Sorry, I don't bake Cupcakes.........

It's been such a long, long week. I'm tired.



Lil Pumpkin dancing in the Canola fields

My week started with a visit to check out the new borders for my HRM role. I found myself behind the wheel of my lil sweet ride burning up the straight roads towards Cowra and Forbes. This little city mouse was on her way to the country. 5hrs of driving. Its a haul when you're on your own, but only made bearable by the purr of engine, the doof doof of the tunes running through the pipes and the brilliant colours of the countryside. Startling emerald green contrasted against the yellow gold of the blossoming Canola fields. Now throw in a lil Pumpkin and we have a mighty pretty picture and a couple of minutes distraction to break up the drive.

To be honest, I'm not looking forward to this drive becoming a regular part of my life. It was an unexpected change in life and career, one I didn't apply for, but was given. I am desperately trying to work ways to drag out the time between visits. Over servicing on Skype, one option. Never knock a gift horse they say and yes, I will go where the wind takes me.......But still a visit every 6-8 weeks means I need to build in some strategies for training. So far I have located a 5+km run course and a 50m outdoor pool (not sure if its heated yet though). And of course the bike and add the spin trainer. All good to go. I also found the pub for a meal and everything within walking distance of work and very modest accommodation. Looks like I am set. Big Gazza doesn't seem to be perturbed about the time I am away from home. Hmmm, not sure if I should be concerned. Perhaps he likes a little 'him' time.

On other fronts, I have been researching and refining my diet even further. A lot of time thinking about Wheat of late. I considered for a while the hype around Gluten free diets. You have to wade through the marketing, propaganda and fads and copious amounts of Pinterest....'How to lose 9lbs in one hour' type crap. You have to steer clear of celebrity diets and the big ones, Paleo, Aitkins, Military etc and get back to the science. It's a mine field. Always keen for an experiment using myself and sometimes Big Gazza as the human Petri Dish, I set about eliminating wheat from my diet for 2 weeks to see what, if any, changes occurred. And well, 800gms down on the scales, a flatter stomach, clearer skin (even after the major changes from eliminating sugar) and most importantly I noticed every night has been blissfully.....unbroken sleep. Nothing has changed as far as less stress, less training, less coffee and other standard reasons why you might find yourself waking up at night. So, I am interested to see how another 2 weeks goes with no wheat products in the diet and sticking with as much whole foods with as little processing as possible. Once 4 weeks are up, I will try some wheat products to see what effect it has on me, if any, and then draw my conclusions from there. I hope for radical improvements as I experienced when I dropped the sugar from my diet. But, we will wait and see.