Renew my heart O Lord

Draw me close to you Holy Spirit.

Lord I come to You
Let my heart be changed, renewed.
flowing from the grace I found in You.

And Lord I have come to know
The weakness I see in me
Will be stripped away by the power of your Love.

Hold me close
Let Your love surround me
Bring me near draw me to your side

And as I wait
I'll rise up like the eagle
Your Spirit leads me on
In the power of your love

Lord unveil my eyes
Let me see you face to face
The knowledge of your love
As you live in me.

Lord renew my mind
As Your will unfolds in my life
In living every day by the power of your love.

Taken from "Power of your love" by Hillsong.

This is my prayer tonight Lord.

How I love the verses of this song.

Failed Week 1.

This week has been hard. I wont deny it. Converting to this way of eating is difficult and week one hasn't gone so well. It seems that trying to make two suppers is a nightmare as the kids do not want to eat what I am eating. Doing a roast chicken was fine as the family can have the rice and potato's, and I just skipped that, but many of our meals are dishes such as lasagna, macaroni cheese, spaghetti bolognaise, pesto pasta etc are all dishes that they love and I now cannot eat. On Thursday, I made a delicious meal of chicken breasts, with green beans, broccoli and baby cabbage. It was delicious, but everyone hated the cabbage and A hated the green beans too!

Yesterday I caved in, and we all had chicken wraps. I need to make a meal planner that will work for everyone.

Low Carb High Fat Diet

So, the aim of my Low Carb High Fat " diet", I hate the word diet as its an eating lifestyle is to become more healthy. I want to reduce my fatigue levels, and improve my overall health. Eating the LCHF way is  as follows: Eat good whole food, loads of veggies, a bit of fruit ( some say no fruit to start and introduce after two weeks), meat ( all kinds), and eggs. Now this is my kinda food. I love eggs! I can happily eat them every day if given the opportunity. Here is a list of " Yes" and "No" foods. Taken from http://www.dietdoctor.com/lchf

Eat all you like

• Meat: Any type, including beef, pork, game meat, chicken, etc. Feel free to eat the fat on the meat as well as the skin on the chicken. If possible try to choose organic or grass fed meat.
• Fish and Shellfish: All kinds: Fatty fish such as salmon, mackerel or herring are great. Avoid breading.
• Eggs: All kinds: Boiled, fried, omelettes, etc. Preferably choose organic eggs.
• Natural Fat, High-Fat Sauces: Using butter and cream when you cook can make your food taste better and make you feel more satiated. Try a Béarnaise or Hollandaise sauce, check the ingredients or make it yourself. Coconut oil and olive oil are also good options.
• Vegetables that Grow Above Ground: All kinds of cabbage, such as cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage and Brussels sprouts. Asparagus, zucchini, eggplant, olives, spinach, mushrooms, cucumber, lettuce, avocado, onions, peppers, tomatoes etc.
• Dairy products: Always select full-fat options like real butter, cream (40% fat), sour cream, Greek/Turkish yogurt and high-fat cheeses. Be careful with regular milk and skim milk as they contain a lot of milk sugar. Avoid flavored, sugary and low-fat products.
• Nuts: Good to eat instead of candy in front of the television (preferably in moderation).
• Berries: Okay in moderation, if you are not a super strict or sensitive. Good with whipped cream.

Avoid if you can

• Sugar: The worst. Soft drinks, candy, juice, sports drinks, chocolate, cakes, buns, pastries, ice cream, breakfast cereals. Preferably avoid sweeteners as well.
• Starch: Bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, French fries, potato chips, porridge, muesli and so on. “Wholegrain products” are just less bad. Moderate amounts of root vegetables may be OK (unless you’re eating extremely low carb).
• Margarine: Industrially imitated butter with unnaturally high content of omega-6 fat. Has no health benefits, tastes bad. Statistically linked to asthma, allergies and other inflammatory diseases.
• Beer: Liquid bread. Full of rapidly absorbed carbs, unfortunately.
• Fruit: Very sweet, lots of sugar. Eat once in a while. Treat fruit as a natural form of candy.

Once in a while

You decide when the time is right. Your weight loss may slow down a bit.

• Alcohol: Dry wine (regular red or dry white wine), whisky, brandy, vodka and cocktails without sugar.
• Dark chocolate: Above 70 % cocoa, preferably just a bit.

Tonights Supper

Tonight's supper was a spicy chicken liver salad, made with loads of olive oil, and again olive oil was used as a salad dressing. Totally amazing.

Lunch time

I was very fortunate to be at a deli during lunch time and ordered a smoked ham salad. Looks good doesn't it!

Oh dear

So I found out that fruit is forbidden for the first two weeks or so..... Oh dear.

I will not give up fruit but if its just for two weeks, then I will give it a bash!

Breakfast Day 1

Breakfast Day 1

I dont know how much fruit you are allowed, but I will not give up fruit. I am quiet happy to have say 2 portions a day and am sure that as long as its not including banana it should be fine. Today is pear, with a kiwi and strawberries. Okay, its 3 fruit, but lets face it, Kiwi's are tiny things and its all good low carb fruit.
I added a handful of sunflower seeds, rich in Selenium and Vit E and a table spoon of melted coconut oil, which is high in good fatty acid. Overall a great breakfast.

Starting the Loc Carb High Carb Diet

So today begins my "official" low carb high fat diary.
I have been on this for a month or now, but not following the rules 100% and decided that from 01 November, I would set some goals in place and actually write down what I want to achieve.

I want to improve my health and weight. I only need to lose a bit of weight, being 2 kg's only, I have been really struggling to get down to my goal weight range. Another goal has been to get fitter, and so I have been going back to the gym as and started adding some resistance training to my normal cardio routine.

My downfalls have been the week end. This is because the weekly meal routine seems to go out of the window and I end up going back to cheese rolls and sandwiches. Supper time is also hard as I cannot keep preparing separate meals for myself and the family.

I am also starting a LCHF training course by nutritionist Sally Ann Creed, who is an inspiration to me and about to buy her recipe book with Dr Tim Noakes called The Real Meal Revolution as I desperately need some meal planners here.

So, join me on my LCHF journey to health and perhaps you will be inspired to change the way you look at your food yourself.

50 Geocaches

Wow, since my last blog we have found 50, yes 50 geocaches. Cool hey. Tomorrow I will post some pics on our adventures we have had as well as a pic of the new GPS that I am still trying to figure out how to use, my Garmin GPSmap 62s

My new hobby GEOCACHING

I have a new hobby called GEOCACHING.

Geocaching is an outdoor recreational activity, in which the participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver or mobile device and other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers, called "geocaches" or "caches", anywhere in the world.

A typical cache is a small waterproof container containing a logbook where the geocacher enters the date they found it and signs it with their established code name. After signing the log, the cache must be placed back exactly where the person found it. Larger containers such as plastic storage containers (Tupperware or similar) or ammunition boxes can also contain items for trading, usually toys or trinkets of little financial value, although sometimes they are sentimental. Geocaching shares many aspects withbenchmarking, trigpointing, orienteering, treasure-hunting, letterboxing, and waymarking.

This is way fun and very adventurous and gets you to visit area's right under your nose that you never knew about. We have had such fun locating these caches in the last few weeks and the kids are so delighted when they find them.