Theming the sugar intervention
The sugar intervention is a mini real food eating course disguised as a sugar detox, though not so well disguised now I guess. There’s more to blood sugar responses than simply what we eat but what we eat can have some, if not the, biggest effects on our health we can encourage.
The course began as a project to complete my Nutritional Therapy Practitioner training and coinciding with my training for the NYC marathon, it became my daily food, not a diet but the food we can all eat for vibrant health and longevity.
Each theme offered interveners an entrance into sugar intervening with a new bent, many repeating for seasonality and let’s just face it, creeping habits. I completed each one with them and found new data on myself, new feedback on their changes as well as recipes that worked and didn’t, and learned about translating not just weights and measurements but favourite foods between the USA Australia and Britain.
Feedback from over ten years of the Sugar intervention now has become the real intervention - returning our culture to a love of cooking as a source of health. We’ve gone from a society who cooked at home to one that doesn’t even know how to cook. We’ve lost the process to processed food - mums and dads both working and ferrying kids between activities and the money to do all that - yet the creation of food from scratch together? We’ve lost an integral part of our lifestyle.
As a Nutritional Therapist and Exercise Coach I have resisted meal planning a lot. I’m often asked for shopping lists and weekly measured meals. How can I write what you’re going to eat for dinner when I don’t even know what I feel like myself?
Eating thoughtlessly is one of the biggest problems we have. And if we’re not thinking ‘they’ can get us to eat sorts of stuff - the more thoughtful we are, the healthier we’ll be. Simple!
Because cooking for yourself is the key to all health problems. Seriously. It’s about listening and collecting data on yourself and then putting that into action alongside seasonality creativity and satisfaction. You got this!
And feedback and sharing recipes are gold! When a person shares a recipe – whether an internet find or a family heirloom – they are not just sharing a list of ingredients and instructions. Recipes come with stories, whether the receiver knows it or not. In essence, that is what recipes are: A story of how something is created, whether it be once, twice, or a thousand times before.
Following are some of the themes of the Sugar Intervention over the year, the reason for the theme, and some of the greatest stories ever cooked. Because recipes are more than food and lives are forged over a shared plate. It’s truly been a gift to share this will you all (again!).
Sugar’s the devil
Sugar is in everything. More than we realise. There’s more names for sugar than can fit on a page on this blog! It starts with breakfast when we jump on the blood sugar roller coaster with cereal, processed milk, toast and margarine. But choosing differently can let you see what else you choose cos chances are we’re nutrient- not calorie-deficient.
Digestive strength training
Once we get a hold on our blood sugar responses, we realise that what we eat has an enormous effect on our health. And alongside 70% of our immune system residing in our digestive system, digestion called the food choices we make can make great leaks in how we feel - we choose better, digest better, assimilate better, and get rid of waste better. Not being a slave to the fridge or the first aid cabinet leaves you a lot more time for you!
Tiger themes included - Back to basics, Skinny on fats, Energy edition, Good mood food, Super mama food, Health retreat at home and coming up next is Youngevity: your metabolic flexibility.
Oh and The Sugar Intervention Cookbook is coming soon - describing each intervention but even more importantly, with recipes to put each them into action. If you remember those Choose Your Own Adventure books from the 1980s, the intervention and the cookbook allow you to choose the outcome of the stories / recipes, which can be a creative way to approach reading / life!
Upgrade your standards, upgrade your life!
