Give in to your cravings

Hi Petra and all our virtual blog friends,
This entry is going to be a very long one as I would like to share with you our (my husband and mine) approach which we have developed over the years through various influences and which we have adapted to our way of life.
“Way of life”: do you know where the word “DIET” originally comes from and what it originally meant??? I think this understanding is an important basic knowledge to start a lifelong program to a healthy, happy – and possibly slimmer me! Diet comes originally from the Greek word DIAITA which means way of life – a very holistic approach, isn’t it? Hippocrates was the guy who gave it a more specific meaning as he is the first one to use the word as “nutrition for human beings”.
Funny enough the original sense of the word “diet” in English means ‘daily nutrition’ – very precise and to the point! Whereas in German the word diet (Diät) always refers to a “weight reducing” way of eating. And I feel this (wrong) meaning by now has also entered the English understanding of the word.
I have gone through almost any kind of Diet (in the German sense) in my life, and looking at it from my present point of view I am not surprised that I always failed – sooner or later and eventually ended up with more and more weight. I am blessed with a good body height (hubby is even much taller), so the excess weight on my bones and joints is not immediately evident, but I can feel it since a couple of years.

Short term solutions are no longer my idea and way – we have long ago adopted the holistic and original sense of the word diet and are feeling very ok and good with it. But this implies a great tolerance and patience – which we do not always have. Well, we are human beings and enjoying our life with a happy heart and gratitude also allows some “cheating” from time to time (I am speaking of nice weekend indulgences with friends but also something like 46 days cruises on a ship with excellent food! ;-). Knowing that the (long) cheating normally won’t be rectified in a week or 2 we accept that it takes some patience and discipline to return to our REGULAR habits.
Which brings me to the next important point:
If you want to implement a diet in its proper sense, your way of eating should be:
– Tasty, have a nice smell and appearance (our eyes, nose and our taste buds are the first “check point” for the body to make sure the food is good for us!)
– Should make you feel comfortably full (without too many calories)
– Should be varied and offer an abundance of different ingredients
– Should be feasible for everyday use and for long term
This means that a proper diet should be a long term and regularly practiced part of your life. I think this is the key to success which will keep your health and body in proper shape.

For this long term commitment my husband and myself have agreed on a couple of essential and important points:
1. Whenever possible we eat seasonal, regional and “fresh from the field”. In Dubai we were forced to eat mostly imported products, here in Tenerife we are blessed with fresh and a lot of organic farming products which we purchase fresh every Saturday at our farmer’s market, including eggs which are giving the taste of eggs a new horizon and definition!!! We eat, whatever is in season which gives a good variety of veggies and fruits . Whenever possible I cook fresh from scratch with only natural and unprocessed ingredients. So, next to fruits and veggies, legumes, pulses and seeds this includes 2-3 times a week good quality and different meat, and for me twice a week fish – the rest of the week is vegetarian. No processed meat (like bacon, ham, sausages) are consumed at home – for me this is really bad stuff – if my husband feels like having it once in a while he is free to have it outside when we eat in a restaurant or go for a nice brunch with friends.
2. We eat fats – good fats! We eat butter in small quanities (it is a pure and natural product) but NO margarine (hardened transfet and a pure industrial product); we love avocados (but eat them only when in season) and use them not just for salad but also for brownies, mousse au chocolat etc.; we have wonderful olive oil from a close by farm, coconut is a great ingredient (and I make the yummiest guilt-free chocolate with it), nuts and seeds are daily ingredients in our food, too.
3. Sugar and any industrially refined products are banned from my kitchen. Sugar is happily replaced with dates, honey, agave sirup or maple sirup. Since I no longer sweeten with sugar, our sweets (which we still eat of course!) are less sweet but much tastier and I do not enjoy the very sweet cakes from bakery shops anymore. I have my own little flour mill and freshly ground flour has a great smell and lots of vitamins! So no white flour and in general I am trying to replace regular grains with almond and coconut flour and for our warm morning porridge I use a lot of buckwheat and Quinoa. Yes, Quinoa is one of my favorites and I use it a lot in my kitchen since many years. My favorite type of sweet potatoes are not available here and from time to time my treats are the locally grown, very small and tasty potatoes; but never for dinner.
4. Since we are not very happy with late and heavy evening meals (we can’t sleep after such a meal), we try to either skip dinner or have a nice homemade veggie soup with some chickpeas or lentils, or a little bit of crumbled feta cheese on top. I know it is difficult for working people to skip dinner when there is no time for lunch. Well, for us – even in the busiest of all times in Dubai – lunch has always been the main meal and if it is nutritious enough, we don’t even feel hungry in the evening. And if bad comes to worse, a handful of almonds (wonderful brain food) will do the job as well.
5. Why we are really trying hard keep the dinner cancelling comes from our regular once a year 2 weeks fasting program. We have learned over the years that keeping an eye on the health of our digestion system and our bowel, makes a difference in many ways. First: if you give your digestion system a rest for many hours (keep a fasting time of 12 hours in the night), your entire body will benefit by being able to do the nightly job of essential repair work much better. Imagine you eat a piece of meat at 8 p.m. for dinner, you will keep your body busy for about 12 hours to digest the meat – by that time the night is over and not enough capacity was available for the repair work. It is an old wisdom that your health sits in your bowel!! When we fast, we first empty our bowel (which means you are NOT hungry during fasting) and then we give our body the chance to get rid of all the toxins which are left overs from our life style and our food intake. Fasting is a wonderful (but also tiring) experience and you should give yourself time and full dedication. I would never do it during work or at home! The feeling of being “clean inside” after a week is unsurpassed! Apart from loosing 4-7kg in 2 weeks which we keep afterwards for as long as I cook the right food for us, one of the really great side effects for both of us is that our general immune system is so much better – if there is a flu or any virus around which bothers many people, we either don’t get it at all or in a mild version and without medicine the body can manage with it within 2 days. Our last serious cold is almost 2 years ago!
You might ask me now why I have joined this blog!? Well, my knowledge and understanding comes from listening to other people’s experience and knowledge, from reading, studying and experimenting. Exchanging information and knowledge concerning a healthy lifestyle has started significantly when my children were very small and I was insecure like any young mother. Now I am happy to see how my adult children have learned to cook (and they do it well) and start to understand about healthy foods. For myself (and my husband), despite all my knowledge I have not yet fully reached my goal regarding my weight. A weight which keeps me healthy and in good shape, giving less pressure to my bones and joints. I went through menopause without even noticing it – the only thing which menopause gave me are a couple of extra kilograms which are sooooo difficult to getting rid of. Your metabolism is getting slower with every year of age and the quantity of needed calories decreases as well. But my passion for good and healthy food increases as much as my understanding of the processes inside the human body. And I know there is still so much out there to learn and understand. It is a wonderful thing to keep being curious and interested. But the main point is to be happy and thankful for each and every day we can spend in good health!

BTW: I have lost 2,5kg during the past 2,5 weeks!! I have NOT counted calories (math has never been my favorite subject! 😉 but I have spent a good amount of time in my beautiful kitchen cooking and testing new things. And: I have completely cancelled all wheat products of whatever kind during this time. This seems to work quite well for me. I have tested a couple of recipes for no grain bread (not all tasted that exciting!!) and found a great versatile ingredient called “ground almonds” – it is magic!
If you want I can try to post some pictures and recipes – I am not an IT hero!! Posting anything beyond a simple text is a challenge for me but if you are really interested, I will be happy to give it a try!

Just for a smile: I am recording my body weight (and sometimes essential cm measure points) since March 2003!!!

Last but not least I would like to emphasize that these are all OUR experiences, information, beliefs which can be right or wrong. They work very well for us but other people might have completely different experiences and understandings – that is why such a blog is so interesting and inspiring. To agree is not important, to listen is very enriching!
Good luck for all of us to reach our goals and dreams – but most of all: to stay happy, healthy, curious and inspired!

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