New Year Specials

 
Do you make a new year's resolution every year that you struggle to keep?

Are you looking to have more energy, better sleep and to feel happier and healthier?
Do you struggle to lose weight no matter how focused you are?

Dairy Free Cashew Cheese Sauce

I have had to give up dairy while breastfeeding as it affects my daughters reflux and I have found it super challenging finding some good replacements for all forms of cheese. This recipe is a dairy free cheese sauce, its soooooo easy and super yummy, you can add it to your lasagna, vege bake or even your macaroni cheese! Try it for a healthy alternative to your normal cheese sauce you will never look back!

Mixed Quinoa Salad

My beautiful mother in law bought this salad to a family house warming a few weeks back and it was amazing! It was so good I had to steal the recipe to make for my mum while I am back in New Zealand. I have made a couple of adjustments to the original but you can too to suit your own taste or in season vegetables. Why not add it to your list of dishes for Christmas Day!

Apple vs Coke?

So my dietitian says I can have margarine but not avocado and I can have diet coke but not an apple. Tell me where did we go so wrong?

Now I don't consider myself as the general public when it comes to diet knowledge, I am a qualified Personal Trainer and avid researcher of all things health, I like to meet new ideas with an open mind so that I can continue to learn. But something about this advice doesn't sit right and it concerns me this is the advice given to the general public. So it got me thinking, how do we know what information is truth and was is not. I talked about truth earlier so for now I want to touch on knowledge of health.

When you come down with some abnormal sign or symptom in your body or even your child's, what is the first thing you do? Do you wait until you can get an appointment to see your doctor? Of course not, don't get me wrong this is a step in the process but not usually the first. The first is usually Doctor Google PhD of 'I know everything there is to know about everything'. When you cipher through that sea of information, do you go, ooo yes I have that symptom, and yes now you mention it I do feel that way. OMG I have cancer, schizophrenia, and I am a fish. Hmmmm, really? I bet in most cases your doc says otherwise.

So how do I know what to believe and what not to believe?

Super Quinoa

Native to South America and once a staple foods of the Incas, Quinoa, pronounced 'Keenwah' is all the rage at the moment.  You have probably seen it in some of my recipes such as Mixed Quinoa Salad and Tomato Quinoa salad. A couple of big reasons why I use it often are its high in protein (great for vegos or vegans) and its gluten free, this is because it is not actually a grain but a seed. There are however so many other juicy benefits, so much so that some call it a super food. Here are some of the amazing benefits of Quinoa.

Pumkin and Spinach Brown Rice Penne

I have been trying to move away from the pre-packaged 'gluten free' brands of pasta due to a lot of unnecessary ingredients and I have been playing in the bulk bins at the organic store. My newest find has been brown rice pasta. As with most gluten free pasta it is still a little fragile, but when you get it right it is just delicious. Here is a simple recipe to add as a side to your salad. Remember brown rice is slightly acidic so you want to team it with a big plate of greens so you meal is alkaline :) Try it with my Tomato Quinoa Salad as seen in the picture above.

Tomato Quinoa Salad

This is a great side either on its own or on a bed of spinach or kale. You will see in the pic I have teamed it with the yummy Pumpkin and Spinach Brown Rice Penne.

Have you fallen off the health wagon?

When you start shifting all the toxic elements out of your life, it is amazing how in tune you become to your body, nature and the universe. You remove all the 'noise' and everything starts to become clear. Sometimes, we stray a little and if we are aware we get little signs helping bring us back on track.

Basic Uses for Coconut Oil

 
I could write forever about the uses for this amazing oil due its antibacterial, anti-fungal, antiviral, moisturising and detoxing benefits! If you keep these properties in mind, you can use it whenever you need these benefits. Check out my coconut oil post from last week for all the goody treats you get from coconut oil and I will try today to give you a short and practical list of uses to get you started.

Perception is Reality

Have you ever paused for a moment and stepped in another mans shoes? Could you see their point of view?

If you have, then you a probably more emotionally mature than most. This can be a very challenging exercise, to humble yourself, to consider that there may be another way of looking at things, another truth.

Essentially there is only one truth, one reality (unless you believe in the idea of alternate realities :p), this truth or reality however is perceived or interpreted differently depending on your experiences, your attitude, your beliefs. I like to think of it as we are all looking at the world through our own glasses which are shaped by our lives. Each set of glasses unique to the individual. Some people have severely cracked glasses through irresponsible parenting or childhood abuse. Some people have chips in their glasses from hurtful relationships. Some have tints on their glasses from unresolved anger and some have glasses so thick from depression and anxiety their perception of the world is warped. I don't believe anyone has a perfect set of glasses though there are certainly ways to improve the condition of yours.

Celery, Cucumber and Kale Green Smoothie 1

This is my recipe for this morning's green smoothie. Its one of my favourites as it has just the right amount of fruit for where I am at the moment. I am working towards 100% vegetables however it is quite hard to have no sugar after a lifetime of being addicted.

Get Skinny by Eating Fat

As a personal trainer, eating saturated fats has always been a big no no. Saturated fats cause high cholesterol, obesity, heart disease and cancer.
 
Coconut oil however unlike most common vegetable oils contains medium chain fatty acids (MCFA) instead of long chain fatty acids (LCFA). This means being smaller, they are easily digested and burned quickly by the liver for energy. Medium chain fatty acids boost the metabolism and instead of storing fat they use fat for energy.

Orange Kumara Salad

This makes a great side to a leafy salad, vege patties or if you are feeling lazy like I was, add it to your sushi!

Creamy Avo Dressing

This dressing I find works great in a vegetable salad rather than a leafy salad. Its my favourite dressing with my Kumara Salad.

Delaying Gratification for Happiness

So I've realised I have been fighting with time lately. The symptoms came in the form of anger, frustration and resentment. It took a couple of confronting statements from my husband and a great book to help me see that.

We all are faced with challenges throughout our life, and as Buddha so eloquently puts it "life is suffering". Seems a like a depressing quote from such a great man. What Buddha is trying to help us achieve however, is acceptance. We all need to accept the fact, and yes it is fact, that life has its challenges, its suffering - there is no way to avoid it (though most of us do try).

Zucchini and Feta Muffins

I made these for mothers group this morning and had requests for the recipe so I thought they must be good enough to share! I have been experimenting with gluten free flours in the last few weeks but I am still perfecting the recipes so I didn't want to risk it on the day. I instead used wholemeal flour - feel free to substitute for the flour of your choice :)

White gold - AKA Himalayan Salt

Throw out your table salt and swap it for Himalayan salt. Its as easy as that. I don't notice any difference in the taste and the benefits are amazing. You can use it as a direct substitute for table salt in your dishes. Himalayan Salt lamps are also incredible, that story is for another post. 

The One Key to a Disease Free Vibrant Life

One key to a disease free vibrant life. Sound too simple? It is.

Vegan, Vegetarian, Raw Foodist regardless of the means, most of these increasingly popular food movements all agree on one thing - alkalinity. They all use difference vehicles to get there but essentially optimal health is found in being alkaline. Most diseases cannot survive in an alkaline or aerobic environment. This includes the big C. Normal cells function using oxygen or aerobically, when there is not enough oxygen in the surrounding tissues they mutate in order to survive. These mutated cells are anaerobic and cancerous. Flush your body with oxygen and alkalinity and you will flush out disease and welcome unlimited energy and vibrance.

100% Natural Baby Wipes

Children develop their immune systems and central nervous system over time, so their ability to detox is not as competent as adults. It is therefore so important we limit their exposure to harmful chemicals. Some of the harmful ingredients you will find in baby wipes are alcohol, perfume, chlorine and dioxin. Side affects of these ingredients include but are not limited to immune system damage, headaches, wheezing, hormone disruption, fertility issues, eye, throat, mouth, skin, lung irritation, kidney and liver damage, asthma and cancer. Here is a natural recipe I have been successfully using for 4 months.

Why Hydrogen Peroxide is Part of My Daily Routine

The first thing I think of when I hear Hydrogen Peroxide is bleach. And the first thing I picture is white blonde hair and an awful smell. Turns out that peroxide is not only good for dying your hair, but its natural, a medicine, cleaning product, whitener and beauty product. The smell I think I remember was the ammonia used in conjunction with peroxide :p

Slim Down for Summer

I just want to start by saying if you want to lose weight and keep it off then you should aim for 0.5-1kg per week. The key is for the weight to come off slow so it will stay off, the faster you lose it the faster it will come back on. With 10 weeks until Christmas your goal should be between 5-10kg max. I will do more on goal setting in another post but it is important to set a goal for your weight loss. Use the SMART principles when you do this and give yourself a reward that does not sabotage your weight loss efforts, like a new dress.

Meatless Monday

What? No Meat? If this is what you think when you see Meatless Monday, then you are probably not alone. Our society revolves around meat for all our meals, breakfast, lunch and dinner. I come from a personal training background and our education encourages a body building diet of 6 small meals with meat protein in all of them, so I can appreciate how odd the concept of no meat might be.

Green Kumara and Cashew Patties

I've been looking for healthy plant based snacks lately to help bring my body back to an alkaline state so it can heal itself. This recipe was inspired by a dip that I liked the look of the ingredients. You can add it to a salad or simply have it on its own as a quick nutritious snack on the go.

Thats Right A Healthy Dressing

Why You Need to Meditate

Now I am not going to claim to be an expert on meditation, in fact I am just a beginner, but the benefits are too great for me to wait until I am an expert before sharing this with you.

Motivated Monday

I love change, I am great at it. Well, I'm not actually great at it, I'm great at getting excited about everything new and shiny and jumping head first into anything and everything. I don't have a plan, I just see the end product and nothing in between.

Over the past couple of years I have been researching and implementing lifestyle changes to help combat a degenerative form of arthritis. Some changes have stuck and some, well, for various reasons haven't. This is very common, I know I am not the only one who has got excited about new years resolutions and not made it through January. So Motivated Monday is about breaking down a bigger goal into smaller goals. Here is how it works.

Potato Pumkin Lentil Patties

I find these patties a great substitute for meat at a BBQ, with salad for your dinner or in burgers. High in protein and great in taste!

Granola - Easy energy snack for a new mum!

For the first few weeks of being a mum I forgot to eat. Dont get me wrong it wasnt that I didnt want to eat, anyone who knows me knows I love eating! Its just that everything else comes first and mum comes last. If you are a mum then you will probably know that this cannot last long. Something fails. You cannot afford to have mum fail. So here is my lifesaver for the last few weeks. Granola, a healthy treat that you can just eat on the run.

Detoxing Through Dry Brushing

If you are anything like me your legs haven't seen the sun for about 6months now. We are one month down in spring already and summer will be here before you know it. If you live on the the sunshine coast with me then you have probably been appreciating summer  weather already, 30degrees today! So its time to start prepping the body for beach, sun and surf and what better way to do that then detoxing.

Egg Free French Toast

I have had to start eliminating animal proteins from my diet for health reasons and its been sad saying goodbye to some of my favourite meals. I then decided why not make it an adventure and find new foods that are just as yummy if not better! So here is what I had for breakfast today, and it was delicious!

Vegan French Toast

5 Tips to a Healthy Sleep

I don't know many people that haven't struggled with sleep at some point. Whether triggered by a traumatic event in our lives, too much stress at work or the inability to switch off. I believe we have all had at least one night wondering whether we were ever going to drift off to that blissfull place that Garfield makes look so easy.