Eating out needn’t derail your efforts to eat well and healthily

•    Order water for the table. Drink between courses to help fill you up
•    Order plain bread and butter or olive oil separately. Pizza and herb breads have the fat added
•    Creamy sauces add large quantities of fat
•    Order extra vegetables for bulk and more nutrients
•    Fresh fruit, sorbet or a hot drink with biscotti make good choices for dessert
•    Trim hot chocolate  will fix the chocolate craving with fewer calories that black forest gataux

Bon Appetite,

Nancy

Pasta Salad
Pasta salads are delicious. Great for light easy, summer cooking. To maximize their flavour make sure you dress the pasta as soon as it is cooked while it is still hot. Try substituting fresh basil if it isn’t available, with dill, mint, oregano, or parsley.
For 8-10 servings:
Pasta:
2 pkts of brown rice pasta and vegetable pasta
Dressing:
2 large cloves garlic
1 tsp coarse mustard
2 Tbsp parmesan cheese
8-10 leaves fresh basil (or other fresh herbs)
1 tsp salt and pepper to taste
½ cup light Best Food mayonnaise
2 Tbsp pineapple juice with touch of cinnamon
Salad:
2 stalks celery, finely diced
1 red pepper finely diced
2 spring onions finely diced
½ cup toasted sesame seeds
Tinned pineapple pieces 125 g (unsweetened)
Boil the pasta as per the packet directions, until tender. ***
While the pasta is cooking make the dressing by pureeing the ingredients until smooth.
Drain the cooked pasta and put in a salad bowl and immediately toss the dressing through the pasta while it is still hot.
Allow to cool then toss the rest of the salad ingredients with the pasta.
*** Tip: Cook the pasta until just al dente; brown rice pasta will disintegrate if over-cooked.

To eat more healthily start by substituting healthier ingredients in your cooking, but keeping to tried and true recipes your family love. If they are particularly fussy eaters they may complain at first. Persevere though and before you know it they will eating it up, just as they did before.

In the recipe above I’ve exchanged plain old white wheat pasta with brown rice pasta, for two reasons. First, whole grains provide better nutritional value than processed grains. Second wheat based foods so predominate in the western diet that we miss out on the nutrients present in other grains, and many people have allergies to wheat and other gluten containing foods, so it’s a good idea to find creative ways of getting other grains into our diet. As we age too our bodies lose their ability to metabolise processed gluten containing grains well and this can cause a host of health challenges from easy weight gain to a tendency towards diabetes. Take home message, use whole grains, and vary them.

To reduce the number of calories in a recipe you can substitute ‘lite’ varieties of dressings as I’ve done here and help your cause of weight loss if that’s an issue for you or your family. If using canned fruit in a recipe go for an unsweetened variety for the same reason.

Using fresh herbs in your cooking as I’ve done here will increase flavour and nutritional value, because of the enzymes present in fresh produce verses cooked, canned or dried, all helping us toward our goal of optimum nutrition for better living.

The recipe above is contained in our nutrition book for more information on our products, go to www.flexibilityplus.com

Bon Appetite,
Yours in Health,
Nancy

Mexican Tortilla Tofu Stack for 12 servings

This has a Mexican flavour and is a tasty nutritious dish for any one keen on a healthy lifestyle and optimum nutrition. It may just change your mind on tofu if you’ve never quite been able to get into it.

Firstly, make the sauce:

Tomato Chilli Sauce

2 cans tomato puree 16 oz (425g) each
2 tsp ground cumin
1tsp oregano
1tsp ground coriander
1tsp sea salt
2tsp dark muscovado sugar ( unrefined sugar)
1/2tsp hot chilli sauce or to taste
Juice of 1 lemon

Combine all the ingredients in a pot and gently simmer as you prepare the other ingredients

Tofu Mixture

2 large onions
2 green peppers
4Tbsp exrta virgin olive oil
2lb (1  kg ) approx tofu firm or soft
2tsp sea salt
Freshly ground pepper to taste
12 corn tortillas
2 cans 3oz (85g) each corn (or use the same amount of frozen corn)
Tomato Chilli Sauce
1 cup grated cheese

Chop the onion and green pepper and sauté these in a large pot or pan in oil on a medium heat
As this is cooking drain and crumble the tofu

Add the tofu and seasonings to the onion and pepper mixture and continue to cook until some of the liquid has evaporated.

To assemble the whole stack, lay two tortillas on the bottom of a medium-sized oval casserole dish so they overlap as little as possible.

Spread 1/3 of the tofu mixture over these, then 1/3 of the drained corn over the tofu mixture.

Place two tortillas on top repeating the process twice more so there are three layers of everything.

Sprinkle the cheese on top and bake uncovered at 350F/180C/ Gas Mark 4 for 30 to 40 minutes. Until it is hot right through the stack

Serve with a green salad and steamed brown rice
Bon Appetite. If you like this, see our web site www.flexibilityplus.com for more tasty healthy recipes

Nancy

Whenever you steam or boil vegetables don’t throw the cooking water away save it for stock to use in soups or sauces. It’s chock full of nutrients your body could use with, much better inside of you than tipped down the drain.

Yours in health,

Nancy

As we approach peri menopause and menopause between mid thirties and early fifties our nutritional needs change as our hormonal picture begins to shift. The cortisol our adrenals produce becomes relatively higher than the sex hormones we produce and that together with a slowing thyroid can throw us into insulin resistance, which means our bodies process sugars less efficiently paving the way for weight gain especially around our middle, which is unhealthy for our hearts. This is an abbreviated, and simplistic explanation of the process, but the bottom line is the way we eat and how much we move at this time in our life has a direct relationship to the quality of life we are likely to experience down the track.

There are many things we can do but, one simple measure we can take is to cut way down on the white stuff in our diet white sugar, salt, flour, and potatoes and every thing made with them. These things behave like sugar in our system, and quickly bump up our blood sugar levels and our hormonally imbalanced systems struggle to cope with the overload, consequently we gain weight rapidly.

Protein on the other hand helps our bodies maintain healthier blood sugar levels. So slow down on the bread especially wheat, and up the fish, eggs (free range if poss), nuts, seeds, soy dairy ( if tolerated) and lean meat. Add a healthy dose of exercise and watch your weight drop.

Cheers,
Nancy

On day four of the ISA World Surfing Games in Costa Rica this week our daughter Laura Rishworth became the highest placed Kiwi in the Women’s Division placing 17th overall after finishing third in her fourth round match up. In her second stacked heat of the competition, Laura came up against two Hawaiian surfers who progressed through the heat while she beat the Tahitian surfer who finished fourth.

Using teamwork to their advantage, the Hawaiians had the contest area more or less covered. Laura surfed some fantastic waves when the opportunity presented itself, yet the Hawaiians ensured these were few and far between. Laura has done herself, us and NZ proud with the highest placing of any NZ woman in this event to date.

Five years ago as a fifteen year old Laura set her sights high and created a written goal for her self stating that she wanted to represent her country internationally in surfing. Then she set about creating and periodically revising her exercise and nutritional programme to help her achieve her objective.

Naturally we are very pleased for her and pray she continues to be a role model for other youngsters and oldies too!

Carpe Diem!   Seize the Day!

Proud Mum,

Nancy

Get a big enough why: There’s enough in these two blog posts to supply that though isn’t
There, if painful premature death isn’t a big enough why than I don’t know what is. Since none of us think that’ll ever happen to us though sometimes even if we’ve had a close brush, maybe we might need to appeal to our vanity to find  the motivation, fear of abandonment, or pride, whatever it is “carrot and stick” yourself in whatever way you need to get yourself moving

Explore the reasons you are stuck in an unhealthy lifestyle: Without this step no amount of knowledge about nutrition and exercise and their importance will make a bit of difference. We often avoid this kind of self exploration because it deals with emotions, painful ones at times, but without resolving these we cannot clear a path that will lead us to a better lifestyle. For example I had to understand that my weight issues all those years ago had to do with my using food to sooth painful emotions like homesickness, desperate loneliness etc. Once I made the connection and found some strategies to deal with it. then I could move forward with my fitness and healthy eating

Commit to Change: Make a written contract with yourself if necessary, if that works for you. Hang it on your bedroom door or the fridge! Get buy in from loved ones to goad you into keeping you on track. Maybe you could return the favour.

Schedule it: Just like any other appointment make exercise and healthy eating appointments with yourself, and record what you’ve done in your diary so you can track your progress

Visualize the Benefits: Spend 10 minutes each day visualizing all the benefits that will come to you from leading an active nutritionally sound lifestyle. Why is this such an important tool used by top athletes and business people everywhere? Because, seeing is believing! Believing creates in us the desire and motivation to bring the visualisation into reality

Finally, in this economically challenging time we may feel there are more important things to do than committing to fitness, but this is a miscalculation. Exercise is a tremendous buffer against stress, once you learn to enjoy it you’ll find it will take you out of most negative mind states, because of the endorphins the happy brain chemicals that are released with exercise. Having a strong healthy body helps you become mentally stronger because it literally helps rewire your brain. See one of our earlier posts on exercise and the brain for more on this. Optimal nutrition will keep your medical bills down, because you will be healthier. It will keep your household expenses down because preparing your own wholesome food from scratch is far cheaper than going through the drive through. So there is no time like the present to invest in an exercise and nutrition plan. For information on how to do this go to our website www.flexibilityplus.com to check out our products and benefit for yourself and your family.

Yours in health,

Nancy

Hi there you’re back. That’s great because it means you’re committed to making some significant change in your life. And listen we all have an Achillies. If yours is exercise and healthy eating, you’re not alone. I’ve been there too. About 30 years ago before I made the changes  in my life that helped me regain my own fitness, I had just gotten married, moved continents from the States to New Zealand where I didn’t know a soul besides my husband, and had only just met my mother- in- law. The rest of my family were hundreds of thousands of miles away. New Zealand which I knew next to nothing about except that it was in the South Pacific conjured up for me images of a beautifully lush, tropical island. I was right about everything except the tropical bit!

Boy what a shock to the system, especially as my husband and I had just gotten married in 40 C desert heat overseas, and the place we moved to way in the south of the South Island of NZ virtually never gets a summer! To add insult to injury New Zealand has the richest, creamiest dairy products on the planet! Disoriented, misunderstood, dreadfully homesick, frozen, and surrounded by delicious food I love, long story short I put on 20lbs with in two months of arriving.

Fairly disgusted with my self after a year of struggling with my weight I discovered a gym, reconnected with my love of dance and movement to music, befriended a dynamo of an instructor who generously invited me to run with her every lunch time in a beautiful park near the college campus I was attending. At first we jogged very slowly, or I would jog while she ran laps around me, but gradually I began to be able to pick up the pace, within six months I regained my normal weight and with her encouragement applied  for a group fitness instructor’s job and despite, a spell of  yo-yo dieting, and struggle with compulsive eating I stayed on track with my exercise programme as though my life depended on it. I explored the reasons behind my eating disorder, and learned about healthy nutrition.  Eventually this path lead me to becoming a qualified Naturopath, and certified Personal Trainer and ultimately I have never looked back.

Because of the difference fitness and healthy eating have made in my own life I’m passionate about continuing to learn as much as possible about this topic and share that knowledge with others and am committed to helping as many people as possible live their healthiest lives.  Commitment to change is I think the biggest first step to avoiding procrastination with respect to fitness and healthy eating. Essentially it’s a commitment to your self worth if you think about it. I mean what greater gift could you give yourself or your family than your good health. Ultimately taking the time to care for your body by keeping it fit, strong, flexible, well nourished and well rested is one of the greatest investments you can make in your relationships, your productivity and sense of fulfilment in your work, and your ability to be of service.

Neglecting this aspect of yourself could mean a lowered quality of life for you because of chronic pain, debility, exhaustion, and sickness. You may still be able to work and function, but how well and for how long. There’s no use being the richest man/ woman in the graveyard having been sent to an early grave, because of your on self neglect.

We’ll dispense with beating ourselves up though and get on with overcoming the challenge, which for you might be” but I hate exercise, I don’t like people staring at my blubber in my shorts, or laughing at my red face as I huff and puff up the street, I get all hot and bothered, famished and so thoroughly tuckered out I don’t feel like doing anything else”. Sound familiar? Ok let’s examine this and work on and getting with the programme.

know I know you’re dying to make yourself a great big green salad right now,right? Go on I won’t stop you that’s what I’m about to do myself.

So See you tomorrow for part 3, Nanc

Procrastination the thief of time as some have called it is an insidious habit that robs us of our highest potential if we let it. Have you ever procrastinated? I know I’ve been guilty of this one. Have you ever asked yourself why you do it?  I know I have. Here are some of my whys:

1.    Embarrassment. I have to confront someone on an issue, and am not looking forward to the prospect, so I put it off
2.    Ignorance. I need  info I don’t have on a subject and don’t quite know where to begin looking for the answers
3.    Preference. I’d much rather do something else right now than tackle that issue I’m supposed to, because I attach more pain than pleasure to that than what I’m already absorbed in.
4.    Shortsightedness and poor prioritizing. I fail to see the long term picture and am overly focussed on the here and now, after all there are far more important things for me to do right now right now than this thing I’m putting off, right?

Do you relate? Yup?! Let me ask you this then, have you ever had your procrastination catch up with you and reverse on it self?
For example, you have a large homework assignment or a report for work due tomorrow morning. You’ve known about it and the deadline for weeks, you’ve gotten as far as getting some of your resources together, but only just started really knuckling down to get it done and now you’ll have to stay up all night to finish it and miss the big game you were looking forward to watching. Darn! You walk in bleary eyed the next morning and hand in something you know could have been done way better if only you’d put in the time and paced yourself.

Now, lets say you’ve been for your annual check up you are a little nervous because you know you’ve put on 20lbs since you last check up and you were already a little plumper than you’ve have liked then. Then the doctor drops a bomb shell telling you your blood pressure is sky high, your cholesterol and blood sugar levels are a worry and she’s ordered you to start an exercise programme as soon as she can stabilize things with medication, oh and by the way you’ll be on these drugs for the rest of your life!

Two years ago your cousin told you to try this exercise programme and nutrition plan she was on and you noticed that she looked better than she had in years, was no longer chained to her smoking habit and had more energy than you did even though she’s ten years older than you!  You only had 15lbs to lose back then, a little left over from the last baby you had, you were in pretty good health, you didn’t smoke and were too young to worry about heart disease and besides those chocolate chip cookies that just came out of the oven smelled so divine and would go perfectly with the cappuccino you just made and the last chapter of that page turner you were reading.

Your cousin invites you to join her on her run, and you go “if you think I’m getting out there in this blizzard you are nuts” (it was raining and a tad cool and windy outside). Your cousin says “suit your self”, and you snuggle on the couch with your comforter and your comfort food and sigh with contentment. Twenty minutes later cuzi’s back, glowing and full of beans, she dives into the shower slips on a chic evening gown and heads out the door for a night on the town. You glower and grab another cookie. Sound familiar?

Two years on don’t you wish you’d listened?

To be continues….
Catch you tomorrow,
Nanc

You know the photos of all the celebrities slipping into their bikinis and super snug jeans in record time post baby, well what if that were you? “Well hold on” I hear you protest, “I haven’t got a nanny, a personal chef or personal trainer so how could I possibly achieve that? No way.” Well as Henry Ford once said whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t you’re right. So why not think you can and draw to you the conditions, and motivation that will make you right. Every action begins with a thought and every thought begins with an emotion. Positive emotions lead to positive action which takes you closer to where you want to be, negative emotions send you right back into the kitchen for some more Hangendaz.

So how do you really do the slinky bikini thing or just get into your pre pregnancy jeans swiftly, without  a nanny, a personal trainer and spa food chef on your doorstep and without doing something detrimental to your health well, first decide to, it’s as simple as that. Next educate your self. Next plan the where and when and how of it. Who will look after the baby while you take sometime for yourself and get fit.  How will you fit fitness it into your schedule, where will you train. You need to pick a place that will work for you consistently. It could be your living room while the baby naps. If she sleeps for an hour at a time, great, if she catnaps for 15 minutes at a time, then you’ll need to get creative and break your workout into several shorter segments to work around her schedule. Or your friendly neighbourhood gym might have a crèche she could be happily entertained in while you workout.

“But I’m too unfit for the basics, and what about an eating plan I hear you say”? Well if you take a look at our products and follow the advice you won’t need to worry about a trainer, or a chef, the information is right there with exercises from beginners to advanced and nutritional information and delicious recipes to get you on the right track and fitting into your pre pregnancy clothes by at least baby’s first birthday.

So take the challenge and achieve your goals! As a mother of three I can tell you from my own experience its definitely not only achievable, but well worth it in terms of energy and well being, productivity, confidence, and positive self image. So go for it. What have you got to lose, except those extra saddle bags ?

Cheers,

Nancy