Goddess of Plenty...

...plenty of dishes, plenty of carbs, plenty of drinks....

I'm 3 weeks into my fitness program and I have to say this week I had too much plenty.

It was my birthday so I treated myself.  With a special dinner and plenty of cake.  And I don't feel the slightest bit of guilt.  I have recently taken up baking and I enjoyed the fruits (okay the chocolate ganache) of my labour.  In fact, I enjoyed it twice.

My work colleague recently did me a huge favour and fixed my computer.  He bought it back from the dead.  I baked him scones to say thank you.  I ate some of the scones.  With Jam. And Cream.  Because. Scones.

I didn't feel guilty about that either.

The scales may not weigh in my favour this week - but I'm in this for the long run.  It's not about dropping massive kilos, it's not about looking like anyone else, it's about finding the best version of me.  If I only drop 2 kilos but feel strong, healthy and happy then so be it.

But hell if you can't enjoy cake (and maybe a couple of scotches) on your birthday then quite frankly I'd like to quit the human race now.  Because life is for living, enjoying, relishing and taking immense pleasure in.

Oh and hey, now that I'm baking and not poisoning anyone, I guess I'm a goddess in another room of the house now?  Ha!  But just for balance, I must confess I'll never be a goddess of housework. Because UGH.

Kill me now if I ever blog about the joys of ironing...

Perversity, potential and pastry

I'm a highly creative and highly organised person (often these two traits don't go together), so you'd think that cooking would satisfy by both my creative and organised side - but that's not the case.

I was a fussy eater as a child and it wasn't until in my 20s I discovered a love of eating food, but I did not discover a love of cooking food.  Whatever I could cook the fastest and with the least amount of trouble was on the menu - when I wasn't organising takeaway.

But at the start of 2013 I gave away sugar and highly processed food.  This changed my cooking (and eating) habits. I still didn't really enjoy cooking as such, but I was definitely doing more of it.

In April this year I got full time work.  Meaning I had less time to be at home and prepare meals.  Perversely, this made me more determined to provide nourishing, home cooked meals for myself and my kids.  Probably because everyone thought I couldn't do it - after all I hardly did it while working part time.

Then on top of full time work I took on presenting a radio show once a month. (Directors Cut on your local ABC Digital station if you'd like to tune in)  A half an hour show doesn't sound like a lot - except for the fact that I have to review an entire lifetime of  our chosen director's work, research how he works, organise questions, interview my regular guest, edit it and package it up on top of full time work.  Add to this, the fact that I volunteer for a community theatre company preparing the programs for their shows and I'm currently in pre-production for a play with my own little production company and one could say life was busy.  Oh, did I mention I'm a single parent?  My life is crazy-busy full and I love it.

People have said to me "Oh you'll never be able to keep this up", and this is where my perversity comes into it.  Because: yes I will.  I love being busy. I THRIVE on being busy.  I'm a better person when I'm busy.  When I have nothing to do - I become a lazy, lousy, unmotivated, boring, putrifying piece of  flesh on my couch.

But I still had time to spare.  What to do with it I said?  (The busier I am, the more I find to do - as I said PERVERSE).  Then I discovered GABO (Great Australian Bake Off).  I don't watch cooking shows. Ugh.  Everyone is on a journey.  Everyone cries when their souffle falls or their beef isn't perfectly pink in the middle (the only time I've ever seen people cry over food is when I serve up dinner at my house).

I only watched this as my colleague and friend Monique was on it.  At the end of the first show, my eldest son said to me "Well you could never do that".  RED FLAG TO A BULL.

I spent the weekend making Monique's swimming pool showstopper cake.  It took 6 hours. But I did it.  Since then I've discovered a love of baking.  Weirdly it's not for the finished product.  It's for the intense concentration and focus I have to have.  It's like meditation.  Whatever stresses I have in my life (admittedly not many) fade away as I concentrate not to fuck up a cake.

Unfortunately for me, this love of baking has coincided with me starting signing up to a 12 week fitness program.  No more licking the spoons for me.  I'm not going to stop baking.  I'm just going to share the cake around.  I was only 2 days into this program when GABO decided to a show on cheesecakes.  I. LOVE. CHEESECAKE.  I would MARRY cheesecake.  Monique had to go and make one of my favourite flavours of cheesecake - baked sour cream and blueberry cheesecake (the couch cushions did receive a fair amount of drool that night).  But I didn't run to the cupboard and stuff my face with sweet things. I sipped on my herbal tea and envisioned my wobbly thighs not being wobbly anymore and got through it.

It's truly perverse that when I discover a love of cooking rich foods and baking decadent desserts that I start a nutrition kick.  But as I've said I'm perverse.  Let's hope my new found love of pastry doesn't get in the way of my fitness potential.  Like Monique, I'd rather be a sporty baker and leave my wibble-wobble as the description for my cheesecake.

Food, food, glorious food

I'm going to come right out and say it. I LOVE FOOD.  LOVE IT.  I'm not one of those "eat to live" people.  I'm not necessarily a "live to eat" person either.  But I love food.  I love healthy, nutritious food and I love super rich, fatty, clog your arteries feel guilty afterwards food.  Eating is an awesome experience.  I cherish food.  We're all clear on how I feel about food, right?  But sometimes I can go a whole day without eating.  I forget.  What type of person who loves food, can forget it?  But I do.

The best way to describe my eating habits is indiscriminate.  Now that I'm over 40 though, this indiscriminate eating habit of mine is not working for me.  Oh, it's fine in your teens and early 20s...but not so much now.

I'm a fairly active person.  I don't go to the gym.  I don't walk daily, in fact I'm a bit of a couch potato from about 6:30 onwards most weeknights.  But from the moment I get up, til the moment I sit down and watch the umpteenth re-run of Friends that I STILL find funny (Oh Chandler marry me, I love you still) I pretty much lay on the couch, drink cups of tea and occasionally scrounge whatever sweet stuff I can find in my pantry during the commercial breaks.

That's pretty hard for me because I don't buy rubbish food.  In fact I order my food online so I don't get tempted at the supermarket chocolate aisle, or the chip aisle or the fridges that stock the soft, gooey cheese that I like.  So I end up eating tablespoons of milo, nutella or lemon spread on the occasions the sweet cravings get the better of me.

On the weekends I have my children, Saturday night is junk food night.  They get to choose so it's generally pizza or MacDonalds, eaten with much gusto and fighting over who's getting that extra chicken nugget.  Yes I take food out of their mouths.  Mother. Of. The. Year.  I've even occasionally hidden treats and opened them after they went to bed.  Because I deserve it.  You know, being a single parent and all.  Actually just for breathing.

But now has come the time to take stock, put down the fairy bread and stop eating cheezels off my fingers (unless it's my birthday - then all bets are off).

So I've done something I swore I'd never do, because I don't believe in "dieting" and I don't believe a person's life focus should be how small their bum is in a pair of jeans.  But I signed up for a fitness program.  I'm not interested in becoming super skinny.  I'm never going to be that girl.  Even when I was at my fittest, I still had an arse that had people quoting Sir Mixalot at me.  I have curves.  I like my curves.  I'm not that fond of the jelly centre that's covering the curves at the moment, nor am I fond of the way my jeans seem to cut into me by about 3:30pm every day.  It's an uncomfortable feeling.

Now I'm cool with being outside my comfort zone, but I don't think worrying about your muffin top is what people are referring to when they use that saying, so it's time do something about it.  And I know me. I'm a team player and I'm competitive so to sign up to something where others are involved seems worth a shot to me.

So this blog is putting it out there. Holding me accountable.  I've got a friend on the outside and a work colleague on the inside to help keep me honest.  Oh I'm 100% positive I'll slip up and sneak a cheezel, and a few scotches, but life is still for living.  But I want to be sure I'm around to live it. So I'm going to give this thing a go.

Let's hope I'm not too sore to blog about the progress.  Let's hope I'm whiny and funny about the places I never knew I had to hurt.  Please God, let ME find it funny at least.