The Deal With Diets

High-protein diets. Low-fat diets. All-vegetable diets. No-carb diets. With all the focus on dieting, how do you figure out what's healthy and what isn't?

Lots of people feel pressured to lose weight and try different types of diets. But if you really need to lose weight, improving your eating habits and exercising will help you more than any diet.

 

What is the deal with diets?

The word diet has turn into a bit of dirty word.  It now means what fad you are on, which method you are using to restrict or torture yourself, short term fix or simply messing with your head. I use to be a very slim and went through a phase in my life where I was completely obsessed with food.  I thought about it every second of the day. I would literally dream about my ‘cheat meals’.  It made it incredibly hard to focus on anything else in my life.  It was a pretty crappy spot to be in and negatively changed my relationship with food. 

Women talk about it all the time. What about this diet, my friends lost 20lbs on this, how about shakes… paleo, vegan, juice diets, gluten free, fat free, sugar free?? The list goes on and on.  No wonder people feel confused.  It has completely over complicated food and left people completely guilty an unsure about their food choices. These are my Five Key Simplified Food Philosophy’s to take the overwhelm out of diet/food/nutrition.  They are not hard and fast rules, but I always come back to these core points. I lost over seven stone doing this, no tricks or fads. 

Mindful eating

‘If not dieting, then what?’ by Rick Kausman is an excellent book to wrap your head around mindful eating.  A simple questions to ask yourself when you are eating is. ‘I can have it if I want it, but do I really feel like it?’.  There is actually no right or wrong answer!

Mindful eating really challenges to listen to your body. What does you body want, how does your body react (positive or negative) to certain foods.  Choose to eat with the intention of caring for your body, with the attention to the affects on your body.

What are your beliefs?

It is totally a fair question to take your beliefs and values into account when choosing how you nourish your body.  Do you care for sustainability, eating local, vegetarian, organic, cheapest/budget friendly, religious considerations? This may change for you several times over your life time and shouldn’t be something you feel guilty about.

 
Educate yourself

There is always new research coming through, so be wary of jumping down the rabbit hole of the latest super food taking Hollywood by storm.  Don’t be ignorant to what you are putting in your body.  What is really in for your food? Get some basic understanding of how your body works, how food works so you know how to care for your body better.

  

Keep it simple

Think fresh, unprocessed, unrefined, few ingredients and ingredient labels you can read.  All makes sense right! If it isn’t food – don’t eat it! You know all those logical things your grandmother and earlier generations would have been teaching us.  Eat the ‘rainbow’ (colourful range of food) and eat in season.

 
Don’t restrict yourself.

Weather it be full food groups or avoiding social situations because of the ‘temptation’ you may be presented with.  It’s ok to indulge (just listen to your body, have you had enough, how do you feel afterwards?).  Food is fuel but it is also a wonderful cultural and social ritual that should be enjoyed.

How do you stay in shape?

 

Six Foods That Keep You Looking Young!

There are so many products out there designed to keep us looking young, from our skin to our hair. But youth, like many other things, comes from within.  One of the easiest and most effective ways to stay healthy and youthful is to pay close attention to what you put inside your body, and take advantage of the natural benefits that come from certain foods.  We’ve explored many natural beauty remedies here on the blog and it is amazing how many things come down to what you eat.  Today I wanted to share 6 foods that can keep you looking young if made a regular part of your diet – read on to find out how!

1. Leafy Greens

Leafy greens like kale and spinach are packed with lutein, which protects your skin from sun damage and wrinkles. These greens are also very rich in vitamin C, an essential building block of collagen. Collagen is a vital element of youthful looking skin that begins to break down as we age. Getting a healthy dose of leafy greens in your diet will help keep your skin looking smooth and youthful.

2. Tomatoes

Tomatoes contain lycopene, a powerful antioxidant that protects your skin from sun damage.  The lycopene works from within, reducing skin redness and UV damage to keep your skin healthy. To take it a step further, you can blend tomatoes and almonds to create a face mask.

3. Carrots

Carrots contain beta-carotene, which when ingested is converted to Vitamin A, which stimulates skin cell growth and builds collagen.  Beta-carotene is also a powerful antioxidant that protects the skin from damaging free radicals.  Eating carrots can also whiten your teeth, adding to your youthful appearance – they act almost like a natural toothbrush that cleans the surface of the teeth.

4. Citrus Fruits

Citrus fruits are known for their high levels of Vitamin C, which is essential to building collagen.  Citrus is also rich in bioflavonoids that protect the skin from sun damage. In addition to consuming citrus there are a number of ways you can use it topically as well – lemon body scrubs are great for ex-foliating and brightening your skin!

5. Blueberries

Blueberries are the highest in antioxidants among all the berries, which help protect your body from damaging free radicals. Their powerful anti-inflammatory properties can help reduce skin redness and wrinkles, and they can even reduce the mental effects of ageing.  Blueberries are full of anthocyanin – giving them their dark colour – which can slow down the loss of mental function that comes with ageing.

6. Sweet Potato

Last but certainly not least, sweet potatoes are another food rich in beta-carotene, which works to balance your skin’s pH and combat dryness, resulting in healthier, smoother skin. Purple sweet potatoes also have tons of antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties.

Ways To Feel Lighter!

There are definitely days when I wake up not feeling my best. It may be that I’m extra tired, and just can’t seem to find the energy to start the day, or it’s that feeling of being weighed down. Often times caused from a heavy meal the night before, water retention, or simply because the body might not be up to feeling the right way. When we feel light, we feel good – about ourselves and the day in front of us. Feeling heavy and bloated is a quick way to send all self confidence out the door, and is also a reason for being lazy or procrastinating. Luckily, there are a few things you can do – in the morning and afternoon – to get you feeling lighter and better by night fall and into the following day.

Hydrate 

Your body retains water when you’re not supplying it with enough, causing it to bloat. Being aware of how hydrated you are throughout the day is the easiest way to start feeling lighter. I always try to drink a big glass right when I wake up in  the morning. The cold chill helps to wake me up, and I’ve realized that I’m more prone to drink it throughout the day if I immediately start in the morning. Water also helps to flush out the bad toxins and salt in our body which sometimes gives us that extra “puffy” feeling.

Add Some Lemon

If you want to go the extra step, add fresh lemon into your water, but make sure the water is hot! Hot lemon water helps to kick start your digestive system. Drinking a cup of this in the morning can help settle the stomach if you went to bed with a full tummy!

No Gum! 
If you think about it, every time you open and close your mouth in the process of chewing a piece of gum, you’re swallowing unnecessary air into the stomach. It sits in your gut, not moving anywhere which can make us feel heavier.  Gum also contains sugar alcohol, which causes bloating.

Snack The Right Way and Slow Down

Picking the right kind of foods to snack on is ideal when it comes to feeling lighter. Fibre rich foods, like avocados, raspberries, and quinoa are great to snack on. Quinoa specifically contains fibre that gets rid of unneeded fats and helps speed up the digestion process. And always remember to eat slowly, and allow time for your body to realise if it’s full or not! This helps to avoid overeating.

Exercise Early

Getting a work out in before the daily grind is one of my favourite things to do. Yes, I always have a hard time waking up a bit earlier to fit one in, but it feels so good to get it out of the way. Sweating out toxins early can help us feel lighter throughout the day, and getting your heart rate up in the morning can fight off grogginess! Knowing that you accomplished a hard physical activity that early in the morning is also a great mental start to the day.

10 Things You Come To Realise When Dieting

As you get older the weight is harder to keep off, it's always easier to gain (this might also be the fact that I just eat more, but shhh we don't need to discuss that!) Since embarking on a healthy eating regime the past week (I hate the word 'diet' but the end of the day that's what it is) I have come to realise a few crucial things. 

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I hate (or are jealous) of people who are born with an aptitude to just eat healthy ALL the time, people who want to go to the gym, people who don't think eating an entire cheesecake to themselves is a night is normal behaviour, people who don't count 'walking to the shop' as exercise.

Being fully aware that in weak moments you would rather have a piece of pizza than have sex.

The amount of sheer self-hatred you have when you are on the treadmill…trying to burn off that piece of cake.

Salad really kind of sucks, no matter how much you tell yourself you like it.

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Diets would be so much easier if alcohol had no calories.

The fact that NOTHING is instant…It’s the whole “marathon not a sprint” thing. I’d really rather just lose the twenty pounds by tomorrow, thanks.

Way too many things revolve around food, birthdays…events…seasons…tell me you haven’t been salivating thinking about Summer BBQ's and Cocktails lately?

Healthy food is a shit ton more money than the bad stuff. You step into a healthy  food store and your bank account is immediately down a fifty pounds.

Diets literally just suck. There is absolutely nothing fun about watching your friends eat good food when you’re pretending your “fist size” portion of chicken is doing it for you, OR the fact that you know exactly how many calories are in a margarita. If we can put men on the moon and make cameras the size of peanuts- then we can probably figure out a way to just VOID out calories we consume, no?