Tag: Healthy Eating

Healing and sugar free

We are still waiting for appointments for my daughter, in the meantime it’s life as normal and trying to not worry.

Today’s sugar free year observation is on healing, as in the physical kind. I’ve never had issues with skin healing in fact I’d say I’d always been a pretty good healer. Now my bodies ability to repair tissue is excellent, my hysterectomy incisions knitted over in a matter of weeks, I had no bruising in fact I bruise very little these days. Then there’s the tattoo I had done a week ago, it’s my 6th and 4th big one so I’m fairly use to the tattoo healing game. This one has healed over in 8 days, all scabs fallen off all flakiness gone. There’s still a little itching and se raised areas but to look at you wouldn’t think it was quite so new.

What has caused this improvement in healing I can’t say, it could be the lack of sugar though it warrants saying I never had a typical western diet of junk food so never had a high sugar intake. Plus although my “added” sugar intake is zero my actual sugar intake (from fruit and other whole food sources) is the same as it ever was.

Perhaps that’s the reason, when I cut out all the extras I replaced them with fruit, fresh peas and other fruit and vegetables. My fruit and vegetables intake is higher than it’s ever been at around 8 to 10 portions a day. Whatever the cause is it’s certainly a happy side effect.

Spain! Plus a cheat day ðŸ˜±

We arrived in Spain rather tired and bad tempered and ready to kill each other. It wasn’t the earliest start in the world at 4am but early enough if like some younger Kelly’s you forget to go to bed till 1am! The villa was not disappointing nor is the area, both are beautiful. In the villa we have 2 downstairs apartments and a 3 bed flat upstairs, a pool to ourselves, 2 different outdoor eating areas, 4 balcony areas, can I just live here please?

The grumpiness mainly settled by the next day Sean and I attempted to go for an early run didn’t quite manage it out of the villa fast enough so hit the promenade at around 11.00 yes folks me you friendly neighborhood pasty red head was running in Spain in the middle of the day. After 3 miles I felt rather wobbly and found a cafe. I figured Sean would find me eventually. The rest of the day was spent in the pool enjoying the Villa and exploring Calpe, the older part of town is particularly beautiful.

Monday

We decided to chill for the morning, no running but I swam for an hour then we explored Benidorm, I’ve never been on a package holiday but of course Benidorm is famous as a resort for the party life. It was huge fun visiting almost like a British seaside town but actually sunny! I must admit I’m glad we are in the quieter town of Calpe. Later on Monday while in the pool James managed to crack Sebastian in the face with a pool net, you know the kind that is used for fishing leaves out. The poor guy has a black eye so bad it looks like he’s wearing eye liner!

Tuesday

We spent most of it by the pool and at the beach, that is what we are here for after all the views of mountains continue to take my breath away, it’s the first time in a long while when I’ve been on a holiday where I don’t want to go home.

I even braved going out in a bikini for the first time, oh in at least 2 decades!!!

While here I’ve been trying to keep up with exercise, running 5k in the morning and swimming for an hour some time during the day. Right now I’m sitting in a cafe after finishing my run which somehow was my fastest ever 5k in ridiculous heat!!! I think the cafe at the end helped !!!

Wednesday – Valencia

It’s about 90 minutes drive from where we are so seemed well worth the effort. The city itself is stunning though driving past the bull ring was a reminder of cultural differences. We didn’t have a set agenda as ots tricky with Charlotte we don’t know how well she’ll cope. We had a fabulous lunch which of course I had no idea how to ask what was sugar free, gluten free was hard enough. I somewhat suspect that if I’d been asking for a gluten free sugar menu in an Italian restaurant in Spain they’d have thrown me out. I’ll pay £20 penalty into the fundraising, as I knew I was paying the penalty I had 2 glasses of wine, and cake. I wanted my money’s worth for a day off the challenge!!!

It’s an absolutely beautiful city and I wish we could have spent more time there.

We did have a chance to pop into a CrossFit box and pick up a t- shirt for Seb and I. It was on his must do list! There were such lovely people and have Seb a few tips on how to get double unders.

Thursday

A day spent in Calpe, a run in the morning a hike in the afternoon followed by a swim.

Friday

Spent recovering from overdoing it in the heat on Thursday!

Saturday

Home time!!! Jasper was pleased to see us!

Weight loss – 23 inches (off the main bits and bobs)

One of the first questions I get asked is if I’ve lost weight over last year’s challenge and this year’s. Now although that wasn’t the aim the answer is absolutely. At a slow and steady rate. I don’t actually weigh myself but I do measurements and I know I’ve gone down a couple of dress sizes which for me usually equates to a couple of stone. In total since the beginning of my first challenge (CrossFit) I’ve lost 23 inches of the main measurable areas, of course I will have lost a bit from everywhere. With the sugar and booze free year I don’t necessarily think it’s the lack of those two that have made me lose weight rather the avoiding those two means many less impromptu calories and many more sensible decisions made.

Tumeric latte – cheap and quick homemade version

I recently became quite obsessed with pukka tumeric latte, but it’s quite expensive. Most other brands have sugar added. So I played around and have come up with a pretty good recipe.

1/2 teaspoon tumeric

1/8 teaspoon ginger

2 pinches black pepper

250 ml unsweetened almond milk

1/2 tablespoon coconut milk

Whisk it all together and microwave for 2 minutes

Around 60 calories per cup