Going Dairy Free

So the last week has definitely proved to me something that I have known for a while but have been in denial about. I am totally lactose intolerant and can’t have dairy at all unless I want to have heinous repercussions which I won’t go into detail about here. Even yoghurt, which supposedly doesn’t affect people the same way because the lactose is meant to have been broken down by bacteria, still causes a reaction in me.

According to the blood type diet, A blood types (which I am) shouldn’t have any dairy and hardly any meat, definitely no red meat, only certain types of fish and poultry. I looked at it and thought well that sucks, and forgot about it.

I think I can attribute the richness of NZ dairy foods to my sudden weight gain after I got home off my mission. In Switzerland I ate hardly any dairy, well that’s not true, there was a lot of cheese, a small amount of milk, and heaps of chocolate. But I almost never touched icecream, cream or yoghurt and I think those 3 things are the items that cause me the most problems, they’re also the hardest things to find dairy free replacements for.

Rice, soy or almond milk is quite easy to come by, I can make dairy free chocolate myself (and have been for the last week or so – so delicious!). But I’ve never seen dairy free yoghurt yet. There is such a thing as dairy free ice cream, I haven’t tried it yet, but someone told me it has no taste.

I’m still not quite sure how I’m going to do this thing, but I just know I have to figure out a way to cut dairy out of my life, at least 90% of the time. I think its where most of my coughs, colds and flu symptoms are coming from.

Detoxing & the Spirit

So I had a realization a few days ago about the reason why I love detoxing so much (despite people around me & their detrimental comments). I was talking to my flatmate who recently completely 7 days on the Lemon diet aka Master Cleanse where you pretty much just have drinks containing maple syrup, cayenne pepper & lemon juice for the whole time. You’re also allowed herbal tea whenever you want. She said that she noticed during the cleanse how calm & peaceful she felt, things didn’t bug her like they normally would.

That got me thinking along the same lines – I usually also feel really light, peaceful and spiritual whenever I’m doing a cleanse. Its as though eating only natural wholefoods and getting rid of toxins out of my system (usually in the first 3 days which are always the most painful) makes me feel more in tune with the spirit or with higher energies. It was especially noticeable after the two weeks when I went back to eating normal food. I was driving home and somebody on the road did something that annoyed me and I started yelling at them in my car (probably they couldn’t hear me, but it did make me feel better) and I realized that I hadn’t gotten road ragey like that for the whole time I was doing the cleanse.

So aside from the health and weight loss benefits of eating whole foods and detoxing, there are definitely spiritual elements to the whole thing, which makes me think of the promises for those who follow principles of health and wellbeing contained at the end of the Word of Wisdom, Doctrine & Covenants 89 – And shall find wisdom and great treasures of knowledge, even hidden treasures, and shall run and not be weary and shall walk and not faint.

Goal Setting

It seems like a gargantuan goal for me, given my current state of non-fitness, but I really want to do it. I have set a goal for myself to do the Tongariro Crossing this summer. 19.4kms of steep mountain to conquer. One of the girls at work did it earlier this year and her description of the walk totally cracked me up.

“You start off at the carpark and its really flat, so it lulls you into a sense of false security for the first while, and then bam! Stairs and stairs and stairs and stairs! And then its flat again for a while, and then bam! Stairs and stairs and stairs and stairs! And then its pretty much straight down the other side.”

I had a look at the Doc website, and her description was quite apt. The first set of stairs is apparently called the Devils staircase. My boss ran the crossing in 2 or 3hrs, but I am nowhere near his fitness level. (Hes over 60, so shame on me). Its meant to take fit people 6-8hrs. My friend lives not too far from the start of the crossing, so she said she’ll drop me off in the morning and pick me up in the afternoon.

People have died on the walk, with snow and poor visibility issues in winter, so that’s why I’m leaving it til summer, hopefully it will be warm and I won’t have any issues with it. I do need to get some proper walking boots though. I also think I need to start including more stairs and hills in my regular walks around the neighbourhood.

Smoothies, Soups & Salads

So for the next 4 weeks I have decided to embark on a wholefoods diet and also do a spring herbal detox cleanse, in yet another effort to rid my system of toxins and lose weight. I seem to attempt detoxes on a regular basis, but rarely ever last as long as I intend to, usually at the 3 day mark I smell something diabolically delicious & throw in the towel. On day 2 (I started last Saturday) my aunty bought me over two amazingly decorated cupcakes which I couldn’t bear to throw out nor eat. So I came to a compromise, I tasted the icing on both, ok well if I’m being honest I ate all the chocolate icing on one, tasted the almond icing on the other, tried a small amount of each cupcake and threw the rest out.

But yesterday I was super good. I got invited to dinner at my auntys (she is a brilliant cook) and I thought about skipping the invitation but I also wanted to see my sisters new car, she was also going to be there, so I made myself some food & took it with me. It worked amazingly well.

So the cleanse I’m doing is called Brett Elliots Ultimate Herbal Detox which goes for 10-14 days, you take herbal pills morning & night and can only eat or drink smoothies, soups, salads, herbal teas and juices. Basically you can only eat fruits, vegetables and herbs, with a little bit of olive oil with salads. Last time I did it (in January) it did make me feel a lot better, unfortunately as soon as I ended I went on a road trip where I undid all the good results from the detox. So I’m hoping that this time it will work out a lot better.

I’ve had a cold/flu since last Thursday which hasn’t been fun either, I’ve been coughing almost non stop and generally feeling like crap, I had a headache for 3 days straight which thankfully has gone now, I’m only just starting to feel a bit better today so hopefully things can only improve from here on.

Crash and die

Last night my external hard drive accidentally fell on the ground and smashed something on the inside because it is no longer recognized by the computer & it makes a clicking noise which my brother in law says is the kiss of death.
Everything was on there, photos, documents, music, digital pages I'd been working on for my scrapbook. All the photos older than 2yrs are on cd as well, but none of the recent stuff was. Thank goodness for facebook, at least some things are on there, but a lot of it wasn't, I'm so gutted. Also last week my sister took my hard drive & was loading stuff onto her hard drive for about an hour. I emailed a couple of data recovery places, but their fees were around $5-800, which, for a hard drive that only cost $100, seems rather exorbitant. But i guess its the memories which are important. I don't know if i want to pay that much just to retrieve photos though. I have learnt my lesson though - always back stuff up, and never trust Maxtor USB hard drives, they can't be made very well if they break that easily.

Weather Cancellations

I planned a trip to Dunedin this week, I had booked both my accomodation & my flights. Unfortunately just as I was getting organized to pack, the weather packed in down there (snow & blustery gales). I was a bit worried about getting stranded down there as I only had four days off work, so on sunday I cancelled my accomodation. Sunday night I'd already decided it wasn't worth it to go down & my trip would have to be postponed til another time. Monday 5:30am one of my workmates rung me to tell me that my second flight (down to Dunedin) had been cancelled, the airport was closed due to snow and ice on the tarmac, which is fair enough from their point of view. So its a good thing I already had decided that I wasn't going down. I still want to go another time, just maybe when its summer & theres less chance of a cancelled flight.

Travel High

I made a quick trip to Sydney a couple of weeks ago, and already a sense of wanderlust has begun to pervade my entire being. I just got back from a trip and I already want to go somewhere again. Granted next week I'm going to wellington for 2 nights, and then my next planned trip after that is to the Abel Tasman national park at the beginning of september, but everytime I travel, I have this feeling of wanting to travel more. Its like i just can't get enough of it.

My flatmate just got back last week from a trip to Langkawi, Malaysia last week (it sounded awesome, hot weather, beautiful beaches) and my sister got back from the Gold Coast just a few days ago. I personally have had enough of the gold coast for my lifetime, i don't know how people can love it so much, i liked the theme parks but that was about it.

Then in november i have requested a month of work so that i can travel to my hearts content (pending having enough saved), ideally i would like to spend 1 week in asia, preferably Hong Kong and one week on a beautiful island, I'm thinking Tahiti or Fiji and then the rest of the time on a nice beach in NZ, it should be getting hot by then.

I think really, for me, its all about the anticipation. I get so much enjoyment out of planning trips, that once it arrives, its almost an anticlimax, and then by the time its over, i'm already trying to think of ways to get that momentum going again.