Wellbeing Keren Mackay Wellbeing Keren Mackay

New Years Resolutions and the Anti-Diet Diet.

Aaahhh – the approach of a New Year – the time when many of us, irritated with ourselves for not being where we thought we should be or wanted to be by the end of the old year, resolve to do better next time.  So we come up with another list of resolutions, probably the same as last time and also like then, ones we are not likely to fulfil. For a lot of women (and men) weight comes very high on that list and we promise all sorts of thing to ourselves in the drive to do better. We resolve to make all sorts of changes, often all at once, starting on 1 January every year. How has that been going for you so far?

Aaahhh – the approach of a New Year – the time when many of us, irritated with ourselves for not being where we thought we should be or wanted to be by the end of the old year, resolve to do better next time.  So we come up with another list of resolutions, probably the same as last time and also like then, ones we are not likely to fulfil. For a lot of women (and men) weight comes very high on that list and we promise all sorts of thing to ourselves in the drive to do better. We resolve to make all sorts of changes, often all at once, starting on 1 January every year. How has that been going for you so far?

After many years of doing just that, I ended up stepping off that bandwagon altogether. Last year I published a sort of anti-diet diet book. The Tortoise Diet Method (the word “diet” is crossed out on the cover of the book) is the book for those of you who never want to go on a diet again but still want to look fabulous and probably most important of all, stop the upward trend that the scales have been reporting back to you when you have been weighing yourself over the years.

You see – I finally figured out, after repeating the same behaviour over and over again, that New Years Resolution type behaviour, where we attempt to install a whole lot of new behaviours all at once, is doomed to failure. It reminded me of the Hare in the ancient fable by Aesop of the Tortoise and the Hare.  Clearly nothing much has changed in the intervening 2500 years or so since Aesop wrote his tale about human behaviour, as most of us still act like the Hare, hitting the race with a hiss and a roar (making all those changes all at once and promising to do so for the next year) but losing focus, getting distracted and finally, caught napping while someone else wins the race.

So after deciding to stop repeating what hadn’t worked, I thought about taking a good look at what did work. My focus turned towards the Tortoise in the story and I started to see the value of the slow and steady type of behaviour. 

Of course, most of us don’t like anything that sounds like it is going to take time to get a result. Our world these days is set up for instant change, instant gratification, the miracle diet that is going to solve all your weight issues preferably by last week. It takes a bit of a paradigm shift to stop that kind of thinking and really start to address what needs to be addressed, put into practice the sort of behaviours that need to be practised, and take effective steps over time to win whatever the race is for you that you haven’t been able to win up to now.

I’ve been a journaller for much of my adult life. It makes painful re-reading to go back over the years and see the oft-repeated goal for each New Year to lose a whole lot of kilos.  Quite frankly, I never managed to do that and in fact, each year, my weight instead got gradually higher and higher. I figured that although my weight went up and down, it was actually trending upwards. Once I came to my senses and got very real about what was actually going on, I realised that I could predict my future from that trend line. And the future wasn’t looking pretty.

If I kept going at the rate I was, then my weight would continue to go up.  The outcome of that was not just that I wouldn’t look great in the clothes I wanted to wear, but the health issues that start to occur along with unnecessary weight gain.  A bout of gout (I was nowhere near old enough to have that!), a blood-test that showed warning signs for my health, and the failure to once again reach the weight target I had in my head, led me to finally take a good look at the situation and start addressing it in a realistic way.

The first thing I did was to stop the dieting.  By that I mean, I stopped embarking on every new miracle diet that turned up promising incredible results in an incredibly short period of time. When I looked back over my life, I realised that I wasn’t even overweight when I started dieting in the first place and in fact, the act of dieting itself was one of the catalysts to a lifetime of weight gain.  I also realised that the times I was a steady appropriate weight, that I was eating quite normally and not consciously even thinking about food.   I was eating normal nutritious meals with nothing much in between, mainly because I was busy, involved in meaningful life and just focussing on  living rather than what I was going to put in my mouth next.

Which started me thinking about “what if’. What if I had never started dieting in the first place but just carried on eating the normal 3 nutritious meals a day that I had grown up with as part of family living on the farm.  I realised that the act of dieting itself, triggered a lot of disordered thinking, which led to disordered behaviour, which repeated over time, led to the lifetime of yoyo weight loss and gain that many of us experience as the reality of our lives.

And what if instead of aiming to lose too many pounds or kilos in too short a time, I lengthened out that time, lowered my expectations, and aimed to lose a realistic and achievable amount each month and kept that off?  In fact, what if I aimed to lose a kilo a month?

And what if I could stop obsessing about weight and the scales, stop weighing myself all the time and putting so much emotional weight (sorry about the pun) on that number the scales are reflecting back at me, and either stop weighing myself altogether, or weigh myself once a month?

I know a lot of you stopped reading at the ‘one Kilo a month” bit but I want you to stay with me for a minute. I know you may have a lot of weight to lose and sure, some of those miracle diets do work if you stick to them for a decent amount of time. But what happens when you stop the diet and go back to your normal life? What happens when the stressful troubled times come to disrupt your routine and trigger the overeating problem you may have in times of stress? What happens then? You put it all back on of course plus a bit more. Now you feel even worse about yourself and more susceptible to the false lifelines being thrown to you so you do the same thing again.  And each time ending a little heavier than the last.

I am saying, what about losing slowly and sensibly without dieting but giving your body the nutrition it needs, eating regular meals that are not too far from what is normal for you.  Then gradually increase the types of food that you are know are good for you at the particular stage of life you are in right now, so that eating well becomes a habit for you. That way you are more likely to stick to it and you are more likely to make deep effective changes over time.

That is the basis of the Tortoise Diet Method.  No dieting, but eating what your body needs and what you truly enjoy as part of a well-rounded life, focusing on living life, and allowing your weight to sort itself out naturally. For most of us there is a lot of healing that needs to take place to address the sort of old behaviour that led to weight gain in the first place, so you do need to allow yourself time to address the issues, time to put into practice the right thoughts and right behaviour and time to tweak your environment to support success. Which is why I advocate taking a whole year to establish a good foundation for the best sort of future for you – and which is why now, at the beginning of a new calendar year, it is a good time to be taking a look at a successful system such as the Tortoise Diet Method rather than throwing yourself full swing into the old way. That way has already shown it doesn’t work.

If you want to know more, you can buy the book from me on the link below, or you can buy it from Amazon. You are welcome to do either but of course I would prefer that you buy direct from me – that way I get to know you and you can choose to become part of a community to support you.   I can safely say that as this year comes to an end, my weight trajectory is trending downwards, and I still have more to go. Join me this New Year in taking effective action towards reaching your goals -whatever they are.

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Countrywoman, Wellbeing Keren Mackay Countrywoman, Wellbeing Keren Mackay

Comfort Food

“It seems to me that our three basic needs, for food and security and love, are so entwined that we cannot thing of one without the other.” M F K Fisher.  

“Soul food is our personal passport to the past.”   Sarah ban Breaknacht

Mmmm….comfort food!  It took me a while to find the right image for this post as I really wanted to put up an image of meat loaf with mashed potatoes and peas.  However, it turned out to be very hard to find one that looked glamorous enough to headline a blog and catch the eye (in a good way) so you’re getting this delicious image of a piece of lemon meringue pie that I had made a week or two ago instead.

How to cook comfort food in winter.

Delicious home made lemon meringue pie

Comfort food can be a tricky area for those who are preoccupied with health or weight – particularly if you have developed disordered thinking around food. While food is not to be seen primarily as providing comfort when we feel bad – there is no reason not to enjoy comfort food from time to time.  The danger comes when we make it our go-to coping mechanism for dealing with uncomfortable feelings -even when we know the practice is futile. The trouble with using food to change our state from feeling sad, mad or bad, is that a lot of us spend a lot of time feeling sad, mad or bad, so we naturally end up living with the consequences of that behaviour including extra weight to carry. We add more pain to our state which then feeds back into that low mood state. It becomes an endless feedback loop.  Food in that context may be a comfort, but it’s a counterfeit comfort and a fleeting one at that.

The Tortoise Diet Method is about breaking that cycle by gently asking you to take the time to step back and take a look at why you are feeling the way you do.  Addressing and resolving the reasons behind your feelings and developing the behavioural skills to manage them is a key part of getting back to a life of wellbeing.

Once you do that, you can might even be able to get back to enjoying the pleasure of true comfort food!   The one that connects you to memories of childhood and the feeling of being surrounded by family, warm and safe. The sort of food you don’t really get at restaurants but more likely when you go home to visit mum or Grandma. It usually involves carbohydrate of some kind with a rich savoury sauce that doesn’t require much in the way of chewing even. Mince and mashed potatoes? Smoked Fish Pie? Meat Loaf? Lasagne? Can I get an amen? What’s your comfort food?

I learned a lesson many years ago my husband of the time brought home a big corporate client to visit at the end of the day. He was visiting from the US with his attorney and they had come out to our country house for a visit. I also had been out all day at work and when I saw how the visit was going, I could see that they would end up staying for dinner and I wasn’t really prepared for that. However I managed to rustle up something a bit flash and we all sat down to enjoy a meal together.  They had been travelling for some time and we were talking about food. About halfway through the meal, he put down his knife and fork and said “Do you know what I would really like to eat?” I waited for the answer.  “Meatloaf” he said.  Turns out he was tired of the endless hotel and restaurant dinners and wanted some good home cooked simple meatloaf. That was such a lesson to me but it did make sense.

There’s nothing nicer after a hard day’s work, especially if its cold outside, than to sit down to a plate of slow cooked goodness, rooted in good childhood memories, and lick that plate clean.  So don’t ever think that in order to be slim that you have to forgo all your favourite foods and replace them with lettuce. Enjoy those experiences and make sure you share them with your family. How much better to pass on good food memories to our kids rather than memories of associating food with fear and restriction. Balancing good nutritious food with the enjoyment of treat foods at times of celebration, family favourites and yes – comfort foods when required. Creating a healthy culture around food is one of the biggest gifts you can give to your children (along with a plate of savoury mince, mashed potatoes and peas)

Bonus Recipe!

Pauline Mackay’s Meatloaf

You will need a lightly greased loaf tin plus a nice ovenproof casserole dish to bake this in. Its a two step cooking process and involves a surprise ingredient in the sauce – but a very popular family favourite.

  • 500g Beef Mince

  • 500g sausage meat

  • 1 cup fresh bread crumbs

  • 1 onion chopped

  • 1 dsp curry powder

  • 2 eggs

  • 1 tbsp chopped parsley

  • ½ cup milk

  • ½ cup water

  • 1 tsp salt.

Get in with your hands and mix all the ingredients together.  Press into prepared loaf tin and bake in a moderate oven for 30 mins

Sauce

  • ¾ cup water

  • ½ cup tomato sauce

  • ¼ cup Worcestershire sauce

  • 2 Tbsp malt vinegar

  • ½ cup soft brown sugar

  • 1 Tsp instant coffee

  • 2 tbsp lemon juice.

Combine all ingredients into a saucepan and bring to the boil stirring on the stove top. Simmer while the loaf is cooking.  Pauline often adds a bit more water to make sure there is plenty of sauce!

After 30 mins, remove the loaf from the oven and carefully tip into another casserole style oven proof dish – one you can serve it in if you wish. It should hold its loaf shape by now.   Then pour over the sauce and pop back into the oven to cook another 20-30 minutes.  Baste every 10 mins or so.

Serve with plenty of creamy mashed potatoes and maybe peas to complete the comfort food factor. And as a bonus, if there is any left over the next day it makes a great sandwich filling.

Note: I got this off my MIL and have since heard its written up in the CWI recipe book as well.

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