Health kick time!

As you've probably realised, I do love a good project. So now - not content with avoiding supermarkets, playing a part in our digital revolution at work and renovating my lovely but slightly shambolic Victorian house - I've decided to add another little personal project to the mix.

I've already mentioned that I'm struggling to sleep at the moment, and that I'm getting a bit flabby. My energy levels feel really low and I'm visiting the snack machine in work for a quick Twix fix far too often. I clocked up a shameful TWO Twixes and TEN choc chip cookies at work last night. Then I looked at myself without any clothes on in the mirror when I got home and it occurred to me that my bottom looks like two large white elephants wrestling in rice pudding. 

So I think it's time for a bit of a health kick.

Now I've been on a LOT of health kicks in my time, and generally I do like to go and buy a book to accompany them. You know the sort - 'Eat Yourself Skinny', 'Lose Weight While Eating Cake', 'Step Away From That Cream Cake You Fat Bitch', and so on.... So I decided this time not to waste my money, and refer to the bookshelf instead. After a disappointing five hours sleep last night, I dug out an old book on superfoods this morning (and who doesn't love a good superfood) and wrote down a list of healthy foods to boost energy.

They are:
Iron supplements

Today's health kick purchases

B vits
Dried apricots, dates and figs
Spinach
Broccoli
Brown rice
Brown bread
Oats
Almonds
Apples
Bananas
Oranges
Raspberries or strawberries
Beetroot
Carrots
Celery
Tomatoes
Nuts and seeds
Lentils
Soya
Honey



So life is looking a bit grim. Especially as it would appear that I actually have to eat the fruit, rather than just carrying it around in my bag until it gets so bruised I have to chuck it away and get a chocolate bar instead (shame). I reckon if I stick to the above list (or at least eat a load of stuff from the above list in my daily diet) then two things are definitely going to happen:

1) I'm going to spend a lot of time eating alone
2) I'm going to spend a lot of time on the loo

Still, you know what they say - no pain no gain. So I'm willing to give it a go, and the health kick has started this morning. I'm on a day off today so I'm typing up this blog while sat at the kitchen table, and I'm keeping half an eye on a pan of boiling beetroot and half an eye on a pan of boiling brown rice at the same time. Two immediate problems have arisen. Firstly, the kitchen looks like I've murdered someone because I've been chopping the beets, and secondly, I'm actually not quite sure how you're supposed to know when brown rice is cooked because it always tastes like chewy bits of woodchip whatever you do to it.

I'm also eating a little orange as I type, which has served to remind me why I usually just carry fruit around and then chuck it. Oranges really are rubbish. They look all alluring, and, well, orange, but actually they're just messy as hell and covered in nasty bits of white stringy stuff.

Humph.

But moaning aside, it's time to make this blog post at least a teeny bit relevant to the supermarket-free challenge. And of course, usually when I decide to go on a health kick I go trotting off to Tesco with a shopping list like the above. But this morning I headed out to the local greengrocers and then Holland and Barrett instead. 

Bum-holio! It's a fig.

As you can see from the above picture, I've bought myself a good selection of depressing-looking health food from H&B, including dried fruit, rice, organic muesli and a 'Healthy' magazine. And I think by far the most disturbing purchase has got to be the dried figs because they look like horrid little puckered pink bumholes.

Uh-oh, spell-check doesn't like 'bumholes'.

Anyway, it's too late now, I've bought them so I'll just have to eat them. No pain, no gain, remember?