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

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

I was talking to a friend the other day and she was telling me about a woman she knew who was taking part in a triathlon after getting on a bike for the first time in her life just a few months before. She had never been fit, and had never taken part in anything like this in her life. Not being particularly competitive by nature nor having any belief that her body could do what she was now putting it through to prepare for this event she surprised herself, her family and friends. Even her harshest critics were murmuring their admiration.

She was so inspired after hearing about another woman who had overcome all sorts of obstacles to complete this challenge. She put down the remote control and got cracking on figuring out a way to what to her was seemingly impossible. She focussed whole heartedly on the desired our come a slim, svelte body that she could do all sorts of things with most especially have the energy to enjoy her young boys in.

She got her self a trainer who helped her work out a training schedule, she discovered about healthy eating, threw out everything from her kitchen that sabotaged her efforts. Her trainer helped her put together and training eating plan and she had her partner and kids cheering her on. When she first started it seemed like her muscles wouldn’t stop screaming at her but with the help of her trainer urging her on, in time they gave up their protest and she began to feel and energy and aliveness and a sense of satisfaction in her accomplishing about what she was asking of her body to do each day. She began to fee comfortableness in her own skin that she had scarcely experienced since childhood and she actually began looking forward to her daily workout.

On the day of the race she was so excited she could barely wait for the start gun to sound. Her elation when she crossed the finish line was a high water mark in her year, the spin offs have been immense she never misses a workout if she can help it even after reaching her target weight, the sheer pleasure of keeping her body, fit, strong and flexible keeps her motivated and she is so grateful.

Feeling like this is a choice. Its’ taking one step and then another step and then another step until you accomplish your goal and have the satisfaction that goes with it. We invite you to take a look at the products we’ve created from our experience, passion, knowledge about the benefits you can derive from fitness. To learn more go to www.flexibilityplus.com.

Yours in health,

Nancy