August 17, 2016No Comments

Wellness….WHAT?! – #WellbeingWednesdays

Wellness wooden sign on a beautiful day

Many of us work through life trying to achieve 'wellness'. But what is wellness? Is it the juice detox everyone is doing? Is it being able to sit in a cross legged position and 'ohm' at the top of my lungs for hours on end? Is it being outside?

What does Wellness even mean?

Every time you read a piece of media, or a medical study there is more advice of what is good for you, what is bad for you, what you haven't realised you're even consuming or ingesting and we can get so confused with trying to do the best things for our bodies that often we just give up and go right back to what we were doing before.

It's hard working towards 'Wellness'. All you want is for someone to show you a big sign saying 'Wellness this way', but that's not how it works. What is good for me, might be bad for you and may be essential for someone else.

The way I deal with it is to try and work towards feeling better, being healthier but also not taking life too seriously. You can get so caught up with being healthy all the time that you end up resenting the lifestyle, and yourself trying to achieve the unachievable. We live in a world where plastics, pollutants and chemicals are part of every day life. Yes you could try and eradicate them from your life but you'd have to live in isolation to achieve it and where's the fun in that?

Take it one day at a time and one element of your life at a time. For me, my journey started with fitness. I found things that I loved to do and just focused on those. I do them regularly enough that they become a habit. Equally if I skip them for a week, I have a mildly guilty feeling but I know I'll get back to them next week so it's no big deal.

Then I moved onto food and this was my HARDEST part. I LOVE food. I LOVE eating food. I LOVE cooking and exploring food. Most importantly I LOVE big quantities of food. So to find out how to change a lot of that I had to figure out the best way to be healthy, still enjoy the food I eat with it's flavours and the quantity but eat foods that are better for me. Vegetables, fruits, grains, beans.

Next came skincare and home life. I've never really been a big skincare person as having psoriasis has always dictated what I use. But finding Tropic and it's range of natural products has changed all of that. And I'm now experimenting with the cleaning products we use at home and finding ways to change those slowly but surely.

The last thing is my way of life. Spending more time outside, in nature. Potentially trying to grow my own fruit and vegetables, although living in London that's not always possible. I have however started doing exactly that in my office in Central London. We have a small roof terrace where there are all kinds of goodies growing. Cabbage, rocket, lettuce, sunflowers and lots of herbs! All of my own doing which isn't too bad for a first try.

My point is you can work towards being healthier, being happier in small steps. Don't try and leave your life and go off and live on a remote island and you'll live until you're 200. Just do it in small ways, and do things that you enjoy and you'll be sure to get where you want to be.

Ciao for now x

February 6, 2016No Comments

Choco brownies – Sweet treats

MixBrownies

I made this recipe for the first time last night and they went down a storm. The look on people's faces when I said there were choco brownies that contained no chocolate was hilarious. Have to say, much easier recipe than expected and not too long to make either! Hilariously I can't even taste the mix due to my complete dislike of anything chocolatey! This one was inspired by the amazing Ella Woodward who's recipe book I always refer back to when looking for inspiration.

Ingredients
2 tablespoons of chia seeds
400g of black beans (canned is fine)
200g ground almonds
200ml coconut milk
2 tablespoons of coconut milk
13 tablespoons of maple syrup
7 tablespoons of cacao powder
20 red apples
1 tablespoon of cinnamon

First, you need to make the apple puree. This is needed to help keep the mix sticky and stay together. Peel and core the apples cutting them into bite-sized pieces. Put in a saucepan with only about 2cm of water and boil for about 45 minutes or until soft. Once they have gone soft, blend it altogether or mash it as best as possible mixing in 3 tablespoons of maple syrup and the cinnamon. This can then be stored for about a week in the fridge or I usually freeze it and take it out when needed. For this recipe, you only need about 200g of this mix so freeze the rest once you've made a batch!

Next, put the chia seeds in a bowl with 140ml of water and let it sit for 30 minutes.

Turn your oven on to 180 degrees, 160 degrees for fan ovens.

Put everything into a blender and mix together with the chia seeds once they have soaked for 30 mins.

Line a baking dish with banking paper and pour the mix in, spreading it out so it is as even as possible.

Bake for about 45 minutes or until you can put a knife in the centre and it comes out without any mix on it. Then let it sit in the tin for 45 minutes. I know you want to eat it hot but honestly, this is when it starts to set properly so DON'T TOUCH it!

Cut into small brownie shapes and store in the fridge for about a week.

Enjoy and let me know how you get on!

Ciao for now x

January 7, 2016No Comments

Day 7 – Feed the Freezer!

Turkey Stock, Peas, Broccolli Frozen Strawberries Bread, Herbs

Today's post is slightly different to normal. No knowledge imparting, no demonstration of moves, no recipes.

Today we talk about a general tip that might help you be healthier and manage your food, meals and diets in a better way.

Feeding the freezer is a great phrase. I am a massive fan of doing so! My schedule is a bit all over the place and the biggest issue I had was getting fresh fruit and vegetables in my diet and keeping them long enough so they didn't go off. So I started freezing. I am lucky enough to have two freezers, one of which is my height and is packed with things in every single drawer!!

I have frozen fruits which are amazing for smoothies in the morning and I have vegetables which I use in every meal I cook. Today I made a pasta bake, fresh sauce and I used frozen carrots, frozen onions, frozen garlic, frozen mushrooms, frozen peas and even the mince meat I used was frozen, but taken out yesterday so it could defrost properly.

Using my freezer is the best thing. Now I always have fruit and vegetables to hand and such a wide variety that you couldn't imagine. I can buy things cheaply when they are on special offer, sometimes just £1 for an entire bowl and they get put in the freezer. Some vegetables are chopped or chunked and frozen in their bags, otherwise are frozen whole.

Not only that but when I create a meal, I always over cook. It is crazy how much I always end up cooking but then they go in small containers and get frozen. On days when I don't have the time or energy to cook I just grab a home made ready meal and dinner is done!

So give it a go, get started and make space in the freezer. Throw out the ice cream, the ice lollies and any other things that shouldn't be in there and then get out and buy as much fruit and vegetables as you can fit in there and get feeding that freezer!!

Enjoy and ciao for now x

  
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