Why I barely have time to blog anymore...

 So a lot of you know that I've been on this health/fitness journey for a couple of years now. And I've tried lots of things and done a lot of the WRONG things and hit speed bumps and flailed. And up until about Sept 1 if you had asked me what I thought the key to the whole shebang was I would have probably rolled my eyes and said "still working on that and I'll let you know when I find out.." or SOMETHING to that effect. But I think I'm on to something now and I wanted to share it because when I love something I'm the kind of person that has to grab everyone I know by the collar and tell them why they should love it too. I'll try not to get all soap-boxy about it and I'll try to keep it brief. But I've done a lot of reading and research in the last 3 months and boiling it all down to one blog post is gonna be tough. Here goes:

It all comes down to 3 things:
1.) Food
2.) 2 SS's
3.) Lifting Heavy Things (including yourself!)

1.) Food. Man oh Man did I go about this all wrong. Calories in/calories out. Wrong! Heart healthy whole grains and low fat. Tried keeping calories low, in the 1500 range, sometimes even lower. So totally wrong and so totally backwards. I kept reading about this "Paleo" diet. What a bunch of hooey I thought. But it kept coming up and I kept poo-pooing it. Eat like a caveman? Bacon meat and veg? They died of old age when they were like 25. Great example, who could be so STUPID as to think THAT is a good idea right? But then I started digging and looking into the science of it and it turns out that grains ESPECIALLY wheat are really bad for us. And we don't have guts that digest them right. They punch little holes in our intestines and then stuff (POOP) leaks out and our bodies attack it ALL THE TIME but then our immune system gets over-taxed and confused because it's always on high alert so it gets confused and starts attacking its own tissues (auto immune diseases) or misses killing off mutated cells because it can't keep up (cancer) and some of this stuff crosses the blood brain barrier and causes things like dementia, parkinsons and alzheimers. True story Y'all. That's my summary and I'm going to give you homework at the end of this if you are a geek like me and want to know more but if you don't want to read about it yourself then you don't get to argue with me.
   Now if you're not a geek and you just want to take my word for it here's what we're meant to eat. We'll call it a "Human Diet". Meat, fish, poultry, eggs, great fats like coconut oil, avocado, nuts, and olive oil, tons of veggies, a little bit of fruit and maybe some fermented dairy in the form of yogurt and cheese.
What you don't want to eat are grains (wheat, corn, rice, millet, oats... ) legumes (including peanuts and 'sob' peanut butter) sugar, and processed foods. SEE! You only have to cut out 4 things to eat like a human. This sounds terrible but it's not!! It's AWESOME! Breakfast looks like this:

 Or this!

 YUM!!! Why have I been eating dried flakey crap at breakfast for all these years?!?

 Eggs cooked in ham cups, banana with home made nutella, and macadamia nut better on sweet potato crackers?!? Where's the downside to eating like a human?

Lunch looks like veg and lean protein. Shrimp and Avocado:

 Tacos!

What about snacks?
Nuts, veggies, biltong or jerky, nut butters and fruit.... so many possibilities that we are still coming up with new favs!
Apple sandwich with almond butter, cinnamon and pumpkin seeds. I want dis.

 hummus made out of almonds and cauliflower with veggies and more almonds

Are you sick of the food porn yet? Are you hungry? Ready to eat like a Human?
Dinner. What do you do with the "starch" you're supposed to serve? It's supposed to be a meat, a veg and a starch right? Just swap out the starch for MORE VEG but make it awesome. Who wants a giant mushroom cap stuffed with butternut squash, feta and bacon? I DO! Because "I wish I had less bacon in my diet" said no one. Ever. I try to serve a veggie veg and a more starchy veg and no one's complainin'

 NEW Mexican style stuffed peppers. Swapped the rice for butternut squash!

 Pizza with cauliflower crust.

 How 'bout a big fat burger with a giant mushroom bun? You know you want it...

Sasha AND Emily are happy eatin' Paleo...

 Things that used to be served over rice or pasta can be served in squash cups or over "riced" cauliflower. Actually easier to prepare than rice!

 So that's it. Don't believe me? Try it for 30 days. You have nothing to lose. 30 days of no sugar, processed foods, grains or legumes. Have a kid with ADD or other neurological issue. TRY THIS. Please God, try it. Try it now! But wait M, what about treats and Christmas....

 Treats like nut butter cups and fruit snacks and peppermint chocolate macaroons and THIN MINTS (not making this up...) can all be made with no sugar and no grains. I will send you the recipes. And they're better than the old "real" versions that are full of crappy chemicals and dyes that you can barely read. Whipped, frozen coconut cream with fresh fruit? Count me IN!

How about bread made with almond and coconut flour..... we can do it. BUT... that shouldn't be the main thing you eat. It should be mostly meat, veg and a little bit of fruit with an occasional treat. No fair eating "paleo" pancakes for lunch and then "paleo" bread with and afternoon snack of "paleo" blueberry scones (awesome by the way... Scones made with cashew flour? What part of that sounds bad? None of it).

If you want to ask your Doctor about this go ahead. But know that Medical school involves about 30 minutes of teaching on nutrition. The connection between the foods we eat and the conditions we end up with is a rather new radical concept (!?). So If you have an honest Dr. they might tell you they know nothing about this. Or you could have one of those BS'y "Can't admit I don't know everything about everything" Drs. that might tell you this is all malarkey. OR you might luck out and get a super enlightened Dr. that practices functional medicine and has decided to Keep On Learning that might know something about this.
   If you want to know more there are 2 books that explain it all really well. The first one:

Specifically talks about eating like a human and the science of WHY including macronutrients, what wheat does in the body and everything else.
This book:

Is incredibly important and talks about how the double whammy of "heart healthy" whole grains + a low fat diet is killing off our brains. Literally killing them off. As in Alzheimers and dementia up 95% in women in the last 30 years. 95%!!! Because our brains are made of FAT and we've been shutting them off like a tourniquet on a limb. Yikes.
      For every thing I have read about this I have TRIED to read something else debunking both of these guys. I mean I REALLY tried to find a convincing counter-argument. Because I love bagels and pretzels baby. So If you have the magic key and can prove to me that this is all wrong, I will hug you and kiss you on both cheeks and bust open a bag of Utz pretzels and a Disney Cupcake. But I just don't see that happening. Just look into it all OK?

2) 2 SS's: Sleep and Stress.
 Man, why are we so bad at this? We need like 8-9 hours of sleep. But we try to tell ourselves and each other that we can get by on so much less. Stop it. Go to bed already. You will feel amazing! Sleep like 9 hours for 10 days in a row. Not just once a week to catch up. But seriously get the sleep you need all the time. Crazy revolutionary concept right?
Stress.  Ungh. Just as important as sleep. I am so not the master of this yet. But I am getting there! I find so many times that I am stewing about something. Percieved injustices. People's little things that drive me crazy. The friend that's always 7 minutes late. So many things to harp on and keep stuck in your craw. Too much stuff and too little time and it's all crap folks. Stress should be there when a large predator is about to eat us or we're running out of food. It should be something that happens like twice a year. But we take on all these modern stresses that are really not all that important to our basic survival and we stay stressed out all the time and it's toxic. Preaching to myself as much as anybody else. Because this morning I got up to go to CrossFit and the gate to my property would not open so I couldn't drive out the driveway. And I had a hissy fit. Like kicking the gate swearing and stomping my feet 2 year old ridiculous hissy fit. Such a 1st world problem. Such BS. Stop it.

3.) Lift Heavy Things. Including yourself! I tried to do it all with cardio for a long time. And I still

love to run! But I do it shorter and faster with walking intervals. Because what we really need to do to keep our bodies healthy is lift heavy things. Like kettle bells and our own bodies (squats and push ups). Get in there with dumbells and medicine balls but make sure you have a good coach that shows you how to do it right so you don't get hurt. Nothing but cardio will actualy chip away at your muscle mass. Ever seen a ripped competitive marathon runner? Nope. You need to do this. And you will love it. And you are not too young or too old. Really. Don't make me bring my 71 year old Mom to your house with her kettle bell and her over head ball slam and her 55 second plank and shame you. (hi Mom!!)

Here's the thing though. Once you start you're going to love it (you will!). Don't get all crazy and start thinking about getting competitive or going 6 times a week. Over training and adrenal fatigue = bad. Just work out for like 45 minutes 3 times a week. So basically what I've learned is that the key to health is 3 strength training interval workouts of less than an hour each, sleep a lot, be happy and eat more bacon. Does anyone have a problem with that?
  So what's with the title. Well, I spend a lot more time in the kitchen. Because I used to fill my kids lunches with things like goldfish crackers and whole wheat pretzels. And we don't eat that way anymore. So I've spent a lot of time reading and researching and making things from scratch and there is a learning curve but it gets better! You find the short cuts and you learn to make double and freeze and if you can find a paleo buddy and team up things get easier really quick. Give it a try. And tell me what you think!
-M
PS. The Grammies ate like humans the whole time they were here (2 months). They laughed and slept and lifted heavy things. They lost 11lbs and 18lbs. And they damn near ate every paleo treat ever devised. True Story.

A trip to the Seychelles!

 Since my Mom and Karetha came for 2 months, they had enough time to acclimate to a new culture, learn how to drive on the wrong side of the road, and figure out the kid's school schedule. They let Jeff and I escape to the Seychelles for a week. WITH NO KIDS!!!
Now we have gone on a kid-free trip before. When we lived in SK our buddies took the kids for a few days so I could tag along with Jeff and go to Singapore. But that was a long weekend, and a business trip so we only had a few dinners and one day together and the rest of time Jeff was working. This was a real vacation!

We flew from Port Elizabeth to JoBerg and then to the Island of Mahe in the Seychelles. To get out to our island we had to take a tiny puddle-jumper and Jeff was in heaven!

We checked into our resort. It was beautiful! We got in pretty late so we missed dinner but we found this all laid out in our room for us. What a nice welcome for tired (and hungry!) travellers!

We had 6 incredible days of doing a whole lot of nothin'. Which suited us both just fine! When I wasn't reading (entire chapters at a time!!! With no interrutions! No phones or vomiting animals or people yelling my name!) I was pretty much in a stupor of bliss staring up at this:

Once in a while I would go through the supreme effort of lifting my head off the chair though so I could look at this:

Ok, Ok, those of you that know me well know that my ability to sit in a beach chair is maybe an hour or less but I did give it a "red hot go" as my Aussie friends would say. We DID get in some awesome relaxation and I did get to read 2 books which was heaven. I had totally forgotten what it's like to read more than 1 page at time, re-reading the same paragraph over and over because you keep getting interrupted. We also did a whole bunch of diving. It was INCREDIBLE and we saw sharks and schools of rays and millions of fish and it was the best diving either of us has ever done.

At night the beach restaurant was fabulous, with differently themed buffet nights. Eating Paleo is great at a buffet because it helps you eliminate 50% of the options and just go straight for the good stuff, so while other people were wasting valuable stomach real estate on stupid stuff like rice and bread I was going back for 3rds on grilled shrimp, lamb chops and fresh caught fish with TONS of yummy veggies!

We also had a vacation dog. She learned on the first night that M = huge sucker and basically took up a position in the sand right next to our table. Of course I can't eat a meal with a sad pup looking at me so this dog got HOOKED UP our entire vaycay with steak, chicken, chops, you name it. Somewhere in the Seychelles a dog is still lamenting my departure....

On Wed night the resort took a bunch of us on a nice big boat to the most gorgeous beach on Praslin (like how is OUR beach not the most gorgeous right?) The water was incredibly deep and blue and the beach was pretty fine. They let us jump off the roof of the boat! We found out later than 2 people got eaten by sharks off this beach 2 years ago but hey, no harm, no foul right?

 Sunset cruise fo sho!

 Lovin' it!

 We had a huge mango tree right outside our room. We got soooo many mangoes off that tree and they were YUM! We were on a half-board basis which means breakfast and dinner included. Lunch for 2 anywhere in the Seychelles will run you about 80$. (Upside- makes Disney Dining prices seem like a bargain!) There was also free snacks at 4pm but it was all wheat-based cookies ect. I had brought nuts and biltong and some other Paleo treats so on most days we literally got coconut and mango out of the trees and then just filled in with nuts, biltong and hardboiled eggs that I swiped at breakfast!

One day the guys were even harvesting Mangoes out of the tree so they just gave me a bunch!

 Another day we took a cab to a National Park: The Vallee De Mai. This is home to some wiiiiild vegetation and the Coco de Mer nut. Check out those leaves! If Survivor ever did a Seychelles edition shelter building would be no problem!

Some strange nut casing with another nut inside:

But 6 days go quick and before we knew it our last day had come. We did one more dive and saw some really cool things. I swiped pics off a guy that dove with us and brought his underwater camera. Cute little fish all living in coral:

White-tipped shark:

We made the most of the rest of the day, just enjoying the sun and the quiet. And I got a coconut with a rum shot in it. Oh yeah baby!

We were just about to leave the beach when we saw this perfect rainbow streaming into the water. Pic does not do it justice... it was so vibrant and clear!

Finally the sun set and the moon rose and we headed to dinner on our last night. We had to get up at 4am the next morning to fly all the way back to PE but it was a wonderful relaxing vacation. So many of our vacations have been trips where we try to visit a country and see and experience as much as possible. We don't want to waste the experience of being expats so in Asia we tried to see Australia and China ect. Those trips are incredible and educational and inspiring, but not at all relaxing as you are always on the move and trying to negotiate language, safety, culture, sanitation and fatigue. THIS vacation was totally different. Just a chance to stop. And sit. And breathe. I'll always remember it, and I'll always have a special place in my heart for the Seychelles. Even though there's waaaaay too many French people there....

Adventures with the Grammies!

 On Sept 20, after what seemed like MONTHS of anticipation, my Mom finally landed in SA for a 2 month visit. She brought her friend Karetha, so we got a bonus grammy! We were right in the middle of school holidays so we wasted no time setting off on adventures!

Lucky for us they were both up for it. Check out my 71 year old mom. Coolest Grandma on the PLANET!!

We stayed in our favorite spot on the garden route:

 And then headed into the wilder parts of Africa!

 On our way out to the Bavaiaanskloof we had to rescue a huge tortoise from the road!

 And the grammies fit right in with our family habits of good food and fun fitness. They were super competitive with each other and it really took them to new levels. We did a strength training workout on M, W, and F. When they came they could plank for about 7-9 seconds. By the time they left they could hold a perfect plank for 55 seconds. And they both lost fat and gained muscle. I am SO proud of them!

 Of course we had to take them on many animal adventures. We did a new safari called Scotia Safaris and saw Lions! It was awesome!

We had a blast with our driver...

 They helped me throw the best Paleo Halloween Party Ever:

And we sent them off to Elephant back Safaris for a few days.

 They got to ride, feed them and watch them play in this new mud-hole they've made.

 They had a blast!

 We had some incredible food while they were here.

 And met all kinds of people.

 Their visit ended much too quickly and left us all wondering where the 2 months went! We can't wait to have them back...