Sarah Wilson

No need to fight over copies!

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I know I’ve been banging on about my new book rather a lot over the past few weeks. But, hey, give me a little grace here: it has just become the number 1 selling non-fiction book and the 2nd overall last week in the country. I’ll keep this one short and sweet. Due to people … Read more

iquitsugar.com is coming along…

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Not sure what you’re up to, but in our little office we’re Moving Forward. One considered step at a time. As I vaguely mentioned here a few weeks back, we’re giving the behemoth that has become I Quit Sugar a new home. And so, the birth of Iquitsugar.com. We’re a while off…but if you’d like to stay connected and be alerted to a bunch of giveaways and offers we’ll be running for the launch, please do sign up to the mailing list. As always, we won’t be spamming you!

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landing page by Joi Design

As we chug along, I’ll share as much as I can with you about the process. I’ve posted about how to make money from blogging and how to publish ebook before. And I was asked to keep sharing this kind of thing. So. I will.

For this new project I’ve decided it might be nice to bring in Friends of IQS whenever we need a designer, a nutritionist, a doctor, a … florist. I know the car scheme GoGet do this – everyone down to the dude who supplies the ink cartridges for the computers in the office are drawn from their membership base. I like this. To this end, we invited Joi Murugavell, who’s been following this blog for eons, to design the landing page above. I love it stupid, although it is a tame version of what she can often create.

You may remember Joi from this post, where I shared an interview I’d done with her on her Oodlies site. I particularly love her teacup interpretation of my hashimotos.

Well, we asked Joi to design the landing page for us at Iquitsugar.com, so that we could officially open the site, build

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My simple home: how to detox your kitchen

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So last week I introduced you to my latest project: setting up the cleanest, most economical, sustainable, toxin-free home I can. You can catch up here. My Simple Home is my latest campaign and I’m fired up to get people on board, to think about how to make simple, conscious decisions that can have big … Read more

6 clever ways to get more vegetables into your diet

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I’m a vegetable lover. We’re told to eat 5-7 serves of fruit and vegetables a day. I eat way more than this…but I choose to eat my quota in the form of vegetables in the main, with only a little fructose-full fruit. Which is something I had a rant about here. To be truthful, I feel best when I get a good six or so serves of veggies into my gullet most days. This can take some planning and some clever techniques…Shall I share?

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Kale pesto (top) and green eggs – scrambled eggs slurried with kale pesto (bottom). Both recipes are in my cookbook.

1. Vegetable smoothies.

1 large glass = 2-3 serves vegetables

I don’t make vegetables juice, I blend it whole, ergo a smoothie. Some of the Big Benefits of veggies are lost when you get rid of the fibre (as you do when you juice) and it can leave the resulting beverage too sugary (yep, veggies contain fructose too, but less than fruit). I toss lettuce, spinach, ginger (with the peel on), lemon (pips and pith included), turmeric, fennel (leaves and bulb) into a Vitamix (you do need a high-powered blender for this), with some ice and extra water or coconut water and blend until smooth. It’s a meal in a cup and you’re downing 2-3 serves of veggies in one tumbler. I’ll often have this for breakfast (along with some nuts or toast and nut butter or a boiled egg).

If you’re after some extra veggie smoothie recipes click here.

2. Eat veggies for breakfast.

1 cup = 1 serve vegetables

Either as a smoothie, or try my eggy muggin idea (from my I Quit Sugar Cookbook):

Eggy Muggin

  • 1⁄2 cup par-cooked’n’frozen veggies (broccoli or silverbeet works best) or 1 cup fresh spinach leaves
  • sprinkle of frozen peas
  • pinch cheese, grated (cheddar or Parmesan works) or a few cubes of feta
  • 1 egg

Place vegetables in a large coffee mug with a dash of water. Microwave on high for 30 seconds/a minute. Crack in an egg and add cheese. Stir loosely. Microwave again for another 30 seconds/a minute. Done.

3. Veggie fried rice…without the rice

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In case you missed it…

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…I Quit Sugar has been getting a bit of attention lately, since the release of the print edition last week, and, I think, as the awareness of the failings of fructose spreads. For those of you who didn’t catch the clippings in the various media stories over the weekend, I’ll share a selection below. Consider it your light weekend read.

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Matt Preston discovers (and loves!) kale chips at the I Quit Sugar book launch last week. Photo by Sarah Joy Photography – additional images of the launch below.

1. From Booktopia, I answered ten terrifying questions. I loved this interview, which included questions like:

  • What did you want to be when you were twelve, eighteen and thirty? And why? I love this…my interests did shift. As a kid I wanted to be the first female Prime Minister of Australia. I was the eldest of six kids…being influential was in my blood. At 18 I was dreadfully confused. And so I tried all kinds of things for a good decade. At 30, I wanted to be doing something meaningful, communicating and working freely….which is pretty much my life now.
  • What were three big events – in the family circle or on the world stage or in your reading life, for example – you can now say, had a great effect on you and influenced you in your career path? My Year 5 teacher gave me the class prize and said, in front of the school at the end of year “graduation”, that my curiosity was a gift. I treasure her words. They spurred me on. Moving to Sydney when I was 29, from Melbourne. Suddenly everything sped up and made sense. I felt that I belonged. Reading Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela. Such mindful endurance of hardship…it very much guided me through my own troubles with illness.
  • If your work could change one thing in this world – what would it be? To get everyone back to natural appetite and hunger. This would solve obesity and most modern diseases, as well as reduce the environmental impact of processed food.

To read the rest of the article, click here.

2. From the Canberra Times, whose writer declared me too sweet to wage war on sugar, “Quit and

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running from the quietness

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I think many of modern life’s ills stem from running away from quietness and lurching for something more. Constantly lurching, reaching out, not settling inwards. I think about this today as I bounce and lurch from task to phone call to the fridge and back again.

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by Lizzy Stewart via “advice to sink in slowly”

We are so afraid of stopping and being quiet. I practice being in a quiet space each day by meditating. To sit and do nothing is noble. It takes smarts. Reflection. I don’t kid myself it’s easy. It is my life’s toughest journey: down and in.

As Oscar Wilde once wrote:

“To do nothing at all is the most difficult thing in the world, the most difficult and the most intellectual.”

To sit with the silence, the nothingness, it’s a tug of brutal war. Every part of me wants to run from the quietness that my meditation mantra attempts to take me to. So much so, my right hip actually aches as I meditate. It’s my right leg that lurches out towards life. In many traditions, the right side of the body is seen as the “masculine” side. As in, the side that tends to be about lurching out, conquering, forcing, making things happen, doing. And so my right hip aches to move away, to do.

As an aside, it’s my right leg that attracts all my injuries – I’ve broken my right ankle twice, split open my right knee twice, broken my toe and torn a tendon… all on my right leg. And always when I’ve been forcing life too hard. When I’ve been doing and not sitting in enough quietness.

You might want to read about one of my favourite techniques for sitting quietly with myself here.

Why do we run from the quietness? Pscyhiatrist Neel Burton writes about the manic defence in The Art of Failure, The Anti Self-Help Guide:

The manic defence is the tendency, when presented with uncomfortable thoughts or feelings, to distract

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my simple home: my next project

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A few things are about to change around here. In a few weeks this site will be all fresh and different, and my new I Quit Sugar site will be starting to take shape. 

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image via energy efficient homes

In the meantime, much of my passion is going to funnel into my next campaign, which is all about setting up your home to be as sustainable, ethical, minimal, efficient, toxin-free and economical as possible. I’m going to share the best tips and advice via my own bumpy journey to transform (or steer) my own home.

Just before Christmas I bought my first apartment. It’s not big – 1.5 bedrooms, no balcony or yard, no parking. It’s old. It doesn’t have much storage nor many flourishes. It’s a bit of a shell. On top of this, I own no furniture. Actually, that’s a lie. I have a mattress, an old Formica table that I inherited from a friend and two IKEA chairs, an old crate I found at the dump when I was 18 and have lugged about with me for two decades, two cushions, a coffee table and bookshelf I found on the street about 10 years ago and two boxes of sentimental nick-knacks and crockery. Oh, and two surfboards. I’ve simply never bought stuff. I’ve inherited and given away my white goods and couches (actually I’ve NEVER bought whitegoods or couches, not even a kettle) and I’ve never been one to go for vases or candles or whatever else people buy at homewares shops on weekends. Which means I’m in an amazing position to start from

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sugar-free berry and buckwheat galette

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I love Aran from Cannelle e Vanille. We all love Aran. And we love that she’s offered to share another recipe with us all today. I recently shared three summer quinoa recipes from Aran’s beautiful book Small Plates and Sweet Treats (now available, details here). This one is a sweet one…but I’ve adjusted it to be sugar-free.

Summer Berry Galette

Summer berry and buckwheat galette

Serves 6 to 8

Buckwheat crust

  • 3/4 cup superfine brown rice flour, plus more for dusting
  • 1⁄4 cup potato starch
  • 1⁄4 cup buckwheat flour
  • 3 teaspoons stevia granules
  • 1/8 teaspoon salt
  • 1 stick (8 tablespoons) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1⁄2-inch cubes
  • 1 egg yolk
  • 3 to 5 tablespoons ice water

Summer berry filling

  • 31/2 cups assorted berries
  • 2 tablespoons stevia granules

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how to earn $1000 a month selling my books on your blog (plus a sugar-free almond butter fudge recipe)

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You might not be aware of this, but each month more than 300 people out there on the interweb are earning extra cash – up to $1000 a month – by sharing the I Quit Sugar message among their readers. Some of you have been asking how this affiliates set-up works. And how you can do the same. So I’ll share. I’m also taking a little moment to thank the affiliates out there who’ve supported me over the past year or so.

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This is a sugar-free creamy almond butter freezer fudge from Megan at Detoxista’s site. Her efforts have made her the top affiliate last month.

From time to time I like to give gifts to the most enthusiastic affiliates – last month the sleek Maria at Scandi Foodie was that enthused person (thank you thank you!) and I am sending over $500 worth of vouchers and prizes to say…thank you thank you! Check out how she does it so well here. And also scroll down below to see how a couple of other affiliates are doing it…in a way that’s helpful and effective and not…sell-in-ish. If you know what I mean.

Firstly, what IS an affiliate program?

A clever way for you to take part in spreading the sugar-free message with me. If you liked the ebook/s,  share your thoughts on it/them with your readers, and I’ll help you make some money for your efforts.

Can anyone be an affiliate?

Yep! You can. You can run your affiliates through your website, as well as a newsletter, magazine, put it in your email auto-signature, or share on your social media sites.

What do you get?

For my affiliate program, 30% commission on every sale that goes through your site. This means you make $8.70 on the bundle deal

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It’s better to feel normal about being abnormal

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I like Henry Miller’s mind. I’ve written about it before. He expresses without apology. His writing just…goes there; it cuts through and doesn’t pause to deliberate fruitlessly. It feels like freedom to just read his work.

Image by Jody Rogac
Image by Jody Rogac

I came across these Henry Miller quotes just now. It’s from an essay he wrote on the musings of psychoanalyst E. Graham Howe. Miller dissects some of Rowe’s thoughts on normality, and surrender, that I rather like:

“‘Normality,’ says Howe, ‘is the paradise of escapologists, for it is a fixation concept, pure and simple.’ ‘It is better, if we can,’ he asserts, ‘to stand alone and to feel quite normal about our abnormality, doing nothing whatever about it, except what needs to be done in order to be oneself.’

Yes, we must stand alone in order to be ourselves. And, yes, it’s the most challenging thing in the world to do. It’s my greatest ambition… to be truly, bravely myself.

As Miller goes on, a little aloofly:

It is just this ability to stand alone, and not feel guilty or harassed about it, of which the average person is incapable.

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