Phase one / Day seven

A week! I’ve made it A WEEK!!

I’ve cooked and eaten every. single. meal on the Phase one meal plan (except for that run in with smoked salmon on Breakfast Bread *shudder*).

So how am I travelling? I’ve lost 1.5kg but more importantly I am feeling strong and healthy, I have more energy than I knew was possible, my mind is clear and busy, I’m regulating my emotions much better, and on the digestive front (because this is about guts after all) things are improving. I’m also a little bit proud of myself because I put my mind to something and I stuck to it.

Where to from here? At least another week of the same is in order to fully give my gut a chance to heal and also to iron out a couple of things that I think are still causing issues (maybe broccoli and that cursed beetroot?!). I’m going to follow the meal plan again and this time I will follow it as recommended to see if it makes much of a difference which meals are matched across breakfast/lunch/dinner each day. I have my head around it now so it should flow relatively smoothly. It will be a test for sure- especially tying in with returning to work and making school lunches. At the end of the week I plan to be equipped with an easy to follow cooking plan and shopping lists.

But first- a review of today. Eggs were on the menu- YAY! The meal plan calls for: 2 eggs scrambled with wilted spinach and tomatoes. Slice of Green Flaxseed Bread spread with coconut oil. I’d made the bread on Monday, sliced it as thinly as I could and popped it in the freezer to use as needed. Considering it’s only called upon for one meal in the week this is the only way to go.

So what’s it like? Well, I’m not gonna lie to you. But if you forget about the fact that it’s called bread and let go of any preconceived notions that you may have about it  resembling bread at all think then you might be ok. Look it’s not bad, I just wouldn’t want to eat it every day. I got through it, and it’s really really healthy (ground almonds, ground flaxseed, spinach, chia, pumpkin seeds etc), and I could maybe get used to it. That smoked salmon from yesterday probably could have worked on this.

Green Flaxseed Bread: not all bad.

I was willing to overlook the bread in my excitement to have eggs. I’ve missed eggs. I gave these a quick scramble and then poured them into the pan and voilà! An unintentional omelette (not the best time to put a load of washing on as it turns out). I was pretty happy with the omelette though, I mean, who doesn’t love a good omelette right? I popped the ‘bread’ into to the toaster to defrost and then gave it a bit longer to try and get soft and crunchy all at the same time like ‘real’ bread does. It didn’t work.  Still, it was ok with a spread of coconut oil (I love this stuff, more on that later), the omelette and some quickly wilted spinach and baby roma’s in the same pan as the egg. A bit of salt and pepper and it wasn’t at all a bad cooked breakfast for a Saturday morning.

 

Cooked breakfast: 2 eggs scrambled with wilted spinach and tomatoes and a slice of Green Flaxseed Bread spread with coconut oil.

I ate late so just rolled in to prepping lunch whilst I was in the kitchen. That sneaky Enzyne-stimulating Green Salad was back on the menu (see previous post https://biomedome.wordpress.com/2017/07/12/phase-one-day-four/). As per day four, I just had regular mixed lettuce leaves but I really need to look into this more to try and figure out what they are going for here- I think I’m missing a piece of the puzzle. Today the salad was paired with Carrot & Turmeric Soup and Flaxseed, Chia & Red Capsicum crackers with Hummus (also previously reviewed on Day four).

 

The soup was pretty good. I modified it a little because I’d only had two carrots left (The Things are rabbits) and I still had some sweet potato leftover from the Rainbow Ratatouille. I think they added a nice sweetness to it, but I would really like to try it with pumpkin instead. I’m not sure that carrot on it’s own would be that appetising. We shall see. Oh! Watch your bench tops- Turmeric stains things easily. I feel a beetroot/turmeric tie dye session coming up.

 

Carrot & Turmeric Soup

We got out to visit some friends this afternoon, to lend them our coffee grinder in exchange for a little lesson on blogging. This is worth mentioning because if it weren’t for these friends, I wouldn’t be doing this. Also, they are great company. Let’s call them the Fuddnuddlers. Why? Because it’s a great name. The Fuddnuddlers all stand on top of each other and if the one at the bottom sneezes, they all come tumbling down to the ground as a dog standing on a mushroom watches them. I like the imagery. It doesn’t actually have anything to do with my Fuddnuddlers, except that they have a dog. ANYWAY… Mrs Fuddnuddler is the person who introduced me to the whole concept of gut health and steered me to my new found hero Dr Micheal Mosley. Mr Fuddnuddler is super clever and great at names. He came up with the name for this blog, that’s how great he is. And little Miss Fuddnuddler is really cute and was very good at keeping The Things amused while we talked about tags and washing detergent.

 

Everyone was hungry on the way home so they got to eat sushi while I ran into the shops to grab some prawns for dinner. Tonight’s meal was Prawn and Seaweed in Tomato Sauce with Spiralised Zucchini. The recipe uses frozen green prawns, which I couldn’t find anywhere during the week so I had planned to get them ‘fresh’ today anyway. I say ‘fresh’ because from the Deli at Coles/Woolies they are frozen and thawed.

Turns out I should have sourced actual fresh prawns. They weren’t great and they contributed to the meal being a dismal failure. The Things wouldn’t eat it at all and The Grinch grimaced his way through it. He said it “tastes like being dumped at the beach”.

One saving grace was that I’ve been keen to try spiralised Zucchini and I loved it (the others had, or at least were offered, spaghetti) but the problem, aside from the prawns, was the seaweed. Now I was ready to go on a rant about the inappropriate amount used in the recipe, but the truth is I made a mistake here. The recipe says (and now that I read it properly I am laughing out loud at myself) to use 10g of nori sushi sheets, cut in to 1cm squares. 10 GRAMS dammit. Not 10 SHEETS. Gosh, no wonder it was bloody awful. My notes say to modify it down to 3-4 sheets, which, incidentally is about 10g. Good one me. I’m actually pretty impressed that I ate it. Here’s why I did:

Seaweed is really good for you. “seaweeds are excellent prebiotics, packed with vitamins and minerals, as well as fibre and omega 3 fatty acids” (Mosley). It is also a powerful anti- inflammatory* and potentially very effective in the treatment of psoriasis. This is a real breakthrough and the study (by Dr Pia Winberg, University of Wollongong) is due to be released soon.

The other thing about this recipe (or perhaps I should just the “the thing” because the seaweed thing had nothing to do with the recipe and everything to do with me being a twit) is that it uses two tins of chopped tomatoes. Remember how I had heaps of tomato sauce left over from the Baked Rainbow Ratatouille which I chucked in the freezer yesterday? Well, on the meal plan the Prawn and Seaweed in Tomato Sauce dish is actually scheduled as lunch for the same day as the Ratatouille. So why wouldn’t you just use the same sauce and save on onion and garlic chopping/frying time? Also, that’s a lot of tomato based sauciness on one day. I’ll be interested to see how that goes next week.

Prawn and Seaweed in Tomato Sauce: probably would look/taste a lot more appetising if it had actually been prepared properly.

SUMMARY:

• Figure out exactly what the book means by Enzyne-stimulating Green Salad;
• Carrot & Turmeric Soup: It’s a keeper, I’d like to play around with it a little though. Good for the freezer and work lunches.
• Prawn and Seaweed in Tomato Sauce: Use fresh prawns and read the damn recipe right. I’ll give this meal another go, it could well end up on our ongoing meal plan because personally I love prawn dishes.

*Ahh asterisk, there you are. So why do I keep going on about foods being anti- inflammatory? Inflammation is bad. Chronic inflammation is the root cause of many serious illnesses such as heart disease, many types of cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. It’s also linked to depression. What causes it? Stress, lack of exercise and dietary choices (and a few things that are out of your control such as genetic predisposition** and exposure to toxins). What fixes it? Sleep, exercise and eating foods that reduce it: here is a little recap for you: Oily fish, wholegrains, leafy greens, nuts, tomatoes, beetroot, ginger, garlic, onions, turmeric, olive oil, berries and seaweed).

**Ohh another one. Genetic predisposition. Now, this is really interesting. Mosley talks about it a bit in his book. Why is is that two people can have a very similar diet and lifestyle but their bodies react in different ways? Genetic predisposition you say! Well yes… but there’s actually more to it. It really comes down to your individual microbiome. Your microbiome is formed in the first couple of years of your life, and can depend greatly on if you were born via C-section, if you were breastfed and if you were exposed to antibiotics. That’s not to say that you can’t change it or modify your diet to suit your particular microbiome.  It is potentially within our control- it’s not just down to bad luck that you have a “slow metabolism”. This is a fascinating area, and one that I will write more on later.

Phase one / Day seven

A week! I’ve made it A WEEK!!

I’ve cooked and eaten every. single. meal on the Phase one meal plan (except for that run in with smoked salmon on Breakfast Bread *shudder*).

So how am I travelling? I’ve lost 1.5kg but more importantly I am feeling strong and healthy, I have more energy than I knew was possible, my mind is clear and busy, I’m regulating my emotions much better, and on the digestive front (because this is about guts after all) things are improving. I’m also a little bit proud of myself because I put my mind to something and I stuck to it.

Where to from here? At least another week of the same is in order to fully give my gut a chance to heal and also to iron out a couple of things that I think are still causing issues (maybe broccoli and that cursed beetroot?!). I’m going to follow the meal plan again and this time I will follow it as recommended to see if it makes much of a difference which meals are matched across breakfast/lunch/dinner each day. I have my head around it now so it should flow relatively smoothly. It will be a test for sure- especially tying in with returning to work and making school lunches. At the end of the week I plan to be equipped with an easy to follow cooking plan and shopping lists.

But first- a review of today. Eggs were on the menu- YAY! The meal plan calls for: 2 eggs scrambled with wilted spinach and tomatoes. Slice of Green Flaxseed Bread spread with coconut oil. I’d made the bread on Monday, sliced it as thinly as I could and popped it in the freezer to use as needed. Considering it’s only called upon for one meal in the week this is the only way to go.

So what’s it like? Well, I’m not gonna lie to you. But if you forget about the fact that it’s called bread and let go of any preconceived notions that you may have about it  resembling bread at all think then you might be ok. Look it’s not bad, I just wouldn’t want to eat it every day. I got through it, and it’s really really healthy (ground almonds, ground flaxseed, spinach, chia, pumpkin seeds etc), and I could maybe get used to it. That smoked salmon from yesterday probably could have worked on this.

Green Flaxseed Bread: not all bad.

I was willing to overlook the bread in my excitement to have eggs. I’ve missed eggs. I gave these a quick scramble and then poured them into the pan and voilà! An unintentional omelette (not the best time to put a load of washing on as it turns out). I was pretty happy with the omelette though, I mean, who doesn’t love a good omelette right? I popped the ‘bread’ into to the toaster to defrost and then gave it a bit longer to try and get soft and crunchy all at the same toast like ‘real’ bread does. It didn’t work.  Still, it was ok with a spread of coconut oil (I love this stuff, more on that later), the omelette and some quickly wilted spinach and baby roma’s in the same pan as the egg. A bit of salt and pepper and it wasn’t at all a bad cooked breakfast for a Saturday morning.

 

Cooked breakfast: 2 eggs scrambled with wilted spinach and tomatoes and a slice of Green Flaxseed Bread spread with coconut oil.

I ate late so just rolled in to prepping lunch whilst I was in the kitchen. That sneaky Enzyne-stimulating Green Salad was back on the menu (see previous post https://biomedome.wordpress.com/2017/07/12/phase-one-day-four/). As per day four, I just had regular mixed lettuce leaves but I really need to look into this more to try and figure out what they are going for here- I think I’m missing a piece of the puzzle. Today the salad was paired with Carrot & Turmeric Soup and Flaxseed, Chia & Red Capsicum crackers with Hummus (also previously reviewed on Day four).

 

The soup was pretty good. I modified it a little because I’d run out of carrots (The Things are rabbits) and I still had sweet potato left from the Rainbow Ratatouille. I think they added a nice sweetness to it, but I would really like to try it with pumpkin instead. I’m not sure that carrot on it’s own would be that appetising. We shall see. Oh! Watch your bench tops- Turmeric stains things easily. I feel a beetroot/turmeric tie dye session coming up.

 

Carrot & Turmeric Soup

We got out to visit some friends this afternoon, to lend them our coffee grinder in exchange for a little lesson on blogging. This is worth mentioning because if it weren’t for these friends, I wouldn’t be doing this. Also, they are great company. Let’s call them the Fuddnuddlers. Why? Because it’s a great name. The Fuddnuddlers all stand on top of each other and if the one at the bottom sneezes, they all come tumbling down to the ground as a dog standing on a mushroom and watches them. I like the imagery. It doesn’t actually have anything to do with my Fuddnuddlers, except that they have a dog. ANYWAY… Mrs Fuddnuddler is the person who introduced me to the whole concept of gut health and steered me to my new found hero Dr Micheal Mosley. Mr Fuddnuddler is super clever and great at names. He came up with the name for this blog, that’s how great he is. And little Miss Fuddnuddler is really cute and was very good at keeping The Things amused while we talked about tags and washing detergent.

 

Everyone was hungry on the way home so they got to eat sushi while I ran into the shops to grab some prawns for dinner. Tonight’s meal was Prawn and Seaweed in Tomato Sauce with Spiralised Zucchini. The recipe uses frozen green prawns, which I couldn’t find anywhere during the week so I had planned to get them ‘fresh’ today anyway. I say ‘fresh’ because from the Deli at Coles/Woolies they are frozen and thawed.

Turns out I should have sourced actual fresh prawns. They weren’t great and they contributed to the meal being a dismal failure. The Things wouldn’t eat it at all and The Grinch grimaced his way through it. He said it “tastes like being dumped at the beach”.

One saving grace was that I’ve been keen to try spiralised Zucchini and I loved it (the others had, or at least were offered, spaghetti) but the problem, aside from the prawns, was the seaweed. Now I was ready to go on a rant about the inappropriate amount used in the recipe, but the truth is I made a mistake here. The recipe says (and now that I read it properly I am laughing out loud at myself) to use 10g of nori sushi sheets, cut in to 1cm squares. 10 GRAMS dammit. Not 10 SHEETS. Gosh, no wonder it was bloody awful. My notes say to modify it down to 3-4 sheets, which, incidentally is about 10g. Good one me. I’m actually pretty impressed that I ate it. Here’s why I did:

Seaweed is really good for you. “seaweeds are excellent prebiotics, packed with vitamins and minerals, as well as fibre and omega 3 fatty acids” (Mosley). It is also a powerful anti- inflammatory* and potentially very effective in the treatment of psoriasis. This is a real breakthrough and the study (by Dr Pia Winberg, University of Wollongong) is due to be released soon.

The other thing about this recipe (or perhaps I should just the “the thing” because the seaweed thing had nothing to do with the recipe and everything to do with me being a twit) is that it uses two tins of chopped tomatoes. Remember how I had heaps of tomato sauce left over from the Baked Rainbow Ratatouille which I chucked in the freezer yesterday? Well, on the meal plan the Prawn and Seaweed in Tomato Sauce dish is actually scheduled as lunch for the same day as the Ratatouille. So why wouldn’t you just use the same sauce and save on onion and garlic chopping/frying time? Also, that’s a lot of tomato based sauciness on one day. I’ll be interested to see how that goes next week.

Prawn and Seaweed in Tomato Sauce: probably would look/taste a lot more appetising if it had actually been prepared properly.

 

SUMMARY:

• Figure out exactly what the book means by Enzyne-stimulating Green Salad;
• Carrot & Turmeric Soup: It’s a keeper, I’d like to play around with it a little though. Good for the freezer and work lunches.
• Prawn and Seaweed in Tomato Sauce: Use fresh prawns and read the damn recipe right. I’ll give this meal another go, it could well end up on our ongoing meal plan because personally I love prawn dishes.

*Ahh asterisk, there you are. So why do I keep going on about foods being anti- inflammatory? Inflammation is bad. Chronic inflammation is the root cause of many serious illnesses such as heart disease, many types of cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. It’s also linked to depression. What causes it? Stress, lack of exercise and dietary choices (and a few things that are out of your control such as genetic predisposition** and exposure to toxins). What fixes it? Sleep, exercise and eating foods that reduce it: here is a little recap for you: Oily fish, wholegrains, leafy greens, nuts, tomatoes, beetroot, ginger, garlic, onions, turmeric, olive oil, berries and seaweed).

**Ohh another one. Genetic predisposition. Now, this is really interesting. Mosley talks about it a bit in his book. Why is is that two people can have a very similar diet and lifestyle but their bodies react in different ways? Genetic predisposition you say! Well yes… but there’s actually more to it. It really comes down to your individual microbiome. Your microbiome is formed in the first couple of years of your life, and can depend greatly on if you were born via C-section, if you were breastfed and if you were exposed to antibiotics. That’s not to say that you can’t change it or modify your diet to suit your particular microbiome.  It is potentially within our control- it’s not just down to bad luck that you have a “slow metabolism”. This is a fascinating area, and one that I will write more on later.

Phase one / Day five

I’m sure you’ve all been anxiously awaiting today’s post- restless, unable to sleep, questions rolling around your brain- Were those salmon burgers edible?  Has she had another encounter with lemon? Will she ever get up to her elbows in cabbage?

Well sit tight my friends, because I have all that and more. Soon you can rest your weary heads and dream of fermenting vegetables like I shall.

It was a great day today, which got me thinking. What if I hadn’t committed to DryJuly and The Clever Guts Diet? What if I’d succumbed to my foul mood yesterday afternoon and followed my usual pattern? I’ll tell you what would have happened- I would have woken up in a puddle of my own drool, with a furry tongue and a solid dose of self loathing.

But I didn’t. And as a result what would normally have been just an average day instead had this kinda glow to it. Nothing outrageously amazing happened. I didn’t win lotto (pretty hard when you don’t even play), I didn’t meet Alexander England, I didn’t even get approached to star in anything, anything at all.

What I did do was wake up to two smiling Things who were healthy and happy and ready for the day. I ate a Chia Pot (prepped last night) which I swore I wouldn’t do after the last two Chia Pots that I tried (My Fitness Pal has a recipe for Overnight Coffee Oats with Chia- DO NOT do it to yourself) and towards the end I may have even started to enjoy it. There’s something about chia when it’s all gluggy like that. It reminds me of eyes. It’s not pleasant. But with a generous drizzle of maple syrup, desiccated coconut and fresh strawberries I got through it and the glugginess gave way to crunchiness. And I stopped thinking about eating eyes.

The Chia is in there somewhere, underneath all of the goodness.

My sister in law, let’s call her Sam-I-am for reasons that will be obvious to anyone who knows her, whipped me up a great long black while my 4 month old niece fell asleep in my arms looking ridiculously cute.
I met up with a friend (let’s call her Fox in Sox because she’s a foxy lady and also the kind of person that would wear cool socks) and did a challenging  workout in the sun. Even though the ground was soggy so my arse got wet because I didn’t have a mat, and my children crawled all over me, I had a great time as I huffed and puffed and felt my body working hard. For anyone who is wondering, no I don’t normally workout this much. The Clever Guts Diet book has a great segment on exercise and how essential it is not only for your heart and head, but for your Biome. Mosley is a big fan of High Intensity Training (HIT) which I too happen to be a fan of. It’s short, it’s fast and it’s very effective, increasing microbial diversity and stimulating your mitochondria (isn’t that from Lord of the Rings?) to convert oxygen and glucose into energy. So I’ve been focusing on interval training and short sprints. To help keep me motivated I signed myself up for a 10.5km “fun” run at the end of August (the irony is not lost on me). Nothing like the fear of crawling across the finish line to motivate a session on the treadmill.

Teaching Thing Two that he can push himself on the swing so that I can get back to doing burpees. It took a while, thankfully.

Fox and I shared the Salmon & Tomato Burgers for lunch and she fixed me up with a… Scoby. That sentence probably would have ended differently were we still in our 20’s, but, now we are mums! And we ferment tea! Fox feels bad that she isn’t doing this with me. I said “Don’t feel bad, Fox, when my kids were the age of your kids I was huddled in a dark corner somewhere, rocking back and forth… give it time man. Besides, I’m doing the hard yards so that when others are ready to give it a whirl they don’t have to go back to the same shop three times because they assumed they had enough pepitas when they clearly didn’t, or try and decipher what the book means by saying eat Kale, but eliminate Kale.”

Salmon & Tomato Burgers: I made these yesterday and popped one lot in the fridge for today’s lunch (they need to chill before cooking) and the other in the freezer for next weeks dinner. My freezer looks great right now, I can’t wait to just pull stuff out and defrost it as the week unfolds. The burgers were easy to make, but prepared to get your hands messy. The mixture was really wet so although the recipe says to ‘dust your hands with flour (buckwheat) so they don’t stick’, I dusted everything with flour, almost coating the burgers to dry them out a bit.

I fried them up in olive oil this morning and packed them for our lunch along with lettuce leaves and Hummus Dressing.

NOTE: Unless you want to be washing your zester and blender/nutribullet/cheap Kmart version of a nutribullet (guilty) every day then it’s a good idea to make up a big lot of the most used dressings and freeze them in ice cube trays. I’ll be doing that this weekend.

How were they? Meh. Not sure if it was the salmon I used (frozen) but they were pretty flavourless. Completely inoffensive and pleasant in texture but they could certainly use a bit more spark. Next time I’ll use fresh salmon and also add a little fish sauce.

Thing one was feeling sick this afternoon (no she didn’t eat the salmon burgers) so we did a quick shop on the way home and then she vomited in the carpark. Even then I was feeling grateful because a) She did it in the carpark, not at the checkout and b) I was there to comfort her. Straight home to bed for her (she seems ok….?) while I whipped up some soothing minestrone soup and got dinner on for The Grinch and I.

Baked Rainbow Ratatouille with green leaf salad and Lemony Vinaigrette: AHHHH! Lemon! It’s back, and I felt it was time to stop avoiding it. What’s the deal with lemon anyway? Well… it’s rich in Vitamin C and helps to cleanse the bowel and stimulate the release of gastric juices, which aid digestion. Yeah alright. I’ll suck it up. Besides, the dressing also has mustard in it and I love mustard. It wasn’t so bad as it turns out. Could have done with more mustard and less lemon though, funnily enough.

The Ratatouille uses a home made Tomato Sauce, which I should have made in advance as it took about 30 mins. See… next time I will know, and so will you. The recipe calls for about half the sauce that you actually make and says it will keep in the fridge for 5 days. I can’t see that it will be used in the meal plan within those 5 days so it’s in the freezer. I hope it survives.

This meal was kinda fun. I didn’t really have high hopes for it but I actually quite enjoyed it. What it made me do was eat very mindfully, which is something I know I should do, but in reality I eat like a Labrador. The different tastes and textures were really interesting and flavoursome and even The Grinch said it was “pretty okay”.

After dinner I put some 70’s music on and whipped up some sauerkraut. Fermenting foods was popular back then right? I certainly felt like I was channeling my inner flower power. After Phase one, which goes for two weeks, we move into Phase two (I know, wild), which is the REINTRODUCTION PHASE. Nope, we don’t reintroduce beer and cheesecake, but we do introduce fermented foods. Yay! So now is the time to get the Kombucha bubbling and the cabbage fizzing. I’ve never done this before, at all… so stay tuned. We might all be vomiting before long.

Good night my friends, sleep well now. I’ll leave you with this meme that popped up today on my news feed and made me feel good about what I’m doing:

 

Phase one / Day two

Today it was on. I cooked like I’ve never cooked before. I don’t want to spend every weekend in the kitchen meal prepping for the week so I tried to do enough to last two weeks, aside from cooking fresh meals. A bit of work went in to foods that will be called upon over the course of the month or more- soup base, Breakfast Bread, Crackers etc.

My idea with this is to try and figure out the best way to find shortcuts so that when you- random person, or you- friend, decided to give this a whirl because of the amazing results that I’m seeing, it will be a bit easier for you. The book is great, but it’s a little ambiguous in parts and there are some tricks to be found. I will review the recipes in separate posts to try and make it easier to reference.

I wasn’t chained to the stove all day. The Things and I got out to the park and I did a workout with a local mum’s group. Afterwards we went to Blackbutt Reserve with a friend. The caffeine headache was creeping in by now. I’d stomached half a cup of black coffee at around 9am, but clearly it wasn’t enough. I have a full blown headache now as I’m writing this. Lesson learned- have caffeine closer to midday, and try to get through a full long black.

I kicked off the day with the meal I had planned to have yesterday, Pumpkin Porridge. I was dubious. I’m not a big fan of pumpkin, but I’m pleased to report that I loved this. I could eat it almost every day. I’m starting to understand how to get more nutrients and fiber into the diet- plant based meals need to be featured throughout the day. A simple tossed salad at lunch just won’t cut it.

I love that the method for most of the recipes is to put everything in a food processor and pulse.

Surprisingly, the Pumpkin Porridge does actually resemble porridge in taste and texture. I’m not sure why the recipe says to add more milk if you need to, if anything it’s a little too runny. I assumed I would need to add a little maple syrup to sweeten it up but it really didn’t need it. The only thing I’ll change next time is slightly less coconut oil. I could feel an oily residue on the roof of my mouth while I was eating, which was unpleasant.

I used frozen organic blueberries on top, heated in the microwave first- delicious!

Now I really didn’t think this bowl of orange goop would be enough to get me through to lunch time, I still felt a bit hungry when I’d finished. After an hour or so, however, I realised that I felt comfortably satisfied. This is where the coconut oil kicked in I assume- the fat carried me through until lunch.

I didn’t have time to make anything, and I was anxious about trying another Phyto Salad Bowl, so I grabbed some Gut-Soothing Bone Broth from the day before. Usually I’d skim the fat off the top of soup, but Mosley has converted me to be a good fat consumer. I heated it up, popped it in a glass and sipped on it on my way to the park. It was quite palatable and nice and light- a good pre- workout meal. I packed fruit and crackers for the kids to snack on which kept them satisfied.

Dinner! Earlier in the day I made a massive batch of Turkey Burgers. The recipe makes 8 and calls for 400g of turkey mince. The mince I got (from Woolworths, in the minced meat section- Coles & Aldi don’t have it) comes in 500g packs so I purchased two and multiplied all the ingredients by 2.5, which made a total of 20 burgers. Dinner for tonight, lunch for tomorrow and the same again in the freezer for next week. Winner winner turkey dinner.

Turkey burgers ready for the freezer

I had my burgers with sweet potato wedges and a green leaf salad as per the meal plan. I also whipped up the Anti-inflammatory Turmeric Dressing. The burgers were a hit. Thing 1 ate hers and Thing 2’s as well- he ate everything but the burger because he didn’t like the onion. Next time I will be sneaky and chop it finer. I modified their and The Grinch’s meals to make them more friendly. My aim is to incorporate these meals into our lives as much as possible, but the reality is that they aren’t doing a gut cleanse so they can have some more ‘traditional’ foods. They got home made potato wedges, and had their burgers on actual burgers with cheese and tomato. Lucky buggers. That said, mine was pretty good too. Except for the  Anti-inflammatory Turmeric Dressing.  I’ve seriously been through an entire kilo of lemons over the last two days. Lemons seem to go in to almost every recipe. I understand that they are good, but too many of the meals are dominated by their flavour. I couldn’t even eat this dressing, the acidity was literally making my teeth hurt. I’d like to make it again but next time I’ll leave out the frikon lemon.

Mosley talks about the importance of colourful food for our gut. Turkey burgers with sweet potato wedges, green salad and turmeric dressing.

Am I full? No. Satisfied? Maybe. I’m pretty peckish, but I was last night too and I survived a 14 hour fast and woke up feeling fantastic.

SUMMARY:

• Don’t be scared of the Pumpkin Porridge;
• If you are doing a big cook-up like I did today, you will need more than you think of: Coconut oil, Almond meal, Lemons (lemons!!) & Olive Oil;
• In every recipe that calls for lemon- halve the amount;
• Chop the onion finer for the Turkey Burgers.

Into the Biomedome

This blog is intended to be a guide for Dr Michael Mosley’s The Clever Guts Diet. You’ll need a copy of this book to fully appreciate and follow what I’m talking about. I’m not going to supply the recipes or meal plans because I don’t want to get sued. And also, you should buy the book, it’s pretty good reading.

Get your hands on the book.

What’s it all about then?

If you don’t know who Micheal Mosley is, you should. He’s so hot right now. I saw him on Insight a few weeks ago and his segment left me fascinated by the science of the gut. In summary:

“Your gut is astonishingly clever. It contains millions of neurons – as many as you would find in the brain of a cat – and is home to the microbiome, an army of microbes that influences your mood, weight and immune system.

In this groundbreaking book, Dr Mosley takes us on a revelatory journey through the gut, showing how junk food and overuse of antibiotics have wiped out many “good” gut bacteria, leading to a modern plague of allergies, food intolerances and obesity.

Setting the record straight on everything from prebiotics to probiotics, fermented foods to fasting, Dr Mosley provides scientifically proven ways to control your appetite and boost your mood.“

The book explains the science of the gut, and how it’s linked to our health and well being. That part convinces you that it’s a very good idea to adopt a gut- friendly lifestyle. It then provides a two phase meal plan with recipes. Phase 1 – Remove and Repair is about eliminating common irritants to allow your guts to heal. Phase 2 –  Reintroduction brings in prebiotic and probiotic foods to increase the diversity of your gut bacteria, your Biome.  The meal plans look delicious, but I want to test them out to see just how achievable it is to follow them and integrate the shift in lifestyle into ‘real life’.

Why am I doing The Clever Guts Diet? 

Several reasons-

•  IBS like symptoms. I’m not going to go into any detail, but fair to say that regular and comfortable are not words I would use to describe my digestive system;
• Endometriosis like symptoms. I’ve been having problems for a while and I’m facing surgery to check what’s going on. I’ve noticed that when I eat better my symptoms are typically better. I’d like to explore this more;
• Mental health. I’ve struggled with the cliched old anxiety and depression since I was 9. I’m getting better, but I’m curious to see how much a gut-friendly diet affects my state of mind;
• It’s Dry July! I’m sober for a month. This is no easy feat for me, I hate to admit that I may have an unhealthy dependence on booze. But I’ve had an amazing amount of support from friends and family and raised over $500 for a great cause. This has been incredibly motivating and one week in I feel great. So why not go the whole hog and sort my diet out while I’m at it?!
• Ethics. I’m a greenie at heart. I feel good making conscious decisions to buy organic, limit meat consumption, avoid packaging and not consume excessively. I find it motivating to be true to my ethics, and this plan is well suited to support them.
• Weight loss. I’m a serial yoyo dieter. I’ve tried pretty much everything. By counting calories and cutting out fat I’ve managed to shift my weight to plateau at 3kgs lighter than when I’m not ‘dieting’, which is a good thing but… I seriously hate counting calories. Thankfully Mosley has convinced me that it’s not the way to go.  I’m hanging around at 69kgs, which not only gives me a BMI in the ‘over weight’ range, but I feel unhealthy, squishy and sore. I’d like to be fit, and I’d like my health to reflect my ethics. I’m not ruled by the scales but I know that I look and feel my best when I’m around 62kgs, so that is my goal.

Why am I doing a blog? 

I really want to explore just how realistic this Diet is. I’m convinced that it’s one I need and want to do, and will kick start the healthy eating lifestyle I’ve been craving for years. Do I need a little extra motivation? Yep. Do I want to share my experience of how it changes my life? Sure, it might help someone out. Do I want to put the plan to the test and see just how well it fits in with a family of four with two working parents? Hell yes. This needs to work for us. I want to work out how I can make it.

What will I do?

I’ll work through each day and  review the recipes, make suggestions and provide tips. I’ll provide guides when I see fit to try and streamline the plan and make it work with ‘real life’ so that I’m not spending every waking moment meal prepping. And of course I’ll share any results I see and feel.

 

Phase one / Day one

I had planned to spend most of my Sunday in the kitchen cooking up a storm in preparation of my first week on The Clever Guts Diet. However, my family and the weather had other ideas.

I started the day with the best intentions. I was doing this meal plan, and I was going following it to. the. letter. Day one, meal one is Pumpkin Porridge (I’m sure it’s not as bad as it sounds, but as it turns out we will have to wait until tomorrow to find out), which I started making at around 7.30am. In retrospect, I should have at least cut up, if not cooked, the pumpkin the night before. I had planned to meet a friend for a jog at 8.30am so time was ticking. I peeled, chopped, diced, de-seeded, did all the pumpkiny things I was meant to do to the pumpkin and popped it on the stove to boil. Despite my best efforts 8.15am rolled along and my stomach was still grumbling. So the pumpkin was left to cool and I whipped up a quick Healthy Gut Green Smoothie instead, which is scheduled for Day Seven. I was pleasantly surprised- despite the colour, which was a sort of pastel green (I don’t trust pastels), it was GOOD! Even my kids got their sloppy chops on it. It was just enough to hit the spot and energise me for the planned outing. The only change I’ll make is to reduce the amount of lemon juice- it was just a little too sour for me.

It’s not easy being pastel green

As it turned out, I was stood up but it was ok because frankly I love my friends too much to let them see me run. I may say “I’m going for a run!” with all the enthusiasm of an elite athlete, but I don’t actually run. I walk and then I do this sort of weird bouncy fast walk thing that is my interpretation of a jog. I don’t even think I could say it’s a fast walk. I’m pretty sure I go at the same pace, I just jiggle a lot more.

Anyway, it was a gorgeous sunny day and I was pretty happy to be out in it regardless of the fact that I likely look like a steam train trying to get started.

By the time I got home I was peckish again. The smoothie was great, but it’s not enough for a meal. The meal planner pairs it with 1 slice of Breakfast Bread and 1 tbsp of almond/cashew nut butter. I had to improvise here as I hadn’t baked the bread as yet. I went for the next best thing, a slice of Burgen Rye bread and my selected natural nut butter by Mayvers. This was… fine. It wasn’t great, it wasn’t bad. I could get used to it. It was certainly enough to get me going again.

We had tickets to a lego exhibition and I thought it would be sensible to take a packed lunch for afterwards because I knew that we would all get hungry while we were out and be tempted by some delicious smelling cafe. The easiest meal to take along with minimal preparation is the Phyto Salad Bowl, planned for Meal Two, Day Four. (I swear next week I will follow every day as planned… promise). Basically the way to throw this together is to grab 3-4 portions of coloured veg, 1-2 portions of greens, 1-2 portions of protein, 2-3 portions of healthy fats and 1-2 portions of pulses, pumpkin or wholegrain. I had planned to make a nice varied salad with complementing additions such as egg and cheese. However, someone ate all the bloody eggs while I was out for a “run”. With bacon mind you. So, in a moment of desperation I threw in some smoked salmon, and roast pumpkin, and artichokes, and olives and… well… it wasn’t great. It was bloody awful to be honest. I ate it. Everyone else ate at the cafe.

The Phyto Salad Bowl. I don’t even have a photo of mine, it was just too awful. Lesson learned- plan it better, choose ingredients that actually work together. And/or separate them into nice little portions of different food types that don’t touch each other, like the way some kids like to eat their dinner. This is what Mosley’s Phyto Salad Bowl looks like. Much better. I could eat that. Probably without gagging.

They make it look so easy

After our trip to the Lego show (which was awesome BTW, even though the Grinch followed the Thing 1 and Thing 2 and I around while I raced from exhibit to exhibit with unmasked excitement exclaiming “Look kids it’s the Millennium Falcon! Oh my goodness, there’s Diagon Alley! Ohhhh The Fellowship of the Ring! And… what?? What is this?? THE YELLOW SUBMARINE!!!!! I’m pretty sure he was pretending not to know us), we had the picnic on The Hill (it’s a suburb, it wasn’t just a hill that I named THE HILL) and watched the whales (I know, awesome) while basking in the sun. Thing 1 and Thing 2 rolled down the hill (just a hill this time) and didn’t eat their salads. Then the Grinch and I pulled the Things down the hill (again, just the hill) on some cardboard.

 

 

Now this is where I had assumed we would head home and I would cook/dice/bake. But… the sun was being sunny and my head was pounding, so we headed to a cafe instead. It turns out giving up coffee cold turkey is really not that simple. I’m typically a 2-3 lattes a day kinda person and boy was I missing my hit. The Clever Guts Diet Phase 1 – remove & repair does recommend cutting out all foods that commonly cause gut problems- such as gluten, dairy, eggs, soya and coffee. However, it does also say that you shouldn’t remove too many foods at once and you can repeat the process if you find that you are still having issues. I’m happy to go without gluten, dairy and soya, particularly as I’m pretty sure they cause most of my issues, but for this round I’m keeping eggs and, as it transpires, coffee on the menu. I did ditch the milk I’m proud to say. I’m now officially a grown up, who drinks black coffee. With honey. And a wince.

Even then, we decided it was a good day to head to the mall and get some shopping done. I still had to acquire a few ingredients to make the week work and shoes needed to be purchased. It was probably a bad idea. Everyone got a bit Grinchy in the end, but we got what we needed. Dinner was late, but it was made, and as planned, albeit again from the wrong day.

Kashmiri Chicken Curry with Cauliflower ‘rice’ and steamed green beans. The verdict? Over all- good. Phew. I’m not a big cauliflower fan but I really enjoyed the ‘rice’ (Mosley’s inverted commas, not mine) although it was slightly too lemony, and the curry was creamy and pretty tasty. The Grinch and the Things got real rice with theirs, but honestly I didn’t miss it. I also gave them some of my ‘rice’, but they weren’t overly keen. The Grinch ate it and everything else. The Things moaned a bit about the presence of almonds in the curry but they ate it regardless. They didn’t have a choice. I left out most the chilli from the cooking process because it was a really hot one, but I diced it and added it to the grown up meals at the end.

 

I did also manage to make the bone broth,  thanks to my slow cooker, so I have a freezer full of stuff ready for the week, and some left over curry for next week (I made a double batch- smart hey?

Now I’m in fasting mode, which Mosley recommends to be 12-14 hours overnight. I feel like I’ve had enough to eat, although I’m a bit peckish. I could probably ameliorate that with a cup of herbal tea (not licorice root tea as I discovered today it is disgusting). My mind has been incredibly clear all day, and my mood has been great. I’ve had plenty of energy and I haven’t had any cravings. I feel a bit onion-y, I think I might have to cut it back.

IN SUMMARY:

• Healthy Gut Green Smootie is a winner, with a little less lemon.
• Phyto Salad Bowl isn’t meant to be a throw-it-all-in kinda meal. It needs a bit of thought.
• Kashmiri Chicken Curry was easy to make, but it needs around 40 mins to simmer so allow your self some time. This is not a make in the afternoon after work kinda meal. That said, it’s a great freezer meal.
• Cauliflower ‘rice’ was yummy but could do with less lemon juice. Watch it in the oven – it can burn on the edges. Just scrape them in and mix it all up every 10 mins or so. I cooked it for about 30 mins, even though the book says 10-12 mins.
• I cannot survive without caffeine. This is ok.

 

 

Before you begin.

Before one starts an endeavour such as this, there is some basic preparation one must undertake.

– Read the relevant text. I’ve been falling asleep on The Clever Guts Diet every night for the past few days. Not because it is boring reading, it really isn’t, but because I wanted to spend every moment I had to myself devouring the text and getting in the right mindset to make this happen. It just turns out that every moment I have to myself is that brief hour or two after everyone else is asleep and before I too am counting Z’s.

I was doing so much flicking between the meal plan and the recipes that I ended up writing the page numbers down on the plan, sorry book.

– Shop. It took me several trips to a few different shops to get everything I needed. There were a few items I wasn’t sure where to find, or assumed I could get at one shop but couldn’t. For example, in my mind the leading supermarkets had a magical wall of obscure foodstuff in shiney dispensers that can be purchased by weight. I assumed this would include things like ground flaxseed and coconut flour. They don’t. It’s mostly dried fruits and salted nuts. After trying three different said imaginary magical walls, I headed to the health food section and purchased all the required items in small, excessively packaged and expensive quantities. I bought enough to get me by for a week or two, but I’m sure I can find a better place to purchase stuff like this in bulk. It was a bit of an expensive exercise in some regard, but I’d say all in all I didn’t spend much more than I would normally on our groceries and I’m pretty sure I’ll get better value for money overall. I was pretty impressed with how much fresh produce I got for my money and it made me realise how much we have been missing out on. I think we eat pretty well, but even still, we obviously need more plant based meals in our life.

Just one of three shopping trips. One of my aims is to streamline the whole experience. Now I know exactly what I can get from where so next fortnight things should be a bit easier.

– Make time. I am so glad that I have this week off work and school. I needed time to write lists, shop, plan and cook. I will use the first week to get in to the swing of things. I am sure it will all become streamlined in no time, but I really feel that I will need the week at home to get things happening. Seeing if I can maintain the plan when we all return to ‘real life’ will be a true test, and the purpose of this blog.

– Have a bit of support. Even though this morning The Grinch said “Please tell me this is just a phase you are going through”, I know that at heart that he is onboard. We share the same ethics and ideals when it comes to food. We both strive to eat well and make conscious decisions, but we are also both lazy and easily led astray directly toward chocolate and beer. I couldn’t make this work for my family if he turned his nose up at every meal or was a strict meat and three veg kinda guy. Thing 1 and Thing 2 are also pretty good. They will try almost anything, and we make sure they eat most of what they are given. Meal times are shared and at the table. There’s always negotiation and testing boundaries, but we try to have a good time. And we do sometimes have movie night meals and eat out. We aren’t complete ogre parents.

If your Grinch doesn’t share your enthusiasm it’s not a deal breaker. You can alway add ‘traditional’ foods to a meal so they aren’t scared off. Also, leave the book on their pillow and hide their phone. 

– Get motivated. This is a tricky one. Motivation isn’t just something that you can pull out of a hat. You have to have your own reasons to do this, and the more the better. Even though Mosley says it’s not a diet as such, it really is. You have to get used to feeling a bit hungry sometimes. You have to plan every meal. You have to not be tempted by tempting food. Something needs to get you through the first week or two until healthy eating becomes more habitual and you start to crave lettuce. Which does happen. Believe me. Whatever that thing is, find it. Write it down. The more things you can find, the better. You need to be at point in your life where you are actually ready to let go of your addiction to fries and cake and beer. That’s the hard bit. I have always found it much easier to say “yeah, I’m not eating healthy at the moment, so I’m just going to devour this cheesecake.” Letting go of being ‘allowed’ to do that is not something I am very good at.