I eat potatoes... with butter

I eat potatoes.  Everyday for lunch I eat potatoes smothered in butter and salt and freshly ground black pepper.  Oh my, so good!

I remember listening in on a conversation at a spinning class years ago.  The discussion was on food and what one needed to eat to lose weight. One of the ladies proclaimed her love for the all-faithful spud.  The instructor told her love was not out of place so long as she never dressed her potato with a sauce.  The poor woman was heartbroken (she was Irish.)

This potato diet of mine has helped me lose a mass of weight.  I’ve dropped not 1 but 2 pants size and I’m showing a shape that I don’t recognize. Wow.  If only I’d known that through my brief encounter with an eating disorder, the meal replacement milkshakes, the appetite suppressant drops, the Weight Watchers and Weighless (I am really not bashing the last two, they were just not for me).  How much time have I spent worrying about my body?  How much time has been spent on me?

I really was heavy for a long time.  And when I wasn’t heavy I was still heavy, emotionally.  Look, please don’t get me wrong, in no way am I saying that my weight ruled every part of my outlook and my happiness.  But as humans we are complex and I believe we need to grow holistically.  Think of it like this: a bicycle wheel loses one of its spokes.  Visibly that doesn’t seem to be a problem as there are loads of other spokes, but the bicycle starts to ride differently.  The change is only obvious at certain speeds, but this one missing spoke with eventually damage the wheel.  My issue with my weight was a pair of glasses through which I viewed the world.  Ok, I’ve said it.

I am so grateful to know God.  In the midst of everything else we have gone through He answered what had been the cry of my heart for so long.  And He did it when I least needed it. 

The Weight loss Programme I didn’t know I was on:

• Deal with the emotional muck that may be there
• Fall in love with God again
• Participate in your walk, your faith, what God is doing in the world!!!!
• Want the best for your family: in our case that meant going off dairy, gluten and sucrose
• Start living.  When we lost our car we started walking.  Walking offers such freedom!
• Smile

What that looked like in the food department:

• Lots and lots and lots of fruit and vegetables and salads.  I’ve come to understand and believe that we can live nutritionally balanced lives on fruit, vegetables and nuts alone.  I’m not sure this is what we’ll ever do even though the idea of Veganism is always enticing
• We eat fish instead of chicken and meat.  We do eat chicken and meat maybe 3 times a month.  Because of the eczema and just general health we needed supplements, but we cannot afford them.  So we started eating what we knew would have the right nutrients for us.  Sardines are a perfect example.  Sardines are oily, a good source of Omega 3’s and their bones (are soft enough to crush when small) are a good source of calcium.
• We eat seasonally and what is fresh. That being said I cannot wait to someday own a dehydrator!!!!
•  We avoid sucrose at all cost!!!!  I will write another post just on this as it so interesting!   We use fructose (fruit sugar) and honey, but both sparingly.
• We eat loads of peanut butter the unsugared, no added stuff kind.
• We eat nuts as often as we can afford to buy them.
• We steer well clear of preservatives and addiditives (my spell check is telling me the word is spelt wrong, but not offering a solution?).
• We roast and stir-fry and as much as I’d love to be using healthy coconut oil, it’s too expensive.  For that matter so is olive oil.  So we roast and stir-fry using canola or sunflower oil or butter.
• We eat more raw then cooked or try to any way.  On that note we make a vegetable and/or fruit juice every morning.
• We eat chickpeas. 
• We drink lots of water.
• We prepare all our own food.  

me now, slightly tired looking but a bit slinkier

as a newly wed

I want to encourage you to live and to laugh.  Become interested in what is good and whole.  

Oh, and the potato lunch is always accompanied with raw vegetables.

Much love

Philippa