Was brain off sick when you thought up the concept of ‘menopause symptoms’

Dear Mother Nature (and this should be of interest to energy conservationalists and scientists),

Was brain off sick when you thought up the concept of ‘menopause symptoms’?

In particular the starring roll of hot flushes?

Is there one single useful reason for them?

Night after night of covers on,  covers off, covers on, covers off, knackered us, knackered partners, addled brains, baggy eyes and saggy tummies.
 
I suppose they are very good for sales of Chillows, high tec. airflow mattresses, fans, air con units, spray cans of water – not to mention black cohosh, sage and evening primrose oil. I guess they are a lucrative source of income for divorce lawyers too.

And surely by now, with all those scientists working on energy sourcing and conservation, all those politicians and business people looking into the rising cost of heating, SOMEBODY could come up with a way to at least make us feel its all worthwhile and channel the mega watts produced by millions of efficient female night time heat generators into something useful to keep us warm during the day?
We could be worth a fortune;  there is no down time during working hours – if it happens we multi task. We don’t need a designated place or equipment to produce it. No, its any place, any time, just ask your nearest lady of a certain age – yes, that pink one should be able to tell you.

Oh, and we ALL know that getting hot and sweaty results in weight loss,  glowing skin, shiny hair, better moods, sharper brain, better concentration and improved mood, stamina and sex life – what did you not understand????

Ach, enough all ready, I’m too tired, can’t concentrate and feeling way too grumpy, another time…

Always look on the bright side of (mid) life dada, dada dada dada 🙂

Easy PEAsy lemon squeezy!

Ok quick recipe for an easy, delicious and nourishing dip – yes and low calories, cuts through cravings for creamy, cheesy and savoury and more I’m sure!

Delicious and nourishing dip recipe, coming up:

Method:

1. A bag of frozen peas (defrost – not in the micro wave if you can help it please!) blend with half a red onion (oh, yes, any onion if thats what you have) an avocado, a couple of table spoons of nutritional yeast  – that’s the cheesy flavour, trust me, plus it is called nutritional for a reason!
2. Add a tablespoon of agave syrup – OK, maple, or honey, or even (and this would be a great choice) a couple of apricots or a sweet nectarine or a couple of soaked dates – get the picture, just use your bonce and try to keep it unprocessed, raw, organic & clean!).
3. Add a tsp good salt (natural mineral, NOT table salt!) and a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar ( yes, lemon or lime could be subbed there).
4. Whizz it all up, add a big handful of fresh coriander r other herbs of you haven’t got it, mints a great one, and yumaloo, you are through!
5. Serve with sticks of carrot, celery, cucumber, chunks of cauliflower, broccoli, slices of cabbage, endive leaves or even good old pitta bread ( wholemeal if you please.

Anything you do that increases your intake of fruit and veggies, especially green, is a good thing, especially when it tastes this good!

Who are we to judge?!

I would like to have a bit of chat about people who judge – does that mean I am judging them? Maybe, maybe – anyway here goes…

The way we live, the way we eat is often in question– we are what we eat, we hear that all the time.

Actually we are made of what we eat and do and think and say and experience.
That’s obvious isn’t it?

A LOT of people seem to think that their way is the best way and so they preach. I know, I know –  if someone asks me about health I tend to go on and on (sorry friends) and give advice freely when asked by anyone (I also charge, its my job). BUT I’m talking about those who insist “100% this” is the only right way or “100% that”, or “80/20% is the perfect way”.

We are all different. Not just in what we need but in what we want, what works with our life even our age and state of health.

Of course we can all change,  we could be flexible, change as needed, listen to our bodies and minds. I also believe that for me (the only example to use) 100% anything is not right.
Being a classic miss-matcher if I put a rule on myself (or if anyone else tries to) I usually break it. If I decide on Tuesday we will eat such and such on Friday – there is NO WAY we will be eating that on Friday. Its a bit of a standing joke in our house.

I must just say at this point that I believe eating fried foods, food with all the nutrients boiled out of them, dairy, sugar, white stuff,  lots of meat and alcohol as well as not exercising and leading a stressful and/or anger fuelled life  (and any combination of that little lot you choose) is going to end in tears – and health problems.

There are other ways to live and eat and some people don’t know them (some choose not to want to and they have that right – though when it effects others they could have the right to mention it!!) hence, when asked, I go on….and on.

Anyway. To state my point of view; I believe that a very high raw plant based diet, higher in veggies than fruit, is the best way for me and most people – if this choice is taken with knowledge and attention to advice. I believe that the more food and drink you take in that nourishes your body the better.
For me eating a plate of stodge, say pasta, is a wasted opportunity to a) enjoy something more delicious ( lets face it, its what you put on it that tastes good) and b) to notch up another “portion” of fantastic nutrients – so in place of the pasta I would probably use spiralised raw courgette for example. The sauce would be a divine blend of veggies, garlic, oils and herbs. If I wanted creamy (love creamy!) it would have nuts and maybe nutritional yeast and lecithin in there – so all the yumminess without guilt – ah, guilt thats another thing (another time).

I believe we need to use supplements, I do and I send them to my kids and check that they take them. I use spirulina, wheatgrass ( fresh when possible, frozen when not and powdered when neither are available), spray Vit. B12 and Vit D.
I take MSM, Maca and a mixed green powder with algea, acai, and allsorts of other great stuff in it sometimes (I swap and change and remember and forget with these).
At the moment I am taking Co-enzime Q 10, 5HTP and magnesium ( spray oil and tablets with B6) and a high dose of Vit C; because I am recovering from extensive stress and burnout.
I use frozen pollen when Im in France and so can get it.

I drink herbs as tea (plus lots of different red and green teas), drink lots of water and do not buy ready meals or anything really that I think is bad.  I drink green juices and green smoothies by the pint. Lemons, limes and apple cider vinegar are always to hand.

I eat out sometimes and don’t stress about it, I eat at friends houses and love the food they have prepared with kindness for their guests. I drink wine. I drink a tiny coffee most mornings ( OK I smell it a lot and sip it a little then throw it away having had what I want from it). I practice yoga sometimes, I meditate, I dance around the kitchen a lot, I feel huge love and happiness and, sometimes, have to wrestle myself from the clutches of sadness.
I do the best I can for me and my family and my friends and my clients.

Often and for long periods I only eat a raw plant based diet which includes nuts and seeds, sea veggies and draws upon a lot of experience and knowledge (and relies on my super fast blender, food processor and dehydrater). I am happy with that – I just don’t make it a rule!!

Of course I could and should “do better” in someone’s eyes, on the other hand I’m probably a mad, hippy, health fanatic in someone else’s eyes too!

ONE OF OUR RAW FEASTS

Smile!

Have you ever said, when I get this, (or that, or the other) I’ll be happy?

The other day, someone said to me “I am aiming for XXX by the end of the year so I have to keep going till I get it then everything will be better”.

Fair enough, its good to have an aim, know what you are going for, a target. Somewhere I read something about concentrating on where you are going, don’t stress on the how to get there every step of the way. Good advice.

I don’t really like buts, but there is a big but here… BUT what about now?

Whilst you are concentrating on where you are going, and lots of people (myself included previously) do this, you say I just need to keep going now, head down, work work work, then when I achieve XXX ( promotion/level of income/ fit into smaller jeans/ own a red Ferrari) I’ll be happy.

I hear that from my kids, sometimes sounding so tired, but they live in a competitive world, both in fast cities ( London and Paris) and feel they have to keep going and going or they will lose momentum….

Who’s that song by ‘Ill sleep when I’m dead”? Good song but not a motto to live by.

Without relaxation you will not have any energy, we need sleep and stillness to facilitate activity – mental and physical.

Without food you will not have any energy; your metabolism will drop, your cells will diminish, your health will suffer.

Without enjoyment your motivation will sink.

More on each of those coming up.

Give yourself a break!!!

For today, lets enjoy today. Even if you are working towards your aim, have today as a happy day, find something good in it, funny, profound. Smile at all the people you see, it’s infectious, really! Someone might think you are nuts and ignore you but I bet someone else gives you a twinkly smile back, and it feels good!

Happy Sunday x

photo credit: <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/stitch/1333373279/”>Stitch</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/”>cc</a>

Who knew how many sides a chair has!

Robin, he who puts up with me, commented patiently this morning that I have the attention span of a gnat.

It is true I like change. Regularly, however big or small.

Hence having moved more times than I can remember and when a house is finished ( OK, when a house is nearly finished or even just been going on too long) another will catch my attention and…. poor Robin, he who gets all the really hard work.

So, having discovered Annie Sloane paints in Derbyshire, those that need NO preparation ( joy, my favourite thing, straight in!!) we brought some back to France and after 25 years of living with cheapish, orangey varnished wooden chairs around my very ancient and beautifully worn big pine table I decided to Annie Sloane them.

Duck egg blue was the colour of choice, the paints are really chalky and gorgeous, then you wax them to stop the paint coming off. I couldn’t wait to get started.

I have just finished the third. Not bad going you might think. But, a small confession, the first was done about 8 weeks ago, maybe more. The other two started yesterday so I earned some (well deserved) brownie points for having seen two through to the end in 24 hours but oh, how tedious!!

You do not know how many sides a chair has until you try to paint them. And then wax them!
Imagine if I had also had to clean/ sand/ prep them too, and wait for them to dry – this paint dries in no time, ideal for gnats.
Possibly a majorly good development idea – Annie, please can you put the paint in a spray? Maybe thats one step too lazy.

I told a friend, via chat, yesterday that I was going to do some yoga and try to do more than 15 minutes. He said, very wisely, “its not how long, its the quality of the movement”.
I read his comment afterwards. How true it is, how right he was.

I did my yoga teacher training 5 years ago. It was tough, magical, empowering, strengthening, inspiring, everything I could have dreamed. How could I forget, even for a moment that every movement, part of a movement and breath counts.
As I did my practice, which actually did last way longer than 15 minutes because I was in the moment and each movement did count, it was just getting onto the mat that was the problem, it felt gooood.

I asked had he trained in martial arts. He had. I guessed because mostly people who think that way, or would say that, have trained in some ancient art.
Everyone should have that knowledge, that the quality of the movement counts – all movement. Being present, right here right now and making the most of it all.

Sooooo, never mind how many sides a chair has, I am going to enjoy painting each and every one of them…..

Says me; “Actually Robin, don’t you think the chairs would look really good alternating, duck egg blue then cheap orangey varnish, then duck egg blue, now we have three and three?”

Says he; “Attention span of a gnat”.

Motivation and wafting away grey mood clouds.

I just thought I would repost this after having a really low energy feeling yesterday afternoon.

I was kind of sinking into it (it can be so easy just to go with it, let it take your hand and follow it … down…) and forced myself to get on my mini trampoline and do some bouncing, 10 minutes later the mood was definitely more positive and after another ten, hey presto, energy restored, mood lifted.

It’s not always so simple, but it does really help to DO something when that shadow starts closing in.

I wrote the following post was about a year ago on “Desrissplash”…

Back in rainy Britain, what is going on? We left  the 30+° heat of France and arrived in the UK at 6.30am to 20° which was very hopeful but today it is pouring and grey. Kinda cosy though, sometimes don’t you just need cosy?

I have a meeting today that I am not looking forward to. I was thinking about what to wear and thought “OK, what would I wear that would make me feel better?”… no the answer wasn’t a power suit or even a mask, it was PJs and thick socks!

I had to have a tooth out at the dentist a while ago, I was terrified, I have never been good at dentists. I took along my thick super soft socks. He looked at me as though I was nuts when I started to take my shoes off, I explained the comfort theory and he got it – really we need to do whatever gets us through (within reason obviously;-).

I think we spend far too little time really thinking ‘what would make this work’ instead of ‘this isn’t working’. Because I am nervous we started the day today with a really brisk walk, in the pouring rain, up over the hills. 45 minutes later we were back, soaked but feeling much better about everything and had the exciting surprise that my new samples had turned up and are gorgeous!

Endorphines, laughing at being soaked, concentrating on balancing on stones rather than sinking in the mud, its all going to make you feel better. A fantastic help for people suffering anxiety, depression, grief, fear, almost any mind problem can be given some help/respite by getting outside and moving and being slightly challenged – even if it is by cow pats and mud!

Oh (back to real time) the other thing I just remembered I did was power jet spray some old floor boards, with the idea of using them around the house for window sills, maybe a table (that I couldn’t put anything on as they are very wonky), etc. I did this in the pouring rain and got thoroughly soaked, it felt great, free, silly – probably helped that the weather was quite warm despite raining ALL day, heavily.

So, a bit like the post above, maybe a good play in the rain washes the dark feelings away, just like going for a breezy walk blows the cobwebs away.

Vulnerable? Me?

I find myself in an amazing world, living an amazing life, with amazing possibilities.

I have an amazing home, amazing kids and an amazing husband.

All perfect then? Hmmm, not really…

I am in a situation that isn’t great. The odd person who makes life difficult. Makes me feel bad. Often actually.

I’m not sleeping very well, 4 hours last night and about the same the night before.

All because of this situation and the odd person.

I really love metaphors, I use them all the time, in fact, sometimes I use more than one (I’m trying to learn to keep them to a minimum!).

I heard a great one the other day from my friend Emily. She was talking about her Mums latest diet and how if she gives into temptation once she gives up and thinks “That’s it, I might as well just be bad all day, I’ve messed up, why continue blah, blah, blah” – you know the sort of thing. Emilys metaphor for her Mum was; Imagine you have a collection of beautiful assorted porcelain tea cups and you drop one and it smashes, would you then just smash all the rest!”?

Another one I heard in some training or other was;  If you watched a really, really bad film would you sit all the way through it, and then watch it again, and again hundreds of times?

Obviously the answer to both is “NO, of COURSE not!”

But we do just that, well, I know I do! We replay things over and over in our minds. Every time we replay them we re-feel the hurt, anger, sadness, pain, injustice. So really aren’t we hurting, angering, saddening ourselves?

We spend time (waste time) hating the person who “did that to us’ but they only did it once (or lots of things once maybe) and we perpetuate it. They may not be a nice person but it is US who keep beating ourselves with their stick.  And so we get stuck. Tired. Depleted. Disempowered. Disenchanted. This can leave us unable to deal with even small set backs (you know like spilt milk, or someone nipping into the car parking space we were waiting for) and unable to enjoy all the amazing stuff because we are so over come with the ongoing replays of bad things that have happened. Often things that happened days, weeks, months or even years ago! And if they are still happening we are multiplying them so we are juggling lots of bad things not just dealing with the one in hand.

Imagine playing a song you love but at the same time you have three or four other tunes that you really don’t like at all playing – would you really enjoy the tune you love? Would the others playing at the same time take the joy out of it? Would they spoil it?

I think they would rather (probably make you go a bit mad too – so lets add that into the mix). Funny what we do to ourselves isn’t it.

Time to stop. You can. I can. Just put the stick down, turn the other tunes off, throw out the bad film, put the china in a cupboard.

JUST STOP.

Vulnerable…..me? Yes, vulnerable to me.

So who’s the odd person?

Sprouts, but not as we know them!

Going back maybe 30, no 35…oh, no… OK, lets leave it at that, years I had a flat and a friend of a friend needed somewhere to stay for a few weeks. I had a spare room, so my place it was.

He was definitely a long haired hippy, quite a few of my lovely friends were then. Along with him, his girlfriend, his afgan (coat not hound) and bags of stuff came some jars which took up residence on the kitchen window sill.

These jars seemed to be very loved, they were watered, watched, sometimes covered and sometimes not and whatever was inside them grew!

This was my initiation into sprouts, the most delicious, nutricious, juicy and best of all CHEAP food going!

There are a vast variety around they are easy to grow and, if you do grow your own, they are cheap as chips. A small spoonful soon bursts into a whole jar full.

Many websites are dedicated to growing sprouts so no problem working out how to do it. They are easy to get hold of, take only a few days and no specialist equipment required, you can use a simple jam jar in fact I often, lazily, just use a sieve over a bowl. They really boost your nutrition hugely with no fuss, powders or pills.

You can take it further, as we have in France at the retreat, where we have two large automatic sprouters to keep us stocked with plenty to juice as well as throw on salads or just munch out of a bag. You can also get small stacking systems (we often use that when there’s just Robin and I at home but then I’ll usually regret not using the sprouter as we get through lots!). In winter they give variety to the basic salads available with their sweet or peppery, hot or spicy flavours and they are always fresh so bursting with vitality and enzimes.

So, here’s to sprouts –  Not just for hippies!

Coming soon: Notjustforhippies.com and our retreat info on RobinandDesri.com

A little bit obsessed!

As long as I can remember I have been at least a little obsessed with food!

I do remember being hungry as a child and I was not deprived, just burning it off fast and hungry before each meal – how often are we really hungry before we eat? Not often, try it and see.

I had to go straight to dancing school after school. When I was younger I was delivered and I remember being given Rivetas that my mother was piling cream cheese and pineapple on, I think there could have been butter too – Riveta wasn’t really advertised as it is now as a be all to all people base for fine concoctions, way back then it was just about diets.

The topping sends a mixed message – but as the skinniest kid in class thank goodness for a Mother who was ‘on a diet but just couldn’t resist’. I still love the sucre/sale flavours!

As I grew older I had to get to dancing myself so the minute the bell rang I ran as fast as I could – a few miles across flat planes, across town, up hills, to get there in 15 minutes, about 3 or 4 miles I’d guess.

Usually I had taken nothing to eat. A couple of hours of dancing at least, then a trek back to town and the bus home, just waiting for fooooood!

Home was a funny place, not always happy, a lot of tension and conflict going on. I often spent sleepless nights working out how I could support my siblings and myself on the pocket money I saved every week (religiously I squirreled it away, just in case).

I always started with a base of a massive white sliced loaf because it was cheap and would fill our tummies; there were bags of apples and bananas too. ….

I still wake in the night and work out food for the next day, make up recipes, analyse the day before, NO sliced white loaf now but the bananas and apples figure, somewhere behind the green leaves and celery.

The other day Robin was watching me and asked what I was doing – “counting my portions”  (I was counting on my fingers) I do it every day, smug when I hit ten or over, less so when 7-10 and fed up with myself (I’m working on that flagellation thing) if I don’t make 5.

That is a rare occasion these days but when staying away or travelling it can be REALLY hard to get those portions in! In the UK it is not so bad with the brilliant motorway service stations where they have M&S and Waitrose salads, washed fruits and peeled, chopped fruits but when we are going through France it is really tough.

You have to go off road and find a market or super market then find somewhere to wash the stuff – or eat bananas which is fine for the first one or two.

OR be organised and take stuff with you – even after all these years and hardly ever managing to sort myself out to take something for between school and dancing I still rarely get it together.

So that is something I will be working on “being prepared” and delicious recipes to travel with – that means they last in a very warm car or on a very cold ferry, are delicious, nutritious and easy to eat without setting up a picnic table/ getting it all over you,  and without having a bag of slimy washing up to do in a hotel room – or worse, forgotten about and to be discovered weeks later, under the seat, when trying to find out “what that smell is”!