Welcome to this week’s Healthy Eating…

How has your week been? Good or bad? Mine has gone well…I will get this over with my first sourdough loaf is cooked, eaten and was divine…I was so chuffed at the lovely comments I received…Of course, I had to sample it in the name of quality control and with proper butter as well…haha…

It was lovely I thoroughly enjoyed it…No guilt…Just pure enjoyment…It was healthy( wholemeal) grass-fed butter and my home baked bread …I savoured every mouthful…

Hubby ate the rest either a sandwich or toasted…

The rest of the week has been just normal healthy eating and walking which has increased due to 2 factors one is that our granddaughter is staying with us for 8 weeks( school ) holiday and two my smartwatch is keeping tabs on my steps…The daily recommended guidelines are 10,000 steps which sounds a lot but doable…

As you know I advocate eating healthy balanced meals I don’t believe in cutting out food groups like meat, most fruits or pasta/rice/potatoes…I do believe we should avoid or eat little highly processed foods, food with added sugars, we should choose good quality cooking oils, avoid excessive intake of high mercury fish like tuna…Alcohol enjoy just not in excess. 

For me, that is easy to follow and coupled with the 16/8 intermittent fasting and exercise I am seeing results.

That hasn’t always been the case...At this moment I am the lightest I have been for a good few years …I have also accepted I will never be the weight I was when I married… More fat on a chip my husband used to say…haha

Life happened, I got married, I had kids… I ate what they didn’t, I worked and shopped in my lunch hour and while queuing to pay eyed the strategically placed sweets by the till ( those stores) know how to tempt one don’t they? The mums and friends who mean well…Just have one…That won’t hurt…

I feel your pain I know what you have been through or going through so does my friend Sally…Who is a Certified Nutritionist and knows the pitfalls and curve balls life throws at us …Both of us have struggled with weight at times during our lives …

It ain’t easy and while I may make it appear to be …I have eaten my share of what I shouldn’t and moderation did not come into it…I am now older and wiser…haha…Believe what you will…But I have realised I need to cherish this body as it is the one and only one I have or will have…Better late than never…

How to manage people…The well-meaning ones of course…

And remember…Losing weight is not a sprint, it is a marathon and your mental and emotional attitude towards the project is a key factor in your successful weight loss.

Sally’s posts are both informative with a little humour and she will tell you it is not easy she knows but I will let her tell you her story…

https://smorgasbordinvitation.wordpress.com/2019/03/16/smorgasbord-health-column-size-matters-the-sequel-before-you-get-started-managing-people-environment/

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Stuck for Recipes? Need some inspiration?…

Honey…Nectar of the Gods and so good for us…Sally will tell you the why and I will provide the recipes…Enjoy!

 

https://smorgasbordinvitation.wordpress.com/2019/03/13/smorgasbord-health-rewind-cook-from-scratch-with-sally-cronin-and-carol-taylor-honey-nectar-of-the-gods/

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Diets come and go...Faddy things aren’t they? Mostly a flash in the pan and not sustainable…A new one has arisen…A hybrid of the Paleo diet and the Vegan diet…All the good bits…The Pegan Diet…

I know it just had to happen, didn’t it?

The basics of the Pegan Diet…3/4 vegetables and 1/4 meat/fish @ each meal, the meat/fish from good quality sources…( no hormones and antibiotics)…It focuses on eating more fibre and low glycemic index fruits, eliminating sugar, dairy unless it comes from ( goat/sheep) products eating little or no highly processed foods thus avoiding foods produced using chemicals and pesticides…eliminating legumes except for lentils…

Great in theory and first glance and sounds similar to what I believe in however it is quite restrictive and would need some planning and the bottom line is we need a Healthy Balanced Diet…No eliminating essential foods… It seems to me that the people who market and promote all these diets think they have to come up with something new all of the time and I suppose celebrity endorsements don’t help that trend…

Frankly just because a celebrity endorses a product doesn’t mean it works…No one size fits all, no one’s lifestyle is the same as Fred’s next door we are all individuals with different needs, Stress levels, family commitments, work commitments so much factors into the equation…

Healthy Eating is a lifestyle choice and takes time to adjust…You will have blips or bad days/weeks but it is how you deal with it…

We just need to eat sensible, normal healthy foods and a balanced diet…Most of the time.

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Smartwatch Corner.

I am still impressed with my new toy…I will say it keeps me focused…

So far I use the step counter…It does have other functions like running and workouts but I enjoy walking …The recommended daily steps are 10,000 which is doable…..Last Thursday I achieved 14,000 plus steps in one day…I was out and about doing kids things and shopping so although tired it was a revelation as to how many steps I did do that day…An average day for me is 6-7000 I am working on getting to 10,000 more often…

The other function I love is the sleep function...

It shows 3 levels, Deep sleep, light sleep and Rem sleep plus gives you the normal range and tells you where you are in that either normal, high or low. Plus it gives your overall hours of sleep, how many times you woke up with an explanation of your total hours of sleep and how long you were in the stages and what happens to your body while you are in each stage of sleep…

It also offers an explanation as to what causes any changes and how you can remedy it with links to other sites for further info.

I am finding this really interesting as I am gradually seeing a pattern forming and am realising which factors are influencing my sleep for example what I am doing prior to sleep or what I have been drinking as I don’t eat after 8pm.

It also tells me my heart rate …An explanation can also be found on heart rates.

What I do find amusing is the little green man who buzzes and waves at me when I have been inactive for a while…

It also has other functions which I don’t use yet or may not as I purchased this mainly to keep a little eye on my health. Which while it may not be exactly spot on but accurate as these can be but as the watch is on your pulse give or take a few beats it is accurate enough for me…

Thank you for reading and please tell me in comments your thoughts if you have a smartwatch…x

About Carol Taylor:

Enjoying life in The Land Of Smiles I am having so much fun researching, finding new, authentic recipes both Thai and International to share with you. New recipes gleaned from those who I have met on my travels or are just passing through and stopped for a while. I hope you enjoy them.

I love shopping at the local markets, finding fresh, natural ingredients, new strange fruits and vegetable ones I have never seen or cooked with. I am generally the only European person and attract much attention and I love to try what I am offered and when I smile and say Aroy or Saab as it is here in the north I am met with much smiling.

Some of my recipes may not be in line with traditional ingredients and methods of cooking but are recipes I know and have become to love and maybe if you dare to try you will too. You will always get more than just a recipe from me as I love to research and find out what other properties the ingredients I use contain to improve our health and wellbeing.

The environment is also something I am passionate about and there will be more on this on my blog this year

Exciting for me hence the title of my blog, Retired No One Told Me! I am having a wonderful ride and don’t want to get off, so if you wish to follow me on my adventures, then welcome! I hope you enjoy the ride also and if it encourages you to take a step into the unknown or untried, you know you want to…….Then, I will be happy!

More and more of my blogging friends have joined me on MeWe…A social media site which is fairly new and which promises much without the restrictions some other social media sites are choosing to impose on many of us…Join me if you will on  mewe.com/i/caroltaylor3 

 

Carol is a contributor to the Phuket Island Writers Anthology: https://www.amazon.com/Phuket-Island-Writers-Anthology-Stories-ebook/dp/B00RU5IYNS

Connect to Carol

Blog: https://carolcooks2.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheRealCarolT
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/carol.taylor.1422

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/caroltaylor56/pins/

Thank you once again for reading this post I hope you all have a great week xx