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Be imperfect.

3/7/2019

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I couldn't decide whether to write the next post about protein, or talk about something a bit more difficult... sustainability. This is especially difficult because the footprint I leave as an athlete is in many ways larger than average. But I have a few personal rules I follow, to make that footprint manageable.

The main issue for me is that people see sustainable living as something that has to be achieved to perfection, or not at all. The 'fuck it, the world's done anyway' response is cheap. If every person on the planet were imperfectly sustainable, rather than 1% being perfectly sustainable, we'd get where we need to go a lot faster. It isn't a lost cause.

Rule 1
You know when you pick something up at the supermarket, and the packaging is damaged? You put it back, have a rummage to find a good one, put it in the trolley. Boston Consulting Group (BCG) figured out that supermarkets are throwing away 1.6 billion tons of food a year. That's a third of global food.

That's a massive scale problem. Like, I can't even visualise what ten tons of food look like. But here's my rule: if you see a pack of 12 eggs, and one of the eggs is smashed, buy it anyway. The supermarket will throw away that whole box. That's 11 eggs wasted for one broken one. It's ridiculous; we'd waste 11 to feel as though we're getting value for money. 

(By the way, if the membrane under the egg shell isn't broken, it's still good to go. Don't eat it if the skin is split as well.)

The same goes for broken packaging. I don't mean for meat; that's something you can decide by yourself. But if a tin is dented, a box corner crushed etc. Just buy it anyway. Wash it if it needs to be washed. Don't let it be part of the waste.

Rule 2
There's a massive rise in the number of restaurants and cafes opening around Europe that have 'closed ecosystems'. It's great; the food is sourced, produced, processed, served and disposed of locally. For example, Maaemo is a three Michelin star restaurant in Norway. Everything they serve is a product of local relationships they foster with tradespeople who have a sustainable ethic and dispose of their waste responsibly. That's a high profile example; there is a hotel restaurant in Grandtully, Scotland called Ballintaggart that grows and manages all of its produce locally. It's closed ecosystem because there is nothing in the cycle of production that gets pushed to another cycle to be dealt with.

My rule isn't to eat at places like this; I think there's about 2% of the population that could afford to do that. My rule is to endeavour to create your own closed ecosystem. Buy local stuff; we have a butcher down the road who knows every farmer he deals with by name. He knows exactly where everything comes from, and it's mostly small, local farms. They are much more likely to have a small ecological footprint than behemoths that produce chicken for supermarkets. Try and recycle/compost everything. If you can keep your impact local, we have a much better chance of managing the mass-production crisis of food. It doesn't need to be expensive.

Rule 3
Going completely plastic free, thanks to our capitalist system, is challenging. Again it feels like an impossible crisis to resolve when you're only offered the brutal facts. But it's another thing that you don't need to achieve perfectly. Plastic waste occurs in most industries, but the largest one by more than double is packaging. So as an individual, you can make quite a big impact by reducing the amount you waste yourself. 

So it's worth thinking, when does plastic packaging come into your life and how necessary is it? Alternatives to plastic are increasingly available for food and drink. Buy a reusable cup, and keep it. Don't be lazy; just clean it, and carry it around with you. Use a lunch box instead of cling film. If there's an option for paper bags and boxes, use that instead. I'll talk a bit more about food prep in another post, but really it's a matter of effort. We're on the road a lot (another footprint for another blog) but even if the last thing you can be bothered doing is preparing food and putting it in a box, it's way healthier for you and the environment if you make a bit of effort and do it.

I think my most successful attempts at being plastic free are in the bathroom; I don't own a lot of makeup and my skincare routine is literally just cleanse, moisturise and sunblock. I only use shampoo and conditioner. So it's simple for me to use non-packaged products - I get everything from Lush UK, and without having any kind of affiliation with the brand at all I think it's the best condition my hair and skin has ever been in. It's more expensive than if you bought own-brand at the supermarket, but it lasts AGES as well. 

We need to make a lot of changes. The biggest ones I've made in my life are adapting what I eat for minimal waste; use the whole thing, keep track of how long it's good for. It's cheaper, healthier and you're not throwing anything away. It's definitely not perfect, and there are so many more changes that need to happen. But it's a step in the right direction.

I think it's important I reference what I read to create the opinions I have:

https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/ The latest IPCC report was last October, and it was grim. It's not an easy read, but it's important. Scroll to section B.4 onwards for some scary stats.

A New Green History of the World by Clive Ponting. How we began, why we're here, the choices we make now that reflect attitudes created thousands of years ago.

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Let's start with the basics

2/10/2019

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Motion Nutrition
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Before I start I should probably bring your attention to some people who really know what they're talking about: head over to  Motion Nutrition for a load of articles that explain holistic eating, nutritional science and general wellbeing in much better detail than me. Being horribly under-qualified, I can only speak from my humble perspective... so I'm going to do that anyway, but if you'd like a more comprehensive nutrition blog, those are the guys to ask!

​But anyway, I'll get started on what I've discovered. I think it's super easy to give yourself a health problem by worrying too much about food. In the past, I have literally driven myself to stomach pain because I feel as though I've not had enough protein, or not reached the right numbers. That's ok; don't beat yourself up about it. You're just trying to be the best you can be, and there is nothing wrong with that.

However to make the experience of being your personal best slightly more pleasant I think it's worth considering a few things. 

People can live off sausages and chips. No, it's not nutritionally ideal. But remember that one famous guy in Scotland who was interviewed following a lifetime of eating literally just sausages and chips? If you miss your protein quota or just couldn't be bothered putting together a 12 part salad for one or two days, it's ok. You're not going to die and you definitely shouldn't worry about it. 

I suppose I'm writing this blog from the perspective of someone who is much more likely to get neurotic about food than lazy about food. I'm saying that because I don't want it to come across as though I would recommend eating potatoes and meat as a staple. I'm saying it because faced with the choice between something to eat that doesn't 'fit' my mental bill, and not eating at all, in the past I've tended towards the latter. 

So some really basic stuff that I've found super helpful over the last few years, added to some tips that I've picked up from other athletes: 

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1. Feed your brain
Our brains like variety and change. The wider the variety of food you put in your body, the more our little receptors and processors have to work. And they like it. Our moods, hormones and physiology are massively affected by the foods we eat, and it's worth the effort of mixing it up. 

2. A word on food prep
I'm actually not that into food prep. I get a bit of satisfaction from making too much dinner and eating it for lunch the next day. The things I do try to pre-prepare is stuff that needs to sit for a while, like sauerkraut and ginger shots. But I enjoy cooking and prefer to wind down at the end of the day making dinner. Although food prep can be extremely economical and helpful during a training camp! 

3. I'm going to talk about protein and I'm not sorry
I know this is seriously annoying for some people. I think it comes from athletes and nutritionists singing high praises to protein in terms of recovery and performance. Yes, it's over-sold. Yes, I think it's true. The best I feel is when my protein intake per day is between 1.5 and 2 grams per kilo of bodyweight. So around 120 grams for me. I discovered the role of protein in my life after a talk by David Dunne, a nutritionist helping GB canoeing athletes. I'd spent a couple of years feeling increasingly worn down and ill as a result of over-training and poor recovery. Changing the way I looked at protein, and more importantly rest, has changed the way I think about sport completely. It's up to you where the protein comes from - your body probably doesn't mind too much. But I'm going to do a whole separate article on protein because I can go on for hours...

4. You need vitamins and minerals
I don't like getting into debates about supplements because I actually don't think it matters how you get your vitamins as long as it's clean and healthy. Vitamin C is an athlete's best friend; you can get that everywhere. If you don't want orange juice, try making sauerkraut. If you don't like sauerkraut, I make a ginger, lemon and blackberry shot (which is god-awful but makes my brain happy) to slap the vitamins in. You need them, they help your immune system. Green things are important, and if you don't like them you haven't tried hard enough! 

I'd like this part of my blog to be more of a discussion than a lecture. If you'd like to read about something in particular, leave a comment and I'll read up on it, then write about what I think. All recommendations and sources appreciated!

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Your right will be a million people's wrong

2/9/2019

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I decided to refurbish the 'nutrition' part of my website a bit, and concentrate on the parts I'm really interested in:
My relationship with food.
Changing attitudes towards food.

If there's a subject guaranteed to get voices raised, egos ballooning and opinions stated as 'hard fact', it's food and eating. I've had a rocky relationship with food since I was really young. It's not perfect now, but my balance keeps changing and I'm increasingly ok with that. 

As I get older, there's loads of things that I've decided I'm not ok with. I don't think I'll go into them too much in this blog, I'd much rather write recipes and create a platform for enjoying food. But I'd like to have them here, even if nobody ever reads them. Maybe they'll be a cool thing to look over in twenty years when the 'food landscape' of the world looks a lot different.

1. There's that expression people get, when talking about an eating disorder. Without directly saying or even implying it, there's an undercurrent in human group mentality of hostility towards this kind of disease. As though it's the victim's fault. I have a problem with this.

2. Humans really love to categorise. I'm gonna go ahead and say it's the root of all evil. Putting things in groups is really fun, and it also creates barriers between people that don't need to exist. Everyone does it. But one 'dietary habit' characteristic firstly does not define a person, and secondly definitely is not the 'cause of a problem' for the greater species. If everyone on the planet chooses to be vegan, or go gluten free, it will change the food landscape. Some parts will be better, and some will be worse. Unfortunately, lots of people love to dive right into these arguments with more opinion than actual fact. I'd suggest:

https://www.ipcc.ch
https://www.waterbucket.ca/aw/sites/wbcaw/documents/media/47.pdf
A New Green History of the World by Clive Ponting
and Maaemo (Esben Holmboe Bang) as an example of a closed-ecosystem, sustainable method of producing food.

3. I love it when I find something that works for me. I want to tell absolutely everyone about it, and often struggle to understand why people wouldn't want to try. As I get older, I've started to realise that firstly, food is directly linked to my brain. If I feel good eating something, that 'feel good' often has a positive effect on me physically. In some ways in opposition, 'feel should' doesn't work for me at the moment. So secondly, everyone functions differently. Some people thrive on 'should'. Some people need a 'feel good'. If you're eating a chemically optimised diet that meets all your physical needs, but you're fucking miserable, it's not doing its job. Obviously you'd rather not sway the other way. We have an ill-defined fear of eating too much of a good thing. But I think it sort of backs up my point: if you're unhealthy, that doesn't feel good. You're probably not eating the right stuff.

So I'd like this section to be a celebration of all the different ways we can reach optimal health. Obviously it's going to be biased towards my experiences, because I'm writing it; but I'd like to try and share new stuff along the way. I hope it's informative; I hope more that it reaches someone like fifteen year old me, who really needed to hear a lot of this!

I hope everyone (if anyone) enjoys, my journey through food x

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    Author

    One of the biggest areas of growth for me over the last few years is understanding the value of my health. Prioritising health for me has lead to a better understanding of my moods, tiredness levels, recovery speed and overall mental health. So I thought I'd share some of the most important bits here!

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