Healthy eating – don’t over complicate it!

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I think when it comes to healthy eating, quite often people go for the easy quick take out option as they assume it is too hard to make a fast, easy and healthy meal.

Let me tell you this is not true.

The majority of my meals take 30 mins to prepare and cook (unless I get sidetracked listening to music and dancing around while I cook – which does happen often)

*Side note – dancing around while you cook is a great way to burn some extra calories and is oh so much fun 🙂

The key to quick and easy healthy meals is not to complicate it.

Chop up veggies and add fresh herbs and garlic for flavour.

If I am chopping veggies – I always chop extra so I can use them for lunch and or dinner the next day (depending on how hungry my husband is and how many left overs I can keep).

Cooking meat and veggies separately allows you to only have to cook fresh meat for the 2nd night.

Some easy meat ideas:

Fry chicken with garlic, lemon and honey.

Bake salmon just with lemon and pepper.

Fry meatballs with cumin and or cinnamon.

Fresh herbs, turmeric, cumin, garlic, pepper go a long way to making things absolutely easy, and tasty.

Here’s an easy lunch bowl I made up over the weekend (not going to lie was pretty proud of this one)

 

QUINOA BOWL

 

Cook quinoa as per instructions on packet.

Fry asparagus, tomatoes, kale with a dash of balsamic vinegar & half a small garlic cube.

Mash up 1 x avo add lemon, pepper and other half of garlic cube.

Add a bit of salmon, a few nuts

Arrange nicely for a photo then moosh it all together and eat 🙂

Who am I?

Today; in between getting up at 5am teaching two morning fitness classes, doing remedial work with a lady at a nursing home, learning choreography, doing my invoices, meditating for 20 minutes and mentally preparing for the next two classes of the evening, I caught my reflection in my blender and wondered who the frick am I ?

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I mean seriously, look at this blender filled with green goodness, when did I turn from the KFC eating high school punk to the exercising, spiritual, kale drinking smoothie I have become?

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Who is this fit, flexible girl I see staring back at me from the pictures, this same girl who used to hate the gym who now teaches at them promoting fitness on a regular basis.

This small framed girl who is suddenly (without warning it feels ) is covered on muscles.

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This girl who is still me, who is still the same but is also completely different.

This girl who just went to Perth with her girlfriends and ate her body weight in cheese, bread, chocolate, coffee and wine~
~ and would do that every weekend if she could 🙂

This girl who teaches yoga to people to relax, then blurts out words excitedly, quickly in an anything but relaxed manner.

This girl who teaches body balance, then trips over nothing on the way out of class.

This pilates trainer who has a strong core but can not do a handstand.

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This girl who lives life with reckless abandon who craves adventure yet yearns for serenity.

This girl who feels so young at heart, yet knows she is growing older.

Who am I ?

A walking contradiction, or simply a girl wanting to experience everything, to be everything, to feel everything.

To be the best person I can be inside and out.

To be who I am without even really knowing who I am myself!
So my advice to you all, should you find yourself staring at your reflection through a green mush of kale, don’t question, don’t stress, don’t judge – just be!

Green for goodness

This week I went and got myself a cold; so I have spent my energy (when not resting) in between trying to stop my nose running in down dog and making healthy green concoctions.

I often get asked for recipes so here are a few jam packed with goodness from the last few days.

My get over a cold throw it all in a blender juice:

*orange juice
* handful of spinach
* little bit of ginger
* handful of berries

Delicious and filled with anti-oxidants and vitamin c.

Has to be good for you coz its green – green soup.

This I took from a recipe and as always I started with the recipe then ditched it and made it my own (no offense to all the fabulous people who contribute to recipe books)

This soup consisted of:

* 1 leek
* 2 cloves garlic
* 2 tablespoons olive oil

Heat all this up in a large pot until soft

Then add (I am being non descriptive with the quantities I say use what you have or as much as you like)

* broccoli
*kale
*spinach
*silver beet
* ginger
* 2 ltr vegetable stock

Bring all of this to the boil

Add in
*salt and pepper
* 2 teaspoons lemon rind (I added more and added some lemon juice as well

Cool this all down

The put into blender and add 300g silken tofu

I also added some lime juice and while it strongly resembles baby food in looks, the taste is quite delicious!

Please message me if you would like actual quantities as per the initial recipe:)

Another thing I have been eating lately is avocados on toasted sourdough with lemon, cracked pepper and snow pea sprouts.

All of these things are healthy and quick and easy to make.

Enjoy and please share any of your healthy favorite green tasty delights.

Happy Easter gorgeous bunnies out there

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I deliberately used the word gorgeous in the title; as I am well aware those of you who have been consuming more delicious chocolate are probably now feeling guilty and anything but gorgeous.

So let’s put a stop to those thoughts right now!

Let’s be human and indulge every now and then.

Let’s enjoy Easter, enjoy a break from work (hopefully) enjoy your life each and every beautiful moment.

Find time after the break to get back to your healthy fitness routine, restore your balance.

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Step outside your comfort zone

Sometimes to get the most out of your exercise routine, diet or just life in general you need to step out of your comfort zone. Try a new form of exercise, a new way of eating, a new hobby.

Quite often even though the choices we have made are working for us, if we don’t try new things we can become complacent and bored. When we become complacent we are not performing at optimum level.

To get the most out of your exercise routine try mixing it up every now and then, I trust you will notice the difference.

Try varying your diet to keep your taste buds alive and stop the bad cravings.

As for life well stepping outside your comfort zone can only ever be a good thing; if you try and fail you can take pride in the lessons learnt from the experience, the satisfaction of being brave and the huge rewards you can feel for achieving and conquering a new goal.

The key to success starts with what is happening in your head

It doesn’t matter what your diet plan is, which fitness or life goal you have set, if you are not in the right head space mentally your chances of success are low.

If you are not 100% committed to achieve, or are already telling yourself you are going to fail then perhaps you are not ready to start.

While this all may sound very negative, it doesn’t need to.

The key to all of this is YOU and what is currently happening in your head.

It isn’t easy to change patterns of thought and behaviors that you may have held on to for years.

It isn’t easy but it is possible and achievable.

If someone tells me I am going to fail, I have two choices; I believe them and fail or I prove them wrong and succeed.

I know which person I would rather be.

Which person do you want to be?

The key to your success starts with what is happening inside your head.

Get out there and be fabulous!

Kale – super food

It’s the start of a new year, and I like millions of others around the world are busy making plans to “eat better and get fitter”.

Well as a fitness instructor, I have the fitness bit all sorted, and while my husband and I eat very healthily already, there are always things that can be improved.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not (and never will) one of those girls who drinks water only when out and has nibbles on a few lettuce leaves and thinks that’s enough…..

Sure if that lettuce was a comfortable bed for a range of other veggies and meats then count me in.

I love a good steak, and recently I read that kale is the “new beef”. I knew it was a superfood but it has cow like properties – amazing 🙂

So off I went to buy my bunches of kale amongst other things as I figure putting that into a blender rather than a chunk of porterhouse steak makes way more sense.

I made (thanks to a recipe from a friend) a healthy, and surprisingly refreshingly delicious drink of kale, green apple and coconut water.

Kale is not only super it is versatile, throw it in your omelette, put it in your stir-fry, make some brown rice with kale, avocado and mango.

These are just some of the super things I have been doing recently with my super food.

Here is an interesting article I read recently on the top ten health benefits of Kale.

Everything in moderation

Everything in moderation, we have all heard that saying countless times.

I think this time of year as you are devouring your third plate of Christmas dinner goodness, eating just “one” more chocolate, and drinking your hundredth alcoholic drink you are starting to wish you actually adhered to it.

While I do think that drinking 100 drinks probably isn’t ideal and eating too much fatty sugary food isn’t going to make you feel amazing;  it is Christmas, it is a time for celebrating and partying so please don’t beat yourself up if you are consuming the “bad” things a little more frequently and less moderately than you normally would.

As I always say in my classes, be kind to yourself, listen to your body, give it the break and treats it deserves, but keep in mind if you are drinking and eating excessively you will most likely put on weight.

So my friends, eat and drink (at least not too crazily)  if the weight creeps up, then so be it, deal with it by not allowing this to become a habit, jump back into action early in the new year and get your body healthy again.

Life is too short to be at war with yourself.