This post is a bit of a tangent from a regular recipe post but I’m doing it for any of you out there who have felt the impending doom of summer bod expectations around the corner. You see, I started shopping for a bikini the other day and felt really depressive and started getting all pissy with Nick – I finally put it all together and realized self-esteem was at an epic low as I stood in front of my bathroom mirror looking at my ballon of a belly. ‘But why?!’ I asked myself – I walk about 5 miles a day and I eat great, healthy vegetarian food? So this post is about my mission to figure out why I had a belly and how I fixed it…ish.
First, identify potential causes: 1.) Almost daily consumption of about two glasses of wine. 2.) Hubbo is a badass baker (check it, how can I resist?!) and I do like my carbs 3.) Outside of walking, no exercising really. I set about cutting booze but for one day of the week, cutting out starchy carbies like pasta, breads, and sweets and started a daily exercise routine. It’s been a couple of weeks now and I’m already feeling so much more spry and happy. As my ma always would say, it’s not about weight so much as feeling good and sexy!
If you are in a similar predicament and want to do something about it I want to share with you some of my tips here. First off, here is my daily workout – I know its pretty measly but intersperse it with some nice yoga a couple of times a week as well as daily long walks and it really helps to tone things up. Also of note, my belly is consistently the thing I want to tighten up, maybe with a splash of arms to combat those turkey wings – if you have a zone you want to work on you know there are a million youtube videos out to help hone in on that area in the amount of time you can afford a day. I found that 7 minutes a day was just enough to motivate me, by the end I was ready to keep going on to squats, weights, etc.
Ok, lets move on to food. This was a toughie for me because I eat healthy as it is so I was initially a bit embittered about changing anything in my diet however I reflected further on this and came to the fact that maybe I could replace some pasta and heavy dairy meals with some more veg-centric meals. Also, maybe I snacked a bit too hard, and my portion control could be a bit out of whack…I do love food…To motivate this super-health kick I went out and bought all my favorite foods for my favorite super healthy meals.
Most breakfasts consist of either a couple Weetabix or Ezekial 4:9 toast with Marmite or a plain yogurt with nuts and seeds (I’m not a big fruit person, but if you are, load it up!) – no harm there. Lunches were my really struggle as I love a noodley, pasta dishes, a sammie or something the like. This was when having healthy foods handy was such a godsend, I could prepare my dream salad the night before. This amounted to some variation of brown rice, marinated tofu, chopped fresh veg like cucumbers, radish, tomato, a bunch of leafy greens,
some sprinkle of beans, seeds, and some feta or cottage cheese. It’s delicious and super healthy. Dinners consisted of a more basic version of this salad but with some cooked vegetable added like steamed spinach and a Hilary’s patty or some grilled cauliflower, sautéed broccoli with garlic, etc.,etc. Basically – add a hot veg. Most of the recipes on this blog are fantastic healthy veg meals and so I have had to kick my butt back into cooking again instead of grabbing a slice of pizza out somewhere. It’s ultimately been a nice return to cooking lovely vegetarian food and I’ll be posting some other recipes I’ve been making for dinner lately over the next couple posts (along with how to make them a bit more heavy for Nick and light for me!). Lastly, snacking – make sure to have a couple healthy snacks on deck such as baby carrots and peanut butter or hummus or some seaweed!
Then we come to booze. Ah booze, nothing really to this other than if you, like me, find yourself pining for that after work wine try getting some lovely teas to replace them and then just stick with it – eventually the habit will be replaced. I have since slackened the 1 day a week to be a 2 but I don’t forsee myself returning to drinking to the extent I was before because I feel just so much better. Last tip for the day – drink tons of water, it flushes you out and is the very tonic of life. Hope this was helpful and you are on the way to rockin’ a confident hot healthy bod this summer!
What a lovely inspiring post! love ewe x