A warm welcome to you all! In my last contribution, I wrote about my journey with breast cancer and how my healthy lifestyle has helped rebuild my house, physically and mentally.
Today I want to share with you what I do to make my healthy lifestyle sustainable; how I do it and most importantly why.
For it to work you need to keep it super simple, there is just no other way! Cooking gourmet style family meals every night or rigidly sticking to a certain diet means making complicated and expensive changes and some may find that necessary. Often though, they are not long-lasting. But to switch to a healthy lifestyle, you only need small, incremental changes and these are more likely to last for years to come!
The why is even simpler: because we’re worth it! Because running on autopilot simply isn’t good enough and because our fabulous machines that we call bodies need the right fuel. Full stop.
It all starts with upgrading our pantry. By making small tweaks we can make a huge difference to our overall health. Plus, if your pantry is stocked with healthy key staples it is much easier to put together a nutritious meal, even in a hurry!
You could start by choosing one or two of these products and upgrade them the next time they need replacing and before you know it you’ll have a beautifully stocked pantry full of foods that will nourish you and your families.
- Swap highly processed vegetable oils (such as corn, canola, safflower oil) with extra virgin olive oil for all your salads and dressings. Use rapeseed or coconut oil for all your frying.
- Swap white sugar with unrefined sugar, such as coconut sugar.
- Swap plain flower with spelt or buckwheat flour or organic unbleached plain flour.
- Swap breakfast cereals with rolled oats.
- Swap refined wheat pasta with brown rice or buckwheat pasta and spaghetti.
- Swap white rice for brown or black rice, quinoa or bulgur.
- Swap food in tins, such as chickpeas or lentils to food in glass jars or BPA free containers, or dry versions thereof.
- Swap soy sauce which is high in sugar for tamari sauce. It tastes the same and is much lower in sugar.
- Swap stock cubes to organic, low salt vegetable bouillon.
- Swap sugary sweets or chocolate bars for a handful of nuts and a chunk of dark chocolate for that afternoon pick-me-up.
To give you a practical example of a simple, quick to prepare and yummy meal using some of our upgraded staple items head over to the blog and try my one-pot ‘Veggie Quinoa Curry’. https://www.healthywholeme.com/veggielentilquinoacurry/
Use coconut or rapeseed oil to fry off your onion, quinoa will replace white rice and lentils to give this dish a good portion of plant-based protein!
I make up a huge pot of this rather mildly so that the children can enjoy it too, but I love topping it with fresh chillies for my husband and me.
So the next time you’re in the supermarket and you’re opting for a more nutrient-dense ingredient…remember why: because you and your families are worth it!
With love and gratitude,
Dani x
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Spurred on by her experience with breast cancer, Dani successfully created a wholesome, balanced and sustainable lifestyle for her family and herself. It worked so well that she set-up Healthy Whole Me, sharing what worked for her and what didn’t, providing tips, recipes and regular supper clubs. Through this, she hopes to inspire others to create a healthy lifestyle for themselves and family. She embraces food for the body, mind and soul focusing on foods that are packed with nutrients, antioxidants and vitamins that are both healing and strengthening. She is a busy mum of three, so her healthy and wholesome lifestyle is simple enough to be sustainable.
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