It's true, you are what you eat!
If you read my previous post, you will know that healthy eating has not always come easy to me. However, over the last 10 years, I have learnt the ins and outs of healthy foods and developed a plan that works for me. Please keep in mind that healthy diets are no one size fits all, our bodies are all different and the way we process foods varies from person to person. I am happy to share what's worked for me following Slimming World though with tweaks here and there.
I follow a pescatarian diet and have done so since the age of 11. The main reason I opted for this diet was that I didn't particularly like red meat anyway and only chose white meats to eat. I decided to give up red and white meats though and just eat fish.
Breakfasts - I could say here that 'breakfast is the most important meal of the day and therefore it is so important to fuel your body correctly for the day' but I will be totally honest. Some mornings, I don't feel like breakfast. I know that is not ideal for some people but some days, I just don't fancy anything or I simply don't have much time. On the days I do have time or fancy something, my go to breakfast is usually eggs. Eggs are a high protein, low fat food that are actually quite filling. Some days I have 2 boiled eggs, beans and 2 quorn low fat sausages or sometimes I'll have a slice of 400g wholemeal bread toasted (Hovis Nimble bread is great) with scrambled eggs, boiled eggs or poached. Fruit is my other go to for breakfast. I always have apples, bananas, strawberries and oranges at home so a couple of pieces of fruit is also a quick and easy option. Other healthy breakfasts that I would recommend are; porridge made with water if possible or semi skimmed milk, Weetabix with a fruit topping instead of sugar, fruit filled wheats but be careful of portion size (30g is recommended.)
Lunches - My lunch choices very much depend on the time of year. When it is warm and sunny like it is now, I love nothing more than a juicy, fresh salad. When it is cold and dull I crave comfort food. So let's start with warm weather lunches. I LOVE salad. But it has to be fresh. Not the soggy lettuce and cucumber that you get in ready made salad bowls (if you are short of time, these are ok), I mean proper fresh salad.
In my typical salad I use, baby gem lettuce roughly chopped or romaine if baby gem is not available. Iceberg lettuce has a lot less nutritional value so I don't tend to use it anymore. Then I chop up some cherry tomatoes on the vine (they taste so much nicer) a bit of red onion or spring onion, cucumber and baby spinach. Now as for toppings for my salad, I use a few different ones depending on what I have in or fancy. If I haven't had eggs for breakfast, eggs is a good topping for salad. I mix them with a bit of 70% less fat salad cream or very light mayonnaise and add a tiny bit of black pepper. Other times I will have tuna, mixed the same way as the eggs or quorn chicken fillet pieces, quorn ham sliced up or even crab sticks. A salad would also not be a salad without a few pickled onions or a bit of crinkle cut beetroot! Yum!
Another salad I make is goats cheese and red onion. It tastes incredible and is a great low fat lunch - even though it has cheese in! First you slice half a red onion into chunks, place them on a baking tray and lightly drizzle some extra virgin olive oil over them. Leave them for about 10 mins in the oven. Next mix together a tablespoon of the olive oil, a teaspoon of clear honey, a teaspoon of balsamic vinegar and half a teaspoon of mixed dried herbs. Next toss together some dark leaf greens (rocket, spinach, dark lettuce) some chopped cherry tomatoes and some diced beetroot. After 10 minutes in the oven, take the onions out and drizzle over half of the dressing before returning them to the oven for a further 15 mins. Now crumble 45g of goats cheese into the salad bowl (rind and all) and mix together. Once the onions are cooked, mix them into your salad and drizzle over the remaining half of the dressing. Eh, Voila! This whole dish is only around 350 calories.
Soups. I love soup. Sometimes I batch cook my own and freeze them. Other times I always have the Weightwatchers soups. Yes they can be a little pricey but they are extremely low calorie and very tasty. Soups that I recommend for batch cooking are sweet potato and carrot, tomato and red pepper and vichyssoise. Remember, if you haven't had any bread in the morning, you could always now have a slice or 2 of 400g wholemeal bread.
Other good lunch options are pasta (yes, I said pasta!) quinoa salad or a baked potato. Now baked potatoes are not a good choice for me as I still gain weight with these. Like I initially said though, you have to learn what is right for your body and what isn't. Pasta for me though is fine. I boil some wholewheat pasta, enough to fill a small bowl - think older child portion - and once it's cooked, I add some quorn chicken pieces, chopped peppers and mix in a tablespoon of 70% less fat salad cream.
Snacks - I am not going to be 'Mrs Boring' when I tell you about healthy snacks to eat because it really is ok to eat some not so healthy snacks, too! It is all about balance. Nobody wants to live in a world where it is frowned upon to get some enjoyment from bad foods. Our bodies need some fats and sugars, that is how they are designed. So by cutting all of those out, you would actually be doing more harm than good.
Nuts are a great snack. They are full of healthy fats and oils and have been linked to the prevention of certain diseases and illnesses. Raw foods such as carrot sticks, pepper slices and celery with a little low fat cream cheese, cottage cheese or humous, are great snacks and fairly filling. Fresh fruit is always going to be on a list of healthy snacks. Eggs, as I have mentioned quite a lot, are a great low fat healthy food that can be eaten at any time of day. I also have crab sticks quite often as a snack. They are really low fat and delicious with a drizzle of vinegar over them. Try to limit sweet treats to one a day. I usually choose between, 2 biscuits with a cup of tea, 37g of malteasers, a curly wurly or a tube of smarties. It is important to have snacks like these every day if you are used to having them regularly. You don't want to eliminate them for weeks and then crave them so much that you fall off the wagon and unravel all of the hard work you've been doing of staying healthy.
Dinners - I am a creature of habit and I have my favourite meals that I make every week. I won't list every recipe and ingredients but if you are interested in any of them, please contact me via the contact page and I will be happy to send over my recipes for them. So the meals I cook every week without fail are; quorn and vegetable stir fry, homemade spaghetti bolognese, quorn sausage and bean stew, bean chilli, quorn chicken satay and wholegrain rice, lemon and black pepper cod, mini baked potato and vegetables, Sunday roast and homemade pizza. Of course, there are other meals we have such as curries, lasagna and salad, fish and couscous and many more but the meals listed above are probably my faves and the ones that I cook most often. I also invested in an air fryer for cooking potato wedges and homemade chips etc. It's definitely worth looking into as you can cook many things in them healthily.
As I have said though, this is what works for me. I know which foods are free on Slimming World plans and which are synned. I did follow SW religiously for 2 years until I got to know my favourite foods and their values. I can now continue loosely on the plan without paying into it and know that if I have a holiday or time of the year where I eat a little more than I should of certain things, I can lose the weight again safely and successfully. At the end of the day, life is for living. We definitely should not try and maintain a healthy lifestyle for anyone other than ourselves and our family. It's all about balance. You don't have to be a tiny size 8 with a perfectly toned body to be 'healthy.' You don't have to go to the gym 7 days a week to be 'healthy.' You don't need a diet of kale juice, raw food and chicken and steamed asparagus to be 'healthy.' I mean, you can but you don't have to.
You just have to adapt a healthy lifestyle that fits you.
Even if it's tiny baby steps at a time. Use that takeaway money to buy a new recipe book. Don't eat the third chocolate bar in a day. Park your car one more street away from the school drop off. Use the step counter on your phone/watch and challenge yourself to beat your steps every day. Make a fruit salad or funny food pics on a plate with the kids.
Practice a bit of 'self love.'
