The Fast 800 | Michael Mosley #Health

Back in 2013, Mr Books and I embarked on the original 5:2 Fast Diet. It was easier and harder than we thought. We both lost the weight that we wanted to, we enjoyed the fasting days (weird but true) and we ate a much healthier diet throughout the whole week as a result of what we learnt. However we may have annoyed our family and friends with our evangelical approach to the diet!

Then we moved house halfway through 2015, and things began to slide. One of the booklets moved in with us full-time, and we lost our natural, easy fasting days. Our work routines changed as well and complacency set in.

We still eat well, but portion sizes have slowly crept up, fast days have crept out to once a month, instead of once a week and eating late at night has become a bad habit once again as changes at work have completely reworked our meal time schedules.

I bought a copy of the new and improved version, The Fast 800, when it first came out in Dec 2018. I read the first handful of chapters with the eagerness and excitement of a new year's resolution. But then book sat by my desk, unfinished and untouched, looking askance at me every time I sat down to blog, until I stacked a pile of books on top of it!

A recent clean up unearthed it. But, really, it was my soft, squishy, slowly expanding peri-menopausal tummy that made me open the book again. I want to get back on track and reclaim my waistline!

The Fast 800 differs from the earlier book with a slight increase in the calorie intake for the fast days. Mosley shares the research from studies that have been undertaken since the writing of the first book. For instance, 800 is the new magic calorie number as it's,

high enough to be manageable and sustainable but low enough to trigger a range of desirable metabolic changes.

He goes over information about carbs, insulin, the Mediterranean diet, rapid weight loss, food fads, junk food, sugar, exercise options and various food myths. Mosley also discusses the science behind the benefits of Time Restricted Eating (TRE) and High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT). Practical, how-to information is suggested for how to get started and the last part of the book is dedicated to recipes with their calorie counts.

I'm now into week two of my new fast 800 and I'm feeling good. It only takes a little bit of extra thought and care to count and measure food options for the fast days. And I know from last time, that once I work out a few meal combinations that I particularly like, I will just use those as my go-to meals each week. The magic 800 means that I can also have a skim flat-white coffee (72 calories) on my fast days, something I couldn't do when I had to restrict my calories to 500 under the old regime.

My plan is to have a month (or two) of the 5:2 diet (or until my winter jeans fit more comfortably). Then I will move back onto the maintenance diet of 6:1.

And I hope, that by leaving the book lying around the house, Mr Books will be tempted to join me again.

The Feel Good Guide to Menopause by Dr Nicola Gates #AWW

I started reading perimenopause/menopause books back in 2015 after noticing changes to the way I was experiencing my body.

Five years later, I'm still waiting. Still wondering, and wishing it was all over.
Most of my friends seem to be there. Many of my friends didn't even know it was about to happen; it just happened. They were just suddenly done.

I read The Feel Good Guide to Menopause early last year and have been dipping in and out of it ever since. I'll be going along fine for months, then suddenly a weird phase or another weird symptom will pop up. I'll pull out this book, find the appropriate chapter and realise that I've simply ticked off yet another marker along the way. It would seem that I am determined, in my usual uber-conscientious way, to complete this journey by going through every single stage!

Dr Nicola Gates is an Australian neuropsychologist and psychologist, 'working with adults to improve brain health, cognitive function and mental wellbeing.' She has written an easy to read, stage by stage book. She focuses on the facts, health and hormones. She helps you to check your attitudes and smashes assumptions and myths. Sleep, sex and self-care are all covered as are all the various options available to women once they actually stop. I look forward to reading those sections more thoroughly one day!

If you're one of the lucky 10% that experienced no symptoms, then you can skip this book. For the rest of us, books like this (and Jean Kittson's more humorous one linked below) are a god-send. They save you from having to run to the doctor every single time you notice something odd happening. They help you to realise you're not alone or weird. And they help you to see that a positive, proactive attitude combined with a good dose of humour does actually help for some of it.

It can be rather frustrating to realise how little is still understood about this phase of a woman's life. So much of the information and advice is trial and error, often met with a shrug of the shoulders. It doesn't help that each women will have a completely unique experience.

Peri-menopause and menopause, are entirely unpredictable. The experience of our mothers is no guide either. The start and nature of our periods throughout our lives also has no bearing on their fluctuation and cessation.

Not knowing what will happen or when is a curious state of affairs when it comes to your body. Books like this give you back a little bit of control.

As an aside, the first chapter, entitled Her-story, was a fascinating insight into how religion and medical bias has kept the female experience in the dark for so long. It has only been in the last DECADE that serious research into hormones and hormonal changes in women has even occurred. With the time lag between research and practice to general public awareness, we are still years away from knowing what is really going on in the bodies of half the population! Part of Dr Gates aim in writing this book was to close this gap.

It's time to start talking ladies!

I can also highly recommend You're Still Hot to Me by Jean Kittson.

The World Was Whole by Fiona Wright

The World Was Whole by Fiona Wright is a difficult book to review. It's a personal collection of Wright's essays, anecdotes and snippets. They are revealing and specific, almost like reading someone's private journal. Yet, all these sketches are written with such emotional intelligence and compassion that they become universal, finding their own connection with each reader.

I underlined so many sections and googled so many poems so that I could read the whole after being tempted by the snippet (one example being Aubade by Louise Gluck) which is always a sign that a book has affected me or moved me deeply. Wright has a lot to say, from her perspective as someone who has anorexia nervosa, about our bodies, how we perceive ourselves, space, environments, nature, food, habits and rituals.

We only half notice the truly extraordinary landscapes, places and situations that we move through. 

I learnt a lot about the complex nature of anorexia. As someone who derives as much pleasure from food and eating out as I do, it was challenging to hear of how complicated all this gets when you have an eating disorder.

Our days are consumed by making choices about food, by worrying over the things that we might eat or have just eaten.

Yet, most of the women I know have had body issues at varying points in their life. It is hard to escape societal expectation, (false) media images that become the norm and all the conflicting guidelines about how much, how little, what, when and where.

Behaviour, despite what fiction would have us believe, cannot tell us everything, or even very much, about a person.

I enjoyed her observations about the changing face of Sydney suburbs and found a lot to compare about her time in China, where it's 'hard to feel significant' amongst the overwhelming crowds, with my own time there 20 years ago.

But there were also times when I felt incredibly old and maternal towards Wright. I wanted to bundle her into my now, much older arms, (along with my younger self), and plead with them not to be so hard on themselves, to let go the angst and conflict and insecurities that absorb(ed) their days. This time feels like it crawls by at a painfully slow pace, yet it's gone in the blink of an eye. And suddenly you find yourself in your 50's, calmer, at peace, comfortable and secure, in a way that your (my) younger self would have scorned and envied at the same time.

It is complicated, but most of the time we make it more complicated than we need to. It's a journey we all have to go on, at our pace in our own way. I believe it's possible for everyone to eventually feel a sense of belonging and acceptance. You just have to give it time. And be kind to yourself along the way.

Midwinter Break by Bernard MacLaverty

I picked Midwinter Break from my TBR pile to read for Cathy @746Books #ReadIreland18 month. It is a staff pick at work thanks to one of my colleagues, so I was looking forward to it. But I failed to engage.

There was lots to like about the story. I enjoyed the time that Stella and Gerry had wandering around Amsterdam. I enjoyed their cute couple moments - the kiss in the lift, the little in-jokes and intimacies that can only occur over time and with love. It was sad seeing this obvious once-love being destroyed by Gerry's alcoholism.

He wasn't an abusive, violent drunk. There was no need to be scared of Gerry or to fear him. He was a bumbling, deceptive, in-denial drunk. He was sloppy and mocking and selfish.

It was interesting to see how the major event in their marriage - Stella being shot whilst pregnant - was a turning point for all of them, in such different ways. After she had recovered, and the baby survived as well, they made the decision together to leave Ireland for the safer option of Scotland. However, at the time of the shooting, Stella vowed and said a prayer,

Spare the child in my womb and I will devote the rest of my life to YOU.

She viewed the survival of her son as a miracle that had to be atoned - a spiritual debt that had to be repaid - by good deeds, to improve the world through kindness and justice and equality.

Gerry simply saw Stella's survival and the birth of Michael as the miracle,

To him her presence was as important as the world. And the stars around it. If she was an instance of the goodness in this world then passing through by her side was miracle enough.

The tragedy being that he was just pissing all that goodness away.

Normally I don't mind jumps between various times and events, but it felt clumsy here. I kept losing my way. And the very worse thing that can happen to me when reading a book happened at the half way mark - I realised I was bored.

I skimmed through the last half hoping for my very own bookish miracle, but it failed to recapture my imagination.

Sad, but true.

#begorrathon18
#ReadIreland18

The Wonder Down Under by Nina Brochmann & Ellen Stokken Dahl

No, The Wonder Down Under is not a travel guide about Australia. It's full title is The Wonder Down Under: A User's Guide to the Vagina. And it was utterly fascinating and illuminating from start to finish.

Nina Brochmann & Ellen Stokken Dahl are medical students (probably fully fledged doctors by now) from Oslo who worked in the area of sexual health. They quickly realised that there were myths and misconceptions about pretty much every area of female genitalia and health. Their subsequent research revealed that they also had some of their own misconceptions to bust.

As a 50 year old woman, long interested and curious about her body, I have read widely on this topic over the years. Yet I learnt so much from this book, my head is still spinning!

My only disappointment is that Brochmann & Dahl stopped before peri-menopause. Trying to find accurate, up-to-date, easy to read information about this stage of female life is very challenging. Perhaps they will revise the next edition with a chapter or two on this long ignored, hidden side of female health?

So, what DID I learn?

I learnt that the female egg does not sit passively waiting inside the fallopian tube for the winning male sperm to come along. Just like with sperm, there are thousands of eggs released each month that compete to be the final contender for impregnation. It is usually the sperm left waiting at the mouth of the fallopian tube for the mature egg to make her grand appearance.

The clitoris is not a 'little button' but is in fact the same size as a penis, except it extends internally in the shape of a wishbone. The clitoris is but the tip of the iceberg! The infamous g-spot is most likely the internal extension of the clitoris being stimulated during vaginal sex.

Only about 15% of women have 'spontaneous' desire or a wish to have sex NOW. Many females experience 'responsive' desire instead which is dependant on touch.

one in three women has a responsive form of sexual desire. At the opposite end of the scale, there are the 15% who have the 'classic' spontaneous form of sexual desire, in which you feel desire for sex out of the blue. All the other women are somewhere in between the two. Now and then, they fancy having sex without quite understanding why, whereas other times, sex sounds like a bit of drag until they feel their body responding and their head slowly joins the party. Only a small group of around 5% lacks any desire for sex, whether spontaneous or responsive.

I also learnt that the hymen is an elastic ring or fold of skin rather than a mucus membrane, which they go on to discuss very thoroughly in the Youtube clip below.

This is a fabulous book for teens and young women everywhere. Along with all the facts and figures, they discuss hair removal, periods, pain, contraceptive options, sexually transmitted diseases, masturbation, sex and pregnancy. The book is practical, empowering and fun. Popular science at it's very, very best.

Regardless of your age or gender, you will learn something you didn't know before by the end of this book.

The Wonder Down Under will be published by Yellow Kite Books via Hachette in Australia on International Women's Day 2018. It's translated into English by Lucy Moffatt.

The Case Against Fragrance by Kate Grenville

I didn't expect to read one of my Top Ten Tuesday Autumn Reads so quickly, but a curious reaction at work today prompted me to devour Kate Grenville's The Case Against Fragrance in one sitting.

I've known for quite some time now that certain garden chemicals, cleaning products as well as regular old dust particles can give me ghastly long-lasting sinus headaches.

But it took me longer - much, much longer to accept that some perfumes and fragrances also had a similar effect.

As a family we moved to soap free washing powders and body washes a number of years ago when one of the booklets developed eczema. The link between soap and skin problems seemed obvious.

However, because I didn't wear perfume very often, it took a long while for me to link my sudden migraines to scent. I blamed hormones, chocolate, red wine, cheese and work, but some non-scientific and sporadic testing over the past few years, has led me to finally believe that it's perfume. Not all types of fragrances though - perfume and some room air fresheners seem to be the main contenders. I'm fine with essential oils, incense, shampoos and hand lotions.

I usually cope fine if the scent is on someone else or in another room or if enough time (& air) have gone before me in an enclosed space.

Our recent holiday in Mexico was a case in point. The hotel we stayed at used a specially designed fragrance for their boutique rooms. If we came back to our room not long after the cleaner had been and we turned on the air-con, I ended up with a sinus headache. But if we stayed out all day and opened up the verandah doors when we did come back, I was fine.

When we checked out the hotel presented us with a small vial of their special room scent, so we could be transported back to Mexico with one whiff of their special spray!
The first time I sprayed it at home, I ended up with a headache and felt nauseous. Not the kind of holiday memory they intended I'm sure!

Today at work, one of my colleagues cleaned the bathroom with some regular supermarket purchased spray cleaner. I was a room away, but the outside doors were closed. Within minutes I felt ill and dizzy and completely overpowered by the scent. Opening the doors up and turning on the fans helped me feel better, but tonight I'm feeling all sinusy with a sore throat.

I've never had such an immediate reaction before.

Reading Grenville's book tonight seemed like the logical thing to do.

Grenville is not a scientist, but she has used her formidable research skills to present her case against fragrance. Early on she says that,

using fragrance is a choice,and my hope is that this book might give people the chance to make that choice an informed one.

She presents studies (among people who get migraines, around half get them from fragrance - pg24), lists signs and symptoms, defines terms, lays out the history of the use of scent and how scent is produced, reveals the various industry and government bodies who regulate the use of fragrances and chemicals as well as providing anecdotes about her experience with fragrance intolerance.

Did you know that 'when you smell something, it's because little bits of it have just gone up your nose'? Grenville goes on to explain how this actually occurs and why it can be beneficial for us.

Problems around trade secrets, loopholes in labelling, animal testing and industry based research and assessments are discussed. Lists of impossible sounding chemicals and some of their known side-effects are noted. Grenville devotes two chapters to the recent research around the indestructible nature of synthetic musks - how it has invaded our water sources, is stored in our bodies and affects our hormones (it was common to find musks in over ninety per cent of the people tested pg125).

She concludes with a discussion about recommended dosages,

How small is safe, how weak is safe and what the long-term effects might be, are questions no one yet has the answers to.

What to do? Grenville encourages us to consider creating low-scent work places and buying fragrance-free products (if you can only afford one alternative product, spending a little extra on laundry powder is one of the best ways to make life safer for you and your family pg168).

Have you ever had a reaction to the fragrances and scents in perfumes, cleaning products or air fresheners?

I wonder how many people have been suffering in silence, not knowing what the problem was? Or how many people have had a milder reaction to fragrances and therefore haven't made the link?

Avalanche by Julia Leigh

Writing a book about your experience with the IVF program comes with many emotional pitfalls and landmines. It crashes into the brick wall of other people's preconceived and often strongly held opinions.

The trick, obviously, is to connect emotionally to your reader very early on.

I find that books like this, about topics like this, are a lot like friendships.

There are those friends that you meet that you click with straight away - you feel like kindred spirits. It can be quite intense and full-on, but as you get to know each other better, you realise that there are some stark differences. Some friends survive this phase; some don't.

Other friendships start off cautiously. They seem okay, but the timing is never quite right to jump into a deeper conversation. You regard them fondly, kindly, but don't them very well...until something happens that forces you to get to know each other. Some friendships surge forward after this and a closer bond is formed that lasts forever; but others just drift away once the crisis is resolved.

Then there are the friends who you dislike at the start. They say or do something that puts you off or they see at your worst and so you avoid each other, wondering what other people see in them. Then one day you get invited to the same BBQ, or you end up sitting next to each other at a school event, or you run into each at the doctor's surgery and you start chatting. Suddenly you're having coffee together and laughing about those crazy first impressions.

There are some people who you can never get beyond that dislike phase. Every encounter simply confirms your bad opinion or brings out the worst in you.

But most people, that vast mass of humanity on the periphery of your life, are benign, potentially sympathetic souls, willing to leave you be to live your own life as best as you see fit just as you leave them to be happy in their own way. You might connect at a work thing one day, have a friendly chat, but never think of each again.

I suspect that page one of Julia Leigh's Avalanche: A Love Story will cause most readers to dive into the intense kindred spirit type friendship or leave them feeling dislike at first sight.

For me, it was the first friendship.
I connected instantly and intensely with Julia's beginning.
The rekindling of a love affair in her late 30's with the man she loved at uni is my story too. However, at this point, our paths diverged.

That initial burst of fellowship that engaged me and drew me into her story, began to feel too fierce. I began to judge her actions by what I feel I would have done or did do in similar circumstances. I recalled the many, many discussions with friends during my twenties, thirties and forties about babies and motherhood. The choices people made - all that heartbreak, joy and hard work. The expectations about relationships and parenting that everyone contends with - from their families, society, but ultimately, themselves.

I read Leigh's story through in two very quick, vivid reading sessions. I marvelled at her gutsy approach - laying it all on the line for us to comment on. I respected her attempts to take other people's perspective into account and to analyse some of her own behaviours and actions thoughtfully.

No-one is perfect. We are all flawed individuals, often blindsided by our own desires. Leigh attempts to bring some of these to light,

There is comfort in purpose. Part of me wanted to have a child just so I could have an inviolable reason for being. Sweet purpose. Sweet dark purpose, secret of secrets: a child would save my life.

By the end of Avalanche, I had swung back around to feeling friendly and sympathetic. This is one woman's journey; it's not one I would choose for myself, but this is not my story. Leigh is giving us a chance to see inside the heart and mind of someone who makes a certain choice. As Atticus Finch said in To Kill A Mockingbird,

You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view … until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.

Leigh gives us this opportunity.

I'm not sure if she also fully appreciates the searing indictment on the IVF industry that emerges through her story. Perhaps that is my particular lens kicking in though.
The money being made off older women and couples emotionally desperate to clutch at any baby making straw was truly startling. The odds were never in their favour. Yet still they try.

Leigh's book helps us to understand why.

Avalanche has been longlisted for this year's Stella Prize.

The Middlepause: On Turning 50 by Marina Benjamin

The big five-oh is fast approaching and books like this now have a curious appeal.

Suddenly finding yourself experiencing perimenopausal symptoms and not knowing what to do with them can be rather startling if not frightening at times.

Considering how much medical knowledge we have about pretty much every other aspect of our physical lives, I am surprised by how much myth and mystery still surrounds menopause and it's various stages.

Fortunately, the baby boomers have never done anything quietly or on the sly, which is good for us Gen X-er's that follow along. As the boomers have hit each stage of life, they have brought it kicking and screaming into the public eye, thrown money at it and done everything possible to conquer it, fix it or normalise it.

Books like The Middlepause are popping up everywhere as boomer women embrace menopause and want everyone to know about it.

Personal stories about individual experiences are an important part of the normalisation process - they help us to see that everyone has their own story, their own way of going through menopause and that they are all perfectly valid. Menopause is not a prescribed process with specific signs and symptoms that everyone follows. Every woman's experience will be different and that is normal.

Part of the reason why you pick up a book like this, though, is to be reassured that you are normal when you feel far from it! You want to know that there is some common ground, some regular, formulaic way of getting through this phase of your life.

I confess that I was hoping for practical information when I picked up this book, but after the first few chapters about hormones, Benjamin veered off into stories about books, movies and her particular family situation. Which may have been interesting if I knew who she was (I don't), or if my situation reflected hers (she had an emergency hysterectomy). But it doesn't.

Like Benjamin was, I am expecting that 'gradual transition' of menopause, when 'age will have crept up on you the way fine lines do.'

I empathised with Benjamin's sudden descent into menopause after her operation and this book could be helpful for others who have found themselves in a similar position.

But I was looking for more of the stuff around peri-menopause, more insights that could help one to realise that you are not alone when you feel,

'the sort of mood swings and rounadbouts not encountered since adolescence, but when experienced in maturity they lead to a volatile and vertiginous brinkmanship...you flirt with extremity, skirt with madness...the whole thing is like some fairground House of Horrors experience.'

Comments like that are comforting when  you've just had one of the weirdest weeks of your life where everything feels like it's on a knife edge and you seriously wonder if you're going crazy.

I was looking for answers and what I found here was someone else wondering what on earth was going on for her and searching for answers.

This is a very personal account of one women's experience with ageing which highlights that we all go through these phases in our own unique ways. And that's perfectly okay.

Cure: A Journey Into the Science of Mind Over Body by Jo Marchant

I have always been fascinated by the workings of the brain.

Not only the physical, measurable stuff about what our brain can do and how, but also the psychology of our minds - the stuff that's harder to measure.

"It's all in your head" or "you're imagining things" are two of the phrases we dread to hear when it comes to talking about our problems or our pains.

It is these two phrases that Marchant deals with in short shrift in her book, Cure.

She is not suggesting that all illness is in our mind or that illness can be cured by positive thinking. Instead, she thoroughly explores the idea that our minds can play a significant role in our overall well-being and health. In ways that we're only just beginning to understand and appreciate.

Marchant discusses placebo's and nocebo's (the negative effects of taking a placebo),

we experience placebo effects every time we receive a drug. Any benefits we ultimately feel are a combination of the active effect of the drug, plus its placebo effect.

Fatigue, exercise, depression, chronic fatigue, hypnotism, labour and birth, MS, autism, burns victims, meditation, cognitive behavioural therapy, faith and ageing all come under close scrutiny to discover how and why our minds affect our bodies.

From the simple (and dare I say, obvious) findings,

When we're receiving medical care, our mental state matters. Those who feel alone and afraid do not fare as well as those who feel supported, safe and in control.

To the fascinating,

It turns out that experiences of social exclusion or rejection...activate exactly the same regions of the brain as when we are in physical pain. When we're socially rejected or isolated, we don't just feel sad. We feel injured and under threat.

She exercises caution when she reminds us that "just because the mind plays a role in health, this does not mean it can cure everything....(however it is becoming clearer that) our thoughts, beliefs, stress levels and world view all influence how ill or well we feel".

If you want to find out more, check out Marchant's research on her webpage.

You may also like to read:
The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge
Change Your Thinking by Sarah Edelman

Being Mortal by Atul Gawande

Being Mortal was nothing like what I expected it to be.

I thought it was going to be a philosophical discourse on the nature of aging. Instead I quickly discovered an anecdotal journey through the US aged care system.

However, interspersed amongst the anecdotes were loads of interesting facts and discussions about aging through the times and across cultures.

One of the ideas that caught my attention centred around the move from generational care and family groupings to independent living. The media, governments and social commentators usually lament the loss of this traditional form of family, but Gawande turned this on it's head very quickly.

It wasn't just the 'selfish' younger generation ditching their family responsibilities, the older generation also benefited from the break up of the extended family living arrangement. They were no longer unwanted burdens on their family who were waiting for them to die so they could inherit the land. In fact,

the fascinating thing is that, over time, it doesn’t seem that the elderly have been especially sorry to see the children go.

It turns out that the elderly also want to do their own thing and live their own lives and be responsible for their own purposefulness just as much as younger folk. It makes sense!

It's just that their idea of purpose is different to those of their younger members of the family.

And it seems, this is where the problem lies in our current arrangements for looking after the aged and dying. Younger folk are making assumptions about what is important to the elderly and dying based on their own thoughts about what it might be like to get old as well as what is easy for them to manage and helps to make them feel good about the choices they make for their aged parents.

It turns out that none of these ideas are even close to what the elderly actually want or need.


All the teachers, social workers. nurses and psychologists out there will have come across Maslow's hierarchy of needs at some point in their careers.

All theories get refined with time and experience. The interesting section for me was the realisation that Maslow's theory really only works for those of the younger generation.

This well-known triangle is a young person's perspective on the life experience.

What's missing from many of our current models for aged care is a hierarchy of needs that focuses on the perspective of the elderly.

The later sections of Being Mortal save it from being nothing more than a sad reflection of our modern world unable to cope with its own mortality.

Gawande researches all the options popping up throughout the States that offer something different, something special, something worth living for.

It was such a relief to realise that our fate does not necessarily have to be a depressing regimented soulless nursing home.

I have highlighted the section on the questions to ask someone who is dying in the hope I will never have any recourse for them.

Another example of mortality avoidance perhaps?

A big thank you to Katie @Being Dewey for hosting this readalong. It wasn't what I was expecting, but it was such a worthwhile, thought-provoking read that I recommend it to everyone.
It will change your perspective on life and death.

You're Still Hot To Me by Jean Kittson

So, yes.

I am a woman of a certain age.

I don't quite know how I got to this age so quickly. I still think of this age as being my mother's age, not mine.
Nevertheless, here we are.
For the past couple of years I have been in the over 45 age bracket!
Me!

Wasn't I just 18 the other day?
Where did 28 go? What happened to 38?

When I was 18 I hated being one of the youngest in my year, but now, all my dear friends from school are turning 48 and I'm still a spring-chicken 47 for a few more months!

My 40's have been fabulous.
The best decade of my life so far.
Healthy, confident, happy.
Secure in love and work. Financially stable and strong.
At peace with my childhood demons.

What could possibly go wrong?

How about a raging irritability that comes from nowhere and is very uncharacteristic?
Some might say that this is just a normal reaction to living with two teenagers, but I knew it was more.

How about a changing body?
Just little things - internally and externally that were different to how I remembered.

How about a change in sleeping patterns, energy levels and concentration?

It took a chat with a slightly older friend to make me realise.....menopause.

Well, actually, not menopause, but peri-menopause.
Menopause is the end event.

Peri-menopause is the phase before that.
The teenage years in reverse; the reproductive cycle winding down.
Just like the teenage years, peri-menopause can be full of angst, hormonal changes and body changes.
Just like the teenage years, every woman will experience it differently. Different signs, symptoms and side-effects.

But thanks to comedienne Jean Kittson's refreshing book, I now feel prepared. I feel understood and accepted. I have lots of useful, practical information at my fingertips. I have a resource to dip in and out of when I need reassurance.
And I can have a good laugh at myself at the same time.
Bring it on!

This post is part of #AusReadingMonth, the Australian Women Writer's Challenge and #NonFicNov.

It's Monday!

It's Monday which means it's time to plan my reading week.

I read The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge a number of years ago.

In fact my memory of reading this book is very specific and linked to a very strong sensory experience - I read a chapter every Wednesday afternoon whilst my youngest booklet was doing his swimming lessons.

Whenever someone now mentions this book, I am immediately overwhelmed by the smell of chlorine and I feel once again the warm, syrupy humidity of our local indoor pool. It was a lovely bonding time for the two of us & Norman Doidge is now forever connected to this moment of family history.

And, in fact, this experience is a prime example of what he was talking about in his book,

 "We have seen that imagining an act engages the same motor and sensory programs that are 

involved in doing it. We have long viewed our imaginative life with a kind of sacred awe: 

as noble, pure, immaterial, and ethereal, cut off from our material brain. Now we cannot be so sure 

about where to draw the line between them. Everything your “immaterial” mind imagines 

leaves material traces. Each thought alters the physical state of your brain synapses 

at a microscopic level."

 "As we age and plasticity declines, it becomes increasingly difficult for us to change in response 

to the world, even if we want to. We find familiar types of stimulation pleasurable; we seek 

out like-minded individuals to associate with, and research shows we tend to ignore or forget, 

or attempt to discredit, information that does not match our beliefs, or perception of the world, 

because it is very distressing and difficult to think and perceive in unfamiliar ways." 

There was so much for me to love about this book, so you can imagine my delight when I heard late last year that there was a sequel due out. And as you imagine my delight, think about how many synapses have just been triggered & how many different ways our brains have just been altered :-)
 
The Brain's Way of Healing by Norman Doidge

In The Brain That Changes Itself, Norman Doidge described the most important breakthrough in our understanding of the brain in four hundred years: the discovery that the brain can change its own structure and function in response to mental experience—what we call neuroplasticity. His revolutionary new book shows, for the first time, how the amazing process of neuroplastic healing really works. It describes natural, non-invasive avenues into the brain provided by the forms of energy around us—light, sound, vibration, movement—which pass through our senses and our bodies to awaken the brain’s own healing capacities without producing unpleasant side effects. 

Doidge explores cases where patients alleviated years of chronic pain or recovered from debilitating strokes or accidents; children on the autistic spectrum or with learning disorders normalizing; symptoms of multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, and cerebral palsy radically improved, and other near-miracle recoveries. And we learn how to vastly reduce the risk of dementia with simple approaches anyone can use.

For centuries it was believed that the brain’s complexity prevented recovery from damage or disease. The Brain’s Way of Healing shows that this very sophistication is the source of a unique kind of healing. 

As he did so lucidly in The Brain That Changes Itself, Doidge uses stories to present cutting-edge science with practical real-world applications, and principles that everyone can apply to improve their brain’s performance and health.

No doubt this will take me quite a few weeks to read, so don't watch for a review too soon!

And I hope we get a few more hot summery days so I can pack this book into my swim bag for when I go to the pool to do my laps.

My light relief read for the week is book 2 of Sulari Gentil's Rowland Sinclair series, A Decline in Prophets.

In 1932, the R.M.S. Aquitania embodies all that is gracious and refined, in a world gripped by crisis and doubt.

Returning home on the luxury liner after months abroad, Rowland Sinclair and his companions dine with a suffragette, 
a Bishop and a retired World Prophet. The Church encounters less orthodox 
religion in the Aquitania's chandeliered ballroom, where men of God rub shoulders 
with mystics in dinner suits.

The elegant atmosphere on board is charged with tension but civility prevails...until people start to die. 
Then things get a bit awkward.

And Rowland Sinclair finds himself unwittingly in the centre of it all.

What will you be reading this week?

This post is part of It's Monday! What Am I Reading?

Michael Pollan on How to Eat

Last week I attended a night of Ideas at the House with Michael Pollan - the venue Sydney's beautiful Opera House - the topic 'How to Eat'.

In preparation I read In Defence of Food, started The Botany of Desire and checked out his website.

Thanks to my research I didn't really learn anything new about Michael Pollan's views on food, but he is a very entertaining speaker and it was a pleasure to listen to him in person (we had great seats only 10 rows back from the stage!)

If I'd had a chance to read further through The Botany of Desire, I would have asked Michael how his wild apple seeds were fairing as his chapter on the history of the apple was incredibly fascinating. I found myself quoting it to my husband and friends whenever they gave me an opening.

I also made the mistake of taking In Defence of Food on holidays with me! My long-suffering husband was treated to several soap-box harangues about food, politics and the environment that decreased in coherence as the intake of pool-side cocktails increased! 

I am definitely a convert to the cause of eating well, ethically and responsibly. It's a no-brainer really. Pollan's research also clearly shows the health benefits for us and for the other animals and plants with which we share our planet.

The hard part will be convincing two teenage step children the advantages for them in eating more fruit and vegetables!!

And finally, a few random words from Pollan, from the other night...

"TV is designed to pin you to the couch - it is not motivational. We watch more sport and cooking shows than we play sport or cook!"

"We eat and shop thoughtlessly, unconsciously. By devoting more time - asking questions, growing our own food - paying more attention to our food and the process of preparing food - it's not a hardship; it's a pleasure."

"Quality not quantity."

Finally here's a link to the interview so you can see and hear for yourself.

Changing Habits Changing Lives by Cyndi O'Meara

Last Easter, I discovered this book by Cyndi O'Meara in a second-hand bookshop in Mornington.

I've been reading stuff about food, where it comes from, how to eat properly, stay healthy etc for years and years.
Where I can, I make changes in my daily eating habits.
Some of these changes stick; some don't.
Some work; some don't.

I employ a healthy amount of scepticism (and research) before doing anything drastic. I also use a certain amount of 'gut-feeling' (no pun intended!) about what makes sense and what doesn't.

This books works for me.

A couple of quotes might help to explain why.

"This is not a revolutionary diet...it's an evolutionary diet. It is not something new - it's something quite old...as a consequence, this is a diet which our bodies thrive on."

"A healthy diet is not just about the number of calories or the amount of fat; it should take a holistic approach. This book is about changing your lifestyle, the way you feel, the way you think about food."

"Most diets expect you to change everything overnight. That's why most people stick to such a diet for 2-6 weeks, and then go back to their old ways. The way to use this book is to read a chapter and then make a change...Once you've mastered that single change of habit and it becomes a part of your life, go on to the next change."

Makes sense doesn't it?

I've had this book for 13 months now and I've just completed chapter 10 "Go Back to Butter".

Some of the chapters were easy for me as they were habits I already had, or partially had. A couple were completely new ways of approaching things and took time. And Chapter 3 on eating slowly is still a work in progress!

Chapter 6 is about healthy reading. The main focus of the chapter is to read the information labels on the food you buy more closely. However I also took on board the idea of reading more about food and health to confirm/deny O'Meara's theories.

There is a lot of conflicting information out there. And a lot of it is sponsored research from multinational companies that make food products!

There are also people like Michael Pollan - a journalist and family man interested in healthy eating who decided to research what kind of food he and his family should eat.

The result has been several books such as 'The Omnivore's Dilemma', 'In Defence of Food' and 'The Botany of Desire'.

He is coming to Australia in July so I've been going through his book called 'Food Rules: An Eater's Manual' .

It has been a great complementary read to O'Meara's book.

Here's a few simple rules that I particularly like...

"Eat only food that will eventually rot".

"It's not food if it arrived through the window of your car."

"Eat your colours".

"Eat animals that have themselves eaten well."

"Don't eat breakfast cereals that change the colour of the milk."

"Eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself."

"Have a glass of wine with dinner."

Speaking of which, my husband is serving up our homemade spaghetti bolonaise right now, which is my cue to pour 2 glasses of wine...and eat well.

Bon appetit!

The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey

How does one do justice to a small book about snails and illness?

I can already hear the many yawns from here. And I can see your fingers hovering over the mouse ready to click and move on.

But please dont.

Stay a while, slow down and take a moment to reflect on those smaller and less fortunate than us.

Bailey was struck down 20 years ago by a mysterious, life-threatening illness. She has been bed-ridden for long stretches of time, completely immobile and therefore cut off from the world.

In such a situation I defy anyone to not become overwhelmed by futility.
However a chance arrival in her bedroom changed Bailey's life. A visitor brought her a pot of violets from the nearby forest...and a snail.

During the night, Bailey was disturbed by an unusual sound. She could hear the snail eating.
"The tiny, intimate sound of the snail's eating gave me a distinct feeling of companionship and shared space." (chapter 2)

So begins a beautiful tale of co-existence and understanding.

Bailey uses examples from poetry, literature and science to bring forth the nature of her snail. Each little nugget is revealed with care and circumspection. Watching her snail, Bailey comes to terms with her own illness.

"If life mattered to the snail and the snail mattered to me, it meant something in my life mattered, so I kept on." (chapter 20)

This is a book that deserves to be read slowly, with pleasure.