Monday 14 January 2013

Catch-up

Ok so I've found my hat and gloves plus the daily bites January calendar and it appears I have a bit of catching up to do.

Friday's task was to make a big pot of chicken or veggie broth to drink over the weekend for super immunity. It's actually been proven that as well as being good for the soul chicken soup does help fight off colds and flus - a combination of something filling and warming to help keep your temperature up, and eating something nutritious and easy to digest.

Whilst friday night might not feel like a night for healthy food, if you're in and can cook up a big pot of something healthy you'll have an easy couple of meals for saturday and sunday and be much less likely to go totally off piste with your diet. If you're still trying to shift some holiday weight do a weekend mini detox - make up a big pot of watercress soup (thicken with new potato and flavour with veg stock) and eat only that and fresh fruit and veg from friday night til Sunday night and start the week with a spring in your step and a couple of pounds lighter.

Saturdays tip was to plan your meals out for the week ahead. I'm not great at this as I like to tune into how I feel and eat accordingly, but it is worth having a think of some healthy recipes you might want to cook up during the week to make sure you have the ingredients you need. An empty fridge is a sure path to the biscuit tin.

Sundays tip was to have a natural treat of a date stuffed with sunflower butter (or use a nut butter if you prefer). As you'll know if you've read my blog for a while I'm pretty anti-sugar. If we all stopped eating it we'd be thinner, have better skin, live longer, have less heart disease, get less colds, suffer from less mood swings/anxiety/depression ... the list goes on. So do yourself a massive favour and give up the white stuff!

I'm not going to lie to you - it is hard, but so worthwhile, so to make it easier you need to let yourself indulge in some more natural and less addictive alternatives - dried fruit is naturally super sweet, particularly dates, and tropical fruit is also a super sweet treat. If you're partial to some baked goodies it's time to acquaint yourself with agave syrup and make some non-sugar cookies (see elanaspantry.com for recipes).

Finally today's task is to not just dream it, but to do it! I'm a big believer in 'just do it' mentality, when I find myself procrastinating I remind myself of this and get my skates on. When it comes to healthy there's a few examples:
- umming and aahing about going to the gym - stop thinking and just go, you can think yourself out of anything so don't give your mind the time to talk you out of it

- when you find yourself day dreaming about your goals, whether it's weight loss, fitness, learning to cook, stop staring out the window and take some action immediately - book a cooking class, go for a run, do an ocado order of loads of healthy foods

- if you find your brain debating if you should eat something naughty or healthy recognize that's what you're doing and default to the healthy option to end the debate - once you get in the habit you'll avoid many a trip to the office vending machine
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