Practising what we preach
I'd just heated up my 'left-overs for lunch' when one of our lovely therapists suggested I should take a photo of my food and blog about it. To be honest, such things don't occur to me and I don't think I have ever taken a photo of food before - whether it's my own concoction or something I've ordered, however, in the interests of getting up-to-date, I have now done just that. Excuse the photo, it may not be up to Instagram standards!
It made me think about what we eat here at the clinic. We are, after all, aiming to promote health and fertility but what people say isn't always what they do. Amongst the therapists who work here, and not all are fertility related, we have a couple of vegans, meat eaters, some dairy free, one (me) who follows a ketogenic eating pattern (low, but not no, carbs) - that's for blood sugar balancing, not for weight loss - and some raw cacao fans. Every one of us is conscious about what we eat and we take care to balance our foods but none of us are fanatical. I would say all of us are relatively healthy and we each exercise in our own ways - some more regularly or intensely than others. We stick to the 80/20 rule - if you're doing 80% right then the odd piece of cake, bottle of wine and slobbing day are not going to do any harm. In fact, I'd go so far as to say they'll do some good as it removes any pressure and is much more realistic (especially over Christmas!).
Most of us at the clinic work long days and bring our own food in with us. It gets too expensive to keep buying lunch when you're in the middle of town. As I said, I try to keep my carb intake low so that my blood sugar stays balanced and it's made a massive difference to how I feel. The bowl of food in the picture is my own recipe of 'butternut squash curry'. Basically, heat some coconut oil with cumin seeds, garam masala, chilli flakes and some turmeric until sizzling then add the diced and skinned butternut squash pieces with some garlic. Let them brown a bit and then add either water or tinned tomatoes (water in this one), veggie stock pot/cube, frozen spinach and peas (you can add anything you want at this stage). Once the butternut squash is soft I turn the heat off and stir in coconut cream/milk and then dig in. Butternut squash still contains carbs but has a low glycemic index and it's filling so great for a Winter's night. The coconut milk adds essential healthy fats which also keep you feeling satisfied for longer.