Three for the price of one!

I’ve been so busy in the publishing department that I’ve forgotten to share the news on my blog. While you were all busy watching re-runs of Morecambe and Wise and peeling another satsuma I was wordsmithing away and battling the vagaries of e-publishing, all the time swearing under my breath and ruining my chances of Santa popping in to say hello.

It was worth it because, just before New Year arrived in all its glory my book was born. The timing was so auspicious that it has already been born again and you can buy it in two guises:

• If you prefer the no-nonsense portability of the ePub format – readable on each and every form of digital device you care to mention – then please go to Kindle and download The Dissident Diet over there (and marvel at the positive customer reviews!!)

• If, however, you’re more visual, then you might prefer to scoot over to Lulu.com and download the pdf version which is in colour with lots of pictures and a very printable layout.

The choice is yours – though I’d love it if you bought both!!

While all this has been going on I’ve also been rebranding and redesigning the blog in the hope that I will be able to support you all with interesting thoughts, healthy ideas and delicious recipes in 2013.

The home page is still my main blog (dawnwaldron.com) and will continue to deal with all my coaching activities and random ramblings on a wide range of subjects relevant to living a better life.

Then – if you click on the menu bar under The Dissident Diet and select Dissident Questions – you’ll find another blog which is designed solely to support those of you following The Dissident Diet.

In the same menu, if you click on Dissident Dishes you will be regularly regaled with delicious recipes which conform to The Dissident Diet rules but which are tasty and healthy for everyone. This is also another blog, even though it looks like part of the same site.

All 3 blogs are linked but independent. Here’s the thing: t if you want to get an update every time I post then you will need to fill in all 3 ‘follow’ buttons:

• on the sidebar here for general healthy life articles.
• and here if you are following The Dissident Diet.
• and here if you want delicious, easy, healthy, non-fattening recipes.

I hope I’ve explained that well enough and I really hope you’ll join me for the ride in 2013. We’ve got lots to discover together and I’m sure it’s going to be an amazingly exciting, purposeful and healthy year.

The book has already started to sell well but I need as much help as I can get if I’m to scale the dizzy heights of the bestseller lists. If you know ANYONE who has struggled to lose weight and whose health is suffering as a result, then please be kind to them and to me by recommending The Dissident Diet.

Happy New Year!

 

A weight off your mind in 2013

We’re coming to the time of year when food is on everyone’s mind. Most of us are planning some sort of gastronomic indulgence over the next few days, and many of us are expecting to pay for it when January comes around. Hands up all those who want to lose weight in 2013!

Some of us are obsessed with food all year round. Picking our way from meal to meal trying to lose, or at least not gain, weight in a world that makes it more and more difficult to stay slim.

This time last year I was one of those people who was still baffled by my body. Despite following an abnormally ‘healthy’ diet and watching my weight all the time, my body was getting bigger and bigger. Although I had tried and failed many times before, and I was almost ready to admit defeat, I devoted most of my attention in 2012 to finding a way to lose weight.

A radical rethink of the weight loss ‘wisdom’

They say the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results. With that in mind, I determined to look at everything I ‘knew’ about weight control with fresh eyes.

What I discovered was exciting. I learned that the biggest difference between fat people and thin people isn’t how much they eat – it’s how much they store. While there is a distinct absence of research that shows how cutting calories can help you lose weight, there is some interesting research – only carried out with animals to date – that shows that some bodies store more than others on the same diet and activity levels. There are even studies showing that fat rats (not to be confused with fat cats who have also been much in the news this year), when food is withheld, will die of starvation while still obese. Work that one out.

Why fat bodies might be starving

I applied some of the theories I read about in human experiments. Firstly on myself and then as part of a trial I set up with a team of 16 volunteers, and I finally discovered how to lose weight in a predictable and controllable way.  I was so excited that I decided to write a book.

I know from personal and professional experience that there are thousands of people out there who are baffled by their body’s refusal to shed weight. Just as I know that there are people who eat a very healthy, even frugal, diet but whose fat cells are not getting the message.

The Dissident Diet is for everyone – it’s a safe and healthy way to lose weight – but it is particularly suitable for people who have had a lifelong struggle with a body that just won’t obey the rules. On my experimental trial the volunteers lost an average of 17lbs in 12 weeks and 3 inches around the waist. Most of them had tried a range of well-known diets in the past with less than spectacular results. They were delighted with this one.

Junk information is more of a problem than junk food

The diet isn’t just a different way of eating, it’s a whole new understanding of why your body behaves as it does. It overturns what we think we know about weight control, and shows you what’s really happening. It’s a breakthrough in understanding that puts you back in control of your body, and gives you the information you need to be the size you want to be.

If you want to lose weight in 2013 then you can buy the book or book in for coaching if you prefer to be supported (in which case the book comes free).

As one of my volunteers said,  “As soon as I read the book, it all made sense to me.  I ‘know’ that’s how my body works, and now I know how to be slim.”

Wouldn’t you like to know too?

15 Years of Cancer Survival

15 years ago on Monday Tim Williams, my lovely surgeon, spent 2 and a half hours removing 2 aggressive tumours from my right breast and armpit. It’s strange to think that none of the cells that were ‘me’ on that day are still alive any more. I am physically and materially a different person; emotionally and spiritually too. I’m also strangely, stubbornly, surprisingly just the same.

The main advantage of being 15 years past the point (apart from being here typing this) is that it gives me an overview of the things that have worked for me. Today seems like a good day to share some of them with you. I’ve written them as a set of bullet points but in reality it’s one, holistic state of mind. Forgive me for a longer post than usual.

Refusal to buy into conventional thinking

I think this is the most important point: since no one understands cancer, I won’t accept anyone else’s viewpoint as fact. That rules out believing in pessimistic forecasts. I’ve seen far too many wrong predictions in the last 15 years to believe that the doctors have the remotest clue whether or not you personally will survive. The chances of you reading this blog among all of cyberspace are infinitesimal. But here you are reading it. The reason you’re reading it is a complex mix of your interests, your health, your nationality, your gender, the amount of time you’ve got available right now… random. Your chances of surviving cancer are similar. Totally random and yet mostly determined by you. I had an unshakeable belief that, since only a very small number of my cells were misbehaving, there were always trillions more to keep order. It’s a great visualisation. Imagine a small group of naughty people in a crowded Olympic stadium. It would be easy for the others to overpower them. That’s how I saw my body. It helped me, at least psychologically.

Taking personal responsibility

No matter how wonderful your doctors, the buck stops with you. Unless you are prepared to give it all you’ve got and fight for your survival, you won’t persuade others to join in. You need to take an interest in your treatment (why are they doing this, what’s the evidence, what are the odds, why these doses and not those??) I’ve always been a bit of a fatty and when they were planning my chemo I came across some literature suggesting that body size was a significant factor for dose. I asked the right questions and together we decided to up my drugs by 10%. Of course, I can’t tell you categorically that made a critical difference but it might have done. It certainly gave me more faith in the treatment and an active involvement.

Putting my own needs first

You also need to understand that your medical treatment is a small part of the picture. It is designed to eradicate any active cancer in your body, but when you finish your treatment you will be weaker than when you started. You need to give your body a chance to recover and work at changing the conditions in your cells to make sure it doesn’t come back. That involves taking an unblinkered look at your life and lifestyle ‘before’ and working out what was causing you to be out of balance.

“Having cancer is God’s way of telling us that we’re delicate”, as Mrs Overall might say. We all live in a stressful world, with limited ability to nurture our bodies in the way that nature intends. This has consequences for our health. Some people seem to be more resilient than others. If you’ve had cancer it’s a fair indication that you are one of the less resilient ones. Sometimes the bravest decision of all is to prioritise your needs a little more: the need for sleep, relaxation, dreams, peace, good food, less alcohol, supportive relationships, fulfilling work. All of these things have a bearing on your health. When they’re off kilter it can affect your chances of survival.

Planning a future that’s better than the past

If you want to live you need to create a life worth living.  I strongly believe that creating a happy life sends a great message for your cells every day to thrive and survive.

I blame my schooling for my habit of treading water. At boarding school you are part of the herd. There’s no one to look out for you. You’re not special and you need to get your head down and get on with it, even if you don’t like it. I was an unusual child – academic, not sporty, thoughtful, not playful, challenging, not conforming, I endured it rather than enjoyed it. Eight years of that left me with some patterns that I needed to change. I was too willing to put up with things that I wasn’t happy with: a stressful job, no free time, too much responsibility, financial pressure. I hadn’t realised, and no one had ever told me, that you are allowed to change things that you’re not happy with. It needn’t upset everyone else. It can even be easy. When I first started to ask for what I wanted and make changes in my life I was scared that it would all fall apart. But it didn’t.

Finding out what I’m really here for

One of the first steps I took was to join a painting group. I literally painted my way through chemotherapy. It was fun and freeing and felt alarmingly self-indulgent. Once I got my strength back I tried going back to work, but I was pretty sure that the work I had been doing – and the associated stress – had been part of the cancer picture. I wasn’t happy and felt a strong urge to do something different, something more life-affirming. So I decided to go back to school – or to college to be more precise – to study the things I was really interested in. They turned out to be nutrition and human behaviour. The world opened up for me in new ways. I also discovered my friend and guru, Neil Crofts, who taught me my ‘life purpose’ and changed the world again. This new me had things to do, people to meet, places to go… and a whole new set of motivations for creating a long and happy life.

Changing the soil

Cancer is a cellular abnormality that thrives in very specific conditions; it’s a disease of altered metabolism. Although we still don’t fully understand what the perfect conditions are, I clearly understand that I had unwittingly created them in my body. In effect I had given cancer the chance to build a home. I set about changing that. In my mind, I was changing the soil: adding nutrients and oxygen, clearing toxins and rogue hormones, creating a healthy environment that was inhospitable to cancer so it wouldn’t want to live here any more. I now understand that we create that environment with our thoughts as well as our nutrition so I’m on top of that one too these days.

Reducing glucose

I was convinced, still am, that diet had a profound role to play in my health breakdown. Even though I have never eaten a ‘bad’ diet, and I’ve always cooked from scratch, I had never really found a way to eat that suits me or one that stopped the upward pressure on my weight, a known risk factor. Being overweight creates a pro-inflammatory environment that helps the cancer along.

Since becoming a nutritionist I’ve tried vegetarianism, veganism, dairy free and wheat free diets, going teetotal, avoiding tea and coffee, taking supplements… you name it, mainly to support my health (in 15 years there has been a lot of research to support different theories) but also with the underlying aim of reducing my weight.

The only health story that has grown and grown in the last 15 years is the need to keep glucose under control in the blood stream. It is the culprit behind obesity and diabetes, and it seems it may have a significant role in cancer too. My sugar consumption has fluctuated during the last 15 years but has remained way below average, and much lower than ‘before’. It’s not unreasonable to assume it may have been a contributory factor to my survival.

Learning to love myself – warts and all

Making all this effort to survive depended on the premise that I was worth it. Having been brought up as a Christian, and hence a ‘miserable sinner’, I struggled with that one to some extent. Part of my recovery involved getting comfortable with my place in the world, with my right to be here, just as much as anyone else. That took more work than I had guessed. So this journey has been a spiritual one as well as physical and psychological. I’ve come to terms with who I am and I have a new sense of my spirituality. Without placing myself in the centre of the universe I have nevertheless understood that I have a right to be here and a job to do, that I’m a valuable human being with a worthwhile contribution to make.

Embracing people

Sorting my own baggage out has enabled me more closeness and honesty with other people in my life. Perhaps that’s the greatest joy of all. I feel more ordinary but more connected. I’m more firmly in the world and living a more authentic life that I would ever have been if I had escaped cancer. There are blessings, too many to count, but the biggest is being here to see my daughter grow up.

Those are the things that I feel were critical to my survival. If you’re only 2 years into your journey you probably see me as home and dry but for me that sense of complacency has never arrived. I’m still aware that my body, having once malfunctioned, is capable of doing so again so I keep on working at health and happiness in order to combat the negative influences of my dodgy genetics and the inevitable process of ageing.

But I’m more certain than ever that it’s the quality and not the quantity of your life that matters, so I’m committed to creating a life that feels good every single day – not just on our annual holiday or at some dream point in the future. I think that’s an important point too.

Every year of survival makes it more likely that I would survive if it came back. The world of cancer care is very different now to back then. And our understanding of the wider factors that influence the generation and spread of the disease are deepening all the time.

I have so many people to thank – my husband who cared for me, my daughter who motivated me, my parents who were beside me, my friends who supported me, the medical team who did their best for me and the many people who joined forces with me emotionally, spiritually and rebelliously, to allow me to believe I could beat this thing.

I firmly believe that you can too.

If you need some help – call me.

What does it mean to be awake?

The sharp-eyed among you will have spotted that I changed my strap line (why does that phrase always conjure up visions of leather and dungeons?!) to ‘your friendly wake-up call’.

It’s the result of a long process of trying to explain what it is I really do. Yes, I’m a nutritional therapist; yes, I’m a life coach – but that’s just my toolbox. I wanted to describe what my primal motivation is: why I do what I do.

I wake people up.

I help you see that there is only one life and you’d better not spend it napping.

But what does it mean to be awake?

Here are a few pointers:

Beliefs: You are more likely to believe in yourself than in other people or institutions. You will develop an ability to reflect on and evaluate the ideas you were brought up to see as facts and discover whether they are still true for you; including beliefs about yourself, your abilities and the society you live in. Increasingly you will look to yourself for guidance, trusting your own feelings and intuition rather than relying on duty, rules and tradition.

Relationships: You will be seeking win-wins in all your relationships at home and at work. The positive energy created will make an enormous difference to your wellbeing and enjoyment of life. As you feel more supported and supportive you will be able to ‘be yourself’ – risking more honesty and depth with the people you choose to be with. You will find your ‘tribe’. When that happens you are likely to find extra supplies of energy that used to be buried along with your true self.

Money: You will see money as a source of energy in your life, a way of exchanging value rather than power. As you become more confident in your own value you will be less afraid of money and less defined by your financial status. You may even discover that you no longer seek distraction and compensation in material things as you find more purposeful ways to use your time. Money will regain its natural status in your life – a tool, or convenience – not a way to measure your value as a human being.

Health: You will discover that your body is in a delicate balance that you can either nurture or sabotage. When you understand that you can choose to make healthier food choices more often, from a perspective of empowerment rather than restriction. Your idea of a treat – or a good time – may shift as you widen your definition of pleasure to include nourishing rather than anaesthetising yourself. As your energy increases your need for addictive substances will probably reduce and the substances you used to use as props will become treats again.

Work: You will be clear about why you are here and what you want to achieve. That sense of purpose will be reflected in your work, creating a sense of fulfilment that in turn fosters a natural motivation to look after yourself and prolong your experience of this amazing life. You will understand that doing your work can mean more than paying the bills and keeping you off the streets. Your choice of career is a way to express your purpose; so even if you are employed you will identify strongly with the aim of the business you are working in. If self-employed you will be pursuing a personal agenda based on your own needs, the needs of your customers and society at large. There will be a sense of meaning in what you do. It matters.

When all this happens you will be you, in all your glory, alive and kicking. Awake.

Sound good?

Let’s go.

Are Your Eyes Bigger than Your Planet?

As we drove to the airport to come home from holiday we passed miles and miles and miles of poly-tunnels covering the Spanish landscape.

It’s shocking. Strangely unnatural. Viscerally troubling.

Aside from thinking that it looks like an abandoned sci-fi lunar landscape, my mind was also asking why. Why do we need to cultivate in such intensive quantity?

We broke our journey briefly at a truck stop in the middle of one of the more crowded poly-cities and glimpsed another world. Lorries and vans and labourers and dirt and poverty and not a plant in sight. All under wraps. Even in June nature is not allowed to take its course.

I was just getting over the impact of that experience when I learned, courtesy of Andrew Marr’s Megacities, that London consumes the entire food production capacity of the UK.

Let’s put that another way. The amount of food consumed in the 600 square miles that is Greater London needs a geographical food production area equivalent to 120,000 square miles.

(I’m just going to stop typing for a moment so you can read that again.)

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(And I’m not going to write about all the waste that pours out of that equation: the food packaging, the plastic water bottles, the cardboard coffee cups, the sandwich bags, the polystyrene burger containers and the food waste that is probably enough to feed Brighton.)

When I was a kid, if I didn’t finish everything on my plate my mum would say I had eyes bigger than my belly.

Now, I think we have eyes bigger than our planet.

The world is creaking at the seams (along with our trousers).

Our insistence on having it all, eating it fresh, all year round, deliciously enticing, cooked for us, wrapped for convenient eating or transporting, whenever we feel even slightly hungry, all day and all night, is an economic and ecological disaster. Our demand for the latest superfoods to counteract our crazy over-stuffed lifestyles is also part of the picture.

We’re like teenagers who keep on partying and don’t understand the consequences.

So what has all this got to do with being happy, I hear you ask?

Only in the sense that everything is linked. My happiness is your happiness. My greed is your lack. My insistence in living beyond my ecological means is impacting our children’s ability to live in a beautiful world. What goes around comes around.

Happiness lies in having enough and knowing what constitutes enough.  If we all have eyes bigger than our bellies then there won’t be enough of anything to go round – including happiness.