7 tips to have a happy and HEALTHY Easter holiday

It really does feel like we’ve just gotten over Christmas (just me?) and yet here’s Easter already, come to tempt us with its family holiday treats and goodies! Easter food in my family was always mainly about gorgeously warm hot crossed buns (one a-penny, two a-penny) with butter sinking into them and about the hearty family roast dinner. But I do know that the Easter bunny likes to deposit loads of chocolate eggs – and the supermarket shelves seem to heave with a ridiculous number of choices – and have you seen the SIZE of some of them?!

So chances are, the Easter bunny is going to be ‘forcing’ you to eat a bit more than your fair share of chocolate and other waistline-expanding goodies this long weekend… not to mention the extra tipple or four that is mandatory for celebrating a Bank Holiday! So how can you still enjoy all these vices but still make sure that you’re not straying too far into ‘the land of chubs’? I’ve got a few little tips to help!

1. Don’t buy a heap of chocolate. I know that there are often deals that entice us into spending a small fortune on a mountain of sugary goodness. Sounds simple enough, but if you don’t buy huge amounts, it won’t be in the house and you’re less likely to be sneaking into the kitchen to raid the choc-supply at strange hours.
2. Opt for the healthier kids on the block. Dark chocolate is a tasty treat and, in small quantities, it’s even good for you! Make sure that you’re opting for the 70% plus cocoa content to reap the benefits though. You can also choose cacao chocolate bars from places like The Raw Chocolate Company – cacao is basically the raw, unprocessed version of cocoa and is often mixed with natural sweeteners to make sin-free chocolate goodies! Another one of the new healthier types of chocolate doing the rounds at the moment is the tummy-loving Oh So chocolate – it’s Belgian chocolate with probiotics which are the good bacteria that look after and nurture your gut.
3. Make your own hot cross buns. I’m definitely going to be trying out a recipe for my own healthier homemade hot cross buns… I’m not much of a baker, but I’ve been eyeing out the shop bought versions since they came out (in, like, February??). I’ve spotted this recipe which uses wholemeal spelt flour and oats to pack the buns with fibre, and cuts out refined sugar… sounds right up my street! I’ll keep you posted on progress!
4. Make sure you’re keeping active. Brave the elements and drag everyone out the house! Go for a walk or a hike, organise a football/touch rugby match with your mates, dance til dawn, or get sweaty at the gym… Make sure you EARN those extra calories. And if you have little ones, why not set up an obstacle Easter egg hunt… kind of like Tough Mudder, but with eggs involved – Tough Egger?!
5. Stock up on healthy goods. Ironically, real Easter bunnies tend to prefer carrots, lettuce and foods that are waaaay healthier than chocolate! Make sure that you have lots of fruit out on display, ready for people to snack on. And if you’re cooking a Sunday roast, make sure that you pile your plate with the healthy, colourful vegetables rather than the beige spuds and Yorkshire puds…
6. Don’t beat yourself up. This is all part of family life and you’re allowed to enjoy it! Decide in advance what ‘treat’ you’re going to have and then draw the line at that. Don’t let the guilt send you into a spiral of indulgence. Make your choices and be proud of yourself for sticking to them!
7. Book in for my 4 week Spring Clean programme. Starting just after Easter, on 13 April, I’m running a 4 week Get Lean Spring Clean programme to shed off the layers of winter and help you feel better and brighter – more energy, less sludge and a perfect way to avoid that overindulgence spiral! Find out more info and book your place HERE. Go on, get booking!!

I’d love to hear about your Easter adventures – why not share in the comments box below, or swing by my Facebook page to tell your stories!

Did you know that I’ve also just started a newsletter? You can subscribe to receive the odd healthy morsel from me here.

4 steps to setting healthy goals that actually stick

The festive season is OVER! Hands up those of you who are secretly glad to get back to some kind of routine and a clean slate that a change in date seems to give us? Have you done the whole ‘new year’s resolution’ malarkey? Lemme guess… This year I will get fit and healthy, stop smoking, eat less, blah blah blah? I changed my tune about resolutions last year (read about my 2014 non-resolution here) and I have walked in 2015 feeling decidedly smug about all the things I achieved. So I’ll definitely be adopting a similar approach this year – let me know if you want to hear more about it (if you know me, you’ll know I’m prone to over-sharing!).

Whatever your approach to the new year is, if you’re looking to feel healthier all round, it pays big time to plan it properly and to really understand WHY you want to make changes. So go on, embrace your inner geek and spend an afternoon working through the questions below to make sure that you’re setting goals that you’re more likely to stick to. I find a pretty notebook helps…

1. What are the health problems that you’re worried about? Don’t just leap into the standard ‘I want to lose/gain 20kgs’ or whatever it might be. Think about the little (or large) things that niggle away at you… It could be that you haven’t had enough energy to play with your kids for ages. Or that you’re wheezing like a right wheezy thing after climbing the stairs. That your skin is as rough as a badger’s bum (why do I always pick on the badgers?!) and that you’re spottier than your teenage self. How do you really feel? Work your way down through your body from your head/scalp to your toes – and try not too be your own worst critic! We’re not looking to pick holes in our body confidence here, just to identify where you don’t FEEL good. Work out what worries you most right now.

2. What can you do about it? Once you’ve identified your main area of focus, spend some time thinking about what the way forward looks like. This is where working with a nutritional coach can really help (*ahem* coooey, over here!) 😉 … So if you want to feel bouncy and full of energy, what do you actually need to do? You’ll probably need to reassess your diet, exercise levels and hydration… Set yourself some SMART goals – something like ‘I’m going to drink at least 2 litres of water every day for the next year’ and specify HOW you’re going to do it… ‘by setting reminders on my phone, carrying a bottle of water with me, drinking 500ml before every meal/snack, etc etc’.

3. What can you do right now to take the first step? More often than not, if you have to wait a little while to start something, it’s harder to begin. We’re great procrastinators, us humans. So make sure you know what you can do the minute you’ve closed your pretty notebook and know what you’re working towards. It might be that you head straight to the shop to buy a water bottle that you’ll fill up every day and carry with you. Or you’ll immediately drink 500ml or set up the reminders on your phone. Whatever it is, take that step as soon as you can.

4. How will you know if you’re reaching your goals? If you’ve been fairly thorough with your SMART goal setting, then you’ll have worked through how you’ll measure success. A wall chart, or tick in a diary will help you measure whether you’ve stuck to the goal of drinking 2 litres of water a day. But think about the broader benefits too – the bigger picture. How will you expect to feel if you’re fully hydrated? What differences will you notice? Check in with yourself on a regular basis to see whether you’re noticing a change. If you consciously acknowledge the benefits of your hard work, then you’re more likely to stick to it.

If you’ve been struggling with setting yourself some goals for this fresh new year, hopefully this will kick start the thinking process for you. If you want to find out whether an appointment with me will help, just give me a shout – I can have a quick chat with you to help you decide whether it’s worth your while getting a helping hand!

Happy New Year lovely people! xx

Juicy, juicier, juiciest…

Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, seems to be jumping on the juice-tastic bandwagon in their January-month-of-detoxing-and-healthiness-festival. When I say ‘juice’, I’m talking about any type of squishing, bashing, squeezing, lumping and pummeling of otherwise solid foods into a liquid state. Call it juicing, call it smoothie-making… call it creating the happy tears of fruit and veggies… people are doing it with a vengeance!

And naturally, I am a part of that bandwagon. Well, it would be rude not to, wouldn’t it? But I’m a simple soul with not much cash to splash on fancy kitchen equipment (never mind the space to actually keep it!) so in November I bought me a little Kenwood blender for the princely sum of £25. Seemed to be a good investment given that I had recently rediscovered my passion for fresh smoothies, thanks to the lovely folk at Crussh. Man, oh man, those cheerful little taste-makers know how to smooth up a smoothie. And a juice. And porridge. And healthy pots of salady goodness. And soup. And… ARGH. Enough! They’re just awesome, okay?! But sadly, they have to make a living and charge the usual prices for London lunches. So I thought I’d save myself the money in the long run by making the odd smoothie at home. And, let me tell you, it’s been a DELIGHT.

My two current favourites, although I’m always open to experimentation, are:

LURGY-FIXER-AND-PREVENTORER (aka The Green Smoothie)

Ram-packed with goodness, it really does taste like you’re drinking HEALTH. Yes, despite it looking a little like snot. People use a variety of different ingredients and no doubt have their own preferences. Here’s mine:

• 1 large handful spinach
• 2 stalks of celery
• 1 green apple
• 1 kiwi fruit
• 1 scoop vanilla protein powder
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• slug in coconut milk (I use KoKo) until it’s the consistency you like

And because I’m aiming to make things as simple as possible, I’ve taken to chopping up the fruit and veg (squirt of lemon juice to keep the apples going brown) and storing it ready in the fridge the night before. Then it’s just a case of chucking it in the blender, zjhuuzzjing (you know, that thing that the blender does), and pouring it into a bottle to take on my commute. BEAUT.

PRETTY-IN-PINK: Antioxidant boosting berry smoothie

Now most of the shop-bought varieties of berry smoothies are sugar-playgrounds. Not just the fructose type of sugar, but they normally add a heap too. I prefer mine a little more wholesome (do I get my sugar-free halo yet?!):

• frozen mixed berries: usually blackberries, blueberries, cherries, raspberries, strawberries, cranberries, and other berry beauties that they chuck in!
• around 200g of natural Greek yoghurt. full-fat or low fat, it gives a nice dose of hefty protein.
• around 40g of rolled oats for a carb-boost
• a tbsp of milled nuts/seeds for some of the good fats
• slug of coconut milk as before.

Now this might not be sweet enough for some. If you want to, add in a tsp or so of honey or agave nectar. Or, rely on the berries own sweetness and get in the queue with me for the sugar-free halo!

Something that I’ve learnt with these luscious delights is that they are actually full MEALS. Just because they’re in liquid form does NOT mean that you can attempt to down them in one. Tummies don’t like it much when we do that. Sip and slurp is the order of the day. Give yourself time to enjoy it. And you’ll feel all the more better for it.

So, those are two of my faves – and I KNOW that you folk are going to have a few gorgeous treats up your sleeves… Share the love?

Simply wonderful: lessons from my simple eating resolution

So it’s been a full three weeks of my resolution-that’s-not-a-resolution of living life more simply. And while I’m feeling better for it (more in mind than in body if I’m honest – I’ve got the really gross type of snotty lurgy going on that’s unavoidable when you travel on the London Underground!), it’s actually been harder work than I anticipated.

But there have been some brilliant learning from the last few weeks which hopefully you might find useful if you’re looking to make your own simple tweaks! And I’d love for you to share your simple eating hints and tips with me..

1. By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail: Benjamin Franklin once again doles out some super ‘mazing genius advice. And it’s the truest truth I’ve found! Simplifying things take preparation. For the last couple of years, me and my OCD have made a bit of a tradition out of spending Sunday afternoons planning and prepping a week of lunches. But to keep life and meals as simple as possible, I’ve had to do a whole heap more forward thinking. So, Sunday roast becomes carefully orchestrated chilli beef stirfry, salad fillings, sandwiches for my other half. The freezer is stacked with soups for an easy lunch. And frozen berries are a brilliant with Greek yoghurt, made the night before for a breakfast at my desk that makes my colleagues INSANELY jealous. Oh yes!

2. All of this preparation would be ridiculously futile if it wasn’t for the right kind of storage. And I’m not ashamed to admit, I am a Tuppaware geek. My little drawer of plastic pots has blossomed and grown into a cupboard full of brightly coloured wonder. The Sistema range is my current fave, particularly their microwaveable beauties. I have teeny pots for small snacks of nuts, salad pots, the soup and noodle pots for warm lunches on winter days. And my all time favourite, the banana guard… although I will warn you, it has the potential to be a conversation starter and the subject of a few embarrassing questions in the office.

3. Life isn’t simple. Unless you’re super human, it’s almost impossible to be prepared every single day. I’ve found that some of the things that I’ve decided are important to me in my quest for simplification can sometimes conflict… which then leads to complications in my tiny brain! For example, keeping my diet clean and simple is one of my top priorities because it makes me feel good. But another simple priority is to spend time with the people I value most. So when that involves going to a pub for a Sunday less-than-clean lunch that will be oh-so-yummy, with awesome company and a few glasses of wine… then you know what, it’s okay to compromise on one ‘simple’ for another. And interestingly, I’ve just been learning about this in my nutritional diploma; about the psychology behind why some people find it’s impossible to maintain and sustain a healthier way of life. We need to learn to accept the relapses and move on. Hell yeah.

So, it’s Sunday. I’ve had an awesomely simple weekend with the food and friends I love. And I’ve just spent the last hour prepping some bits for the week. As the meerkats would say… SIMPLES.

Have you found a way to make 2014 the year you ass-kick those resolutions?

I think I may have done… I might have just opened a can of whoop-ass this year. Not all by myself, you  understand – there are wiser folk than me out there in the interweb.

The secret…. is to not make resolutions. Ta da!

Come on, you have to admit – how many times have you made a promise to yourself at the start of the new year that you will do something along these lines:
a) give up fatty foods
b) stop drinking alcohol
c) only eat salad for the rest of the year
d) stop sitting on the sofa with your hand down your pants (that one’s for the boys… )

Notice anything in particular that stands out? How ‘resolutions’ have turned into ‘ways to deprive myself and make myself feel like I don’t deserve the things I love’? We turn into those rebellious teenagers all over again and start sneaking things back into our lives whilst giving ourselves a hefty dose of the guilts at the same time for failing to keep true to the thing we SWORE we’d do.

If you’re in that place already, how about a change of tack?

The awesomely inspiring Queen of Free Range Humans, Marianne Cantwell, has a different technique. She suggest that we find one word that sums up what your focus will be for the year. And then remember that word. Etch in your brain. Stick it on your fridge. Doodle it. So whenever you reach a moment over the next year when you might ordinarily make a decision that will lead to you plodding down the path of broken resolutions, you think of the word and what it stands for. And you make a better informed decision.

So this is mine:

SIMPLICITY: Across all areas of my life. 2013 felt like a year of unnecessary complexity at times. Like a whole heap of tangled weeds winding themselves around the things that matter – them bastard weeds got in the way of my relationships, my passion for my career, my feeling of general health and the way I ate. This year, I’m keeping it simple. I know I’m only 3 days into the new year… but I have a good feeling about this. I’m not ‘dieting’ or stopping anything in a restrictive way. I’m just asking myself a question – is this going to make my life simpler and cleaner? Because I know that I crave a simpler existence. So it should hopefully motivate me in a way that resonates.

But, having said all of that, I get that this might not suit everyone. That for some, the first month of a new year is about punishing themselves and, in a semi-50 Shades kind of way, some people like that. So, if you’re looking for ways to boost your motivation to stick to your resolutions, here are the top three tips:

• Make your goals personal or specific to YOU. They’re your resolutions after all. So don’t just say ‘I’m going to eat more healthy food’ – work out the HOW. You’re going to eat more healthy food by spending Sunday afternoons prepping for the week ahead. You’re going to take a 1 litre bottle of water into work and empty it (preferably in your mouth, not down the sink!) before lunch. Choose things that fit with your life.
• Keep track of the good stuff you’re doing to keep your resolution. You’ll need it to motivate yourself as you start to wane. Stuart Amory, legend and founder of #FitTeam on Twitter suggests writing your future self a letter and opening it later in the year to remind you of what you’ve achieved and why you started. Another tip from Mark Raynsford from Look Good Feel Great is to stick memoirs, photos, reminders on a cork board. I’m a girl who loves a bit of stationery, so I’m inclined to write a little note in my oh-so-pretty new diary. (Yes, I still have a paper diary. No, I’m not going to give it up in favour of technology.)
• Treat the hiccups as learning curves and let them happen occasionally! So you caved in and devoured an entire bar of chocolate in one sitting as though your life depended on it. Repeat after me… ‘Sshhhh, it’s okay.’ If you’ve been working hard to stay off the processed food, and you slip up, don’t waste all your effort by shrugging your shoulders and throwing in the towel. GET BACK IN THE GAME. Or, if you know that you have one vice that is going to be a killer, why not allow it to pay a scheduled visit that you plan for by doing a bit more exercise, or cutting out one of your healthy snacks?

I’d love to find out more about your resolutions and the ways you’re planning to keep them. And I’m very excited to be starting my diploma in nutrition later this month, where one of my first courses will be looking at motivation and psychology, so hopefully I’ll be able to share some more inspiration in the coming months to keep us all on track!

HAPPY ASS-KICKING!