Just quickly, I wanted to let you know this sugar-free concept is already gnawing at me… Today is NOT one of those alcohol-free days I mentioned, so I went to a friend’s house for New Year’s Day drinks which was enormous fun, but have since got home and am desperately craving a sugar fix.
I’m sure it’s because I’ve been drinking wine. My body is craving the sugar to keep the balance. So I’m in my office, and without thinking, reached to open the ‘secret treats’ drawer…
Sesame SnapsYum…. Sesame Snaps! A treat I always justified because they’re also packed with sesame seeds which are great for you – right? But hang on. Let’s check the sugar content…. Hmmm.
SERIOUSLY??? THIRTY-SIX POINT ONE PER CENT???? YEP, 36.1 per cent. DAMN.
Can’t do that. I CANNOT break the ONE LINE RULE on day one.
Off they go – relegated downstairs to the general pantry.
Okay, I’m fine now. Guess I’ve had enough sugar for today anyway. Time to watch a horror movie with my daughter. Silent House. Anyone been there done that? Anything to take my mind off sugar…
SO after telling you all about my New Year’s Resolution last year, which was to give up smoking, I’m going to set myself some new challenges for 2013. And to make myself accountable (because I discovered this was quite valuable when I did the muffin-top Cool Sculpting experiment) I’m going to post a Blog every Monday with a New Year’s Resolution update.
Fireworks in Melbourne last night – New Year’s EveThe resolutions are:
(1) To cut sugar out of my diet (apart from wine – details to follow)
(2) To stop playing I-phone games (time waster)
(3) To tidy my office before the end of March
(4) To go to the gym three times a week (apart from holidays)
(5) To absolutely NEVER smoke another single cigarette.
It’s all pretty trivial stuff. The bigger things – like volunteering for a charity, spending more time with my kids and personal emotional and career challenges – are important for me, but probably won’t make for entertaining reading, so let’s deal with my Top Five first. And in truth, cutting sugar out of my diet isn’t so trivial, because good health is everything.
Here’s a bit more about WHY I’ve nominated these five challenges:
(1) After interviewing Emma Dumas (see Blog – Dec 19th) about the massive health problems that stem from high sugar consumption, and the enormous amount of sugar in so many processed foods, I was inspired to make some changes to my own diet. Yes, I’m going to try cutting sugar out of my life. Being an addicted sweet-tooth, it’s a frightening thought.
Ben and Jerry’s Chocolate Therapy ice-creamVeronica however, was thrilled with my decision because of my need to say ‘good-bye’ to sugar properly. This meant a dedicated trip to Ben and Jerry’s Ice-cream parlour in Prahran, where I gorged on the new Maple Tree Hugger combined with Chocolate Therapy and she was in ice-cream heaven with the Vanilla Cookie Dough flavour. Seriously bad and seriously amazing. Just looking at this picture has me sighing with longing…
I’ll let you know the ground rules. As Emma advised, I’m aiming to stick to the ONE LINE RULE. This means eliminating any processed foods that have more than 5% sugar per 100g on the nutrition label.
Emma’s willpower is phenomenal in that she hasn’t had a lolly for more than seven years. I’m sure I won’t last that long and while I admire Emma’s strict adherence to the no-sugar diet, I don’t think I can set the bar quite so high myself. I’ll allow myself one piece of fruit a day and I’ll also allow myself wine (2 glasses) a maximum of four times a week.
The yoghurt sugar-content testPlus I love yoghurt with my cereal and the lowest sugar-content of any yoghurt I can find is in the Gippsland fat-free Organic yoghurt and that’s SIX per cent. So I’ll be breaking the ONE LINE RULE by one per cent, but I can live with that. It means I’ll be giving up what WAS my favourite yogurt – Vaalia Vanilla – because sadly, that contains 16.3 per cent sugar.
It’s amazing when you go through your own pantry checking labels, that you discover how many products contain such large amounts of sugar! This will be a toughie, but I’ll update you with tips about what works and what doesn’t.
(2) The second resolution is to stop playing I-phone games. I nearly didn’t include this publicly, as it’s an embarrassing admission. But yes, I started playing certain games because of the kids. You know the conversation.. ‘Mum, you’ve GOT to play Dragonvale because I NEED you to send me more gems!!’ ‘Sure, honey, I’ll do that’ And before I knew it, I was actually caring about when my dragons were hatching. Yep, I told you it was embarrassing.
Then there were the endless games of ‘Words With Friends’ which I justified to myself because I was dealing with ‘WORDS’ and it was stimulating my brain – wasn’t it?
But no, all the amount of hours I have wasted playing these games can’t be retrieved and could have been spent doing many more valuable things. Like tidying my office…
(3) Tidy my Office before the end of March. This is because I am sick of working under the ever-increasing mounds of paper on my desk. Enough already!! This mission can be accomplished! It’s not a massively high priority though, so I’ve given myself till the end of March. There are LOTS of piles of paperwork to be filed…. ho hum…. dreary stuff.
(4) To go to the gym at least THREE times a week. After working hard to eliminate my muffin-top last year, I need to work harder at the gym to make sure I don’t grow massive bulges in other places. Spin classes are my preference, so I’ll let you know how this goes.
(5) And lastly, to NEVER have another cigarette. As I said in the blog about giving up smoking, I only broke a couple of times during last year, but this year, I don’t even want there to be ONE of those moments. Again I’ll keep you updated.
Let me know what resolutions you’ve made and how long you think you’ll keep yours!
When cigarettes had brand names…
So we’re only a couple of hours away from welcoming in 2013. I adore New Year’s Eve and last year we celebrated with a ripper party at our house that went till the wee hours of the morning. Friends brought kids and the sunroom area was awash with water from screaming tikes running wet from the pool through our midst. I’m sure I stayed up extra late, knowing that once I went to bed, it was all over. Smoking, that is. Yes, my resolution last year was to GIVE UP SMOKING.
Most people who know me didn’t think I could. I’d tried many times before and when the last time didn’t work for me, I declared, ‘I’ve given up GIVING UP.’ MY theory was that there was no point. Smokers would always be smokers – that the urge would never leave them, or me. What mostly happened when I gave up is that I became shockingly cranky, stacked on weight and then ended up taking it up again six months later. So what was the point?
I wasn’t what you’d call a chronic smoker. Mostly I didn’t have my first cigarette of the day till the afternoon. It was a ‘reward’ – a time for some ‘time out’ with a coffee after a hard morning’s work. Even if I hadn’t worked hard. And while I might only have smoked half a dozen cigarettes a day, smoking with friends while drinking, meant the number would increase rapidly. It was a treat – an indulgence.
Smoking while reading Jackie CollinsI’d smoked regularly since I was eighteen, although had choked on my first cigarette at around fifteen. Then most of the men I dated smoked too, so it was easy to keep puffing away. Here’s a trashy picture – at 26, in Italy with Fletch, caught reading Jackie Collins while puffing away in bed. Ewww… but sheez, I loved it.
Then there were the parties, and yes, I’m sure I thought I was glamorous, not knowing how much other people recoiled from my stench.
Big hat party Did I really think that hat worked? And the cigarette?
After we had children, I managed to hide my smoking from them until Veronica was about nine. When I thought she was asleep one night, I sat outside and was inhaling deeply when she burst through the back door, pointing at me in horror, saying ,’Mummy! You’re smoking! Oh no, did Daddy make you do it?’ Well of course I had to say, ‘Yes, naughty Daddy! He made me! But I’m giving up tomorrow.’
But I didn’t give up ‘that’ tomorrow all those years ago. And I was nagged and hounded by the kids ever since to give up. Fletch had also struggled with giving up smoking and gave up a few months before me, around October 2011. I hated him because he even made it look easy. But he did use nicotine patches. I promised back then I’d give up after the races, which then turned in to New Year’s Eve.
I knew this time was more serious than other attempts. For many reasons, but of course, the most important has to be for yourself and your health. But for those of you considering giving up – it’s not going to be easy. I did find it hard and I still find it hard occasionally. But there are things you can do to lessen the pain. So here are my tips for giving up:
(1) Buy this book or the CD version. It’s called How To Stop Smoking (and stay stopped for good) by Gillian Riley. I’m not a huge fan of self-help books and usually find them dull, so I bought the CD version and listened to it in the car. I’ve read several books about giving up smoking (including Allan Carr’s) and I think this is the best. It has the most practical approach and it’s not a gimmick. It doesn’t try to fool you into believing there’s one ‘easy’ quick solution. It spells out that you ARE going to find it hard, but tough luck – live through it and endure it, because that’s the only way to beat it. But it does also have some very valuable advice and ideas about how to deal with an addiction. It takes a deeper psychological approach which makes a lot more sense to me, than any form of hypnotherapy or tablet taking.
The best tip from the book is to make a list of all the reasons you are giving up. Then, Gillian says you must always give yourself permission to smoke. But before you actually do, you must read your list and accept you are giving up ALL those incredibly important things – before you light up. That makes it much tougher.
The CD version of Gillian Riley’s book ‘How to Stop Smoking’ Elusion electronic cigarettes(2) Buy some electronic cigarettes – not with nicotine filters. I bought the Elusion brand, and while I don’t advocate using these all the time, as that reinforces the notion that smoking IS fun, it’s a good prop when you feel you’re about to break and reach for a cigarette. Basically, you inhale vapour which fulfils that need for something to fill your lungs – even though it’s not nearly as satisfying as the ‘real thing’.
(3) Keep plenty of sugar-free chewing gum on hand. It gives your mouth something to do without absorbing mega-calories.
(4) For the first few months, avoid friends who smoke a lot. This is hard, but I found a lot of my smoker friends really want you to take it up again. You get lines like, ‘Oh, go on, have one! You’d find it easy to be a social smoker!’ And you know they do it because smokers love company and it makes them feel better about their bad habit. But I still get smoking envy if we’re out to dinner and a few of the gang go outside to have a puff…
(5) Make a list of the reasons you are giving up (as suggested by Gillian) and review it regularly. Positive reinforcement is a great motivator.
(6) Remember that if you light up, that cigarette will be the first of hundreds more. It won’t just be ONE.
(7) If you DO break your resolution to give up because of an emotional upset or peer group pressure, or the lessening of will-power under the influence of alcohol – don’t beat yourself up, but get back on the ‘giving up’ band wagon straight away.
And yes, I have broken my resolution several times during the year – but not often, so overall I’m pretty proud to say that I HAVE given up smoking. But this year, one of my resolutions will be to re-affirm my GIVING UP SMOKING vow and to listen again to my Gillian Riley CDs. I hope I can get through 2013 without breaking once. And let’s face it, isn’t it great not to have to wake up to THIS the next morning?
A great reason to give up
Happy New Year and my 2013 bring all of you strength with your resolutions and many wonderful surprises!
I’ve loved being a Blogger for the past six months and would much rather continue writing in this format than try to find a ‘real’ job. But then there’s that pesky question about making a living, which is quite annoying. Which means I’m going to look at advertising options for the website. BUT – and this is the BIG question – the Blogosphere is still a vast, fast-changing and ever-developing landscape, so I’d like to know what others think about the best way to tackle this. What do YOU think?
Can Blogs earn money?We’ve been looking at many options and I’m still weighing up several possibilities. I may even experiment with a few ideas, before I settle on one particular path. So I hope you’ll bear with me, knowing that whichever way this goes, I will always write truthfully and will not be subjected to the influence of advertisers.
The Muesli – 97% sugar freeAt the moment, I’m pretty keen on trying a sugar-free experiment in the New Year, so it’s unlikely I’d be looking for sponsorship from confectionary or ice-cream manufacturers… I’m going to try getting fit as well – which could be a huge disaster – but advertising sporting events and healthy living would be another good fit. Conversely, I love sitting on my bum and being entertained, so advertising from the films and entertainment industries would suit too. Film reviews will become more of a focus in 2013. And I’ll always be writing about fashion and beauty products, so those brands and services would always work well.
For anyone interested in advertising on my website, you can contact my website designer, Kelly,on this email address: youguys@catacombcreative.com for rates and details.
The Australia Grand Prix Run next MarchI’m also going to try a more reliable format in 2013, so you know what to expect from this Blog site on particular days of the week. More about that in the near future.
Oh, and just in case you were wondering – I have not been paid for any of the articles written on this website by anyone.
So I’ll keep researching this conundrum and keep you up-to-date with what I learn along the way. If it works, great, I can continue to write what I like and enjoy having a Blogger voice to the outside world.
If not, you might catch me at the local pub pulling beers. Which ain’t such a bad option, now I think about it…
I first posted this Blog FIVE years ago – on Boxing Day, 2012. To this day it remains the most popular Blog on my site in terms of ‘beauty tips’. And yes, I DO still use Careprost on my eyelashes. For those of you who missed the original, the information is still current and I’m still ordering the product through All Day Chemist.
This is the best product I’ve found to help with eyelash length – and I HAVE tried other much more expensive brands over the past few years – just in case there’s something better out there. But there isn’t. If you look at the before and after photos of my lashes, you’ll see proof it really does work.
I first learnt about Careprost when I was working as an MC at a charity function and was seated next to the keynote speaker – a young doctor who was speaking about the prevention of stroke. Not only was she smart and very attractive, I couldn’t help but stare at her eyelashes. Long, thick and dark – I could only assume she’d had extensions. Over lunch we struck up a conversation and, trying to be tactful, I asked what mascara she used. She told me the secret wasn’t her mascara, but a treatment she used nightly.
She’d been given the tip from another female doctor who, while researching glaucoma treatments, discovered a wonderful side effect of the eye-drops they were testing, was that all their patients had developed amazingly long lashes.
The product is called Careprost and can be ordered from an Indian on-line pharmacy called All Day Chemist. (www.alldaychemist.com) It costs only $11.00 and I’d recommend when first ordering, to spend the extra ONE DOLLAR buying the application brush as well. As the product is so cheap and postage isn’t, I’d also recommend buying there or four bottles at a time. The bottles are also quite small so it’s worth buying a couple at least.
CareprostCheck out these before and after photos of my eyelashes as proof of the improvement.
Tom and me, more than 10 years agoThis photo was taken when Tom was just a toddler and he’s now fifteen. So you would expect more than ten years ago, my lashes would have been a little bit fuller and longer than they are today.
Close-up of my lashes
Without make-up and mascara today
Now here’s a shot of my lashes today – even without mascara.
With mascara today
With mascara, it almost looks like I’ve glued on falsies – but I haven’t.
Use Careprost nightly
It’s just a case of dipping the brush into the tiny bottle each night, and wiping the fluid along the lash line.
Applying Careprost
Some say you shouldn’t brush the liquid UNDER the eye, as it may cause irritation, but I do the bottom lashes as well and haven’t experienced any problems.
Overall, it will probably take a couple of months to see a difference, but it’s worth it.
I tried having eyelash extensions once and found it not only expensive, but the tendrils drop off pretty quickly – not to mention the sheer horror of having to lie still for more than an hour to have them applied. THAT drove me crazy.
There’s one more thing. I do believe the mascara I use is one of the best on the market and also contributes to the appearance of longer lashes.
Kevyn Aucoin mascaraKevyn Aucoin mascara. It’s produced under the Kevyn Aucoin make-up line – Kevyn being a formally famous Hollywood make-up artist, renowned for his brilliance. It’s a bit more pricey here than overseas, but it’s practically impossible to buy it on-line, as Mecca have the sole rights to importing it into Australia. Which means you can only buy it at Mecca and it’s about $35.
Oh yes, and I’m also rather fond of the Kevyn Aucoin marketing strategy which spins a good philosophy.
Kevyn Aucoin advertisementSo there you have it guys – my Christmas gift to you – the secret to longer lashes! Long may yours grow.
(NOTE: PLEASE CHECK WITH YOUR DOCTOR OR OPTOMETRIST BEFORE USING)
