Wellness Wednesday - Make Healthier Choices!

Happy Wellness Wednesday everyone!

It is the middle of the working week for most of us and its a chance to either keep on going with healthy living or kick start it again. It's not too late... remember, you don't need a New Year to make a change, you can start whenever! Making that step is the hard part, it gets easier after that. Trust me

So, how do we start living healthier?

Start by alkalising your plate. I wrote a blog on this before as it was and still is the celebrity trend of healthy eating. (check out the full blog here: http://www.healthy-solutions.co.uk/blogView.php?id=2 ). The theory is that your body functions better when it's alkaline and it is more prone to disease if it's acidic. Base your meals on fruit, vegetables and wholegrains, limiting animal porducts. Nutritional therapist at Revital suggests "divide your plate into four - make half of it veg, mostly green, fill a quarter with lean meat, fish or pultry and the other quarter should be wholegrain carbohydrates or pulses".

I will try these 5 simple ways to alkalise my diet:

1. Add lemons to everything! As I am keeping meat and fish in my diet - If I want chicken/fish, il have chicken/fish but I will cook it in lots of lemon juice and squeeze lemon and/or lime on salads and spinach instead of dressings. If you are going to cut out the acidic foods then swap your bowl of pasta to quinoa, pulses and grains. I usually start the day with a nice cup of freshly squeezed lemon and hot water to alkalise myself first thing which makes me feel great! Especially before a workout.

2. Swap coffee and tea to herbal ones such as mint (great after dinner), green tea and lemon and ginger. There are also plenty of spices and herbs that fall into the alkaline category such as cinnamon (great in the hot water with lemon), coriander and cumin. Experiment with these in your cooking.

4. Milk is also acidic, perhaps you could swap to organic soya milk instead?!

5. Try filtering your tap water to remove it of any toxins and bring it closer to an alkaline level.

Let me know how you get on

Feel free to share your ideas too.

My next tip to becoming healthier this week is try and Revisit your veg enemies.

Go out and buy the veggies you DON'T like and cook them in different ways..This can completely change the way things taste. Tonight at the obesity scheme is a food tasting session and we encourage the families to try this tip along with possibly hiding certain ingredients in others and 9 times out of 10 they come back with a success story. Try grilling, roasting poaching in stock, stir frying, cook in water etc. I love stir frying lots of veg with flaked almonds and lemon, it gives it a completely different taste, it is delicious. Carrots roasted in cumin and paprika is good too. Have a play about and see what goes and what you enjoy! Try anything to get in more vegetables into your daily diet.

TIP: Eat only veggie dishes one day a week and you could reduce your saturated fat intake by 15 per cent reducing your risk of diabetes.

Also try, mixing up ingredients - try mashing swede, butternut squash, cauliflower, onions, carrot or a mix of two with mash potato OR just mash a couple of those and leave out the potato.. just bung in a load of veg and it will comfort cravings just as well as mashed potato. Another great way of getting in veg is SMOOTHIES -

Try sticking to the same colour family such as apple juice, spinach, kale and 1 banana or try adding chopped carrot into an orange or peach smoothie. There are plenty of ways you can try and disguise new fruit or veg or cook and eat them different ways.

Give these tips a try over the next week and start living your healthy lifestyle on a high!

1 bad wellbeing habit you should break: NOT DRINKING ENOUGH WATER! Dehydration makes you lose focus, increases tiredness, elevated blood pressure and ages skin. Try flavouring your water to make it more exciting to drink - try adding lemons, limes, berries such as strawberries and blueberries, mint and rosemary...