Dawn begins

 

Good-bye to my haven of peace and serenity

I was very optimistic thinking that I would have time to write a blog post every day leading up to my move out. I was on 17 acres after all! Even though a lot of the packing had been done in my third move 12 months before … there was still a lot to do. So I became very busy with clearing out all of the cupboards, house, and two sheds; organising help from a man with a ute for several trips to the dump; packing, cleaning … and some time in peaceful reflection saying good-bye. The children came to help for two out of the four weekends and we had fun together remembering happy family times, having a final walk down to the river, and one last dinner in their childhood home.

My property settlement was delayed three days and so I took an extra reflective day to say a final good-bye. At that stage, in an empty house, I spent a whole day looking at the views – one last time – and one more time – and then a final time – from sunrise to sunset.

Then like a turtle with my home on my back (my filled-to-the-brim car), I drove the five hours south to my new life waiting for me.

And hello to the sunshine. 

My new home overlooks a bay and, as it faces north, the sun provides warmth all day.
I have friendly neighbours and there is a feeling of community spirit here. I feel that I have made a good choice of a place that will suit me well.

It was no rest for me for the first weeks though. My furniture arrived a few days after me and it took me five weeks to do all the unpacking, arranging of furniture, as well as organising an electrician for a few new power points and lights.

I threw away more things as I unpacked, realising that I just did not need as much here as I thought. There was also a sudden need to cleanse myself of some things that triggered painful memories. I had kept certain things in my pack up – unable to let go – and yet as soon as I saw them in my new home, I knew for certain they no longer belonged in my new life.

I was hoping for a complete cleanse of my furniture and begin again with new things … but the finances did not stretch nearly that far. In fact although this house is smaller, it has cost me more, being closer to a city area than my previous home. That, as well as the 18 months bridging loan that I had (instead of the anticipated three months) has set me back a bit. So I am sitting quietly for a while, financially speaking, and not going mad with any unnecessary purchases or refurbishments.

It has taken me until now, eight weeks after moving, that I have finally feel I can get into a structured routine, and really begin my new life, my new life as me.

Have you heard me say that somewhere before? Yes. Many times. This is what I having been aiming for from my very first post – when it was dark and I was cold.

Finally dawn has arrived.

 

Countdown Day # 24

I had breakfast on the balcony looking east to the valley, and looking south to the river. The birds were singing. The river was making its way to the coast, burbling as it went. The sun was shining. The sky was blue. It was truly a magnificent start to the day. The peace and serenity of this magnificent paradise will be very hard to say good-bye to.

Last night, it was dark soon after I arrived. I ended up not having time to do very much. I watched some TV and then put on a DVD. I watched ‘I am Sam’. I cried all the way through it. For some reason, I was suddenly very overcome with emotion. That movie and its message of human connection and kindness really hit home to me.

I put my heart and soul into raising my children, teaching them life values of care and devotion, and steadfast dependability of being there for them … always. This home provided that strength and stability through its peace and tranquility. I will certainly miss that strength it provided me with.

I spent the day pondering, not doing much of what had to be done (all the packing) yet not fully being able to relax, knowing there was so much that had to be done.

So I made up lists. I wrote down all the rooms in the house and all the places outside. I wrote down all the cupboards and all the nooks and crannies. I wrote down everything that needed to be sorted and everything that needed to be done. I worked out which pieces of furniture I would need and which pieces I did not.

Then I did a puzzle.
I did some artistic work.
I did a bit of writing.
I spent some time on the balcony.
And inside looking down to the river.
And at my desk in my office.
And at the kitchen table looking east.
And from the reading room (ex-TV room), looking to the valley.

Peace. Tranquility. Calmness.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Then after dinner, I had a spurt of frenetic activity.
I began to sort out some cupboards – only two – but it was a start.

The beginning of the end.

Of that phase of my life.

 

 

here at last

When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.Viktor Frankl

 

I am here at last settled into my new house with BMW views (Beach, Mountain, Water). The house faces north so I get the sun all day. I walk to the beach twice a day and am keeping fit, well, and healthy. I am only 30 minutes from my eldest son and his family, and my daughter is also nearby.

Yet I feel a little bit home sick, pining for something, but uncertain exactly what.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

In his ground-breaking book about his experience of surviving the holocaust concentration camps Viktor Frankl describes three phases. The first phase is the shock of first arriving at camp. The second phase is entrenched in life at camp. The third phase is after liberation.

Frankl describes how in the second phase of complete uncertainty, stripped of everything from their former lives, people could still retain the freedom to choose their inner response to the situation. As opposed to feeling only misery, bearing suffering with dignity and finding goals for the future even in the midst of uncertainty, is what “makes life meaningful”.

Whilst I hesitate to compare my situation of divorce to that of a holocaust survivor, it is similar in that there were three phases. The first phase was that of my marriage collapse and being thrown into shock and chaos. The second phase was trudging through the marital settlement which took nearly four years. The third phase was the liberation from that process. Reading books like his helped me cope through many dark days of that second phase, the phase of prolonged suffering, by helping me form a sense of normality during that uncertain period, and an inner peace knowing that I still had choices.

During that horrible place, I got myself into a familiar routine and coped well with grace and dignity through all my suffering. I believe now, in a strange sort of way, I actually made a ‘career’ and new life for myself out of coping with my suffering. I branched out into a long phase of inner reflection and I began writing. I enjoyed writing and I felt I did it well.

When the settlement was finalized, I was free at last.

Since the ending of my trudging through the marital settlement, life has been unsettled as I have been in transition yet doing worthwhile things such as living life, visiting friends and family, sorting out my mothers estate and travelling.

I have now moved into my new home by the sea, ready to settle into my new life. But in many many ways, I have now been thrown back into another era of uncertainty.

What do I do now?

Winding the clock back six years, there was me in the certainty of my marriage, career, and community. I knew who I was and where I was going. The crisis of my marriage ending brought with it a loss of my identity that is now long gone which I grieved.

In my second phase world of trudging through the marital settlement, coping with the suffering and writing about it had become my new identity. It had become my place of certainty. As horrible as it was, my trudging through that mud had become a familiar place and I was safe in its familiarity.

Now life is again unfamiliar to me.

I am finding that I have been through or am going through another “identity crisis” of wondering who I am and who I will become. That identity I had made for myself, of writing about positive aspects of coping with my suffering no longer exists as I am no longer ‘suffering’. Then what will I do with my life? What will I write about?

Now I realize that is my answer.

Find out.

And write about it.

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New Year – looking back and reaching forward – a significant turning point

As per my usual reflecting in my journal on the year that has gone, and setting goals for the year ahead, I noticed a turning point in my thought processes from previous years.

While all the ‘good’ things I listed were personal: the birth of my third gorgeous and precious grand-daughter, meeting three Canadian blogging friends (YAY!), and moving to Hobart environs to be closer to two of my children; I noticed that the ‘bad’ things I listed were all world affairs: political divides in UK and US, global refugee crisis, world-wide obesity epidemic etc.

It wasn’t that I did not have major personal things to tackle the past year, as I have had – such as sorting my mother’s affairs and moving home which were both huge life changes. It was the fact that I am now seeing personal hard times as issues to solve, rather than as problems dragging me down.

AND, I am now not so preoccupied with my own problems that I cannot see the world  events taking place. This is a huge step forward from when I was in the midst of trauma and thinking of such things was so painful and beyond me that I set those thoughts aside.

Now … on to solving world poverty …

 

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climbing out of black holes

“If someone comes along and shoots an arrow into your heart, its fruitless to stand there and yell at the person. It would be much better to turn your attention to the fact that there’s an arrow in your heart.” Pema Chodron

When my marriage collapsed, and especially because of the way it collapsed, I felt stunned, vulnerable and scared. I felt like a knife had been pushed into my heart. I felt I had been wronged.

After the initial shock I began reading as much as I could, books, articles, blogs. Many of those sources tended to focus on the ex-spouse. In that regard, there is much space in the ‘divorce’ genre devoted to the diagnosis (usually by unqualified people) of personality defects (such as narcissist or sociopath) or them going through a mid-life crisis or similar that may have led the ex-spouse to do what they did. Because at the time I felt so bad about myself, then reading about that did provide some comfort that there may have been something wrong with “him”, rather than something wrong with “me” and I was simply a victim of my ex-husband’s action. As for my own writing, I didn’t focus so much on negative things about him but I did focus on the event of the marriage collapse itself, the suddenness of it, how painful it was and what a bad thing to have happened to me. In that regard, I was still a victim, of a bad event.

If bad things happen, I do think that one does have to work through negative feelings associated with the event. However, at some point, and this started very early for me and then grew, I decided to focus on myself and improving myself rather than focus on what had happened and why. Later on when I became overwhelmed by the amount that had to be done in the divorce process and financial settlement, I began to re-frame that process as a step towards my new life. In other words, I focussed on getting out of the hole, rather than being in the hole. I did not realise how far I had come until recently I read a post by someone I follow who – years later – is still focussed on a past event and being in a hole. I felt sad for that person that that meant they were still in the hole.

I still apply two vital techniques that I learned to get through the difficult days of climbing out of my hole, in getting through any difficulty in my current days.

(a) If something happens that I was not expecting that conjures up negative feelings –

After an initial anxiety period thinking about that ‘bad’ event, I instead turn my attention to improvement in one or more areas of my life:

• protection
• connection
• contribution
• creation
• celebration

I focus on healing or protecting myself or family members; fostering better connections with my children, grandchildren and others in my life; or I focus on making a greater contribution to society, or becoming creative, or looking forward to and planning a celebratory event. In other words I try and focus on the positive in my life OR on making improvements in my life or in the life of someone else. If I do focus on positive things or on improvement, then it is impossible to feel sad or bad and the negative feelings about what has happened begin to fade away.

(b) If there is something horrible that I need to get done –

Instead of focusing on how awful it is, I try and focus on the better place that task will take me to. That can be a simple matter of getting mundane horrible tasks done (such as bills paid, or tax returns done, or tidying and cleaning finished) so that my mind is then clear to enjoy my days. For major necessary practical things that can sometimes literally overwhelm me, I focus on the better place that the tasks will take me to.

I applied these techniques to many of the steps of the marital settlement and I am now applying these to the practical steps of moving house.

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My need for people – to receive and give back

In the early months after the collapse of my marriage, I felt disconnected from all those people I had previously known.

Then I read about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Some parts of his theory made a lot of sense, that our needs develop one step at a time, beginning with basics (food, warmth, shelter); then stability (safety, routine); before moving to higher needs … connections with people, self-esteem, and self-actualization. I am not an expert in psychology but I do know that after a crisis working ‘up the scale’ had always been a powerful tool of recovery for me, (with an understanding that after divorce the “crisis” may last several years with no end-point to the requirement for stability and a feeling of protection!) …

HOWEVER …

What I didn’t and don’t understand about this theory is how “connections” appear in the middle layer, something to move up to. Whenever I have faced a crisis of any kind, I have always felt that I have needed people as much as, if not even more than, when feeling ‘normal’. This has been especially true after a separation such as a death or my divorce because it was the loss of that connection (due to the loss of that person who has died or left, or loss of associations with that person) that was at the very root of the crisis in the first place.

After and during my divorce process, there were losses of many connections or sense of connection for me.

• My partner, companion and confidante.
• My nuclear family.
• My extended husband’s extended family.
• The circle of friends that had been ‘ours’.
• The community groups that we had jointly belonged to.
• The loss of sharing management of the business.
• In selling the business, the loss of belonging to my work ‘tribe’.
• In selling the business, there was also a sense of loss of me contributing to society. Many people going through retirement experience this same sense of loss.
• Feeling disconnected from others, who have not faced the same financial pressures
• On retirement, feeling disconnected from friends and family of the same age who can now move into their next phase of life together.

Some of these ‘disconnections’ happened immediately, while others dissolved further on in the separation process. In some the connection remained but with a need to redevelop that connection in new ways, such as redefining the concept of ‘family’. So a year ago at the ending of the marital settlement, four years after separation, everyone said ‘now it is all over for you’, whereas in reality the changes to my life had only just begun. For the first time in my life I was truly alone –  practically, financially, legally, emotionally, and socially.

Yet, throughout all this separation process, I have moved up and on. I believe this was what was happening to me. While I did move up a hierarchy of needs after my crisis, concurrently with that, I also moved up a hierarchy of a need for people. This moved from needing comfort from them, to standing alone, meeting them as equals, to giving back.

This is my hierarchy of needs for people –

1. Protection. In the beginning I needed people to comfort me, protect me, advise me.
2. Aloneness. I then had to reconnect with myself. This was important, to stand alone.
3. Partnerships. I formed deep connections with close friends and family, one on one. They were initially replacement confidantes and support – for that lost marital ‘partnership’. In time, those people began to lean on me for my support of them. I became strong for them in their own hours of need.
4. Herds. I have formed like-minded groups of small numbers of people. I re-formed my connections with my nuclear family, my siblings, work colleagues and small groups of close friends. These groups have become mutually beneficial to us all. I have both received and contributed as friend, sister, mother, daughter, grandmother.
5. Tribe. I have reconnected with my large extended family of cousins, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews. I have formed connections in my blogging world. I belong.

Three levels of hierarchy that I previously had that are still lost and yet remain as a burning need within me. These are a contribution to –

1. Community.
2. Society.
3. Global needs

This has become my new sense of purpose and goals – to use my voice on speaking out for a world of peace, a safe environment for future generations and universal health for all.

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Retracting forgiveness

“If someone comes along and shoots an arrow into your heart, it’s fruitless to stand there and yell at the person. It would be much better to turn your attention to the fact that there’s an arrow in your heart…”  Pema Chödrön

In a deep hole after my marriage collapse, I made it my mission to forgive as I wanted to move on to a place of peace and harmony. I used forgiveness in order to give up feelings of anger, betrayal, resentment and revenge. Fast forward another 18 months and I was in a dark place of resentment. With my financial security in tatters, trudging through marital settlement mud, I saw the unfairness of my changed situation. I blamed myself for being too trusting in my marriage and too kind after the separation. I thought back and wondered whether forgiveness had been right for me.

I had believed forgiveness would help me heal, become less angry and bring me peace. By any definition, forgiveness does not mean forgetting, condoning, excusing, renouncing efforts to obtain restitution, suppressing anger at what happened, or giving up a recognition that you deserved better. Forgiveness is none of those. Forgiveness is supposedly letting go of negative feelings towards someone who has harmed you. So what forgiveness did to me was make me focus on the action that was done, classify that action as a wrong-deed committed by someone else (my ex-husband) and made me feel like the victim of that wrong-deed. It kept me thinking about what had happened and then, when I still in a bad place, made me feel stupid in being too “nice” in forgiving him of that action. What I know for sure was that forgiveness did not heal me, make me less angry or bring me peace.

So in February 2014, I retracted my action of forgiveness. From that point, I focussed instead on healing, on living by my values and acting always with kindness, fairness and courage … no matter what. I decided to choose before each action or comment I made. I would ask myself whether the action or comment I was about to make was being made for protection (of myself or others), connection, contribution, creation, or celebration? If I could not answer ‘yes’, then I would choose a different response.

Over time, I healed and became strong. My self-esteem and confidence grew. I was focussing on me. I was connecting with others and acting with kindness towards them. I was acting positively in the world of my ‘today’, not in a place of my ‘yesterday’. I felt free.

I believe now, that I got forgiveness wrong. It was more important for me to heal first, than to forgive. I do not believe that forgiveness was a requirement for that healing to take place. Instead of feeling like a victim, I now feel good about myself.

As I think about it today, I realise that at some point during my healing process, I became truly emotionally detached from my ex-husband and could see things from a more neutral position. I could see all the good that was in my marriage. As such I felt grateful for what had been rather than sadness at its loss. Some things that previously upset me now have no positive or negative feelings. As an example, two weeks ago it would have been our 41st wedding anniversary. I did not remember the date until today. That date no longer holds any meaning. It does not make me feel sad, bad or mad.

Interestingly, during the process of my healing and subsequent emotional detachment, forgiveness (losing resentment) crept up on me.

OR

Perhaps it is now that I see myself better off. Therefore … there is nothing to forgive.

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You may want to read Living and Loving after Betrayal. Steven Stosny

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My H.E.A.L.T.H. plan – T is for Tracking

One of the ways I have kept myself motivated while on my H.E.A.L.T.H. plan is tracking my progress. There is nothing better for inspiration than to see numbers going in the right direction. I am a bit obsessive with fine details when I set my mind on a project, and my good health became my project during 2015. Here are the things I have been tracking:

• Weight. I weigh myself every day, record an average for each week and month. I have also been recording my weight every 31st January for many years. This gives me a better indication of any overall weight gain (or loss).
• Body Mass Index is a measure which standardizes weight against height. The healthy range is BMI of 20 – 24.9, overweight is 25-29.9, and obese is 30 and over.
• Waist measurement monthly. Excess around the waist is a risk factor for some diseases of affluence such as heart disease and diabetes.
• Blood pressure. I have a home machine and measure this 2-3 times a week, more often if I have shown a rise and less often if it has been OK.
• Blood tests. I have an annual check with my doctor who measures fasting glucose, blood lipids (cholesterol and triglycerides), nutrient levels (such as iron and Vitamin D) plus some other things she likes to keep an eye on.
• Blood glucose. I am not a diabetic or prediabetic. However my mother and aunt were and some cousins are so I keep an eye on my own levels with a glucometer. I measure my fasting glucose level and sometimes take readings throughout the day.
• Foods eaten. I do not count calories but I roughly write down foods I eat every day which keeps me on track that my ‘moderate’ (weekly) foods are not creeping into my daily intake and that my ‘tribal celebration’ foods are not too frequent. Every three months for a week I take a more accurate history and run it through a food analysis programme.

Here are my results:

• Weight. Until 2010, my annual records showed a slow but relentless rise of about a quarter kilogram a year (half a pound). Not too bad. However, this ‘almost good enough’ for forty years meant I slowly gained ten kilograms. Another eight quickly followed in a crisis year and I was in trouble. Since my HEALTHplan commitment in January 2015, my daily and weekly weights have fluctuated but monthly average has shown a steady decline. It is now beginning to stabilize.
• Body Mass Index. My BMI is now 22.5, in the middle of the healthy weight range.
• Waist measurement. My waist measurement has slowly declined and is now less than half my height which is a criteria for being of lower risk.
• Blood pressure. I previously sometimes had morning highs, and rises after stressful triggers. Now my readings are routinely low (110/70) and do not rise as much after stress.
• Blood tests. My cholesterol levels were OK from the start and have improved even more. Readings are in fact now very low as is my triglyceride level. Iron levels have improved since menopause. I take Vitamin D sometimes as living in Tasmania doesn’t afford me enough from the sun in winter months.
• Blood glucose. My fasting glucose levels have dropped 15% from the readings of a year ago. There is less spiking after meals and lower levels two hours after meals. I attribute this to modified diet, smaller portions, losing weight (thus lowering insulin resistance and improving glucose tolerance) and a higher activity level.
• Foods eaten. The occasional detailed analysis shows I consume ~4500 kilojoules (1100 calories) on strict days; 5700 kilojoules (1,400 calories) on moderate days and 7500 kilojoules (1,800 calories) when indulging. I am very short 155cm and require less than taller people. On ultra-low days I average 50% calories as carbohydrate (153g), 19% protein (51g), 19% fat (23g) and 2% alcohol. Most fat is from cashews. My indulgence days were 42% carbohydrate (199g), 21% protein (66g), 25% fat (48g), 5% alcohol. Most fat from added fats and oils. Moderate days were between those figures. Percentages give a poor indication of my overall diet. During ultra-low periods I ate less and mainly ‘good’ stuff. During splurge periods I ate more of everything and more ‘bad’ stuff. Relative percentages overall mean nothing.

Overall, I am happy with where I am at the moment.

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When home no longer feels like home

 

Since my marriage collapse, my home has been my sanctuary, a bedrock of certainty; providing me with strength, stability and comfort. I have written about my need for stability and the comfort my home provides here, here, here, here, here and here.

Some time ago I wrote that I was now ready to move and make a new life somewhere else. It is interesting that since I made that decision, my home no longer feels like home to me. In part, this growing negative feeling has been been due to the sorting of the business documents which was a mammoth task and quite distressing at times – with painful memories and negative feelings surfacing as I reviewed records and documents. Then Christmas came and went. It was wonderful to have all the family home. I was back in my element with my home and family my comfort. But now, with everyone else back in their own life, my mood has changed again and the desire to move is very strong.

Over the past three weeks I have been away, spending two weeks with my siblings sorting through my mother’s things and a week with my grand-children. As I drove home, I started to become anxious and, once inside, instead of the usual comforting ‘home at last’ feeling that I would normally get, I felt suddenly and dramatically quite down. There are a few factors at play here.

Firstly, having had three weeks with other family members, the aloneness hit me hard.

Secondly, while sorting through things of my mother (who was a hoarder) I had thoughts that I should have a proper sort through of all my own things before I move. With that thought in mind, when I returned home and looked around at what that would entail, I became overwhelmed at yet another mammoth ‘sorting’ project ahead of me. I knew that if I sorted to my own ‘must do everything meticulously’ standards, I would be here forever.

Thirdly, I have been craving quiet time. I wondered whether I would ever get to that place of peace and contentment.

Enough of all this negativity!

I am actually slowly moving forward and doing well at the moment. I am taking baby steps, baby steps across this bridge that I must traverse in order to get to my new life.

• I have organized a storage space for the business archives that need keeping for five years. I will be moving them out next week. That will be a load off my mind.
• I have put my house ‘unofficially’ on the market and will formalize this once the estate agent gets photos done etc.
• A friend of mine offered to help with some of the packing-my-house-up headache.
• In a few months, one of my sons and I are going on a bit of a road trip to Sydney.
• Mid-year, I will be spending more time with my siblings for the final sort of my mothers things.
• Later in the year, I am going to spend some time in Canada.
• I am getting excited about my new life around the corner and have been looking at houses and places I want to move to.
• I am feeling really fit and healthy and that is great!

Here I go!

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My H.E.A.L.T.H. plan – T is for Tribal Celebrations

With the best of intentions, previous stints of me trying to become fit and healthy (AKA ‘lose weight’) have come unstuck during periods of ‘Tribal Celebrations’, enjoying other people’s company with too much good food and other indulgences. Typically when the weight returned (as it inevitably did), I would feel like a failure and give up.

I needed a system that allowed me to improve my health yet allowed celebrations with family and friends – so important for my well being. This time with my H.E.A.L.T.H.plan no food is forbidden. Instead I focus on foods to include every day, foods to include weekly in moderation (with family and friends) and foods only for monthly ‘Tribal Celebrations’. There are also foods and drinks I do not specifically exclude but I do not consider any occasion worthy of their inclusion (and therefore never have them). This is my strategy:

The Fabulous Five
(foods I eat daily)

These foods are low in energy density (calories).

• Green, yellow and orange vegetables.
• Starchy water-based vegetables: potato, peas, corn.
• Wholegrain water-based cereals ie cooked oats, barley, rice and pasta.
• Legumes (peas, beans, lentils, soy).
• Fruit.

The Moderate Middle
(skim milk I include daily, the others weekly with family and friends)

These foods are moderate in energy density.

• Skim or low-fat dairy foods
• Lean chicken, fish, eggs (at lunch or dinner with family or friends).
• Bread (ditto).
• Dry cereals or crackers (sometimes).
• Nuts, seeds and oily fruit (olives/avocados) as snacks thrice weekly.

My Limit List
Condiments and high-calorie non-foods which add to the enjoyment of food

• Alcohol twice weekly.
• Sugar (small amounts twice weekly).
• ‘Healthy’ oils (twice weekly, in small amounts).
• Salt (occasionally).

The Terrible Ten

Tribal celebrations (monthly indulgences)

• Full cream milk and dairy foods.
• Red meat.
• Sweet foods: ice-cream (my weakness), celebratory cakes, sweetened yoghurt.
• ‘Healthy’ oils in higher amounts.

Foods I avoid

• Deep fried foods
• Baked fatty foods – cakes, biscuits, muffins, pastry, pies, croissants, doughnuts, ‘health’ and energy bars, crisps, corn chips, pizza, other snack foods
• Confectionery, chocolate, dried fruit, jam
• Margarine, coconut oil, palm oil, lard, butter, cream
• Sweet beverages including soft drink, fruit juice, fruit smoothies, sports drinks
• Processed meat, fatty meats

The reasons behind my choices

1. My ‘fabulous five’ are plant-based foods which are lowest in energy density and, in my opinion, foods to predominantly eat in order to maintain a healthy weight. However, I am not vegetarian and enjoy dairy foods, chicken and fish when eating with my tribe.

2. I include starchy vegetables and wholegrain cereals daily. These water-based foods are filling and low in energy density. While many lay-books advocate a ‘low carbohydrate diet’ for weight control, there is a lack of logic in that when you consider that countries with very low rates of obesity such as Asian cultures have high carbohydrate diets based on rice. I have lost weight including water-based cereals or starchy vegetables at meals every day.

3. In contrast processed dry cereals and breads are moderately high in energy density and I only include them weekly, basically socially. Being refined they are digested quickly which spikes blood glucose levels. Sugar is highly refined and high in calories. Thus I limit its use but there are small amounts in some processed foods I have such as soymilk and canned kidney beans. Typically about twice monthly I have a sweet dessert.

4. ‘Healthy’ fats (in nuts, seeds, oily fruit and oils) are not so healthy for me as they are high in calories and slither down easily, adding unwanted inches to my waistline. The concept fats supposedly blunt the appetite does not work for me. I put most of my weight on following a ‘healthy’ Mediterranean diet high in olive oil. I now limit their intake to an extreme but do enjoy snacking on nuts a few times a week, and the odd weekly stir-fry.

5. High-protein animal foods are moderately high in calories. In my heart I feel I should go vegan, but my tribe does not. Thus, I enjoy these foods as social indulgences.

6. Ditto for alcohol.

7. I do actually very occasionally have margarine, butter or cream, typically about six times a year at Tribal Celebrations. At those times, I enjoy those indulgences without guilt.

Everyone should seek advice from a doctor or dietitian as to what is best for them, so please do not take this as advice to follow. However, what has worked for me is the strategy of being strict, ultra-healthy and eating foods low in energy density (although I do not count calories) when on my own and having moderate and high calories foods only as indulgences when with family and friends. Using those techniques, I have steadily lost 20 kilograms in fifteen months and am feeling really fit and healthy. However, I do not feel deprived, am never hungry and I am enjoying my tribal celebrations without guilt.

Enjoy this scene from chocolate. Celebrations are, in the end, about people.

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