I gotta eat all the time. I feel great when I eat.

It's nearly the end of October, and I haven't done my traditional "October Unprocessed" post yet.  October Unprocessed is the baby of Andrew Wilder and his blog "Eating Rules", and basically it is about eating naturally; clean eating, I suppose, but what a ridiculous way of putting it.

I've been doing it for quite a few years, and you can read about it here, here, here and here if you'd like, and I've got it down cold now.

The rules go like this:

No Diet Coke (easy)
No ingredients I can't pronounce or with a number in
No eating the kids' Haribo at midnight while trying not to sob into a glass of wine
Wine is OK
If it's an ingredient such as flour, baking powder, salt etc, it is fine
No added sugar

This last one has been IMPOSSIBLE.  I may have hinted, just hinted, that I'm a little bit tired at the moment, and life without sugar in tea is not possible.  I'm only having one every few days, so it's not that bad; self justification has always been my strong suit.

Still, the month is nearly over, and I'm still standing.  I've not had Diet Coke for over a year; I now drink tonic and lemon if I want something non-alcoholic, or just stick to sparkling water like some kind of saint.

One day, I will write a long blog post about clean eating and what that means to me, and then I'll Instagram up some pictures of avocados, call myself a nutritionist and make a fucking fortune, but today is not the day.  There is knitting to do, and wine to drink, and I will try to muster up enough enthusiasm to write something tomorrow too.

Avoid any food that has a TV commercial

It's still October Unprocessed, and I've been cooking all sorts of things.  Nothing too radical - no making my own yoghurt, or bok choi chips; just a massive fish pie, a farro risotto from Nigellissima - made with bacon bits to stop it being too healthy or boring; a melanzane parmigiano with extra mozzarella; bean and tomato soup; toast with homemade damson jam, the list goes on.  

I don't really like to cook, despite being quite good at it when I do; the things I really like to make involve twenty minutes frantic work, then leaving it in the oven for the rest of the time.  Like baking.  Baking is satisfyingly maths-y with all the measuring and weighing, then you mix it all together in the Kenwood, bung it in a cake tin, and ta-dah there is a cake.  Icing on the other hand is a massively boring chore, and I utterly discard it.  Which is why my cakes taste great, but look like they've been sat on by an elephant.  

Anyway, all this healthy eating is paying dividends, and I have lost about two inches from the waist, and nothing at all from the hips - not in one month, of course, but the new regime is working, and if I can only get off my bum a bit more often and go for a run, life will be perfection and joy.  I would like to be able to cut a smaller Coco next time.

I went for a quick drink with my colleagues on Friday, getting home at twenty past one, having heard all the gossip (none of which is interesting to other people) and having shot my mouth off about all sorts.  One of them asked me how I had lost all the weight, and I surprised myself by being quite evangelical about running, and the Get Running app in particular. If you are thinking of a couch to 5K programme, this one is fantastic, not at all annoying, and lets you play your own music.  Get Running are not paying me to advertise their app; they bloody should be.

Tonight's Unprocessed delight is Wild Salmon with Noodles and Spinach and Soy Sauce and three glasses of red.  Followers of the regime will be delighted to learn that I count vodka and haribo as being unprocessed, if not a key ingredient in the weight loss.

PS While searching for a title for this post, I was offered the chance to "Spice up my Sex Routine".  Something to consider for the long winter nights.

Eat food, not too much, mostly plants

It's October, and it's October Unprocessed again.  Hurrah! 31 days of no added sugar, no shit lunchtime noodles and no processed food of any sort.  I shall mainly be eating grass, the hamster's sawdust and bulbs from the park opposite.  Last year, I sort of stuck to these "rules", guidelines, perhaps; and I've just made myself laugh out loud at the ridiculousness of some of the things I thought I could do.  "Make your own cereal bars", what an idiot.

Anyway, I think I will stick to more or less the same rules this year, with the exception of no Chinese pot noodles, which I am sick of anyway, and aren't that great for you either.

No Diet Coke.

Less sugar.

Baking my own bread for a month - this one is a bit difficult, as I don't really eat that much bread, and we end up with far too much bread, as we still buy bread for the fusspots sandwiches.  Maybe that should be "Don't eat rubbish bread".

If I can buy it as an ingredient (baking powder, caster sugar, flour), it's OK.

Cook more and menu plan like mad.

Like last year, that is not very far from what we eat as a family anyway.  The children eat more processed food than us - chicken nuggets, fish fingers, frankfurters, yoghurt, that sort of thing; and I don't really drink very much or eat things like takeaways more than once a month.  What a virtuous person I am.

I've also started doing the 30 Day Shred again, which was as challenging as I remember, although my recovery time is much faster, which is great.  I quite enjoyed it, bizarrely.  The running has made a real difference, particularly to my attitude to exercise.  I've signed up for a 10k race around London in February, and I really, really want to do it in under 80 minutes, which is doable for me, as I am very, very slow runner, so I'd better get out training again.  

Me me me me me me me me.  It's what you all come here for. 

Do try to listen to this episode of Analysis, it's on the iplayer, and is very, very interesting.  I'm going to get Michael Pollan's books, they sound great.  His mantra is "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants", and it's a really good way to look at diet.  I'd add, "do more things" to that too, just to add in a bit of exercise.  Told you my attitude had changed.

October Unprocessed

How is it the end of another month?  Term's only just started, surely.  But no, payday has rolled around, and it will be October next week.  Fans of the blog will know that that means only one thing:

Hurrah.  This year, I have decided to write down my own simple rules for the challenge.

No Diet Coke.

Less sugar.

Baking my own bread for a month.

If I can buy it as an ingredient (baking powder, caster sugar, flour*), it's OK.

Cook more and menu plan like mad.

Chinese style noodle soup for lunch are OK as they are meant to be horrible.

I will buy bread for the children, as they are super fussy about their sandwiches.  

I feel that this is within the spirit of the challenge, if not the letter.  The letter of the law is far, far too difficult to achieve if you work, have young children, and basically can't be bothered.  I've done it before, and all that happened was that I craved Diet Coke for a whole month, and then didn't want it afterwards.  I didn't feel amazing for doing it, as it's not a million miles away from my normal diet.  We don't really eat processed food as a family - processed meat such as bacon (rarely), chorizo, ham, of course, cheese, milk, sugar, but I read ingredients, and if there are more than five things that I can't pronounce, I don't buy it.  The most processed food in the house at the moment are Jordan's Chewy Bars, that Lucy loves, and I've found a way to make my own which we can do together, so hopefully I can replace those.  Jordan's Chewy Bars, for the record, contain no artificial colourings, flavourings or preservatives, but do have "natural flavourings" which are refined from natural ingredients, and while are OK, can't be made in the home kitchen. 

If you want to know more about this, have a look at this website.  It really is quite interesting, and the most eye-opening thing is just how shit the average American diet must be.

*I looked this up: all UK flour is unbleached (no chlorine allowed), so it is fine to use in the challenge.