Vagenda Strikes Again

Oh you took the words right out of my mouth. It must have been while you were kissing me.

Wait, no, that's wrong. That's Meatloaf, not me. But that's exactly what played through my head when I read this article by Vagenda Magazine. (Disclaimer: clearly I didn't think that the website was kissing me. That's just strange. The second line just flowed right out after the first, okay?!)

I love fitness, it interests me, and I love magazines, and I'm a woman, so surely a fitness magazine for women should be the perfect fit. WRONG. Totally wrong. The kind of wrong that happens when I pick up a Primark dress on a size twelve hanger and try it on, only to find it's actually a mislabelled size six. I'm sure that if I'd properly read those magazines and applied their logic those accidents would never happen: I would already be a UK size 2, existing on a diet of lettuce-infused water, hunger pangs, and a side of I-only-worked-out-for-6-hours-today guilt.

Can you imagine the misery? Unfortunately, a worrying percentage of people can. A quick glance over this HSCIC article and this one from KCL give a number of statistics that are much better read all together (hence why I'm not listing them here). I'm not about to write an article on eating disorders because that would take a lot more research and I'm already very late for bed, but could we please just take a moment to reflect on the gender gap in fitness?

Perhaps I've been a little too harsh on Women's Health (I'm also going to include Women's Fitness, although they are not dealt with by Vagenda. See my comment on the original article). I don't mean that they start eating disorders, because we all know that this doesn't happen (if you are under the illusion that celebrity gossip magazines and fitness articles cause eating disorders then I suggest you go and educate yourself. Pronto.), but I would suggest that they have played their part in the societal trend that women are only worth their looks, and a size eight figure brings in the big bucks. Even the articles that don't hint directly at this are often ever-so-slightly demeaning, downplaying the fact that a lot of women just want to be strong and healthy. Skinny does not equal healthy, my friends.

I don't have much more to say than what's in the Vagenda article, which might get you asking, why write this blog about, well, nothing much? Because I wanted to bring the article to your attention, and also because I'm sick of the importance put upon and the way we scrutinise women's bodies: eat healthily but not too much in case someone sees you, run a lot but not too much so that you don't get muscley legs, lift weights to tone up but don't lift too heavy otherwise you'll look like a man. The final straw really came last week at the gym. I booked a training session with one of the male trainers because I wanted some tips on my deadlift technique. He wasn't able to do the session in the end, so the female trainer stepped in instead. When I asked her how many reps/sets I should be doing to progress beyond my current 30kg, she gave me a look and said that if I wanted I could do 3 sets of 8 reps of the highest weight I could handle, but that she usually just did 10x10 of a lower weight to stay toned but not get bulky. Sigh. Subtle body shaming from a fitness instructor. Loving life. (Yes, she has the right to her own opinion, but she didn't need to give me that look. I asked for tips, not her life story.)

I'm going to stop my late-night rant now and go to bed. In the morning I'm going to go and buy all the men's fitness magazines I can find, and when I no longer fit into my jeans because my quads are too big, I'll just go and buy a bigger pair.

A few thoughts on health and judgement. With some other things thrown in for good measure.

This post is mostly inspired by Sofie's blog the other day about the emergence of the Real Woman culture and alientating body types. It received some pretty heated comments on Facebook, I personally thought it was a good piece but everyone has differing ideas. Coincidentally, or perhaps not so, differing ideas and ideals is pretty much what I'm writing about right now.

I was having lunch in the library cafe last week, as per. I was having a terrible day, so I decided that food would help. Instead of eating the lunch that I'd brought with me, I bought a tuna mayo baguette, a slice of coffee cake, and a large hot chocolate. Plus a Coke and a packet of crisps to take away with me. Hannah (here is her wonderful blog) came and sat down and said, "That's unlike you!", clearly referring to my food. Now, before I go on, I'd like to point out that I have absolutely no problem with Hannah saying this. That's not what this post is about. She was right; as Sofie said the other day, "It's always a grain with you, Serena." My lunch generally consists of wholegrain salad, a homemade granola bar, and a bucketload of fruit. You can see the difference, right? But my point is, why should eating sandwiches and junk food be "unlike" me? Why should anyone need to conform to a set 'thing'?

Why, for example, should anyone be judged for not doing exercise? For eating carbs, or chocolate, or 'fatty' foods? Of course, it's impossible not to judge people who don't do what you (usually) do. A couple of weeks ago I watched a guy sitting opposite me in the library practically inhale four muffins, and my first thought was, Really? Muffins? They're not going to help your brain... And then I reminded myself that I didn't know what he was going through, when his deadline was, in fact I knew nothing about him. So I stopped thinking about him at all, went back on with my work, and only remembered him two weeks later when I pulled an all-nighter fuelled by a large Domino's, all of the chocolate, and a litre of Boost energy drink. It made me smile.

I'm not trying to set myself up as some perfectly zen person, accepting of everyone and everything. I'm really not. Nor am I suggesting that all judgement should be reserved in every situation. I just mean that in terms of eating, and exercise, and general healthiness, maybe we should all do what we want and leave others be. Instead of bragging about how healthily you live, keep silent. People will stop hating you, and instead you might silently encourage someone else to be more healthy too.

A new saying seems to be emerging from the Health corner: eat what you want, when you want. It's great, it goes some way to promote a balanced and non-restrictive attitude towards food. Some criticise it, saying that it can be taken too literally, people will just eat whatever they want, act on every whim for a McDonald's or packet of biscuits (not, I'd like to emphasise, a single biscuit. A single biscuit never did anyone any harm). But when the 'healthy' alternative is to deprive ourselves of everything that we love, why would you not have an extra biscuit if that's what you needed to do for yourself?

I read an interesting post on Thursday, which of course I cannot find anywhere, about emotional eating. Emotional eating is dressed up and put in the stocks for us to throw metaphorical rotten tomatoes at: it's 'bad' and should be trained out of us. Clearly if you're triggered by emotions to eat in a way that identifies with the criteria for binge eating then help should be sought, but if you eat a big slab of chocolate once in a while because you've had a really rubbish day, you've simply listened to what your body and brain want and have given it that. And when was listening to and understanding ourselves a bad thing? As this article said, surely all eating is emotional. The taste or smell or particular type of food might invoke good memories, or perhaps eating something delicious simply makes you happy. In the same way, eating a really healthy meal might make you feel good, dare I say smug, about yourself. Humans are emotional beings by default, and regardless of whether it's healthy or unhealthy, most food experiences create an emotional response.

So instead of judging people for not eating 'healthily', instead of bombarding the whole world with images of glowing, bubbling, self-satisfied (no no, not all paragons of health are self-satisfied), possibly photoshopped men and women who are oh-so-much-better-than-the-rabble, why don't the People In Charge just encourage healthy eating? Don't link it to happiness, don't link it to weight loss, link it to what it should be linked to: health. And make it optional. If it isn't right for you, if your circumstances just don't allow seven family meals a week of organic ingredients bought from the local farmer's market, you shouldn't feel in the wrong.

I apologise for going all over the place with this post. I seem to have a whole load of thoughts that are on the same sort of topic but don't really flow into each other, but then again, this is my blog and I can do what I want. You can't judge.

Make it, eat it: cauliflower pizza bases

When it comes to junk food, I'm definitely more of a savoury person. Sure I like cakes and ice cream, but in a toss-up between chocolate and crisps at the vending machine, I'll take salt and vinegar crisps every time. Give me chips, pizza, burgers and all things dough and salty, throw in a little grease and lashings of mayo, and I'm a pretty happy bunny. The way to my heart is through cheese, meat, and anything on puff pastry.

You'll see I mentioned pizza. I love pizza. Doughy or thin crust, meat or veggie, as long as there's cheese and a tomato-y sauce, I'm happy. I recently ordered a large pizza, and chicken wings, AND potato wedges from Dominos, all for myself. I was utterly disgusted at the fact that I couldn't eat the last slice - I pride myself on the sheer amount I can eat! Three hours later, I wasn't so disgusted. In fact, I was disgusted at how much I had eaten. Lying in bed, clutching my bulging stomach, trying to find the best position to lie in so that my stomach was neither squished nor squishing every other organ in my body, and breaking my spine. I'm not getting myself into that position again.

Nevertheless, I still love pizza (I ate the remaining slice for breakfast), but I wish it wasn't, well, quite so unhealthy. I'm not the sort of girl who can eat a quarter and leave the rest for other meals, it will all go in one sitting. Which leaves me feeling happy, satisfied, and not at all guilty. I don't have it that often, after all.

UNTIL THIS WEEK, MY FRIENDS.

For I have found the answer to the nation's, nay, the world's, pizza woes. *Spoken with an awed, hushed voice* CAULIFLOWER PIZZA BASES. Yes, you read that right. Cauliflower. That slightly gross-tasting (unless smothered in homemade cheese sauce and followed by a heart attack) and water vegetable transforms, with the help of an egg, a little cheese, and as many spices as you like, into a pizza base that actually tastes like dough. Italicised because even I, who was so sold on this concept, couldn't actually believe what my tongue was telling my brain. 

It might not look like much here, but that's because I used the cooker
light to take the photo. Like a pro.

Not only is cauliflower low in everything, leaving room for extra cheese and delicious toppings, the recipe also uses no flour. Gluten-free pizza, here we come! 

This is how we make it:

Ingredients

•  115g cauliflower florets, frozen or fresh
•  2/3 of an egg, whisked (annoying amount - if you want to use the whole egg I'd up the cauliflower to 150g)
•  30g cheese, grated
•  small clove of garlic, crushed/garlic powder
•  mixed herbs/oregano/any spice you want your base to taste of
•  1/2 can tinned tomatoes
•  your favourite toppings

Method

1.  Heat the oven to 220 degrees.
2.  Put cauliflower florets in a microwave proof container and cook for 5 minutes. Do not add water.
3.  Using a stick blender/food processor/grater, pulse or grate the cauliflower until coarsely shredded, until slightly smaller than the chunks in cottage cheese.
4.  Mix the cauliflower, garlic, herbs, cheese and egg together. Cover a baking tray will greaseproof paper or spray liberally with oil spray (this base tends to stick a bit!).
5.  Spread the cauliflower mixture into a 1cm thick base. Put it into the oven to cook for 20 mins, check and leave for a further 5 if necessary - you want the base to stay together when removed.
6.  Meanwhile, cook any toppings that cannot be eaten raw. Either make your own pizza sauce by cooking tinned tomatoes, finely chopped onion, oregano and pepper until it has a coarse, dry texture, or buy some. Too much liquid, however, will make the base soggy.
7.  Spread the pizza sauce onto the base, and cover with toppings. Don't put too many on, as the base is quite fragile. If you've used mature cheddar in the base you don't even need to put it on the top!
8.  Put the pizza under the grill for about 5 minutes, keeping an eye out for burning.

And there you have it. A delicious, healthy, incredible piece of cuisine that should work, but really, really does.

Man v. Food

I was watching Man v. Food this afternoon, and I've decided I want to be him. It's no secret that I love food, and a lot of what Adam Richman eats looks incredible (if loaded with oil, fat, and everything so chemically bad that my body would hate me for months to come). Eating out makes me happy, as does being full of delicious food, but unfortunately (a) I don't live in America, (b) I don't have enough money to eat out every day, and (c) I would be grossly obese within a year, if not dead with a ruptured stomach. So there goes that dream.

On the other hand, I also like eating healthily. I do start to feel rather ill if I don't eat enough vegetables, and have too much fried food; last week I ate an entire large Dominos pizza to myself (I'm 5'5 and not completely overweight) and three hours later I was still in pain. But sometimes I find it difficult to combine eating healthily, eating delicious food, and affording it. I'm a student, I live off steamed vegetables and soup.

I don't, however, agree with stupid diet fads. Eating only raw vegetables might be what some people like to do, and I like a crudite platter as much as the next person, but if eat nothing else I go a little stir crazy, hate everyone, and eat the entire bakery section of Tesco. I think that too many people don't understand that you can't live life without eating absolutely no fats. There are good and bad fats: cooking with a little olive oil, or eating a boiled egg or peanut butter on wholewheat toast for breakfast will do more good than harm. These fats actually stop cravings, which is why after eating  porridge with milk for breakfast and a salad for lunch I'd want, in the words of my friend Sofie, to 'steal the vending machine'.

I'm not really sure where I'm going with this post; food has just been on my mind for a while, and after watching Man v. Food I wanted to write about it. Food takes up a lot of my thought space, mostly because my head is usually in a constant battle over whether I should be healthy, or enjoy the tastes. I can sometimes get too caught up in it, which is never a good thing.

So my new idea is to make the effort to cook something delicious, healthy and new every Sunday night, so that I can look forward to having something nice for lunch in the library the next day. I'm going to try to save some money throughout the week to buy the ingredients, and hopefully cook something successful.

Happy Sunday!