The Ultimate Tea Diet

This is what it looks like outside today, on our road.. that's a wall where water tends to stream down, and its completely frozen. We've been in a deep freeze for about what, about a week now? The crokuses and other signs of spring have been frozen in their tracks.

And this down here was the wall in December as you might recognise from a photo Friday shot.. I think it is now colder than usual for this area.

Still though, its not as bad as Chicago wind chill factors. So why is this post title the Ultimate Tea Diet? Well, when its this cold outside what better than to sit inside with a nice hot cup of tea. That's a quintessential English thing to do anyway.
But this is not an English book I'm about to review here, its actually American, written by Mark (Dr. Tea) Ukra, a tea expert from California. Coffee is taking over here, so maybe tea will take over America... well maybe, maybe not. The premise of the book is about using tea as a means of losing weight, but it has other far reaching health benefits.
When we moved back to England from America, both my husband and I were carrying about 15 extra pounds that we didn't need. We drank mainly coffee in America, even my 'very much a tea drinker' husband. Now he's back to tea mainly, and I have recently given up the coffee, though I still enjoy a good cup now and again. In addition to more walking and some dietary changes, like not eating out hardly ever, we both lost those 15 pounds. Then I had my second child and they came back again. Now they are going again. I believe the tea does help, though its not doing my teeth any good. There is a suggestion in the book to rinse your mouth with water after every cup of black tea, to help prevent the staining. I'm incorporating more green and white teas to reduce the chance of staining, but hey, coffee stains as well!

The book is very informative and provides an entertaining history of tea, along with some scientific facts about the benefits of tea over coffee. Coffee for instance, contrary to popular belief, actually slows down your metabolism, traps body fat and raises blood sugars in your body. It has some benefits as well, but on the whole, you'd do better drinking more tea than coffee.

The cooking with tea section is enlightening with recipes for including tea in food, making tea rubs, and adding brewed tea into stocks and marinades or making things like a tea fruit smoothie. The weight loss can be attributed to tea's main ingredients that help with metabolism, Caffeine (though not as much as coffee, so less damaging), L-Theanine which comes from the Camellia Sinensis tea plant, and ECGC which is in all tea and is a chemical compound known for its antioxidant properties. It has to be real tea though, green, black or white, but not herbal or Rooibos as these do not contain the same compounds.

As an American, I like the tip on making tea ice cubes out of your favourite tea, so when you want Iced Tea, you get a full flavour tea instead of watered down teas when the cubes melt (pg.254). Though I can't even think about that right now!! There's alot to be gained from this book, even if you are not necessarily looking to lose weight. Its about a lifestyle, and making lifestyle changes to last rather than just to lose unwanted pounds. I tried the Quick and Easy Broccoli Tea Soup which was tasty, and enhanced by the Oolong Tea. You can find more info on the website http://ultimateteadiet.com/

In Britain, buy The Ultimate Tea Diet by Mark Ukra published by HarperCollins, 2008 here. In America, you can buy it from Amazon.com and most leading bookstores.

The snow comes at last

The snow has come at last to west yorkshire, although it may not last long, so we got out quickly!!

Washed Away

I suppose walking to school in the rain is hardly something to complain about when you consider that much of West Yorkshire has been flooded this week with the rain causing the rivers to burst their banks. Parts of Hebden Bridge and Armitage Bridge were under water (despite new flood defence systems), and in places like Walsden, the train station tracks were under water so many people were left without transport.

The centre of Mytholmroyd was flooded causing the main Burnley-Halifax road to be shut down for a good part of the day. This is the only main route through the valley so my husband couldn't actually get home from Todmorden on Monday, he waited at a friend's for a few hours.

The only other option is to go over the tops (the tops of the hills) which is slow, congested at times like these, and terribly out of the way.

These pictures are courtesy of Hebden Bridge Web as I could not get out to take them!!

This lorry driver should have stayed at home. Instead he backed into the River Calder.

Things have dried up today, and its colder.

Misty Cold Morning

Its nearly the solstice and surely getting darker, making me feel like staying in bed. The past week has been terrible for my husband in terms of getting any work done with the frost..not good working with stone when its freezing cold.

I know its not as cold though as the weather right now in Chicago and other parts of the midwest. Here in pennine England we've had frost, but no snow or biting wind chill factors, at least not where I'm at. Still the frosty slate roofs make it look more like Christmas.

We've got our Christmas/solstice selection of books out this week and have been reading Elsa Beskow's Peter and Lotta's Christmas and also a book about the Winter Solstice. But my son has discovered the Tao Te Ching and is fascinated with it. Not that he understands it, though some of it he does, he's more interested in the 'truth' that my husband told him it was about. My son was really upset by seeing something on the news about global warming.. we didn't get to turn off the tv in time, and they were using this image of the earth on fire throughout the report, and that really disturbed my son. So the line in the Tao Te Ching "Heaven and earth last forever. Why do heaven and earth last forever? They are unborn. So ever living" has given him real comfort.

Rain Rain Go Away...

What else could I write about? Its been raining for what seems like months, but probably steadily for the past two weeks, as evidenced by the severe flooding in parts of the country.. the worst of it just to the south of us in Yorkshire. We have not been flooded here, as we are halfway up the valley, and the water just runs past and down, but there's been a few standing puddles-mini lakes down on the main road, and Hebden Bridge also had the flood sirens going at one point, but the new flood defences have held thus far.

I heard on the radio yesterday that supposedly we have had our summer in April, where we had about a week or so of unseasonably warm and sunny weather, and now we will have rain for the rest of the summer. But then I also heard a prediction that the heat will come full blast in August. I don't miss the sweltering heat and humidity of Chicago, but I really can't stand all this rain... its better than winter rain, don't get me wrong, but its downright depressing day after day after day. Alright for some though.. photo courtesy of halifaxcourier.co.uk.

Its been the earth's warmest winter on record which means different things for different places, but here its meant an early spring, animals waking early from hibernation and generally very mild weather. Next to no snow for us, here in the Pennines, which supposedly always gets snow?!

Tonight though arctic winds are blowing in, and snow is expected throughout much of England and Scotland, which could be disastrous for hedgehogs and other animals that might starve, having woken too early from hibernation. The snow is not expected to stick, but the cold is expected to continue until mid-week.

There's been a number of tv shows recently about global warming and the newest claim that human's aren't really
responsible for global warming.
The reason being that the earth itself
is warming on its own. And there's also been a barrage of information suddenly on reducing your carbon footprint.

Whether or not global warming is happening quicker because of us really isn't the issue for me.. one can easily observe that nature is not quite right, with animals waking too early for spring, and flowers blooming in February. The carbon footprint can be reduced and I think recycling is a good thing, but as my husband and I observed while watching a politician talk about it, the government has the biggest footprint, along with many other western governments. Its as if its a diversionary tactic to distract the people while they get on with making havoc in the world. They like to tell the [little] people what to do (especially in this country), you just get on with reducing your carbon footprint and leave the wars to us. Hmm..