Own your today

7th April 2016

Morning, you ready for your day?  We're talking about how to make April Awesome this week in my meetings, I just thought though to do that, you have to focus on each day one at a time, not just the month as a vague thing.  So what are you going to do today to help towards that awesome April.  What am I going to do?  Mmm, let me think, I've started with my pint of water, that's making sure I'm hydrated, I will have egg on toast for breakfast with some mushrooms I think, then I'll have eaten a healthy breakfast which will stop me wanting to snack throughout the morning.   We've got a ready meal for lunch today, what I need to do is ensure I have something for my dinner when I get home tonight so that I don't stray off track, I think I'll make the chow mein from my meetings last week, practice what I preach.  It does only take 5 minutes to prepare, so I'll have the ingredients ready and I can knock that up.

Yesterdays meal didn't go as planned because when I come to start it, the cooker wouldn't work!  No gas was getting through to the rings, my brilliant brother has since fixed it so I'm good to go today.  I ended up cooking just the cook kits Churrasco chicken on the George Foreman, it was still tasty, we had it with salad and a pitta bread.  It was the saffron and garlic aioli featuring pan-fried sweetcorn I fancied from that meal though, so I'll make that on its own, actually I could have that for tea tonight with pitta bread.  I've just remembered my mate bought me a couple of chickens round last night, so I need to check the date on them, might cook one of those this afternoon and I can have that with the sweetcorn. 

See why it's important to have a plan, an idea of what you're going to do the day ahead.  Our lives are so busy we need to make sure we're taking care of ourselves to handle everything else.  We're important too! 

There's not much chance of any activity today, as I leave for work at half 7 and I'll be lucky to sit down and rest before 8 tonight, but I will fit in something tomorrow - see planning ahead.  I'm just listening to the radio, Vanessa is telling me I'd have to walk 39 minutes to burn off a custard cream!  I'll skip the biscuit I think!  The papers are once again full of the fact that the worlds getting fat, it's focusing on the diabetes epidemic now.  Of course they give us shock headlines like " High blood sugar levels linked with diabetes kills 3.7 million people a year, with 43 per cent dying before the age of 70, according to a World Health Organisation report published in the Lancet." That's not helpful is it, apparently 1 in 11 now suffers from diabetes because of the obesity rates, that means the disease has quadrupled in just 34 years!  So we seriously do need to do something about it.

Yes the Smart Points in sweet foods might make you wince, but there's a reason for that, it's to make you really think about what you're eating, we don't want to live in a world full of people suffering diabetes and other weight related illnesses, and I'm sure you don't want to be one.  So yeah, I for one am glad they changed the plan to make us think about the choices we make, yes it's hard, but being ill and overweight is hard too - choose your hard!

Here's to continuing to make April awesome, followed by a marvellous May, and every week after that wonderful, I want to be healthy, I want to be happy but I know both of those things take work and I'm willing to put the effort in - are you?

Have a great day BeYOUtiful, think about what you're going to do to make it a healthy and happy one.

Here's a quick, simple Smart Points recipe.

Chicken Curry Topper

Serves 4 ~ Prep time 5 mins ~ 2 SmartPoints per serving of topper

2 tsp freshly squeezed lemon juice

1 tsp medium curry powder

Pinch of ground turmeric

1 tsp granulated artificial sweetener

200g cooked skinless chicken breast fillets, cut into small cubes

300g reduced-fat cottage cheese

100g seedless grapes, quartered

In a bowl, mix the lemon juice, curry powder, turmeric and sweetener to a paste. Add the chicken and stir to coat in the spice mixture.

Add the cottage cheese and grapes and stir gently until combined.

Serve as a topping for a baked potato, a filler for wraps and sandwiches, or spooned over some toast.

TIP Poaching chicken breasts ensures they remain moist. Add them to a pan of boiling chicken stock, remove from the heat, cover and leave to stand for 15 minutes. Remove from the stock to cool.