navigating morning tea

We found ourselves in a bit of a pickle this week. We'd arranged to have morning tea with some dear old family friends but had neglected to tell them about our seismic shift in diet. The morning of, I thought help what are we going to do? So I packed some dip and crackers to take with. Such as I've mentioned here. Then I chickened out. I didn't pull them out when I arrived. I just felt like it was too rude.

They had baked a beautiful lemon and yoghurt cake. It was absolutely delicious. Yes I had a slice. Well, in fact I had only half a slice. It was all I wanted. The fructose may have put my appetite control out for the next few days I suspect, but it was ok. I didn't start trying to lay my hands on sugary delights with abandon. I didn't fall off the wagon. This is for keeps.

Next time I'll let them know in advance and give a few suggestions of what we can eat and offer to bring something along.... Next time....

two months on - I finally get it

We are now 2 months into our low fructose journey. I've loved the whole process but I feel like in the last week I finally get it.

I hardly snack any more. I eat less at meal times. I don't know what the fuss is about, having pretty much no interest in lollies, cakes, ice cream etc. Weird. I even have quite yummy low fructose choc mint ice cream (made with real mint) in the freezer and I'm not really interested.

We had a cake on Monday night for my stepmother-in-law's 60th birthday. BTW I made David Gillespie's Coconut Meringue Cake (from the Sweet Poison Quit Plan) - really good, even got the thumbs up from the rest. And I realised this is the first piece of cake I've had since I made one for new years eve. 30 days later. Unheard of.

In other news my 4yo has started eating 85% cocoa chocolate. He quite enjoys it. Even his tastes must be changing. (We've been a bit more gentle with him, I'm still formulating my approach to children and fructose, I hope to post about it soon). A couple of weeks ago he wasn't interested. I think 85% chocolate has been the one thing that we eat outside the 4g sugar/100g of food guideline. I haven't changed my habit of wanting something to eat with my cup of coffee. But now I'm completely satisfied with half a square of chocolate (5 whole grams of chocolate, less than one gram of sugar). Rather than 1 or 2 or 3 chocolate biscuits...

We've got a few strawberry plants (5 or 6 I think) and we finally have some fruit but you know one or at the maximum two are ripe at the same time. So it's lovely my son can pick a strawberry every day or so. I kind of think that this is what our fruit consumption ought to be like. Seasonal. A bit sparse. No gorging. But delicious.

Surprise, surprise another outcome has been my hypoglycaemia is more under control even with less snacking. No plunging blood sugar levels has been fantastic.

Well it really has taken this long to rid our systems of so many of the negative effects of fructose. But we feel fantastic and it's something we really hope to continue for the rest of our lives. Something that really helped was Sarah Wilson's 8 week I Quit Sugar plan. And I think 8 weeks is a good span of time to really feel the benefits. It's a pretty quick but comprehensive way to start this journey (I'd pick up a copy of David Gillespie's Sweet Poison Quit Plan as well). So I've decided to be an affiliate. If you'd like to get a copy of Sarah's e-book just click through from my sidebar and I'll benefit from your brilliant decision :-) You can also join in with a whole community who are up to week 5 of their quitting sugar journey.

one month on - still fructose free

Well we survived the holiday period largely fructose-free. I think the Easter egg craziness might be the only time of year that is harder but we haven't felt deprived at all.

I meant to say earlier but I followed through and got rid of all our pantry and fridge items which didn't fall inside the 4g of sugar/100g of food guideline. It helped that we were moving and I didn't want to pack things I wasn't planning on using any longer anyway. We have moved in with my mother-in-law but fortunately she doesn't like a lot of sweet food anyway so it shouldn't be too hard.

We have started eating a bit more fruit. You can eat 1-2 pieces of fruit a day on the plan, so we're not going overboard. And we're trying to stick to the recommended fruit such as berries, kiwi, pears and citrus.

The other good thing is that with a good supply of dextrose we have started making sweet treats which pass the low fructose test. In particular we've tried a few recipes from the Sweet Poison Quit Plan. So far I've whipped up some ice cream, a butter cake and some vanilla egg custard. Yummo. I can also recommend the frozen mango yogurt from Jamie Oliver's 30 Minute Meals, just substitute glucose syrup for the honey - although you'd probably go through your day's allowance of fruit in one go.

We have also enjoyed a fair few croissants - our new bakery treat of choice. Now just to make sure that it remains a sometimes food.

Giggi's 'artistic' fuzzy shot of a friend and I at Max Brenner's. Fortunately my husband was on the ball and ordered our coffees and croissants without the molten chocolate slathered all over them.

I'm surprised that 3 cafes we've visited in the last 10 days have supplied a small sweet treat gratis with the coffee. But I've been even more surprised by how well Giggi has coped with me turning them down. I think it's great that we've started this journey while we still have quite a bit of control over what he eats. Hopefully it will make it easier when he has more freedom in this area. Perhaps he won't have the taste for it and certainly he'll understand more of why we're doing what we're doing.

Which is:
    1) have healthy weights
    2) go back to normal appetites not subverted by fructose
    3) the prevention or mitigation of diseases such as diabetes, hyperglycemia, high cholesterol etc.

Happy New Year to you all. Here's to a happy and healthy 2012. Let me know if you're planning on joining us on this fructose-free but fulfilling ride.

a sugar-free update

Well, we've been largely fructose free for 2 weeks now. I'm still addicted to sugar. I still crave something sweet with my coffee. I haven't caved yet though :-)

I've finally started reading David Gillespie's book 'The Sweet Poison Quit Plan' and it's been thoroughly motivating. Plus I've lost a kilo and a half, which is helpful too. Feels weird to lose weight while bumping up your intake of chips, cheese etc. while riding out the addiction phase...

I'm still enjoying being less food focused. But I haven't adjusted to my hunger signals being more finely tuned. I forget to dish myself less and still eat too fast. The result has been a few evenings where I have just felt uncomfortably full even though I've eaten less than I used to. It really is quite amazing and I'm hoping that I can stick to it.

It's still hard for the kids. Giggi keeps asking for pieces of fruit. But I've got more savoury snacks on hand. And the other day when the dr was handing out lollipops we went to a cafe and had a mineral water instead. Giggi wasn't ecstatic about it but he wasn't devastated either. We'll keep persisting.

Here's the largely fructose free cake I made for Rene's birthday:

You can find the recipe here.

BTW he wasn't turning 2, it's just that it was 2 people's birthday. It really wasn't very sweet. I think I would add some sweetness to the 'biscuit base' or maybe use a more sweet nut such as cashews. But the filling was delicious.

badger's birthday cake shenanigans

The key to making children's birthday cakes is resourcefulness. You inevitably end up making the cake very late at night. And something always goes wrong. I was endeavouring to make 'Wally the Whale' from The Australian Women's Weekly Birthday Cake Cookbook. You can find other more successful attempts here and here. But needless to say, Badger's cake does not bear much of a resemblance.

The underlying cake structure for Wally the Whale is a very large rectangle. I was endeavouring to make sure that my cake was nice and flat so left it in the oven to slowly cool overnight. Unfortunately I forgot that I tried the same thing last year and that it's very hard to get a cake out of a tin the next morning. It's best to do it sooner rather than later.

So unfortunately a vertical half of the cake was all that came out intact. Here's the detritus of what was left behind.

Not to worry though because one long strip of cake is all that's needed to make a one which was all that was required in Badger's case. The artist husband helped to shape the one (which I think looks like the ones in channel 11) although Giggi the 4yo did think it looked like a 7. We also managed to find pretty special looking chocolate tools, so all of a sudden we have a Bob the Builder cake - the yellow of the icing didn't quite come out in the photo. A few m&ms and hey presto we have a cake that looks like we made a bit of an effort although it doesn't much resemble the initial inspiration. Never mind.

It all looks pretty spesh once you add a candle....