Monday 8 April 2013

Steps for success - and BROWNIES!

Torani Syrups:
Simply syrups and Merivale mall supermarket stock these sugar free syrups. I use them to sweeten and flavour my porridge in the morning and sweeten my coffee so i don't need sugar. I have also tried them in my baking. Coffee culture all over NZ and Ad Lib deli/cafe at Canterbury university have the sugar free syrups as an option for your drinks... :)



Anna's Top Tips For a Healthier Lifestyle:

  1. Don't skip breakfast!
  2. Eat often and in small portions - this will maintain your metabolism. Starving yourself is a waste of time and will just make you fatter if you cave and then end up eating everything in sight - don't bother!
  3. Interval training
  4. Try not to eat late at night - two hours before bedtime is when the kitchen closes! (I'm still struggling with this one)
  5. Drink low calorie options - a hot lemon water or green tea first thing in the morning is a great metabolism booster and it replenishes your body fluids after sleeping. Coffee (black as often as you can - no sugar! and herbal tea are great options. I like to keep low calorie soda to a once and a while treat. No juice drinks, energy drinks or standard soda!
  6. Sleep - this has been a proven factor in people success rate in staying at a healthy weight. This one is a hard one for me, definitely a goal of mine to increase the sleep hours.
  7. Plan ahead - prepare your lunch and snacks the night before or give yourself enough time in the morning to get some healthy options for you to eat if your going to be out and about all day. I also like to spend a day in the weekend planing my dinners so I have left overs to take for meals when I'm at work. This is a great way to not only save on calories but also save money!
  8. Record - track everything you put in your mouth. This will train you to be accountable for those little snacks that you write off and say don't count...I'm telling you that they add up! 
  9. Use a programme like myfitnesspal which is what helped me and I would say was most important factor in my success. But you have to commit to this and do it religiously which can be difficult at first but it soon becomes habit. Furthermore, the great thing about this app is that if you find yourself going over your goal, you can also find out what amount of activity you would need to burn off that little extra you ate.
  10. Protein and healthy fats - lean protein like skinless chicken and fish is a great choice and snacking on natural nuts (and maybe the odd salt an vinegar almond!). 
  11. Carb-free afternoon - try to start adding a day a week that you don't have wheat products after mid-day. This is one of my goals for the next few weeks
  12. Portion control  - read the back of labels to see what the portion size is and what nutrition makes up that serve. Weight out portions as it will train you eye to be able to gauge how much you should eat. Use the per 100g/100ml e.t.c column to compare products as the serving size is often different.
  13. Pump up the spice! Spices and herbs are a great way to flavour food without using salt. Spice is a proven metabolism booster so chuck some chili, cinnamon and paprika into your diet as often as you can. Indian is a great cuisine but is often loaded with unhealthy creamy fats. I like to make indian at home so i can control the amount of saturated fat that goes into the meal. This week I'm going to try Lamb Saag - a tomato and spinach based dish topped with unsweetened natural yogurt. This dish is protein rich and contains heaps of spices! I will also try to make roti for the first time. 


My goals for this week:

  1. Sleep more
  2. Carb-less afternoon a couple days a week
  3. Try the Indian recipe - including roti 
  4. Don't snack after 8/9pm

This weeks finds:


Stripped

Stripped curries are either full time s or optional.
Stripped curries are dairy free – therefore reduce fat – light and nutritious options where the only thing not stripped is the flavour!

1 comment:

  1. I find it really difficult to plan my meals, simply because I'm often running out of time in the evenings, or something else comes up (oops, plenty of meat defrosted, now out to X for dinner).

    Great solution I came to was when I do have the extra time, I prepare a stack of meals and freeze them. Then if I absolutely can't be bothered cooking, or I know I'm going to have to carve twenty minutes out of my schedule to eat, I can just defrost and go.

    Soups are great - it's pretty much the same effort to make a meal of soup from scratch as it is to make 10 :D Just try to avoid putting the hot soup into plastic containers - BPA is your enemy.

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