’. Maybe I could have that piece of chocolate?

Making those 2km on the rowing machine worth it

I told myself, why not lose a little weight now that I didn’t have to keep my weight over a certain value so I could donate more plasma at the Blood Bank since I can’t donate for a year because of my pulmonary embolism?

To be honest, my original intention was to lose a lot of weight. I was hurting. Not physically but mentally and emotionally. But mental injuries don’t show and it’s hard to convince people that you’re in pain. I thought if I could suddenly lose a lot of weight maybe it would be a physical signal to people that I was not okay.

So I signed up to an app and I set a strict weight goal and I started counting calories.

Of course, as part of this I started exercising more regularly and I started to feel better within myself. But by then, the Diet Cult had me in its grip.

I cut out breakfast and lunch and tried to minimise what I ate in the afternoon when I got home from work. I switched from my favoured flat white coffee to an espresso. I went to the gym and worked hard despite pain in my left foot. I started researching low calorie meals I could cook for dinner to help keep my calorie count low despite the fact that the men in my family all actually need extra calories in their diets.

But it was when I found myself drinking black tea – which I loathe – and going to bed hungry and sad that I realised that I had in fact fallen into exactly the traps I don’t like about diets. I was paranoid about what I ate. I felt guilty about every extra little treat I recorded in the app. I got depressed when my weight didn’t go down as fast as I wanted.

I deleted the app from my phone and I broke the diet. Oh boy, did I break it!

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And in the weird way the internet has of tapping into your psyche, just as I was coming to the realisation, on a YouTube session on the TV I stumbled across this hilarious piece from Michael McIntyre. It was like a sign. I laughed until tears rolled down my cheeks and I knew it was time to ditch the diet and go back to my usual plan – Everything In Moderation. Or, Run Marathons So I Can Eat As Much Chocolate As I Want.

Have you tried any diets? Did they work for you?

(Re)Living The Italian Life

Posted on 21 September 2016 by Master of Something Yet

Last night I went to Tuscany. San Gimignano to be precise. Oh, the food, the wine….

Yeah, okay, so I didn’t really go there. Well, not on an aeroplane in actual person. What do you think I am, a movie star?

I did, however, buy a bottle of Vernaccia di San Gimignano and make homemade ravioli. And I listened to Italian music while I wrestled with the pasta machine. (There may or may not have also been some choice Italian swear words in action.)

“Why??”

I knew you were busting to ask that.

Two lovely friends are currently living the Tuscan life on the trip of a lifetime in Italy. They’ve been posting photos and stories on Facebook and I’ve been reminiscing.

Yes, we did once fair dinkum go to San Gimignano.

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On a seven-week European odyssey with three small boys in tow (ages 11, 8 and 5), we had wisely booked a week in a small Tuscan town at about the halfway point. We didn’t know it was wise at the time. The wisdom only became apparent when we got there after our previous stop in Nice included the line “I’m over it! I want to go home!” That was me. As chief travel agent, tour guide, purchaser, cook, washer and seemingly font of all travel wisdom, the pressure was building. The opportunity to stop and breathe in one place for a week brought sanity back to us all.

Sometimes the significant travel memories that stay with you are not about awe-inspiring art or impressive structures or spectacular landscapes. Sometimes they are about living the life, feeling a part of a community of which you are a part for just a tiny moment. That was Certaldo for us. I’d managed to book a three bedroom apartment in a former 13th century palace with a tower where you could sit and see the towers of San Gimignano in the distance for only AU$800 a week.

Home is a palace

Lucky they were short

Just chillin’

Just chillin’ even more

Italian family life

Never underestimate the beauty of somewhere to wash and dry your clothes.

The view

Of course, first impressions count when you travel and the fact that we arrived on the weekend of their annual food and wine festival may have had some impact on our positive experiences. We didn’t know it was on when we booked. Another of those serendipitous moments that make a holiday special.

Boccaccesca Wine and Food Festival, Certaldo Alto

It was like it was all meant to be.

We relaxed, shopped at the market, read books, ate a lot of good Italian bread and cheese and made day trip forays into neighbouring tourist centres such as Sienna and San Gimignano. We didn’t have a car so these were accessed by public transport. There’s nothing quite like squeezing onto a crowded local bus to make you feel a part of the community.

Living like the locals

This is the life

Sienna

Rustic Tuscan food on a steep Sienna street

Gelati in Sienna

San Gimignano

It was a favourite moment in our holiday and I can’t help thinking that its impact was greater because it came at just the right time. We headed off after our week-long stay with renewed energy and patience.

I’d love to go back but I suspect that it wouldn’t be the same.

In the meantime, I’ll find the odd bottle of Tuscan wine in the local Dan Murphy’s, drag out the pasta machine and relive la dolce vita at home.

Certaldo Alto, Tuscany

Nepalese Food Quiz Answers

Posted on 22 January 2016 by Master of Something Yet

Breakfast with a view of Mt Everest

Winners are grinners and losers are boozers. (I couldn’t find anything else to rhyme with losers. And let’s face it, they probably need to drown their sorrows.)

Here are the results of “Best Black Tea – A Nepalese Food Quiz” posted a couple of weeks ago. Check out the answers along with a few tidbits about my experiences and then the winners will be revealed.

1. Tato Dudh – Hot Milk (or as one of our Sherpas called it, Hot Millick). Powdered milk never tasted so good. Offered at breakfast (into which one could mix instant coffee powder – shudder – or hot chocolate powder – that’s more like it) and also after dinner for that last warming drink before beddy-byes.

2. Anda Tarkari – Egg Curry. Admittedly, probably my least favourite of all the curries we were offered but still highly edible.

3. Saag – Spinach. But like no spinach you’ve ever tasted. Usually plucked fresh from one of the village gardens, I could eat this by the plateful (and occasionally needed to as my inherent low iron levels struggled with the lack of red meat on offer).

4. Alu Paratha – Flat bread stuffed with potato. One member of the group reckoned this tasted just like her Irish grandmother’s potato bread. I guess some food is universal.

5. Suji Ko Haluwa – Semolina Pudding. We were constantly spoilt with dessert after our evening meals – pineapple slices, chocolate pudding, apple pie – but the semolina pudding was the most Nepalese offering. One member of the group couldn’t bring herself to eat it as she was force-fed semolina pudding at boarding school as a child. Food has memories.

6. Chayote – Spiky Gourd. Our meals were a vegetarian’s delight (luckily for the one vegetarian in our group) with a multitude of different vegetables, most of them familiar but with the occasional new introduction. Chayote tastes a bit like zucchini (courgette).

7. Dal Bhat – Lentil Soup with Rice. This is Nepal’s national dish and is eaten in copious quantities. My absolute favourite dish of the trip. For our meals, the dal was poured onto the rice. One member of the group got most distressed when one of the Sherpas put some vegetable curry on top of her rice so there was no room for the dal. One must eat dal bhat as it is meant to be eaten.

8. Phini Roti – Fried Roti (also known as Tibetan Bread). We ate many different versions of bread but I think this would be my favourite. It is soft and slightly chewy with a hint of sweetness.

9. Rajma Tarkari – Kidney Bean Curry. Probably my favourite curry, this was absolutely delicious. And yes, we all know what happens when you eat a lot of beans but we were all in it together. Sharing is caring.

10. Momo – Dumpling. We were always served vegetable momos but they can also contain chicken. The first night these were offered, I was not feeling well and so was able to eat only one. I had to wait more than a week for them to reappear on the menu. (I was beginning to despair that they would not reappear at all.) I ate six.

So, how did you go? Here’s the results:

15 Points to Lynn at Life After 50 for being the first to provide all correct answers. However, she loses 5 points for not answering in numeric-alpha format (Rule #1). “But you said nothing would happen if we broke the rules!” Yeah. I lied. Don’t upset my system.

10 Points each to Joanne at My Life Lived Full, Cynthia at littleoldladywho.net and Sue at Travel Tales of Life who all managed to correctly identify every food item in the correct format.

5 Points to Bun at Bun Karyudo for providing answers to every item and getting two correct.

5 Points to Barbara at Barbara Pyett for her very creative answers. However, she loses 2 points for listing Dal Bhat as her least favourite.

1 Point each to all those who had a crack at identifying at least one dish and also to all those who commented at all because you know I love to hear from you even if you don’t want to play.

Congratulations to the winners. As soon as we’re all located in the same city, I will present you with your very large, very shiny trophies at an elaborate awards ceremony.

Now, I must leave you all to go and make suji ko haluwa for a family dinner this evening.

Namaste!

Best Black Tea – A Nepalese Food Quiz

Posted on 8 January 2016 by Master of Something Yet

One thing you will do when you travel in Nepal is drink a lot of tea.

The teapot first arrives around 6am outside your tent with a cheery “Black tea!”. You struggle out of your sleeping bag or, more often, struggle in your sleeping bag to unzip the tent flap and grasp that boiling hot tin cup of tea either sweetened with three large teaspoons of sugar (the Nepali way) or not.

Early Morning Cup of Tea

One of our Sherpas often called out “Best black tea!” We thought he was proud of his tea until we returned to Kathmandu and realised the stock in the supermarket was called just that – Best Black Tea.

The teapot will appear again at breakfast, then at lunch, then afternoon tea and lastly as a final note to the day after dinner. (While we were working in the village, the pot also appeared at morning tea time but in this case it would have ‘juice’ in it (otherwise known as hot cordial).)

Another thing you will do when you travel in Nepal is eat. A lot. Provided you’ve chosen your trekking company well, you will be suitably nourished in order to lift that hammer, shift that rock or climb that mountain.

Breakfast in the Sunshine

My friend Sue over at Travel Tales of Life likes to conduct a food quiz of the unusual delicacies she experiences on her travels. With her permission, I have pinched the idea for a Nepalese Food Quiz.

There’s just one teensy problem.

Sue is a highly regarded and experienced travel blogger and as such knows to take photographs of the food she eats just in case it comes in useful for a blog post. (Like this one.)

My first instinct when presented with a delicious plate of food is to eat it.

Sue also appears to travel in a slightly higher economic category than I and often has beautifully presented restaurant-standard single-named dishes with which to conduct her quiz.

My meals were presented on metal plates in a tent with up to eight different dishes on the one plate.

Like this one:

Actually, you’ll notice I had started to eat this one too.

That’s it. That’s the only photo I’ve got. (Well, that’s not strictly true. There’s one more I took when we picnicked beside a river during the trek. But I’ve already used that one in another post.) And you only got this one because I happened to have my phone in my pocket.

So I’m having to improvise.

Most of the images in the quiz are sourced from the Nepalese Cook Book I purchased in Kathmandu but am yet to tackle in an attempt to replicate in my own kitchen what our cook achieved over a two-burner kerosene stove in a tent.

Culinary delights await

But however the images have been sourced, I promise you I ate every single one in Nepal.

So. Rules.

Each food name has been assigned a number and each photograph has been assigned a letter. Please list all answers in numeric-alpha format. This is to sooth my OCD Mathematician tendencies. Danke.
Googling is permitted within reason. You may also Yahoo or Bing if you want to add an extra challenge. If you’re feeling radical, try DuckDuckGo.
If you break rules 1 and 2, nothing will happen. We’re not playing for sheep stations, people.

I will publish the winners in a couple of weeks. Or, you know, when I feel like it. Get in early to avoid disappointment.

Ready?

Food Names