Get Your Nutritional Act Together
By john | April 23, 2007
You’ve made the brilliant decision to take your health and nutrition into your own hands. Now what?
My first tip is to write all these shoulds down somewhere so that you can quit worrying about about them. Break your shoulds into sections, such as Diet shoulds,
exercise shoulds and stress-busting shoulds. Give each should a priority rating from one to three and tackle the high scorers first. So, if ‘I should stop having nine cups of coffee a day’ is more of a priority than ‘I should stop eating that extra square of chocolate a day’, score it as a three and make it something you’ll tackle this month. Only ‘aim to take on three shoulds a month - too many and you won’t do them. Get the high-scoring ones under your belt before you take on the lower scorers.
Choose a day to start the healthy new you but don’t make it a Monday as it’s always too depressing to start something at the begining of the week, especially as the weekend is so far away. Take just one month at a time and say to yourself you’ll stick to it for that month. In this way, you won’t feel that what you’re going to do will be forever. If you think that something is forever, you tend to rebel against it and are less likely to stick to it.
Once you’ve got rid of all the old packets of food that are lurking around in your cupboards, it’s time to go shopping for the basics. You’ll need some of the following essential cupboard starters to get you going:
- Organic porridge oats and millet
- Rice milk - just for a change!
- Brown rice, quinoa (a wacky kind of grain) and wheat-free pasta.
- Almonds, brazil nuts and cashew nuts
- Pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds.
- Oatcakes and rice cakes
- Tahini and houmous
- Extra virgin olive oil
- Tuna in olive oil.
- Lentils and chickpeas.
- Tinned tomatoes, sweetcom, butterbeans and artichoke hearts.
- Dried herbs, pepper, tamari (a kind of wheat-free soya sauce), olives, pesto, bragg liquid aminos (a bit like soya sauce)
These are only suggestions, of course. You’ll probably want to add other stuff and take away anything you don’t like.
Also, load the fridge with plenty of fresh vegetables. Ones that keep are broccoli, cauliflower, red cabbage and cabbage. Frozen vegetables can be useful too, so get some peas and spinach in.
I once had a client who asked me why I’d put tuna in olive oil on the list. This is simply because I really hate tuna in brine, which I think tastes like dry old bits of wood. But hey, each to his own! If you like tuna in brine or are worried about the extra calories the oil will add, then brine it is. Likewise, anchovies. If there’s one thing I detest it’s anchovies, but if you like them then by all means add them to your cupboard basics.
Tagged under:brazil nuts butterbeans cashew nuts Nutrition pumpkin seeds stress busting sunflower seeds
Topics: Nutrition |
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