Day 26 – Turn Your Shine On

“The person who says something is impossible should not interrupt the person who is doing it.”

Real Food for Real People

Are you consuming food or edible substances?

Did you know that over 1700 new products turn up on our supermarket shelves each year?

Most of these foods will have been created in laboratories rather than grown in the fields.

Engineered rather than created or cooked.

The ingredients will be a perfect blend of flavours and substances designed to keep you coming back for more. Often the label will need a scientist to translate for you and will find it full of ingredients not found in your kitchen cupboards.

Add to this fabulous advertising campaigns and it’s hardly surprising that you are confused with what you should be buying and eating.

Words like ‘Natural’ and ‘Organic’ are banded around, foods are ‘enriched’ with the latest wonder vitamin.

It is easy to allow yourself to become confused.

But we’re not going to be confused any more!

We are going to become savvy shoppers, who can see past the hype, people who care about their heath, their families health and the health of the planet.

Now before you start saying, ‘but Rebecca you just don’t understand I’m so busy’, or ‘It’s just so convenient’ (Convenient for who by the way??)

You need to look at your your mind set

Yes any change can be a bit daunting and can take a while to get used to, but it just needs to become part of your routine.

I want you to replace your; ‘But Rebecca….’ With – ‘It’s just what I do…’

I love my bed and being snuggled under my duvet, especially when the weather outside is bleak. Would I rather have an extra 15 minutes in bed rather than making my juices in the morning? Yes! There’s no denying that some mornings I would.

Some days I would much rather stay snuggled in my duvet, but making my juices in the morning ‘It’s just what I do’. And once I’m out of bed, made my juice and enjoying it, I never regret making myself get up.

You need to create routines and habits that work for you.

Decide what is important to you and take action.

“Ready. Set. Action”

Let’s look at food and how you can make it work for you.

Juices and Smoothies

If you wanted to ensure that you had at least one juice or smoothie a day, here are some tips that you could incorporate into your daily and weekly habits:

Ensure fresh fruit and vegetables are on your weekly shopping list so that you have lots to choose from

Make sure your fridge has a stock of frozen bananas and soft fruits for your smoothies

Keep you kitchen equipment on hand so that it is easy to make your juice or smoothie – you don’t want to be fighting with the back of the cupboard to get your juicer

Make sure that you have equipment that works, it’s no fun making a juice with an old juicer that is messy, leaks and takes lots of cleaning

Set your alarm 15 minutes earlier than usual to prepare a juice or smoothie in the morning

Make more than you need so that you can have some more in your fridge for later in the day. Storing your juice or smoothie in an air-tight container with a couple of cubes of ice in the fridge will help it taste fresh all day

Make your juices or smoothies the night before and store as above so you can just grab your juice and smoothie in the morning and go

Sweets and Treats

If you know that sweets and ‘treats’ are your thing, here are some tips that you could incorporate:

Know what your favourite sweet/treat food is and what triggers this need or desire

Explore alternatives for this desire – can you make a healthier alternative or is it an emotion that you need satisfying?

Choose to enjoy your favourite food in moderation; perhaps saying you will enjoy this particular food once a week when you are out with friends

Make sure that your cupboards have sweet or ‘treat’ alternatives in – perhaps this will mean experimenting with new recipes

Could you make a home-made version of the food that you would buy in? This way you would know exactly what went into it and appreciate it all the more

If your ‘alternative’ needs dehydrating or making in advance, make sure that you have the right equipment and ingredients on hand. It’s no good fancying say chocolate cheesecake only to find that you have no cacao powder in the house and that you will have to order some – are you really going to wait up to three days for your ingredient to arrive. Obviously it would be better to have cheesecake in your freezer ready for you to enjoy – or at least be prepared so that you could make it if you wanted to

Day 26 Challenge