Standing on my Monopoly board, that means I’m on top of my game. Eminem.
White rabbits, white rabbits, white rabbits!
Good morning, so Friday morning, the first day of October and my last busy day before I get two days to sort my stuff, I think by Sunday I will finally have caught up and can have a few calmer weeks – hooray.
Fantastic week in my meetings, super weight losses and a couple of ladies achieving gold memberships, Linda last night has lost 63lb, that’s four and a half stone – awesome I’m sure you’d agree.
Labels! Ingredients! Words I don’t recognise!!!
When I went to buy a little bit of shopping yesterday, I decided to start checking out the ingredients list a little more closely. WOW! There are words I’ve never heard in those lists, and words that sound quite scary. When you go to do your shop this week, have a look! I wanted a curry sauce so I opted for one that only had ingredients I recognised, yes it is a few more points but I’ve found this week by having ‘real food’ rather than ‘low fat’, ‘fat-free’, ‘low-sugar’, ‘sugar free’, I’m more satisfied, therefore I’m eating less. I’m eating what I call ‘REAL FOOD’, food that if I had the time, talent or inclination I could buy the ingredients and make myself.
Also by sitting down, putting my food on a plate and focussing I’m finding out that some foods I’ve bought in the past just don't taste good when you give them your attention. And when I read the labels I’m discovering that most of the foods I’ve been so lured by are actually full of dubious ingredients that don’t sound like they have anything to do with real food.
This week instead of eating a low fat shape yogurt or a weight watcher one, I bought a full fat one! What a rebel I am, I honestly do not think I’ve eaten a full fat yogurt in 10 years or even more, and they are amazing, they taste like yogurts should taste, they don’t leave that slimy film on your tongue. It still had some ingredients in I didn’t understand so I also bought an organic plan yogurt, mmm now I do like plain yogurt on its own, I also like it with a spoon of honey or if I have the time I either whizz it up with a freshly cut mango or a few strawberries, or add some berries. The ingredient in this yogurt was 100% live yogurt! Now that’s how food should be. Added ingredients: zero, taste: fabulous.
Surely this is more what makes up a healthy diet than just the calories that are in the food! The nutritional value of food is important, but so is how it tastes, whether I like it, whether I feel like eating it, how I cook it, how I feel after I’ve eaten it (physically and emotionally), who I’m eating it with, where it comes from, how it was grown or raised, what it ate (if it eats things), how it gets to me and how many miles it has travelled and in what condition it reaches my plate.
It’s not that I intend to ask myself these questions every time I take a bite or go shopping; they are general principles, which will guide my food choices. I am not rigid, I’ll do my best and good enough is good enough.
Overall I want my diet to be varied, balanced and wholesome. When I read a headline pointing the finger at the latest culprit or heralding a new super food, I do some research of my own and make my own mind up.
I’m untangling the sticky mess that used to bind weight loss and good health. I am very clear that being slim is not necessarily an indication of good health and vice versa. I believe that it is possible to have a healthy diet at any weight so you don’t have to wait until you’ve lost your weight. Good health depends as much on eating healthy food as it does on how much you move, how stressed you are, the air you breathe, the quality of your relationships and your quality of life in general.
How do you define healthy eating? How do you decide what’s healthy and what’s not? Before we can begin to have a healthy diet we need to be clear on exactly what it means. Defining what it means to you is the first step.
Remember life starts now.
Are you living yet? And is it a healthy one?
Bev xx
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