MORNING RITUALS aka I LOVE PORRIDGE

I love breakfast. Some say it is the most important meal of the day. I don't know if it's true but I do know that: I LOVE BREAKFAST. So obviously when I decided to cut back on gluten and dairy I knew I was in trouble. Because I did not quite realized it at the time but my breakfasts were made of 99% of gluten and dairy. Going salty was just not an option for me, I need sugar/sweets in the morning, eggs being the only exception. Sorry guys, I just don't see beans and sausage as something that is acceptable before noon ;) So I had to figure out what to do.

 August was sort of easy because you know in Summer you get hundreds of fruits available. So there was a lot of fruit salads going on. But it's now November and I'm just not going to eat an apple every single morning. But then I discovered porridge. Or oatmeal, whatever you call it. It's awesome, delicious, fun to make, and there's an infinite number of ways to costumize it! 

Because I also stopped dairy, I had to try a few things there too. I kind of like soy milk, but mostly with like a Starbucks, as in a drink. Then I discovered almond milk. Which might be my new favorite thing in the world (after porridge that is!). So that's what I use to cook the oats and what I add in my coffee every morning. I also buy a few gluten free products now and then such as bread and toast (so that i can spread my nutella on something mostly).
I now start my days with a warm, delicious and filling meal that doesn't make me feel like my stomach weighs more than the rest of my body and actually gives me enough energy to make it till lunch (no more 11am "is it lunch yet??" syndrome). It's a big win if you ask me!

Top 5 Porridge toppings!

Honey + Banana

Strawberry and Rhubarb Jam

Apple, cinnamon and nuts

Nutella

Berries. Black, red, whatever you fancy

FOOD FOR THOUGHTS

Or maybe thoughts on food… Anyway, food:  

Food is the best. Food is the worst. I love to eat. I hate the way it can make me feel.

We are what we eat. Haven't heard that like a thousand times in your life and just thought "hmmpf"?  But it's so so TRUE. Food defines what we are, what we look like, how we feel, how we act. I love food and I love eating. But I've also always been sort of angry at it, if such a thing is possible. Let me explain.

I feel like I eat pretty well. I stopped eating meat at 15 (and thus charcuterie too, and all those very fat french specialties!), ate lots of veggies and fruits at every meal, made healthy cereal based breakfast in the morning. I do love Coke and croissant and cheese and the once a month pizza, but overall my alimentation has always been very balanced. Yet I've always been a size bigger than what I knew I should be, shorts have always been to small for my thighs and I'd rather have died than be seen in a crop top. And no matter how much sport I did, I didn't lost a single kilo/pound in the last eight years. And that made me so mad. Like "this is not fair" kind of mad. I never felt good. I ate the "right things" and yet always felt that something was not working properly in my digestive system. My dad has a lot of stomach… issues and is definitely overweight. And he and I are so alike "genetically" that I think everyone has always assumed that I simply had the same bad digestive system as him. and that was it. But I'm curious. And there's Google. So I started looking around.

I don't do diets. I think diets are stupid because you can't live off two carrots a day or just proteins. But I wanted to know more. I started hearing about paleo but wasn't super convinced. Then I read a couple stories about girls whose life could seriously have been mine. I heard the term celiac decease, gluten, dairy and such a lot. And it made me think. I then grabbed a copy of It starts with food. I didn't like it very much. Way too much scientific facts  told by people who are not scientists and that I felt were just meant to scare and confuse us. But some of it also made sense, and a small part of me felt like this could be it. I should try that.

It was the beginning of August, I was going to be alone at home for the next 3 weeks, which made shopping for food a lot easier. In the next 3 weeks, I completely removed gluten and milk from my diet. Added more proteins (mostly eggs) and even more veggies. First week was bad. I could tell my body was very confused. But I hold on, because I could feel something was happening. Something good. At the beginning of week 3, I made a hot chocolate for breakfast. Just to see. Five minutes later, I felt awful. My stomach was bloated, I felt weak and tired. In other words, I felt exactly like I had in the past 10 years, except I hadn't realized it was actually not normal to feel that way because I was so used to it. So I hold on. In the beginning of September my mom started telling that she thought I had lost weight. I said "no way, you know i never lose weight." An extra two weeks and she kept telling me. And I kept not seeing it. I did feel a lot better though. My digestion was PERFECT. I had more energy, my sleep issues disappeared. I felt good. I got on a scale and discovered I had lost 5 kg (that would be 11 pounds). In 6 weeks. I still drank Coca Cola, and ate Nutella every now and then. I was never hungry because I had 3 normal meals a day. I just stopped eating pasta and bread and milk and it changed EVERYTHING. So stupidly simple. I've been living with my body for 25 years, spent the last 10 years angry at it, but really I knew nothing about it. We are just getting to know each other, and it starts with food.

me in purple tights and jean shorts, feeling good. also, switched to soy milk at Starbucks <3