Ivory Coast faces civil war while I battle the bulge...

Well I hate to admit it, but keeping at it (perseverance), not cheating (that’s no Death by Chocolate for dessert), and exercising frequently are the basic recipe to losing weight.


It’s so non-mysterious! It’s not like finding a miracle fad diet (read Twinkie diet!), and it’s not like trying for a long time and giving up because it just doesn’t work.

The bottom line is that if you eat healthily, and keep your calories in check every day, plus exercise, it doesn’t matter what age you are, it will make you more fit, and help you lose weight (or inches – since muscle weighs more than fat).



So, since my last rant, 16 days have past (bad blogger!), and that makes 24 days since I started my quest to lose the muffin top.

I am happy to report that, despite a trip to South Africa (Cape Town for the weekend! – which is always quite dangerous on the culinary front) in between, I have not cheated, I have exercised at least every second day for an hour or so, and

….drum roll…

I have lost over 4 kilos! (That’s about 9lbs). After my despair with the scale, I left it alone for a couple weeks and voila! It rewarded me when I returned, having done my part every day in between.

So, even though this only brings me back to a starting weight from previous diets, it has done wonders. I am swimming in my fat clothes and fitting (some still snugly) into my ‘medium’ jeans!! Yippee!



Does this mean I can O.D. on Nanaimo bars over the upcoming Christmas holidays back home? I mean what is a good Canadian Christmas without the 800 calorie per glass glug of egg nog (Jack in the Box brand), and trough like quantities of shortbreads and homemade balls and bars?

I am planning on doing my best to keep the indulgences at bay for the most part. Except Christmas day of course!

I WILL NOT bring my fat jeans along on this trip… but there is always the temptation of comfy leggings that accommodate any lumps, bumps and expansions. But I resolve! And how important is it in the big scheme of things??

As a little reality check – I am sitting in a capital city, 200 miles from the border of our neighboring country, that is at the brink of civil war as I write this.

Last week two political rivals were each sworn in as president and leader of the same country, and neither is willing to step down. Power sharing is apparently out of the question (and isn’t much of a solution if you take Zimbabwe as an example!).

Stay tuned.

The Cobra the beans and the belly

So today is Monday. We promised (JW and I as a team) that the diet starts Monday. It was with conviction, after a few months of excess and due to the fact that our clothes are stretching to the limit to accommodate our girth…

So this morning my colleague comes to my desk, and assaults me with an offer I find I can’t refuse. Red red from the roadside seller in Osu. For lunch. Today.

“Ok! Great, thanks.” I’m all excited.

All those vows taken last night, as I chomped on a biscuit smothered in butter, with accompanying warm tea…forgotten in an instant.

But how could I fall so quickly? Day one, meal two?? (Breakfast was a very controlled scrambled egg. Plain. With water and multivitamins).

“Oh, but I shouldn’t. My diet started today.” Laughter from colleagues ensues… You see, this 'diet starting Monday' may have had quite a few public false starts…

The thing is that this red red from this seller is not something you can resist.
Red red is a local Ghanaian dish consisting of a tomatoey bean stew, served with fried plantains. Not low cal stuff. It’s yummy.

The famous seller has been sitting at her tiny outdoor stall, serving up the delicious stuff in bright green banana leaves, for literally YEARS. She sits on a bumpy untarred dead end road, near the old American Embassy in Osu (before they built their new fortress of epic proportions). People come from miles around.. (My colleague being a case in point. I will call him Ernie here, to protect his innocence).

On Friday Ernie mentioned going there and how amazing the food was – the smell, the texture as he indulged with his hands, scooping the beans from the waxy leaf, just like the good old days. The experience transported him to his youth and the carefree days of school.

As he was narrating the story, another colleague walked by and said:

“You know what you are eating!” in a warning tone and walked off. Ernie called her back.

“No, come back! Tell us what!”

A small crowd of us gathered. All the Ghanaians knew what she was going to say. I was the only clueless one (A common occurrence for me here!).

“The cobra under the table!”

Everyone laughed. It is apparently common knowledge/superstition/rumour that this woman uses juju (in this case a mystical cobra snake that hides in her stall), to get her customers craving her food and coming back for more.

I was amazed at this silly belief people hold, creating a witchhunt mentality – just because someone is doing well and has maintained a customer base.

Now it’s Monday. I am supposed to be on day one of a strict and purposeful diet, and yet my mouth has been watering since first thing this morning at the mere suggestion of the red red…

Perhaps there’s more to this juju thing than I care to admit???

On the other hand I could just be a typical diet failure, losing the willpower before it began!!!

The diet starts Tuesday.

Ode to the tomato - eating lots prevents sunburn!!

I watched an interesting program last night, on one of my favourite channels. Keeping in mind, as an Expat in Africa there is not much choice by way of television watching. Why, you say, more time to get out there and discover the continent! But I digress...
On our satellite DTH bouquet, we get robbed of $72 per month, for about 10 watchable channels. All are showing series from a few years back at best. BBC Prime rarely disappoints though, and it's culinary cousin BBC Food has some great shows. Tonight was "The Truth About Food". (It was probably aired in the UK in 2005)

The truth, according to the experts on this witty and wise program is:

1. Detox diets don't work, they are a myth - wheatgrass shakes are disgusting and now we know it's not worth the putrid mashed lawn taste and feel!

2. Drinking 2 extra litres a day is not beneficial to our skin. Really? Wow! That means about every diet known to humankind has missed out on some scientific facts...

3. Eating brightly coloured foods is good for your health. The brighter your plate, the better the eating.

Berries help memory

Spinach helps eyesight

4. Red wine is good for you - but only 2 glasses a day and only with a meal!!!

It's apparently the French secret to healthy hearts despite all the fatty cheeses, sauces and meat they consume. However, it's the pigment in the skin that holds all the benefits so white wine doesn't substitute! Cabernet Sauvignon is apparently the best. So drink up!

5. Tomatoes help protect skin against the damaging affects of the sun. Seems a tad far fetched but they took a typical pinky, freckled Brit who had zero tolerance and burned in the mid morning winter sun of chilly Scotland... Put her on a heavy tomato diet for a month or so, and presto - she could bask in the Caribbean without a pink patch in sight! ... or something like that. Living in a climate where the sun shines 350 of 365 days, at temperatures averaging 34 degrees celcius, this knowledge comes in handy! I will incorporate more of this readily available, ungenetically mutated local crop into my diet.

I knew Pablo Neruda, who remains my favourite poet of all time, wasn't dreaming when he deified the humble tomato... poem below:

Ode To Tomatoes
The street
filled with tomatoes,
midday,
summer,
light is
halved
like
a
tomato,
its juice
runs
through the streets.
In December,
unabated,
the tomato
invades
the kitchen,
it enters at lunchtime,
takes
its ease
on countertops,
among glasses,
butter dishes,
blue saltcellars.
It sheds
its own light,
benign majesty.
Unfortunately, we must
murder it:
the knife
sinks
into living flesh,
red
viscera
a cool
sun,
profound,
inexhaustible,
populates the salads
of Chile,
happily, it is wed
to the clear onion,
and to celebrate the union
we
pour
oil,
essential
child of the olive,
onto its halved hemispheres,
pepper
adds
its fragrance,
salt, its magnetism;
it is the wedding
of the day,
parsley
hoists
its flag,
potatoes
bubble vigorously,
the aroma
of the roast
knocks
at the door,
it's time!
come on!
and, on
the table, at the midpoint
of summer,
the tomato,
star of earth, recurrent
and fertile
star,
displays
its convolutions,
its canals,
its remarkable amplitude
and abundance,
no pit,
no husk,
no leaves or thorns,
the tomato offers
its gift
of fiery color
and cool completeness.

Back on diet

Some of us make New Years Resolutions (to eat healthy, to be on a diet etc.) and stick to them... Some of us fall off the wagon and roll down the hill.... and into deep swampy ponds, and sink hard.

Someone I know - and I swear it wasn't me, but rather a certain male-ish half of a twosome I am in - fell hard recently and had a real binge weekend to end it in style. The peanut butter and jam and bread were all cowering in their respective corners in fear. And they had reason to shiver, as they were soon to be fashioned into gluttonous heavy, sopping squares of indulgence.. The Milo and the milk and the much coveted porridge had no chance... as they were soon swirling around in sugar saturated bowls of carbohydrate bliss. All of this was bought in a Supermarket frenzy at the new Accra mall - all as a last chance prelude to the lean days ahead.

Today is Monday. Today marks the first day of the rest of the year where 'some people' will climb the dusty ladder back up to where us righteous ones are riding along on the wagon... to 'healthy living'.

And the journey for this 'someone' started with plain fried eggs for breakfast and a tin of sardines for lunch... yum....

Too much of a good thing is always bad

I’m falling apart. Literally. Who knew that a person could “OD” on canned tuna.

I started 2008 on the right foot. After months of indulgence at the end of last year I decided this year would be all health and vibrancy, my body is my temple, warm fuzzy feeling type year.

Well think again before you embark on a health food diet. I had decided on the Candida diet which is meant to inhibit the growth of yeast in your body, but boils down to a typical sustainable diet like all the other mainstream ones – only healthier. Or so I thought.

The list of allowable foods is pretty limited, but includes all the things which we have come to believe are good for us. Lots of veggies - apart from the starchy ones, lots of seeds and nuts and fish of all sorts. Chicken, occasionally beef and a few fruits and beans. The amazing thing is that I managed to get into it, stick with it and find things I liked. No cheating – no fries, bread, desserts, not even caffeine. What could be bad in that?

Little did I know that the supposed ‘brain food’ I was consuming daily, sometimes twice daily for months in the form of fish, was slowly filling my body with a powerful neurotoxin. Mercury.

It’s not like there aren’t warnings about ocean fish consumption everywhere, especially with the sushi craze that’s hit North America over the past 5 years… but who can take these things seriously? I mean, you have to choose your demons. It’s safe to say that bleached white starches and processed sugars are bad. But fish??!!

It turns out that a diet including more than one can of tuna in 3 weeks can put you way over the danger limit. I am also convinced that the grade of tuna sold locally in Ghana (there is a Starkist factory here), is subjected to far fewer stringent regulations about what toxin levels can be...

How did I realize that this monster was accumulating in my body? About a month ago my hair started falling out in clumps. In the shower, dark brown furry animal-like balls of hair would cascade down my body and clog the drain. I was alarmed over the few weeks it continued persistently and then began my usual first step toward investigations: self diagnosis via the Internet!!! The first site I found, “Something’s fishy” came out of a random search about unexplained hair loss. Some scary stuff there. Then I read in deeper detail the technical side of what mercury does in the body. One of the points in that article mentioned that mercury poisoning causes tremors which commonly start as an eye twitch. So you can imagine my alarm when three days ago my right eye started a persistent twitch along with the hair loss.

So needless to say, I have stopped all consumption of fish. Which quite sadly for me, means NO MORE SUSHI!!! (That’s like taking away Christmas and birthdays to a child!)
It takes from a few months right up to 15 years for mercury to leave various parts of the body, once it’s attached itself to cells. It does not float in the bloodstream and is hence difficult to remove.

So now that I have polluted my body unknowingly or ignorantly over the past 5 months, on my “healthy” diet… I can look forward to further hair loss, and I shudder to think of the further complications…

So what do the experts suggest as a detox from Mercury? Aside from a controversial drug called DMPS that was commonly given to people who got mercury poisoning from amalgam teeth fillings a couple decades ago, they advocate another bloody diet….

Dieting in Africa

After months of serious indulgence at the end of 2007, we did the thing people do on December 31st, we vowed to make a New Year's resolution to diet, lose weight, get fit (in that order).

From DAY1 - January 1st, we cut out all bread, grains, potatoes, SUGAR, caffeine and all the other baddies in the world of food.

John leaned toward an Atkins diet, I leaned more toward an Anti Candida diet. Luckily they are both quite similar.

In fact, most main stream diets that have any clout, all advocate that the following guidelines are necessary: cut out most sugars, all white breads, grains and starchy foods, caffeine should be eliminated, you should drink lots of water, and you need moderate exercise. They are mostly common sense.

Well we are 3 and a half months into this diet/lifestyle change and I am happy to report we've each lost 8 kilos/17lbs. The trouble is that common sense is a difficult thing to keep at hand when one is faced with temptation.

Living in Ghana as an Expat in our company means that we are constantly hosting guests from abroad. In a given week we may have one to two guests staying with us, and two to five suppers out at fancy restaurants. This means that will power is as necessary as oxygen, yet as slippery as a slide.

The good thing is that these diets do allow for treats that are both good for you and yummy, and one has to focus on them to avoid cheating constantly.

Dark chocolate has numerous health benefits as well as blueberries. I love both, and these small pleasures keep me on track the rest of the time for the most part. (Except when a good red wine is opened... but they do claim red wine also has it's health benefits!)

This brings me to my issue of dieting - in Africa.

It's all just so self indulgent, when one considers that we are concerned about cutting back on foods that are abundant and everywhere, available in excess, while everywhere around us there are millions of people surrounding us who's annual income could not pay for even one of our dinners out.

It's just so ridiculous that in the new (and only) mall in Ghana we push our carts round the aisles, choosing items based on healthy choices etc, despite the fact that 90% of these items have to be imported. Blueberries at $9 per 100grams... dark chocolate bars at $10... no problem.

WHAT?! This is absurd! Minimum wage here is under $2 per day. So it would take a minimum wage worker here 5 days to be able to afford 100grams of blueberries. Yet these items sell. The shelves fill and empty. We get all excited when the shipment of fresh milk is flown in - $5 per litre. The Expats and the upper middle class Ghanaians mull around the shop doing their weekly shop without much thought.

Meanwhile, we are in Africa. Starvation and poverty are the most pertinent subjects.
Traditional foods here are made of 90% heavy starches - to fill empty bellies.

The concept of dieting is borne out of success, excess, progress. Our choices are many, it becomes our decision to choose the good from the bad.

Give us this day our daily bread - but please make it wheat free, gluten free, sugar free, unbleached, with organic eggs...