What I ate Wednesday #18: intuitive eating

Last week I wrote about how I use carbohydrates to fuel my exercise.  I’m going to continue the nutrition theme by thinking about how intuitive eating affects my world.

In the past I have been VERY strict about what I eat.  I tracked every morsel that passed my lips. The thought of something that wasn’t approved as part of my diet made me shudder.  Cravings for unhealthy foods were squashed down, and ignored.

Lately I have found that my willpower isn’t as strong.  Or, there is a force deeper than my desire to stick to my planned foods.

Robyn hit the nail on the head with her post on binging vs hunger.  A few points from Robyn’s post, if I may:

Over time, the body will also compensate for the calorie deficit that continues to occur by shutting down {bodily systems}.

With all that going on, the body is eventually going to rebel. And hard as you might try to have “willpower” and not eat that extra serving or not eat past a certain time or whatever- your body will physiologically take over and you might find yourself eating way more than you anticipated which leaves you feeling out of control. And then you feel guilty and the next day so you restrict your calories in an attempt to not gain weight and the cycle continues.

But these “binging” episodes in the presence of a history of calorie restriction aren’t really binges at all. It’s your body physiologically crying out for energy- for food.

And if I look at what I’m binging/picking at, then it seems to correlate.  When I was eating low carb/low fat, I found myself making granola for my husband and of course I would sample bits here and there.  Now I am eating a plant based diet I seem to find myself making protein ‘treats’: desserts, protein mousse, protein flapjack.  You name it, I’m making it ‘protein-style’.

Hence, intuitive eating – my body is making up for the nutrients I am lacking in my ‘assigned diet’.

So lets check out what I ate on Saturday:

What I ate Wednesday

Vegan ‘tuna’ pasta salad

When I was growing up Mum would occasionally make tuna pasta for social get togethers.  Simply tuna, pasta, sweetcorn and mayonnaise.  I didn’t like it, I don’t know what it was – I liked tuna mayonnaise sandwiches, I liked pasta, but you couldn’t make me eat tuna pasta.

Then one weekend we went to visit my auntie and uncle.  One of the dishes at the dinner table alongside the salad was a tuna pasta salad.  I don’t know what made me try some, but I did…and I loved it!  Between my sister and I we demolished it with little more than a few slices of cucumber and some crusty French bread.

Some weeks later my Mum made tuna pasta again, and surprise – I didn’t like it.  We phoned up my auntie, and discovered her secret ingredient – a dash of tomato ketchup! Wow – that changed everything.  I now loved tuna pasta salad.

I made a batch every time we had a picnic or BBQ.

Paying it forward and vegan mayo recipe

I have to confess that I’m rather falling out of love with my Paying it Forward challenge.  It’s not that don’t want to do ‘kind’ things, but I’m fed up with feeling accountable for it.  I mean, when I am helping someone or doing good, I want to feel that I have done something positive – not feel that I can check another good deed off the list.

I guess that’s where RANDOM acts of kindness come in – you just do it randomly, when the mood takes you, or you see someone in need.  Not because you set yourself a challenge, and are too stubborn to give it up.

Perhaps, I need to give it some more thought, and re-group. See how I feel when I’ve had chance to see how I feel.

So this week, my good deed is to share with you this amazing vegan mayonnaise recipe 🙂 It’s Allergy Awareness week – so here is my version of mayonnaise which is egg free, dairy free, gluten free and nut free – gotta be good!

Sorry – just realised how rubbish this pic is…

What I ate Wednesday #11

Hello and Welcome to another What I ate Wednesday post 🙂

This WIAW is from Monday when I was in the office.  You would have thought that I would have had plenty of time to plan and prep for a Monday – but alas, Sunday was Sport Relief, and after kicking the day off with a 1.5km swim, I was then running around until my family turned up for the Sport Relief mile in the afternoon.

Afterwards, when all had gone I had a soak in the bath, made a cake for Monday cake swap and that didn’t leave time for much else.  I managed to pull something together for Monday though:

What I ate Wednesday

WIAW: Christmas parties on a detox

So detoxing during the run up to Christmas sounds like a fab idea – you will feel great on the big day itself, you will avoid piling on the pounds and look great in that new outfit.

But of course, you have to navigate the Christmas parties.  And in addition, it was Ben’s birthday this weekend – roll on the birthday cake

Ben’s birthday cake

I didn’t have a slice, but I may have had a nibble or two of the mixture while I was making it Not detox friendly at all!!!

So what did I eat at our Christmas party, and Ben’s birthday – well, I tried to stay on track.  Here it is:

Fennel and almond pesto: vegan, gluten free

I think it’s about time I posted somethign a bit more savoury.  I made this a couple of weeks ago, but haven’t had chance to share it with you!

I had that lovely fennel from the Farmer’s Market…

Farmer’s Market

All too often, when you buy fennel it doesn’t have the tops – so I was happy to get this one with the tops – yay!

If you get fennel fronds, don’t let them go to waste – make this delicious pesto, perfect on pasta:

WIAW: Thanksgiving

This is just a quick snapshot of what we ate on Thanksgiving – you’ll have to check back on Wednesday for the full post, but here goes:

Wherever you are from…what did you enjoy for dinner last night?

Pumpkin puree: vegan, gluten free

I bought Ben a treat from our town’s Farmer’

s Market when I passed this week.  It’s a different market to the one I usually report from.

Farmer’s Market chocolate cake

As I bought him a present, I thought I should buy one for myself too 🙂

giant pumpkin

Pumpkin is nutritious:

“[pumpkin] is low in Saturated Fat, and very low in Cholesterol and Sodium. It is also a good source of Vitamin E (Alpha Tocopherol), Thiamin, Niacin, Vitamin B6, Folate, Iron, Magnesium and Phosphorus, and a very good source of Dietary Fiber, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Riboflavin, Potassium, Copper and Manganese.”

Having said that – I got my order from Real Foods, so that’s like getting a present – YAY!

Real Foods order

Stop in the name of the slaw: celeriac coleslaw, gluten free

You’ll have to bear with me, I’m not feeling 100%, but I’m sticking with it.  Very tempted to get myself a Costa Hot Chocolate – I don’t think I’ve ever craved one of them before!

I bought this celeriac at the market.  Who knew celeriacs (is that the plural?) could be so muddy?

celeriac

Thankfully you cut off the skin to prepare, so I got rid of all of that without too much trouble.  The skin on this one was quite tricky though.  I’m not sure I cut off enough the first time around because the flesh was tough to chew and quite fibrous.

I balanced it out nicely with some amazing golden beetroot, courgette and avocado, in this gorgeous coleslaw

olive and sundried tomato farinata: vegan, gluten free

Ok, ok so it’s another socca.  It seems it is the same thing.  Ah well, a change is as good as a rest.

If you follow me on Facebook you will have seen that I got my dehydrator out again.  I wanted to make some ‘sundried’ tomatoes – yum!

In honour of Remembrance Day they remind me of the red of poppies.  Don’t forget your two minute silence.