Sunday 31 July 2011

12 out of 13 young girls eat too little fruit

That's the headline of an article in a swedish newspaper from a few days ago.

For you swedish speaking people: http://www.aftonbladet.se/halsa/article13360948.ab

And a short explanation in english:

It says that 12 out of 13 girls between the ages of 11 and 18 eat too little fruit. And now the scientists are warning for the serious health problems this may cause in the future. For the boys, 7 out of 8 don't eat enough fruit every day. You get antioxidants and vitamins from fruit. Cancer can be caused by an inflammation that makes the cells increase. And the antioxidants affects the inflammation in that way so the risk for this won't be as big. Same thing for heart diseases.

Personally, after reading the lchf book, I don't believe it's good too eat 5 portions of fruits per day because it's so much fruit sugar in that, but 5 portions of vegetables would be much better for your blood sugar.

It's soooo important that you get your vitamins every day. Maybe you think that you are young and don't have any health problems, so it's not as important what you eat right now. But it is, because it will prepare you for your future health.

No more lchf

That's it.. I'm bored of the lchf diet.. I think it's great - but as I'm not overweight nor sick in diabetes, there's not really any point for me to continue with it really strict. I'll eat more fat in the future and less carbs though.. The funny thing is that today when I went to buy groceries I realised that what I've been missing/craving during my lchf time is things like beans, peas, underground vegetables and lentils. I'm especially excited about the green lentils I bought and the pea soup. Oh and also the carrots and the beets! I don't understand why I get so excited about things like that.

Conference is over.. I only had time to go on two full services unfortunally but was also on a few half ones. So now there's mostly work left for this summer. 14 full days plus 2 half days of work left now!

Ran into an old classmate today, she told me there's going to be 10 000 more students than normal this fall.. No wonder I haven't found an apartment yet..

Friday 29 July 2011

One more month today!


Things has been quite hectic the last week or so as it's the conference. I feel exhausted but it has been so worth it! The conference is almost finished now, only 1½ more days. Tonight they spoke about missions in the beginning of the service. That is defently the central thing in our church and that's why I love it so much!

It's only one more month left from today for school to start! I've tried to ask my brother and my sister everything I'm wondering about as they are both studying there already. I'm super excited but I also get nervous when I look through the first book we will have about physiology.. I'm also looking every day for an apartment as I'd like to move in a month or two.. So if you know anything, please let me know! It's crazy how hard it is for people to find accomondation in this city..

But now, time for bed.. Work at Arlanda tomorrow at 4 am.. :(

Way to many waffles and pizza


About half of the conference is done now and my shifts at the waffle/pizza/hot dog tent is done for this year. It's amazing how it can be so much fun to work there, especially when there's just crazy busy! Time goes by so fast. I wish my normal job hours went by that fast.. :)

As you probably understood by now, my lchf diet is taking a break this week and it has unfortunally been too many waffles and pizzas and hot dogs. But I felt sick the whole night last night so no more waffles and pizzas today. I'm looking forward to eat tacos there instead tomorrow!

Every year at the europe conference, the wednesday is the Israel day. So yesterday we had the Israeli ambassadeur speaking to us and it was really interesting. I'll probably come back more about that later on.

Tuesday 26 July 2011

my passion for running

I love running.. It feels so wonderful to especially be out in the sun in the morning and run for at least an hour.. It has been a few weeks now since I ran though, mainly because of lack of energy but also, in one way, I'm getting a little bit sick of it as I've been running quite a lot the last year and a half. I think I'll have to take a break from running and do other things for a while but I'm still really looking forward when I'll start again.
Today I was listening on the radio and a song came up that I normally listen to when I run and it's sooo hard to sit still when I hear those songs! I've tried taking walks with my mp3 player (no iphone here ;) but I normally end up running as I can't resist it and then I'll just get sweaty in my normal clothes so that's not really a good idea.
Running is really something addicting. I hated it before I had really given it a try, but as I continued, I started to love it.. So maybe you will as well? :)
4 more weeks till my gym opens again!!!!

Sunday 24 July 2011

Breakdance and waffles


Today me, my sister and my dad went on a breakdance event that my brother was holding. It was really fun to go to! The coolest ones were defently all the small kids that were breakdancing that my brother is teaching at the dance school.

We could unfortunally not stay too long though as me and my sister were going to the waffle tent to help out as the Europe conference started tonight at my church! New things for the waffle tent this year is that we are adding pizza and baguettes. :)



And here's a picture of the food area just before it all started..





Saturday 23 July 2011

Norways 9/11

Tomorrow the conference at my church starts, which might mean really nice weather for a week. For some reasons we normally have great weather during that week (except from a couple of years). I can always feel Gods presence during these conferences so I'm super excited. Excited about what God will do in mine and other peoples life!

You probably know what happened in Norway yesterday. It made me think of the prophecy our pastor did on new years eve 7 months ago. I remember that he said something about that many terrible things will happen and that they will be closer than we think, and that they will effect us much more personally than we think.. (I don't remember the exact words)
I believe this thing has defently effected us scandinavians in a much more personally way (than many other things that has happened in the world the last years). I've always felt safe here in Sweden and it's so scary to see this happen to a country that has been ours, that is like our brother or sister and that is so close connected to us. My heart really goes out for Norway today. I can't believe that it.
Last number I saw, 92 people got killed, probably more. I did some calculations to find out how many that would be in american scale vs the norweigan scale if you understand what I mean. I wanted to do it to get a bigger understanding on how big this actually is. So, there's about 62 americans on 1 norweigan. 62 x 92 is 5772 people. The 11th of September 2001, 2996 people was killed. That defently shows how terrible this day is for Norway. They have now had their own 9/11..

Haven't had much time to read the new book yet so unfortunally no updates yet.. maybe later on tonight.

Thursday 21 July 2011

For Dennis sake...

For your sake Dennis: Yes I do eat gum sometimes at work. There you have it

Tuesday 19 July 2011

Some thoughts..

I can not explain how excited I am for this fall. I got my schedule for it yesterday and I already put all the lectures in my calender, what time they are, the subjects of the lectures and also in what room they will be. I want the summer to be over now! (I'll regret saying that when its getting colder)

I wanted to cook something with our black currants as my grandma is here for a visit so I found a recipie, changed a few things and it turned out really good. It's meat with cinnamon, garlic, parsley, ginger, black currants etc etc.. Here's a picture in the making..


I want to start putting on recipies here but as I never measure anything, I need to start doing that. So in the future I'll do that.

Monday 18 July 2011

Next book


I'm now done with the food revolution book. It was awesome in many ways but personally this lchf experience is starting to make me feel a bit weak.. Lets see if I do a whole month or if I stop before (I must admit I did cheat a little bit today).. maybe we do need more carbs than the book is telling.. or more vitamins.. I haven't had much energy so I haven't been able to work out for almost 2 weeks now, and I hate that. I still recommend the book and I've learned a lot from it.

The next book that I'm starting with now is called Physiology with relevant anatomy. It is the first book that we will have when I start university. As my sister did the first course I will have a year ago, I already have all the books and handouts at home for the whole first half year. She has gone through with me how the course was and this book is what will be taught the first part of the course. I wanted to read through all the books she has this summer already so it will be easier when I start.

I'm so excited to start school and even though I love summer, I want it to be over so I can start studying. Summer is awesome but I really miss the structure that the rest of the year brings. And I miss my gym :(

Sunday 17 July 2011

I finally baked.. well, kind of

I made LCHF "bread" today, without carbs.. Its only egg, philadelphia cheese, salt and baking powder. It smelled like sugar cake and didn't really taste anything. But it was still better than I was expecting (the baking was not as fun as baking sugar cake). I used it as hamburger bread.
I must say that was the best burger I've ever made. And also with chanterelles. Yummi!

An observation I've made today. It's defently more common for people to walk around without their shirts here than it is in Dallas. I think I've seen at least 4 ppl only today, and then I've only been outside when I went to church and later on IKEA. I guess it's an Europe thing.

Another thought I'm having. As soon as my sugar fast is over, I will try making basil ice cream. I know it sounds weird but it's from the same cook book as the orange with rosmary ice cream and that one turned out great so why not. Only 5 months and 2 weeks left on my fast!

In a week, our church will be having our yearly Europe conference. It's defently the highlight of the year and I'm super excited! They've started putting everything up already and me and my sister is going to help out to put up the waffle tent on friday, and we are both helping out there next week as well. Last year we ended up with cream all over the floor. I think twice as well if I remember right.. I'll try to avoid that to happen this year. It's so much fun being there :) Waffle tent rules!

Saturday 16 July 2011

LCHF - my conclusions this far

I'm almost done with the book and I must say, I have defently changed my mind in some way when it comes to my view on food. First of all - You don't gain weight of natural fat. Second - You don't get sick of natural fat.

What I like about this book is that he shows so many studies and different proofs on these things, and it has made me understand that this is actually so much bigger and established than I thought. He tries to avoid calling it LCHF, but lowcarbdiet, because it's not a "new diet" but it has actually been around for a long time. If you think about it, people didn't drink/eat low fat or non fat things lets say 1000 years ago, or even 100 years ago. What is a new diet is all that fries and soda etc etc..

What I don't like about the book and the whole LCHF concept is that they seem to ignore/talk very little about other things than fat vs carbs. Like vitamins or minerals and that even though (for example) blueberries are not included in a strict LCHF diet, it would still be super good for you because of the vitamins and the antioxidants.


I have now tried this for 9 days (if i remember right) and that I decided I would do this for a month to try. I'm feeling great this far but I was a little dizzy and nauseous for a few days, which they say is normal the first week. I defently feel that my blood sugar is more in balanced, which means no lows but also no real highs, so I haven't felt I got as much energy as I normally would. But they also say this is normal for the first maybe 3 months.

I decided to continue in some ways after the test month, but not in the current extent. I will defently try to avoid carbs a bit more than before and eat more fat (and never buy a low fat product again) but I've always tried to eat according on how much vitamins and antioxidants a certain food contains and that is something I want to continue with. So even though LCHF says (for example) no vegetables that grows under ground, I will still eat those. I get the point why they say that but as I'm not overweight or have heart problems or diabetes, I don't have to be (or should be) so strict. I also believe that food is not only about how it's effecting your body, but also how it's effecting your "soul" (if you understand what I mean). You also need to enjoy your food. And sure, I'm enjoying the cream and butter but I also miss making a pie or a pizza or whatever.. But I would not do that every day.

Remember, it's your habits that is important, not your exceptions.

Ulf Ekman

Yesterday the day arrived that I've been waiting for! Well, not really, but I've been wondering the past years why I've never seen Ulf Ekman at the airport as he travels alot and I work there. But yesterday he and his wife were there. Finally! I bet that's a sign that my time working at the airport is done :) Only 1,5 months to go now... (if I don't come back for next summer that is..)

I'm having a "I miss America"- day and a "I'm sick of my blonde hair and I want brown hair again"- day. I think I'll get brown hair before school starts. What do you think? I want the colour of this picture and a little bit shorter as I have right now and no bangs (of fringe for you brittish) as I'm trying to grow it out right now. (Warning, its a very old picture)



Will give you a nutrition update later on today :) 

Thursday 14 July 2011

Sneak peek of the coming background

I now have a new profile picture up on my blog as you can see. It's suppose to show two sides of me, the part who loves cooking and the part who loves working out. My new background will have some things to do with that.. coming soon :) And thanks to my friend Joe who is so nice to help me with all of that, and thanks to his wife as she is just awesome!

One more day at work, then no Arlanda for 4 whole days. I'll still have to work at home though. But speaking of Arlanda.. I've been working there since 2007 (with a break of about a year and a bit) and now as I got accepted to the university for this fall, I will not be at Arlanda for much longer. Maybe a little bit sometimes but it will never be the same again. That's a GREAT feeling :) It's defently a new chapter in my life that is starting and I'm more than ready for it.

There it is, my future!

Now I know what I will be doing the next (at least) 3 years; I got in on the nutrition and foodservice program here at Uppsala University! I'm really excited and I can't wait for it to start!

I am going to try to study one of my 3 years in Austin, TX so we'll see if I get in there as well, but I will do one year here in Sweden first.

The program will start with a course called Nutrition A, and it will cover half of the first school year. And the other half will be followed up by Nutrition B. Then, as I said, we'll see if my second year will be here or abroad.

So there it is :) http://www.uu.se/node605?pKod=SKV1K&lasar=11%2F12

Yay!

Tuesday 12 July 2011

Fat head/Cholesterol

The movie I watched (see last posts) today is called "Fat head". I didn't like the first half. The guy tried to prove that you can loose weight by eating at mcdonalds, and he did loose weight by it.. It reminds me of a health magazine I bought in America a month ago where they listed 8 things with less then 80 calories. Examples: 8 potato chips or a lollipop or a candy snack bar etc etc. They also wrote about this girl who had lost weight through eating kids meals at mcdonalds instead of double burgers as she had done before. I was chocked to see these things in a health magazine. Seriously, what's healthy about that? It's not all about calories and about loosing weight. Health is much more than that and it's more complicated than calories.

Anyways, the second half of the movie was pretty much what I've been reading in the food revolution book so it was interesting.

Today I read about cholesterol. A few things about this from the book.
First of all, I think most of you know that there's good and bad cholesterol. Our body produces cholesterol and it can adjust the production of it after how much we need. If we eat a lot of it, then our bodies produces less. Ofcourse this doesn't always work optimal. But one very interesting thing he writes is that when you eat saturated fat, your good cholesterol increases. And the good cholesterol gives you a powerful protection towards heart disease.
You can probably read much more about this on his blog http://www.kostdoktorn.se/ or http://www.dietdoctor.com/

Now it's only two or three more days till I find out if I got in on the nutrition program or not. I'm so excited to find out!

Peace

Eating our garden

Here are pictures of a few things you can eat in our garden. You can see in the last picture how it went with the broccoli sprouts - not so good. Maybe you think now that gardening is a big passion of mine. Well, it's quite fun if you can eat what you grow.. Now it's time for me to watch the food video I told you about in my last post!

Chili

Basil
Strawberries
Raspberries
Squash
One of our 3 apple trees, it's getting too big
Black currants
White currants
Gooseberries
our failed broccoli sprouts

Monday 11 July 2011

Fat, fat and a calender



This is what my current diet consists of. The fattest cream I could find, the fattest cheese I could find, nuts, eggs, oil, fat fish etc etc.. And lots of it! Did I mention I lost 2 pounds in 4 days eating this? And that my stomach feels so much better? I heard today that Andreas who wrote the book food revolution also has his blog in english - http://www.dietdoctor.com/ Read it! I also asked him (as I told you yesterday) if his book will come out in english and he is working on that and hopefully it will.


I have a friend at work that is so nice to me and lends me books and movies about food. He is the one I'm borrowing the food revolution book from. Today he brought another book called good calories, bad calories. It's a thick book so I hope he isn't in a rush to get it back! The book on the right is the book my dads friend has written that is one of Swedens best nutritionist if not the best. My friend at work also lend me a movie today about food, I can't remember what it was called but I'm gonna watch it tomorrow so I'll tell you then what it was about!


I "love" the front of the food revolution book. And no, I don't believe we came from monkies but it's still a very interesting though, the last part of it.


A week or two ago, I found a place where you can make your personal calender. I am now using one of those you get for free from a newspaper (I get random stuff from work), and it's breaking a part and it wouldn't be so good to have one like that when I start school again soon so I decided to get a better one. Today it arrived and here it is! I really like it :)


Sunday 10 July 2011

Proof that low carb diet works

I got about half way through the book I'm reading (look further down in my blog about it). It's extremly interesting. I was pretty skeptical in the beginning but I'm getting more and more positive the more I'm reading as he is giving facts and resluts from a lot (!) of studies. And he shows how old studies has actually not been correctly done, or they have actually not shown that a low fat diet is good, but still that's what we've learned. You have to read the book! I don't think it is available in english but I've decided to ask the author if they can translate it into english, so who knows!

He shows list after list of studies that has been made the last 10-12 years ago (or around that number) and they all show the same thing - low carb, high fat diet is better for you when it comes to weight, blood sugar, cholesterol and blood pressure, people with diabetes get better (some get totally healed when starting eating like this), stomach problems goes away etc, etc. I also heard that (not from the book, can't remember where from) that with this diet, you don't get cavity in your teeth and also less colds. Bacterias likes sugar so it make sense. They've also made studies where they saw that people with heart problems got better and the people with a low fat diet got more heart problems.

So how has it been for me since I started 4 days ago? I really think it's going great! My main purpose wasn't loosing weight but I can defently feel my belly getting smaller. Before my stomach was "swollen" if you understand what I mean, when it feels like its like a ballon and something isn't right. That has gone away too. I was a bit afraid that I would gain a lot of weight eating this because it feels sooo weird eating fat cheese with butter on when I get hungry but I still haven't gained any. But it's only been 4 days so it's defently too early to see how the real effect will be. I'm still not 100 % convinced yet but the book has for sure changed my mindset about food.

Another thing that really make sense is how so many americans are obese and I've never seen anywhere where "everything" is fat free or with low fat. We eat so much more fat in Sweden and as I've mention before, the obesity in Sweden is actually decreasing!

For you who want to read it, it's called Matrevolutionen av Andreas Eenfeldt. Enjoy!

My future in 4-5 days

Now it's only 4 or 5 days till I get to know if I get in on the nutrition program at the university. I've logged in too see what my status is on the student website for about a month now, even though I know that they won't show anything until the 14th or 15th or July. I'm pretty sure I'll get in as I have more than I need for it. But if I don't then that is totally okay, I trust that God will make his will happen. I have many other things I want to do as well so if university got prospone for another ½-1 year, I can do other things.

I would probably either go to France and practice my french for a few months, or go to India and help out with our churchs mission work there.. or maybe Israel to help out there... There's so many things that I have wanted to do for a long time. But, I really think I'll get in, and that would also make me really excited :) But I can't help dreaming and longing for other things that has been on my heart for a very long time as missions and the middle east. I can't wait for that part of my life to come!

Saturday 9 July 2011

Use your whole broccoli please!

Normally we eat the "flowers" on the broccoli and throw away the end of it. You english speaking people: would you call it the broccoli stem? But, there's so much vitamins in that as well so try to find a way to use it.
Even though so much vitamines goes away as you boil vegetables, it's still not so tasty to eat the end of the broccoli raw so I would personally boil it. One of my favourites is to boil it and make like mashed potatoes, but of broccoli, or cauliflower. Mix it in a blender. Now when im on my high fat low carb diet, I used cream, broccoli stem (?) and salt. It was soo good! Sure, cream taste good but broccoli also taste good! Try it!

And even if you don't like to eat vegetables, this is a perfect way to start eating them, hide them in your food. And then take steps to eat more and more, in different ways. I didn't eat any vegetables before except from tomatoes, cucumber and corn and I really disliked the rest of the vegetables, but now I looove vegetables (except from bell peppers). So it's not impossible to learn to like something!

Good night!

Friday 8 July 2011

A part of my day



Welcome! I had a wonderful day today. Well, first part was work but time went by so quickly there so it was actually fun to work today. It's the second day of trying lchf and I feel great! Defently much better than the detox :) I also got to make ice cream for my friends birthday party tomorrow. It was a lot of fun and defently too long ago I got to do that, last time was in Texas a half year ago. I made an orange ice cream with rosemary. I know, it sounds weird but it actually turned out really good!

Here are some pictures from the evening in the garden (should have taken pictures of the ice cream.. ill do that the next time)





Thursday 7 July 2011

End of detox, it didn't really go as I thought :)

First of all, thank you for beliving in me when I said I would do the 2-3 days of fasting and another 7 or so days of detox. I laugh at myself now, thinking I would be able to complete that! "Obviously" I didn't :) And also during a period when I work a lot! I did about 3,5 days but as my work has been quite crazy, I felt that I had to eat something else as well because I wouldn't be able to function at work otherwise. I work at the airport and as it's summer, "everyone" is travelling now so it has been really stressful at work.
But I'm okay with it, I still got a good first time detox and now im on lchf to try that. Or should I say my own version of it (no pig etc). So I went from this:



To this:



I go to a gym here in Uppsala that I really like. It's cheap, but still good and I have many friends who goes there. BUT they have closed down the weight lifting section to renovate it during the whole summer (3 whole months!) which didn't really make me happy as the last 3 months before they closed it, I pretty much only did weight lifting and loved it and planned on continue with it. I will continue when they open again in the end of August, but obviously a 3 month break isn't the ideal when you want to build some muscles. I thought it was funny though because if you wanted to freeze your gym card during this time, you had to pay them money. I didn't think that was fair (as they are the ones who closes it, and also told us only 3 weeks ahead) but I still did it. But the funny part is that now they are changing their mind and they have written on their website that OFVIOUSLY we shouldn't have to pay for that, so we will get those money back. I bet they got a lot of complaints. Anyways, I miss my gym so much and I can't wait for 23rd of August when I can go there again!

Wednesday 6 July 2011

I miss baking :(


I have pretty much stopped baking since I started trying to be more healthy about 2 years ago. It's one of my biggest passions and I really miss it. I think it's totally okay to eat unhealthy sometimes but if I bake, I only want to eat one peace.. and who would eat the rest then? No one in my family wants to as we all want to eat healthy. We always have to force friends and guests to eat our cakes etc when we had a birthday or something.
As I mentioned, we have someone living in our house every year and a few years ago, we had a guy from England. He would eat whatever I baked and it was so easy because then I could bake every day if I wanted to, and I often did. I remember one period of my life a few years ago when I baked scones every day, sometimes twice a day for at least a half year-9 months or so. Oh the joy :D I love cooking, but baking is so much more fun!

The picture is of my favourite baking cookbooks.. its pretty ludicrously amazing.

Monday 4 July 2011

The detox has begun

Yesterday, I started my "detox". It's defently a lighter version then the really effective ones, but as it's pretty much my first one, I think it's good enough. I bought lots of veggies, berries, fruits and detox the and I decided to eat nuts as well. Ill just do it till it's all gone so we'll see how long it lasts. So far so good! You who have done a detox, were you able to work out as normal?

My blog is still under construction. Two of my friends were over after church yesterday to help me take pictures for the blog! So soon I'll have a better background than I have right now.