Day Six: No Sugar

Ines de la Fressange.  I don't think she eats sugar.

I know I’ve just written about this recently, but No Sugar has been such a huge part of my health and happiness that it has to be included in the Thirty Chic Days list.  Contrary to what you may think, No Sugar doesn’t mean absolutely no sugar, it means mostly no sugar.  But if I called it Mostly No Sugar then I’d see a loophole and just eat everything.  Mind games is how I get through life…

Here is the version of No Sugar I have come up with that works for me.

Because most of my meals are prepared at home or work (on a normal week it would be 19 or 20 out of a possible 21 meals), when we do eat out I pretty much have what I want.

The main focus is not purchasing and bringing sweet items into the house.  If they’re not there I won’t be able to eat them.  Being an adult, I am always free to go out after dinner to buy something sweet if I want.  But I’m too lazy.  The sofa is so cosy, we’re watching tv or I’m reading a book, so I have what’s there (the default dark chocolate which is always in the pantry).

I don’t really restrict myself in any other way, however cutting out the bulk of my sugary consumption has helped me choose healthier options.  It’s when I’ve been eating lollies and chocolate that I want junky meals.

When I picked up my library books today, one of the lovely librarians (he’s about my age) came over to tell me I ‘look fit’.  I think he meant ‘fit and healthy’ rather than ‘fit’ in the English way.  He’s such a honey.

I admit at that time I had been teetering on the edge and coveting a bar of something sweet for the afternoon, but after our thoughtful librarian’s comment I remembered that I enjoy being slimmer and looking nicer in my clothes.  He saved me from myself!

I definitely haven’t been perfect and I’ve slipped up a few times since I decided No Sugar, but the taste wasn’t worth it and I felt physically horrible and racked with remorse.  The thought of those sweet items is definitely better than the reality, which as time goes on and I have less of them, gets easier and easier to instantly remember.

I still do like sweet things though, so here are my treats which are manageable for me:

- An icy cold can of Diet Coke (although I don’t drink it from the can, of course I have a champagne flute)
- Two squares of Whittakers Dark Ghana 72% chocolate 
- Jarrah coffee mix (usually as a hot drink after lunch)

I generally have these things once a day, most days.

Do you trick yourself?  What about sweet treats that don’t set you off, do you have any?

Day Five: Enjoy Pretty Touches

Rather than being a cut flower person, I much prefer indoor plants or good quality silk flowers.

Have you seen the fabulous array (and sometimes also fabulous price tag) of silk flowers these days?  There is a florist at a garden centre in a ritzy area in my city and their silk flower selection is glorious.  Until you get right up close (and even then) you don’t realise they aren’t a display of real florist blooms.

I treated myself to a $20 bouquet there a few months ago and I still love it.  It reminds me a little of my wedding posy, but most of all it’s the antiquey saturated colours and naturalness of it that appeals to me.  Whilst also being easy-care and long-lasting of course.

The florist told me the best way to look after silk flowers was to dust them regularly with a cool hairdryer.  I like to wash mine too – run warm water in the kitchen sink, add a tiny dash of dishwashing liquid and swirl around holding by the stems.  Then flick the water off gently and lay the flowers to dry on a tea-towel.

I have a white bouquet also that I bought from Crabtree & Evelyn a while back and I like to move them around every so often, so the eye does not get used to them.

I know lots of people don’t like faux flowers, but I do and I enjoy them much more than cut flowers that start deteriorating within a few days.  I don’t find that luxurious at all!  But that’s what makes this a wonderful world, how we all appreciate different things as I know my mother would rather die than have faux flowers in the house.

What about you, what’s your preference, faux or real?

My bridal bouquet, six years ago

Day Four: Use Things Up

One of my favourite no-cost, happiness-inducing activities is to potter around the house using things up.

Such items as two partially-used body lotions can be condensed into one of the bottles for a new and different scented lotion, and I can recycle one bottle.

I go through my candle stash, choose one that is quite low and commit to burning that until it’s gone.

Same thing with facial skincare.  I tend to buy moderately priced skin products when they are on a special offer, so I always have a good supply.  However I like to test the new one straight away.  When I’m on my using things up jag, I put everything away except for one of each product, and use that until it’s gone.

I know this sounds so basic, but it really does bring a ray of sunshine to my day and subsequent days when I do this micro-sweep of organisation.

I can even extend it to my laundry and pantry by taking stock, combining like items and/or reminding myself they even exist sometimes.  Often dinner is an inspired creation that night!

If you really feel like letting loose and living it up, why don’t you open a cupboard door and see what you can find to use up – join the party!

Day Three: The Minimal Wardrobe

'French Girl's Wardrobe' by Lesley Sico via Pour l'amour de Paris

With the seasonal changeover, I’ve been enjoying playing around with my wardrobe.  I love reading about others tiny wardrobes on their blogs (like Janet at The Gardener’s Cottage, Sarah at Chic Mummy and Jennifer at The Daily Connoisseur), and on websites such as Project 333 (which I linked to via Tracy’s lovely blog) and also TheVivienne Files.

However, when it comes to putting it all into practice, I chicken out.  I go to my bedroom with grand plans, open the doors and then think ‘oh, I don’t have that much’ and close the doors again.  But over the past little while I’ve donated quite a bit of my wardrobe as well as down-graded going out clothing to home clothing, so having a small wardrobe is not such a far-away dream.

Inspired by Project 333, I put my winter clothing on my bed, looked at colours together and made up some new outfits.  I then put the hangers back into my wardrobe having weeded out ‘too summery, slightly too tight, the colour doesn’t go with this collection, etc’.  Those things went further along our really long clothing rail.  Our master bedroom is blessed with a triple door wardrobe which has extra railing beyond that even (behind the ensuite wall).

If you’re not familiar with Project 333, the central premise is to choose a selection of 33 garments from your wardrobe to wear for the next three months, and put everything else away in another room, or a suitcase etc.  You would potentially learn to put together a capsule wardrobe to get maximum possibilities out of your 33 pieces, and also refine your personal style.

In my ‘winter capsule wardrobe’ I now have about 20 hanging garments, half a dozen folded items and maybe 5-6 pairs of winter shoes/boots, two belts and a handful of scarves so I’m pretty happy with that effort.

My focus is on identifying what it is that I do on a daily basis, what would be the ideal clothes to wear doing those things whilst also looking the way I want to look.  Basically being realistic about what I like to wear.

I always feel so good in very simple outfits with not too much frou frou.  I like a colour with a neutral (such as denim and black, beige and light green, charcoal and light pink, etc).  I can very easily be over frou froued since I always wear makeup and jewellery, so wearing simple clothing styles balances that out.

Looking at my clothing and sorting through things gave me two thoughts:

1.  I don’t want to buy cheap clothing in the future.  I’d rather go without and save for something good.
2.  When I do go shopping, I will be very picky and the item will go with lots of other things in my wardrobe.

Both are classic French Girl aren’t they?  I thought it was funny that those two ideas popped into my mind.  You can read and read and read about something, but when you experience it yourself, that’s when it finally sinks in.

Day Two: Plan Ahead (But Not Too Far)

The beginnings of pumpkin soup

I love the idea of menu planning a week or more in advance, but just can’t seem to put it into practice.  So I focus on the next 24 hours of meals.  This gives me a chance to get meat out of the freezer for tomorrow night (or buy some), make sure I have the fruit and vegetables and any extra ingredients I need, and fit in times for food preparation.

More times than I care to count I have arrived at noon with a fridge full of salad vegetables (whole, unwashed and in bags) and a rumbling belly and not wanting to wait the time it takes to wash and chop.  If I can get organised enough to tear, soak and spin the lettuce ahead of time that’s a big help, but when I make little containers of salad in my beloved Tupperware or Gladware containers that’s even better.

It is a thing of beauty to open the fridge door and take out your own home-prepared ‘fast food’, tip it into a bowl, adorn with a yummy dressing and enjoy an ‘instant’ lunch.  Plus, everything is extra crispy having been washed and then chilled.  More so than when you chop and eat straight away.

I have even gone one step further than I used to and added the grated cheese/diced cooked chicken etc.  A sprinkle of grated cheese is such a divine treat on my salad.  I got the idea from Subway, but my salads are much nicer than theirs and much, much less expensive.  The final steps are avocado which can only be done just before, and tomato which is nicer out of the fridge.

I even eat salad in the winter, but I start with a bowl of soup first.  I made pumpkin soup this week and it’s so nice to start off with a hot bowl and then move onto a refreshing salad.

Breakfast and dinner are faster to prepare.  It doesn’t take much time to chop a bowl of fruit, or prepare the broccoli/carrots/pumpkin/beans that are to go with the main part of our meal.

Thinking 24 hours ahead also allows me to stop at the supermarket when I am out somewhere already, rather than make a special trip which uses petrol and my precious free time.

I feel like I’m really making the most of the money and time that I have available to me when I dream up and prepare my healthy and delicious daily meals in a stress-free way, and that makes me very happy.

Day One: Be Pressed, Be Chic.

‘I love ironing’.

This is the mantra has helped me get over my lifelong aversion to ironing.  If I could choose something to wear that did not require ironing, I would.  Even though I love wearing a fitted and crisp cotton shirt with jeans or wide-leg pants I just couldn’t stand ironing in the morning.  And I told myself that my shirts would get crushed and wrinkled in the wardrobe if I did them ahead of time, but really that was a big fat excuse for my laziness.

One day on my day off work I set up the ironing board with an audiobook playing and set to it.  I ironed every one of my shirts and hung them like in a boutique buttoned at the neck.  I was so proud of my wardrobe and getting dressed the next day was very exciting.  Everything felt so new!  And I was finally wearing and enjoying all my lovely shirts.

After that it was a simple matter of ironing a handful of shirts a week.  Every so often I’ll get behind but then I’ll just have another big ironing afternoon with a good (audio)book.  I don’t have the ‘they’ll get crushed’ problem anymore now either.  Because there are less clothes in my wardrobe they have room around them to breathe and stay nice.

What really cemented my newly created mindset of ‘I love ironing’ was that one of my most slender, stylish and elegant friends who went on a Scandinavian cruise last year told me she asked for an iron to be brought to her cabin because she irons everything, absolutely everything she wears - she just cannot not iron her clothes.  I found that really cute, and if her ironing OCD is how she always looks so polished, I’ll take it.