Sugar Addictions & More / 7 Quick Takes Friday – Take 2

1. In case you’re not a fan of this posting method, don’t worry. I probably won’t do it a lot, but since Jennifer is doing 7 Quick Takes again this Friday, I thought I’d join in once more… (Besides, I can’t resist the opportunity to ramble on about 7 different topics in one post. I may even go off the topic of Health & Nutrition just a little…)

2. Jennifer posted recently about her simple sugar addiction (read about my similar issues), and her desire to lose weight. She also mentioned the “No S Diet“. I checked it out. It’s a cute and catchy concept, and I “get” the fact that the author of the diet is trying to keep it simple to help you lose weight:

“The forbidden foods diets are patent nonsense. They contradict one another, go in and out of fashion every ten years, and never seem to gather any serious scientific support. You won’t stick with one of these because not being able to eat whole categories of food is a real drag. At the outset, it might seem worth it to trade pasta for unlimited steaks (or vice versa), but it gets old fast. And it might even make you sick.”

The site you go to when clicking the link above is titled: “Heart Association Warns Against Low-Carb Diets”, but the AHA are still pushing the low-fat garbage, which is outdated and proven-wrong. I agree that figuring out who to believe or which foods are good for us is frustrating to say the least. But there’s another way. Just eat more whole foods, foods that don’t come with a label, natural foods the way God made them, and that our ancestors (& traditional cultures) ate before heart disease, diabetes, and obesity became epidemics. And while this is a tasty way to eat (traditional home-cooked meals made with REAL FOOD), it still isn’t always easy. When you’re so used to eating junk (I loved the junk, too), it takes some effort to change your thinking. Here are some Rookie Tips to get you started.

Having said all that, I do believe that our society (myself included) has become way too heavy on the carbs. Here’s a post I wrote about low-carb diets, and there are some really interesting comments to check out there, too.

When it comes to those sugar addictions, according to my sister in law (who lost 50# on low-carb), just having good ol’ self discipline and not eating the simple sugars eliminates the sugar cravings. (While I do believe her, I’ve personally never given it long enough to get to that point. She said it only took her a couple weeks.) Read more on sugars and the best choices!

3. In case you haven’t seen it, I finally had a chance to get a post set up with an index of all the recipes on this site. I’ve also recently updated the post that explains how to easily make homemade bread, dinner rolls, cinnamon rolls, with a much easier method to making the cinnamon rolls. (Umm, we were just talking about doing better with our simple sugar addictions, weren’t we?! At least it’s made with mostly whole grain flour!)

4. Would you like a pathetic little peek into the life of a blogger? When I went into the post above to make that one little update on the cinnamon rolls, my post disappeared. Yep, it just went away. I had an “oh crap” moment, one of many since starting this whole blogging thing, then I went to work. Thankfully I back up all my posts, so I searched for it a while, copied it into a new post, then had to fix the formatting because nothing transfers easily. I had to go in and tweak some things, and add back in the original update. To top it off, I also had to go into every post I’ve ever linked TO that post, and change the link to the new post. This all took a loooong time. Guess what happened next? Yep, then the old one magically reappeared. I won’t tell you what happened next.

5. If you feel like going off topic for a sec, check out this picture at my other blog that I took on a foggy morning recently – I have to say, I think it’s the best pic I’ve ever taken!

6. For the last two, I’ll talk about what’s happening with my blog these days. I’ve been working hard on getting my new site ready. The learning curve is SO steep for someone as HTML/CSS/PHP illiterate as I am. If you have no idea what those are, then you can feel a little of my pain, except there are pages of that stupid language that I’m trying to figure out for each little doo-hicky I want to show up at my site. If only there was a little more income coming in from the blog, I could justify hiring someone to help me, but even with my readership growing, slowly but surely, it just doesn’t translate into much green. Good thing I still love it, eh?! However, I’m hoping that will improve at least a little when my new site is ready, and I’m able to get a couple real ads up there. (Don’t worry, I won’t let it get cheesy and annoying.) Read more about how I might (someday?) earn money from this site at this FAQ post – go to #3.7. Lastly, Cheeseslave/AnnMarie is starting a new blog network soon, called Real Food Media, and I’m excited to be joining in the fun. (Sign up at that link if you want to be notified when it launches.) Nothing will change at my site (besides the upgrade which I mentioned above, but that’s unrelated), this is just a way to hopefully bring in more readers from another source. It will also introduce you to some new bloggers you may not have read before. This describes the RFM blog network, from the About page there:

“Real Food Media is a network of blogs focused on traditional and slow food, sustainable farming, homesteading and organic gardening, health, nutrition and environmentally friendly lifestyles.”

More posts about Losing Weight
Many more topics & recipes along the right in the blue section
Any suggestions for my new site? Don’t overwhelm me, but if you have a couple ideas you’re like to share, feel free. You can’t be upset if I don’t implement every one, though!
Last week’s Quick Takes Friday