Portion plate

A clever way of checking if you have a balanced diet

A Portion Plate

Are you worried that you might be eating the right food but in the wrong proportions?  Here is a fun plate that helps you!  

The recommended balance for your meals is generally accepted as:
Half – vegetables
Quarter – protein
Quarter – carbohydrates

Popularly known as “half, qarter, quarter”!

There are quite a few of these plates around now.  I particularly like this one because typical foods are illustrated, and this is a great help to jog your memory.

This was my dinner the other day – very tasty.  Made me cut down on the potato portion, I must say!

16 Immune Boosting Foods

Immune boosting foods to build up your immunityYou may be feeling helpless against the seemingly relentless march of Covid-19 (Coronavirus) across the world right now, but one of the best things you can do to help yourself and your family is to build up your immunity so that you are as strong as possible.

The easiest way to do this is through eating foods that strengthen your immune system.  Some of these foods may be a little unfamiliar, but most of them are everyday foods that you are bound to have in your store cupboard.

Just pick the ones that you like and that you can get easily, or that you already have, and just include a few in your daily diet to build up your immunity.

These foods will boost your immune system:

  1. Elderberries
  2. Mushrooms
  3. Acai berries
  4. Oysters
  5. Water Melon
  6. Wheatgerm
  7. Yogurt
  8. Spinach
  9. Tea – particularly Green Tea
  10. Sweet potatoes
  11. Broccoli
  12. Garlic
  13. Miso soup
  14. Chicken soup
  15. Pomegranate juice
  16. Ginger

For more details of the properties of these foods and suggestions on how to include them in your diet, click on the link below:

Source: MedicineNet

The 5:2 diet now becomes known as the Fast Diet

…and it really does work! I have now lost a stone and feel great! What’s more, I have just been on holiday in Australia for three weeks, only put on one pound, didn’t have to worry for one moment, because I knew that as soon as I came back I only had to do one day’s “fasting” and I could lose a couple of pounds immediately (and I just did). It’s not really fasting – you can eat 500 calories, and for me that’s a slightly smaller breakfast and lunch, very light snacks, and a low calorie evening meal, no alcohol. You only have to do this for two days a week at first until you get to your target weight, then you can go to one day a week fasting, and it doesn’t matter if you miss a week or two.

Michael Moseley now has a book out called The Fast Diet and it is number one in the UK non-fiction charts – click through to my recommended books page to purchase a copy – get started now!

Still maintaining my weight almost one year on using the 5:2 diet

Just touching base – this is still working well for me, and I am by no means having to do the “lean” day even once a week. I could call it my 6:1 occasional diet now, so there’s hope for anyone out there thinking this is terribly boring or arduous – believe me, if it were, I wouldn’t be doing it! I believe in enjoying all the good food in life. But this occasional low calorie day is so do-able. I just pick a day when I’m too busy to think about snacks. A day when I am out around about 6-7pm is good for me. This is my normal time when I am thinking about a glass of wine and preparing some food (cook’s nips!). If I am out at this time, when I come in it is too late to eat much, so it is easy to have a light meal. And I can always go to bed early if I am a bit hungry still – there is always the next day to look forward to when I can eat again!

I can’t recommend this “diet” enough – try it, and you will see and feel for yourself the amazing results.

250 calorie veggie recipes for the 5:2 diet

It’s still working! I have lost a good half stone now, but what is more important than the weight is the inches off my waist and hips! I am getting back into my clothes again, and I have lost that horrible muffin top – yeah! I recommend it to anyone – but check first with your doctor if you have any medical problems at all, and read the full explanation and details here http://bit.ly/P0scNq. For some good vegetarian recipes for 250 calorie meals take a look at this http://bit.ly/RgCQ2d. If anyone else has any good recipes – add them here in a comment if you feel like sharing them – let’s make a collection!

5:2 Diet – this is the one for me!

At last! A diet that I can do! It worked for Dr Michael Mosley – http://bit.ly/P0scNq- and I have only been on it for a week and already lost 5 lbs and feel great! On this diet you have two low calorie days in a week and the rest of the time you can eat normally. On the low calorie days you try to keep to about 500- 600 calories. That’s not so difficult to do, especially on a busy day when you don’t have much time to think about food. I have a slightly smaller breakfast and lunch, cut out snacks and alcohol, and have a light, early evening meal, happy in the knowledge that the next day I can go back to normal. It’s great – I love it. And the low calorie days don’t have to be consecutive. I’ll let you know how I get on…

A Confession about my Muffin Top Campaign

Well – I haven’t got much further – my free pedometer broke! I have, however, worked eagerly on item number two (Eat what you want) – ha! ha!

After the first two weeks I did actually lose a few pounds and my trousers felt a bit looser. But that weight can fluctuate daily – we are talking about such a small loss that the reading on the scales is unreliable.

I have been a bit busy the last few weeks, but will now try to get down to adding exercise to my daily activities, and work on the other three items. Watch this space! If anybody else would like to try out this plan and report back on it here it would be much more fun! I feel like Billy NoMates at the moment, blogging away to myself!

I’m a week into my muffin top campaign now and time to start explaining

When this nice weather came I got out my summer clothes and decided I needed to lose some weight! Of all the thousands of words of dietary advice out there I think Paul McKenna sums it up best for me with these 4 simple principles:

1. Eat only when you are hungry

2. Eat what you want

3. Eat mindfully and enjoy every mouthful – slow down!

4. Stop when you feel you are full

If you can stick to these 4 principles alone they should make a difference within days. You will get even better results if you add some regular exercise.

EXERCISE – INCREASE YOUR NUMBER OF STEPS EACH DAY

I decided to start using a pedometer that I was given as a free gift some months ago and had never used. I found that had to experiment with the positioning of it at first – it works on the movement of the hips, and for me it works best clipped to my waistband at the side. I checked the accuracy by counting the steps and comparing with the reading on the pedometer.

Apparently some doctors recommend that you should try to do at least 10,00 steps a day. I was shocked to find that on a normal day sitting working at my computer or doing Shiatsu or Acupuncture treatments I did not do more than 2,500 steps! So I began to devise ways of increasing my steps. I measured my steps when hoovering or mowing the garden – hmm…only about 500 steps each. So I went for a three quarters of an hour walk – 2,000. Then a round of golf – I was disappointed that was only 3,00 steps. Best of all was a ten mile bike ride – 5,000! But interestingly I found that I could increase my steps by just not being so lazy around the house -for instance, instead of leaving things at the bottom of the stairs to take up next time I go up – I now take things straight up! The house is suddenly starting to look much tidier!